Ah your right in the maths, I misread what it was saying. Still near doubling of cost tho and presented wrongly. However your maths is faulty as well, £16bn for CR1 and £20bn for CR2 doesn't not mean CR2 is cheaper at all.
I meant cheaper than you would have thought.
Though that said - the £16bn is using 2007 pounds, IIRC - we've certainly inflated away enough of the pounds worth to make £20bn 2013 pounds (though they aren't clear on what base they have) be worth less than £16bn Crossrail is costing. Add to it the construction industry inflation, and this scheme is a little bit cheaper in real terms.
Do you actually realise that Lee Valley four tracking isn't paid for? NR are proposing three tracking current as its a lot cheap and avoid the difficult parts. Crossrail 2 means doing the hard parts.
I know it's not yet paid for, but I take it you've not seen that a developer wants it four-tracked to Northumberland Park (dealing with all the hard bits) and is willing to put some cash in for it.
TfL don't like the 3-track NR option anyway, and will work at getting it 4-tracked. Given we're talking CR2 opening in 2032, I reckon on the Lea Valley being 4-tracked to Cheshunt at least 5, if not 10, years before that. Leaving a small bit to the Hertford East Junction to do.
But then again, I didn't say it would be four-tracked. I just said that the space is there for those 4 tracks (as they used to exist) is mostly there.
No need to muck around with a live station?
Only at those stations which will have the provision. I didn't think I implied more than that.
Euston Kings Cross St Pancras, Tottenham Hale ... busy stations that will need mucking around with
Euston Kings Cross St Pancras isn't a station - it's two. Euston will be rebuilt so no need to muck around with a live station (not that I suggest that in my OP) because they will give the provision, and KXSP will have a simple, single, link, meaning not too much disruption.
Tottenham Hale will have been rebuilt for 4-tracks by TfL extending the Overground, part funded by developers. There's no work to be done there, other than changing the rondel. There's work on the railway near Tottenham Hale, but not the station. But again, I didn't mention Tottenham Hale would be a breeze (though the station itself will be).
Of course there will be disruption elsewhere, especially if they do the decent thing and build cross platform interchanges at Tooting Broadway and Turnpike Lane (Angel would be good too, though they missed the boat in the 90s rebuild - as would Tottenham Hale, Cheshunt and Broxbourne, but it looks like the slows will be to one side of the formation) - but not at the massively busy zone 1 stations that have needed billion pound upgrades.
Not to mention you've got to provide an underground station with ability to turn back atleast 12tph in peak of 12 car formations at Alexendra Palace.
That should be a doddle in Crossrail engineering terms and there's a park right next door to make digging out a box for the station/turnback sidings/both easier.
SWML rebuild is not planned at all. NR are talking about a 5th track into London but that won't be needed if Crossrail 2 comes along as it will release enough capacity that NR won't have to spent that money.
But 2032 is a long time, and they'd certainly have to do it by the mid-2020s. And it's not the slows that need capacity on the SWML anyway - it's the fasts. Crossrail 2 won't help that much and the rebuild would have to happen come what may!
And if they do the logical thing and separate the Waterloo slow line services and the CR2 slow line services by serving Woking and Guildford (and Staines via Weybridge if you want) rather than Chessington South and Epsom, that would mean you could just plug-in without upgrades to improve slow-line capacity (which would be for reliability and decreasing performance pollution reasons).
