Getting Ready For The Flat Pack Station
Custom House station on Crossrail has been described as the flat-pack station, like in this article in the Standard. Here’s the first paragraph.
A £35 million “flatpack” station for Crossrail is being built hundreds of miles from London in a first for the rail industry.
The new station for Custom House is taking shape in a factory near Sheffield, pictured left, before being transported to London for assembly in 2015.
The question has to be asked, if they will be bringing the station to London by train.
The pictures show the state of the site, with lots of work going on.
If we can buy flat pack furniture from IKEA and their ilk, why can’t Crossrail use similar suppliers?
Phyllis And Ada To Be Buried Alive
This headline from a magazine, seems like something consistent with Halloween.
But it’s not!
The headline actually is from the Crossrail update on the back page of this month’s Modern Railways. It tells how, the two tunnelling machines; Ada and Phyllis, will be left in the ground rather than recovered. The two machines are named after Ada Lovelace and Phyllis Pearsall respectively.
This does seem to be a pity, especially, as they cost ten million pounds each, but getting some of them out will be a very difficult, dangerous and expensive job. I also suspect that there isn’t much of a second-hand market for specialist tunnelling machines, which generally seem to be built for a particular set of conditions and sizes. Crossrail are actually using two different types of machine for their project. There’s more about the tunnelling here.
Will Crossrail Overload The Docklands Light Railway?
After my visit to the new Canary Wharf Crossrail station on Saturday, I got thinking about the effect of the new line on the Docklands Light Railway.
A walkway will take passengers direct from Crossrail to Poplar station on the DLR. So would commuters from Essex and Kent going to the Bank area of the City, change at Canary Wharf for the DLR?
Only real figures, when Crossrail opens in a few years time, will give the answer.
I do think though that in a few years we’ll be talking about extending the DLR from Bank towards the west. These plans are discussed here in Wikipedia, but nothing has been firmed up yet. I suspect that if anything does get built it will be the link from Bank to Euston and St. Pancras, as this will open up a new route from Canary Wharf to the train lines to the north. But the uncertainty over HS2 doesn’t help in making this decision.
Inside Canary Wharf Crossrail Station
This was one of the must-see events in Open House.
The areas we saw were the bottom levels of Canary Wharf station where trains and passengers go. On the top of these floors is a large retail mall.
This is the future, where stations are more than just means to access the trains. The new Birmingham New Street station has another large retail mall on top and the new Crossrail station at Woolwich, is underneath masses of flats, as is my local station of Dalston Junction. Land is expensive, but digging down or building in the sky only increases its value and hopefully gives benefits to all of us.
Pudding Mill Lane Station – 20th August 2013
This set of pictures shows how fast Crossrail and the new Pudding Mill Lane station are progressing, when it is compared with pictures of just over a month ago.
The two tunnelling machines; Jessica and Ellie are soon to be on their way, or might have even left yet on their journey to Stepney Green.
The new station is looking like it will be one of the grandest on the Docklands Light Railway. According to this piece in Wikipedia, it will be completed this year.
As it will be one of the major stations for the Olympic Park and probably the closest to the stadium, I think we’ll start to see pressure to change the name or at least add a tag to Pudding Mill Lane like for West Ham United Stadium. After all there is a precedent at Gillespie Road station.
Crossrail Don’t Just Dig Tunnels
This report on the BBC, gives the latest progress on the archaeology program, that runs alongside Crossrail. Similar reports have also turned up all over the world including this one from India. So perhaps Crossrail is showing the world how to dig in more ways than one!
You have to congratulate Crossrail on their attitude to the past, which seems to be much better than other projects.
I suppose you could also be cynical, and say that they see the public relations as beneficial to getting the project done on time, as it minimises objections.
But who cares, if the project comes in on or under budget? Everybody!
The Crossrail Bypass Is Getting There
Over the last few weeks, I’ve travelled quite a few times on the Hammersmith and City branch of the Metropolitan line.
It used to be very much a line, that was past its best, with elderly C-Stock trains and dark and dingy stations.
But it is getting so much better, and I think now half the journeys I do on the line are in the new air-conditioned S Stock trains. In fact in this hot weather, I will use this line to avoid the deep tunnels, just like my father used to do.
We’ve also seen improvements to the stations, especially at Farringdon, Kings Cross and Paddington.
When Crossrail opens, it will link to the Hammersmith and City branch, at Whitechapel, Liverpool Street, Moorgate, Farringdon and Paddington stations, effectively giving Crossrail users, easy one-change access to a lot more stations.
It will truly be a Crossrail by-pass.
Canal Moorings With Their Own Station
When I came back from Reading into Paddington station yesterday, I walked to the back of the Inter City 125 train and took the bridge to the Metropolitan line station. Before catching my train to get home, I ventured outside to look at the new entrance, which has just opened.
As you can see the entrance is by the canal and the Paddington Basin. It’s obviously not finished yet and won’t be until Crossrail opens in a few years.
It is an area, that is crying out for a decent cafe, restaurant or bar.
Getting To The Madejski Stadium At Reading Is Getting Easier
I last went to the Madejski stadium at Reading a couple of years ago and it wasn’t an easy journey!
But today’s trip was a lot easier.
As the new Metropolitan line station at Paddington s now almost complete, I go to Paddington using that line, by getting a bus to either Barbican, Kings Cross or Euston Square stations. It’s then just a matter of walking over the bridge to the requisite platform.
I got a train direct to the new Reading station and then walked a couple of hundred metres to get one of the umpteen buses to the stadium.
The journey will probably get better, as the two stations are completed in a few years time.
Crossrail should also improve the journey, but I’m not sure how at present, as I’ll still have to do part of the journey by bus.
It’ll be interesting to see how I do this journey in a few years.
Crossrail Gets The PR Right Again
I have been following the difficult job that Crossrail are doing, where they are upgrading the Connaught Tunnel under the Royal Victoria Dock in East London. I even had a letter published in The Times about this important part of the line, after an opinion appeared in the paper, saying there were no women in senior positions.
Emma Duncan (Opinion, Feb 25) is wrong to assume that there are no women working in senior roles on the Crossrail project. Arguably one of the most difficult tunnelling jobs is the creation of a new tunnel out of the old Connaught Tunnel between and beneath the London Docks. The project manager in charge of this section is one Linda Miller (no relation).
So yesterday, I went down to see if I could see anything.
Digging For The Connaught Tunnel
Not much, as you can see.
They are however, following their usual policy of good PR, by providing a free shuttle bus for pedestrians around the workings, which have blocked the pedestrian route across the docks to Pontoon Dock DLR station.
The Anonymous Widower 