Crossrail 2 Consultation

The term 'operational convenience' is a rather glib statement to make - particularly if you have no first hand knowledge of how engineering work is carried out on railway infrastructure. This is particularly true when it comes to electrification as the more intermingled things get, the more expensive it gets to separate out lines for isolation, the more dangerous it gets for staff and the longer it takes to set up and break down possessions. You also need to remember that much engineering work these days requires the use of road railer vesicles - which do foul adjacent lines when they start rotating, plus having a worksite split in 2 by an operational a line is asking for trouble and you need to ask yourself which is worse, someone missing a connection because of the need to use a footbridge or someone being injured or even killed in a possession that is more complex than it needs to be because of design decisions taken in todays environment.

There is also the little matter that keeping things as separate as possible makes construction simpler and more effective. What is not generally appreciated is that if works take place away from a operational railway the site falls under building site construction regulations and can therefore use ordinary construction workers. The moment you start doing something on* a railway, all staff need to be certified as competent in Personal Track safety, they need to be looked after by someone holding the railway 'Controller of Site Safety' competence, who in turn has to work under an 'Engineering supervisor', who in turn......

When NR rebuilt the see wall at Dawlish they classed the site as a ordinary construction site - only reverting to a 'railway possession' when it got to the stage of running tamping machines and other engineering trains over the freshly laid track precisely because it made resourcing the work much easier. The situation at Abbey wood is similar thanks to the big fences between what is and what is not a operational railway.

Now don't get me wrong I appreciate the benefits of cross platform interchange to users, but there becomes a point when when you factor in the extra building costs / issues it creates, plus the ongoing maintenance headache it would cause for both NR and TfL start mixing two different systems in close proximity belonging to different owners it just isn't sensible.

Cheaper still would be to extend the Northern Line to Clapham Junction!

Meanwhile, if both Balham and Wimbledon are to be served by XR2, does it need to serve Clapham Junction at all? A straight line from Balham to Victoria passes close to the Power Station site. It would not be able to serve Chelsea, but the local numbers (Not Under My Basement Extension Room) don't seem to want it anyway.

Project Creep - we seem to have got a long way from Chelney - I feel a new portmanteau name is needed: Wimblegate? Tottledon?
Resurrect the Viking name originally proposed for the Victoria Line (Vic (toria) -Kings (Cross) ) ?
Palace Line (as it serves Alexandra, Buckingham, Hampton Court and Nonsuch) ?

Guys we are veering off topic. Let's stick to the Crossrail 2 consultation. On a side note, I would like to make a new thread to put the off topic conversations in as it's an interesting topic. I am however on my phone. Can I ask a fellow mod to look at doing this. Otherwise it might have to wait until tomorrow.

EDIT by superteacher: Some posts discussing electrification in a general sense have been moved to a new thread in the General Questions and Comments section. Click link below:

districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/26006/electrification-dc-ac

Please use this thread to discuss the Crossrail 2 consultation as per the thread title. Thanks guys.

I attended the CR2 consultation "event" at T Hale today. Transpires it was a "vomit" coloured van parked in the car park. The van, strangely, is Dutch registered and LHD. It has a small exhibition space and retractable awning but the staff were largely standing outside. There were printed versions of the relevant bits of the consultation material. Unfortunately there was not very much extra info to be gleaned.

I asked whether CR2 would be doing the 4 tracking work as part of their scope - didn't know.

I asked if there was going to be a direct link from S Tottenham Overground stn with the new CR2 station - didn't know. Suggested I raised that in a consultation response.

I asked if they thought the service pattern was operable / robust - couldn't or wouldn't say.

I asked why the choice of Wood Green vs Turnpike Lane / Ally Pally had emerged - no really clear explanation made.

I asked why there was no detail about the effect of CR2 on Tottenham Hale station - couldn't say. Suggested I raised that in a consultation response.

I asked about the indicative "eastern branch" and when that might be decided upon. I pointed out that it would be impossible to run an intensive service from that branch into the core and preserve the levels shown for north London. All I got was a rather wry smile and a remark saying the issue would have to be "resolved" before powers are sought. I took that to mean "not going to happen" and I dare say the politics will have to be carefully handled next year once past the Mayoral Election.

They did confirm that part of the Retail Park would be demolished plus the light industrial units further south and the scrap yard by the GOBLIN. Therefore the lines on the maps showing worksite extent really do mean what they say.


All in all I came away somewhat disappointed at the lack of detail. I know it's fairly early in the process but if they're going for powers next year I'd expect a bit more detail than I was given. They did say the response had generally been pretty positive except in ........ Chelsea. Quelle surprise daaaarrrling.

I went to the exhibition about Camden Town and chatting to the people there and they said that the feedback they had been getting was very positive "unlike in Chelsea"!

Well I know that's the official reasoning because it's in the consultation documentation! I'd expect the people fronting these sessions to know what their own documents say. I asked whether the different alignment was really a money saving exercise (one station compared to two) and they weren't clear on that either. In fact it seemed as if I'd come up with a good answer they could use themselves!

I may be being horribly unfair but my past experience of these sorts of consultations is that you usually come away having learnt something more than you may have gleaned on line. Not this time.

That is what I would expect to happen too - changing from CR2 to the Norhern Line would certainly be the most obvious way for me to get to work in the highly unlikely event that I will still be working in the same place - or at all - in fifteen years time.

The other thing is that the less changes you have to make to get to work, the more likely you will be to use it.

And no-one wants to make changes going to the theatre, football or whatever, either. Especially coming home from them.

The whole thing at present indeed seems to be trying to serve too many masters for its' own good.

Quite so, but what other routes are there?

Firstly people need to get it into their heads that the Government will only part fund ONE crossrail line at a time, thus there is NO GUARANTEE whatsoever that they will look favourably on a CR3 after CR2. As a consequence it is very much a case of doing the best you can with CR2 and not counting on CR3, CR4, to pick up the bits you miss.

Secondly thanks to Londons Geography it is very difficult if not impossible to devise a realistic route for a North East - South West ish tube line that serves both the City / Docklands and the West end.

Thirdly CR2 is being promoted by TfL who naturally care less about existing national rail users than users of other TfL services (i.e. the tube) and as such any Crossrail proposal with TfL in the lead has to do something for the parts of the tube network under greatest pressure.

Fourthly As much as it grates with some, TfL have said that Euston MUST be served by CR2 so as to help disperse passengers from HS2. It is not acceptable to simply say such a need can be left to any CR3 / CR4 etc (see point1)

Fifthly, NR have proved that the SWML is running at capacity in the peaks and as such CR2 is the most cost effective way of solving that particular problem - again it is unacceptable to simply leave things as they are just in case a CR3 turns up a few decades from now.

The current routing points therefore of Wimbledon -Clapham Junction - Victoria - Euston (and St Pancras / Kings Cross) are non negotiable fixed points that CR2 has to serve. Yes the NE section has the potential to go elsewhere (e.g. it could do a Jubilee and head east then south for example) but doing so does not fit with TfLs desire to provide relief for the Picadilly and Victoria lines.

So while yes amendments to the route are possible, those that do not respect the above points will be rejected outright as they do not comply with the base requirements.

Finally I note that there is a suggestion that CR2 could take over one of the CR1 branches in the East as part of a revised routing . The BIG PROBLEM with this solution (which the proposer ignores) is the simple fact that the design of CR1 has not factored this eventuality into its design. Building a junction box tunnel round an operational small diameter tube line is hard enough but doing so around the much larger diameter Crossrail tunnels is a far grater problem. Had such an eventuality been factored into the design of CR1 it would be easy, but as it stands undertaking such works to what will shortly be an operational railway is a non starter.

However while the opportunity has gone as far as CR1 branch takeovers the same does not need to happen with CR2. It would for example be perfectly possible to design in a couple of junction tunnels say after angel so that a future CR3 & CR2 could swap branches - but that does rather constrain any potential CR3 routing, which in itself may never happen anyway.

I'm not going to plough through your long list of points. I think CR2 is too complex and potentially inoperable. I think the answers for N/NE London and the Central area are different from those needed in S/SW London.

I'd much rather see a comprehensive strategy of building new automatic tube lines giving high capacity, high frequency services. The trains certainly don't need to be to traditional tube profile. Let's face it the politicians have NO strategy for the tube apart from continuing upgrades to the point where nothing more can be done. The two current extensions don't add much and yet there are vast areas of London that require high capacity, high frequency services. Paris has it right - it makes long term strategic improvements across a range of modes covering Paris and the wider Ile de France region / départments. We can't even think like that never mind make it happen.

As usual I am a lone voice wailing in the wilderness and that's perfectly fine. I'll keep my felt tip pens locked away in the drawer.

Oh there are plenty who agree with you on that score - for starters I think its a bit ridiculous joining the Lea Valley lines so far out - if the portal was at near Clapton for example Chingford line trains could be added into the mix.

However what I recognise is that doing nothing is not an option and if all that the DfT or TfL are prepared to finance is the current CR2 variant - warts and all - then its better than nothing.

What you and other like minded folk to need realise is that as with HS2, the Treasury are NOT saying "here is a pot of money to be spent on transport improvements", they are saying "we will give a lump sum SPECIFICALLY FOR HS2 / CR2 and if that doesn't happen we will keep the money and use it to pay off the deficit" . In other words it cannot be diverted to any other transport scheme and opposing CR2 on grounds that it isn't an ideal scheme will not change that - with the end result being London gets nothing.

Indeed - but outer suburban / fast services are not going to stop at both Clapham and Balham or Wimbledon and Clapham - which means interchange between Southern & SWT becomes more complicated. It also ignores the point about Overground and Windsor line interchange.

There is also the fact that on both the Southern and SWT side it is physically possible (albut expensive) to make 3 fast line platforms for both services thus allowing pretty much every service to call. Doing the same at Wimbledon is & Balham is even more expensive.

Future-proofing can come unstuck too - five examples:
1. the step plate junctions at South Kensington built in the Edwardian period, still waiting for the deep-level District main line.
2. the tunnels beyond Charing Cross (Jubilee) built long enough for the work on stage 2 to carry on without interrupting services
3. Hounslow Town station, built with extension to Twickenham in mind.
4. the over-run tunnels at Elephant, realigned in the 1940s ready for the Camberwell extension
5. the alignment of the T4 loop, with provision for a station at the originally proposed site of T5

(I am not counting projects which actually got started but were later interrupted by WW2, like Chessington South, or the Northern Heights)

Note that the Thameslink station called Tooting is nowhere near the Northern Line - or indeed Tooting. (It is just over the old LCC border, in Mitcham)