On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008, Peter Masson wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote

No, Crossrail should stop at Slough, and concentrate on being an
affordable and effective suburban railway, and not a pie-in-the-sky all
things to all people scheme.

Crossrail will go to Maidenhead, Heathrow, Shenfield, and Abbey Wood.
Any strong pressure to change any of these destinations is more likely
to mean that Crossrail doesn't happen at all than that changes will be
made.

Yes. I'm not quite mad enough to argue for changes at this stage - rather,
i point out that the scheme is not optimal. It shouldn't really be going
to the GWML at all - the Waterloo lines would be a much better
destination, but for obscure reasons, they were dropped from consideration
a very long time ago.

How do you come up with that conclusion?

By reading the cross-London rail studies, going back to the 70s. There's a
report from the late 70s that considers various branches in the west,
including the GWML and SWML, and the SWML comes out as the winner. The
next report, from some point in the 80s, starts off by saying "we're
considering a cross-London route from the GWML to somewhere in the east".
The SWML option is simply not considered. All very odd.

With the city business centre moving eastward it leaves Paddington even
further from many commuters ultimate destination. Waterloo has good
links to both the City and Docklands (the Drain and the Northern and
Jubilee Lines) already.

All of which are creaking under the strain. The worst overcrowding in
London is on the eastern corridor into the City, and some way into the
west end, which is why Crossrail is going to run from Stratford to Oxford
Street. The second worst congestion is on the lines from the southwest
(Clapham Junction-ish) into the City. If the goal of Crossrail is to help
people make journeys, then the right place for it is connecting those two
corridors.

The fact that the majority of Crossrail trains aren't going to go any
further west than Paddington shows just how little demand there is on that
route. The GWML was selected for two reasons: connecting Heathrow, and
supporting regeneration in the western wedge. These aren't transport
reasons, they're political reasons, designed to secure support from the
government. That doesn't make them bad reasons, but it does mean that the
scheme is suboptimal.

Also one of the principal objectives of Crossrail is to relieve the
pressure on the Central line, going to Waterloo won't help that.

Nor will going to Paddington, Maidenhead or Reading.

tom

--
I'm angry, but not Milk and Cheese angry. -- Mike Froggatt