MH Media journalists have tonight learned of a new transport project, details of which have been sourced from a misdirected email. The attachment to the email is a document outlining a project to extend the London tube network to outlying rural areas. Although the scope of the scheme bears all the hallmarks of a Government Public/Private Partnership, the project is actually sponsored by a independent group known as the Campaign for Rural Unification and Development acting under the auspices of and with the blessing of the Department of Transport. Finance for the project is being provided jointly by a European Union development fund and a number of undisclosed private contributors also in the European Union. The pilot project is already well underway and in a move that will delight Green Campaigners everywhere it will mean that rural England will finally have a chance to break the stranglehold of the motor car. If the project is as successful as is hoped it may signal the start of a massive expansion of the Tube network which will eventually extend to all London's airports, and perhaps beyond.
In what must be classed as one of "Britain's best-kept transport secrets of 2006", the project is already being piloted in North-East Hampshire, and Alton Station has been chosen as Station Designate for the feasibility study. Under the scheme, the Northern Line is being extended and a new fare zone currently known as "Zone 9" is to be created.
Although at first sight it would logically have made more sense to extend the Piccadilly line out past the Hounslow/Heathrow spur, logistically it made more sense to extend the Northern line southbound from Morden, and this can therefore be fed directly from Waterloo and indirectly via EuroStar. In fact for the past year, excavation of the 43 mile tunnel has already been taking place using the repurposed borer "mole" previously used to excavate the Channel Tunnel. In addition, the Northern line option means that the Piccadilly line will not have to be extended to underpass the River Thames: this would have been vastly expensive and a potential environmental disaster waiting to happen that can now be avoided.
Engineers working on the project were pleased to confirm to me that the tunnel has now reached Farnham, Surrey from London and that no major difficulties have been encountered. At the same time, a smaller tunnelling device has been working at the Alton face for some 6 months and the intention is that the two should meet somewhere underneath Bentley Station by mid-November 2006. However, engineers working at Alton reluctantly confirmed to me that they had met some problems during the excavation, and these had manifested themselves as a spate of signal and points failures in the Alton/Bentley area, an area renowned for such problems and a source of constant chagrin to commuters. In addition, a recent landslip at Ash Vale allegedly attributed to excessive rain was in fact caused by the the tunnelling device striking a subterranean bridge foundation. Other than that, the work has gone comparatively well, and more unusually it is currently on time and on budget.
It also appears that the small market town of Alton was a natural choice for Zone 9: as an already-established dormitory town for London it made economic sense to make it more accessible not only to native Londoners but also the increasing number of overseas visitors to the town. Alton already has regular, well-attended continental markets, and an increasing number of Poles, Australians and South Africans continue to flock to the locality. There is also another unsubstantiated rumour that nearby Lasham Airfield will also be redeveloped as Lasham London Airport in 2008 and become London's next major airport adding further credence to the Zone 9 Project. Further developments in the area include an M3 Park-and-Ride which will link to Lasham London Airport and then on to Zone 9 at Alton Station.
As an added bonus to travellers, the Zone 9 extension will run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in order to maximise convenience and ultimately revenue. The rural stations will be fully automated and no staff will be present at any of the stations. In order to present a "friendly face" for commuters, a team of crack media studies students from the University of Sussex advised by animatronics experts from Pixar Studios are developing a series of computerised "talking heads" to present an intelligent advisor to travellers. Using a touch screen the "advisors" will offer travel assistance and will also dispense tickets. Early versions of the advisors show that even prototypes are capable of giving at least as much useful advice as a human employee and intelligibility of announcements has also been found to be comparable. It is hoped that the popular Oyster Card system will also be introduced and in a network that is already making a substantial effort to become cash-free, early fares will allegedly be heavily discounted for card users.
Unsurprisingly, there has been no local opposition to the scheme which the majority of local residents have known nothing about. Other than liaising with county-level council planning departments in Hampshire and Surrey which were allegedly bound by the terms of a government gagging order, the CRD team apparently saw no reason to inform people of what were in effect unseen below-ground works. It was also felt to be unwise to create demand and anticipation for an ambitious project which based on past experience "may not make it off the ground", so to speak.
Even so, planning departments were heavily involved in the early stages of the project when a specially-comissioned research team at Mumbai University advised that it would be critical to install adequate air-conditioning. Having examined the unbearable conditions in this summer's Central London Tube system, and based on their own experience of planning the MUTP, the Mumbai team calculated that air exhausts venting to ground level would be necessary every 5 miles. As this would mean substantial earth and ground works in some of most densely-populated and property-militant areas of the country we can reveal that local council planning departments were instructed to serve compulsory purchase orders on a number of householders whose properties would be gutted and then rebuilt as exhaust siloes.
In an effort to remain sensitive to environmental factors and not upset local residents a team of surplus NASA engineers was recruited to design and build an exhaust system capable of receiving and disposing of several thousand cubic meters of warm air from passing trains in near-silence. Adapting technology and methods developed for the Discovery Space Shuttle in 2005, the team took just six weeks to develop a reliable system, and with this barrier overcome the project could proceed at full speed. As an added benefit and in keeping with the project's green aspect, the warm exhaust is being used to feed into community heating systems. To date, local authorities have paid out over £16 million in compensation but expect to save some £1.5 million in energy costs in the first year alone.
As with any large-scale public transport project, the question of revenue is a big issue, and Zone 9 has been no exception. The Department of Transport commissioned a competition report vis-a-vis impact on existing Train Operating Companies and came to the conclusion that while the above-ground operators would continue to successfully transport commuters across a wide-area rail network, the Zone 9 project would target the lucrative tourist, asylum seeker and post-midnight traveller sector. In adopting this operational strategy, both operators could maintain revenue streams making the project self-supporting without the usual government subsidies being necessary. At the same time, selective retail franchises would also be offered to further increase revenue opportunities.
Once the tunnel is completed, it is expected that the new Zone 9 extension could be ready to accept fare-paying passengers by as early as February 2007. Please direct any enquiries about Zone 9 to
. We respect your privacy and guarantee that your email address will not be passed on to third parties.
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In what must be classed as one of "Britain's best-kept transport secrets of 2006", the project is already being piloted in North-East Hampshire, and Alton Station has been chosen as Station Designate for the feasibility study. Under the scheme, the Northern Line is being extended and a new fare zone currently known as "Zone 9" is to be created.
Although at first sight it would logically have made more sense to extend the Piccadilly line out past the Hounslow/Heathrow spur, logistically it made more sense to extend the Northern line southbound from Morden, and this can therefore be fed directly from Waterloo and indirectly via EuroStar. In fact for the past year, excavation of the 43 mile tunnel has already been taking place using the repurposed borer "mole" previously used to excavate the Channel Tunnel. In addition, the Northern line option means that the Piccadilly line will not have to be extended to underpass the River Thames: this would have been vastly expensive and a potential environmental disaster waiting to happen that can now be avoided.
Engineers working on the project were pleased to confirm to me that the tunnel has now reached Farnham, Surrey from London and that no major difficulties have been encountered. At the same time, a smaller tunnelling device has been working at the Alton face for some 6 months and the intention is that the two should meet somewhere underneath Bentley Station by mid-November 2006. However, engineers working at Alton reluctantly confirmed to me that they had met some problems during the excavation, and these had manifested themselves as a spate of signal and points failures in the Alton/Bentley area, an area renowned for such problems and a source of constant chagrin to commuters. In addition, a recent landslip at Ash Vale allegedly attributed to excessive rain was in fact caused by the the tunnelling device striking a subterranean bridge foundation. Other than that, the work has gone comparatively well, and more unusually it is currently on time and on budget.
It also appears that the small market town of Alton was a natural choice for Zone 9: as an already-established dormitory town for London it made economic sense to make it more accessible not only to native Londoners but also the increasing number of overseas visitors to the town. Alton already has regular, well-attended continental markets, and an increasing number of Poles, Australians and South Africans continue to flock to the locality. There is also another unsubstantiated rumour that nearby Lasham Airfield will also be redeveloped as Lasham London Airport in 2008 and become London's next major airport adding further credence to the Zone 9 Project. Further developments in the area include an M3 Park-and-Ride which will link to Lasham London Airport and then on to Zone 9 at Alton Station.
As an added bonus to travellers, the Zone 9 extension will run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in order to maximise convenience and ultimately revenue. The rural stations will be fully automated and no staff will be present at any of the stations. In order to present a "friendly face" for commuters, a team of crack media studies students from the University of Sussex advised by animatronics experts from Pixar Studios are developing a series of computerised "talking heads" to present an intelligent advisor to travellers. Using a touch screen the "advisors" will offer travel assistance and will also dispense tickets. Early versions of the advisors show that even prototypes are capable of giving at least as much useful advice as a human employee and intelligibility of announcements has also been found to be comparable. It is hoped that the popular Oyster Card system will also be introduced and in a network that is already making a substantial effort to become cash-free, early fares will allegedly be heavily discounted for card users.
Unsurprisingly, there has been no local opposition to the scheme which the majority of local residents have known nothing about. Other than liaising with county-level council planning departments in Hampshire and Surrey which were allegedly bound by the terms of a government gagging order, the CRD team apparently saw no reason to inform people of what were in effect unseen below-ground works. It was also felt to be unwise to create demand and anticipation for an ambitious project which based on past experience "may not make it off the ground", so to speak.
Even so, planning departments were heavily involved in the early stages of the project when a specially-comissioned research team at Mumbai University advised that it would be critical to install adequate air-conditioning. Having examined the unbearable conditions in this summer's Central London Tube system, and based on their own experience of planning the MUTP, the Mumbai team calculated that air exhausts venting to ground level would be necessary every 5 miles. As this would mean substantial earth and ground works in some of most densely-populated and property-militant areas of the country we can reveal that local council planning departments were instructed to serve compulsory purchase orders on a number of householders whose properties would be gutted and then rebuilt as exhaust siloes.
In an effort to remain sensitive to environmental factors and not upset local residents a team of surplus NASA engineers was recruited to design and build an exhaust system capable of receiving and disposing of several thousand cubic meters of warm air from passing trains in near-silence. Adapting technology and methods developed for the Discovery Space Shuttle in 2005, the team took just six weeks to develop a reliable system, and with this barrier overcome the project could proceed at full speed. As an added benefit and in keeping with the project's green aspect, the warm exhaust is being used to feed into community heating systems. To date, local authorities have paid out over £16 million in compensation but expect to save some £1.5 million in energy costs in the first year alone.
As with any large-scale public transport project, the question of revenue is a big issue, and Zone 9 has been no exception. The Department of Transport commissioned a competition report vis-a-vis impact on existing Train Operating Companies and came to the conclusion that while the above-ground operators would continue to successfully transport commuters across a wide-area rail network, the Zone 9 project would target the lucrative tourist, asylum seeker and post-midnight traveller sector. In adopting this operational strategy, both operators could maintain revenue streams making the project self-supporting without the usual government subsidies being necessary. At the same time, selective retail franchises would also be offered to further increase revenue opportunities.
Once the tunnel is completed, it is expected that the new Zone 9 extension could be ready to accept fare-paying passengers by as early as February 2007. Please direct any enquiries about Zone 9 to
. We respect your privacy and guarantee that your email address will not be passed on to third parties.