Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

"Lüko Willms" wrote in message
...
Am Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:00:56 UTC, schrieb Dan G
auf uk.railway :

Anyone seen a more detailed costing of the scheme?

I didn't. But I have some thoughts about this:

*Why* is it costing so much more than other, not dissimilar, projects?

Comparing just the length of the cross-London tunnel with the length
of the HS1 London tunnel and wondering why the same length of tunnel
can be much more costly to build -- does make sense only when one
wants to see the cost of the tunnel as only the cost of boring it, by
meter or kilometer.

But there may be a lot of utility lines ond other uses of the
underground to be removed before one can go on boring; also London
Crossrail is planned to have more stations, and underground stations,
which in itself would be more expensive than the one Stratford Int'l
box, plus interchanges with existing underground and train stations.
That is a lot of extra work, which makes the London Crossrail tunnel
more expensive to build than the London HS1 tunnel with the one open
station in its middle.

Just my two cents...

Cheers,
L.W.


More to do with the very deep foundations of tall buildings in Central
London than utilities. In comparison, the tunnelling for CTRL2 and JLE were
relatively unimpeded by such constraints. The gradient profile should be
'interesting' as a result of this.
Brian

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

In message
, at
09:47:14 on Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Lüko Willms
remarked:
Comparing just the length of the cross-London tunnel with the length
of the HS1 London tunnel and wondering why the same length of tunnel
can be much more costly to build

Only a third of the Crossrail budget is building the tunnel.

And that tunnel is under random property and roads in Central London.

HS1 is largely built either in open countryside, or under an existing
railway line.
--
Roland Perry

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

"Grumpy Old Man" wrote in message
...
The Real Doctor wrote:
On 25 Mar, 08:47, "Lüko Willms" wrote:
Am Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:26:35 UTC, schrieb The Real Doctor
auf uk.railway :

The people Crossrail is supposed to benefit - the international
financial community

I think that London Crossrail will benefit much more people than
just the "financial community".

It will be a faster way to get _thru_ London, instead of just _into_
London.

Well, it would be if it was designed to take long distance trains. But
it's not - just stoppers from Maidenhead to Shenfield. Long distance
travellers (Bristol - Norwich?) wanting to travel across London will
still have to change twice, just as now.

Ian

All the more reason to pull the plug. Thameslink, by contrast, will
accommodate
long-distance services, will it not ?

Depends if you consider Brighton - Bedford or Peterborough long - distance,
but they are still going to use basically high capacity commuter trains. In
terms of gauge, there appears little reason why an electric train couldn't
run Bristol - Norwich in the future (at least off peak when the service is
lighter), but like Thameslink the central section services will require high
frequency all stations stoppers at, so they will almost certainly decide
against it for reliability of timetabling.

Paul

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

"Paul Scott" wrote:

"Grumpy Old Man" wrote in message
...
The Real Doctor wrote:
On 25 Mar, 08:47, "Lüko Willms" wrote:
Am Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:26:35 UTC, schrieb The Real Doctor
auf uk.railway :

The people Crossrail is supposed to benefit - the international
financial community

I think that London Crossrail will benefit much more people than
just the "financial community".

It will be a faster way to get _thru_ London, instead of just _into_
London.

Well, it would be if it was designed to take long distance trains. But
it's not - just stoppers from Maidenhead to Shenfield. Long distance
travellers (Bristol - Norwich?) wanting to travel across London will
still have to change twice, just as now.

Ian

All the more reason to pull the plug. Thameslink, by contrast, will
accommodate
long-distance services, will it not ?

Depends if you consider Brighton - Bedford or Peterborough long - distance,
but they are still going to use basically high capacity commuter trains. In
terms of gauge, there appears little reason why an electric train couldn't
run Bristol - Norwich in the future (at least off peak when the service is
lighter), but like Thameslink the central section services will require high
frequency all stations stoppers at, so they will almost certainly decide
against it for reliability of timetabling.

Paul

Well the Thameslink services you mention look longer than is currently proposed
for Crossrail. I agree with you, services such as Norwich to Bristol would make
better use of Crossrail than allowing it to be hogged mainly for travel within
the M25 area.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Mar 25, 8:00*am, The Real Doctor wrote:
On 24 Mar, 23:10, Adrian wrote:

On Mar 24, 4:00 pm, Dan G wrote:
Anyone seen a more detailed costing of the scheme? *Why* is it costing
so much more than other, not dissimilar, projects?

In part it will cost a lot because it will be (or should be)
engineered to a very high standard. *The Jubilee Line extension is a
pointer in that respect.

But it is predicted to cost more than five times as much as the
Jubilee Line extension ...

You have clearly never lived in a city where good spacious (1,000 sq
ft per person) affordable housing is available to middle class
workers. *Or, enjoyed one where a normal comfortable journey to work
is 40 minutes or less.

And how many people do you think will find good, spacious, affordable
housing as a result of this line. It'll knock quarter of an hour,
tops, off the journey onto London - are those fifteen minutes really
deterring millions from moving to good, spacious, affordable housing?

Ian

But wasn't the main justification for crossrail the relief of the
overcrowding already present on existing lines, as well as allowing
for predicted growth. It will take a fair number of people off the
Central line (and other Underground lines) as well as providing extra
capacity on the National Rail lines to either side.

The fact that it will reduce journey times is an added benefit, but
not the main justification for the construction.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 25 Mar, 11:28, "Grumpy Old Man"
wrote:
"Paul Scott" wrote:

"Grumpy Old Man" wrote in message
.. .
The Real Doctor wrote:
On 25 Mar, 08:47, "Lüko Willms" wrote:
Am Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:26:35 UTC, *schrieb The Real Doctor
*auf uk.railway :

The people Crossrail is supposed to benefit - the international
financial community

* I think that London Crossrail will benefit much more people than
just the "financial community".

* It will be a faster way to get _thru_ London, instead of just _into_
London.

Well, it would be if it was designed to take long distance trains. But
it's not - just stoppers from Maidenhead to Shenfield. Long distance
travellers (Bristol - Norwich?) wanting to travel across London will
still have to change twice, just as now.

Ian

All the more reason to pull the plug. *Thameslink, by contrast, will
accommodate
long-distance services, will it not ?

Depends if you consider Brighton - Bedford or Peterborough long - distance,
but they are still going to use basically high capacity commuter trains. In
terms of gauge, there appears little reason why an electric train couldn't
run Bristol - Norwich in the future (at least off peak when the service is
lighter), but like Thameslink the central section services will require high
frequency all stations stoppers at, so they will almost certainly decide
against it for reliability of timetabling.

Paul

Well the Thameslink services you mention look longer than is currently proposed
for Crossrail. *I agree with you, services such as Norwich to Bristol would make
better use of Crossrail than allowing it to be hogged mainly for travel within
the M25 area.- Hide quoted text -


I honestly can't see why. How many people want to make that journey?
I'll guess it's far fewer than want to travel within London.

The ideal, of course, would be a four track line, allowing fast trains
and stoppers to run on different tracks. But if they have to choose
one, it should be the heavily used suburban services every time.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

In message
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:53:10 GMT, "Grumpy Old Man"
wrote:

The only way to get good, spacious, affordable housing in Britain is to
have a smaller population. It's gone up 50% in the past hundred years.

There is that. The other option would be to become more like Germany
and less London-centric. Serious tax breaks for locating employment
in a city other than London would be a good start, and the Government
should seriously look towards any new civil service jobs that don't
*have* to be in London being somewhere else instead.

They've been trying that since the 1950s at least, works well doesn't it?


The other problem (the "affordable" bit) is that houses should be to
live in, not to invest in.


If you want to rent somewhere to live someone else has to invest in buying it
in the first place.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

In message , Neil Williams
writes
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:58:47 +0000, Jane Sullivan
wrote:

And if those employees lost their jobs, then that would take several
billion pounds out of the local economy of the south-east and, by
extension, Britain.

But why would they lose their jobs if Crossrail didn't happen?

They'd lose their jobs if the financial centre of Europe moved out of
London to Frankfurt.

The
existing lines are by and large adequate (if not always pleasant) for
getting everyone to their current jobs - if they weren't, they
wouldn't get there!

Neil


--
Jane
British OO, American and Australian HO, and DCC in the garden
http://www.yddraiggoch.demon.co.uk/railway/railway.html

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:21:21 +0000, Graeme Wall
wrote:

They've been trying that since the 1950s at least, works well doesn't it?

Do you propose that further growth of London is feasible, then?

If you want to rent somewhere to live someone else has to invest in buying it
in the first place.

This is true, though the difference between rents and mortgages in
many places suggests that there is not a correct balance.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 25 Mar, 11:12, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
09:47:14 on Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Lüko Willms
remarked:

Comparing just the length of the cross-London tunnel with the length
of the HS1 London tunnel and wondering why the same length of tunnel
can be much more costly to build

Only a third of the Crossrail budget is building the tunnel.

And that tunnel is under random property and roads in Central London.

HS1 is largely built either in open countryside, or under an existing
railway line.


Quite - the CTRL tunnels rarely venture far away from being underneath
railway alignments that have been in existence for a long time, so
there were far fewer issues about underground utilities (sewers, cable
tunnels etc), building foundations etc and also a greater confidence
that there were not old hidden excavations.

Nevertheless there has been at least one problem caused to the
railways above by the CTRL tunnelling - a retaining wall next to the
North London Line at Dalston Junction had to be rebuilt. See the
bottom of this page for the reference:
http://www.loveplums.co.uk/Tube/Broa...et_line_2.html

In February 2003 there was also one very significant problem caused by
tunnelling away from railway lands in a residential street in central
Stratford where a great hole opened up in the back gardens of houses
on Lavender Street - the CTRL tunnelling seemingly disturbed a network
of old water wells...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2741307.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2742281.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/2984955.stm

Tunnelling might be far easier these days but it is certainly not
without its risks - and tunnelling underneath central London carries a
far greater risk.