The Engineering and Architecture of CrossRail
My previous post about CrossRail may give the impression, that I’m rather against the project.
I’m not, as I believe it will really open up London to residents, commuters and tourists. The only problem is it won’t be fully open until 2018 or so.
Railways should always go through a major city, rather than have expensive stations on the ends of two radial lines. It’s cheaper in terms of capital cost and ensures that the expensive trains work harder. Thameslink does this on a North-South basis and CrossRail will do it on an East-West basis, with an major interchange between the two lines at Farringdon station.
Modern Railways this month has a major section on the CrossRail project. It is a fascinating read, which describes how the railway is being threaded from one side of the London to the other and the designs of the various stations on the route.
The biggest conclusion I get after reading the report, is that this a project that although built to a tight budget, will be something of which London will be proud and will be something that can grow and grow as the City demands more transport links. From the pictures in the article it would appear that the visible face of the railway will be impressive and not like the rather utilitarian Victoria line. On the other hand a lot of the design is more on the side of the practical and well-thought, rather than the spectacular, such as seen on some parts of the Jubilee line.
I also feel that particular attention is being paid to the management of the whole project and this has allowed the cost to be reduced by a billion pounds or so, by taking slightly longer. Hopefully, this will also enable the project to be built on time, but these days, we are getting a much better record at completing large projects on time, so I wouldn’t be suprised if the engineers adjusted the project to increase the certainty of an on-time completion.
But that is good project management!
With my history in the field of project management, CrossRail seems to be a project, I’d have enjoyed getting my teeth into.
Is This Why It’s Called CrossRail?
After my experiences last week of all the hold-ups and chaos in Oxford Street caused by CrossRail, it now appears that they are going to be responsible for a lot more problems in the Liverpool Street/Moorgate area. I took a 76 bus yesterday, that once it got to Moorgate became a tourist bus, with a tour of the Barbican. And coming back from Bank a 21 went all round the houses the other way.
I didn’t get particularly angry, but some wag will put a connection between getting cross with London’s new railway. To be fair, a lot of the problems are caused by unfamiliarity with the new walking routes and hopefully in a couple of months things will be better. The removal of the last of the dreaded bendy buses in the next few months will help, as all they seem to do is block junctions and light-controlled crossings.
The Tube Map In German
The Times publishes the work of an interprising academic today. It is the London Underground Tube Map translated into German. You can download it here.
He is not the first. There is another one here, which seems to have been designed after the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol and ham. Click on this map for explanations of the various names. I particularly like Southgate, for which the term “penalty misser” has been used.
A Circus Performer on a 141 Bus
When I was returning from Oxford Street yesterday, I took the route using the Central line via Bank and a 141 or 21 bus to the end of my road. It is an easier route especially, if you are laden down with parcels as I was.
I sat just behind the wheelchair bay and shared a seat with an attractive young lady, who was also travelling fairly heavily laden. She had the aura of being someone like a dancer or athlete and after we’d chatted for a few minutes, I asked what she did. She said she worked as a circus performer (An aerial artist no less!) and had just done a show in London and was returning home before going to Glastonbury, where she will be performing in the Circus Tent.
I’m posting this, because Danny Baker on Radio 5 Live, asked if people had ever met anybody from a circus.
So I now have!
Chaos In Oxford Street
I needed to get some towels and a couple of lamps from John Lewis yesterday evening, so I took my usual route of Overground to Highbury and Islington station and then the Victoria line to Oxford Circus.
For some years now, getting out of Oxford Circus station has been a nightmare, so much so that I used to get there by taking a Central line train to Bond Street instead and then walking backwards.
That is not really an option now, as they are rebuilding Bond Street station and the narrow pavements cluttered by smokers outside the stores are not an easy route.
So it was a walk up the stairs to Argyll Street and then across the centre of Oxford Circus. At least that crossing works well, but then the north side of Oxford Street was cluttered with smokers and locked up stalls, that sell junk.
It is not good and it never has been in my memory.
Some years ago, I proposed an alternative which was published as a long letter in the Evening Standard.
I read with interest an article in the Evening Standard yesterday and feel I should comment about a proposed monorail for Oxford Street.
I should explain that I am an engineer with a lot of experience of transport projects around the world, mainly because the software I wrote, Artemis, was used to plan them.
I am also an inveterate traveller and have experience of a very large number of cities around the world. That experience is usually as a tourist and includes the Sydney monorail, the escalators of Hong Kong and the underground walkways of Perugia. I should also say that I visit the Oxford Street area at least once a month for shopping, eating or business.
I will agree with the plan, where the monorail gives the whole street a connection and a focus, but I believe that a moving walkway suspended over the street below would be much more flexible and inherently better.
1. It could be built in stages, with perhaps a spectacular star over Oxford Circus as a first phase to move people from say Regent Street North to Oxford Street East and West without getting involved in the fearsome crowds at road level.
2. Walkways are basically hop-on and hop-off. So if you see a shop or something else that interests you, then all you do is wait to the next hop-off point and exit.
3. As the walkway progressed down Oxford Street, it could rise and fall so that it was level with the floors of the major stores. How much would John Lewis pay for an entrance at first floor level?
4. Stops would be much more frequent than a monorail.
5. Walkways are a fail-safe system in that when the motor breaks, the system is still walkable. What happens when a monorail breaks down as the Sydney system did when I rode it?
6. Walkways can add spurs as required to Conference Centres, attractions and also to move people well away from Oxford Street.
7. As they would run effectively from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch, they would take the pressure off the Central Line.
8. Just as in Hong Kong it would be covered in a clear plastic roof. Video screens could be included under the roof to sell advertising.
9. Security is important and I’m sure the Police would like a high-level walkway from which to view the crowds below.
10. Bulges and platforms could be attached to the walkway, so that cafes and other attractions could be setup. If access is provided to stores on route, there would be no problems as to servicing these cafes.
11. The whole system has to be commercial. Imagine a platform just by Selfridges which sells the Wallace Collection, with a down escalator pointing that way.
Admittedly, it was published partly as part of their campaign against the then mayor, but I believe the idea of an overhead moving walkway would improve the movement of pedestrians around the area.
Thinking about it six years after the original letter was published, there are other factors that now apply.
- Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street are to become major stations on Crossrail and they will probably discharge more people into the area making it worse. Especially, as many will be long-distance travellers trailing mobile obstacles behind them. The pavements are just not big enough.
- The Eastern end of Oxford Street is scruffier now and who would want to shop there, when there are shopping centres at Westfield and the soon to open, Eastfield, just a few stops away on the Central line.
Certainly, I can’t wait for Eastfield to open, as then I’ll be closer to a John Lewis.
You will see I call the new shopping centre at Stratford, Eastfield. It’s what many of the locals do, despite the fact that it’s promoted as Westfield Stratford City.
But then East is east and West is west and ne’er the twain shall meet.
Does A Blank Square Exist On An Ordnance Survey Map?
They are talking about the Ordnance Survey on BBC Breakfast this morning?
At my primary school, de Bohun in Southgate, there was a guy called Peter Laws. His parents were keen walkers and the family always scanned a new map to see if any of the one-kilometre squares on the map were blank. They had never found one!
But that was in 1958 or so!
So does a mythical blank square actually exist?
Every time I’ve bought a map in the last fifty years or so, I’ve always searched and never found one.
Christ Church Greyfriars
Tonight, I also had a look at Christ Church Greyfriars, the remains of which lies behind St. Paul’s. It wasn’t as lucky as its larger neighbour had been in the Blitz.
Like St. Luke’s in Liverpool it stands as a memorial to those who died and suffered in the Second World War.
St. Paul’s As I’ve Never Seen It Before
To me St. Paul’s is London’s church, if only because it stood unbowed to the Nazis as a symbol of defiance and hope.
Tonight though, in the evening sunlight, I saw it as I’d never seen it before in all its pristine beauty after a thorough cleaning.
The Newly-Cleaned St. Paul's
Thinking back, I don’t think I actually saw the cathedral until the 1960s, as my visits to Central London were usually fairly limited, despite living in the suburbs. As an example, I didn’t visit the Tower of London until I was probably twenty. And that was because I was showing a friend from University around.
A New Metropolitan Line Train
I took the North London Line today and changed onto the Jubilee line to get to Westminster today and was able to take this photo of one of the new Metropolitan line trains as it passed through West Hampstead station.
New Metropolitan Line Train at West Hampstead
I’m not sure how many of the new trains have been delivered, but from the outside it looked a lot better than the rather tired old trains you see on this and the other sub-surface lines.
The Anonymous Widower 