CHANNEL TUNNEL RAIL LINK: ALIGNMENT OF THE APPROACHES TO ST. PANCRAS STATION.

Abstract

In the period 1988 to 1996 the proposed Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) has adopted numerous alignments between the Channel Tunnel at Folkestone (Cheriton) and a terminus in London. In 1992 a radical departure from the south approach via Waterloo Station was introduced and the CTRL was diverted to an easterly approach to King's Cross Station, later, this was changed to St Pancras Station. In 1994 the Department of Transport, with the aid of Union Railways Limited (URL), introduced a hybrid Bill into Parliament to obtain the necessary powers to construct the railway. The alignment of the approach to St Pancras Station produced for the Bill is referred to as The Reference Design and shown in Fig. 1. During the House of Commons Select Committee stage of the Bill (February 1995 to January 1996) petitioners' objections to the Bill were heard and the Committee handed down a number of initial recommendations in July 1995. A significant decision recommended the adoption of a proposal from the London Borough of Islington for an alternative alignment of the railway in the approaches to St Pancras Station that extended the proposed tunnel into the Railway Lands. This paper discusses the merits of the petitioners' proposal and the alternatives designed and developed in an extremely short period by URL. One of these alternatives was finally adopted as an additional provision to the Bill.