Coal Mining in Whitechapel
I’ve just received Crossrail’s Autumn 2014 newsletter and there’s a section about using coal mining techniques to connect the Crossrail platforms at Whitechapel to the rest of the station and the surface. They say this.
An uphill excavator is being used for the first time in the UK on the Crossrail project. The machine is being used at Whitechapel, before installing the escalators that will take passengers from the platforms (over 30 metres below ground) to and from street level.
Due to difficulties in accessing the station box to dig downwards, Crossrail’s Whitechapel contractor BBMV decided that excavating the escalator barrel upwards, starting from the platform base, was the best solution.
The uphill excavator, traditionally used in coal mines, is being used in an innovative way on the Crossrail project. Built to do two jobs in one, it works its way up by excavating the earth using a digger fixed to the front. With a spray nozzle attached to the top of the machine it also installs the tunnel lining as it goes.
I suspect this won’t be the last place that the technique is used under London. I think it could find applications in connecting stations to the surface in a reversing loop with stations, or perhaps adding step-free access to a deep Underground station.
Whatever happens, it does seem that engineers are throwing conventional thinking out of the window.
Tunnelling certainly seems to be fun!
Hanwell Station Gets A Second Entrance
Hanwell station, which will become a stop on Crossrail, is a Grade II Listed building, which according to Wikipedia, English Heritage says is in very poor condition.
A second entrance on the South side of the line has now been opened.
If this is the standard to which the rest of the station will be refurbished, I suspect that English Heritage will be pleased to update their view of the station.
As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Radio 5, where there has just been a piece talking about a shortage of bricklayers. Obviously, some very good ones were working hard on Hanwell station.
When I visited Hanwell station in October, I gave it a score of 3/10 and said it was a relic from the past.
I now have high hopes, that when this station opens fopr Crossrail, that it will be one of the jewels in London’s new train line.
Sneaking Onto The Metropolitan Line At Baker Street Station
I have used Baker Street station many times over the years, but I’d never found this way to sneak between the Metropolitan/Circle line platforms to and the Bakerloo/Jubilee line ones.
I wonder how many other quick routes there are on the London Underground
It’s Not About The Wheelchairs
First Bus are probably delighted that they have won the court case about whether wheelchair users have priority over babies in buggies. This is the first paragraph in the BBC web report.
Bus companies are not required by law to force parents with buggies to make way for wheelchair users in designated bays on vehicles, senior judges ruled.
I travel regularly on London’s extensive bus network. A couple of years ago, there was a wheelchair bay full of buggies and a lady in a wheelchair wanted to board. On London buses, the wheelchair bay is opposite the middle door, which is the one with the automatic ramp. So the driver asked if the bay could be cleared, as he lowered the ramp. One lady took her buggy down the ramp and another folded hers and passengers made sure they had one of the spacious double seats by the middle door. The lady in the wheelchair then pushed herself into the space and as there was enough space the first buggy was able to be squeezed in too!
It had all been a sensible dance up and down the ramp and the bus was fairly quickly on its way, after an amicable confrontation.
On new Routemasters, with their bigger space by the door, better layout and completely flat floor, I’ve never seen anything other than minor problems.
Compare London with what happened at Reading when I went to see Ipswich play in August.
Returning from the Madejsky stadium after the match, there was a long queue for the buses. In front of me in the queue was a guy in a wheelchair. As the downstairs of the almost brand-new double-decker was full, with at least ten standing in the wheelchair space, to get the wheelchair rider on the bus, meant virtually unloading the bus and starting again. A lot of fans were not happy.
If the bus had had a central door and wheelchair ramp, what took perhaps well over five minutes, would have been much easier and probably a lot quicker.
Given all the other advantages with two or more entrance buses, like faster loading and unloading and a possible reduction in the number of attacks on staff, isn’t it about time that all the city bus services of the UK, were made to follow London.
How about adding talking buses, bus maps understandable to everybody and cash ticketing to bring the rest of the country into the twenty-first century?
Nigel -There Are Trains To South Wales
Nigel Farage is blaming his non-appearance at an event in Wales on immigration causing the jams on the M4. He said this on the BBC.
It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here – it should have taken three-and-a-half to four. That is nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a population that is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.
Obviously, if he travelled on the excellent train to Wales, he might have had to talk to some immigrants. Like I did on another train, where I chatted for an hour or so, to an Italian businessman, who moved here thirty years ago and married an Englishwoman a few years after.
I think I’ve met planks of wood with more real intelligence than Farage.
Could The East London Line Be Extended To Ebbsfleet?
A few months ago, I speculated in a post called Can We Extend Overground Connectivity In North London, about what to do for northern termini if the number of trains through the core of the East London Line (ELL) is increased from 16 to 24 tph. This capsacity increase is one of Transport for London’s objectives for the line, which would create a second high-capacity link between North and South London, fanning out to several termini at both ends, just as Thameslink does.
There is probably not the problem of finding termini south of the river, as there is an intricate network of lines, where the extra trains could go.
But after looking looking at taking Crossrail to Dartford and Gravesham, I think that it might be better to send some of the ELL trains past New Cross, which of all the southern terminals is probably the less likely to be able to turn round many more extra trains an hour.
Trains would go to Ebbsfleet from New Cross by way of the following stations.
St. Johns
Lewisham – for DLR
Blackheath
Charlton
Woolwich Dockyard
Woolwich Arsenal – for DLR
Plumstead
Abbey Wood
Dartford
Greenhithe – for Bluewater
If it had a Reading-style bridge connection to Eurostar and Highspeed services at Ebbsfleet, this would give much needed connectivity in getting passengers to and from South and Central London and Crossrail.
The only disadvantage is that you would be swapping a fast train for a slow one.
I estimate that Ebbsfleet to Abbey Wood would take about twenty minutes. By comparison Abbey Wood to Heathrow on Crossrail will take fifty-three minutes. Going from Ebbsfleet to Heathrow via St. Pancras will probably take just under the hour, but you’ll have to negotiate A Fur Coat And No Knickers Station, that is St. Pancras.
But there are several advantages.
1. As was pointed out here, Crossrail going past Abbey Wood will need third-rail capable trains. The East London Line is third-rail like most of the lines south of the Thames and I think it is unlikely that it could ever be powered by overhead electrification, due to the size limitations of the Thames Tunnel.
2. As these trains would go through the Thames Tunnel to destinations in the North, this would effectively add more much needed terminal capacity to the terminals serving South of London.
3. There is plenty of space at Ebbsfleet to build a proper terminal platform for the East London Line.
4. Ebbsfleet could also be given the capability of accepting third-rail through trains to and from the South.
5. There is no new infrastructure, except for building the extra platforms at Ebbsfleet.
6. The large new garden city at Ebbsfleet gets much better connections to South and East London.
7. Hopefully, the improved connectivity of Ebbsfleet will improve ridership on Southeastern’s Highspeed services and possibly get more services from both the South East and Europe.
8. There could be a connection to Gatwick on the Redhill to Tonbridge line.
9. Ebbsfleet will become another transport interchange on the outskirts of London to go with Ealing Broadway, Cheshunt, Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Reading, Shenfield, Stratford, Tottenham Hale and Watford. Where will the next one be created?
In some ways a lot of this speculation is unnecessary.
If the Channel Tunnel Rail Link had been built better, so that there was a simple interchange with Crossrail and the Underground at Stratford, then passengers would have the choice of using that station instead of St. Pancras. It was also designed as the bleakest and most unwelcoming station in the UK.
I do wonder though, if Transport for London are keen to get hold of the Dartford lines, so that they can sort out the mess.
Should London’s Freedom Pass Be Extended?
As someone who qualifies for a Freedom Pass, which gives me free travel all over London, I take it very seriously and I also realise how much the 1.5 million holders of the cards cost London and its taxpayers.
Since it was created in 1973, London has grown and with Crossrail further extending the tentacles of London’s trains, it must be part of planners’ thinking to extend the areas where residents qualify and the area where the card could be used.
It has been said that you will be able to use Freedom Passes to get to Heathrow on Crossrail, so what about the other termini at Reading and Shenfield?
There are a lot of questions, if the pass is to be extended.
I think cost will determine what will happen. Especially, as I suspect there are two main groups of Freedom Pass holders.
1. Those like me, who use the pass with gusto and enthusiasm to explore this wonderful city.
2. Those who use it locally on the buses and perhaps occasionally on the Underground.
Transport for London know the pattern and how much it would cost to extend the system.
But if I was the Mayor of London, I’d possibly look for some radical idea.
Let’s take the case of someone living in Birmingham say, who is over 60 and has the UK-wide bus pass and a Senior Railcard. At present they can associate their Senior Railcard with an Oyster card, so they get one-third discounts on all Underground and rail travel in the London area. But as London now embraces using bank cards as tickets on the whole transport system, surely the time will come when those with railcards can associate them with their bank card.
You could argue that allowing this link-up between bank cards and railcards will inevitably happen! Especially, if the banks promote it, as they have with Fare Free Fridays.
Surely, there is scope for link ups with other conurbations, so that visitors can get appropriate discounts on their travels. After all, how much does a visitor from London spend on a day-trip to Manchester or Leeds?
Would they also be more likely to go, if they knew that the ticketing was just using an appropriate bank card, that got them a discount on the local trams and trains?
I am going to Bolton on Saturday to see Ipswich. As I want to see how Posh is doing, I’ll have to buy a couple of extra tickets! Why can’t I just touch in with a contactless bank card?
Should Crossrail Go To Dartford And Gravesham?
here has been a call this week reported in the Kent News by local council leaders for Crossrail to be extended to Dartford and Gravesham.
Given that there is a garden city planned at Ebbsfleet, on the face of it, this could seem to be a good idea. This map taken from the Garden City web site, shows the layout of the new city.
Ebbsfleet Garden City
Note Ebbsfleet International station in the top right. The map below shows the area from Google Earth.
In addition to Ebbsfleet International, three stations are shown. From west (left) to east, they are Swanscombe, Northfleet and Gravesend on the North Kent Line.
Note how there is a loop on the North Kent line to serve Ebbsfleet.
Rail Lines At Ebbsfleet
I use the Southeastern HighSpeed service to get to places like Rochester, Dover and Broadstairs, generally joining the service at Stratford or St. Pancras. It is a good, fast service with modern Class 395 trains, but often when I travel the trains are run almost for my benefit alone.
I think that a general sorting out of train services in Kent, and particularly the Highspeed service will happen. Consider the following.
1. Hastings, Bexhill and Eastbourne could be added to the Highspeed network, by electrifying the Marshlink line. These trains will go straight through Ebbsfleet on HS1.
2. There is no easy connection between HS1 and Crossrail, unless you walk between Stratford International and Regional stations. In fact HS1 doesn’t connect easily to lots of places, due to not stopping at Stratford, where the interchange, except to the DLR is dreadful anyway.
3. Rochester, Strood and North Kent generally needs all the help it can get to lift the economy.
The obvious thing to improve things would be to have cross platform interchange between the North Kent Line, Crossrail and HS1, at Ebbsfleet International. Or if that is not possible, due to the design of the current station, they could apply the rules that have been so superbly demonstrated at Reading, Leeds and Derby.
London Connections has an article, where it discusses extending Crossrail to the east in Kent. It says this.
The original proposal was for Crossrail’s south-eastern arm to terminate at Ebbsfleet. Ebbsfleet seemed an obvious choice, but more thorough analysis showed some disadvantages. Curtailing it at Abbey Wood had distinct attractions to the planning team who would naturally would take a risk-adverse attitude to the project.
From an operational point of view, it would eliminate the need for Crossrail trains to run on third rail routes and therefore simplify train construction and add robustness to the plan. It would also leave this route self-contained and not at the mercy of trains on the south-eastern sector, which was already notorious for being vulnerable to problems anywhere on the crowded network affecting the whole service. It also had the added attraction of reducing the cost of a minimal-viable Crossrail project.
So yet again, Southern Railway’s third-rail electrification throws a spanner in the works.
It certainly needs a bit of planning to sort out the problems of the past.
I suspect that engineers, architects and real railwaymen, will sit round a table in a pub somewhere and get the special engineering fag packets and strong coffee out.
They do have some formidable resources at their disposal.
1. The dual-voltage Class 395 trains, which if more were needed could probably be built in the UK.
2. Acres of space at Ebbsfleet International.
3. A new cross-platform interchange between the Kent Lines and Crossrail at Abbey Wood.
4. In a few years time, ERTMS will have arrived to enable trains to go a lot more places on the comprehensive network south of the Thames.
5. Transport for London may well have succeeded in adding the lines to South East London to the London Overground, that they were refused this year. This would have enabled Dartford, Gravesend, Rochester or even Ebbsfleet to be the terminal of an extended New Cross branch of the East London Line.
6. Transport for London has all of the traffic statistics from payment cards, so they just need to analyse rather than speculate.
I have a feeling that there may be a better solution to getting better access to Dartford and Gravesham, than the simplistic one of extending Crossrail.
More Pictures From Crossrail
Crossrail is certainly a gift to photographers, as these pictures in City AM show.
Transport for London Drops An Interchange
I noticed this Tube map at Whitechapel station today.
Transport for London Drops An Interchange
The interchange at Embankment seems to be missing. It was certainly there when I went through the station this morning. Although for many months lately, the interchange wasn’t able to be used during escalator rebuilding.
There is a piece in Business Insider, which discusses the omission.
What would Harry Beck have thought?
The Anonymous Widower 