10 June - Five minutes of fame
Our new GLA representative Thomas Turrell has been trying to hit the
headlines with
a question to Sadiq Khan about extending the Elizabeth line to Ebbsfleet and
succeeding with reports in the
Evening Standard, the
Daily Mail and our very own
Maggot Sandwich.
But absolutely nothing new came out of it, I could have provided a better answer
than Sadiq Khan did. I was the only person, including Network Rail staff, to
attend every single one of the Crossrail Liaison Committee meetings, to
photograph progress every day
and be given a page of my own in the commemorative book which never did get
published because of the opening delays.
I was also given access to the site and their principal engineering staff who
knew more about the practicalities of a line extension than Sadiq Khan ever will.
It is true that the land requirement for an extension is protected as far as
Ebbsfleet but there are considerable obstacles in the way, Harrow Manorway
flyover and the brick arch that carries Bexley Road over the railway near the
Fish Roundabout in Erith; to name but two.
Bexley’s Council Leader has been throwing money at the extension idea for some
years but clearly knows little about railways. What are the practical options?
Ideally extend the two tracks which terminate at or near Abbey Wood all the way
to Ebbsfleet, new bridges, new stations, new power supplies, additional trains. If someone has £3·2 billion hanging around doing nothing;
job done. The Felixstowe Road entrance to Abbey Wood station would have to go
and half of Abbey Wood passengers would be unhappy.
The suggestion is that eight of the twelve trains an hour would continue through Abbey Wood
but without a properly engineered extension; how? They could be routed across the Southeastern tracks on the Plumstead
side of Abbey Wood with all the consequent delays that would entail.
Southeastern trains are not the most reliable and the timetable changes every six
months. Elizabeth line timings would have to be adjusted to fit, impacting
services right across London and out to Shenfield.
The trains can be fairly easily retro-fitted with third rail power collection
(they were designed with that in mind) but without platform adjustments the level access from platform to train would be lost.
It is already more difficult than it should be for Abbey Wood passengers to work
out whether Platform 3 or 4 is the next Elizabeth line train to London. Even worse if it is going to be 1, 3 or 4.
There is already a rail crossover system half a mile to the east of Abbey Wood
station which allows interchange between Elizabeth line and Southeastern tracks,
maybe the service to Ebbsfleet could use that rather than a new junction to the west.
It would solve the platform level problem but unfortunately it would do nothing
to help the Southeastern delay and timetable issues and Platform 3
would become a nightmare. Platform 4 could take the terminating trains and
Platform 3 the Ebbsfleet trains; in both directions. That’s 16 trains an hour on
a single track with alternating direction!
That’s the sort of thing that would work in rural Wales with a train every two
hours but not on the Liz! Given the time it would take to drop the pantographs
and the distance to the junction I’d guess it is impossible. It would take at
least four minutes to empty a train, swap the power supplies and get the train
down to the junction ready for another one to come back the other way. No; forget it!
So we are back to using Southeastern Platforms 1 and 2 with considerable
inconvenience to Abbey Wood passengers for very little gain that could not be
had by providing a decent Southeastern service. It has become dire in recent
years as described by
Murky Depths.
Thomas Turrell has had his five minutes of fame; now he should go away and do
something useful. Baroness O’Neill might better serve her residents by not
campaigning to cancel Thames bridges
instead of pushing for benefits in Kent.