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| Re: Crossrail gets Treasury backing (was Re: London's five-year plan) (10379) | |||
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Re: Crossrail gets Treasury backing (was Re: London's five-year plan) |
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Posted by David Fairthorne on Tue Oct 19 17:52:35 2004, in response to Re: Crossrail gets Treasury backing (was Re: London's five-year plan), posted by Wado MP73 on Tue Oct 19 14:42:56 2004. This awfully sounds familiar... Did I hear somebody say "Met"? :-pI thought I heard somebody say "RER"! The main problem that Crossrail is intended to solve is east-west overcrowding. The most overcrowded line is (I hear) the Central line in the areas east and west of Liverpool Street, say between Stratford and Tottenham Court Road. That's where additional capacity is most needed. The Metropolitan, Circle, and Hammersmith & City lines share tracks between Liverpool Street and Baker Street, and those tracks are already fully utilised. Besides, they pass to the north of the busiest area of the West End, which is Oxford Street. If a new line is built to add capacity, it may as well run through the very middle of the City and West End. That, combined with faster journey times, should attract many passengers and provide the desired relief. Crossrail will provide plenty of extra capacity (peak 10 car trains, 24 tph) through the central area. Stations will be long enough for 12 car trains, and will have entrances at both ends. Extra capacity on the Shenfield branch east of Liverpool Street will be limited by the fact that Crossrail (12 tph) will run on the slow tracks from Liverpool Street, sharing them with the existing Liverpool Street to Shenfield service, which will be reduced to accommodate Crossrail. The Ebbsfleet branch (with the other 12 tph) will serve new housing developments in the "Thames Gateway" area, and the Canary Wharf (Isle of Dogs) business district. Two trains out of three will terminate at Abbey Wood; those that continue to Ebbsfleet will share (third rail) tracks with the South Eastern. That branch will take some pressure off the South Eastern service which passes through the bottleneck at London Bridge (high level) station. West of Paddington it was difficult to find useful routes that would justify the cost. Recently there were to be two branches, one to Heathrow and one to Kingston, but the Kingston branch was found to too expensive and now the western branch goes via the slow tracks from Paddington. About half of the trains will continue to Heathrow, West Drayton or Maidenhead, and the remainder will terminate at Paddington. City financial interests insisted on having Crossrail serve Heathrow Airport, the City, and Canary Wharf, and that seems to have determined branch route selection, apart from the busy Shenfield line which was an obvious choice. There is a good explanation of Crossrail at Always Touch Out. |
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