The Anonymous Widower

Electric Freight: A Solution To The WCML Capacity Conundrum

The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Rail Engineer.

These two paragraphs introduce the article.

Network Rail considers the West Coast Main Line (WCML) to be the busiest mixed traffic railway in Europe. It carries 125mph passenger trains from London to the West Midlands, North West, and Scotland and is used by 90% of intermodal UK rail freight which has a maximum speed of 75mph. Traffic on the line has been steadily increasing. In 1994 there were seven daily passenger trains from Glasgow to London. Now there are 26.

In 2006 Network Rail commissioned an in-depth study to find the best way of providing additional capacity as, with increasing traffic, the WCML between London and the North West was forecast to be full by 2020. The study found that the provision of a new high-speed line was the best solution and was the basis for the development of the HS2 project. The 2006 study correctly forecast that the WCML will by now be at full capacity south of Crewe, yet following the curtailment of HS2 two years ago there are no proposals to address the capacity issue between Rugby and Crewe that was identified 20 years ago.

David Shirres, puts forward a solution that involves electric freight locomotives and faster freight wagons.

I can add some knowledge of what British Rail were doing in the 1970s to solve the problem of freight on the West Coast Main Line all those years ago.

This picture shows a PACE 231R.

In the early 1970s, I was lucky enough to work with one of these amazing machines. They were probably one of the most powerful analogue computers ever built, that could solve a hundred simultaneous differential equations at once using thermionic valve circuitry. Their most famous application was at NASA, where two of these machines formed the analogue half of the moon-landing simulator.

There were a handful of these powerful beasts in the UK at ICI Plastics, where I worked, British Motor Corporation, Cambridge University and British Rail Research at Derby.

At the time, British Rail were trying to run freight trains faster and the four-wheel freight wagons of the time were derailing with an unwanted regularity. So the problem was given to British Rail Research and the problem was put on the PACE 231R. The problem was solved and the lessons learned were applied to the Mark 3 Coach and the InterCity 125.

After privatisation, the research went to the National Railway Museum and out of curiosity a few years ago, I tried to look at it, but was told it was commercially sensitive to Bombardier. It is my belief, that if this research were to be continued at one of our best universities, that faster freight bogies could be developed, that would help to create the extra freight paths needed on the WCML.

December 24, 2025 Posted by AnonW | Computing, Transport/Travel | Analog Computer, British Motor Corporation, British Rail, Cambridge University, Crewe, Differential Equations, Freight, ICI Plastics, InterCity 125, Mark 3 Coach, National Railway Museum, PACE 231-R, Preston, Research, West Coast Main Line | 1 Comment