Dave Arquati wrote:

Aidan Stanger wrote:
Mizter T wrote:

Continuing on the Crossrail theme from the recent thread regarding a
Woolwich Crossrail station, I have some queies regarding Crossrail and
Silvertown.

To set the scene briefly, Crossrail is going to take over the North
London Line alignment between Custom House and North Woolwich - for
full information on this see the Crossrail project page on Dave
Arquati's superb website 'alwaystouchout' [1] - the relevant bit is
under the 'Route' section, specifically 'East: Abbey Wood'.

This is the bit that has me flummoxed...

-----
"Provision is being made in the plans for a future station at
Silvertown, should this ever be required. This would not be on the
current station site, but instead would be further to the west. A DLR
City Airport branch station has been safeguarded very close to here to
provide possible interchange."
-----
(snip)
What I do not understand whatsoever is the possible future Silvertown
Crossrail station. If the new station were to be to the west of the
existing station that'd place it (at least partially) underground - the
line starts a steady incline down into the Connaught tunnel just west
of Silvertown station. The tunnel mouth is just south of Hart Rd.

My guess is it's a misprint. There's plenty of space to construct a
Silvertown Crossrail station to the EAST of the existing station. This
location has straight track and constructing a station there would be
relatively cheap. It is still very near LCY airport, and the land there
has great long term development potential, for although the sugar
refinery is unlikely to move any time soon, it's eventually likely to
move to a sugar producing area (as requirements for cane and beet sugar
refining aren't all that different). When this happens, the land's
proximity to LCY airport (which is likely to be the only one in Britain
with scheduled supersonic flights*) will make it extremely valuable for
office development.


* The era of large supersonic aircraft is over, and future ones are
likely to have between ten and twenty seats. Landing fees at Heathrow
and Gatwick will be much higher per plane, as they will be dominated by
superjumbos. LCY is quicker to get to from London than the rest of the
airports are. STOL capability should not be a problem for supersonic
aircraft, as they have a very high power to weight ratio.


This is rather similar to a key argument against the first TGV line
between Paris and Lyon - it was envisaged that there would be dozens of
STOL airports throughout Paris (even on rooftops) offering flights to
other other cities within a few hundred km (such as Lyon).

In what way is it similar? It would have almost the opposite effect, as
supersonic STOL aircraft taking the slots would displace the shorter
distance aircraft from LCY. There almost certainly won't be dozens of
STOL airports in the area, though there's a good case for having some
airports to accommodate the growth when LCY reaches capacity (and the
displaced traffic when supersonics take over). North Weald would be very
good for this purpose if it doesn't get built over first. Southend and
Biggin Hill are also quite well suited.
--
Aidan Stanger
http://www.bettercrossrail.co.uk