Extending Crossrail to Reading - ongoing discussion, merged topic

[whole diary]

[Electric train]

Several senior GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff have talked in the past about starting some of the Reading/Gatwick trains back from Oxford after the Reading underpass had been made useable. Perhaps this could explain the mention of more Oxford/Reading trains?

There are currently no plans in CP5^▸ (Control Period 5 - the five year period between 2014 and 2019) or even CP6^▸ (Control Period 6 - The five year period between 2019 and 2024) (2019 to 2014) the electrify the North Downs line and only passive provision has been made at Reading for the necessary ac / dc traction power isolation section equipment 

[4064ReadingAbbey]

Several senior GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff have talked in the past about starting some of the Reading/Gatwick trains back from Oxford after the Reading underpass had been made useable.

Problem for me is that through trains across Reading to/from Gatwick don't fit the electrification strategy, or the rolling stock cascade strategy.   It would be a bit of an own goal to introduce them and then remove them just a couple of years later.

I suspect such proposals in the past might have predated the electrification decision - there was of course a period when Reading remodelling was all go but wires were not...

Paul

If it can be shown that a market exists for such a service, and that such a service could wash its face from a financial point of view, then change the strategies...

(I am reminded of the story told about a Boeing executive who, when he learnt that the then new 707 would be range limited because the runways at Idlewild were limited in length by the presence of Jamaica Bay, said 'Then fill in the lousy bay!')

[ChrisB]

The BBCs^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Richard Westcott has just tweeted that Crossrail will be names the Elizabeth Line....I don't think it's April 1 yet.

[ChrisB]

Confirmed by a DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) tweet....

[Oxonhutch]

From The Grauniad

[IndustryInsider]

Bit of a silly name if you ask me, then again I expect Londoners will get used to it eventually.  There is the Victoria Line already I suppose!

[ChrisB]

but this is a railway line from Essex & Kent to Berkshire - not a tube line....

[JayMac]

Sexkenberk Line then? 

[chrisr_75]

I thought CrossRail seemed a pretty good label for the tin, but maybe I'm just oversimplifying it!

[didcotdean]

Begs the question why all the Overground railways don't have individual names.

[stuving]

but this is a railway line from Essex & Kent to Berkshire - not a tube line....

Is it? I thought the reason for TfL^» (Transport for London - about) building it was to provide cross-London capacity, and it is only extended at the ends to bring in extra money from outside London, both in grants and fares.

[didcotdean]

I can't see usage catching on that easily especially outside of London.

[ChrisB]

Is it? I thought the reason for TfL^» (Transport for London - about) building it was to provide cross-London capacity, and it is only extended at the ends to bring in extra money from outside London, both in grants and fares.

it's always been a rail line though....so Didcotdean's point is mine too, really

No Overground (that's it's name) separate name....but I guess TfL Rail lines will become part of Crossrail/Elizabeth Line.

[paul7575]

Begs the question why all the Overground railways don't have individual names.

They did, and people seem to regularly complain that they should use the obvious names such as WLL, NLL, ELL, SLL - even if only to overcome the problem of identity when reporting engineering works, delays and cancellations  etc; and that would have been a good idea even before they took over the West Anglia inner routes.

TfL^» (Transport for London - about) apparently made a deliberate decision to ignore the recognised names, perhaps believing that the DLR^▸ (Docklands Light Railway) set the precedent.

Paul

[Tim]

Someone (possibly John O-Farrell or Mark Thomas) offered up as an example of the ridiculous lengths that some lefties will go to to remain ideologically pure, the story of a friend who being a committed republican boycotted the jubilee line for several years when it opened to the extent of still using the tube but making his journeys unnecessarily longer by avoiding the Jubilee line.

Personally, I think find the idea of naming infrastructure after famous people just a bit, well, un-British.  It is the kind of thing the French or the Americans might do (the stupidity of giving an airport in Washington the prefix "Ronald Regan" as if "Washington National" didn't already pay due respect to a past president). 

The only exception I would make is for "john Lennon International Airport" both because Liverpool is in some ways one of our most American-facing cities and because it allows the use of the tag line "above us only sky" which sure beats the boring marking speak of "making every journey better" (LHR) or "amazing journeys start here" (BRS^▸ (Business Rates Supplement))