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Thursday, June 8, 1972
"The Consulting Engineers are to be re-engaged as soon as possible
to commence the final design of all aspects of the railway so that, in the
event of Government taking a decision at the end of the year to proceed with
the construction of the railway, no time will have been lost.
"Their work, which will concentrate on the first two stages of the
system, will include a re-examination of the rolling stock design and the
train control system to be used and, in particular, a re-evaluation of
coach materials and design, air-conditioning, thyristor control and
regenerative braking systems.
Ground Investigations
"Also, the method and design of construction of the underground
tunnels, stations and other structures will be reconsidered in the light of the
information gained from the ground investigations and with a view to creating
the minimum social disturbance during construction.
"Until now, the alignment of all routes has been expressed in
British Imperial units on Imperial scale plans. The Mass Transit Railway
routes have now to be accurately surveyed and the plans will be prepared to
a metric scale in order that the whole system can be designed in metric units.
"To provide the necessary information to enable the design of the
civil engineering structures to proceed, extensive ground investigations
will be carried out. This work comprises a large number of bore-hales,
trial pits etc. together with the comprehensive testing and analysis of
soil samples.
"The