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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Detailed plans for Crossrail 2 have been published today, with the Mayor promoting it hard.

Excitingly, the proposed stop at Wood Green (in previously mooted plans) has been moved south to Turnpike Lane.  I would imagine that there is still a prospect for an entrance at Wood Green in a join Ally-Pally-Wood-Green station, as the trains will be very long indeed.

Here is the news and route plan: http://www.itv.com/news/london/2013-02-05/crossrail-2-plan-unveiled/

Congratulations Harringay home owners - you probably just got richer.

Ben

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This is good news. It may be 20 years away, but having such a line link up with Alexandra Palace station would a tremendous boost, putting AP station just five stops from Kings Cross. It would put a strong plank under the strategic masterplan for AP and all the wonderful things in that plan.

More information, with diagram in the Ham and High here.

Meanwhile, the huge Heritage Lottery Fund bid to fix up the east side of Alexandra Palace is being strongly supported by the Council Leader, the Council Chief executive, cross-party agreement and the Mayor of London.

Well done all!

If these things come to pass, they would be the biggest, most positive developments in our Borough for many years.

I'll be old enough to use the Freedom pass when it arrives so really excited - no that sounds cinical, I think it's a brilliant idea but before I'm 74 please!
Sorry - cynical.

Do not get too excited about this plan, with a deep level link to Crossrail 2.  The transport journals say something a bit different as in the SouthWest, this will link several of the Waterloo local lines into the new tunnel near to Clapham Jct.  At the moment, they have only identified the Lea Valley Line, which goes to Cheshunt, Hertford and Stansted.  The Lea valley is a zone for development, possibly encroaching very close to the remaining green space.  We need to watch this carefully as it is green-space for all.

So the link to Alexandra Palace is very much the Option 2, with taking over surface lines the leading priority. The sheer cost of twin 5.5m diameter tunnels for this section makes it very unlikely, so take Ms Kober, et al's enthusiasm with a big pinch of salt.  Ms Kober might like to apologise for her predecessors destroying the old Seven Sisters to Palace Gates line alignment for develoments which could have been planned to leave the rail route intact, but No!

Hence my earlier comment about making the most of the GN line from Moorgate.  This is ripe for improvements, and there are problems extending beyond Moorgate, but none are insurmountable.

Foundations can be built around, like the foundations of what was Peter Robinson, now Top Shop at Oxford Circus where the front wall sits on the reinforced Victoria Line Tunnel, this dates from the late 60s

The F*CC franchise is to be extended and the very shabby trains on the Moorgate are plodding on in a deplorable state.  These trains will not be replaced before 2020 if then, and it is time to press for these trains to be upgraded and life extended.  Crossrail 2 might see the light of day in 2026! 

I slighty hesitate to reply, Ric, as you seem curiously disinclined to answer any of the substantive points that I have made.  I think that your comparing Topshop Oxford street with the vast Bank of England vaults (and ignoring how the line would get under the Central Line & Crossrail without being on too steep a gradient, etc. etc., or around the vaults without too tight a curve) indicates that you may not fully appreciate the scale of the problem.  You also ignore the problem of having to close the NC for years while the platform lengths are doubled.  Again, it would be more cost effective just to bore another line.

The purpose of Crossrail 2 is primarily to relieve the Victoria Line.  Connecting to Ally Pally and siphoning off passengers from the ECML north of Finsbury Park achieves exactly that.  Running up the Lea Valley - while welcome - does not, so I must disagree with your argument there too.

Where I agree is that the Moorgate service needs a major rethink.  As we discussed last year, it it not appropriate for the non-Thameslink suburban services to be part of the Thameslink franchise.  A little bird tells me that the outstanding issues preventing the East Anglia lines (and the South Eastern Lines) have beenh resolved and that an annoucement of future TfL control will be made in the coming months.  That implies that Hertfordshire are on board.  The first thing I thought when I heard that was that the Hertford Loop should be considered for TfL control too - whether as London Overground or as a similar model with the same minimum standards.

You probably know better than me whether the current Overground electric stock would fit into the N&C?  I think it is capable of overhead and third rail, right?

Arcady, you are quite right about problems with foundations, vaults etc, south of Moorgate.  Crossrail isn't a problem, as it passes below the main Bank Branch of the Northern, so probably the very short over-run tunnel where the tragic crash happenned back in the 70s is just about over part of Crossrail.  The foundations argument was put to me back in the 90s by the erstwhile BR London Development Officer, Richard Malins, who is still around as a freelance, and very knowledgeable on London Rail issues.

In the 70s, 80s and even into the 90s there were no real initiatives for new rail routes. The Jubilee Line in it's various stages was an apalling botch-up, but as any good train service has proved, punters have crawled out of the woodwork to use the service.  Various ideas were first set out in the London Rail Study aka the Barren Report in 1974, including Crossrail 1 and 2, but the latter was another Tube type line.

Barren considered variants of my pet scheme, on which an article with my outline was published in Planning in London, albeit a very limited circulation. This took ideas from Barren and later reports, and suggested we do major upgrade of surface lines, but not running every 20 minutes as per Barren, but every 15 minutes, linking up with London Underground's extended East London Line.  To cut a long story short the politicians liked the idea, including Nicky Gavron, our ex Archway Councillor, as did Dave Wetzel, who headed up TfL under Ken, and Overground is eventually what we got.  This was Ken's cheapo-cheapo rail scheme which has turned out at about £1bn.  And bloody good value too!  My only gripe is the long hard cattle-truck seats on the 378 trains, bum-numbing and not good for sciatica!  But as a train service, excellent!

But back to Crossrail 2.  Tunnelling all the way to Wood Green Ally Pally would be very costly, £billions, hence my slight scepticism having read several short industry comments. 20 - 25 years plus, so like you concerned to get the best out of what we've got as Overground has done, and past managements have failed to do.

Sadly Crossrail is a problem, as one of the new escalator tunnels is being built in front of the Moorgate platforms - or so I read on London Reconnections!

Good work if you had anything to do with inspiring the Overground revamp.

There is no doubt that CR2 will be expensive.  But given that the Vic & Pic are already at capacity perhaps there are no cheaper options to relieve them.  There is some talk of sending the Ally Pally spur off to Finsbury Park instead, and using the money saved to rebuild FP to improve the interchange there.  But the cost of building/rebuilding stations is the most expensive part of this sort of work (even in the 60s when tunnelling was much more expensive it was 60% of the Vic line costs).  And (as I outline here) satisfactorally rebuilding FP would be a massive and exensive engineering feat, particularly if you want to keep the ECML open at the same time.  It might not be much cheaper than the current plan.  And no other plan relieves the Vic(&Pic) as is desperately needed.

B

I hadn't seen that particular report undated, but several years ago I vaguely remember a figure of £70+m being talked about.  Something is needed but they need to review interchange numbers as the Thameslink role goes up or down.

Complex one this.  Your piece on Finsbury Park on London Reconnections a very sound first effort. Good stuff.

Cheers R

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