"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
...

If a way could be found to 4-track the NLL from Dalston to Stratford,
to
avoid conflict with Crossrail 1 at Forest Gate and to avoid conflict
with the ELL/NLL between Camden and Dalston (i.e. ELL/NLL running on
the
southern pair Dalston-Canonbury - see Mod Rlys Dec issue - but NLL
towards Hampstead leaving to the north at Camden, therefore requiring
that freight crosses the path of the NLL passenger services), then the
Goblin upgrade and the tunnel to Primrose Hill are unnecessary.

Hang on, how do trains get from Camden to the WCML? Oh, i see! I think
that's called the Primrose Hill branch of the NLL - runs from Camden
Road
to South Hampstead (and not used for passenger services at the moment,
AFAICT). Very clever. I love the idea of London's main freight route
running slap bang through the middle of Camden market! I don't know
about
how many tracks there are there, but since the SRA plan would have had
their tunnel surfacing around there anyway (and god knows where they
were
going to put the portal), there must be enough.

I assume the portal would have been part of the complex burrowing
junction/tunnel portals/etc at Primrose Hill - i.e. they'd just join it up
to the slow (not DC) lines.

But cost of 2 flyovers and the 4-tracking would be an issue....

2 flyovers? I was envisaging one N of Kings Cross

Indeed. The NLL/ELL "metro" would run on the southern pair to Canonbury,
fly over the freight pair north of the King's Cross railway lands, and then
run on the northern pair to Camden. This would also allow the CTRL/St
Pancras link to the NLL (destination Primrose Hill) to join the freight
lines from the southern side without having to conflict with the NLL/ELL
metro.

where would the other be needed?

Forest Gate - you still need to cross the GE electric lines (which will be
taken over by Crossrail) at some point to get from the NLL to Barking. And
that's one of the issues of Crossrail I believe - that one of the capacity
constraints along this section was the freight crossing to get to
Barking/Dagenham/Tilbury. I think this was mentioned in the E-W Rail Study.

Likely to be cheaper than a new tunnel, though!

You'd have thought so. I seem to remember hearing that the experience of
the Shortlands flyover meant that flyovers have actually become quite cheap
and disruption-free to build (mentioned I think in one of the Mod Rlys
articles on building a flyover at Stafford).

The east-west study says of the proposed [Thames] tunnel:

"If this is to make use of the route described above[,] the appropriate
location would be close to the proposed Channel Tunnel Rail Link tunnel
in
the Dartford area. Although it may be possible to use the CTRL route
for
some specialised freight, capacity constraints and gradients would limit
this."

Rather, they suggest that:

"A dedicated tunnel route would connect with the North Kent Lines[,]
giving direct access for freight from the Hoo Junction, Thamesport area.
Re-gauging work and a short new chord in the Maidstone area would be
requires to pick up Channel Tunnel freight."

I reckon a suitable route would be linking Tilbury and Denton (just east of
Gravesend). Of course that's just looking at a map and not taking anything
else into account... :-)

Angus