Some Sense On HS2
There is a report on the BBC, which says that a new station could be built at Old Oak Common to link HS2 and Crossrail. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
Views are being sought on plans for a High Speed 2 and Crossrail station in west London, as part of a scheme it is claimed could create up to 90,000 jobs.
Greater London Authority is consulting residents on the plan for Old Oak, which it says will generate jobs and see thousands of homes built.
I think it’s a good idea and I suspect many others will too, especially, as it will allow the creation of lots of much needed new homes and jobs in the capital.
Other points include.
- This station would take the pressure off Euston as many passengers coming from or going to the North on HS2 would probably prefer to change to Crossrail for the London end of their journey.
- Would less traffic through Euston mean that the need to rebuild Euston station and its dreadful connections to the Underground, could be sensibly delayed?
- If there is less pressure on Euston, the need for Crossrail 2 is probably less.
- It creates a one change connection between the North and Heathrow Airport.
- If a Thames Estuary Airport is built, then I suspect that would be linked to Crossrail, so that is just one change too.
- This plan creates a link between large areas of West London to long distance rail services, especially if the West London and North London lines were to be improved.
But it does show even more that we need some holistic planning, which sorts out London, its railways and airports for the next thirty years or so.
If you look at the area on a map, you will find that the area is served by several railway lines at present including the Great Western Main Line, the West Coast Main Line, the London Overground and even the Central and Bakerloo Lines of the London Underground. There would also appear to be large areas of industrial land, that would probably be ripe for development.
An Impressive Argument For A Thames Estuary Airport
I’ve just read this article in Airport World, which makes an impressive argument for a new four-runway London Airport in the Thames Estuary.
It just strengthens my belief that before we decide on the route of HS2, we must first decide what we are doing to create more runway capacity in the South East.
Is It Cheaper To Use An Out Of London Dentist?
I’ve gone to the same dentist in Felixstowe off and on for nearly thirty years. I don’t have any specific problems, but I felt that because of this long and excellent experience, that it would be best for me to return, as my previous dentist in London has sold his business and retired.
Today it cost me £33.25 for the First Class ticket to Felixstowe and the private check-up was £18. That was all I spent, although when I visited my London dentist, I usually treated myself to lunch in Carluccio’s round the corner from his surgery.
Progress On The Bacon Factory Curve
I went to Felixstowe today, to see my dentist. After changing at Ipswich, I was able to get some pictures of work on the new chord allowing freight trains leaving the Felixstowe branch to go straight towards Stowmarket, Ely and Cambridge. More details are given here.
I must say the pictures were better than last time I tried as the Class 153; Benjamin Britten, seemed to have had its windows cleaned.
The Beach Comes To St. Pancras
I took this picture at St. Pancras station yesterday on my way to Broadstairs.
The Beach Comes To St. Pancras
There didn’t appear to be a spare deck-chair.
Off To Broadstairs Today
In a moment, I leave for St. Pancras to get the fast train to Broadstairs, ostensibly to have lunch and a few sherbets with an old mate.
I have memories of the town, where we used to go to visit my father’s brother. I always thought that he never fathered any children, until I met one of his grandsons, who traced back to a wartime bigamous marriage. Every family has skeletons and mine has more than most.
The strangest thing now, is that when I go on a trip like this, I now make sure the house is tidy before I leave.
Putting The Cart Before The Horse
The Standard is reporting tonight, that Lord Mandelson has changed his mind over the building of HS2. Here’s a flavour.
In an extraordinary public U-turn, he confessed the costings were “almost entirely speculative” when Gordon Brown’s Cabinet backed the idea.
Ministers wanted a “bold commitment to modernisation” after the financial crash, he said, and ignored the potential risks of what now looked like “an expensive mistake”.
But then as Gordon Brown didn’t have the financial acumen to run a whelk stall, what do you expect?
I’ve always been slightly cynical about HS2 and feel if it ever gets built, it won’t be as is now envisaged.
But one thought struck me, as I read the article and it gave rise to the title of this post.
My background is in Project Management, which is all about getting things build the right way and in the correct order. Judging by all the arguments about how Heathrow Airport will link in to HS2, it struck me as strange that we are deciding the route of HS2 before we decide if we’re going to build a new airport for London.
Look at any option, with the possible exception of a third runway at Heathrow and we’ll have to revamp the railways around London, to create links to the North.
Strangely in a few years time, when the Midland Main Line is electrified, Sheffield will have the best links to a London airport, of any northern city. I suspect they’ll be running trains from Sheffield to Brighton, which of course will stop at Gatwick.
That just shows how well politicians plan transport networks.
They haven’t really done anything to solve the North-South problems we currently have and what will happen to construction methods in the near future.
HS2 is initially planned to go from London to Birmingham, but that route has one high speed 200 kph line and a convenient slower one. As I found last week, when I went to Birmingham, it’s a good service and a lot of the problems are on their way to being solved. I wonder what amount of traffic, an upgraded and electrified Chiltern Main Line could carry, thus delaying the need for HS2 to Birmingham!
But go North from Birmingham to Manchester, Liverpool and ultimately Scotland and there is a real lack of capacity. Admittedly, Virgin’s lengthened trains and a few new ones will help, but that line will probably be the first part of the West Coast Main Line to get totally overloaded.
So perhaps we should build it from North to South as some have proposed.
A very real problem is the cess-pit at the London end of the line; Euston. It was built on the cheap in the 1960s and needs a complete rebuild. Rebuilding Euston and building HS2 at the same time, would be a recipe for disaster.
And then there’s the problem of freight capacity, which is going to get worse, as some idiot decided to build the UK’s largest container port at London Gateway, in a place which is difficult to get to by rail,as most trains will have to fight their way through London. You could argue that the proposal to run freight trains on the old Grand Central Line by a company called Central Railway, should have been built as a freight spine first.
Building this line, would probably have taken a lot of the freight off the West Coast Main Line, so giving us the extra passenger capacity we need, at least as far as Manchester and Liverpool for a few years.
As with many things in Project Management, you don’t let politicians be involved in the design or choose the order you do something!
I always remember the building of the Lewisham Extension of the Docklands Light Railway. The contractors were told it had to link various holes in the ground and cost under a certain amount. The politicians then stood back and it was delivered on time at an acceptable price. Not like the Jubilee Line Extension, which was built at a similar time and suffered endless interference from politicians.
One of my laws of project management states that the more political or board level interference in a project, the later and more costly the project will be. If however those at the top lay down a feasible specification with rigid time and cost limits, the project will more likely be delivered successfully.
The Trains Are Learning From Formula One
This is message on a BBC report today, but it’s a rather shallow one, as it ignores the way engineers have designed systems for years. They are saying for instance, that trains now report their fault and they’ve learned this from Formula One. But trains have effectively had extensive computerised reporting systems for years. A classic example is the 1995 Stock trains on the Northern Line of the Underground, which were designed with such a system. How good it is, I don’t know!
A lot of improvements in any system, are down to attention to detail and that is probably what Formula One does in spades. But that is just good design! I was on a heavily loaded commuter train yesterday, and the station stops, were very quick, partly because, the train accelerated and stopped quickly, the passenger handholds were all in the right place, the doors were wide and the self-loading cargo, knew how to get on and off quickly.
I suspect this has little to do with Formula One, but some of the parts of the train, may well have been manufactured using advanced techniques developed for motor-racing.
The Joy Of Not Driving
There was this report on the BBC tonight. It says that over the last three years, there has not been a single day, when there wasn’t a closure of the M25. In fact, it’s worse than that, as this paragraph shows.
In fact, the Highways Agency does not even know when it last managed a day when the road was not shut in some way or other.
I’m very glad, I don’t drive.
I haven’t taken as many enjoyable trips by train, like the one to Birmingham last week, as the weather has been so bad, it’s been better to stay at home.
The Anonymous Widower 