lonelytraveller wrote:

The thing I don't like about Crossrail is that it seems that the
designers have gone out of their way to make it necessary to
demolish anything old that would be difficult to demolish under
normal circumstances due to popular protest.

For example, they chose to make it necessary to demolish the
Astoria, a popular and iconic music venue with much history, to
sort out the station at Tottenham Court Road, rather than choosing
to demolish the fairly unpopular Centrepoint on the other side of
the road.

By "fairly unpopular", I guess you mean you don't like it. It is
actually a listed building, which the Astoria isn't.

They chose to make it necessary to demolish a block of Dean street
near Diadem Court, rather than the ugly 1970s office block on the
other side of oxford street, or the building that Dean Street
Tesco is in, or the modern buildings of St Anne's court.

The problem with large office buildings is that the compensation costs
for compulsory purchase are enormous. I'm not familiar with the
buildings in question, but you seem to regard anything old as
sacrosanct, and anything new as ripe for demolition. In my experience
Crossrail have bent over backwards to preserve listed buildings wherever
possible.

They chose to obstruct the side entrance at paddington, rather than
demolish the horrifically ugly modern building on the other side of
the road.

Because the modern building is on the wrong side of the road for an
interchange with the mainline station. What do you mean by "obstruct"?

[snip]

I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple -
reusing the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the
Piccadilly
where possible.

Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big enough!
Anyway it's a bit late now to start debating the route all over again.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Oct 7, 5:50 pm, "Richard J." wrote:
Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big enough!

And they're in the wrong place. Besides LUL seems to be making a nice
little earner from the old jubilee Charing X station and I doubt
they'd want to lose it - any TV program or ad that needs a tube
setting seems to use it these days. They might as well just lock up
Aldwych and chuck away the key

B2003

On 7 Oct, 17:50, "Richard J." wrote:
lonelytraveller wrote:

The thing I don't like about Crossrail is that it seems that the
designers have gone out of their way to make it necessary to
demolish anything old that would be difficult to demolish under
normal circumstances due to popular protest.

For example, they chose to make it necessary to demolish the
Astoria, a popular and iconic music venue with much history, to
sort out the station at Tottenham Court Road, rather than choosing
to demolish the fairly unpopular Centrepoint on the other side of
the road.

By "fairly unpopular", I guess you mean you don't like it. It is
actually a listed building, which the Astoria isn't.
Just because something is/isn't listed doesn't mean it is/isn't liked
or is/isn't worth keeping; the Red House Coal Store at Smithfield
market wasn't listed until last year, for example, despite the ugly
modern poultry market having been Grade II for ages. The Astoria is
extremely popular. By CenterPoint being fairly unpopular, I mean that
it regularly comes to the top of lists of ugly buildings in central
london that people would like to demolish. If I remember correctly,
Centre Point's construction was also illegal.

They chose to make it necessary to demolish a block of Dean street
near Diadem Court, rather than the ugly 1970s office block on the
other side of oxford street, or the building that Dean Street
Tesco is in, or the modern buildings of St Anne's court.
The problem with large office buildings is that the compensation costs
for compulsory purchase are enormous. I'm not familiar with the
buildings in question, but you seem to regard anything old as
sacrosanct, and anything new as ripe for demolition. In my experience
Crossrail have bent over backwards to preserve listed buildings wherever
possible.
You've jumped to an inaccurate conclusion. I regard anything old AND
nice to look at as worth keeping, and anything new
AND ugly as ripe for demolition. If they've bent over backwards, its
for modern buildings - cardinal tower, for example, very ugly, was
going to be demolished, but the McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken
franchisees who were at the base raised objections, so now they are
going to demolish the rather pretty 54-60 Cowcross Street and replace
them with something horrifically out of keeping. The compensation
costs of demolishing ugly modern buildings can hardly be much compared
with the overall cost of crossrail, I'm sure its extremely affordable,
especially as they could build brand new office blocks in their place
afterwards, which would doubtless be worth far more.

They chose to obstruct the side entrance at paddington, rather than
demolish the horrifically ugly modern building on the other side of
the road.
Because the modern building is on the wrong side of the road for an
interchange with the mainline station. What do you mean by "obstruct"?
Crossrail is quite deep, the escalators would be long enough to
stretch the width of the road easily. By "obstruct" I mean that it
will require the retaining wall railings and canopies to be
demolished, making the station appear somewhat naked.

I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple -
reusing the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the
Piccadilly
where possible.
Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big enough!
They are big enough for a tube line - hence why I said that I don't
see why they didn't route it as a new TUBE line...

Anyway it's a bit late now to start debating the route all over again.
I don't see why its a bit late now, they aren't even going to start
building it for 3 years.

lonelytraveller wrote:
On 7 Oct, 17:50, "Richard J." wrote:
lonelytraveller wrote:

They chose to obstruct the side entrance at paddington, rather
than demolish the horrifically ugly modern building on the other
side of the road.
Because the modern building is on the wrong side of the road for an
interchange with the mainline station. What do you mean by
"obstruct"?
Crossrail is quite deep, the escalators would be long enough to
stretch the width of the road easily. By "obstruct" I mean that it
will require the retaining wall railings and canopies to be
demolished, making the station appear somewhat naked.

The existing retaining wall limits the access to the station from
Eastbourne Terrace. This will be demolished and the road lowered to the
level of the present taxi road, so access will be improved. Bringing
the escalators up to the surface on the western side of Esatbourne
Terrace would make it more difficult for passengers interchanging
between Crossrail and mainline or Tube.

I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple -
reusing the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the
Piccadilly where possible.
Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big
enough!
They are big enough for a tube line - hence why I said that I don't
see why they didn't route it as a new TUBE line...

Oh, for heaven's sake, why do you want to condemn London to yet another
line constrained by the Tube loading gauge with its limited capacity and
poor comfort level? Paris managed to avoid this a century ago.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On 7 Oct, 23:14, "Richard J." wrote:
lonelytraveller wrote:
On 7 Oct, 17:50, "Richard J." wrote:
lonelytraveller wrote:
They chose to obstruct the side entrance at paddington, rather
than demolish the horrifically ugly modern building on the other
side of the road.
Because the modern building is on the wrong side of the road for an
interchange with the mainline station. What do you mean by
"obstruct"?
Crossrail is quite deep, the escalators would be long enough to
stretch the width of the road easily. By "obstruct" I mean that it
will require the retaining wall railings and canopies to be
demolished, making the station appear somewhat naked.
The existing retaining wall limits the access to the station from
Eastbourne Terrace. This will be demolished and the road lowered to the
level of the present taxi road, so access will be improved. Bringing
the escalators up to the surface on the western side of Esatbourne
Terrace would make it more difficult for passengers interchanging
between Crossrail and mainline or Tube.
Demolishing the whole of central london would improve access to the
station. Improved access shouldn't be the only consideration,
aesthetics are important too.

I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple -
reusing the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the
Piccadilly where possible.
Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big
enough!
They are big enough for a tube line - hence why I said that I don't
see why they didn't route it as a new TUBE line...
Oh, for heaven's sake, why do you want to condemn London to yet another
line constrained by the Tube loading gauge with its limited capacity and
poor comfort level? Paris managed to avoid this a century ago.
What exactly is wrong with Tube gauge? Have you been on Connex
Southeastern trains? With their packed carriages, and raw furnishings,
they are basically sardine tins on wheels with plastic seats added.
Tube trains seem to have much better furnishings, far more
aesthetically friendly, and the comfort level when its busy is hardly
any different.

On Oct 7, 11:28 pm, lonelytraveller
wrote:
What exactly is wrong with Tube gauge?

About 2.5 foot in height and 1 foot in width.

B2003

On Sun, 7 Oct 2007, Richard J. wrote:

lonelytraveller wrote:
On 7 Oct, 17:50, "Richard J." wrote:
lonelytraveller wrote:

I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple - reusing
the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly where
possible.

Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big enough!

They are big enough for a tube line - hence why I said that I don't see
why they didn't route it as a new TUBE line...

Oh, for heaven's sake, why do you want to condemn London to yet another
line constrained by the Tube loading gauge with its limited capacity and
poor comfort level? Paris managed to avoid this a century ago.

I was going to post saying the same, and that using a mainline gauge leads
to greater capacity. But then i did the sums to back this up, and found
that actually, wider, taller loading gauges don't seem to add much to
capacity. I wrote it down here (corrections welcome):

http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/Passeng...me_Trains.html

The bottom line is that C stock, the highest-density stock on LU, gets
13.7 people per metre of train length, and the contemporaneous 67 stock
gets 11.3. Not a massive difference.

You're right about the comfort level, of course, and i suspect having the
extra height makes air conditioning etc easier to install.

tom

PS Why is there such a difference between 1992 and 1995 stock? Per metre,
they have a similar number of seats (2.09 vs 2.33 counting fixed and
flip-down seats), but they seem to have far fewer standing spaces (10.62
vs 6.25, counting perch seats as standing).

--
Linux is like a FreeBSD fork maintained by 10 year old retards. --
Encyclopedia Dramatica

In message , Richard
J. writes
I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple -
reusing the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the
Piccadilly
where possible.

Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big enough!
Anyway it's a bit late now to start debating the route all over again.

Also, that route (Aldwych and Charing Cross) is currently earmarked for
an eventual DLR extension...

--
Paul G
Typing from Barking

On Sun, 7 Oct 2007, Paul G wrote:

In message , Richard J.
writes
I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple -
reusing the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly
where possible.

Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big enough! Anyway
it's a bit late now to start debating the route all over again.

Also, that route (Aldwych and Charing Cross) is currently earmarked for
an eventual DLR extension...

They also aren't big enough for that - DLR trains are taller than tube
gauge. I suppose they could build some kind of munchkin DLR stock
specifically to run on that route.

Anyway, you say 'earmarked', but who by? I've often heard this route
suggested, but only by armchair Yerkeses, and not TPTB.

tom

--
In my view, this is no different than a parent introducing his child to
Shakespeare (except that the iambic pentameter is replaced by a framework
of profanity, misogyny, substance abuse, violence, retaliation, crime
and infidelity). -- Dad Gone Mad, on rap

In message , Tom
Anderson writes
On Sun, 7 Oct 2007, Paul G wrote:

In message ,
Richard J. writes
I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple -
reusing the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly
where possible.
Well, for a start, the Jubilee/Piccadilly tunnels aren't big
enough! Anyway it's a bit late now to start debating the route all
over again.

Also, that route (Aldwych and Charing Cross) is currently earmarked
for an eventual DLR extension...

They also aren't big enough for that - DLR trains are taller than tube
gauge. I suppose they could build some kind of munchkin DLR stock
specifically to run on that route.

Anyway, you say 'earmarked', but who by? I've often heard this route
suggested, but only by armchair Yerkeses, and not TPTB.

I believe some legal work [1] has already been done on the subject but
there is no money available for anything more at the present time (the
potentially currently available money has been used on other projects
such as the East London Line).

http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/126

[1] other work has also presumably taken place, but my sources are
limited!

--
Paul G
Typing from Barking