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Big boom for Paddington

Hundreds of jobs are set to come to Paddington as construction on the Crossrail tunnel begins.

In January, workers will begin to create the entrance to the tunnel at Crossrail's Royal Oak site, which is to the west of Paddington tube station.

Crossrail planners say that in just under two years, the tunnel boring machines will then set out from the newly-created entrance at the Royal Oak site, moving towards Farringdon.

Passenger services are due to start on Crossrail in 2017, with a 118km railway cutting across central London from Maidenhead in Berkshire to Shenfield in Essex.

Transport minister Sadiq Khan MP said: "As full construction work starts on Crossrail next year, the first of 14,000 construction jobs will be created, primarily among the unemployed and communities living along the Crossrail route.

"In 2010, London's commuters can now look forward to seeing a flurry of activity at Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Paddington and many other sites across the route ^ work designed to benefit millions of people and leave a legacy for areas throughout London and the South East for generations to come."

Due to the scale of the project, Crossrail will open a dedicated Tunnelling Academy to provide workers with the necessary skills to carry out a variety of tunnelling roles.

The academy, which will offer some classes from spring 2010 and should be fully open by October, is expected to train up to 3,000 people by 2015.

London mayor Boris Johnson said: "2010 is set to be a huge year for Crossrail, with full construction getting underway on the railway that will transform the capital.

"It is the biggest transport infrastructure project in Europe, and will deliver at least ^20billion in jobs and economic benefits to London.

"Every inch of London will benefit from the jobs, new transport links, increase in capacity and easing of congestion that Crossrail and the tube upgrades will bring."

"Together these critical investments will make life better for millions of Londoners and visitors, and will ensure that London retains its position at the summit of world cities."

Up to 14,000 people will be employed at the peak of construction in 2013-15, with an estimated further 7,000 jobs created indirectly.

That's one hell of a railway cutting. No wonder it's costing so much.  ;D

Contrast that to the...transport benefits that kent commuters are enjoying...

Higher fares, service cuts and longer journey times are benefits?

Higher fares apply everywhere in Kent, whether you use the Javelin or not.

This from the DfT within the last few weeks...

"Southeastern has a higher cap of RPI +3% for five years from 2007. This is
in recognition of historically low fares on Southeastern and to allow for
the investment recently made in the Kent services."

I think the problem is that unless you go right back to the various Kent
franchise documents the latter point (ie 'investment recently made in the
Kent services') is old news, and many recent news articles, and indeed rail
mags, have wrongly presumed it refers to the High Speed services.

The SRA's IKF ITT put it like this - back in January 2005:

"The Base Case requires Bidders to prepare proposals which anticipate a
fares regime that allows tickets to be priced at RPI+3% for the first five
years of the franchise before falling back to RPI+1%, to reflect the ^600
million rolling stock and infrastructure investment in the area IN RECENT
YEARS.  (My caps).

So the 'RPI+3%' is clearly referring to investment PRIOR to 2005

Higher fares apply everywhere in Kent, whether you use the Javelin or not.

And if you work nowhere near St Pancras, the Javelin either speeds up your journey by a fraction, or makes no difference. The only exception to this are the trains to the Dover area that use HS1 for a longer stint.