Crossrail’s Shedule Of Improvements For Western Surface Stations.
I’m always looking for this page, which has a schedule of improvident for the station on the Western surface section of Crossrail.So I’ve put the link here, so I can find it.
The page finishes with this summary of the work.
The scope and timing of any work needed at Twyford and Reading stations has yet to be determined.
New station buildings are proposed at Acton Main Line, West Ealing, Southall and Hayes & Harlington stations with new footbridges providing step-free access to the platforms and new bay platforms at West Ealing and Hayes & Harlington. A new footbridge is being built at West Drayton station to provide step-free access to platforms 2-5.
Platforms will be extended at Ealing Broadway, West Ealing, Southall, Hayes & Harlington, West Drayton, Slough and Maidenhead stations. All stations will benefit from new signage, help points, customer information screens and CCTV.
It also gives expected completion dates.
Crossrail’s pages for the North-East and South-East surface sections are not so informative.
From Westbourne Park To Old Oak Common – 4th July 2015
I took these pictures a few days ago as my train went along the Great Western Main Line to Southall and West Ealing.
This is a Google Map of the area.
Along The Great Western
Old Oak Common and the various train depots are at the left (West) and Westbourne Park Bus Garage is at the right under the Westway, where it crosses the railway.
The Sainsburys at Ladbroke Grove was built on the site of the old Ladbroke Grove Gas Works. (You can still pick out the two gas holders by the canal.) I found this good page with lots of pictures on a blog maintained by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It says this about the site.
Where the Grand Junction Canal and the main line railway to Paddington diverge from their parallel course there is a teardrop shaped patch of land bounded on the east by Ladbroke Grove. In 1845 the Western Gas Company built a gas works there facing All Souls Cemetery on the other side of the canal. When North Kensington was developed for housing in the second half of the 19th century the Gas Works sat waiting at its northern edge. And there it stayed as London grew around it. In 1936 the Gas and Light Company built a progressive housing development on the Ladbroke Grove edge of the site powered by the wonder of gas, Kensal House, but more of that another day.
Today only a couple of gasometers remain overlooking the cemetery. Most of the site is taken up by a Sainsbury’s super store. But in 1970 although gas production had ceased the owners seem to have been wondering what to do with the gas works, and denying rumours that the whole site would be given over to housing.
It would appear that they are completely remodelling the North side of the railway opposite the North Pole Depot. This Google Map shows the area from Mitre Bridge to the flyover that crosses the railway.
North Pole Depot And The Flyover
The two bridges at the left carry the West London Line and Scrubs Lane (Mitre Bridge) over the railway.The two circular structures at the right are the gas holders in the former Ladbroke Grove Gas Works.
The pictures in the gallery certainly show an impressive retaining wall is being built.
The last few pictures in the gallery were taken as the train ran past the train depots at Old Oak Common TMD, that I talked about in this post.
Are There Secondary Effects In The Budget?
I have a feeling that there could be some secondary effects from the budget and particularly the announcement of a National Living Wage.
Nowhere will this measure be felt more than at the bottom end of the employers. If you read the tabloids, you get the impression that dodgy low-quality businesses are the big employers of illegal immigrants, keeping them in squalor and paying them in cash, if they’re lucky.
With a solidly enforced living wage, will this make it more difficult for these companies and operators to survive, so this country might be less of a magnet for illegal immigrants. I don’t know, but a higher level of living wage gives the Tax Authorities a good reason to investigate the sort of businesses who rely on no-questions-asked labour.
I very much watch innovation in the media and also have been in touch several times with universities in the last few years. I think we’ll see companies using their local innovators to make sure they support their now more highly-paid employees. I know several universities are giving students real projects in local companies.
So will we be pushing our employment up-market? I think we will!
As an example, an industry that we all seem to use more these days are couriers to deliver the goods we’ve bought on-line. They have got so much better over the last few years and that is just not the delivery reliability, but the staff as well, who seem to be polite and very much on-the-ball. Incidentally, most staff who’ve delivered to me lately seem to have been British born and educated.
I don’t know what will happen in the next few years, but I have a feeling that the Chancellor’s announcements may be helping to move the country on from a low-wage, low-skilled and badly-supported work force to one where a job, where you work hard and efficiently gives you a real living wage.
Of course Labour think that the restructuring of Tax Credits will mean many will lose out. But then Labour’s solution to a low-wage, low-skill economy was to pay people at the low-end to do nothing or crap jobs.
The other thing the Chancellor must do to help, is make sure that our transport links are improved. It’s one thing to get a job and often it’s a much more difficult thing to get to that job every day. You just have to see what the Overground and the fleets of new buses have done for Hackney and the surrounding boroughs, here in London, over the past few years.
Vossloh’s Product Sheet For The Class 399 Tram-Train
I was reading this article on Global Rail News about the full certification of the Vossloh Citylink tram-trains that are being used in Karlsruhe and Chemnitz. I’ve seen both systems and these are some pictures that I took.
I apologise, if I’ve got some identification wrong.
On searching the Internet I found this product sheet on the Vossloh web site. It is actually titled Dual-Voltage Tram-Train Sheffield.
There are two bits of good news.
The product sheet says that the tram-train is air-conditioned.
But the best news is this from the article in Global Rail News.
Operator Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe GmbH (VBK) has now exercised two options for a total of 50 additional Citylink LRVs to add to the 25 procured in 2011. All of the new low-floor vehicles should be delivered by summer 2017.
Would Karlsruhe have ordered seventy-five trams, if they weren’t up to the job?
So Sheffield isn’t getting some totally brand-new technology. They may be the first dual-voltage Vossloh Citylink tram-trains, but that is technology, that has ben wel-proven in many places.
Bennetts Associated Designs For The Western Crossrail Surface Stations
I’ve put this link to a downloadable project sheet on the Bennetts Associates web site on this blog, as it gives an insight into the upgrading of the thirteen surface stations west of the central core.
Whitechapel Station – 6th July 2015
Whitechapel station always offers photo opportunities.
It would appear that they will be creating the retaining walls on the Overground platforms soon.
South Tottenham Station – 6th July 2015
The rebuilding of South Tottenham station with lifts is coming on.
I was changing to the Victoria Line by walking to Seven Sisters station.
Network Rail Displays Must Work On Windows XP
I saw this screen at Finsbury Park station.
Network Rail Displays Must Work On Windows XP
There’s not much wrong with Windows XP compared to some of the later versions.
Canal Tunnels – 6th July 2015
I took these pictures as I passed the Canal Tunnels, that will connect the East Coast Main Line to Thameslink.
It does apopear that these tunnels should be ready for the opening of Thameslink services through the tunnels in 2018.
Travelling In Style Between Liverpool Street And Hackney Downs Stations
There are some Class 317 trains, with First Class seats, that work the Lea Valley Lines into Liverpool Street.
Obviously, when the new Class 378 trains arrive, these will go somewhere more suited to this luxury.
The Anonymous Widower 