West London Orbital

The West London Orbital is a proposed light rail and underground railway which was promoted in June 2008 by the West London Business group, a chamber of commerce group in London, UK. The proposal involves the construction of an underground line across west London.

The West London Orbital scheme remains at the proposal stage and is not approved or funded.

Background
The scheme has been promoted in the context of the shape of London's public transport rail network, which consists mainly of radial lines running into central London. London politicians and other commentators have remarked on the lack of alternative orbital rail routes around the city, and existing projects such as London Overground have sought to address these issues.

The stated aim of the West London Orbital proposal is to create an orbital public transport route around west London by connecting several radial railway lines.

Proposal
A number of routes have been examined for the new metro, and the most promising one is thought by its promoters to be a north-south route running from to Surbiton, via, ,  and Kingston. The line would connect several London Underground and National Rail lines, including the forthcoming Crossrail at Ealing Broadway.

The proposal envisages the West London Orbital operating totally underground, using short driverless light rail trains similar to the Docklands Light Railway, and updated "to the most modern standards" including platform screen doors similar to the Copenhagen metro in Denmark. The transit time from Brent Cross to Surbiton is quoted as 28 minutes, with a maximum train speed of 80 km/h.

The promoters cite a number of reasons why they believe an underground scheme would be cost-effective: tunnelling costs would be lower than ordinary underground projects as the tunnel diameter would be smaller than for a heavy rail scheme; there are no other rail tunnels to avoid (as in central London); and the subsoil strata are suitable for modern tunnel boring machines (TBMs).

Alternative orbital schemes
West London Orbital is similar to other proposed schemes:
 * The Park Royal Partnership is promoting a 'FastBus' scheme of branded, limited-stop buses, between and  stations and possibly beyond.
 * The 'North and West London Light Railway' (or the 'Brent Cross Railway') is a proposed rapid transit network. The scheme was originally developed by the London group of the Campaign for Better Transport, and mainly uses existing or abandoned surface railway corridors.