Examination of Witnesses (Questions 2300
- 2319)
2300. Added to that your Lordships have to remember
that the Mayor's Office predicts that by 2016 there will be a
700,000 increase in population in London. So you have the existing
situation and anybody who travels on the tube, particularly the
Central Line in the rush hour, will know just how unbearable it
is now and if you add another 700,000 people to London and you
try and think how will the Central Line cope. So on that part
of Mr Middleton's case, in my submission, we are absolutely clear.
2301. In terms of the other strand of his case,
which is why are we not going to all these other places—Milton
Keynes, Cambridge, Peterborough, the South Coast, and whatever—a
principal reason is that the more strands, the more limbs you
put on to the network you have a material impact on the reliability
of the service through the central tunnels. So you only have to
get one train coming from Peterborough which is delayed and you
have a knock-on effect in the central tunnels, which then means
you get all the kind of congestion that, to use an example which
will be unpopular with London Underground, you used to get on
the Northern Line where because you had one problem you would
end up getting that train delayed and then the trains could not
get through the signals at Camden Town or Euston, and then the
whole service would be thrown out and it would become a nightmare
to travel, and the last thing that we want to do is to repeat
that kind of problem but on a massive scale. So the more limbs
you have the more problems you have with those kinds of reliability
issues.
2302. Also, the more limbs you have the more
problems you have fitting in with existing train services. So
we have gone to a great deal of effort in modelling to ensure
that the train services on the three limbs can work with existing
services on the Great Western and the North Eastern lines, and
that we can have a highly reliable service.
2303. The two other reasons why going to these
relatively far-flung spots is not a good idea—and Mr Berryman
will tell me if I have this wrong—is that first of all in
order to have a reliable service through the central tunnels you
have to be able to get people in and out of the trains quickly—if
you have a long dwell time in the stations then it will not work.
If you have people coming from as far afield as Northampton and
Milton Keynes then there will be really very little benefit for
them getting on to Crossrail and they will be on a service which
is not designed for them—it is designed for a metro service
with lots of seats but relatively few compared to, say, a commuter
service coming from Northampton. So you would have the people
from Northampton being on the service for a long time in circumstances
where, to be honest, they would be far better off being on existing
services. So there is no benefit to those people from the relatively
far-flung spots.
2304. That ties in to another point that Mr
Middleton made, which is about Shenfield. We actually predict
that relatively few people will get on the train at Shenfield
who want to go as far as Liverpool Street, for exactly the reason
that Mr Middleton gives, which is that it will take longer than
if they got on the fast service. If we start at Shenfield, people
will get on at Shenfield who want to go to the intermediate stations,
places like Brentwood or Stratford, but then it is going along
the line picking people up where the level of usage comes in.
Equally, we do not think that many people will go from Shenfield
to Maidenhead on Crossrail, for two reasons. One is that it would
take a long time to do it on Crossrail and there are probably
quicker ways; but the other is that it is not a route that lots
of people want to do in any case, in just the same way that going
from Ipswich to Aylesbury will be of minimal benefit because how
many people want to go from Ipswich to Aylesbury? There might
be a few modal shifters but it would not begin to justify either
the expense or the probable inconvenience to all the people who
would rather go from Ipswich to London on a fast train.
2305. So, you can think up all these strange
journey patterns but in reality there is relatively little benefit
to them.
2306. So far as some of Mr Middleton's detailed
points about why we are not going to Richmond and Kingston, for
instance, and why we are not going to Aylesbury, they are dealt
with in A1. If I can just expand a little bit on Aylesbury because
the comment in A1 is perhaps not terribly clear? We consulted
people in Aylesbury about whether they wanted Crossrail and what
we found was that people were satisfied in the main with their
existing service and all that Crossrail would do, largely, is
duplicate the Metropolitan Line service in any event, so it was
not sufficiently beneficial. That is not to say that there would
not be a few people who would not like it and profit from it,
but that is not sufficient to justify the expenditure.
2307. So those kinds of issues were all dealt
with and are touched upon in A1, and of course if the Committee
is concerned and read A1 and they have any questions you will
see Mr Berryman on many, many occasions and he can be asked questions,
perhaps with a bit of forewarning, in any of the Committee sessions
that come up.
2308. My Lords, those, I hope, deal with the
principal points. I do not know whether there is anything else
that the Committee would like me to deal with?
2309. CHAIRMAN: I just wanted to ask
Lady Fookes whether she wanted you to open up the big red book
and look at some of the things that you have considered.
2310. BARONESS FOOKES: I am not sure
I do at this stage.
2311. MS LIEVEN: To help your Lordships,
who I think all have the big red books, A1 at the back has a plan
showing all the different places we considered and why we rejected
them. So if the Committee want to delve into this matter any further
it is all in there. Thank you, my Lords.
2312. CHAIRMAN: Mr Middleton, the last
word is yours.
2313. MR MIDDLETON: Listening to that
I think actually she agrees with me to a large extent that Crossrail
is going to generate purely local journeys; they are deliberately
avoiding making a Thameslink-style operation in the east-west
direction.
2314. I appreciate being able to come and put
my case to the Committee; I feel I have had a fair crack of the
whip. I knew when I came that I was not quite in line with what
was supposed to be discussed, but I do feel that it is absolutely
vital if you are going to spend £16 billion you think about
the strategy as well as the detail of the thing, because if Thameslink
can work and Thameslink 2000, 24 trains per hour—Peterborough,
Brighton, as well as Luton and Croydon—someone is obviously
doing exactly the opposite with Crossrail, saying that it cannot
work. So my ideal solution would be for the people developing
Thameslink to take over Crossrail. Thank you very much for listening.
2315. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr Middleton.
I do not know whether you know that the government has safeguarded
a route to Reading and they are proposing to safeguard a route
from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet, so that goes, as far as you are
concerned, in the right direction, does it not?
2316. I think otherwise Lord James has really
spoken for us all in encouraging you to go on with your campaign.
Thank you very much for coming.
2317. MS LIEVEN: My Lord, just to touch
on tomorrow.
2318. CHAIRMAN: We are starting at ten
o'clock in Black Rod's Garden, in the bus.
2319. MS LIEVEN: That is right, my Lord,
and then in the afternoon we have the Petition of Mr Saunderson,
which really concerns compensation issues.
| 
