Re: North-South Rail Link
Let's see.
Crossrail uses existing stations outside London, NS Rail would use existing stations outside Boston.
Crossrail builds new platforms in London. NS Rail builds new platforms in Boston.
How are these the antithesis of each other?
That is just plain false. You even quote.
Transport for London is part of the government. It is an agency within the Greater London Authority, which is the government of London. I don't see how you can claim it is a "private corporation".
Dwash -- Take a look at the CrossRail map for starters
All of the stuff on the map marked the Elizabeth Line is new -- not just new tracks and new stations -- New ROW in many cases or rehashing some old abandoned stuff. While it is true that the CrossRail Tunnels being built to accommodate the largest EU-sized passenger trains can allow trains from Traditional Intercity or Commuter Lines Lines [e.g. gzreatwester, ThamesLink] to be routed through the core tunnels, that is not the principle focus of the project.
That's why my hypothetical Boston Version went from Reading to Marlborough or Wayland -- New not just connecting Rockport line to Needham
As to private -- well OK Crossrail, Ltd., is a Gov't Corporation -- i.e. Ltd.
However, ever since the days of Maggie Thatcher the Brits have been unwinding their former Labor [aka Socialist] Government ownership of all the major things and so CrossRail, Ltd., is some sort of a hybrid crafted to fund, build and operate the Elizabeth Line. As such its given some gov't-like powers ["Compulsory Sales" --aka eminent domain] and a lot of private sector freedom to do its job. For example, CrossRail's board decided to look at development projects which could be located next to or on top of its new stations or their additional stations connected by escalators to the Tube stations.
I really doubt that the Mass Legislature would create a Boston CrossRail, Inc., and let it loose building botanic gardens [Canary Wharf], and office towers [Paddington].
Much more likely would be yet another Mass Boston Greater Mobility Authority [MBGNA] which decades of corruption later would be subsumed back into the DOT with a heritage of over priced, under-engineered, leaky tunnels with too little ventilation to permit anything except electrified Amtrak to use the tunnels.
On the flipside -- the N-S link in London would dig a giant tunnel to permit all of the Trains that now deadend into many dozens of tracks at Paddington to continue to Kings Cross/St. Pancras -- so that N-S running-through-like ..... You could board a train at Oxford for Cambridge
versus the method today
There's not really much choice by train for Cambridge to Oxford. Go from Cambridge to London Kings Cross - get the underground (Circle or Hammersmith & City) to Paddington Station - then train to Oxford. Journey time about 3 hours.
And of course the above exposes the logical fallacy of the running through argument
Even with F-line's impressive exposition telling us about why 128 to 128 versus not 495 to 495 -- Through Running for anything except Amtrak makes no sense. Take the Downeast passengers -- of which I was regularly while teaching at UNH. Most of the time I rode from Anderson [Woburn] to the station on the edge of the UNH campus. I tried North Station a couple of times just for "kicks". A couple of times I've taken the Downeast to Portland -- once for a technical workshop organized by National Semiconductor in South Portland.
In general, I was the classic reverse commuter -- traveling north in the AM and south in the PM with a mostly empty train [once I was accompanied on the way home with a hoard of people wearing Celtic Jerseys and i guess there might be some trains full of Red Sox jerseys in the summer].
I got to spend time with the mostly bored conductors and so we talked about the Downeast. All of the conductors [I guess in 5 years or so I got to talk to more than 10 as my return trips varied depending on my teaching research schedule] were dedicated to itss success and quite knowledgeable. Almost uniformly, they told me that there were a handful of dedicated direct commuters who boarded north of the Mass Border headed for Boston some traveling all the way from Portland. I asked about the reverse commute and outside of people traveling from NH to Portland the number was very small. Mostly, the people on the train were just folks from wherever going to wherever.
The major exception occurred on the crappy half car length platform at UNH around a holiday or college vacation -- they poured on headed to Boston and Logan, or on south to NYC or even DC -- it was a large crowd of mostly college kids.
They would benefit from N-S Rail being able to board Amtrak in say DC and probably change trains once platform to platform or perhaps even have an excursion train from Portland to NYC or DC.
For everyone else there is essentially no-value in through running except possibly a couple of Center City to Center City links -- a near exhaustive list [Worcester to Providence, Worcester to Lowell, Lowell to Providence]
the rest of all possible connections just is too diffuse to offer any value on any one train. F-Line talks about Rt-128 to Rt-128 congestion being reduced by taking a train -- not realistic. For one there are few places on Rt-128 where you could locate a new station from which it would be an easy walk to work. One possibility might be Winter St. on the back of the Cambridge Reservoir where there are a couple of million sq ft bounded by a circle of a about a mile radius with tech, biotech, pharma, business -- but to which possible existing station on an existing line or even a new station on a new line passing through Boston would match Hypothetical Raytheon Plaza?
It just doesn't work and unfortunately neither the former Governor nor the current Congressman has a sufficient mathematical background to apparently understand.
Once before I alluded to it -- its been a problem solved by the "Bell System" about 100 years ago with the creation of "Long Lines" There were not enough people in Boston who wanted to call any exchange in NYC and vice versa. So instead you called the Boston Long Distance operator who literally plugged your call through into the trunk line going to NYC and connected it to the specific local exchange. Eventually, with direct distance dialing the connections got automated but calls still travel trunked outside your immediate area code. unfortunately, due to some weird regulatory stuff all calls in Eastern Mass need to dial the full North American Dialing number even if you are calling across the street.
Now Packet Networks are different [e.g. Ethernet, Wifi, Bluetooth]---while a packet may be routed multiple times in multiple places -- it travels independently of everything else from source to destination.
Now here's a thought -- Perhaps the N-S would work with a whole bunch of small pods carrying 1 to a handful of people which could be individually targeted to a particular destination with some clever switching where all the lines come together to be trunked under Boston and then dispersed among many lines after coming back to the surface.
Well -- Outside of substituting pods for cars -- that's the essence of the Big Dig and the Metropolitan Highway Network.
