On Jan 19, 11:17*pm, Mizter T wrote:
Anyway don't think anyone's got any money for stuff like this at the
moment... unless that ghost of Keynes who's been hovering around
somewhat lately starts visiting Brown & co in their dreams in
earnest...

The DfT seem to have magiced £54 millon extra for the four tracking at
Camden Road from somewhere

The NLL upgrade was agreed a while back before the Treasury realised
that the dour and miserly bankers at RBS has taken magic mushrooms
before making their investment decisions. Also the NLL upgrade around
Camden was reduced in scope anyway, when it was realised that some of
the works would cost too much.

And then re-scoped back up, possibly following a visit from the ghost
of Keynes.

If there is any money emanating from the DfT any time soon then I
would very much hope it is for making phase 2 of the East London Line
Extension happen - apparently the funding gap is £15 million, which is
not a great deal in the grand scheme of things with regards to rail
projects. But time is running out - I think the costings all revolve
around the current ELLX construction venture continuing on to build
phase 2. I think it would cost significantly more to set it all up
again from a cold start.

They've got a good couple of years before the current venture comes to
an end - remember the northern part of Phase II (as was) is now part
of Phase I, but won't be built until (mumble shortly before Olympics
mumble).

On the original Croxley point, there was an expectation/plan that TfL
would chip in for the benefit of the reasonably sizeable number of
people who live in Greater-London-Metroland but work in Watford.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Jan 18, 4:46*am, wrote:
Watford rail link support boost

From eWatford Observer
5:19pm Friday 16th January 2009

By Michael Pickard »

The extension of the Metropolitan tube line to Watford Junction
station moved a step closer to realisation today.
Two schemes developed by Hertfordshire County Council were backed by
the East of England regional Assembly's Regional Planning Panel, and
the assembly will now advise the Department of Transport to fund them
both.
It is hoped the plans - the £162 million Croxley Rail Link and the £38
million Watford Junction Interchange - will reduce congestion and
boost Watford's economy.
Stuart Pile, executive member for highways, transport and rural
affairs, said: “I’m delighted that the regional assembly will be
pushing the Government to fund these schemes. We need to invest in our
transport infrastructure if we’re going to support our economy and
reduce congestion.
“The Department for Transport bases its funding decisions on the
regional advice, so we’re optimistic that we’ll get the go-ahead and
that the line can open in 2017.”
The £162 million Croxley Rail Link scheme will see the Metropolitan
Line re-routed and extended to Watford Junction, where it will meet
Network Rail services.
Tube trains will run from Watford Junction to Central London every ten
minutes, the County Council said.
New stations would be also opened at Ascot Road and Watford West, with
improvements made to existing stations at Watford High Street and
Watford Junction.
The £38 million Watford Junction Station Interchange scheme involves a
major redevelopment of the station.
The station will get more drop-off points, easier pedestrian access
and better bus and coach facilities. New car parks will be built along
with a new link road.
………………………………...................................... ..........................*....

This is very good news. At this rate of progess the link will be open
during my earthly lifetime. I would just point out that the LT
Metropolitan Line is NOT a tube line.

On Jan 19, 11:17*pm, Mizter T wrote:
On 19 Jan, 22:00, Andy wrote:





On Jan 19, 9:44*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 19 Jan, 12:59, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:

Better still, use DMUs and run it through to Aylesbury!

Indeed, a very interesting idea - has this ever been mooted before
because it's the first time I've heard of such a notion?
It's not as though the Met line is a stranger to DMUs of course.

If it happens, it'll be a Chiltern initiative, not TfL.
Boris won't fund it, but if it's commercially viable, Chiltern will be all
over it like a rash.
Provided they can spare the capacity over their lines, of course!

Of course Boris won't fund it, nor would Ken have either - it's
outside Greater London hence it's basically outside the purview of the
Mayor. I think Ken said something like he supported it in principle
but basically it wasn't for him to take it forward. It's basically up
to the burghers of Watford and the folk of Hertfordshire to make it
happen - not for them to fund it in it's entirety, but for them to
persuade central government that it's a worthy project.

Much of the Crossrail project is also outside the purview of the
Mayor, but this hasn't prevented TfL taking over full control. I don't
agree that TfL should fund it, but there should be a contribution, if
they are able to dispose of Watford Met station.

Parts of the Crossrail route are indeed outside the Mayor's
jurisdiction of Greater London. However the DfT and central government
decided that TfL would be responsible for the project, and thus when
the final agreement was signed in December it was signed by Lord
Adonis of the DfT and Mayor Bozza. This gave TfL 100% control of Cross
London Rail Links Ltd, the Crossrail company, which was previously
owned 50:50 by TfL and the DfT. Of course a hefty chunk of money,
£5.6bn, is coming directly from central government.

The difference with Crossrail is that it's regarded as instrumental to
the future prosperity of London (and hence Britain) - the Croxley Link
is not! The Croxley Link will principally benefit Watford (and
Hertfordshire).

I've no idea whether TfL would directly contribute money towards it -
though of course the money from any sale of Watford Met would go
towards the project. It's possible TfL's contribution could simply be
that of providing the Met line service - I don't think providing this
service to Watford either is or ever will be self-funding from farebox
revenue, running a railway is an expensive enterprise after all! (Or
am I wrong on that - are the extremities of the Met actually
profitable, to the extent they cover costs? I can't imagine this would
be the case.)

One should bear in mind that just under half of TfL's budget comes
from a central government grant anyway. This will certainly come with
a contingent condition that TfL has to provide Underground services on
their lines that run outside of the Greater London boundary, though
I've no idea if there is a minimum service specified though I rather
doubt there's anything that prescriptive.



I hadn't thought of the Chiltern cash angle - but Chiltern would never
be able to pay for something like that off their own bat, the most
they might do is contribute towards it... and I guess they'd want
something in return like perhaps a franchise extension.

I think that Chiltern would only need the cash for the provision of
the DMUs and staff, I don't think it is suggested that it'll be
another Evergreen project with Chiltern building the infrastructure as
well. TfL might even be able to supply the DMUs, as I imagine that the
Gospel Oak - Barking line will have been electrified before we see the
link built.

Re my comments on the "Chiltern cash angle" - my reading of Andrew
Heenan's post was that he was indeed seeming to suggest that Chiltern
might be tempted to actually front up some cash for the infrastructure
project itself - i.e. as a kind of Project Evergreen spin-off (or
should that be shoot-off!). But as I'm not Mr Heenan I can't know for
sure what he really meant!

Re the class 172 DMUs that are headed for the GOBLIN - actually these
are to be conventionally owned by a Rosco, Angel Trains, so as and
when London Overground don't need them any more then they'll be back
on the market I would think.


But I understood that the lease involves TfL as well as LOROL, so if
they are no longer needed on GOBLIN, TfL can retain them for other
uses, should they wish. LOROL are different from the other TOCs, as
they run the service with the stock that TfL provides (even if via a
ROSCO).

But it's hard to imagine the GOBLIN getting electrified any time soon
- that said I find it hard to imagine the Croxley Link happening any
time soon either.


I think it will all depend on the DfT electrification program, as and
when this happens. It is one of the most obvious routes for
diversionary purposes (see below)



Anyway don't think anyone's got any money for stuff like this at the
moment... unless that ghost of Keynes who's been hovering around
somewhat lately starts visiting Brown & co in their dreams in
earnest...

The DfT seem to have magiced £54 millon extra for the four tracking at
Camden Road from somewhere

The NLL upgrade was agreed a while back before the Treasury realised
that the dour and miserly bankers at RBS has taken magic mushrooms
before making their investment decisions. Also the NLL upgrade around
Camden was reduced in scope anyway, when it was realised that some of
the works would cost too much.


The £54 million I mentioned is the reinstallation of the original plan
at Camden, over and above the TfL funded works. There was some
discussion about this at the time and it will be phase II of the NLL
capacity works, after the Olympics.

See the press release he

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/environment/fu...partment=False

If this work does go ahead, then I could see Network Rail electrifying
the Gospel Oak - Barking line as a diversionary route before this
happens, if they can get the funding together. This electrification
could then be a test bed for the new techniques that they are planning
to reduce costs. I do recall mention that TfL were trying to get the
£54million diverted to electrification anyway.

If there is any money emanating from the DfT any time soon then I
would very much hope it is for making phase 2 of the East London Line
Extension happen - apparently the funding gap is £15 million, which is
not a great deal in the grand scheme of things with regards to rail
projects. But time is running out - I think the costings all revolve
around the current ELLX construction venture continuing on to build
phase 2. I think it would cost significantly more to set it all up
again from a cold start.

I don't disagree with this.

On 20 Jan, 00:48, Andy wrote:

On Jan 19, 11:17*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 19 Jan, 22:00, Andy wrote:

On Jan 19, 9:44*pm, Mizter T wrote:

(snip)

I think that Chiltern would only need the cash for the provision of
the DMUs and staff, I don't think it is suggested that it'll be
another Evergreen project with Chiltern building the infrastructure as
well. TfL might even be able to supply the DMUs, as I imagine that the
Gospel Oak - Barking line will have been electrified before we see the
link built.

Re my comments on the "Chiltern cash angle" - my reading of Andrew
Heenan's post was that he was indeed seeming to suggest that Chiltern
might be tempted to actually front up some cash for the infrastructure
project itself - i.e. as a kind of Project Evergreen spin-off (or
should that be shoot-off!). But as I'm not Mr Heenan I can't know for
sure what he really meant!

Re the class 172 DMUs that are headed for the GOBLIN - actually these
are to be conventionally owned by a Rosco, Angel Trains, so as and
when London Overground don't need them any more then they'll be back
on the market I would think.

But I understood that the lease involves TfL as well as LOROL, so if
they are no longer needed on GOBLIN, TfL can retain them for other
uses, should they wish. LOROL are different from the other TOCs, as
they run the service with the stock that TfL provides (even if via a
ROSCO).

I think you might be getting things jumbled up with the new class 378
'Capitalstar' trains (for use on the electrified parts of the LO
network). Originally TfL was going to buy these outright, but instead
they negotiated a leasing deal with a new outfit called QW Rail
Leasing Ltd that would appear to have been set up for just this
purpose (well I guess they might have intentions on getting into the
rolling stock market and competing with the Roscos but there's been no
indication of that yet) - this deal was signed in February '08, and is
between TfL (not LOROL) and QW Rail Leasing Ltd - see:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...hive/7525.aspx

Meanwhile the class 172s are to be leased from Angel Trains under the
conventional Rosco model, and the contract in this case is between
LOROL and Angel - see:
http://www.angeltrains.co.uk/press/release.aspx?Id=692

I think it may have been the case that TfL were planning on getting
more involved in the latter deal, but it seems they decided to take a
back seat on that because of the possibility of the GOBLIN getting
electrified (not much point in them having a stake in diesel trains
then!).


But it's hard to imagine the GOBLIN getting electrified any time soon
- that said I find it hard to imagine the Croxley Link happening any
time soon either.

I think it will all depend on the DfT electrification program, as and
when this happens. It is one of the most obvious routes for
diversionary purposes (see below)


Fare enough, perhaps I'm being rather too cynical...


Anyway don't think anyone's got any money for stuff like this at the
moment... unless that ghost of Keynes who's been hovering around
somewhat lately starts visiting Brown & co in their dreams in
earnest...

The DfT seem to have magiced £54 millon extra for the four tracking at
Camden Road from somewhere

The NLL upgrade was agreed a while back before the Treasury realised
that the dour and miserly bankers at RBS has taken magic mushrooms
before making their investment decisions. Also the NLL upgrade around
Camden was reduced in scope anyway, when it was realised that some of
the works would cost too much.

The £54 million I mentioned is the reinstallation of the original plan
at Camden, over and above the TfL funded works. There was some
discussion about this at the time and it will be phase II of the NLL
capacity works, after the Olympics.

See the press release he

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/environment/fu...eID=385423&New....

Blimey - I completely missed all this! I was still on the page where
the Camden Road works had been 'de-scoped' because they were to be too
expensive - looking back that was in September, so things had
obviously moved on by late November. That's great news! (Indeed is it
possible that the initial de-scoping announcement was made in
expectation of an upcoming announcement on phase 2 of the works?
Perhaps the DfT ministers had to go and do a bit more begging and
kneeling at the Treasury before they were ready to ok this...)

Of course the government might change colour between now and then, but
one would hope that regardless of that the future occupants of
Marshall Street and the Exchequer will see that there's a lot of sense
in this plan.


If this work does go ahead, then I could see Network Rail electrifying
the Gospel Oak - Barking line as a diversionary route before this
happens, if they can get the funding together. This electrification
could then be a test bed for the new techniques that they are planning
to reduce costs. I do recall mention that TfL were trying to get the
£54million diverted to electrification anyway.

Very interesting thoughts. Regarding your last point - you mean TfL
were/are trying to get the £54 million the DfT is seemingly willing to
spend on phase 2 of the Camden Rd works diverted to electrify the
GOBLIN? (If so then in other words they would be seeing that as a
greater priority than the NLL four-tracking through Camden.)


If there is any money emanating from the DfT any time soon then I
would very much hope it is for making phase 2 of the East London Line
Extension happen - apparently the funding gap is £15 million, which is
not a great deal in the grand scheme of things with regards to rail
projects. But time is running out - I think the costings all revolve
around the current ELLX construction venture continuing on to build
phase 2. I think it would cost significantly more to set it all up
again from a cold start.

I don't disagree with this.


Such an 'easy win' for that amount of money... tick... tock... get on
with it DfT!

On Jan 18, 8:12*am, THC wrote:
This is excellent news, although every time an additional approval for
the Croxley Rail Link is granted in this tortuous process, the cost
goes up and the proposed completion date stretches further away.

I find it hard to believe such a simple and obvious link could be so
elusive.

On Jan 18, 2:36*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:25:23 -0800 (PST), wrote:
Better still, use DMUs and run it through to Aylesbury!

That'd be a seriously useful service, and would get a lot of the
benefits of Aylesbury-Bletchley for very little of the additional
cost.

Understood and agreed. But, is it that expensive to provide an
Aylesbury to Bletchley/MKC service? Much of the track is currently in
use. Even Calvert to Bletchley was in use twenty five years back.

On Jan 18, 5:14*pm, Mizter T wrote:
On 18 Jan, 21:56, "Peter Masson" wrote:





wrote:

"THC" wrote:
This is excellent news, although every time an additional approval for
the Croxley Rail Link is granted in this tortuous process, the cost
goes up and the proposed completion date stretches further away.

It states on the proposal that trains would run every ten minutes. Yet on
the Amersham branch there are now only two trains an hour (I think I am
correct in saying this?) how come there would be such a variance?

Current service from Watford - Baker Street is every 10 minutes. It is this,
and not the Amersham trains, that would be diverted to run from Watford
Junction. There have, however, in the past been suggestions that if the link
is built there should also be a shuttle service from Watford Junction to
Amersham or Chesham.

And the present Watford Met station would likely be closed.

There is little point in retaining Watford Met. TfL might want to
wait until the property market recovers before selling the real estate!

On 20 Jan, 00:18, John B wrote:

On Jan 19, 11:17*pm, Mizter T wrote:

Anyway don't think anyone's got any money for stuff like this at the
moment... unless that ghost of Keynes who's been hovering around
somewhat lately starts visiting Brown & co in their dreams in
earnest...

The DfT seem to have magiced £54 millon extra for the four tracking at
Camden Road from somewhere

The NLL upgrade was agreed a while back before the Treasury realised
that the dour and miserly bankers at RBS has taken magic mushrooms
before making their investment decisions. Also the NLL upgrade around
Camden was reduced in scope anyway, when it was realised that some of
the works would cost too much.

And then re-scoped back up, possibly following a visit from the ghost
of Keynes.

I had totally missed this. Still not quite sure if it's Keynes the
'pump-primer' that would be behind this - works would commence in the
summer of 2012, and it would be quite nice if we weren't still doing
the global hyper-crash thing by that time, it might have got a bit
tiresome by then. I dare say that the increased container traffic
coming from the new London Gateway port that might be a considerable
driver here - though the port is apparently to open by 2011, and the
NLL four-tracking works would not be finished until 2014, so maybe I'm
wrong.


If there is any money emanating from the DfT any time soon then I
would very much hope it is for making phase 2 of the East London Line
Extension happen - apparently the funding gap is £15 million, which is
not a great deal in the grand scheme of things with regards to rail
projects. But time is running out - I think the costings all revolve
around the current ELLX construction venture continuing on to build
phase 2. I think it would cost significantly more to set it all up
again from a cold start.

They've got a good couple of years before the current venture comes to
an end - remember the northern part of Phase II (as was) is now part
of Phase I, but won't be built until (mumble shortly before Olympics
mumble).

2011 for the northern part you mention (the 'Dalston link'). AIUI it's
all intricately connected up with the NLL upgrade works, as
essentially the NLL will be moving to a new northern pair of tracks
(one of which doesn't even exist at the mo) whilst the ELLX will have
exclusive use of the southern pair between Dalston Junction and
Highbury & Islington (well actually a point between High & I and
Barnsbury & Caledonian Rd).

However I think you're really being rather optimistically generous in
the relaxed time scale you give - the works south of the river will be
finished by summer 2010, and quite possibly before that. There is
currently a large works depot that's been established in the 'Silwood
Triangle' just south of Surrey Quays station which AFAICS won't be of
much help whatsoever when it comes to the works between Dalston and
Highbury & Islington. I can't see much call for the depot at Silwood
to service these northern works - well, maybe the project offices
might stay, but it'd be quite some way away from the action so it
doesn't seem that likely.

The Silwood Triangle depot is however the perfect base from which to
construct the new link with the existing South London Line (albeit
along a long closed alignment) - it's something like a mile and a half
of railway, if that. Everything is basically already set up and ready
to go, but if the Silwood works depot hasn't got anything left to do
it will obviously wind down and pack up shop. AFAICS the only other
significant bit of work south of the river for phase 2 would be that
of re-establishing platform 1 at Clapham Junction, which I believe
will require some renovation work.

So the BBCJV enterprise that's constructing the ELLX will indeed still
be around after the line to Dalston Jn opens in order to finish the
extra works up in that neck of the woods (though I'm not quite sure to
what extent they'll be responsible for works on the NLL alignment),
but they will likely have closed down the Silwood works depot by that
point. In a project as cost concious as phase 2 will have to be, the
sheer cost of re-establishing that base of operations would seem
likely to be a knock-out blow - which is why time is of the essence...


On the original Croxley point, there was an expectation/plan that TfL
would chip in for the benefit of the reasonably sizeable number of
people who live in Greater-London-Metroland but work in Watford.

OK, that makes sense.

On Jan 19, 4:08*am, Jamie Thompson wrote:
On 19 Jan, 10:44, "John Rowland"

wrote:
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Christopher A. Lee wrote:

I remember seeing this proposed 40+ years ago. I showed it to my old
man (who worked on the Met) who said it was originally planned
pre-war.

Was there ever any thought given during the original construction of
the Met branch to a link-up? Or was there too much competition
between the LNER and the LMSR?

I don't know, but a Met station was built in Watford High St and is still
there AFAIK. The line never reached it.

Might be useful:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watford...tation#History

...though I believe the article to be wrong. It claims "Revolution" as
the location, but other sources claim "Moon Under the Water". Hard to
tell from the photograph in the cited reference which is correct,
though I suspect it is in fact MUtW.

The W&RR built the line to Ricky in the late 1800s, the LMSR built the
Croxley Green branch around the early 1900s,

No LMSR prior to 1923. It may have been the LNWR.

then the Met built their
Watford Branch, with Watford Met opening in the 20's as direct
competition. The Ricky line had options over the early years of being
extended to High Wycombe (long before the GC joint line was
conceived), and apparently Uxbridge via Harefield.

On Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:30:03 -0800 (PST), 1506
wrote:

On Jan 19, 4:08*am, Jamie Thompson wrote:
On 19 Jan, 10:44, "John Rowland"

wrote:
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Christopher A. Lee wrote:

I remember seeing this proposed 40+ years ago. I showed it to my old
man (who worked on the Met) who said it was originally planned
pre-war.

Was there ever any thought given during the original construction of
the Met branch to a link-up? Or was there too much competition
between the LNER and the LMSR?

I don't know, but a Met station was built in Watford High St and is still
there AFAIK. The line never reached it.

Might be useful:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watford...tation#History

...though I believe the article to be wrong. It claims "Revolution" as
the location, but other sources claim "Moon Under the Water". Hard to
tell from the photograph in the cited reference which is correct,
though I suspect it is in fact MUtW.

The W&RR built the line to Ricky in the late 1800s, the LMSR built the
Croxley Green branch around the early 1900s,

No LMSR prior to 1923. It may have been the LNWR.

According to Wonkypaedia, opened in 1912 by the LNWR as a branch off
the line opened in 1862 by the Watford and Rickmansworth Railway
Company.

then the Met built their
Watford Branch, with Watford Met opening in the 20's as direct
competition. The Ricky line had options over the early years of being
extended to High Wycombe (long before the GC joint line was
conceived), and apparently Uxbridge via Harefield.