Maidenhead Railway Station (Maidenhead)

 train station  Add category

Maidenhead station is on the four track West Country line through Reading and Twyford to London Paddington via Taplow, Burnham,, Slough, Langley, Iver, Hayes and Harlington, Acton Main Line etc.
It also has a branch line to the north, serving Furze Platt, Cookham, Bourne End and Marlow and until 1970 also Wooburn Green, Loudwater, High Wycombe and stations on from there.
A Brunel designed station, reasonably unspoilt by modernisation.
Currently planned to be the terminal (terminus) for the London cross-rail service when that happens and the dedicated lines be electricified - if it does services to Reading and beyond may be thinned down to accomodate this.

Crossrail is a project to build new railway connections under central London. The route of the first proposed line (Crossrail 1) runs east-west with one connection to the west and two to the east. It would be built to regional rail standards and connect to existing main lines. The financial package for the construction of Crossrail 1 has not yet been agreed and it is not certain that it will proceed. The most optimistic construction timetable would see Crossrail 1 opened around 2017.

Trains would run at metro-style high frequencies, complementing the existing north-south Thameslink route. Crossrail ticketing is intended to be integrated with the other London transport systems, with Travelcards being valid within Greater London.

The preamble to the Bill states that it is for ‘The provision of a new cross-London rail link ... by way of new railways and improvement of existing railways in existing railway corridors from Maidenhead, Berkshire, and Heathrow to Paddington continuing in new twin tunnels under central London and diverging as two branches, one surfacing at Custom House, London then passing under the River Thames at Woolwich in twin tunnels and then continuing on new tracks alongside the existing North Kent Line to Abbey Wood. The other branch would surface at Pudding Mill Lane near Stratford and continue on the existing corridor to Shenfield’

Various existing stations will receive platform extensions, and in some cases be completely rebuilt.
Overhead electrification will be installed between Heathrow Airport junction and Maidenhead.
There are campaigns to have new stations built at Woolwich, Royal Docks and extensions of the line to Reading and Ebbsfleet.

[edit] Technical details
The tunnelled section of the line will be about 16 km (10 miles) in length: a difficult and expensive piece of engineering, because of two factors: London’s geology and the extensive tunnelling that already exists in central London. Its twin circular tunnels will have an internal diameter of 6 m (19.7 ft), compared with the 3.8 m (12.5 ft) diameter of existing deep Tube lines. Rather than the third rail electrification used by the London Underground or the existing North Kent line, Crossrail will use overhead 25 kV, 50 Hz a.c., Overhead Line in the open air and a conductor bar contact system in the tunnels, the same system as is present on the Great Eastern Main Line and the Great Western Main Line (only as far as Heathrow).

[edit] Previous proposal
This east–west route was previously proposed in the early 1990s but was rejected by Parliament in 1994. A number of alternative routes on the west side were considered, including regional services to Amersham and Watford in the north-west, Reading in the west. All have now been dropped in favour of the core proposal.

[edit] Current status
Crossrail Line 1 has been backed by the Government, which has introduced a hybrid bill for the scheme: the full text may be found here. The Bill is accompanied by an Environmental Impact Statement, plans and other related information; it is likely to be completed some time in 2007. If Parliament approves the Bill, construction will take from 2010 to 2017 [1].


[edit] Maidenhead Branch
Maidenhead
Taplow
Burnham
Slough
Langley
Iver
West Drayton
The Maidenhead and Heathrow branches join up at Airport Junction, between the stations of West Drayton & Hayes and Harlington.

Hayes and Harlington
Southall
Hanwell
West Ealing
Ealing Broadway
Acton Main Line