Crossrail 2 Consultation

As a putative private or hybrid bill, there was no compelling need for it to be included in the Queen's speech.

Not sure if I've understood rebelt's idea.
There was certainly a GER scheme to connect the Chingford and Loughton branches by a tunnel under the Forest and then a connection in from the south-west near Spring Grove. But that was before the area was covered by £1m+ houses.
In fact, the formation from Leyton to Leytonstone is the protected Chelsea-Hackney corridor, though it has got a bit tighter with the A12 road of 1999.
CR2 was of course originally planned to take over the Epping branch. But the Epping Forest District is 93% green belt and proposals for massive development there would be highly contentious (and would accrue to EFDC, not to London authorities), whereas Meridian Water etc are largely unloved brownfield.
The Central Line terminus at Loughton? Well, there is plenty of space at Debden, and Theydon Bois is a little-used station. But the reason for Epping being such a magnet for long distance commuters (Central or CR2)is the Zone 6 fares. This has now got to such a state that there wasn't a single space in the Town car park (even tho half a mile from the station) at 0930 one recent Monday.

Looks like Mr Grayling has carefully moved the funding goalposts for Crossrail 2. He wants London to fund 50% of the cost *upfront* which I assume means increased local taxes, fares and charges and not borrowing paid back later.

www.mayorwatch.co.uk/government-asks-london-to-fund-half-of-crossrail-2s-upfront-construction-costs-as-condition-for-go-head/

He says he "supports" Crossrail 2 but this, to my mind anyway, is a massive issue for TfL and the Mayor. It is a rather unsubtle move to force the Mayor to abandon the fares freeze and to shove up things like the TfL precept or to levy a new precept. It will be interesting to see how City Hall responds to this demand and whether the project moves forward or not.

So having scrapped electrification from Cardiff to Swansea, from Bedford to Sheffield, from Leeds to Manchester and in the Lake District its now London's turn to suffer Failing Grayling's cost cutting axe.

Grayling is MP for Epsom and Ewell which would have been on the CR2 route, he's got a fairly comfortable majority but he might get a bit of a nasty shock at the next election

The thing that concerns me is that TfL and City Hall had worked on the basis of borrowing and delayed mechanisms that future fares revenues alongside continuation of some planning related levies. Mr Grayling seems to be saying that this is unacceptable even though the Northern Line extension is funded entirely by a huge loan with future business rates / fares revenue to provide the payback funding. It looks to me like TfL and the Mayor are going to be pressured to shove up fares, council tax and other funding levies so a third funding model. CR1 being one, NLE being two and CR2 being a third. Interesting that the rumoured use of a "land value capture" tax has vanished from the agenda - presumably because there are concerns as to whether a mechanism could get onto the statute books due to the lack of a government majority. In short it looks like Londoners are going to be royally shafted for years if funds have to be raised before a spade is dug in the ground. It also raises questions as to what contribution, if any, parts of Essex and Surrey are going to make if London may have to fork out up to £20bn.

This has not gone down well in the north of England!





The BBC continue to use images of trains that aren't really right too, in their article we see a Northern Spirit train (who last operated trains in ~2000).

Sorry, I was confusing them with the not-yet-in-service 707s that the Aventras will be replacing in a year or so. You're right. If they're suitable for tunnel operation (and as they are similar to the 345s I don't see why not), the fleet could be repurposed for XR2. But then the Reading, Windsor and other lines using the Aventras would need new trains instead.

The north/south comparison between XR2 and northern hub / Sheffield/ etc electrification is more complex than the politicians would like to paint it. Electrification on its own does not significantly improve capacity, and has a marginal effect on speed. If capacity improvements are needed the first thing to do is make the trains longer. This is perfectly possible in most parts of the country, where 2-car trains are common, and most platforms are longer than that. But in London, most trains are already as long as the platforms will take, and extending them further (as is about to happen at Waterloo) hugely disruptive.

Secondly, improving frequency. Again physically possible on many lines outside the SE if the demand is there. Again not possible in London. Electrification can help here, with faster acceleration.

The last resort is building new lines.

So, undoubtedly the lines in the North need improvement - in particular new trains. Whether those trains have to be electric is debatable.

(And there are advantages to trains having installed power, as we see every time the knitting blows away on the ECML and the diesel IC125s can soldier on while the electric IC225s all grind to a halt)

Agreed 100%. I find this north v south moaning so tiresome. Regional resentment, as you succinctly put it, is one of the parasitic influences in our politics at the moment.

Sometimes I think parts of the country live on a parallel universe - granted there are a few places which see heavy congestion outside London, but generally things are nowhere near as bad. Outside London peak times don't last as long, the volumes of people are a fraction, and the distances travelled are generally less.

Not only that, but the caption suggests it is a Liverpool - Newcastle train, which it isn't. I don't think Pacers have ever been used on that route (their 75mph top speed couldn't maintain the schedule), and in any case it's on the wrong bridge.

CR2 has been on my radar since moving to Bishop's Stortford. It's quite amazing that the West Anglia Main Line up here runs at all, due to the number of level crossings, mixture of fast and slow services, and age of some of the trains. 

Broxbourne, to me, seems like a waste as a northern terminus, but I also understand why it may not go any further north. Cambridge or Stansted Airport may make better termini, but aren't in London, so not under scope of CR2.

It would be amazing to have the line double tracked all the way up beyond Bishops Stortford, and separate the fast and slow services. But this reply to my submission to the CR2 project is very interesting to me.


So, if CR2 trains take over everything south of Broxbourne on new lines, that could be as good as double tracking up to Bishops Stortford. It'd mean the original lines were free for trains to always run fast from Harlow, on clear tracks.

I used to live in Watford. The implied cancellation of the Met Line extension to W Junction was a major diasppointment. I hope CR2 gets the go ahead soon.

What lobbying do you expect to see?

TfL have issued a further paper on Crossrail 2. It updates the progress to date and explains the frankly ludicrous number of "reviews" the DfT has insisted. Further funding is being sought to cover planned work in 2018/19. Given the delays it is now clear that land and property risks are emerging as the planned route differs from the safeguarded one and TfL has not been able to initiate an update of the safeguarding as there is no money to fund the project overall.

content.tfl.gov.uk/pic-20180221-item07-pt-1-crossrail-2.pdf

Try not to have palpitations where you fall across the horrific spelling errors in the paper. Clearly no one ran a spell check over the paper or even bothered to read it in any detail.

It's no real mystery.  I have friends within TfL but a heck of a lot more in DfT.  Prior to the departure of the previous SoS the CR2 project was 'all systems go' at DfT.  They tell me the moment the current SofS was appointed in summer 2016, everything changed from Day 1, with Rail projects in general going from a positive cooperative view to a distinctly negative obstructive one.  With regard to TfL and CR2 the overnight change (as they described it to me) was total antagonism.  This isn't a political comment as such but a summary of the current incumbents 180 degree overnight change of policy course.

My friends tell me they suspect it is not only CR2 that he wants to kill off.  He is also obstructing any moves to keep the Met Line extension project going, he has also tried to obstruct progress on the Northern Line extension and by other changes to the funding formula to obstruct other tube modernisation programmes.  A couple of my DfT friends even went so far as to say that the financial collapse of TfL would not be a disappointing outcome for him.  Back in the early 80s Nick Ridley not only wanted to privatise but also completely deregulate buses in London (only the first of those happened) and wanted to sell off each individual tube line.  One wonders if history is trying to come full circle?