Examination of Witnesses (Questions 8300
- 8319)
8300. MR FRANCIS: No. What we are talking
about, though, is a piece of railway line less than a kilometre
in length so, again, relatively cheap. There are no properties
or anything in the way.
8301. LORD JONES OF CHELTENHAM: Just to be clear,
we are talking about this line coming under the Main Line and
then heading left. It is on the wrong side of the Main Line there,
so presumably it would have to go under the embankment and back
again?
8302. MR FRANCIS: No. In this picture
the slow lines, the relief lines, are the ones on the left, so
that is why you would come under the line and then curve round
to join the Main Line so that you joined the slow lines, which
are the ones that would be used by Crossrail trains. If you wanted
to join the fast lines then, yes, you would probably have to curve
round to where that body of water is, but that is not what we
are suggesting because Crossrail trains are using the slow lines.
That is why you would go under the Main Line and then curve round
to join the slow lines.
8303. LORD SNAPE: If you used your pointer,
the Committee might find it helpful, just to describe the curves
that you are speaking about.
8304. MR FRANCIS: Yes. The rail line
from Heathrow is coming along there (indicating bottom right).
It would need to go underneath the Main Line, the current freight
line curves up, and what we are suggesting is there would be another
one curving round to the west, joining the Main Line just off
the bottom of the picture. So the only new line would be this
section across that piece of open ground (indicating bottom left)
which has got some pits in it, as I say, going further down. Is
that sufficient clarity?
8305. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: Yes.
8306. LORD JONES OF CHELTENHAM: Where it says
"Colnbrook branch" in the bottom left, is that a road?
8307. MR ELVIN: In fact, the Three Valleys
water works is just to the left and off the picture there, so
I suspect it is an access road.
8308. MR FRANCIS: Thank you. I will move
to the east, now.
8309. The original Bill proposed that Ebbsfleet
would be one of the eastern termini, and we certainly support
that view. It has since been truncated to Abbey Wood, and we understand
that is because of the Promoters not wanting to share tracks between
Abbey Wood and Ebbsfleet with other train operators, but obviously
it could be extended there, as the Promoters have said, with extra
tracks built in order to avoid track sharing, and we certainly
suggest that that should be done, and if not immediately then
it should certainly be safeguarded, which I know is under consideration
so that that can be done at some later stage. The Promoters have
said that there would be interchange at Abbey Wood between the
trains from, say, Dartford or Ebbsfleet, and that is absolutely
correct, but it is a fairly infrequent service between Abbey Wood
and stations east of Dartford. In the offpeak there is only one
train every half-hour, and in the peak there is about a train
every twenty minutes. Now, that is fine if you are going towards
London because you get off an infrequent service and you get on
to a frequent service, but it is not so good from the passengers'
point of view going in the other direction because you get off
this frequent service at Abbey Wood but you could have to wait
anything up to 30 minutes for the onward service to take you to
Ebbsfleet or Gravesend or somewhere like that, whereas obviously
if the trains run through there is no waiting involved at all.
8310. I now come to my final issue, which is
the Custom House station. I have just put up a single line diagram
from the Promoters, and the top picture shows the existing with
the lower picture showing Custom House, just to the right of the
rig.[47]
8311. The layout that is proposed has a pair
of tracks of Crossrail at the top with a platform between the
tracks and then a pair of tracks with a platform in between for
the DLR.
8312. This means that anyone interchanging between
DLR and Crossrail will have to walk along a platform, go up some
steps or use a lift, cross the footbridge and then down steps
or a lift and along the platform. Now, that is pretty inconvenient
for the passengers, and what we have suggested is that by changing
the layout you could provide cross platform interchange where
people would get off one train, simply walk across the platform
and get on the other train.
8313. What we expect here is there are a lot
of people who will be using the DLR to get to Custom House from
housing estates and, later, from the new development areas around
Barking Creek, where there is a proposed DLR extension to Dagenham
Dock. They will be arriving at Custom House and then transferring
on to Crossrail to go either to Docklands, the City, the West
End or Heathrow typically, and it would be good to provide those
people who have to interchange there with as convenient an interchange
as possible. So if one rearranged the tracks so that, reading
from the top, you have the eastbound DLR track, if on the other
side of that island platform you have the eastbound Crossrail
track there would then be cross-platform interchange, and if platform
3 became the westbound Crossrail track and platform 4 stayed as
the westbound DLR track, then we would gain the cross-platform
interchange in the westerly direction.
8314. The engineering for this is not terribly
difficult: it just means that the Crossrail tracks have to emerge
between the DLR tracks rather than alongside them, and the DLR
tracks are going to be moved slightly anyway so I do not think
there are any major costs involved there. The only significant
cost would be in a new ramp for the eastbound DLR which would
have to rise up and cross over the Crossrail tracks before entering
Prince Regent DLR station. There is only about 500 metres or less
between the two stations so the ramp would be quite short. Crossrail
tracks will be falling because they go through the Connaught Tunnel
so the ramp properly only needs to rise up about five metres.
We are talking about a ramp less than 500 metres in length for
a DLR. Again, it costs tens of millions perhaps but not massive.
8315. Based on the Promoter's figures they said
they thought that only 1,900 passengers would interchange at Custom
House each day in the morning peak, that is over 2,000 a day including
the off-peak, and of course this would happen in two directions;
so that would be 4,000 interchanges per day. That would work out
at 20,000 per week, or about a million per year. Most projects
when you do the cost:benefit you look at 60-year costings so we
are talking potentially here about 60 million passenger interchanges
where, if the layout was changed, those 60 million interchanges
would be simply walking from one side of the platform to the other.
Without it that will be 60 million trips up a bridge and down
on the other side. If the Dagenham Dock branch of DLR is built
I would expect that figure to probably double to something in
the region of a hundred million trips over the 60 years. I have
put some calculations about applying a financial cost to that
benefit of the time saving which could probably be a couple of
minutes for each interchange; and I think the financial benefit
in time savings for the passengers would exceed the cost of building
the extra ramp.
8316. I would just conclude by pointing out
that TFL's predecessors did provide a cross-platform interchange
when the Victoria line was built in the 1960s and 1970s. It is
not obvious, and I have been using it for several decades before
I worked out what the engineers had done, but where the Victoria
line has interchanges, and I have listed them here as Finsbury
Park, Highbury and Islington, Euston, Oxford Circus and Stockwell,
what they did was construct extra tunnels so that when passengers
had to interchange between the Victoria line and those other underground
lines, passengers were able to do it literally cross-platform.
You get off one train and walk through a short level tunnel and
onto the platform for the other train. That was an extraordinarily
complex piece of engineering because of course it was taking place
20 or 30 metres below ground. It would have been much simpler
and cheaper for them to have constructed the Victoria line and
forced people to have to use stairs, passages and escalators to
reach the other lines; but a decision was taken (and again I have
no idea how much extra cost there was but given that we are talking
about holes in the ground here, it is far more expensive doing
it there than it is doing it above ground) it was at that time
thought to be good value. For the last 40 years the passengers
on the Victoria line have benefited from that quick, convenient
interchange. I would like to suggest that the same principle should
be followed here where it can be done much more easily and much
more cheaply, and a cross-platform interchange be provided. Thank
you.
8317. CHAIRMAN: I think you said, Mr
Francis, you did not want to call any evidence?
8318. MR FRANCIS: I just wish to cross-examine
the Promoters.
8319. CHAIRMAN: Indeed, but first of
all I must give the Promoters a chance to reply, and then you
can call evidence if you like.
47 Crossrail Ref: P55, Single Line Diagram-Custom
House to Abbey Wood (LINEWD-XR7-001) Back
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