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Old May 26th 10, 09:42 AM posted to uk.transport.london
Recliner[_2_] Recliner[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Dec 2008
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Default Post office railway reuse

"Paul Terry" wrote in message

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,
lonelytraveller writes

The post office railway is disused.

Why didn't they just widen the tunnels and reuse them for Crossrail,
instead of digging hugely expensive new ones?


It's not deep enough - the Post Office Railway is on average 21m below
the surface, although the stations are virtually at basement level
(and so the tunnels also have steep 20% gradients either side of
stations). Crossrail in the central area is up to 36m below the
surface. Also, the Post Office Railway doesn't have a straight enough
alignment - it runs north of Oxford Street, curving up to Wimpole
Street and then coming back south before the big loop up to Mount
Pleasant.


Also, the big cost with Crossrail will be the huge stations more than
the tunnels. Re-using the PO railway would not help reduce this cost,
but would probably make it worse.