please empty your brain below

Love these walks. The before and afters are a real treat, fascinating.
When it was possible, a nice afternoon out for me would be to go from Richmond to North Woolwich on the NNL, look around the stations museum, then get the Woolwich ferry across the Thames, and return by train from Woolwich Arsenal to Waterloo East and back to Richmond, a nice circular tour.
I tried doing the circuit via the new dockland station King George V but not as enjoyable,-to me anyway. I am looking forward one day soon getting Crossrail from Heathrow to Woolwich and going through the restored Connaught Tunnel again.
Nice to read your blog about the work so far, nice photos.
With that concrete wall they should rename it Berlin, then again it prevents derailed trains careering out of control and demolishing buildings, or (insert terrorist group of choice here) driving vehicles onto the tracks to derail trains - they'll have to find one of those terrorist friendly level crossings instead.
When Crossrail opens, the critics will be out in force when they realise that Heathrow is NOT directly linked with London City, and an extra half an hour is added to the journey involving two DLR trains (one going in the wrong direction) and an irritating change at Canning Town.
@RayL
Would there be many people wishing to travel direct from one airport to another? And why would London want to make it easy for them? If people are going to fly over London - twice - I want them to spend some money here rather than just pass straight through.

In any case LCY to LHR will be possible with a single change, at Stratford.
It will stop at Custom House, which is close enough to London City Airport. Probably there'll be a shuttle bus link from there.

More significant in my view will be the time taken for Heathrow to Gatwick and Luton, via Farringdon (Thameslink) and to Stansted (Liverpool Street). Presumably Crossrail will be the fastest interchange method.

The line RER B in Paris is a very busy Crossrail-like project, precisely because it links together the two Paris airports (though requires a shuttle link at one end)
@RayL. DLR 2 stops to Woolwich, then Crossrail to LHR? Strangely a lot of passengers from LCY go to Gatwick or Stansted. The cabbies love it!
If you've ten minutes would you like to come and walk along the Windsor Link Railway route? http://windsorlink.co.uk/
When you do get around to doing the first section from Abbey Wood, you can take in the site of Arsenal's old Manor Ground (and the Invicta Ground too).
Ah, concrete. I had a walk through the Woolwich Crossrail tunnel under the Thames when they had an open day last year. Of course, the concrete is functional down there. But I agree that the wall they have put alongside the North Woolwich opening up to the Connaught Tunnel is absolutely ugly. Why couldn't they have made it a little better to look at by some sort of pebbledash or flints?
@James
"The line RER B in Paris is a very busy Crossrail-like project, precisely because it links together the two Paris airports "

Or, to put it another way, it links both airports to the centre of Paris. It wouldn't be nearly as busy if it didn't also serve the centre of Paris on the way.

In any case the nearest station on Line B to Orly is nearly five miles away - try selling Crossrail 2 as serving Heathrow because it will call at Sunbury! - and the OrlyVAL shuttle is excluded from the Paris zonal fare structure (cf the 555 bus from Sunbury to LHR!) Orly does have an RER station - on Line C
@Tim. There is still some artwork to go up on those concrete walls. They will however not hide the fact that it slices through that part of the Borough like the Berlin Wall, and the locals have lost a crossing point that existed over the tracks for decades near Kennard Street.
I've always thought this would be an interesting walk to do - damn you for beating me to it! Interesting to see what the tunnel exit looks like now they've put some tracks down; when I walked beneath the Thames it was all concrete.

I'm guessing those bland concrete walls will receive decoration courtesy of the local schoolchildren - either officially, in partnership with Crossrail, or unofficially, via spraycans in the dead of night.
@Scrumpy
Looking back at Streetview all the way to 2009, I cannot find a crossing near Kennard Street. Do you mean the footbridge near Fernhill Street?

It does seem somewhat dog-in-the-manger to insist that the footbridge not be replaced because only the able-bodied would be able to use it. Half a loaf and all that.

There is a similar arrangement - (two roads sandwiching a railway line) between Barnes and Mortlake. Again the walls are now higher and uglier than in days gone by.
Presumably one reason for the wall's height is for noise reduction? It's still pretty ugly though.
@ Timbo

(this probably falls into DG's sub-par comment derail category)

Yes, the Orlyval link to the RER B is 5 miles, but it's fast, only taking a few minutes, and is much more convenient than the indirect and infrequently served RER C station. It serves well leisure and business travellers to the city. Of course, Navigo card holders in the know would take the Orlybus from Denfert Rochereau instead, which heads rapidly down the Autoroute outside of rush hour.

I do wonder what the repercussions for Crossrail will be if the UK Government decides to develop Gatwick over Heathrow? Would the big airlines switch over to Gatwick and its lower-capacity rail link?
Most of the concrete barrier is currently very austere, but here's a bit of art on the wall near Custom House station.


@James, please excuse my pedantry, but does Gatwick really have a lower capacity rail link than Heathrow (even after CR)? Checking a random off peak hour (1100-1159 tomorrow) on realtimetrains Gatwick has 17 rail departures to London. Admittedly some of these will be slow trains that are overtaken on the way to London, but they provide capacity none the less.

Most of the Thameslink services will soon be 12 car too IIUC. Gatwick also has rail services to other non London destinations, which Heathrow does not.

Whether Gatwick is the right place or not for airport expansion is of course a different matter. It is cleary poorly situated for most of the country.
That's really sad about the North Woolwich Old Station Museum. I remember spending many happy hours there with son when he was small - particularly when the London Transport Museum was closed for refurbishment.
I liked your Google map a lot more than the official Crossrail map.

On my computer, all their location blobs were in the wrong place. I thought that it might be something to do with my screen settings, but zooming in and out seemed to move them even further away from the line of route !
I think the Silvertown Berlin wall stretch is a planning blunder akin to Westway. Surely this is one unusual location where cut and cover construction ought to have been possible, creating a boulevard to help regenerate the area, especially if the station had been included.
Another interesting read DG. As a non-resident of London but endlessly fascinated by our capital city, I regularly visit areas of interest to myself, mostly transport related and have been interested in the progress of Crossrail and the Connaught area. Nice to see someone else has traversed the area too! It is to my regret I never travelled the Silverlink or got photos from that era. Keep up the good, entertaining and educational travels in and outside the city!










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