The Anonymous Widower

Not All Important Projects Are Visible

I have recently come down the East Coast Main Line from Edinburgh to London. Starting at 05:40 in the morning there are up to 23 trains on that route during a typical day.

That is a lot of trains, carriages and seats and it only needs something small to go wrong for all the services to be delayed and even cancelled.

One of the biggest problems is that the line is crossed by other important routes, where say a freight train has to cross from east to west. So a slight problem can have a tremendous knock-on effect.

Last year, one of these crossings was eased by the opening of the Hitchin flyover, where Cambridge trains join and leave the main line.

Now another of these crossings has been eliminated with the opening of the North Doncaster Chord, which now takes heavy coal trains over the main line. A level crossing was also eliminated.

This is a quote from the linked article in Modern Railways.

The movement of coal to generate electricity is vital in keeping the UK’s lights switched on. Over 35 per cent of UK-consumed electricity is generated by coal moved by rail

I didn’t think that coal was still used to generate that amount of electricity.

Both the Hitchin and North Doncaster projects cost a few tens of million pounds and will help the East Coast Main Line to be more punctual.

But I have not seen either of them in mainstream media.

We need to find a way to tell the frustrated passenger on the train, that things will be getting better and that the engineers are doing their utmost.

One of the good things about the troubles in Dawlish, was all the high profile media attention that the project received.

June 7, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Engineering, Lumo