Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

That’s not really an equivalent idea to the London Underground, or TfL as a whole. London is one of the principal cities of the world. There are few places anywhere that compare and none of them are in the UK.*

“Levelling up” in this context has to mean availability of high-speed transit between Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, so the three of them together can begin to benefit from the same sort of complex connections London has.

* That’s not a homage to the place by the way - simply an observation of its size and complexity in relation to other British cities. And its status as the capital didn’t even make this state of affairs inevitable. It is decades of myopic government investment strategy that kept throwing money into a feedback loop in which the infrastructure projects most likely to boost the economy attracted more and more cash at the expense of everywhere else. That, ultimately, is how we have come to spend an utterly absurd amount of money on Crossrail while claiming it’s too costly to develop rapid transit in the north of England.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

Great news on the Elizabeth Line. Looks like a success.








Complete waste of time and needs a total re-think.
A journey to London would only be ten minutes faster for me.


Ten minutes!

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

And the bias, usually against northern English towns continues. A modest proposal to restore a short stretch of track and build a new station in deprived Skelmersdale (population 40,000) in Lancashire has been rejected.

As the local MP noted "During the 2019 election, the Tories repeatedly used Skelmersdale Rail as an example of how they will be ‘levelling up’ rail transport. Not just locally, but even on their national campaign website! To now completely turn their backs on Skelmersdale residents, is a cruel joke, a betrayal."
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashi...ected-24434213
https://www.rosiecooper.net/2022/07/...ne-says-rosie/

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

It's a really nice line as well. If you compare it to the Jubliee Line which was the newest tube line prior to this it's amazing the leap forward 30 years makes in the context of a 160-year-old railway network.


I think it's better to think of it as additional capacity that is also high speed. There are bigger gains as well. Manchester to London is an hour which, each way, is a big difference that mades day trips between the cities easier for pleasure and business. If the original ambition was maintained then Scotland to London would see huge differences.

I think when we build new intercity railways they should be high-speed by default even when the intention is simply to add capacity and new routes to the network.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

That’s slightly more complicated than the local council and the local Labour MP are (unsurprisingly) making it out to be.

Skelmersdale isn’t on the line between Kirkby and Wigan. The branch line that served it closed to passengers in the 1950s, before the new town grew, and the track bed is now partially built on. For a branch terminating at Skelmersdale to be viable, Merseytravel, which operates most of the line towards Liverpool, has made it clear that its pre-existing plan to extend its current terminus from Kirkby to Headbolt Lane (closer to Skem) has to be in place first. They’re working on it but it’s a little way off yet - partly because any future extensions of the Merseyrail network are dependent on the outcome of battery-electric trials conducted on its new rolling stock fleet.

El Gov is actually right to propose improved bus links to existing stations at this point. Given time, Merseyrail is likely to demonstrate that its new trains can run on battery power from the end of the third-rail electrified track at Kirkby, all the way to Wigan Wallgate. That will justify the case they want to make to complete the Headbolt Lane project (which I understand has track alignment for extension to Skem built in), and eventually create new termini at both Wigan and Skem. Merseytravel is a forward thinking and ambitious transport authority. If they want to do this - and it seems they do - then they will. I wouldn’t bet against them getting money out of central government to assist, when they are actually in a position to build it. Which as of right now, they aren’t.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

You mean 43 years. The Jubilee line opened in 1979. Perhaps it was that it was proposed in 1949 (30 years earlier) that has you confused. Not as the Jubilee line of course but he same route.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

Damien was probably thinking of the Jubilee Line Extension…

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

Actually, I was thinking of 1979 but was thinking of when Crossrail was first given the go-ahead back in 2008. So cheating a bit. :D

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

Possibly but unlike you I am not a mind reader.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

I knew you were going to say that…

;)

(Whereas in reality, I was hypothesising from his post and the fact that the JLE was initiated at around the time he stated, which is where the "probably" came into play (and my hypothesis was faulty)).

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

It's the same issue though. Sections of that extension are loud and shaky. The train isn't smooth and there are horrible screeching sounds. The Elizabeth line is just quiet and smooth.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

Screeching is caused by wheels being forced around tight curves, which themselves were likely forced on the track design by the required route and pre-existing obstacles. IIRC the Lizzie Line runs deeper than most and is likely to have been designed to avoid tight curves.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

Why have they decided not go ahead with this?

---------- Post added at 16:53 ---------- Previous post was at 16:51 ----------

It often is and the problem with a built-up trackbed often makes it almost impossible to reinstate former lines.

Re: Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) opens
 

The real scandal of the Beeching cuts isn’t just that lines were closed but that no provision was made to reverse closures in future. The Beeching Report was as complacent as it was short-sighted.