A Single Objector Holds Up The Ordsall Curve
This article from the Manchester Evening News entitled Ordsall Chord delay: Town hall chief blasts single objector holding up £85m Piccadilly-Victoria rail link, is a superb example of how external factors contribute to delays in not getting vital rail and road infrastructure built and increase the costs, when they do get built.
I will not judge this case one way or the other, but one of the reasons for bad economic progress in the North is poor and outdated rail infrastructure. So surely, it would have been better to have got this argument out of the way a couple of years ago.
I do wonder in this country, how many projects don’t ever get started because organisations like Network Rail feel it is better not to have a fight and leave the inadequate status quo alone.
London Overground To Get New Aventra Trains
Several reports like this one on Global Rail News are showing that the new Overground trains will not be Class 378 trains, but Bombardier Aventras.
They will probably be very similar to the new Class 345 trains for Crossrail, which are also Aventras.
It probably doesn’t make much difference to London Overground, as there probably isn’t going to be any problems about running both trains on the same line, if they need to.
The bigger winners may well be Bombardier, who according to this article in the Derby Telegraph are investing in a new production, testing and office complex.
Bombardier might want to build a few of the trains for the Overground before those for Crossrail, so they can see how they perform in service
Fixing The Shortened Grundtal Rail To The Wall
When I improvised the utensil rack, I wasn’t sure how to fit the cut end to the brick wall.
These pictures show how I did it.
Note that the single bracket now holding the rail can support the weight, unless I put too much in the pot, so all the dowel does is locate the rail in the correct position.
An Innovative Use Of The School Holidays
In trying to find out what was going on at Whitechapel station because of Crossrail this weekend, I found this document entitled Crane and site related activity in Swanlea School on the Whitechapel Current Works page of the Crossrail web site. he document says this.
We will position a small crane at the western end of Swanlea Schools grounds and use the crane to lift material over the school perimeter wall and in to the Crossrail Essex Wharf, Durward Street site. Delivery vehicles will access Swanlea School between 08:00 and 22:00 on Mondays to Sundays during this time. In addition to this, the Crossrail site boundary area will extend into Swanlea School grounds during the school holiday period. We will use the area to carry out preparatory work including the creation of wooden frames for future concrete pours and steel reinforcement pre-fabrication.
This Google Map image shows the relationship between Swanlea School and the Whitechapel station site.
Swanlea School And Whitechapel Station
I would assume that Crossrail are paying an appropriate fee for the disruption to the school grounds.
Whitechapel station is a very congested site in a busy area of East London and Crossrail seem to have used every trick in the book, to avoid unnecessary pain and disruption to residents, visitors and passengers.
There are a lot of people worried about what will happen, if Crossrail 2 gets built through their area. They should take a trip to Whitechapel and have a look round to see how intricate heavy construction work should be done.
The Anonymous Widower 