Learning from international approaches to improving rail lines

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported prominently last week that when Terminal 5 at Heathrow opens next month, passengers will be confronted with more advertising than at almost any other airport in the world.

From giant billboards overlooking security lines to television screens in the underground train station, the ads have been positioned in ways BAA hopes will make them impossible to avoid. There are 333 billboards or posters and 206 flat-screen TV sets, which can change ads to target specific flights. By contrast, Los Angeles International has 34 advertising TV sets in the entire airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International has 40.

BAA is also supporting the case for a feasibility study into the western mainline link.

TVEP is still waiting for a response from Rosie Winterton, the transport minister, to the letter I sent her recently, and shared with you on the 31st January entry.
The government must not be allowed to drag its feet on this issue.

In the same issue of the WSJ I read that the Americans have decided to pour huge sums of money into revitalising the country’s rail infrastructure.

Of course – compared with European and Japanese railways – US rail roads have long been a bit of a joke, apart from some isolated examples such as the Washington subway, the new Skytrain at JFK airport, the BART in San Francisco, and the AMTRACK between Boston, New York and Washington.
But in the past seven years over $10 billion has been spent on upgrading track and locomotives, and, according to the Journal, another $10 billion is about to be spent.

The new investments will draw freight business away from over congested roads, particularly goods and a portion of the huge volume of Chinese and Korean imports landing on the west coast and train shipped to the east.

America, of course, is not the only country engaged in new rail building. China has a major expansion programme. We saw at our transport forum in November a video of the superfast train that whisks passengers from Shanghai to the city’s outlying airport in just seven minutes. China is now expanding these trains – using German technology – to other intercity routes. France announced last week a further expansion of its wonderful TGV network.

But here in Britain – apart from prestige lines like Paris to London which drops passengers in the part of the capital they are least likely to want to visit – the government is dragging its feet. It is essential that the Great Western line is electrified, like every other significant main line. It is shortsighted that the Thames Valley, one of the few areas of the country that is producing growth as much of the rest of the economy sinks, still has no direct rail link to London Heathrow. We will ultimately win our argument for this. We can report very slight progress in recent weeks. We need the support of everyone in the Thames Valley and beyond to get this new railway in place.

Three steps forward, two steps back

Dear Friends,

We’re still a long way from achieving our primary goal of achieving a direct link from the Thames Valley to Heathrow.

I have not yet had a reply to my letter to the transport minister that I shared with you last week, and we are still waiting for the government’s regional office to unlock funds that are badly needed to undertake a feasibility study into our proposal to extend the Heathrow Express from the airport to Slough.

At a modest cost, this extension, would give us the link we need.

The steps forward since my last entry are humble, but nonetheless welcome.

Perhaps the best news is that new rolling stock is coming to the Great Western main line. This will still take another six years at least for the programme to be completed, however. The line is also not to be electrified one of the only remaining main routes in the mainstream of Europe that still runs diesel trains.
There is also news that extra units may be tacked on to some of the existing main trains running between Reading and Paddington, but nothing has yet been confirmed.

News that the government has partly bowed to pressure and left open the possibility that CrossRail may be extended to Reading is pleasing.
Rail minister Tom Harris has announced the government is safeguarding additional land beside the track between Maidenhead and Reading for CrossRail should “there be a business case” for it. He has been careful not to say what the parameters are for this case.
There is real significance in the announcement though, because it shows that the government has recognised for the first time that to run this frequently stopping service along the Great Western main line will require extra tracks.
This is important because if CrossRail were to run on existing tracks, the present semi-fast services from Oxford and Newbury through Reading and Maidenhead would be badly hit, as there is limited capacity.

CrossRail still remains essentially a project for the benefit of East and Central London, it seems, with little benefit to the Thames Valley. For it to have real benefit, I believe it should be extended from Heathrow to Slough.
The services will not start for another decade, and we cannot afford to wait that long for direct services to Heathrow – even if CrossRail were to be re-routed to achieve this link.

As I have said many times before, we need the existing Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect to be extended from their terminus at Terminal Five the short distance to Slough.

The one piece of really good news is that that both Reading and West Berkshire councils have now given planning permission for the new railway station to be built at GreenPark, near our headquarters and close to Junction 11 on the M4 and the Madjeski stadium.
This is the first privately-funded railway station to be built in the south of England for 50 years.

Best wishes

Shaun Whittaker