Examination of Witnesses (Questions 8280
- 8299)
8280. LORD SNAPE: Can I interrupt you
a second there, Mr Francis? Have you any idea of the cost of that
particular proposal?
8281. MR FRANCIS: I should imagine it
could well be £100 million—something along those lines.
The main cost, I expect, would be in providing the grade-separated
junction, which, as I say, would perform a number of functions.
It might be £50 million, but in terms of the cost of the
project as a whole, comparatively small. I know it is a big number
but I think the benefits that would be delivered by it would be
worthwhile.
8282. LORD SNAPE: Without undermining
the merits of your proposals—and I can see the common sense
from a railway point of view—the Committee, having heard
lots of similar Petitions, resolved fairly early on, at least
in private if not in public session, that adding all these bits
on and using the words you have just used, that in the context
of the £15 billion, or whatever, it will not amount to very
much, the fact is that putting them all together it does amount
to quite a lot, and that is one of the reasons why we rather set
our face against previous Petitioners. Please continue.
8283. MR FRANCIS: There would, of course,
be some savings because you would not have to build the turn-back
facility at Westbourne Park. I do not know, obviously, the comparative
costings of those—I am sure this probably would cost more—but
there would be an offset there of a saving of the Westbourne Park
facility. The big advantage with this is that the turn-back would
be at a publicly accessible station rather than in private sidings,
as it were. One of the problems with the turn-back in a private
facility at Westbourne Park is that passengers would have to be
turned off the train at Paddington before it went into the sidings,
and that, I fear, would delay a train, whereas if the termination
takes place in a regular station that is no longer an issue—passengers
would be getting on and off there anyway.
8284. CHAIRMAN: Mr Francis, it looks
to me as though we may be coming on now to the Custom House point.
8285. MR FRANCIS: Indeed, my Lord.
8286. CHAIRMAN: In which case I think
we might break for lunch, and come back at half-past two.
The Committee adjourned from 12.59 pm
until 2.30 pm
8287. CHAIRMAN: Mr Francis, have we got
to Custom House, on page 9?
8288. MR FRANCIS: Sir, I would just like
to go back to paragraph 28, page 7, because of what Mr Berryman
said earlier on. This is about a line from the west side of Heathrow
going up to join the Great Western Main Line with a western curve.
In the Promoter's response they said you could not fit in a western
curve at Airport Junction. I wanted to make clear we were not
suggesting it was at Airport Junction at all; that it was in fact
nearer to Iver.
8289. Could we have one of Mr Berryman's slides,
either 44 or 46, which shows an aerial photograph of West Drayton
station?[46]
8290. What we can see on this photograph in
the bottom right-hand corner is a body of water and just beyond
that you can see some trees which actually mask an existing freight
railway line known as the Staines branch, and that originally
went down all the way to Staines, but part of it has now had the
M25 built on top of it, and it goes very close to the west side
of T5. It is still operational as a freight line, and on the left
hand side of the picture you can see that the line curves round
towards the top of the picture and rejoins the Main Line near
West Drayton station. What we are suggesting is that that line
should be used coming in from the Heathrow direction, and instead
of the line curving, as it were, round to the right, having come
underneath the Main Line, it should curve round to the left, i.e.
towards the bottom of the picture, and join the Great Western
Main Line a little bit off the bottom of the picture there.
8291. I do not think there are any buildings,
I think there are just some old gravel pits, basically, that would
need to be crossed. So that is where we are suggesting there should
be essentially a west-facing curve on to the Main Line, and this
means that trains from the Reading and the Slough direction would
be able to leave the Great Western Main Line, go underneath using
the existing bridge, which is just towards the bottom of the picture,
and then head off to the right and into Heathrow at Terminal 5,
so mainly on the existing old freight track. It would just need
a connection into the west side of Heathrow.
8292. Mr Berryman mentioned it does have to
go underneath the M4 at one point, which it does where the M4
meets the M25, that very complex junction, and it is single track
at that point but, having looked at it, it runs directly adjacent
to one of the motorway slip roads which is a two-lane road, both
lanes in the same direction, and if one of those lanes was closed
given over to railway—controversial, I know—you could
there have a two-track railway coming from Heathrow out to the
Great Western Main Line and heading off towards Slough or Reading.
8293. CHAIRMAN: Mr Francis, is that one
of the big reservoirs in the bottom right hand corner of that
photograph?
8294. MR FRANCIS: They are further south,
sir. I think you are talking about Queen Mother, at the end of
Heathrow. That is another couple of miles to the south.
8295. CHAIRMAN: I was just interested
in the levels. If the railway line is below the lip of the reservoir
and then has to come up to join the Main Line, how do the levels
work?
8296. MR FRANCIS: I am talking about,
as it were, the left-hand side of the Main Line. The track which
you cannot see, which is just above where the lake is, behind
those trees, goes underneath the Main Line.
8297. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I understand that.
8298. MR FRANCIS: Retaining the existing
curve, where it curves coming off so you can turn left towards
the bottom, certainly the Great Western Main Line is on an embankment
there so is considerably above the level of the lakes, and I would
guess that the branch line, the Colnbrook branch as it is called,
is slightly above the level of those lakes, but I do not have
exact data on that. It is not a big lake, it is off the bottom
left hand corner of this picture, but it is a series of small
lakes rather than one big one, so it may well be possible to pick
a way through that does not involve lakes at all.
8299. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: I presume
you have not costed this either, Mr Francis?
46 Crossrail Ref: P55, Lafarge West Drayton Yard-Oblique
view looking east (LINEWD-XR7-044) Back
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