Re: Crossrail - announcement at Labour Party conference?

The Good Doctor wrote:
"David A Stocks" <dastocks@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Michael Bell" <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:d91951204f.michaelbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I still can't get over the COST. If the costs were on the same basis
as today's Crossrail, to replace all the London bridges and the
embankments that feed them by tunnels, the cost would have been £100
bn or more! And for what? To make the place look nicer. Worth that
money? In the end "NO". And actually I think it is pleasant experience
to travel through south London at rooftop height. Certainly much nicer
than 10 miles of tunnel!

Michael Bell
If you think about where those bridges are and where they go I suspect the real purpose of the scheme was to consolidate some/all the London Termini into one 'Grand Central' station somewhere or other.


I repeat my assertion that it was all about the vulnerability of the
cross-river bridges to German attack. The policy was developing
around 1944/45 which is precisely the time when German V-1 flying
bombs and the later V-2 ballistic missiles were wreaking havoc on
London.

In the absence of any evidence, this sounds like an urban legend. Once the Allies were firmly into Europe in 1944-45 it was pretty likely that they were going to win, eventually, or at the very worst not lose, even if it might mean that ultimately Berlin glowed in the dark. The huge sums it would cost to move the railways would surely be better spent assuring victory against Germany.

Those who claim the Blitz was over fairly early in the war fail to
recognise the facts that the V-1 and V-2 weapons wrought far more
devastation in the dying months of World War 2 than the German
campaign using heavy bombers in the early part of the war, although
they killed less people (9,000 against 43,000).

The V-2s' navigation systems were crude by today's standards, and the
standard error in final site of impact was expressed in terms of quite
a few kilometres. So German planners chose to aim them at a few
nominal locations in the knowledge that they would land anywhere
within a circle of something like 10 km around those locations.

The location chosen for the largest number of V-2 firings was Balham,
in south London. The rockets landed for several miles around, but
Balham itself was devastated by the number of missiles that landed
relatively near their aiming point. The population was terrorised and
demoralised to a far worse extent than with the Blitz, whose much
smaller bombs did far less damage, which could more easily be coped
with. Morale dropped alarmingly, to the extent that mass evacuation
was seriously being considered. Winston Churchill himself believed
that the propaganda war was being lost at a crucial stage of the
conflict, and that support for continuing the conflict would fall away
as the V-2 onslaught continued.

People I've known have claimed the V2s had minimal effect on morale - you didn't know they were coming, and chances are you wouldn't even know what happened. YMMV.

It is therefore not surprising that active consideration was being
given to reducing the risk of massive damage to strategic transport
links in any future conflict. The acute difficulty of replacing
strategic rail bridges across the Thames in wartime conditions meant
that putting them underground was a serious alternative. The cost
would be very high indeed, but the risk of massive disruption to
transport certainly justified a serious look at such proposals.

Looking back from today's very different situation, it is not
suprising that some posting here cannot see the logic in all this. I
wonder how little about WW2 is now being taught in our schools?

It dominates the curriculum so much that Germans complain about the image it gives, and Britons suggest that perhaps other periods ought to get a look in as well? Of course anyone can pick their favourite bit and claim it isn't covered, and always will be able to do so. Late-war railway bridge policy is gong to be a very long way down the list of useful topics, thankfully.

I always find it interesting to compare what a teenager knows about WWII with their (great-)grandparents' almost complete ignorance of WWI. It shows how much better education is nowadays, I guess.

Of course the events of 1945 would cause a rethink. Given the much
more severe and widespread devastation that could be caused by an
atomic bomb such as those dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan,
protecting rail routes against the impact of a mere one tonne of high
explosive was no longer a priority. The later hydrogen bombs were
another substantial escalation in explosive power, with the potential
to destroy whole cities.

With the nuclear deterrent effectively preventing the conventional
warfare that posed such a threat to strategic transport routes, with
no particular benefit other than the defence against conventional
attack, and Britain bankrupt, the policy could be dropped.

So different plans would be needed to keep the railways running when nukes had knocked out the power infrastructure etc. I wonder what this might involve...?


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK
.

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