When you're in a hole . . .
MY railway correspondent, I.K. Gricer, is blowing off steam. His latest proposal is to merge the Channel Tunnel rail link with the Jubilee line extension. Like that, he says, we should dig only one expensive and otiose railway tunnel under East London, and not two. Offering those who are bored with the Central Line's scenery a longer route from Stratford-atte-Bow to Bond Street, this extension was due to open some years ago but is, of course, running over time and over budget. Announcing the lat- est delay, London Underground now plans to open in the spring of 1999 and seems to have dropped the idea that passengers should make part of the journey on foot. Meanwhile the work continues to absorb the capital investment needed on those parts of the Underground network where the trains, when not frozen into place by signal failures, run. Such are the hazards of financ- ing public-sector projects. The Treasury thanks the shade of Gladstone (its tutelary deity) that the rail link is not one of them.
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