CHARING CROSS.

Shannon News, 31 July 1925, Page 4

CHARING CROSS.

FAMOUS STATION TO BF. removed. HUGE SOUTH OF THAMES RAILWAY TERMINUS. Will Charing- Cross Railway Station be moved to the south side of the Thames at a cost of £30,000,000? Discussions have lasted for over 20 years. Definite action in regard to the proposal has now been taken. A subcommittee of the London County Council has decided to approach the Southern Railway authorities and ask for a conference on the matter, though no definite decision has been reached as to what actual form the scheme should take. Originally, it was estimated that the under-taking, including the building of a new .road bridge, would cost about £15,000,000. The cost now would be a great deal above that figure. Sir Herbert Walker, general manager of the Southern Railway, discussed the scheme from London traffic point of view with a Daily Chronicle representative, having first confirmed the fact that the L.C.C. had approached the company on the subject, and asked them to attend an informal conference.

•‘Until we actually know what form their proposals will take,” lie said, “we cannot say what our attitude will be. If a new bridge has to be built in the Charing Cross street as a future remedy for present congestion, I think three alternative proposals will have to be discussed. With regard' to the scheme for utilising the existing railway bridge for road traffic, and transferring Charing Cross Station to the to the south side of the river, I should say-it might take anything from five to ten years to do this, and the cost might be as much as £30,000,000.

“Tile second \ alternative provides for the construction of the existing Charing Cross railway bridge and the superimposing of a wide road bridge on the top of it, leaving the railway bridge underneath. This scheme has already been discussed in public, and is a proposal most favoured by Captain' Swintoif. It. would mean that the bridge would have a connection with the Strand at the Golden Cross Hotel, and another connection would cross the Strand by a high-level bridge sloping down to ground agaiu near the Nurse Cavell monument This would, of course, mean doing away with the Charing Cross Hotel, and the

1 present station would then become more or less an underground one. At the fork o£ the two roads 1 have just mentioned a wide plaza would be constructed over the station. Such an undertaking would require much time and money, and would completely change the aspect of one of the most famous sites in central London.

“That an entirely new road bridge should be built across the river between the existing railway bridge and Waterloo bridge ig the third alternative. My view is that a fresh bridge straight across would only add greatly to the congestion, because it would mean traffic pouring into the already congested York road,, from whence vehicles would have to make their way into either Waterloo road or Westminster Bridge road. “We would not move a large terminal station like Charing Cross into which something like 35.000 or 'H‘,OOO people pour each day. without careful thought as to what the alternative would mean. At present, naturally, anything that I say must be regarded in the light of conjecture, but - I think what would happen in lliese circumstances would be. this: We should turn Waterloo Junction Station into a big terminus, into which would be run all trains on the South-Eastern section -which now go Charing Cross, and it would have to be connected with the present Waterloo Station now that these trunk services are both part of the Southern K-ailway.”