Crossrail/Elizabeth Line. From construction to operation - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[trainer]

The footage is introduced by Bo Jo himself.

Hmm.  One boring thing introducing another. 

[Chris from Nailsea]

And could nobody find him a hard hat to fit?? 

[Electric train]

And could nobody find him a hard hat to fit?? 

Why when some day a stray brick might get lucky  ............. only jesting ........ which is exactly he does it

[TonyK]

Why when some day a stray brick might get lucky  ............. only jesting ........ which is exactly he does it

Every circus needs a clown. Just wait until he's Prime Minister. The comment he made, on record, when asked by a lady journalist whether he was still lucky with the ladies would come back to haunt most people. he would have t-shirts and badges made, and probably have it as his election campaign slogan.

[Red Squirrel]

Boris reminds me of Zaphod Beeblebrox, from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - his r^le as President of the Galaxy involved no power whatsoever, but merely required him to distract attention so that no-one wondered who was really in charge. This is a r^le for which Boris would be perfectly suited.

[Electric train]

Boris reminds me of Zaphod Beeblebrox, from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - his r^le as President of the Galaxy involved no power whatsoever, but merely required him to distract attention so that no-one wondered who was really in charge. This is a r^le for which Boris would be perfectly suited.

      

[JayMac]

The shortlist of pre-qualified bidders for the Crossrail concession has today been announced. FirstGroup didn't make the cut.

From the guardian:

Crossrail shortlist revealed

Four train operators have been shortlisted by Transport for London to run the Crossrail services that will start in 2015.

The bidders will be National Express, Keolis/Go-Ahead, Arriva and MTR.

All four currently run trains in or around London, with German-owned Arriva and MTR, the Hong Kong Metro operator, running the Overground service as a joint venture.

The announcement is another blow for FirstGroup, which recently failed to pre-qualify for the Docklands Light Railway franchise in the capital, and is still in talks over its Great Western rail extension in the wake of the 2012 west coast main line fiasco. LR RATP, the Parisian tube and RER operator, also failed to make the cut.

An invitation to tender is due to be issued in September, and an operator will be appointed at the end of 2014. The winner will start running the first services from May 2015 between Liverpool Street and Shenfield, with the central route under the capital opening in late 2018.

Howard Smith, Crossrail's director of operations, said they were a step closer to cutting journey times across London. The ^14.8bn project promises to increase rail capacity in the capital by 10% with a fast, frequent service linking the east and west.

[devon_metro]

Arriva and NatEx qualified? God help us

[Network SouthEast]

Arriva and NatEx qualified? God help us

Why not?

Arriva and MTR do a pretty decent job with London Overground!

I wonder if First even submitted an expression of interest for Crossrail? Just because they are hold a large number of franchises, doesn't necessarily mean they bid for everything under the sun. I've done a quick Google and can't find anything in black and white to say First actually did go for Crossrail, apart from speculation in the press.

[JayMac]

Arriva and NatEx qualified? God help us

A relatively contained network.

Both Arriva and National Express do quite well with Chiltern and c2c respectively. Arriva are also part operators of London Overground and they seem to be doing okay there.

A bit early to pre-judge them running this concession based on their operation of large rail franchises. Concessions are very different to rail franchises.

I've done a quick Google and can't find anything in black and white to say First actually did go for Crossrail, apart from speculation in the press.

There are plenty of articles from the specialist press that say FirstGroup did complete a pre-qualification questionnaire. The Financial Times also said the same.

[eightf48544]

Who ever qualifies still doesn't solve the major problem of with Crossrail, which is that it doesn't work West of the tunnel mouth at Royal Oak. Especialy if it terminates at Maidenhead.

It completely disrupts the commuter flow on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line), which is possibly unique in that there are large flows from the West of Maidenhead to intermedaite stations to Ealing, such as Slough Hayes and Ealing in particular, not just Paddington. There is a also a smaller Westward counter flow from stations between  Ealing and Twyford to Reading even Oxford.
It also affects the Marlow and Henley branches which will lose all but 1 of their through trains.
Henley won't be pleased!

Something for study of the Social Consquenses on peoples' lifestyle on radical changes to their train services. there are several discussions on this topic on Coffee Shop.

The disruption to GWML commuting patterns is also compounded by the problem of 24 tph popping out of the tunnel with only 10 going forward. That means 14tph  have to be emptied out at Eastbourne Terrace run out to the sidings and turned round. That's going to have to be a pretty slick operation.

[Network SouthEast]

Who ever qualifies still doesn't solve the major problem of with Crossrail, which is that it doesn't work West of the tunnel mouth at Royal Oak. Especialy if it terminates at Maidenhead.

It completely disrupts the commuter flow on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line), which is possibly unique in that there are large flows from the West of Maidenhead to intermedaite stations to Ealing, such as Slough Hayes and Ealing in particular, not just Paddington.

Network Rail's London & South East RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) suggests in the longer term a four train per hour EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) service on the main lines between Paddington and Reading calling at a mixture of Twyford/Maidenhead/Slough. There are going to be 2TPH stoppers from Reading to Slough and 2TPH calling at various stations to Paddington.

I feel it is difficult to be critical of the final timetable as nobody actually knows yet what it will be yet.

[Electric train]

Who ever qualifies still doesn't solve the major problem of with Crossrail, which is that it doesn't work West of the tunnel mouth at Royal Oak. Especialy if it terminates at Maidenhead.

It completely disrupts the commuter flow on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line), which is possibly unique in that there are large flows from the West of Maidenhead to intermedaite stations to Ealing, such as Slough Hayes and Ealing in particular, not just Paddington.

Network Rail's London & South East RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) suggests in the longer term a four train per hour EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) service on the main lines between Paddington and Reading calling at a mixture of Twyford/Maidenhead/Slough. There are going to be 2TPH stoppers from Reading to Slough and 2TPH calling at various stations to Paddington.

I feel it is difficult to be critical of the final timetable as nobody actually knows yet what it will be yet.

I agree NSE^▸ (Network South East) there are quite a few new things thrown in since the SERUS full GW^▸ (Great Western) electrification and its extensions to Gt Bedwyn, Basingstoke and North of Oxford.

I certainly feel that an hourly semi fast during the day to / from Maidenhead to Padd (calling at Slough) would prove popular.  Even better if it was a Reading Crossrail semi fast service , Maidenhead, Slough Padd then through the core

[stuving]

I did wonder, when work started at Maidenhead, whether this was to build the full infrastructure for terminating there. The L&SE RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) strongly recommended dropping that plan, saving its cost, in favour of out going to Reading. It pointed out that a decision to do this had to be made early enough for the Maidenhead work programme to be changed.

So was that key decision deadline missed? In other words, what is being built at Maidenhead (and Slough)?

My understanding of the RUS proposal was that replacing the residual stopping and semi-fast service out to reading depended on the change in terminus for Crossrail. Running Crossrail trains fast to Reading (always my favourite) was considered, but rejected due to the lack of a direct (grade separated) connection to the fast lines. If the terminus decision was not made by now, presumably the concession will be let on its original plan, and any alteration to take advantage of the extra capacity at Reading will be delayed too.

Included in that list of advantages is putting an end to Heathrow Express's use of four paths an hour on the fast tracks for trivial gains in time, and using these paths for the fast "outer suburban" trains instead.

The proposals in an RUS, however forceful, logical, or useful, need (under the current regime) to be adopted in a real plan, specification, or the like if anything is ever to happen. If any cost is involved that needs to be funded. As far as I can see the CP5^▸ (Control Period 5 - the five year period between 2014 and 2019) HLOS^▸ (High Level Output Specification) defers this set of decisions to the relevant franchise(s), meaning somewhere inside DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).

[paul7575]

I did wonder, when work started at Maidenhead, whether this was to build the full infrastructure for terminating there. The L&SE RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) strongly recommended dropping that plan, saving its cost, in favour of out going to Reading. It pointed out that a decision to do this had to be made early enough for the Maidenhead work programme to be changed.

I think they'll build it all as planned irrespective of future extensions.  The Paddington - Reading terminating service is currently only 2 tph, so even if that were doubled to 4 tph and given over to Crossrail, they'd still probably want a higher frequency east of Maidenhead.  So the additional trackwork and platform at Maidenhead would be useful anyway, even if only a subset of services were reversing there.  If nothing else the layout would allow trains with different stopping patterns to overtake at Maidenhead.

Paul