Morning all,

Firstly, is this article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6922154.stm

Based on any actual news about the funding, or is it just filler? And
what's this "high-speed rail link" they're talking about?

Secondly, what's the true story about how the route got decided? Not the
details, but the decision to connect Liverpool Street to Paddington?

Okay, this now becomes more of a rant than a question ...

I've read both the 1999 London East-West Study (LEWS) and the 1989 Central
London Rail Study (CLRS - had to raid the architecture department's
library for that one!), and although both discuss alternative routes,
neither of them really do so seriously; there's a definite sense that the
authors have picked the Liverpool Street - Paddington route beforehand,
and then try to justify it, sometimes in the face of the evidence.

In particular, what seems odd is that, given that the most congested lines
at the moment are from the east into the city and the west end, and from
the south-west into the west end, routes which run from the east, into the
west end, and then to the south-west are not given more consideration.

The CLRS does look at a route like this: 'East-South Crossrail', (which
i'll call E-S) something that's mentioned in passing and doesn't even get
its own section, which would consist of the current (East-West, aka E-W)
Crossrail route from the east to Tottenham Court Road, and then a route to
Victoria via Piccadilly Circus. It's not entirely clear which routes from
Victoria would be assimilated; labels on the map say both "South Central
suburban service via Crystal Palace, Sutton and Thornton Heath" and
"Weybridge, Windsor, Shepperton and Hounslow Loop".

I should mention that the 1989 version of E-W included a branch to the
Chiltern line. I don't know how much difference that makes compared to
today.

Compared to E-W Crossrail, this route has lower capital costs (650 vs 870
million) and the same operating cost. E-W is given a substantially lower
rolling stock cost (15 vs 50 million), but this is because it's assumed
existing rolling stock will be used, which is certainly not planned in the
scheme's current incarnation. Assuming rolling stock costs are actually
the same, E-S should be 220 million 1989 pounds cheaper (before cost
escalation!). In terms of benefits, the two lines come out quite similar:
E-W scores 140 million, and E-S 135 million. E-S does better on time
savings, E-W on crowding relief - which i find very surprising, as there's
little overcrowding to the west and lots to the south. Despite all the
questionable analysis, the benefit-to-cost ratio is somehow worked out to
be 1.9 for E-S, and 1-6 for E-W. Incredibly, although the report contains
numerous maps showing the effect on overcrowding of various schemes and
combinations of schemes, it doesn't show E-W alone, or E-S at all.

However, the report then goes on to dismiss it because "the scheme offers
no relief to other areas of congestion", which is surely true of any
scheme, and "complementary schemes are difficult to design" (whereas E-W
is complemented by Chelsea-Hackney or N-S), which is a bad reason, and
also not true.

Really, what the report advises is the building of *both* E-W and N-S or
C-H crossrail. Taking from it the conclusion that E-W is the preferred
option of only one line is going to be built is an error.

The LEWS doesn't revisit East-South, but instead describes a route that's
a similar hybrid of East-West and the version of Chelsea-Hackney, which
i'll call East-Southwest (E-SW) that goes to Wimbledon (er, not via
Chelsea): Wimbledon, Clapham Junction, Victoria, Bond Street, Tottenham
Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street. Beyond the tunnel, the maps
indicate assimilation of GEML, LTS, SWML and Hounslow loop suburban
services (at least the 'Regional Metro' mode, which is what we're looking
at here). About six branches in the southwest, which seems over-ambitious,
but there you go - the study group evidently thought it was okay.

Again, the 1999 E-W scheme went up the Chiltern line (by a different route
to the 1989 version).

The report goes on to give the capital cost of the E-W plan as 2.8 bn and
the E-SW as 4.4 bn, with benefits of 6.9 bn and 8.7 bn respectively. The
report gives benefit-cost ratios of 3.2 and 2.9, and net present values of
6.9 bn and 8.7 bn respectively; these aren't the values you get by
dividing and subtracting the costs and benefits as given, so either the
report is wrong or calculating these indicators is more complex than i
thought. The report also compares the schemes on soft factors: E-W wins on
regeneration, operability, risk and timing, and E-SW on impact on rail
passengers and impact on car use.

I won't argue with the soft factors or the calculated benefits, but i do
have a problem with the costs. Rather, i have a problem with the E-SW
route: it includes a tunnel all the way to Wimbledon, when it's surely
only necessary as far as Clapham Junction. Tunnelling to Clapham Junction
certainly makes sense, but there is a perfectly good pair of tracks on the
surface from there to Wimbledon. The only reason to tunnel to Wimbledon
would be to increase capacity on that stretch, but it's not currently a
bottleneck - there are two pairs at the bottom end, and two at the top, so
no problem! The only use i can see for the extra capacity would be to run
trains from the St Helier branch (Wimbledon to Sutton, currently part of
the Thameslink loop) up to Waterloo, but i've never heard any suggestion
that this was planned.

Anyway, this extra appendix increases the length of the tunnel by over
50%, and presumably has a similar impact on costs. Indeed, without it, the
core tunnel is roughly the same length as for the E-W plan. If the tunnel
was trimmed back to Clapham Junction, the cost would fall substantially;
it might still be more than the E-W plan, but it might even be less, given
that no new electrification is needed on the branches for the E-SW plan.
Since cutting back the tunnel wouldn't affect the services that could be
run, and so the benefit figure, even if the cost was a little more, it
would surely increase the benefit-to-cost ratio to be way higher than that
for the E-W plan. This is not magic - it just reflects the fact that
there's a lot more demand for travel into town in the southwest than the
west.

There's a stronger regeneration argument for the plans which go to the
west, but it seems to me that this is not a good enough reason to throw
away billions of pounds of potential benefits. If need be, build the best
scheme for passengers, then put a levy on fares to support regeneration
elsewhere!

There's also the matter of Heathrow. An E-W scheme can use the existing
line into the airport; a scheme going south either can't serve it
directly, or needs the Airtrack scheme (Feltham to Heathrow) to be built
to do it. However, this is to some extent a red herring: E-W schemes won't
actually increase capacity at Heathrow, as they'd be replacing existing
services; they just make it easier to get into town. Okay, Crossrail
trains will be longer than Heathrow Connects, but you could get the same
capacity increase just by making Connect trains longer! Frequency could be
increased by improving the terminal layout at Heathrow (AIUI, this is the
bottleneck at present), but again, this could be used to boost Connect
frequency in the same way. Without new tracks along the GWML, there is no
way any E-W scheme can give a specific increase in capacity to Heathrow
(assuming there's capacity at Paddington, that is). The only way to
actually do that is to build a new line into the airport, as Airtrack
would do.

So, am i right? Have good east-to-southish options been overlooked? Have
we been sold a lemon in the current plan? Why? How?

tom

--
It's just really ****ing good and that's all. -- Gabe, on the Macintosh

On Aug 2, 12:06 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
Based on any actual news about the funding, or is it just filler?

It's an op-ed, nothing new.

And what's this "high-speed rail link" they're talking about?

Adjective over-enthusiasm.

Secondly, what's the true story about how the route got decided? Not the
details, but the decision to connect Liverpool Street to Paddington?

I believe the rationale is that those are the two terminals that would
get the most congestion relief from such a scheme. There also appears
to be a big helping of "this is the thing we'd like to build", as you
suggest.

Frequency could be increased by improving the terminal layout at Heathrow (AIUI, this is the
bottleneck at present), but again, this could be used to boost Connect
frequency in the same way.

There are no problems at Heathrow itself that I'm aware of. The two
bottlenecks are the layout of Airport Junction (no direct connection
to the slow lines) and congestion at Paddington. Crossrail is the only
scheme on the cards to fix the latter.

The other problem with upgrading Connect without Crossrail is lack of
demand. Crossrail will increase the proportion of passengers taking a
train to Heathrow in a way being kicked out at Paddington can't.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

On Aug 2, 1:14 pm, Mr Thant
wrote:

The other problem with upgrading Connect without Crossrail is lack of
demand. Crossrail will increase the proportion of passengers taking a
train to Heathrow in a way being kicked out at Paddington can't.


This, I suspect, is the big reason why the Paddington branch has been
in every version of Crossrail proposed. At the moment, getting from
Heathrow to anywhere east of Regent Street takes forever. Running
Crossrail through Paddington would give the airport a direct link to
the City and Docklands.

Jonn

Tom Anderson wrote:

Really, what the report advises is the building of *both* E-W and N-S
or C-H crossrail. Taking from it the conclusion that E-W is the
preferred option of only one line is going to be built is an error.

I read all of the reports you listed (ages ago) and the conclusion is clear,
that Liv-Vic is the best option if only the one line is built. Building E-W
is only the best option if you then go on to build N-S or NE-SW. It was
optimism that two lines would be built which caused them to plump for E-W.

Looking at the maps in the studies, it always seemed to me that E-S could
have been built, and then when they get the money for another line they
could snap E-S in the middle and reconnect it as E-W and N-S. At the time I
figured that only a small amount of tunnel built for the E-S would have
become unused when they built the two, although from what I now know about
deep foundations, maybe it would have been a lot harder than that.

But since then Livingstone has demanded that Crossrail serve Heathrow
anyway.

In article ,
Tom Anderson wrote:

Morning all,

I'd had a third - 'Will I be alive to see it?'

E.

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007, eastender wrote:

In article ,
Tom Anderson wrote:

Morning all,

I'd had a third - 'Will I be alive to see it?'

My questions were both quite practical. Yours is rooted in pure fantasy!

tom

--
unconstrained by any considerations of humanity or decency