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Crossrail - and its Impact on Taplow

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In the spring of 2005 I included a brief article on the impact that the Crossrail project could have on Taplow. This was a fairly low-key article, since at the time there was considerable doubt that the project would ever get off the ground, both in terms of funding and approval. The project was first mooted in 1991 at an estimated cost of £1.5billion; by 2005 this estimate had risen to £16billion. Goodness knows what the current estimate is – there is a deafening silence on this from everybody concerned. The enabling Bill was introduced in 2005 and is over 200 pages long.

The initial consultation period ended in May 2005 and consisted for us around here, as far as I could determine, of a three-hour exhibition in Maidenhead on one day in February 2005. Crossrail claim that of those who visited their information centres 95% were in favour of the project.(Query: where are these 'Information Centres'?)

The nearest I found to a final word is the following:

Prime Minister Tony Blair, said at a meeting to discuss Crossrail held at 10 Downing Street on 7 March 2007: 'This Government is absolutely committed to Crossrail, so I am delighted that we now have a robust and cost-effective scheme that will deliver benefits not just for the capital but for the whole country. We will work with the Mayor and with business to secure a final funding and financing package.'

The Maidenhead Civic Society made very detailed representations and some important concessions were achieved. The prevailing thought is that the electrification is going to happen and there’s nothing more we can do about it. However, I make no apology for bringing this to your attention again since I firmly believe we need to raise the level of awareness of this project to the riverside dwellers, for it is they who are to bear the major impact of its construction phase and the ongoing environmental effects. There will also be a more general impact on the Parish from the work on the railway station and the road traffic levels that could follow. More information on this subject can be gleaned from Jon Wilmore who is currently running the Taplow Rail Users Group (TRUG), and the exhibition room at Taplow Station, which includes much about Crossrail.

The enabling bill was presented to Parliament in February 2005. The following extract is from Hansard (4 April 2005) in which Home Office minister Tony McNulty? made the following statement:

'The main construction of Crossrail can not start until the necessary powers are in place. A hybrid bill seeking such powers was introduced in February 2005. Previous experience with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link suggested that the Crossrail bill would not complete its passage (through Parliament) before 2007. The assumption remains that the Crossrail service would start in 2013.'

Changes to the original bill are carried out through something called an 'Amendment of Provisions' and Crossrail submitted their third one in November 2006 and the bill itself was included in the Queen’s Speech as a carry-over from the 2005-6 session, and all petitions were closed on 13 December 2006.

Let's look at some of the facts so far. Each train will be more than 200 metres long and will be made up of 10 carriages and carry about 1,500 people in quiet, climate-controlled conditions. We can expect about 12 such trains an hour running along the embankment and over the Brunel Bridge. The trains are designed to travel at up 100mph but I imagine that this speed cannot be maintained in the approach to Maidenhead station. I assume that the 12 trains an hour are in addition to the normal traffic - there must be some benefit in it for the commuters from Maidenhead and Taplow. A quote from the Crossrail Brochure gives little clue but states that '24 trains would arrive every hour in each direction in Central London'.

The actual electrification will be carried out by 25kv overhead line equipment (OHLE), generally in the form of 6-metre-high gantries from which catenary wires and contact wires will be suspended. This technique will in turn require that some of the bridges on the route will have to be raised or the track lowered to accommodate the gantries. There may also be parapets raised along the track for 'public safety reasons'. In the Maidenhead Civic Society newsletter of July 2006, Tina Sell, who was very actively involved in the petition process, included a diary of events leading up to the petition, which made interesting reading. Personally I was concerned at the comparative ignorance of the project by English Heritage, and their slow response. In the end it seemed their main objection was about the design of the gantries on the Brunel Bridge.

I have read with great interest the part of the 'Crossrail Assessment of Impacts on Heritage and Landscape' that covers the Western Section of the line, basically from Maidenhead to Heathrow, and the following comments are relevant:

The extent of vegetation along this section of the the route is good, with belts of mature tall trees and understorey (?!) planting located on the embankment slopes which generally contains views towards and from the railway lines and will restrict views towards the proposed OHLE from adjoining business/industrial areas, housing areas and users of local roads and footpaths.

I interpret this to mean that that my main fear for this section of the work will not be realised - namely, that tall trees and electricity gantries do not normally co-exist comfortably with each other - and that Crossrail will not be removing the tree cover from the area directly facing Ellington Road. This tree cover is vital to the residents since it acts as a backdrop to the houses, which are in a Conservation Area, and also muffles train noise - something which is going to be even more necessary given the increased volume of rail traffic.

The River Thames Maidenhead Bridge (Brunel) and the adjoining Conservation Area have a moderate sensitivity to change.'

The Maidenhead Bridge Viaduct is a Grade II listed structure and the proposed OHLE will have a moderate or low magnitude of impact on setting of this structure of high sensitivity, resulting in a significant level of impact on its landscape/townscape character.

The wording here seems a little ambiguous to me. I take it to mean that the gantries will have a moderate effect but since it is a sensitive structure, this translates to a 'significant' impact...

Further reading produced the gem that if you view the gantries from the side their relative infrequency means they are not too obtrusive, whereas from the point of view of a train-driver they would look like a series or portals ahead of him. This piece of sophistry might satisfy the planners but it fails to amuse me. I think those gantries are going to ruin the appearance of that old bridge to everyone.

I really don’t know of anything that can be done about it since the period of petition is now over, but there are still two options; either to stop Crossrail at Slough or to transfer the overhead gantry electrification to track power when the trains reach visually sensitive areas such as the embankment and the Brunel Bridge. I am assured that the technology exists which can automatically switch from gantry to track power.

I can only end this article with the following quote from another Crossrail document:

It is proposed that the OHLE over Maidenhead Railway Bridge will use masts with wires suspended from cantilevers, since these will be visually lighter structures than the gantries to be used along other parts of the route. The masts will, however, have a significant adverse landscape impact: they will affect important views along the river and the character of the river corridor; they will affect the setting of the Riverside Conservation Area; and they will affect the setting of the listed railway bridge and the setting of the adjacent Grade I listed road bridge.

So the bottom line is that the riverside dwellers must protect those embankment trees, make sure they are kept healthy, and see if the ivy growing on them can be removed before it destroys the trees.

Fred Russell