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Thameslink

I shall try to be as brief as possible to enable other hon. Members to speak. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend—and my genuine friend—the Member for Bedford (Patrick Hall) on securing the debate and on what he has said today. Like him, I am a massive enthusiast of railways in general, and the modernisation of Thameslink in particular. I have thousands of constituents who, like my hon. Friend, travel every day by Thameslink. I have been a commuter on that line for the past 41 years, and I still use it every day. Therefore, I know the problem. Some years ago, I think I had an influence in persuading Ministers to build the box station at St. Pancras International, pointing out that if we had not done that, Eurostar services would have been seriously damaged. The line is a serious provider of passengers straight on to Eurostar. Because of that box station, those of us who live on the Thameslink line can pop over to Paris at short notice—something I have done myself. The improvement of the through-London service is excellent and vital, and I am happy about the concept. However, I must raise some concerns about the engineering and the technology. Friends of mine in the industry—engineers in particular—have said that there are serious problems. From time to time I read magazines such as Modern Railways, which give me a bit of insight into how things work. Trying to get 24 trains through that middle section is a major problem. That is a large number of trains, and it is not a simple through-route. There are two routes feeding in from GNER and from the midlands to King's Cross and St. Pancras. Sequencing all those trains and ensuring that they get through on time and can stop, offload, onload and move on will be a serious problem. To an extent, that has been partly recognised, but there are other problems. That section of the line has some of the steepest gradients in the country. Will we have sufficient power to allow trains to get through those gradients sufficiently quickly? I understand that most trains have eight driven axles for a four-car unit, but we may need to increase the number of driven axles—which increases costs—to ensure that trains can cope with those gradients at sufficient speed to get through the system. The switchover from overhead AC power lines to third-rail DC drive also takes time. I see that every day at Farringdon. That is another potential problem that can slow trains down. As I have said, that has been recognised to an extent. There is some suggestion of having automatic train operation between Kentish Town and Blackfriars. Automatic train operation has not been tried in Britain on a mainline service. It is used on the Victoria line, but not elsewhere. It has not been tried, and certainly not on a complex system such as Thameslink, where there are two railway lines coming into one at St. Pancras. Automatic operation in a dry, straight tunnel with no complications is one thing, but where there are problems with weather such as wet track, leaf fall or frost if some of the track is exposed, something called defensive braking will be required in the automatic operation to ensure that the trains do not slip and that they get through. Again, that could cause delay and would certainly add enormous costs. I therefore suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that what we need at this stage, before things go wrong and we say, "Oh dear, we can't deal with this; there's a problem", is a thorough review of all the engineering problems in the system by BR-trained engineers in all the specialisms required, not by project managers and people who have little experience in railways, and without pressure from Network Rail or contractors to gloss over details. We must get this right, and I ask the Minister to secure a thorough engineering review by an independent group of engineers with all the necessary skills to ensure that we do not make mistakes and that we get it right.