Just for a change, let's delve into the diamond geezer readers' postbag. Or rather, let's take a look at your interesting comments from yesterday and share them with a wider audience.
If you remember, the big Crossrail 2 choice is whether to build a Metro service or a Regional service. You strongly preferred the latter.
I support the regional option as it gives really great travel time reductions to lots of suburban stations. [Rational Plan]
I think this would be best suited as a regional line. Think Crossrail as being the Paris RER style and the tube being the metro. [James]
Indeed, not one reader could see the attraction of the Metro service.
The metro option having tiny short platforms!? What on earth are they "thinking"? When every other tube and railway line in London is rammed, and would benefit from longer trains... [Malcolm]
I confess I can't understand this metro option. Why limit it to four cars? Do it at least at tube length, or not at all. [Andrew Bowden]
Ah, but don't forget that DLR carriages are double length.
The metro option would be an automated (hence DLR like) line with platform screen doors running at up to 40 trains an hour. The trains are not 4 carriages long, but 4 units long. As they are articulated units, this means they are as long as existing tube trains. [Rational Plan]
To me it feels like the metro option has simply been set up to fail - which is probably why TfL have suggested it. It feels very much like a "someone's going to ask us what we'll get if we do this cheaper, so let's shave a few million off the price and show what you'd get" Sell the benefits of spending a little more money. But still, is a 6 car metro service that much more expensive than a four car? [Andrew Bowden]
Whatever, it seems that only one of the two options is viable.
Set up to fail is right. No-one can possibly take the metro option seriously. This will be a proper full-scale Crossrail - the consultation is a publicity exercise, nothing more. [Arkady]
Obviously the Regional version wins hands down. The Metro version looks like a cheaper mistake that it will only cost an absolute fortune when the need for an upgrade becomes overwhelming apparent, as it almost certainly would within six months of opening. Like the 1983 tube stock on the Jubilee Line (with single doors, on predictions of decreased tube usage in the future) it would be an expensive mistake....and utterly inexplicable given predictions of *increased* population and public transport usage in the capital. [Dominic H]
It would be curious to build Crossrail 2 as a conventional metro style service, the clue is in the name! [Mikey C]
You weren't thrilled by how few stations Hackney is getting...
Astounded that the Metro version of the Chelsea-Hackney line doesn't even, really, go to Hackney. [Dominic H]
Stoke Newington surely needs a tube link as badly as Hackney, though. [Dominic H]
...whereas Haringey gets a string of four stations.
It seems strange to have Tottenham served by both branches of CR2 [Mikey C]
On the regional plan, why the odd duplication up the A10 corridor, meaning each station only gets half the service? Surely one tunnel calling at Dalston and/or Hackney, and at Seven Sisters and/or Tottenham Hale would be cheaper? [SW commuter]
Why does the Tottenham Hale branch need more services? The Seven Sisters to Cheshunt always seems more crowded to me. [John2]
Ironic that the proposed northern route runs from Seven Sisters to Alexandra Palace. There used to be an almost identical line from Seven Sisters to Palace Gates with stations at West Green and Noel Park (Wood Green High Road). It was closed to passengers in January 1963. I travelled on the last train, but I don't think I'll still be alive to travel on the new first train! A further extension from Ally Pally to Muswell Hill might be worth considering. [Anon]
The central section of the route needed further clarification from some.
Piccadilly Circus has still not been confirmed as being in either option as it will be very difficult to build! Pbv easier in the Metro option as smaller footprint. [Anon]
Why cram even more people into TCR and Victoria? Most services into Victoria call at Clapham Junction anyway. Stops at Sloane Square and Bond Street would make a much better distribution of traffic. [Anon]
Others queried the links made in the southern section.
On the metro version, who is going to use the Wimbledon-Tooting stretch? Locals already have South Wimbledon station. There is an interchange between the SW suburban network and CR2 at Clapham Junction, and the SWT route between Wimbledon and CJ is much more direct and thus faster. I doubt that many people from the SW suburbs wanting the Northern Line will appreciate the double change at Wimbledon and Tooting - better to change at Waterloo (although this stretch makes a lot of sense in the regional version, as there would be no need to change at Wimbledon) [SW commuter]
Why can't the Wimbledon bit go to Sutton instead of following SWT? [John2]
One of you submitted a fervent plea not to scrimp on the trains.
'If Metro trains won't be staffed, please ensure plenty of station staff to support safety. This is vital for a busy urban line. Also, please design the trains to better cater for the elderly, sick and disabled, who make up at least a fifth of the population. New Victoria and Hammersmith & City/Met Line trains are actively painful to travel on if you have a physical disability. It was particularly pointless making the seats shorter as people's legs take up the same amount of room when sitting, and this causes untold discomfort to those of us needing good seating support.' [misspiggy]
But generally you don't care which option is built so long as one of them is.
Just start building it. This country spends far too long talking about infrastructure projects, instead of getting the job done. This adds to the cost, and we have to wait years before we see any results. [John]
I'd choose whichever option has a better chance of being built. There are far too many transport projects that go nowhere at all (pardon the pun), and we need anything we can get. [Chz]
Crossrail 2 won't be coming to a neighbourhood near you soon. But hopefully eventually.
