Moorgate Station – 1st July 2022
I took these pictures at Moorgate station today.
The new entrance to the station, appears to be almost complete.
- 101 Moorgate, which is the building in front of the station, needs to be built.
- The area between the buildings needs to be landscaped.
This image from JRA Architects shows the space between 11 Moorgate and the new station entrance.
This image is from the South, whereas my pictures were taken from the North.
101 Moorgate is the white and ruby building on the right.
Gantry Removal At Moorgate Station – 18th June 2022
I took these pictures last night, as I came through Moorgate station.
It finally looks like the new entrance to Moorgate station is in the final phase.
The frontage of the building above seems complete and obvious to be installed include two escalators at the Southern end and Elizabeth Line signage.
It now looks like a new block will go up in front of the station. I would have preferred a nice square, with the bus stops alongside and a light-controlled crossing to the other side!
But then money is more important!
101 Moorgate
101 Moorgate is the new building between the new entrance to Moorgate station and Moorgate itself.
This page on the JRA Architects web site is entitled 101 Moorgate Crossrail Oversite Development, London EC2 and has a series of images of the finished development.
This image from JRA Architects shows the space between 101 Moorgate and the new station entrance.
101 Moorgate is the white and ruby building on the right.
In this image, there appears to be a gap between 101 Moorgate and the original Moorgate tube station entrance.
This image shows the Moorgate frontage of 101 Moorgate from the other side of the street.
The gap between the new and old looks substantial and will provide a high capacity route to the Elizabeth Line station entrance.
This Company Does What It Says In The Name
I took these pictures on Tottenham Court Road.
This is a Google Streetview from a few months ago.
I don’t think it will be missed. But it looks like another Crossrail related redevelopment.
One Broadgate – 9th April 2022
I haven’t walked down Eldon Street for some time from Moorgate to Liverpool Street station and last time, there was an office block on the North side of the street.
Note.
- Yesterday, there was just a large hole there, which will be filled by the new development of One Broadgate.
- The silver building in the background of many of these pictures is 5 Broadgate, which is the London offices of UBS.
- One Broadgate will be a ten story development.
- The development will be a mixed development with retail and leisure on the lower floors and offices above.
- The last three pictures show the developing plaza in front of Broadgate, with another new development in the South-West corner.
Despite Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and now the Russian attack on Ukraine, there seems to be no letup in the building of new offices in London.
Oversite Development At Moorgate Station – 10th December 2021
These pictures were taken in Moorgate of the development over the station.
I was walking up from Bank station.
Crossrail: Report Finds Not Enough Money To Finish Project
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These are the first two paragraphs.
The cost of completing Crossrail exceeds available funding, the government spending watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office (NAO) estimates the cost of the new rail link will be between £30m and £218m above the current funding.
After such a good start with the tunneling and surface line going well, how did we get here?
My main business for nearly forty years was writing project management software and that gave me a deep insight into the dynamics and mathematics of large projects.
The software, I created in the 1970s; Artemis was deeply involved in the most important project of the time; North Sea Oil.
But then more by luck, than any judgement on my part, it was well suited to solving the management problems of North Sea Oil.
The software ran on a small Hewlett-Packard mini-computer with an attached display and a printer, whose footprint, gave Artemis an advantage over competitors who needed a mainframe, for which there was no office space in Aberdeen.
I had first got involved in scheduling resources at ICI about five years earlier and because from previous experience I knew resources would be critical, I gave the program extensive resource aggregation and scheduling capabilities.
I have been told that the latter proved invaluable in successfully developing North Sea Oil. People may have been flattering me, but I do know that Shell used to ensure that all their suppliers used Artemis, so they could check easily if they were being told the truth.
I suspect that Shell and others used the aggregation capability to see that they weren’t overloading the pool of available labour.
Artemis definitely proved itself capable of handling the various projects in the North Sea.
We have now moved on forty years, but has project management moved on to cope with the advances in technology of the modern world?
As with North Sea Oil in Aberdeen, in the 1970s, Crossrail and other large projects like Berlin’s new Brandenburg Airport will always have a need for large numbers of resources, be they men, materiel or machines.
I have some questions.
- Do all contractors working on Crossrail use the same software?
- Does Crossrail have the right to inspect the contractors project management systems?
- Is the upward reporting what it needs to be?
- Does the software the contractors use, have an aggregation capability?
- Do Crossrail track and predict the resources needed?
Someone I respect told me, that a lot of modern project management software doesn’t even have an aggregation capability- Enough said!
I must admit, aggregation and scheduling software is difficult to write, so it might be easier to cut it out and let your clients muddle through!
But The Tunnels Were Built On Time And On Budget!
It all started so well, with the first part of the project, which was the boring of the tunnels being completed on time and on budget.
Observing the project, as I did and picking up information from engineers working on the tunnels and various magazines and television programs, I have to come to the conclusion, that the credit for the on time and budget completion must be down to excellent planning.
- I don’t remember any delays or problems reported in the tunneling. Was that good planning and surveying or luck?
- There were few if any articles on the BBC or in the Standard complaining about the problems the tunneling was inflicting on Londoners.
- The planners realised there could be a shortage of workers qualified to work underground, so they built the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy at Ilford, which I wrote about in Open House – TUCA.
Certainly, St Barbara, who is the patron saint of tunnellers looked after the project and its builders.
Worsening The Resource Problem
Crossrail, the Greater London Authority and the Boroughs should have been monitoring this growing resource problem, but I doubt they were in anything other than a perfunctory way!
Instead the politicians were giving planning permission to anybody with money, who wanted to build a shiny new development close to a station.
These projects would need more men, materiel or machines.
As many of these new developments are backed by companies or funds with bottomless pockets to get their developments finished they were prepared to pay more for their labour.
So labour has been deserting Crossrail in droves, thus further delaying the project.
Senior politicians in the Greater London Authority and the boroughs should accept some responsibility for Crossrail’s delay.
They didn’t need to withhold the planning permission, just say that construction of the other projects couldn’t commence until an appropriate phase of Crossrail was open.
In some parts of the world, brown envelopes will have changed hands, but it would be nice to know how many mayors and senior politicians have had holidays in places, they would not normally visit.
Senior project managers tell me, that they would not be surprised if developments along Crossrail had delayed the project.
The Covid Problem
No-one saw Covid coming, except possibly the Chinese.
But good project management is all about negotiating the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
There is the story of the miniMetro production line.
The first body shells coming out of the automated welder were crooked and it turned out that the machine had hit a motorway bridge in Germany. But by good project management using Artemis, British Leyland engineers were able to get the second line working correctly before the first and the car was launched on time.
With Covid, the Mayor shut construction, and it was some months before it restarted again.
I am certain, that with good project management we could have done better.
Covid is also a good excuse for lateness.
On the other hand good project management got the vaccines developed, manufactured and delivered into arms.
Covid also blew a big hole in Transport for London’s finances.
But then so did Sadiq Khan’s Fare Freeze, that brought him to office.
Could Crossrail Have Part-Opened Earlier?
I often ponder this and others ask me if it would be possible.
The Victoria Line was built with crossovers and it was able to open in phases.
Crossrail has crossovers in the following places.
- Either side of Custom House station
- To the West of Whitechapel station
- Between Farringdon and Tottenham Court Road stations
Note.
- It doesn’t appear to have been built for part opening.
- From media reports, it appears Whitechapel station is the basket case in the East.
The answer is probably that Crossrail can’t be part-opened, but there are good reasons, why it should be opened earlier.
- To generate a small amount of revenue.
- To give travellers and Londoners in general a lift.
The only practical service would be a few trains turning at Farringdon.
Conclusion
I blame politicians for Crossrail being late and over budget.
Walking Between Oxford Circus And Tottenham Court Road Stations – 19th February 2021
Today, I walked down Oxford Street from Oxford Circus station to Tottenham Court Road station.
Note the pictures in the middle of the walk of the new Western entrance to Tottenham Court Road station, which will be on Crossrail.
This article on Construction Enquirer is entitled Galliard To Start £55m London Soho Resi Job.
- 92 flats, a large store and smaller retail spaces.
- Look at the pictures in the Construction Enquirer article and it looks to be a building that is not out of scale.
- Ideal for Crossrail and the Northern and Central Line.
- A hundred metres from the flagship stores of Marks & Spencer and Primark on Oxford Street.
- All the colour and food of Soho at the back door.
- Buses outside the front door to Euston, Kings Cross, Paddington and St. Pancras.
Who was it said, that the three most important points about a property are location, location and location?
Go-ahead For £900m London Bishopsgate Goodsyard
The title of this post, is the same as that, of this article on Construction Enquirer.
It seems a good scheme.
- Mixed-use urban quarter.
- 500 homes, half affordable.
- 1.4m sq ft of workspace
- Public park sitting on top of restored historic railway arches
- Six acres of public realm.
There is only one major problem, as far as I can see. – If Crossrail is still running late, this project could further delay it, by stealing the resources needed to finish the job.
Yet again, the Mayor has given planning permission to a project that could delay Crossrail, by stealing its resources.
Planning permission, should be conditional on Crossrail being finished.
A Central Line Connection To The East London Line At Shoreditch High Street Station
Shoreditch High Street station will be very close to the development.
There will be twenty trains per hour (tph) on London Overground’s East London Line.
Under Future Proposals in the Wikipedia entry for the station, this is said.
There have also been discussions of creating an interchange with the Central line between Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green which runs almost underneath the station. However, this would not be able to happen until after the Crossrail 1 project is complete, due to extreme crowding on the Central line during peak hours.
I think it will be a good idea, to create the connection.
Walking Along Moorgate – 30th September 2020
I took these pictures as I walked from North to South along Moorgate today from the bus stop by Finsbury Square.
Note.
- I did cross the road three times.
- The building site behind the blue hoardings in some of the first pictures, looks like it could be another tall building.
- The tower looming in the background of several of the pictures is Citypoint, which was originally built in 1967 and refurbished in 2000.
- The new looking building, with the Barclays branch at street level, is not new but another refurbished building, that has been finished in the last few months.
- The older red and white building is Moorgate station. There is nothing to indicate that this building will be rebuilt.
- The odd shaped building to the South of the station is Moor House.
- A large new entrance to the station, with an office block on top is being built between the original station entrance and Moor House.
- Between the new station entrance and Moorgate, 101 Moorgate is being built.
There is certainly, a lot of all types of property development going on at Moorgate station, which after Crossrail opens will become the Western entrance to the Crossrail station at Liverpool Street station.
This 3D Google Map shows Moorgate.
101 Moorgate is marked with a red arrow.
A Crossrail Video Of Liverpool Street Station
This video shows the design of Crossrail’s Liverpool Street station.
This screen-capture from the video shows a possible future Moorgate.
Note the new buildings at 101 Moorgate and the current Moorgate station.
These are related posts on the design of the Crossrail station at Moorgate and Liverpool Street.
- London’s First Underground Roller Coaster
- Moorgate Is Being Refurbished In Readiness For Crossrail
- Has The Possibility Been Created For A Pedestrian Tunnel Between Bank And Moorgate Stations?
The station could become the major one for the City of London.
Extending the Northern City Line To The South
This was intended by the builders of the Northern City Line and they intended to take the route to just North of Bank station at Lothbury.
In the Wikipedia entry for Moor House, this is said.
Completed in 2004, it was the first building to be designed for the forthcoming Crossrail, with a ventilation shaft to the station underneath the building. When built, it had the deepest foundations in London, which reach down 57 metres (187 ft) and are specifically designed to withstand further tunneling below it in the future.
I suspect that could mean that Moor House won’t get in the way of any further railway development.
In the Wikipedia entry for the Northern City Line, this is said about possible developments planned after World War 2.
After the war there were proposals to extend the Northern City Line north and south. The London Plan Working Party Report of 1949 proposed several new lines and suburban electrification schemes for London, lettered from A to M. The lower-priority routes J and K would have seen the Northern City Line extended to Woolwich (Route J) and Crystal Palace (Route K), retaining the “Northern Heights” extensions to Edgware and Alexandra Palace. The lines would have run in small-diameter tube tunnels south from Moorgate to Bank and London Bridge. The “K” branch would have run under Peckham to Peckham Rye, joining the old Crystal Palace (High Level) branch (which was still open in 1949) near Lordship Lane. Nothing came of these proposals, and the Edgware, Alexandra Palace and Crystal Palace (High Level) branches were all closed to passengers in 1954. As a result, the Northern City Line remained isolated from the rest of the network.
Note.
- The proposed J branch to Woolwich has been covered by Crossrail calling at both Moorgate and Woolwich.
- The proposed K branch to Peckham Rye and Crystal Palace has been covered by Crossrail and the London Overground with a change at Whitechapel.
So why bother to open up the possibility by designing Moor House for more tunnels to be bored?
As the London Plan Working Party Report of 1949 indicated several more lines and electrification were proposed.
Also during the war several deep-level shelters were built under Underground stations. Wikipedia says this about the background to the shelters.
Each shelter consists of a pair of parallel tunnels 16 feet 6 inches (5.03 m) in diameter and 1,200 feet (370 m) long. Each tunnel is subdivided into two decks, and each shelter was designed to hold up to 8,000 people. It was planned that after the war the shelters would be used as part of new express tube lines paralleling parts of the existing Northern and Central lines. Existing tube lines typically had 11-foot-8.25-inch (3.56 m) diameter running tunnels and about 21 feet (6.4 m) at stations; thus the shelter tunnels would not have been suitable as platform tunnels and were constructed at stations the new lines would have bypassed. However, they would have been suitable as running tunnels for main-line size trains. (One existing tube, the Northern City Line opened in 1904, used a similar size of tunnel for this reason, although in fact main-line trains did not use it until 1976.)
Shelters were planned on the Northern Line at Belsize Park, Camden Town, Goodge Street, Stockwell, Clapham North, Clapham Common, and Clapham South on the Northern Line. Did London Transport do a full survey of the Northern Line before the war and leave documents saying where an express Northern Line could be easily built.
My mother told me about these plans and as her best friend worked in Personnel at London Transport, she probably knew more than the average suburban housewife, who worked part-time for my father as a book-keeper.
After Crossrail opens and Moorgate station and the Bank station Upgrade are completed will it be possible to bore two new full-size tunnels underneath the Northern Line and Moor House and other buildings on the route to create a Northern Line Express service?
Consider.
- The tunnels would be very deep and suitable for full-size trains.
- Moorgate, Bank and London Bridge stations will have all been rebuilt in the last twenty years, so hopefully, they have been built to allow tunnels for a Northern Line Express service to pass through.
- The Northern Line Express would take the pressure off the City Branch of the Northern Line?
- Initially, the line might terminate under London Bridge station in perhaps a two platform station.
- Modern digital signalling would allow up to 24 trains per hour (tph) on the section between London Bridge and Alexandra Palace station and 12 tph on the Welwyn Garden City and Stevenage branches
It would be a lot easier to build than Crossrail 2 and would give some of the benefits.
An Extension To North Cheam?
The Wikipedia entry for Morden station has this paragraph.
A post-war review of rail transport in the London area produced a report in 1946 that proposed many new lines and identified the Morden branch as being the most overcrowded section of the London Underground, needing additional capacity. To relieve the congestion and to provide a new service south of Morden, the report recommended construction of a second pair of tunnels beneath the northern line’s tunnels from Tooting Broadway to Kennington and an extension from Morden to North Cheam. Trains using the existing tunnels would start and end at Tooting Broadway with the service in the new tunnels joining the existing tunnels to Morden. The extension to North Cheam would run in tunnel. Designated as routes 10 and 11, these proposals were not developed by the London Passenger Transport Board or its successor organisations.
Perhaps, the solution would be to bore two new deep full-size tunnels from Moorgate to Tooting Broadway.
- The Northern Line Express trains couldn’t continue to Morden, as they would be too big for the existing tunnels.
- So they would have to turn back at Tooting Broadway station.
- The stations between Kennington and Morden, that are in need of improvement could be updated.
- I would design the interchange between Northern Line Express and Northern Line trains at Tooting Broadway station as a step-free cross-platform interchange.
The Wikipedia entry for North Cheam station, describes the extension to the station.
- It would have been in tunnel from Morden.
- There would be an intermediate station at Morden South station.
- It didn’t think much of the economics.
- I would suspect that the tunnel would run under the A 24.
- The tunnel would be just under three miles long.
I wonder, if the extra distance, made operation of the line easier.
I estimate that a train could go from Morden to North Cheam stations and back in under ten minutes.
- This would allow 6 tph with a single tunnel and track between the two stations.
- The two new stations; North Cheam and Morden South could be single platform.
- The signalling could be simplified.
The extension could be more affordable.
Plans For North Kensington Crossrail Station Back On Track
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on London News Online.
The first two paragraphs say it all.
Proposals for north Kensington to get its own station on the long-delayed Crossrail project have been put back on track.
Kensington and Chelsea council has confirmed it is in talks with Network Rail on producing a feasibility study that could lead to the “Kensal Portobello Station” being built.
According to Wikipedia, if this station is built it will be called Ladbroke Grove station. Wikipedia says this about its location.
In March 2017, it was announced TfL was considering a Crossrail station in Kensal on site of a former gasworks and would be between Old Oak Common and Paddington.
The article says this about the precise location and plans for the area.
Canal Way, near the Kensington Gas Works and a Sainsbury’s superstore, is being eyed up as a location for the station.
Meanwhile, the council’s 2019 Local Plan refers to the area as the ‘Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area’, and says 3,500 homes could eventually be built there.
This is a Google Map of the area.
Note.
- The Grand Union Canal curving East-West in the top half of the map.
- There looks to be a substantial amount of green algae in the canal.
- The Great Western Main Line passing East-West in the bottom half of the map.
- Kensington Gas Works, a cleared site and a Sainsbury’s superstore, lie between the canal and the railway.
- Canal Way threads itself through to the North of the railway.
Crossrail uses the Northern pair of tracks closest to Canal Way.
Access To The Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area
Consider.
- Canal Way doesn’t appear to have easy access at the Western end of the site.
- Canal Way connects at the Eastern end to a roundabout on Ladbroke Grove.
- How many vehicle journeys are 3,500 homes going to generate?
- I have walked along the towpath of the Grand Union Canal.
I would feel that a Crossrail station to serve the development would improve access by a substantial amount.
This Google Map shows Canal Way and the railway.
Note.
- The Southern part of Sainsbury’s car park is at the top of the map.
- It would appear that there is space for a station.
- There appears to be a development site on the other side of the railway. Would a foot-bridge over the railway be a good idea?
The station would probably be served by between six and ten trains per hour.
Exploring The North Side Of The Railway
These pictures were taken on the North Side of the Railway, as I walked up Ladbroke Grove and into the Sainsbury’s site.
Is the traffic congestion always this bad?
Ladbroke Grove Station Site From The Railway
I took these pictures from a Crossrail train, running towards Paddington.
There would appear to be space for a station.
Conclusion
Because of the number of homes proposed for the site and the limited access, I feel that a station at this location is essential. Especially, as cars and buses seemed to be taking fifteen minutes to enter and exit the site.
I also think, there needs to be a pedestrian bridge over the railway to separate the pedestrians from the traffic.
The Anonymous Widower 