LONDON’S RAILWAY RENAISSANCE There’s a lot going on with London’s transport at the moment, as Robert Williams reports.
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ver recent years, upgrades to London’s Underground have gained most of the news headlines, with the new railway under London – Crossrail – also taking shape. The Prime Minister recently called for a new age of infrastructure building to match the ‘confidence and ambition’ of the Victorians. It’s already here. In a few years we may look back on this as the start of a railway renaissance for the capital’s railways. This is a far more positive scene than anything since at least the 1970s, when investment on the Tube had been at a ‘patch and mend’ level since the war and there was even a proposal to close the North London line, now a key component of London’s orbital rail network (of which more in a moment). The Snow Hill tunnel had long been closed, separating north and south London on what is now the Thameslink route, and the number of 14 Industry Europe
passengers on the Underground had slumped to a level that was below half today’s total of over 1.1bn annually. Suburban rail services suffered from long term under-investment and neglect and a mainline station – Marylebone – was threatened with closure, and a proposal to concrete over railway tracks and use them for bus services was seriously considered. Now, there are major improvements at Paddington, Victoria and Waterloo stations. At Blackfriars, the bridge has been widened by nine metres and has been 85 per cent rebuilt — while remaining open for commuter services still crossing it. Crossrail is simply the biggest current rail scheme, and the best known. However, it is the smaller, less grandiose schemes which are really transforming the capital. Thameslink already crosses the capital from north to
south, The Snow Hill tunnel was re-opened to passenger trains after 72 years, allowing passenger services to begin on the full Thameslink network in May 1988. Following the success of the original scheme, plans were drawn up to upgrade the Thameslink network to cope with increasing passenger numbers which have led to severe peaktime overcrowding. Thameslink’s upgrade is London’s biggest rail project after Crossrail. The first phase of the Thameslink upgrade has already delivered significant benefits. New trains and routes have been introduced and the first longer 12 carriage trains are using the Thameslink route.
OrbiRail And then we have the real Cinderellas of London’s transport system, particularly the London Overground. In 2007 the then
