Crossrail 2 / Bakerloo extension TV article today

I watched on TV not sure if its on net

Yes it was interesting. Preferred route for Crossrail 2 to be announced on Tuesday 5/2/13. The programme dropped a very heavy hint it will be Wimbledon - Epping via Euston (for HS2) with possible east and westwards extensions . Goodness knows where it will go east from Epping. ;D

Looking back at the last TfL update paper TfL need a confirmed route to be able to update the safeguarding and allow for changes as well as carving out necessary space at Euston before HS2 grabs it all. The safeguarding has to be done in 2014. Interesting times ahead.

London First have published their report with the preferred route option.

It is a multi branched line covering the SWT branch services in SW London then via Chelsea, Victoria, TCR, Euston / St Pancras, Angel and then splits to run via Hackney, T Hale and Cheshunt to Hertford East and a second branch to Dalston, Seven Sisters, T'Pike Lane to Alexandra Palace. Map on last page of report below and on separate link.

londonfirst.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/LF_CROSSRAIL2_REPORT_AW_Single_Pages.pdf

londonfirst.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Crossrail-2-map.pdf

I've not skimmed the report yet. There will be London local news TV coverage at lunchtime.

Piccadilly Circus is marked with an asterisk in the report on maps, yet isn't mentioned once, let alone the asterisk being explained Hmmmmm...

Connecting up to the regional rail lines makes a lot of sense.

The central area is unsurprising, given the original Chelney plans, but it is disappointing that so few new stations are planned.

If I lived in Stoke Newington I'd be furious. First chance of a proper transport link to central London and it burrows under, missing Stoke N. out!

Yes; I was aware of that. My point is the report published today is supposed to be the final reccomendation, yet explains nothing.

Actually now I've looked at a geographic map... This proposal is attrocious. It makes the RIPAS board's most dumb ideas look like a veritable wealth of transport planning accumen!
This will be a grotesque waste of taxpayers money.

• Duplication of tunneling between Angel and Hackney/Dalston Junction.
  
• Duplication along two existing railway corridors, each barely 1km apart and parallel, between Dalston and Seven Sisters, and Hackney and what presumably is Clapton Junction
  
• Effectively this marks the return of the Palace Gates Branch! Except tunneled, and with fewer stations. Another example of *forward thinking* in the 1960s having to be corrected...
  
• General lack of stations, including interchanges.
  
• Convoluted line between Victoria and Wimbledon.
  
• A maximum of 4-5tph per southern branch whilst 12tph per northern branch
  
• Wheres the Cheshunt branch going? Stanstead? Heartford? Both??
  
• Passes through a couple of stations which duplicate each other yet doesnt seek to join them. Dalston Junction/Kingsland, South Tottenham/Seven Sisters. Hopefully Hackney will be Downs and Central.
  

Surely this isn't **the** report?!

I have now read through the report. While the proposal is not 100% perfect I do struggle with some of the vociferous replies in this thread.

If you back to what the identified problem areas are - SWT lines into Waterloo, chronic overcrowding on several routes in North / North East London plus the never ending crush in Central London - then this proposed line tries to deal with those issues.
I do not see the relevance of curves at Ruislip or bemoaning the loss of the Palace Gates line. London First did not make the decision to close a branch line decades ago.

I do partly agree with concerns about the number of stations north of Kings Cross. There seems to be a bit of balancing act going on about not incurring extra costs and keeping capacity / running speeds as high as possible.

Demand is high in North East London so I completely understand the reasons for trying to relieve Tottenham Hale / Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park. I think the Alexandra Palace branch could be more useful if it went further to Muswell Hill or Friern Barnet to provide genuine new links and relieve overcrowded bus links. I agree that missing out places like Essex Road and Stoke Newington look clumsy given the huge catchment areas. The report does say station numbers are not fixed and I think it is way too early to be criticising station designs when we do not have anything more than a high level proposal.

I would not be surprised to see the number of branches in the South West being reduced a bit but putting those routes into tunnel and taking pressure off Waterloo and Victoria main lines has to be a good idea. Building a line to take long trains at National Rail profiles is also sensible. Assuming the diagnosis of the SWT capacity issues is correct - I never see the lines in the peak - then there is a chronic problem which is not able to fixed by just fiddling with signalling and train lengths.

I would like to understand what alternatives the critics have for fixing the capacity issues if this plan is not it. I would hope we can try to keep on topic without wandering into the scope of another sub-board.

I broadly welcome the proposals and understand, while the people at London First may not know their branch lines from their power brunches, its going to take intense political lobbying (of which they're hopefully more adept) to make sure CR2 happens as seemlessly close to the end of CR1 as possible.

some observations though...

I dont think the route to Ali Pali makes sense as a "stub", and I say this as someone who lives and works 10 minute walk away, unless it carries on to Muswell Hill. As there is little gain to be had, IMHO, to link it to one of the existing lines into Ali Pali. (the time into KX would not be discernibly different on CR2)

Better that a second branch went from Hackney, north east, to Lea Bridge Road (likely to be rebuilt), Walthamstow Central (therefore achieving the required relief of the Victoria Line) a new station near town Hall (college, hospital et al), then join central line at Woodford (again afforded the required relief of a line and greatly reducing times into town).

I can not imagine, that without the necessary 4-track along the Lea Valley, that sending an additonal 12 tph up towards Cheshunt is viable or really necessary. I still think that a service of 4 tph to Stanstead would suffice and compliment the existing service, and provide much welcome direct access to West End from the airport and the higher reaches of Lea Valley

I would link Seven Sisters to South Tottenham to bring added value, in terms of connections, and the political leverage of regenerating Tottenham (though post-riot goodwill/momentum seems to have died a death)) could be drawn on, by rather than going towards Ali Pali, go towards White Hart Lane where money would be spent anyway on infrastructure in lieu of the the new football stadium...

I have other ideas but need to make my tea ...

As a high level plan it's certainly made sure the proposal remains on the political agenda. That's important with contained budgets and so many vested interests pressuring the Treasury for funding.

An afterthought, London First are not a quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation) in the original meaning of the word. They're a business lobby.

Broadly agree with the central and south western area, but the tunnel duplication in the Angel-Dalston area is ridiculous.

Also the Ally Pally stub - if you're going to miss out Picc Circus because you're making this a medium-distance NR line like Crossrail with long, large trains, why the hell is it ending in Zone 3?!

And Central line relief is nowhere to be seen. Anyone who uses it east of Stratford going west in the mornings knows it's at capacity (Crossrail isn't going to fix that), and tube trains going all the way to Epping aren't really fit for purpose - why can't we have a tunnel going down Lea Bridge Road and joining up with the Central in the Woodford area to take over the Epping branch? (Central trains would either terminate at Woodford or Hainault, and some would go round the loop).

Still, at least we're talking about it. Better something than nothing.

What we really ought to refer back to is the post-war London Plan Working Party report that was the genesis of the Victoria line and look again at it's other recommendations.
One of them, is remarkably close to what Ben is suggesting with the West Anglia suburban lines (route D) and South Western (route G), although route G was to link with LTS rather than West Anglia.
One of the other Cross-rail type S-bahn routes (F) was Tring, Wycombe and Aylesbury routes via a Neasden - Marylebone - Trafalgar Square - Bank - Fenchurch Street tunnel and then take over the Gillingham via Woolwich/Dartford and Sevenoaks via Orpington routes.

If only someone would dig this report out and use it as their starting point, then we might end up with a decent inter-urban rail network and relieve a lot of pressure on the tube.

Would that be the one which included getting rid of all bridges across the Thames and a massive hub interchange at Tower Bridge Road?

You know its sad how these plans are still being argued about. No doubt someone from the north will quite rightly ask why London will be getting yet another massive bit of transport investment, and the simple answer isn't that London is favoured, its that the whole country hasn't had the investment it needed in public transport for 50-60 years. These are all plans that should have happened **so** long ago that the rest of the country would have long been getting its big projects at the right time it needed them; ie 30-40 years ago.

And I don't want to start down the route just yet of agreeing with this project simply because 'anything is better than nothing now' because if thats the case why not just use the far more detailed and roughed out plans from previous incarnations of this project instead of yet again needing 10-15years to get the details right on this one? You could build pretty much anthing in Zone 1 now and it would be well patronised, so instead of making short sighted rationalisations or pi$$-poor compromises, either do something elegant, something beneficial, or something stratigic. This plan trys to be all of them and thus is none of them!

While this ought to be RIPAS material, having Tottenham Court Road as London's main InterCity station (using tunnels like an Express Crossrail) seems like a good idea to me...

It is a bit expensive though. (Continental European gauge, you know)

Crossrail 1 is NR normal gauge and WCML gauge would probably be slightly bigger for the high speed trains (and that it can take containers). However CR1 does go through wider gauge GWML (due to it being built broad gauge track initially).

CR1 is supposed to be running on normal NR lines. HS2 will have trains that will run ONLY on HS2, as well as 'classic-compatible' trains.