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

[whole diary]

[Electric train]

I agree even if Crossrail services run to Reading stabling at Maidenhead will be useful for perturbation as there will be little space at Reading for too many Crossrail train sets

[mathmo]

The last I heard was that from Crossrail only 2tph off peak / 4tph peak are planned to go to Maidenhead.  An additional 2tph off peak got rejected by the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) (which sounds pretty stupid to me).  So it is possible there will actually be a worse stopping service on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) post-Crossrail.

[IndustryInsider]

The last I heard was that from Crossrail only 2tph off peak / 4tph peak are planned to go to Maidenhead.  An additional 2tph off peak got rejected by the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) (which sounds pretty stupid to me).  So it is possible there will actually be a worse stopping service on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) post-Crossrail.

Although if the Greater Western Franchise (or whatever that might turn into) is guaranteed 2tph on the relief lines from Reading to Paddington, and two shuttles Reading to Slough, then with those Crossrail 2tph to/from Maidenhead that would equal 4tph off-peak as now.  To be honest, squeezing in another 2tph on the reliefs, along with additional Heathrow services and freight, was always going to stretch available paths to the limit.  That's not to say my preferred option isn't still 4tph on the Crossrail route extended to Reading!

An awful lot of timetable work still needs to be carefully thought through for eightf48544's "Crossrail doesn't work west of Paddington" statements over the years to not become reality!

[Network SouthEast]

Since the original track access application was decided on in 2008 a few things have changed.

IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) confirmed
Wires to South Wales/Thames Valley/Bristol
Great Western RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy)
London & South East RUS

The track access application is not the final say - it is the minimum that was confirmed at the time.

Track access applications can (and are) made to the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) regularly from the industry, you only have to look at the ORR site to see this.

I fully expect to see 4tph off-peak to Maidenhead on Crossrail by launch.

Let's recap the other off-peak Maidenhead services planned post Crossrail...

2tph Reading, Twyford, Maidenhead, Slough, Hayes & Harlington, Ealing Broadway and Paddington
2tph Reading, Twyford, Maidenhead, Taplow, Burnham and Slough



If the London & Southeast RUS is realised in addition to the above trains, and 4tph peak Maidenhead there will also be the following extra services:

2tph Reading, Maidenhead, Slough, Paddington
2tph Reading, Twyford, Maidenhead, Paddington


So that's potentially 6tph off-peak at Maidenhead MINIMUM and a potential 12tph at Maidenhead during the peak.

As I have said before, let's wait until the draft timetables appear before predicting doomsday.

[eightf48544]

12tph in the peak at Maidenhead sounds far too high bearing in mind  they will have to slot in with the West Drayton and Heathrow Crossrail trains from Hayes if they run Relief line. Although 2 drop off at Slough that's still 10 to merge with 6 making 16tph from Hayes.

Will there be paths for some on the main?

[stuving]

Since the original track access application was decided on in 2008 a few things have changed.
...
London & South East RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy)
...
If the London & Southeast RUS is realised in addition to the above trains, and 4tph peak Maidenhead there will also be the following extra services:

2tph Reading, Maidenhead, Slough, Paddington
2tph Reading, Twyford, Maidenhead, Paddington
...
As I have said before, let's wait until the draft timetables appear before predicting doomsday.

The L&SE RUS proposed these as semi-fast services, switching to the fast lines after Maidenhead or Slough. That depends on getting rid of those vexations Heathrow Express services, at last in the peak.

But the point about the two RUSs is that they have not "happened" at all. They are just ideas, and nothing will happen until a decision is made to happen it.

That's why I keep going on about this decision-making process. When the L&SE RUS at last got all the ducks (Crossrail, extended to Reading, electrification, and extra paths at Reading from 2015) prettily lined up, their proposals made a lot of sense to me. But they required some extra money, for different infrastructure at Maidenhead and/or Reading in particular, to make them happen. Not a lot, and the proposal was that the main new build at Maidenhead should be abandoned as this would save more money than the extra bits would cost. I assume that doing that way would make it compatible with the existing HLOS^▸ (High Level Output Specification) - using the allocated money better.

Infrastructure required
The above service pattern would require construction of a new 10-car or more east-facing
bay platform at Slough, which is not planned at present.
However the cost of this would be outweighed by a significant cost saving in that the
following committed infrastructure enhancement schemes would not be required:
^ major track and signalling changes on the relief lines at Maidenhead for
terminating Crossrail services
^ the new bay platform at Maidenhead for Marlow branch services (since these could be
accommodated by existing infrastructure)
^ the west-facing bay at Slough station
^ the stabling and servicing facilities at Maidenhead.
Implementation of this option would therefore result in an infrastructure cost saving of
around ^31 million, though clearly this would require a decision to be made quickly over the
coming months, before construction works in the Maidenhead area commence.

We are five years out from this happening, so no-one should be fixing service patterns now. A range of indicative service patterns need to be considered in deciding how to spend infrastructure money, so as to support as many options as can be afforded. But that is not visibly what has happened. While the terminal stabling at Maidenhead might still be nice to have, it can hardly be a priority if the money could support other better options already identified some time ago. Or was it really never possible to save enough money here to extend to Reading (the  ^31M in the quote above) - in which case who, where, has over-ruled the RUS as technically incompetent?

Is it really true that a plan originally chosen five years ago can't be altered five years before it needs to be finished? I can't see that that is a technical constraint of the construction programme, so presumably it has become ensnared in a Sargasso duck-pond by marauding bands of hatchling lawyers. Sad, isn't it, when you think that the Victorians could build a railway from scratch - first board meeting, via inter-company negotiations, act of parliament, land purchase, building the earthworks by hand, buying rolling stock, to opening - in ten years.

[TonyK]

Sad, isn't it, when you think that the Victorians could build a railway from scratch - first board meeting, via inter-company negotiations, act of parliament, land purchase, building the earthworks by hand, buying rolling stock, to opening - in ten years.

Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, just 4 years after GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) was formed, and a year before the first section was opened. The population of England then was about 14^ million. Population now is around 53 million, explaining why so much less land is available now for building railways ab initio. The railway was built along what Brunel perceived (almost certainly correctly) to be the easiest route from an engineering and legal viewpoint, linking as many conurbations along the way as he could. Those same conurbations grew rapidly with the arrival of trains, and new ones grew along the corridor. Any expansion now is hugely complicated by this, because building a new line out of any existing main line will have to cut a great swathe through a built-up area.

Another consideration is safety - now. Many died building the GWR, around 100 in the building of Box Tunnel alone (including a great-great uncle of Mrs FTN). The drive for safety began soon after, and successive laws have tried to make construction, maintenance and operation of railways safer, to the delight of lawyers.

Brunel could also rely on a huge pool of very cheap labour, long unavailable to the construction industry. With these and many other factors taken into account, it surprises me that any railway can be built at all these days.

[stuving]

That's another question: "how long would it take to build a major railway today?" I'm not sure what the answer would, or should, or (for HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s))) will be. Ought the use of current technology to offset the factors you cite?

My frustration is rather that in a similar time we can only do so little. The changes I was talking about involve, little, if any, new land take.  I was trying to register that the excuse that "it only took ten years" was lame in the extreme. Especially as, in this case, it  is taking ten years to fails to do something.

[Electric train]

To actually build a railway once you can get on site is quite quick .................. its all the political huffing and puffing that prevents letting the engineers do what we do takes the time.

If you look at the Crossrail core build, a complex engineering task under a major city the build time (even with the section 61 limitations) in comparison to the length of time it took to get all the politics out of the way is blink of an eye.

Evergreen 3 and Eastwest Rail will show that building a railway is quite quick.

UK^▸ (United Kingdom) "PLC" needs to develop something it has not had since the Roman ................... a National Transport strategy

[Red Squirrel]

Brunel could also rely on a huge pool of very cheap labour, long unavailable to the construction industry. With these and many other factors taken into account, it surprises me that any railway can be built at all these days.

I don't see the relevance of cheap labour - the Victorians needed a huge number of navvies to do what a few JCBs or a modern TBM can do, with a relatively small number of skilled operators.

[stuving]

Indeed, archaeologists suffer from this. Earthworks that were built with large amounts of labour, for reasons we struggle to guess, have survived for millennia. Farmers would like to have levelled them but it would have cost them too much in labour. Now they can, and do, take them out - what you might call the "curse of the Bamfords".

(A similar fate befell the massive pre-Columbian platforms of the Ohio Valley Culture, some of which were destroyed by the US government to build interstate highways right up to the 1970s - scandalously.)

[Super Guard]

From Yahoo! - Siemans out of bidding for Crossrail trains

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/siemens-withdraws-crossrail-competition-121425562.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Siemens has pulled out of the bidding to provide trains for Britain's multi-billion pound Crossrail project, raising prospects for rivals Bombardier , Hitachi and Spain's CAF to win the contract.

Siemens said on Friday it no longer had the capacity to deliver 600 carriages for the new line to connect east and west London...

[JayMac]

Could be good news for Derby....

Or an opportunity for Hitachi to expand on their existing commitment (IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)) in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

[TonyK]

I don't see the relevance of cheap labour - the Victorians needed a huge number of navvies to do what a few JCBs or a modern TBM can do, with a relatively small number of skilled operators.

It was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there's a whole train of thought been started now. If, on the day someone said "I've a grand idea - let's build Crossrail!" someone had sent a dozen gentlemen of the Irish persuasion with picks and shovels to make a start whilst the finer details were worked out, I reckon it would have been finished in time for the Olympics. I have in days long gone by worked in a mine, and have some idea of what can be achieved by men working with rudimentary tools.

The second thought was on cost. The TBMs come in at about ^10 million apiece, and have a crew of 20. There are 8 of them, and 41km of tunnel to be done, so each will dig about 5 km. At around 100 m per week, you can say that the dig will take about a year. 10 megaquid would pay for a lot of navvies...

This is just for fun, because I know we will never go back to manual labour. Millimetre precision needs good machines, and these things are far from boring. The sight of one of them breaking through, bang on target, is awesome.

UK^▸ (United Kingdom) "PLC" needs to develop something it has not had since the Roman ................... a National Transport strategy

Hear hear! A National Infrastructure Agency, with broad terms of reference and allocated funding, makes so much sense. Especially when you look at all the costly horse trading that accompanies any project more complicated than changing the light bulb in a signal. It may seem a bit Stalinist to have long-term plans, but we should have someone already working on things like the next Crossrail sections and the replacement for the as yet unbuilt IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) trains. Without that, we face the usual British problem. We open something new with brass bands playing. Speeches are made, ribbons cut, politicians and royalty ride on spanky new trains (the Queen, God bless her, probably thinks the world smells of new paint). High fives are exchanged, but 25 years later it's knackered, and needs daily cajoling to keep it running. Only then do we start looking for the next generation, before announcing a successor then cancelling it at least twice before settling on a model on the basis of short-term capital cost.

[Electric train]

From Yahoo! - Siemans out of bidding for Crossrail trains

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/siemens-withdraws-crossrail-competition-121425562.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Siemens has pulled out of the bidding to provide trains for Britain's multi-billion pound Crossrail project, raising prospects for rivals Bombardier , Hitachi and Spain's CAF to win the contract.

Siemens said on Friday it no longer had the capacity to deliver 600 carriages for the new line to connect east and west London...

Could be good news for Derby....

Or an opportunity for Hitachi to expand on their existing commitment (IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)) in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

I suspect that's because Siemens will now be in full production for the Thameslink trains now that the contract has finally been signed.

From the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) presentation last month Hitachi are very keen on the Crossrail train sets