14 March - Crossrail exhibition. Confusion reigns
Last Tuesday’s Crossrail exhibition, if two hours and the same old poster in a village hall can be
called an exhibition, produced little by way of new information and I lost
confidence in it when told that recent two day line closures were one day and the
scheduled one day closure in February didn’t happen at all. However for what it
is worth, Site S14 at the end of Fendyke Road (Photo 2) was confirmed to become
a major storage depot like that under the Eynsford Drive bridge.
The utility services which run under the railway line where the old Wilton Road
level crossing used to be presented a hazard to the piling operation. They are to be diverted along Gayton Road, under the tracks
at the end of Florence Road where many
conduit pipes were buried last summer, and then back along Felixstowe Road to the north of the line. Hence
the deep trenches
shown last week.
Taking a personal interest because of what is to happen close to home I have in the
past been told that both Crossrail tracks will be extended through the station towards
Belvedere to provide engineering access, and that one will hit the buffers at
Abbey Wood station but this time the story reverted to both tracks being
extended eastwards for at least one train length. When asked when that section
would be piled I was told it was imminent. I have no real confidence that any of that is true,
the plans may well have changed but between every small exhibition? It seems far
fetched to me.
As you can see, the former station car park appears to be ready for track laying
and the remnants of the footbridge and the station building are all that stands
in the way of piling east of the station. Both obstructions will be down by the
end of the month.
Materials are constantly shuffling from one end of Fendyke Road to the other,
occasionally leaving the road muddy but only for a minute or two as the road
scrubber regularly takes the same route.
Work is also going on under the Harrow Manorway flyover. The gaps between the bridge supports are being filled in, the reason is hard to fathom.
More Crossrail related blogs.