Combined Food And Power
I suppose it sounds too good to be true to produce both food and power from the same industrial process.
But look at this page entitled Combined Food And Power on the Orthios Group web site.
The company might have something.
What Are We Going To Do For The Lower Thames Crossing?
This report in the Thurrock Gazette is entitled Over a thousand residents make anger known at Lower Thames Crossing meeting tonight and it describes the anger in the area over the proposed new Lower Thames Crossing. This map from this BBC report, shows the proposed route.
The Proposed Lower Thames Crossing
I don’t drive, but I do appreciate that there is extra capacity across the Lower Thames is needed to relieve the Dartford Crossing.
So what should be done?
I think that whether or not a new Lower Thames Crossing is built, we should give people alternative routes to cross the river.
Crossrail may help in that some cross river journeys like say from Kent to Essex, may be quicker by the following route.
- Train or car to Abbey Wood station.
- Crossrail train to Whitechapel station.
- Walk across the platform at Whitechapel and take another Crossrail train to Essex, changing at Stratford or Shenfield as required.
Obviously, it won’t suit everybody, but the design of Whitechapel station has been designed to facilitate journeys like this.
I think that the Abbey Wood branch should be extended to Ebbsfleet International and Gravesend, as soon as possible. This extension is safeguarded but not planned.
It would probably help too, if the interchange between SouthEastern’s HighSpeed services and Crossrail at Stratford wasn’t a long hike round the Eastfield Shopping Centre.
Surely, the real problem is freight.
This will only be eased by putting more of it on rail between Europe and the UK.
In the end another Thames Crossing will be built and this should also solve the problem of a bigger Thames Barrier.
Things Seem To Be Moving On Crossrail’s Western Section
Returning from Windsor, I took the route via Slough and took these pictures.
Note.
- Slough station has a new fully accessible footbridge and a new bay platform seems to be being created at the London end of Platform 6.
- The overhead gantries certainly seem massive. They appear to be from Furrer + Frey.
- There is a loop line to the North side of Iver station.
- Hayes and Harlington station is getting a new platform.
- The bay platform at West Ealing station appears to be being readied for electrification and the Greenford Branch Line.
I shall have to go back in the next few days and check on progress.
But it does seem that things are moving along apace.
The Anonymous Widower 