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Victoria Road
New Crossrail could extend to Kingston, Twickenham and Epsom
New Crossrail could go to Clapham Junction, Tooting Broadway, Wimbledon and extend to Kingston, Twickenham and Epsom.
London First have proposed building Crossrail 2 with this proposed route Boris Johnson and David Cameron have been urged to get behind ambitious proposals to bring Crossrail 2 to south-west London. Business leaders have brought forward proposals to bring a next phase of Crossrail to the capital in the 2020s, to be discussed tonight. London First’s proposed route would involve building an underground tunnel from Wimbledon to Tottenham Hale via Tooting Broadway, Clapham Junction, and a number of central London stops.
The lobbying group, chaired by former transport secretary Andrew, Lord Adonis, proposes Crossrail 2 via Wimbledon would include separate branches to Epsom, Chessington South via Surbiton, Hampton Court and Twickenham via Kingston. They also said the need for Crossrail 2 has become greater since the Government decided to press ahead with a new high-speed rail link to Birmingham and the North (High Speed 2, or HS2) – which would put more strain on Euston station.
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Comments
This blogger knows his stuff when it comes to trains and has come up with a better cheaper Crossrail 2 proposal.
This deserves a very serious look, as I think it would offer more benefits to Surbiton and Kingston.
http://ukrail.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/crossrail-ssw.html
"The [London First's] CR2 plans appear to suggest a fifth track between New Malden and Wimbledon, allowing an additional 9tph, or an extra 19% capacity. But this is of dubious value. Squeezing in an additional track (or more sensibly two tracks) is a major task for a working railway, and anyway some of the additional fast trains are going to have to stop at Earlsfield. In addition, it still means that the SWML is operating at absolute maximum capacity with no space for recovery, resulting in unreliable journeys and a general lack of resilience. "
Benefits of the alternative scheme:
1. 50% more tracks into London than the current SWML allowing 50% more trains, 72tph instead of 48tph
2. Existing commuting patterns are respected, with easy cross-platform change at Wimbledon
3. Much greater resilience if there is a problem, with two virtually independent fast lines, one in tunnel and the existing one above ground
4. Easier access for maintenance, late evening services could use either the tunnel or the old fast line, allowing the other to be maintained from 10pm onwards
5. Cheaper - costs for the section south of Victoria drop from £3.6 Billion to £2.2 Billion. Current SW Trains users would get more benefits than London First's CR2 scheme.
Only negative: Dropping Tooting from CR2 scheme, but a lot of people aren't convinced that CR2 relieves the Northern Line anyway
Well, I think this could be great for Surbiton/Kingston bringing reduction in overcrowding and some much needed competition for South West Trains.
I like the fact that they seem to be getting used to the idea of offering proper local train services for London, rather than the previous obsession that trains have to start miles away and just terminate in London. Having only one stop before Surbiton might mean it is possible to get on a train a little more easily in the morning!
It is very unusual for this area to be included so prominantly in plans like this given that it has been totally overlooked so many times before.
I agree with the other comments that I have seen on the news that the most overdue links for Surbiton/Kingston are directly to the City and Heathrow, but I will certainly be supporting this proposal as it looks like a massive improvement on what we currently have.
Don't rush to praise Crossrail 2 without seeing the impact on Surbiton services.
I've heard suggestions that Surbiton's fast trains to Waterloo could be removed as a result of this, as SWT mainline services would call at Wimbledon, not Surbiton.
We might get more trains per hour, but they could be slower.
Most people pay a premium to be near Surbiton station for the fast link to Waterloo.
Taking it away would be a huge blow to the majority who work in the City / Holborn / Canary Wharf.
Whilst Kingston town will certainly get a better train service than it does now (not hard), the real winner will be Wimbledon. With its status as a SW London transport super hub, I expect it's retail and services sector to expand directly at the expense of Kingston town.
Given the historic scarcity of TfL investment in our borough, I do wonder if Kingston residents should push for the SW end of Crossrail 2 to be amended to give Kingston Borough what it really needs most, a new north-south link with some or all of these stations
Wimbledon > North Kingston > Kingston > Surbiton > Tolworth > Chessington > Ewell > Epsom
For the first time, Kingston town would have direct rail links to it's south/ south west hinterland. Esher, Epsom, Ewell, etc. Epsom would have a direct link to St Georges Hospital.
With fast rail links, proximity to the A3, the large empty Tesco site, motorbike tracks, and Cox Lane industrial units, Tolworth becomes a huge development opportunity. I'm quite surprised that it ddn't make it onto the shortlist for stations in yesterday's announcement.
It would be a massive problem if the current Surbiton fast service was scaled down to make way for this!
When they mentioned on the news that Kingston to Tottenham Court road would be 22 minutes, that seemed like a big improvement, but you can already do that journey from Surbiton in about 25 (all be it with one change to the Tube).
Having said that, Surbiton does need more trains per hour, so some would be prepared to sacrifice 5 minutes journey time for that. If we are progressing, we really should have faster AND more frequent trains.
I am not sure why we can't have a superfast service like the one they have put in from Ashford to St Pancras which is under 20 minutes for a 50 mile journey. On that basis, Surbiton to London should be possible in about 5 minutes!
It is a bit of a risk that Wimbledon would begin to replace Kingston as the main retail centre in SW London, but I think it would take a long time. Despite it's current poor transport links, Kingston has actually improved as a centre over the past few years, whilst Wimbledon remains pretty grotty. This proposal would further improve Wimbledon's links, but it would have more of a material change on Kingston's. It would take a lot of investment to bring Wimbledon up to the level of Kingston shopping centre, and I am not sure there would be the appetite to do this if Kingston is only 5 minutes away by train and retail occupancy is under threat anyway.
Tolworth is definitely an opportunity. House prices are half of those in Surbiton and more like a third of those in Wimbledon, so a fast rail link would be very useful to allow people to tap that resource.
They only have to build one westfield type shopping centre in Wimbledon and they'll tip the balance instantly. Kingston needs a lot more out of this Crossrsil 2 if it is to survive.
If Norbiton and Kingston nearly made it onto Crossrail 1 in recognition of their poor transport links, I don't understand why a new North South link from Wimbledon to Norbiton to Kingston to Surbiton to Tolworth to Chessington shouldn't be included in Crossrail 2.
The truth is that we've only been pegged onto this as an afterthought. This is about relieving the Victoria Line and adding more value to the well connected Chelsea set. It's not really about what Kingstonians or Surbitonians want or need. If it were it would offer us new train paths and would go to where most of us commute to, The City & Canary Wharf.
The unnecessary detour to Chelsea means that taking this line to Canary Wharf and changing for CR1 at Tottenham Court Road would be slower than going by Waterloo & Jubilee Line at present.
Proof that any new Crossrail line will have the large retail centre developers jumping all over it for opportunities.
Jefferies analyst Mike Prew said: “Crossrail is going to completely reshape the residential and commercial demographic in London. East and west London are looking more interesting now.”
http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/british-land-banks-on-c...
Under the currently proposed CR2 scheme, Wimbledon will trump Kingston for large retail development because it has more lines going through it. Transport links are everything. Unless Kingston can get a north south link, to give direct rail links from Woking / Esher / Epsom / Ewell, it will suffer a long gradual decline.
Call me paranoid, but did anybody notice that on the released CR2 map, the Kings Road stop got illustrated with a shopping icon, while our own much larger shopping centre of Kingston didn't. Confirms suspicions that that this scheme's backers are Inner London centric.
It looks more and more to me that they way this will play out is that the will push to build the proper underground part from Wimbledon onwards and Surbiton/Kingston will just be connected to it by slightly modified versions of our current inadequte lines.
Shame.
I agree,the problem is planning and timescales,I remember it took 25 years to build T5 and that was within the LHR boundary,Cross rail 1 has been talked about since the 60's.
Just for once can some government put the country first and brook no interference from objectors and get on and build something like this and the other 2 runways needed at LHR plus 1 at LGW,hook up connections to both cross rails and then by jove we would have something to celebrate.
Otherwise it get kicked into the long grass and perhaps be built by 2050,by which time we will be in receipt of foreign aid not a donor.
Yep, that is the problem with this type of plan - it is a lot of money invested to aid the lives of a completely new generation whose needs may be very different from our own.
The SWT service is hideously overcrowded and the creaking infrastructure consistently leads to the the type of catastrophic failures that we have already had two of in the past four days, BUT I can foresee three major problems with the new proposal:
1. SWT need all of the revenue that they are currently getting from packing twice as many passengers onto trains that they have the capacity for. They get a massive government subsidy as it is, so if ticket revenues decline this subsidy has to go up and taxpayers suffer.
2. Surely by 2030 we will have eased back slightly on the approach that everyone who wants a reasonable job has to actually go and sit in an office in central London for 40 hours a week rather than working from home or other locations occasionally. It sounds ridiculous now, but will we actually need new capacity?
3. The planned infrastructure looks a bit suspect to me. The Surbiton/Hampton Court branch and the Kingston/Twickenham one follow the same lines that we currently have. Does this mean that they are going to run on the existing SWT lines once they emerge from the underground part at Wimbledon? If so, there is no real advantage to the new line and if not it might have been better to build them to offer different direct connections than we already have.
RE
"3. The planned infrastructure looks a bit suspect to me. The Surbiton/Hampton Court branch and the Kingston/Twickenham one follow the same lines that we currently have. Does this mean that they are going to run on the existing SWT lines once they emerge from the underground part at Wimbledon? If so, there is no real advantage to the new line and if not it might have been better to build them to offer different direct connections than we already have."
I think they're proposing to add a fifth rail from the the tunnel portal at Raynes Park to Surbiton, alongside the existing track.
I completely agree that Kingston borough residents should be pressing for a new path instead, eg my earlier suggestion of
Wimbledon > North Kingston > Kingston > Surbiton > Tolworth > Chessington > Ewell > Epsom
Totally agree with your view on that. A one line addition to the current route would not really be of any benefit, it needs to be a totally new line but it doesn't look like they will be prepared to actually put one underground.
So really the new proposal is for a line that links Wimbledon with central London and just has add-on services to the other SW stations mentioned.
Simple me. had envisaged a separate line altogether and set inside a tunnel,no point at all in just tinkering with the existing overcrowded lines from this area.The current permanent way allows for almost zero widening of any meaning and siting a monorail on top is probably more expensive than tunnelling,still we are decades away from even seeking outline consultation so no chance of anything happening in most living peoples lifetime.
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