How Did They Do That?
Normally, the new five-coach trains have their new car inserted next to the end car at the northern end. So how did this train have its extra car inserted at the southern end?
Note how the interior of the new cars are brighter. The dull seats are those reserved for the elderly, disabled and pregnant.
As I don’t think there is a turning loop on the East London Line, the train was either modified this way or it was sent on a jolly somewhere, perhaps to test out compatibility with a new route or back to Bombardier for some special maintenance.
Since most of the trains on the East London Line are now five-car, it does seem that the trains are less crowded.
On the whole, this train lengthening would appear to passengers to have been a pretty painless exercise, although I’ve heard rumours of a few teething troubles with the trains.
According to some Transport for London documents, the trains will go to six-cars some time before 2030, so if that is as painless as the two previous extensions, it is a validation of the quality of Bombardier’s cut-and-shut design for the trains.
When Crossrail opens and is joined to the East London Line at Whitechapel, I have a feeling, that many more passengers will use the East London Line to access the new line to places like Heathrow and Paddington, so the extra capacity will be fully used.
When I grew up in London just after the war, you’d see a short line on the tube map that was the East London Line. Mo-one thought, that this line would become the expanding East London Line we have today.
Where will it go by say 2030?
It will probably be joined to the Central Line at Shoreditch High Street and there will be extra branches in both North and South to handle the twenty-four trains in each hour for which the infrastructure of the line is capable.
It all goes to show how you can sometimes create new rail lines without spending billions of pounds.
Crossrail and Thameslink may get all the publicity, but London Overground’s policy of continuous improvement on the East London Line, is a philosophy that could be copied on many railway lines in the UK, Europe and the wider world.
Dancing With Cranes And A Bridge With Help From Lego
I just had to put a link to this article on Rail Engineer, which is entitled Scarborough Bridge – Monte Carlo Or Bust.
It describes how the bridge that takes the York Scarborough railway line over the River Ouse in the medieval heart of York, was replaced over the half-term weekend in February, at a cost of six million pounds. This Google Earth image shows the centre of York.
York
The bridge is the one at the left of the image, with the station below it.
It was choreographed to an amazing degree and used three enormous mobile cranes squeezed into the car park by the bridge on the north bank of the river. Luckily the wind and the weather were kind and the project was completed on time. Perhaps, the most strange aspect of the project is told in this paragraph.
And then we should take our hats off to team member Eamon McAuley who literally built the bridge single-handed…albeit in Lego. It was remarkably detailed – including the track layout and little orange men with chainsaws – and could be deconstructed and rebuilt to follow the lifting sequence. Sitting as a centrepiece in the conference room, it proved more useful than a PowerPoint when explaining the challenges to visitors and stakeholders.
Anybody who said engineering isn’t fun, should hang their head in shame.
Thinking Big In Essex
I found this report in the Southend Echo from 2008 interesting.
It is a plan to link Canvey Island with the Hoo Peninsular in Kent using an immersed tube road and rail tunnel. This is an extract from the report.
Metrotidal’s blueprint seeks to combine the tunnel with new flood defences protecting London and a tidal power plant in the middle of the Thames Estuary.
This could support a new eco-town or generate enough power to operate a rail service through the tunnel, the consortium said.
This is a Google Earth image of the Thames south of Canvey Island.
The Thames South Of Canvey Island
The surprising thing is that the river isn’t that wide and is probably about a couple of kilometres.
There hasn’t been anything on the news in recent years, so I suspect that the plan is very much on the back burner.
But one day, a project like this will be built!
Crossrail 2 Through East London
TfL have now published their preferred route for Crossrail 2 and in this post I will detail, how I think it will affect East London.
In this post, I will refer to the Crossrail currently being built as Crossrail 1 to avoid confusion.
The Progression Of Large Projects
I have been around the management of large projects for just over forty years, since I wrote my first software system for project management in 1973. From talking to project managers over that time, I have come to various conclusions, some of which will certainly affect the realisation of Crossrail 2.
The second system I wrote; Artemis, was very much involved in providing the necessary management for the development of North Sea Oil. Project managers told me many times, that things were getting easier and more affordable because of the development of bigger and better rigs, platforms and lifting capabilities. In parallel better techniques and methods were also being developed.
I was also told many times, that doing the second, third or fourth version of something like a concrete production platform, got easier each time, especially if substantially the same team could be used.
Crossrail 2 Is The Next In A Long Line
You could argue that Crossrail 2 will be the latest in a succession of large tunnelling projects under London, since the Second World War.
1 The Victoria Line was bored in the 1960s and I can remember seeing film of the digging of both this line’s tunnels and those at Dartford on the television. Pleasant and safe working, it was not! The BBC have posted a 1969 documentary called How They Dug The Victoria Line on iPlayer. It is a must watch!
2. The Jubilee Line was bored in two sections and was completed as we see it now in 2000. In some ways it is the first modern line and stations in London, where some the latter were built to be architectural gems, like some of London’s pre-war stations.
3. Around the turn of the millennium, the Docklands Light Railway was also extended with two branches and four tunnels under the Thames. I have a feeling that the tunnels of the DLR are the first under London to have wholly concrete as opposed to all or partly iron or steel linings. This video, shows the tunnel from Bank to Shadwell.
4. The London tunnels of HS1, were completed in 2007 to St. Pancras and were the first full-size rail tunnels to be dug under London, since the Snow Hill Tunnel opened in 1866.
5. Over the last few years, the forty-two kilometres of tunnels for Crossrail 1 have been bored under London. Like HS1’s tunnels they are full-size with overhead electrification and hopefully non-corroding concrete linings.
These five tunnels show a constant progression of larger and better-designed and constructed tunnels, that have been built by using a succession of bigger and better machines.
You also have a tremendous base of knowledge built-up by companies, engineers and tunnel workers, which as the recent documentary on the BBC about Crossrail showed, includes families and individuals, who’ve worked on all these five tunnels and a good few others besides!
It is my belief that when the politicians press the Go-button on Crossrail 2, the tunnels will make a painless progression under London as Crossrail 2 sneaks along the defined route.
Crossrail 1 And Crossrail 2 Compared
At first sight, both Crossrails would appear to be two large tunnels and train lines across London, from where lines fan out into the wider suburbs and nearby towns and cities at each end.
But there are some major differences.
Crossrail 1 is much more complicated than Crossrail 2. I suspect some will argue that if they were designing Crossrail 1 today, it would be very different to what is being built. For instance, of the major rail terminals in London, it only serves Liverpool Street and Paddington. I think that the design of Crossrail 2 cleverly builds on Crossrail 1 and helps get over some of the earlier line’s deficiencies.
Crossrail 1 was designed in an era, where passengers needed booking offices in stations. In the last couple of years, the growth in contactless ticketing is showing that booking offices can be closed and the space used for more productive purposes.
Crossrail 1 chose to have the major tunnel portals at Royal Oak, Pudding Mill Lane and Plumstead which would appear to be much more cramped and congested sites than those of Crossrail 2 at Tottenham Hale, New Southgate and Wimbledon.
In addition the surface sections of Crossrail 1 would appear to require a lot more work to bring them up to modern standards, than similar parts of Crossrail 2.
This efficient simplicity in the design will keep costs, time-scales and disruption during the construction phase of Crossrail 2, to a much lower level than Crossrail 1.
Crossrail 1 was skilfully threaded through the mass of tunnels under London, as the BBC documentary showed. The engineers could have gone deeper to get under the Northern Line at Tottenham Court Road but for some reason they didn’t. Perhaps going deeper would have meant difficulties and extra costs in the design of stations. Crossrail 2 will have to go deeper in the Dalston area to get under High Speed One and it will also have to pass Crossrail 1 at Tottenham Court Road. The tunnels of High Speed One are at a depth of 34 to 50 metres, so will we see Crossrail 2 bored across London below all the other foundations and infrastructure?
Crossrail 1 by virtue of its route through Central London has necessitated the expensive rebuilding of quite a few stations. It has also needed expensive new stations at Canary Wharf, Woolwich and Custom House. On the other hand, Crossrail 2 would appear not to require so many stations to be completely rebuilt, as the three central stations of Euston/St. Pancras, Tottenham Court Road and Victoria, will have been or are being rebuilt for other reasons and like Angel will have been rebuilt with provision to link to Crossrail 2. This will save time and costs in construction and probably mean that the disruption caused by Crossrail 2 would be much less than Crossrail 1.
The big station reconstruction will be Euston for HS2 and that will cause massive disruption to everything. Making sure the new station will connect easily to Crossrail 2, is a small problem in the grand scheme of things.
When Crossrail 1 opens, Whitechapel station will be the Jewel In The East. And this will not be just about how the station was designed and will look, but about the way it was built. Instead of digging down from the current station to the new Crossrail 1 tunnels, the thirty metres or so long shaft for the escalators and lifts is being dug upwards from the tunnels, using a coal mining technique called uphill excavation.
Currently the escalators in London with the highest vertical rise are those at Angel station, which rise twenty-seven metres, but this is a dwarf compared to some of the longest in the world. Crossrail 2 looks certain to break London’s record.
Crossrail 2 Could Be A Very Deep Line
I think we could see an unprecedented deep tunnel for Crossrail 2 across London, with tunnels in places over fifty metres below the surface. By comparison, Crossrail 1 is thirty metres deep at Whitechapel, which is not as deep as the Saint Petersburg metro , which has one station at a depth of eighty-six metres.
No major station rebuilding, the digging of stations from the tunnel up, longer escalators and other smaller improvements in techniques and machines , lead me to the conclusion, that the central section of Crossrail 2 will be one deep tunnel that excavates its way to the surface mainly direct into existing Crossrail 2-ready stations.
It will be a very cost effective and hopefully much quicker way of building a railway under London, which could cause a lot less disruption than the current Crossrail 1.
What Can Crossrail 2 Learn From Crossrail 1?
In my view from the outside, Crossrail 1 has been a pretty well-managed project. But it has skilfully used various ideas to make construction flow smoothly.
One big problem with large tunnelling projects is getting rid of all the spoil dug out of the tunnels. Crossrail 1 changed, the tunnelling strategy to remove excavated material by barge from Leamouth rather than the originally proposed complex conveyor system in Mile End.
To further use the spoil on the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project was a master-stroke with a large dose of green.
It would appear that all three of Crossrail 2’s portals have good rail and/or water access to remove spoil. Will it be used to similar effect?
Crossrail 1 has been able to use archaeology for positive publicity to balance negative stories. I don’t think Crossrail 2 will be going through such rich veins of historical interest, but they will have to find a positive story to spin, that is not directly-related to the project.
Crossrail 1 had a major problem with the junction of the two eastern branches under Stepney. Instead of being heavy, they worked with the Stepney City Farm to create a solution acceptable to both parties. Crossrail 2 must work the same way in sensitive areas, like their proposed junction under Stamford Hill and the only new station on the line at Chelsea.
When people talk about Crossrail 1, the subject of disruption always comes up. In any plan for the design and construction of Crossrail 2, minimising disruption should be an important objective.
There is an entry entitled Controversy in the Wikipedia entry for Crossrail.
This is one of the things that is said.
There had been complaints from music fans, as the redevelopment of the area forced the closure of a number of historic music venues. The London Astoria, the Astoria 2, The Metro, Sin nightclub and The Ghetto have been demolished to allow expansion of the ticket hall and congestion relief at Tottenham Court Road tube station in advance of the arrival of Crossrail.
Crossrail 2 might well find that if they avoided unnecessary demolition, they might calm a few Nimbys.
What Can Crossrail 2 Learn From Other Metros?
From the little of Crossrail 1, I’ve seen in reality, and the masses of visualisations I’ve seen in places like the Crossrail 1 web site, the line strikes me as sound and solid, but not that adventurous in its approach to design and architecture. The stations with perhaps a couple of exceptions, do not have mould-breaking designs that characterise the Piccadilly and Jubilee Lines.
London Transport, the predecessor to Transport for London, was rightly famous for its design from typefaces and maps to stations and buses.
The rules still seem to be applied, but Crossrail 1 doesn’t seem to have extended them, in the way that the Victoria Line did and the Docklands Light Railway and the London Overground still are.
I recently went to Bilbao and saw Norman Foster’s award-winning Metro, which is very much a design-led system.
Crossrail 2 needs to find itself a modern extension of London Transport’s philosophy. They might perhaps start by stealing and Londonising the Bilbao’s fosteritos.
The Safeguarded Areas For Crossrail 2
Crossrail 2 has now firmed up the areas they want to be safeguarded from any possible development that might make building the line difficult.
Building.co.uk has also given a handy checklist of all the changes, that have been recently agreed.
The web site says this about safeguarding.
The updated route means that relevant planning applications in safeguarded areas will be referred to TfL for advice. If development interferes with Crossrail 2, either a compromise will be reached or the development will not be allowed.
It also says this about TfL and compulsory purchase.
TfL said it currently has no plans to compulsorily purchase properties along the route.
This page on the Crossrail 2 web site, explains all about safeguarded areas and acts as a key to the detailed maps.
The maps show the route of the line and how it effects individual areas, streets and houses.
The only problem is that the PDF maps are sometimes a bit on the skew, but hopefully they will be improved.
Crossrail 2 Through East London
I’m going to look at the area as it works it way through Hackney from Tottenham Hale to The Angel.
Tottenham Hale
The portal for the North Eastern branch is south of Tottenham Hale station, from where it goes up the West Anglia Main Line to Cheshunt, Broxbourne and Hertford East.
It is basically a good plan, as it would appear that the tunnel portal appears to be in an area with all the beauty and charm of East London after the Blitz. It is also located close to rail and water for the efficient and environmentally sound removal of tunnel spoil. Thames Water are even ceating the Walthamstow Wetlands in the area and may have innovative uses for some f the tunnel spoil.
This post entitled Crossrail 2 At Tottenham Hale, shows some maps and pictures and gives my thoughts in full.
South Tottenham/Seven Sisters
It looks increasingly like South Tottenham and Seven Sisters stations could share a double-ended Crossrail 2 station and become a major interchange between London Overground ‘s Gospel Oak to Barking and Lea Valley Lines, the Victoria Line, Crossrail 2 and National Rail services.
Such an interchange will support major development in a part of London, that desperately needs more housing, jobs and leisure and business opportunities.
This post entitled Crossrail 2 At South Tottenham/Seven Sisters, shows some maps and pictures and gives my thoughts in full.
The Junction Under Stamford Hill
The two northern branches of Crossrail 2, that go to New Southgate and Tottenham Hale respectively, would appear according to the safeguarding map on the Crossrail 2 web site, to join together under Stamford Hill.
It all seems to point to some clever strategy and alignments, that will allow the junction to be created deep underground, without disturbing anything or anybody on the surface.
This post entitled The Crossrail 2 Junction Under Stamford Hill, shows some maps and pictures and gives my thoughts in full.
Dalston
If there is one area in East London that needs to see its existing transport links tidied up and new ones added, it is Hackney and Dalston.
I have heard from Michele Dix of Crossrail 2, that they are looking at a double-ended station to serve both Dalston Kingsland and Junction stations. This was said.
We have been working closely with the London borough of Hackney on the early development of the proposals for how Crossrail 2 could ultimately serve Dalston. The work to date has been based around delivering a double-ended station, with one end being at Dalston Junction, and the other at Dalston Kingsland, thereby allowing the Crossrail 2 station to link to both existing stations. As Mr. Miller rightly points out, the distance between the existing stations is well suited to the 250m long platforms that will be required for the Crossrail 2 station, and the greater interchange opportunities to London Overground services also deliver significant benefits.
I believe that there is an opportunity to create a world class station that subtly brings together all the good elements of the area. The only necessary demolition would be the unloved Dalston Kingsland station. TfL have told me off the record, that Kingsland station will be replaced fairly soon.
This post entitled Crossrail 2 At Dalston, shows some maps and pictures and gives my thoughts in full about the stations.
De Beauvoir Town
Looking at the safeguarding maps gives the impression that Crossrail 2 will swing under De Beauvoir Town before turning in the direction of the Angel and Kings Cross.
I think the only negative effect will be the possible use of the Bentley Road Car Park as a work site. Why else would it have been singled out for safeguarding?
This post entitled Crossrail 2 Under De Beauvoir Town, shows some maps and pictures and gives my thoughts in full.
Angel
Just as at Stamford Hill, I feel that Crossrail 2 could effectively take a route through the hill at the Angel, well below the foundations of any building on top.
Angel station was rebuilt in the 1990s and this was after a route for Crossrail 2 was first safeguarded, so I suspect that creating a Crossrail 2 station at Angel would have been taken into account in the rebuilding.
I think the biggest decision to be made at the Angel, is whether the new station is double-ended with entrances on both sides of the hill or it just pops up into the current station.
As at Dalston, there is scope for the creation of an affordable world class station, which is subtly blended with the good buildings in the area.
How Will Crossrail 2 Be Built?
Crossrail 1 was built rather traditionally, in that the tunnels have been bored first and then the stations have been created. One thing that surprised me was that the surface sections, which have nothing to do with the tunnels were not prepared for Crossrail 1 a lot earlier.
This is probably because politicians dithered for years about giving the go-ahead for the line. More time and the better planning before tunnelling started would have enabled, the surface stations and possibly one or two of the Central London ones to be made Crossrail 1-ready.
Crossrail 2 has a big advantage over Crossrail 1, when it comes to the politics of the route and construction.
With the exception of a few stations in Hertfordshire and some in the boroughs of Elmbridge, Spelthorne and Epsom and Ewell, Crossrail 2 is a London project, where nearly everything is under the control of Transport for London and ultimately the Mayor. As the only work that will need to be done to outlying stations like Hertford East and Epsom, is bring the existing structures up to a modern standard, that will be capable of handling larger trains, I can’t imagine many complaints about Crossrail 2 from that quarter. It’s interesting to note, that now tunnelling is complete most of the negative stories from Crossrail 1 are about works on the surface section.
As construction of Crossrail 2 is unlikely to start for some years, the tunnelling can probably be scheduled to start after all of the stations have been upgraded to be Crossrail 2-ready.
When St. Pancras was rebuilt for High Speed One, provision was made for Thameslink, and in the same way when Euston and Victoria are rebuilt, I will be surprised if the designs don’t incorporate full provision for Crossrail 2.
Where I live in Dalston, which according to my letter says will have a double-ended station serving both Dalston stations, a TfL manager told me that Dalston Kingsland station is to be rebuilt in the next few years. So as Dalston Junction station was built with Crossrail 2 in mind, boring the tunnels through Dalston will only require threading two needles with the same thread simultaneously.
Probably the only station that needs to be created or rebuilt after or alongside the tunnelling is Chelsea Kings Road, which I suspect will be more politically difficult than any other.
A lot of other features of Crossrail 2, like trains, signalling and the design of tunnels, platforms, track and overhead line systems will probably be the same as Crossrail 1.
I would suspect that a decision will be made to use the same Class 345 trains for Crossrail 2, that are being built for Crossrail 1. The only difference would be that they will need to be dual-voltage to run on the third-rail lines in the south. But they could be built as a run-on to the trains needed for Crossrail 1 and possibly introduced early on the surface lines from Liverpool Street to Hertford North or Victoria to Epsom. I feel that a common weakness of Crossrail 1 and Thameslink, is that they are introducing new types of train as they are respectively building or updating the lines. By using a proven train type the risks associated with the project will be reduced.
So I think we will get a series of phases for Crossrail 2.
1. Introduce some of the new trains on some of the surface sections. New trains on these lines will be needed anyway, as some of the current ones are getting pretty tired and dated.
2. Rebuild Euston station for High Speed Two and make provision for connection to Crossrail 2. This phase alone is probably the most expensive and contentious rail project that will happen in London in the next few years and inextricably links the work for Crossrail 2 and HS2.
3. The current situation at Victoria station is difficult to say the least. Hopefully in 2018, it will have a much better Underground station, with two platforms at which Crossrail 2’s tunnellers will aim their boring machines.
4. Make all the existing stations on the surface lines, Crossrail-2 ready and to a modern standard. Much of the work on the surface sections will be done anyway under Network Rail’s Access for All program.
5. Bore the tunnels through Central London.
6. Fit out the tunnels and the new station platforms.
7. Build the station at Chelsea. This could be an independent last phase, as was Pimlico station on the Victoria Line
Obviously, there are other ancillary projects like the creation of a depot for the trains and as a lot of Phases 1 to 4 won’t interfere with Phases 5 and 6, it could be scheduled to be done at the same time, if planned properly.
As so many elements of Crossrail 2 should be the same as Crossrail 1, any good project manager would probably say costs would be saved by scheduling Crossrail 2 to follow Crossrail 1 by a couple of years or so.
Conclusion
I am optimistic that Crossrail 2 can set new standards of design, affordability, accessibility and neighbourliness as it is built across London in a much shorter time with less demolition and disruption than Crossrail 1.
Well! At least I’m very hopeful!
The Crossrail 2 Junction Under Stamford Hill
The two northern branches of Crossrail 2, that go to New Southgate and Tottenham Hale respectively, would appear according to this safeguarding map on the Crossrail 2 web site, to join together under Stamford Hill.
Crossrail 2 Northern Junction
This map is as it is presented on the Crossrail 2 web site, with north to the right and east to the bottom.
It looks like the junction will be in the area of Holmleigh Primary School. From the safeguarded area shown in red, it would appear that the New Southgate branch lines up north-south with the A10 road and the Tottenham Hale branch comes in from the north-east.
When the tunnels for Crossrail were built, a similar junction was needed to be built in Stepney. They obtained the access they needed by taking over part of Stepney City Farm. The work is described in a section in the Wikipedia entry.
In 2010 Crossrail took over approximately a third of the Farm’s site as part of the works to build a rail transport link connecting east and west London.[1] A map of the works as it affects the farm can be found in the annual report for Stepney City Farm Ltd from 2010_11(p. 6). This work is due to end in 2016 when the land will be returned to the farm. In January 2011 Crossrail opened up an archaeological dig at the construction site on the farm. A ventilation shaft next door to the farm leads down to the one of the largest mined caverns in Europe. In mitigation Crossrail worked closely with the farm to allow the existing animals to remain by making major improvements to the farm, especially the drainage of the fields and building a large barn for over-wintering the animals and a rural arts building to house the farm’s craftspeople
I visited in 2012 and was impressed at the good relationship between both sides.
So will a similar surface reconstruction be done with Holmleigh Primary School?
There may also be an alternative, in that the junction is just over a kilometre from the tunnel portal south of Tottenham Hale. So could a tunnel be dug from the portal and the cavern for the junction be excavated without digging down from the surface? The New Southgate branch would then go straight through the cavern on its way to Dalston, Islington and beyond.
I’m no tunnelling expert, but surely instead of digging down to create the cavern, digging in from the side is not that different.
I do think though, that the junction has been arranged deliberately under Stamford Hill, which will surely mean it is deeper underground than it otherwise would be. This must reduce any noise and vibration at the surface.
Remember too, that High Speed One was dug through this area a mile or so to the south. Wikipedia describes the digging of the tunnels like this.
The twin tunnels bored under London were driven from Stratford westwards towards St Pancras, eastwards towards Dagenham and from Dagenham westwards to connect with the tunnel from Stratford. The tunnel boring machines were 120 metres long and weighed 1,100 tonnes. The depth of the tunnels varies from 24 metres to 50 metres.
So the engineers will only probably be repeating something that was completed in 2007. But now they are more experienced and the machines are probably larger and more powerful.
It would be a major difference in the disruption caused by Crossrail 2 compared to Crossrail, if the line could be bored through Stamford Hill without any large construction shafts having to be dug from the surface.
Visiting Dover Castle By Train
Dover Castle is on the featured list on the English Heritage web site. They say it is 1.2 miles from Dover Priory station, but is it an easy, stiff or hard walk?
This Google Earth image shows the location of the station and the castle.
Dover Station And Castle
The castle is obvious and the station is in the bottom-left or south-west corner.
I shall be visiting soon. After all it does give me an excuse to have a ride in one of the excellent Class 395 trains.
Visiting Kenilworth Castle By Train
The BBC is doing an outside broadcast today from Kenilworth Castle.
It seemed somewhere that I might like to visit, but as I don’t drive it is a bit of a problem.
However, Kenilworth station is in the process of being rebuilt. The castle and the location of the station are both on this Google Earth image.
Kenilworth Station And Castle
The castle is obvious and the station is at the bottom-right or south-east corner. I estimate that the distance will be about a well-signposted mile, when the station opens.
If Kenilworth Castle get their strategy right, they could see an increase in visitors.
I for one, will be going when hopefully Kenilworth station opens in 2016.
How many other stately homes and heritage sites have their rail and bus transport links up to scratch?
Manchester Now! Is Glasgow Next?
Look at most large English, Scottish and Welsh cities and there is usually at least one line through the city so that trains can pass from one side of the city to the other. Look at these examples.
1. London is upgrading the main North-South Thameslink route and building another East-West one.
2. Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, Reading and Sheffield all have lines that fan out on either side.
3. Liverpool Lime Street is effectively a terminus on the coast, but a North-South line in the city connects stations in the North with others in the South.
When lines connect across a city, this means you don’t have so many terminal platforms in the centre of that city. As an example look at Brighton and Bedford, which have been connected for decades by Thameslink through London. There are several Central London stations where the train calls, so passengers have a lot of journey options. But there are no terminal platforms in Central London used by Thameslink.
Only two major cities don’t have a connection like this.
1. Manchester has two unconnected stations; Piccadilly and Victoria, with the former generally dealing with Southern services and Victoria dealing with the North and East.
2. Glasgow is the same with Queen Street dealing with the North and East and Central dealing with the South and West.
But with the announcement today of the final go-ahead for the Ordsall Curve in Manchester, as reported in this piece on the BBC, Manchester is finally getting the cross-city link it should have got with the building of the Picc-Vic tunnel. This plan was abandoned in 1977.
Will Crossrail Glasgow be announced before the election? I doubt it, as Alex Salmond would label it an English bribe.
But it is desperately needed!
The Arguments Start On The Todmorden Curve
I’m not going to comment except suggest you read this article in the Burnley Express.
Airport Junction Looks Almost Complete
On my way back from Oxford, I was able to get these pictures of Airport Junction, which has been updated to take Crossrail to Heathrow.
It would appear to be almost complete.
Some reports say that trains will be using the new upgraded flyover this year.
The Anonymous Widower 