At 12:05:43 on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 Ar opined:-

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:35:40 -0700, Adrian wrote:

A much more common mistake is the misuse of the word "prestigious".

To bring this back on topc: Whatever the cost, Crossrail is essential.

The London 2012 Olympics will cost £18bn, is that essential? Is that any
less bankrupting then Crossrail?


It's not often recognised that London suffered two devastating blows on
successive days in July 2005. On the 7th there was the tube bombings.
But the day before London had imposed on it the 2012 Olympics.
--
Thoss

On 25 Mar, 12:56, thoss wrote:

At 12:05:43 on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 Ar opined:-

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:35:40 -0700, Adrian wrote:

A much more common mistake is the misuse of the word "prestigious".

To bring this back on topc: Whatever the cost, Crossrail is essential.

The London 2012 Olympics will cost £18bn, is that essential? Is that any
less bankrupting then Crossrail?

It's not often recognised that London suffered two devastating blows on
successive days in July 2005. On the 7th there was the tube bombings.
But the day before London had imposed on it the 2012 Olympics.
--
Thoss

Oh you must be so pleased with yourself, what with your being ever so
witty...

In message
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:21:21 +0000, Graeme Wall
wrote:

They've been trying that since the 1950s at least, works well doesn't it?

Do you propose that further growth of London is feasible, then?

I'd say it was inevitable.


If you want to rent somewhere to live someone else has to invest in
buying it in the first place.

This is true, though the difference between rents and mortgages in
many places suggests that there is not a correct balance.


Which means?

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

Grumpy Old Man wrote:
Adrian wrote:
On Mar 24, 3:25 pm, The Real Doctor wrote:
On 24 Mar, 20:13, Adrian wrote:

On Mar 24, 12:46 pm, The Real Doctor
wrote:
On 24 Mar, 18:35, Adrian wrote:
To bring this back on topc: Whatever the cost, Crossrail is essential.
Essential to /what/?
It is essential to London's ongoing function as a financial center.
Crossrail will also be useful in helping London's quality of life.
It can't be essential to London's ongoing function, because that's
ongoing without Crossrail. Perhaps you meant "future development" -
but even then, I'd like to see some convincing proof that it's really
going to be worth spending £16bn on.

Ian
If you believe that Europe's financial center should be in Germany,
then you should oppose Crossrail.

Adrian

It'll take more than Crossrail to save London. It is gradually sinking, in a
century or two it will be under the water.

See JG Ballard's very first novel, The Drowned World.

--
Corporate society looks after everything. All it asks of anyone, all it
has ever asked of anyone, is that they do not interfere with management
decisions. -From “Rollerball”

Jane Sullivan wrote:

In message , Neil Williams
writes
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:58:47 +0000, Jane Sullivan
wrote:

And if those employees lost their jobs, then that would take several
billion pounds out of the local economy of the south-east and, by
extension, Britain.

But why would they lose their jobs if Crossrail didn't happen?

They'd lose their jobs if the financial centre of Europe moved out of
London to Frankfurt.

Shurely, it's off to Delhi...
--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9683808.html
(155 345 at Halifax, 13 Oct 2000)

Ar wrote:
On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:35:40 -0700, Adrian wrote:

A much more common mistake is the misuse of the word "prestigious".

To bring this back on topc: Whatever the cost, Crossrail is essential.

The London 2012 Olympics will cost £18bn, is that essential? Is that any
less bankrupting then Crossrail?

An utter waste of money.


Red Ken Livingstone lives in another planet, or should I say, inside a
bottle of Whisky?!

Many wish he did.

wrote:
On 25 Mar, 11:28, "Grumpy Old Man"
wrote:
"Paul Scott" wrote:

"Grumpy Old Man" wrote in message
news The Real Doctor wrote:
On 25 Mar, 08:47, "Lüko Willms" wrote:
Am Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:26:35 UTC, *schrieb The Real Doctor
*auf uk.railway :

The people Crossrail is supposed to benefit - the international
financial community

* I think that London Crossrail will benefit much more people than
just the "financial community".

* It will be a faster way to get _thru_ London, instead of just _into_
London.

Well, it would be if it was designed to take long distance trains. But
it's not - just stoppers from Maidenhead to Shenfield. Long distance
travellers (Bristol - Norwich?) wanting to travel across London will
still have to change twice, just as now.

Ian

All the more reason to pull the plug. *Thameslink, by contrast, will
accommodate
long-distance services, will it not ?

Depends if you consider Brighton - Bedford or Peterborough long - distance,
but they are still going to use basically high capacity commuter trains. In
terms of gauge, there appears little reason why an electric train couldn't
run Bristol - Norwich in the future (at least off peak when the service is
lighter), but like Thameslink the central section services will require high
frequency all stations stoppers at, so they will almost certainly decide
against it for reliability of timetabling.

Paul

Well the Thameslink services you mention look longer than is currently proposed
for Crossrail. *I agree with you, services such as Norwich to Bristol would make
better use of Crossrail than allowing it to be hogged mainly for travel within
the M25 area.- Hide quoted text -


I honestly can't see why. How many people want to make that journey?
I'll guess it's far fewer than want to travel within London.

I'm not suggesting that these longer distance services would miss out stops
within the London area. The M25 is full of drivers travelling from one side of
the "home counties" to the other, which are currently horrendously awful by rail
because of all necessity of inter-terminus transfer in London.


The ideal, of course, would be a four track line, allowing fast trains
and stoppers to run on different tracks. But if they have to choose
one, it should be the heavily used suburban services every time.

Pigs might fly..

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Jane Sullivan wrote:

In message , Charles Ellson
writes

Nowadays the whole point might be that with modern technology there is
no longer a need for a physical centre as there was in the past when
the City of London was full of messengers running around with
negotiable documents.

I work in IT in the finance industry, at

I think the point was not that everyone can telecommute instead of going
into an office, but rather that the various offices don't need to be in
the same place. You could quite easily put a tower full of stockjobbers
and allied trades somwhere miles from the City, like, for example, er ...

Canary Wharf

Exactly.

Although Canary Wharf has missed this point. Instead of distributing
offices into the suburbs or wherever, it's created a second City.

I should add that i'm not convinced that Mr Ellson's argument is correct.
There may be advantages to having offices of related businesses in close
physical proximity; it certainly seems to be a pattern of urban
development that's been remarkably constant, even after the introduction
of the car, the telephone, and all the kinds of electronic communication
that have come since.

tom

--
I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with
epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by
trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. -- Max Born

In message , at 16:36:51 on
Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Grumpy Old Man
remarked:
The London 2012 Olympics will cost £18bn, is that essential?

Is it even correct? The bill for the infrastructure is £4.8bn

Is that any
less bankrupting then Crossrail?

An utter waste of money.

And there's an estimated £6Bn benefit, so I'm not as pessimistic as you
are.
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Andy wrote:

On Mar 25, 8:00*am, The Real Doctor wrote:
On 24 Mar, 23:10, Adrian wrote:

On Mar 24, 4:00 pm, Dan G wrote:
Anyone seen a more detailed costing of the scheme? *Why* is it costing
so much more than other, not dissimilar, projects?

In part it will cost a lot because it will be (or should be)
engineered to a very high standard. *The Jubilee Line extension is a
pointer in that respect.

But it is predicted to cost more than five times as much as the
Jubilee Line extension ...

You have clearly never lived in a city where good spacious (1,000 sq
ft per person) affordable housing is available to middle class
workers. *Or, enjoyed one where a normal comfortable journey to work
is 40 minutes or less.

And how many people do you think will find good, spacious, affordable
housing as a result of this line. It'll knock quarter of an hour,
tops, off the journey onto London - are those fifteen minutes really
deterring millions from moving to good, spacious, affordable housing?

But wasn't the main justification for crossrail the relief of the
overcrowding already present on existing lines, as well as allowing
for predicted growth. It will take a fair number of people off the
Central line (and other Underground lines) as well as providing extra
capacity on the National Rail lines to either side.

Except it won't. It will relieve the Central line west of Stratford, for
sure, which in practice means Stratford to Oxford Circus. But it doesn't
actually add any capacity at all to the Great Eastern or Western railways
- every path that Crossrail will use is currently used by a normal train.
Crossrail trains will be a bit longer, but you could deliver the same
capacity increase by adapting those lines for longer trains without the
central tunnel bit for a lot less money.

The fact that it will reduce journey times is an added benefit, but not
the main justification for the construction.

It also won't reduce journey times much. Trips you can make with Crossrail
can currently be made with train plus Central line via quite easy changes
at Stratford or Ealing Broadway (or more painful ones at Liverpool Street
or Paddington, after a quicker run to the terminal). It will make the
trips a lot more convenient by eliminating those changes, but not hugely
faster.

tom

--
I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with
epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by
trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. -- Max Born