17th October 2019 · ‘Two Railways for London’

Presenter: Chris Green

We welcomed Chris Green to our meeting on 17th October to give his presentation “Two Railways for London”, the story of Thameslink and Crossrail. Both lines originated during the BR Network SouthEast era to increase capacity on the system, but both were initially rejected as privatisation loomed.

Chris dealt first with Thameslink, outlining the planning and building of the line and its current operations, using the Seimens Cl.700 trains which are now operating in automatic mode in the central core but not yet at the planned 24 trains/hour. He concluded this section with proposed changes over the next few years.

Moving on to Crossrail, he again outlined the planning and building of the route and the trains and explained that the present delays were due to the fitting-out of the tunnels and stations and to the software problems on the trains, but that it is expected that the line will open in 2020.

He said that both lines were to operate at 24 trains per hour at the peak times and that trains and drivers would remain on a single route all day and work throughout that route with no change of driver in London.

We thank Chris for an excellent presentation which was enjoyed by all present.