Why The Elizabeth Line Must Be Extended To Ebbsfleet International
There are various plans to link the Elizabeth Line to Ebbsfleet International.
In Elizabeth Line To Ebbsfleet Extension Could Cost £3.2 Billion, I showed this map from the Abbeywood2Ebbsfleet consultation.
There doesn’t appear to be too much new infrastructure, except for a proper connection between Northfleet and Ebbsfleet stations. References on the Internet, say that the similar-sized Luton DART connection at Luton Airport, cost around £225 million.
The Elizabeth Line connects to the following.
- Bond Street
- Canary Wharf
- City of London
- Farringdon for Thameslink
- Heathrow Airport
- Old Oak Common for High Speed Two
- Liverpool Street station
- Oxford Street
- Paddington station
- Slough for Windsor
- Tottenham Court Road for the British Museum, Oxford Street, Soho, Theatreland and the Underground.
- West End of London
- Whitechapel for the Overground and Underground
For many people like me, the Elizabeth Line at Ebbsfleet will provide one of the quickest ways to get to and from European trains.
High Speed Two Services
This diagram shows High Speed Two services, as they were originally envisaged before Phase 2 was discontinued.
Note.
- Trains to the left of the vertical black line are Phase 1 and those to the right are Phase 2.
- Full-Size trains are shown in blue.
- Classic-Compatible trains are shown in yellow.
- The dotted circles are where trains split and join.
- In the red boxes routes alternate every hour.
- Was Lancaster chosen as it’s close to the new Eden Project Morecambe?
Click on the diagram to enlarge it.
Destinations served by the current foreshortened High Speed Two or High Speed Two Lite will be.
- Birmingham Curzon Street
- Birmingham Interchange
- Carlisle
- Carstairs
- Crewe
- Edinburgh Haymarket
- Edinburgh Waverley
- Glasgow Central
- Lancaster
- Liverpool Lime Street
- Lockerbie
- Macclesfield
- Manchester Airport
- Manchester Piccadilly
- Motherwell
- Oxenholme
- Penrith
- Preston
- Runcorn
- Stafford
- Srockport
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Warrington Bank Quay
- Wigan North Western
- Wilmslow
That is twenty-five stations.
I would add these extra stations.
- Bangor
- Blackpool
- Chester
- Holyhead
- Llandudno Junction
- Wrexham
Note.
- These extra six stations would make High Speed Two, a line for more of the people.
- Because the Eastern leg is cancelled, the paths that would have served that leg can be used to provide services for the West of the country.
The East of the country could be served by updating the East Coast Main Line.
The Development Of Eurostar
Consider.
- Eurostar and Thalys have now merged and I can see them providing extra direct services between London and Europe.
- Bordeaux, Cologne, Frankfurt and Geneva have been mentioned as possible destinations.
- Most of the new destinations, will be served by extending current services from Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris appropriately.
But to cope with the extra numbers of passengers, there will have to be extra passenger capacity at St. Pancras and/or Ebbsfleet International.
High Speed Two And Continental Services
Currently, if you want to go from the North of England or Scotland to the Continent, you do one of the following.
- Take a train to King’s Cross and walk across to St. Pancras International.
- Take a train to St. Pancras and walk to the International section of the station.
- Take a train to Euston and walk or take a bus, taxi or Underground to St. Pancras International.
Note.
- Passengers from North Wales take the Euston route.
- Some passengers will take an Elizabeth Line train to Farringdon and then take Thameslink to St. Pancras International.
- Passengers arriving at Paddington on Heathrow Express will probably take a taxi to St. Pancras International.
- Passengers arriving at Paddington on a budget will probably take the Underground to St. Pancras International.
For Londoners and those travellers, who know London well, the routes to St. Pancras International, are not to bad but they could be better.
If the current foreshortened High Speed Two or High Speed Two Lite finishes at Old Oak Common station, passengers will have to use the following routes for their onward journey.
- Elizabeth Line
- Great Western Railway – local services.
- Heathrow Express
- North London Line of the London Overground, or whatever the Mayor at the time calls it.
If the full High Speed Two or High Speed Two Lite finishes at Euston station, passengers will have to use the following routes for their onward journey.
- Avanti West Coast
- Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines
- London North Western – local services
- Northern Line
- Victoria Line
- Watford DC Line of the London Overground, or whatever the Mayor at the time calls it.
These routes will be in addition to those at Old Oak Common station.
There will be two routes between High Speed Two and St. Pancras International station.
- Passengers arriving at Old Oak Common will take an Elizabeth Line train to Farringdon and then take Thameslink to St. Pancras International.
- Passengers arriving at Euston will walk or take a bus, taxi or Underground to St. Pancras International.
I am not sure that either route will have enough capacity, if High Speed Two attracts a large number of passengers.
Extend High Speed Two To Euston
I believe that this is essential, as it improves the connectivity greatly, at the bottom end of High Speed Two, as several Underground Lines will be connected to High Speed Two.
Extend The Elizabeth Line from Old Oak Common To Ebbsfleet International
I believe this too is essential, as it gives the North of England and Scotland, the connection to the Continent that they need.
There could be cross-platform connections at both Old Oak Common and Ebbsfleet International between the Elizabeth Line and the high speed lines.
Conclusion
Politicians should stop the dithering and act to give the UK, the rail connection it needs up and down the country and to the Continent.
World-First Operation To Treat Rhino’s Broken Leg
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
A rhinoceros with a broken leg is back on its feet after a world-first operation.
These are the first three paragraphs.
Amara, a southern white rhino at Knowsley safari park, was given keyhole surgery and had to wear a cast for four weeks.
Surgeons took what they knew about operating on horses and applied it to Amara because there was so little information about rhinos which had been injured in this way.
A team of 10 vets was involved in the operation, which they described as “unlike anything we’ve experienced previously”.
I bet it wasn’t like a horse, as equines in my experience don’t have a bodger on their bonce.
The BBC featured the story in BBC Breakfast this morning and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it turn up later or on the Internet.
Some may say, is the expense worth it to operate on a rhino.
But I would say, that the experience gained by the University of Liverpool, will be applied to the treatment of other large animals, like buffalo, bison, draught horses, elephants and hippotami.
Also, knowing Scousers as I do, I suspect that some of the techniques used, will be scrounged by Liverpool’s medics and applied to humans.
The Anonymous Widower 