I found this tonight. Is this a rail project? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4129102.stm Looks interesting and very exciting for you brit railfans.
Yep. Here's the official site: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/ The concept is to link suburban services that stop at termini on each side of London to create a cross-London service that reduces tube congestion and increases travel options. There's lots of uproar in the rail industry over how it's being done though, and a rival scheme is being proposed that's far more ambitious: http://www.superlinklondon.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
They just have to get their act together and get the thing started, then work out the fine details later. London needs this line or it will grind to a halt in a few years!
Alan, that's my opinion too, provided they put in provision for further development they should just get on with it, there are a bunch of serious issues with Crossrail that seem to be getting glossed over though. Crossrail in it's present form seems to be somewhat politically driven rather than by the railways, seemingly creating conflicts that you have to assume wouldn't be there if driven from within the railway organisation. One major problem is the GWML, where in the powers for the route to be built Crossrail was granted all capacity on the slow lines from Maidenhead inwards, given that the route see's around 50 scheduled freights between 9am and 7pm, (most only run certain days, I figure maybe about 25 of them a day on a busy day) and with Network Rail trying to use 125mph trains only on the fast lines to increase capacity, and Heathrow Express/Heathrow Connect to deal with as well, where do those freight trains (which have a legal access right to use the network) go. There is no other sensible route to getting them to/from Acton yard, the current splitting point for the Mendip Rail 'Jumbo' trains... In the Crossrail 'roadshow' that was doing the rounds, they were telling the public that there was no daylight freight on the GWML (researched that well....!) The other problem I have is why terminate trains to the west at Maidenhead? That prevents anyone getting a connection to the west, (Fast trains all call at Reading, two stops further west) and leaves a small pocket of diesel-only operation presumably shuffling from Maidenhead-Twyford-Reading and back, which means presumably commuters from the Henley branch (connects at Twyford) have to change twice to get to Paddington, as well as travellers too/from Crossrail to the West. I can't think these issues aren't solveable as they go on, but at the moment they seem to be making enemies of companies in the industry, and I can't think that's a good thing.
Yeah Martyn. I was just reading an editorial about crossrail in a magazine. Seems some heads need banging togather
Yes, they do, as they were all one nationalised system until the recent privatisation. We can still buy a train ticket which uses parts of several companies' trains. I guess they work out how many miles per company was used, to work out where the money goes
I was just thinking about something else too. Now that you guys have your chunnel, freight trains can originate pretty much anywhere on the main continent and the cars can roll into england via chunnel. Do you now see some really wild collections of international rolling stock on some of the rail lines? For instance (pulling rail names out of my @$$ here) bulgaria central box cars and or turkish lines flatcars?
The size of the infrastructure here (bridges, tunnels etc) means that not all European stuff can run further than the tunnel, so it's only specific types that get here. That said, Spanish, German, Swiss owned cars are not uncommon, as lots of companies own cars built to be able to run in the UK.
Very cool. I am starting to learn about more european railroads. Although German, English, French, Swiss and Italian trains are common models on the internet, I have yet to find a spanish train set. I think I am going to have to look around for some spanish cars.
Electrotren is the big Spanish manufacturer, they are now owned by Hornby along with Lima, Rivarossi, etc etc etc
Yeah, I saw a bunch of electrotren sets on ebay. I figured they were the spanish equivalent to lima and jouef. How does hornby compare price wise?
I don't think Hornby has got anything to market yet under the European names, they were only bought last year and it is moving production to China. Looks like the former Rivarossi/Lima brands will be sold as Hornby International, but there seems to be no sign of Electrotren or Spanish prototypes on there... http://www.hornby.com/hornbyinternational/index.aspx Electrotren still has a standalone site being updated, but it was bought before Lima/Rivarossi.... http://www.electrotren.com/index.asp
I'm still pretty shocked by the absence of those brands. Nothing against Hornby. I just like my old brand labels. Now i'm on a ebay tear to buy what I can afford.
