The Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (with its members: Bracknell Forest, Reading, and Wokingham Councils) has commissioned an
Economic Impact Study on "Reading Waterloo Line and Southwest Rail Access to
Heathrow". This was released, coincidentally, just before the Crossrail to Reading announcement.
It's purely economic - it estimates benefits, but not costs. it's the choice of options that I find a bit odd. This summarises the results, in terms of the capital equivalent of the supposed general economic benefit:
| Scenario Description | Maximum
Benefits
(^million) | Low Benefits
(^million) | Magnitude of
Capital
Investment
(^million) |
| Scenario B1 -25% JT | 1,742 | 1,262 | 625 ^ 875 |
| Scenario B2 -15% JT | 1,017 | 742 | 375 ^ 500 |
| Scenario C1▸ 4tph | 1,365 | 828 | 425 - 675 |
| Scenario C2 3tph | 771 | 482 | 250 - 375 |
| Scenario D1 -25% JT / 4tph | 3,487 | 2,322 | 1,150 ^ 1,750 |
| Scenario D2 -15% JT / 3tph | 1,713 | 1,262 | 625 ^ 850 |
The options are two levels of journey time reduction, and two levels of service frequency increase. There are also some options for access to Heathrow:
| Scenario Description | Maximum
Benefits
(^million) | Low Benefits
(^million) | Magnitude of
Capital
Investment
(^million) |
| Scenario E1 Heathrow Loop | 508 | 297 | 150 ^ 250 |
Scenario E2 Heathrow Spur
- without rail service improvement | (352) *
(-605)
| (211) *
(-348)
| n/a
(no gain)
|
| Scenario F1 Loop + 2tph | 3,059 | 2,041 | 1,025 ^ 1,525 |
| Scenario F2 Spur + 2tph | 1,683 | 1,102 | 550 ^ 850 |
| Scenario G1 F1 + Guildford Link | 3,150 | 2,081 | 1,050 ^ 1,550 |
They looked at two kinds of link - spur and loop - but without defining where these lines would be. Then the current 2 tph are routed via Heathrow, unless there are additional trains in which case the current ones go direct. They do not consider just extending Heathrow trains to Staines.
There is a mention of the level crossing issue that Airtrack never solved, but it is not part of the assessment - presumably it comes on the engineering/infractructure cost side of the equation that they have not estimated at all.
