What Are The Retail Implications Of Crossrail?
The title of this post is from an article in Retail Week.
This article is typical of what we will see in the coming months, as commentators and analysts realise what effects Crossrail is going to have on London and the South East.
The enormity of the project is summed up by this paragraph in the article in Retail Week.
There are 40 construction sites in total and 1,700 companies involved – all the major developers are in on the act, and Transport for London is leading. London will be the greatest beneficiary, but the potential value of the Crossrail project to the wider UK economy is estimated at £42bn.
I think that most Londoners don’t know the effect that Crossrail will have on the city.
If you compare the figures with the Olympics, this article on the BBC says the 2012 Olympics cost £9bn and the UK economy received a boost in trade and investment of £9.9bn. For comparison purposes, the budget for Crossrail is £14.8bn.
It will be interesting to see what the true audited figures for Crossrail are in about 2020.
If they are this good, then we should be looking for more projects like this, all over the country.
Will The Northern Line Extension Open Before Crossrail?
That is what this article in Global Rail News is saying.
It looks to me like some clever project manager has examined the critical path and found a way to build it quicker.
Or could it be, that Crossrail has shown that digging tunnels through London has got a lot easier since they built the Jubilee Line Extension, as tunnel boring machines are now much bigger and faster? Crossrail have also shown how stations can be built independently of the actual railway, as commercial projects, at the same time as the railway is being dug or fitted out.
From Wikipedia too, it would appear that both station sites are not cramped and hemmed in by existing buildings.
So are we going to have a race between the Northern Line Extension and Crossrail, to see which opens first?
I think that Crossrail will open first, as it is a big project that has almost got successfully past the difficult parts and there are still questions to be asked of the Northern Line Extension, before construction can start.
One thing that might delay the Northern Line Extension is to build the line to Clapham Junction station in the first phase, rather than as a second one.
Is The East London Line Big Enough For Crossrail?
Over the last couple of years, whilst the Metropolitan, Circle and District lines have been getting new larger S Stock trains, the overcrowding has been reducing and the comfort has been increasing.
Whereas two years ago, I would have never done it, nowadays, if I’m coming from say Paddington or as yesterday from Embankment in the rush hour, I’ll take a train to Whitechapel and then a short dive into the Overground for a train to Dalston Junction. Incidentally, do Transport for London have naming problem here, with the Overground passing under the Underground.
From Dalston Junction, it’s then just two stops on any of one of four bus routes, one of which is the New Bus for London equipped 38. I usually wait no longer than two minutes.
It’s not the quickest route, but it’s certainly the most comfortable way to come home and if you have a case or heavy parcel, it’s one of the easiest.
In a few years time, Crossrail will join the knitting at Whitechapel, and the interchange there between the various lines will become totally step-free or at a worst case escalators. So my trip home from Oxford Street will be Crossrail to Whitechapel and then the Overground.
But as the East London line of the Overground goes from Highbury & Islington station in the north to a large number of stations deep in the south, will the line be able to cope? I suspect, I won’t be the only person to use Crossrail as an extra Underground line.
From the end of this year the trains on the East London line are going to five cars, but will we be needing an increase in frequency from the current sixteen trains per hour through the core section through Whitechapel? Longer trains are probably ruled out by the difficulty of lengthening the platforms at some stations on the line.
The Ugly Duckling Is Coming To The Aid Of HS2
I’ve called the Overground an ugly ducking that is turning in to a swan before and today, it would appear that it is getting the chance to help out the troubled and unloved HS2. A study has been announced on the Global Rail News website entitled Overground Station For Old Oak Common. Here’s the start of the report.
WSP has been appointed to begin the next stage of planning for a new London Overground station at Old Oak Common.
The consultant is to carry out a Grip 3 study of three options with the hope of establishing the best solution to connect Overground services with the proposed HS2 and Crossrail interchange.
An interchange station at Old Oak Common would certainly make it easier for the good burghers of Hackney and other forgotten areas to access HS2 and Heathrow Airport.
But surely compared to the billions being spent on Crossrail and HS2, a simple interchange station, with links to the Overground, would just be small change. Wikipedia says this.
Proposals being considered by Transport for London include a scheme to realign the routes of the West London and North London line around the Old Oak Common site to create a new London Overground interchange station. The proposal envisages diverting the NLL Richmond route to curve around the eastern side of Old Oak Common, and re-routing the WLL to branch west south of the Mitre Bridge before curving north along a short section of the Dudding Hill Line to join the West Coast Main Line. New platforms serving both the NLL and WLL would be built on the southern side of Old Oak Common, adjacent to Wormwood Scrubs. Alternative versions of this scheme also consider cheaper options such as terminating the WLL at Old Oak Common or two separate London Overground stations.
But perhaps the great and the good don’t want to allow the various plebs and hoi polloi better transport links. They may have also noted that a new station would give better access to Wormwood Scrubs Prison for visitors and escapees.
If Old Oak Common is created as a major interchange, then surely the Gospel Oak to Barking services of the Overground, should be extended at least to the new station. And what about the Dudding Hill line, that passes through the area. Could it finally have found a use except for the odd freight train?
All of this says to me that an Overground station at Old Oak Common is a no-brainer, but then politicians don’t do no-brainers.
The DLR’s Superb New Station
The new Pudding Mill Lane station has now opened.
It is not fully open yet, as the lifts need to be tested and approved. But otherwise it is a station of which everyone can be proud. I think it is another example of how architects are creating quite a few new quality train and bus stations.
Note how the old station is now almost gone to allow Crossrail to emerge from underneath London.
How Will Crossrail And The Central Line Link At Stratford?
I took this picture as I passed through Stratford station this morning.
Interchange To The Central Line At Stratford
I had intended to take pictures of the work at Pudding Mill Lane station, but the train windows were so dirty, I didn’t see anything worthwhile.
But it got me thinking as to how Crossrail and the Central Line will link at Stratford.
Will for instance, the two lines share an island platform for each direction, as they do now?
I think, that on the record of London’s interchanges of the past few years, the planners will come up with a good plan that works well.
More Assembled Concrete At Custom House Station
Every time I go to have a look at the new Custom House Station for Crossrail, there is a lot of evidence of progress.
If they do organise a site visit in Open House, this could be one to view.
Pudding Mill Lane Station – 21st April 2014
This weekend is the big weekend for the new Pudding Mill Lane station on the Docklands Light Railway. I took these pictures on the trains to and from Ipswich yesterday.
It is slated to open on Monday the 28th. Nothing I’ve seen or heard makes me think that this date won’t be kept to create one of the main entry stations for the Olympic Park.
The old station was just about visible. Soon everything will be being Crossrail‘s ubiquitous blue hoardings to allow the tunnel portal and its links to the Great Eastern Main line to be built.
A Slow Train From Shenfield
My train back from Ipswich was a stopping one and stopped at Shenfield, before crawling its way to the next stop at Stratford.
So I got a good look at all the stations in between and I think it is true to say, that for many Crossrail can’t come soon enough.
A lot of the stations have simple staircases with no lifts to provide access between the platforms and the street.
At least though the improvements that are programmed, can be done to a convenient schedule without waiting for the main tunnels to be fitted out and the arrival of the new trains.
Some Transport Related April Fools
This year was particularly good for April Fools in the papers and around the Internet. The Times today even has a discussion on the Letters Page today, about which of their stories yesterday were real.
There were three transport-related stories, that I found.
1. Wombles fan plays April Fool’s Day joke in Kensal Green
2. Councils at loggerheads over Croxley Rail Link viaduct colour scheme
3. Like A Bat Out Of Crossrail
It is good to see that gentle humour isn’t dead yet!
The Anonymous Widower 