Rail Industry Focus

Crossrail 2

In my view these regional cross-London schemes are a mistake. Conventional tube lines would provide relief on the busiest sections at a fraction of the cost. Crossrail, for instance, could have run over the Hammersmith branch of the Metropolitan line and gone underground in the vicinity of Westbourne Park, and then continued on the proposed route, but as a standard tube, to and end-on junction with the Jubilee Line at Stratford, from where trains would have run to Stanmore, in a route with an alpha-configuration. A branch to Heathrow could have been added later.

The smaller diameter tunnels and conductor-rail electrification system means that the volume of material to be removed, and overall construction cost, is substantially less than that of a full-scale railway with overhead electrification.

Not least of the disadvantages of regional express routes is that they transfer disruption across networks that are at present separate e.g. a delay at Preston Park can affect services at Luton a couple of hours later, and vice-versa.

Re: Treasury unlikely to back Crossrail 2 for years