IT was 20 years ago when Chris Green, British Rail’s first director, Network SouthEast, proposed a major expansion of north-south cross-London services – dubbed ‘Thameslink 2000’ in the belief the project would be delivered for the turn of the century.
Around the same time, BR and London Underground set up a joint team to plan a ‘hybrid’ parliamentary Bill that would enable construction of an even more ambitious scheme – Crossrail – with three-mile long, deep-level tunnels between Liverpool Street and Paddington.
Both projects were based on the ‘RER’ concept that had been developed for Paris regional train services, and envisioned up to 24, 12-car, trains an hour crossing London each way by the start of the 21st Century.
Eight years into the new century preparations are finally being made to start on what is now euphemistically referred to as the ‘Thameslink Progamme’.
And last month, on 22 July, the Crossrail Bill finally got Royal Assent.
In comparison to this sluggish progress, I recall meeting just six years ago Kenneth Bauer, then president of the Long Island Railroad (LIRR), part of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), in the company’s HQ above Jamaica station in the New York borough of Queens.
With 11 routes converging there, Jamaica is New York City’s version of Clapham Junction. LIRR carries around 300,000 passengers a day, extends to the eastern tip of Long Island, 120 miles from Manhattan, and has 124 stations.
It is America’s oldest railway and calls itself “the railroad that never sleeps” because of its round-the-clock operations.
When I first met Mr Bauer he explained an ambitious plan to build new tunnels under the East River so LIRR trains could go to Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, as well as the present terminus at Pennsylvania station, which is situated farther south.
More than half of LIRR passengers into New York have final destinations on the east side of Manhattan, so a new link to Grand Central would save at least half an hour on every journey every day for thousands of commuters, Mr Bauer explained.
The prospect of that much-reduced travel time has come a lot closer since the first East Side Access tunnel was completed. A parallel 22ft-diameter tunnel will be finished shortly, 150 feet under Park Avenue and East 48th Street.
Contractors will then start blasting out a cavern in the bedrock for a huge new LIRR terminal and passenger concourse beneath Grand Central Terminal.
With 44 platforms, it is already the world’s largest railway station.
Once the £3.63 billion project is completed, LIRR plans to run up to 24 trains in and out of Grand Central during peak hour – just like Thameslink (£3.55bn, but no new tunnels) and Crossrail (£16 billion, including tunnelling underneath the City and London’s West End).
Although the LIRR link to Grand Central will not be fully completed until 2015, it will have taken far less time than the two cross-London projects.
Thameslink, also due for completion in 2015, and Crossrail, not due until 2017, will have had gestation periods of up to 30 years by the time they are completed.
I don’t know whether we are just too slow to grasp opportunities in this country, or whether it is our planning system that is to blame – or both – or whether politicians get too involved. Certainly, Thameslink and Crossrail both required parliamentary approval and tied up the Houses of Commons and Lords in hundreds, if not thousands, of debating hours.
By contrast, the LIRR project was determined within the state of New York, together with the city authorities and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The project is supported with Federal funds, but has not engaged the US Congress and Senate in hours of debate.
In the United Kingdom, since transport responsibilities were devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, there has been significant expansion of rail services and infrastructure. There has been progress in Northern Ireland, too. But in England, we have seen the Westminster government seeking ever-greater control of transport matters.
The exception has been London – but only because the government badly drafted the Bill creating the London Assembly, and former mayor Ken Livingstone exploited loopholes to gain greater control of National Rail services within Greater London.
But, outside London, the Government has legislated to take more control to itself.
When the London Midland franchise was tendered last year, Centro (the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive) was excluded from the agreement. Now Centro is up in arms because the Wolverhampton-Walsall service is to be replaced by buses – because the Government has determined the trains used on the route are required elsewhere!
And in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, local politicians are also angry because, in July, the Treasury suddenly withheld funding that was planned for a £300 million refurbishment of the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Long-term planning of railways in Britain has always been plagued by a Treasury that takes a short-term view.
There must be a real danger that centralised political control may again deny or delay major projects for improving English railways, even though they are desperately needed for the long-term good of the economy, the environment and society as a whole.