Save cash, homes and HS2

Published: 2nd June, 2011

Open letter to the chairman of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee

• I NOTE from the local press that you are considering submissions regarding the planning issues for High Speed Rail 2 – at present proposed to start from London.

As you will be aware, there is a considerable concern and, indeed, opposition to the plans mainly because as they stand at present they would involve demolition of a considerable amount of social housing – flats in the Chalk Farm/Euston area.

Ken Livingstone has suggested to avoid this, the proposed terminus should be diverted to Waterloo, with underground tunnels being burrowed under central London, with connections to Crossrail at Tottenham Court Road. Obviously, this would be extremely costly, and would involve even more disturbance in central London than at present, with Crossrail disrupting traffic and pedestrians around Tottenham Court Road, all along Oxford Street, and outside Paddington station.

There is a much cheaper and obvious alternative, making use of existing infrastructure and involving minimal (if any) disruption or demolition to housing of any kind. 

The line is planned to enter London, parallel to the West Coast Main Line. 

The obvious solution to me, as a retired operating department railwayman, is that from the north west, the line should divert and connect with the West London Line at Willesden Junction, and HS2 trains sent via Kensington Olympia towards Clapham Junction, diverting thence around an already extant east curve formerly used by Eurostar trains. From there it would go over their old tracks into the existing and mothballed, prize-winning terminus at Waterloo. 

There are three tremendous advantages to this plan saving the government and any developer tremendous costs. 

• First: use of existing rail tracks from Willesden Junction to Waterloo, without any new construction (possible adaptation of signalling to facilitate Overground and SR trains already using the line).
• Second: ready-constructed major London terminal – at present mothballed – adjacent to the existing South West Trains’ platform at Waterloo, with good Underground connections – Jubilee, Northern, Bakerloo and Waterloo and City lines, and relief of already existing congestion caused by concentration of Eurostar with Virgin, London Midland and GNER at King’s Cross St Pancras.
• Third: an existing, ready-made former Eurostar depot, now mothballed at North Pole south, and adjacent to the GW mainline near Old Oak Common, with connecting access to the West London Line for empty stock, to-and-from the Waterloo terminus. The depot includes carriage washing machines and workshops for running repairs and maintenance and has lain idle since the transfer of Eurostar maintenance to Stratford. 

It is criminal that these assets be wasted.

I hope your committee will give serious thought to these proposals, saving the taxpayer a great deal of money and obviating the worry, stress and strain of present residents in the housing proposed for demolition around Euston.
John Stratton
Thurlow Road, NW3