The Two Problems With Israeli Politics
I liked the comment on the Radio Five Live from an Israeli political commentator.
There are only two problems with Israeli politics; Benjamin and Netanyahu.
Israeli politics is certainly different.
Should All High Speed Long Distance Services To Newcastle Extend To Edinburgh?
Look at this Google Map of Newcastle station.
Note.
- It is built on a curve.
- It is on a cramped site.
- Platforms are numbered from 1 at the top to 8 at the bottom.
- Platform 2 seems to be used for all express services going North.
- Platforms 3 and 4 seem to be used for all express services going South.
- Not all platforms would appear to be long enough for nine-car Class 80x trains.
I am certain, that any nation with a sophisticated railway system wouldn’t build a station on a curve with no avoiding lines like Newcastle these days.
Network Rail have a plan to sort out Darlington station and I’m sure they’d like to sort out Newcastle as well!
Current Long Distance Trains Through And To Newcastle
These include.
- CrossCountry – Plymouth and Edinburgh or Glasgow via Alnmouth, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Dunbar.
- CrossCountry – Southampton Central or Reading and Newcastle.
- LNER – King’s Cross and Edinburgh via Berwick-upon-Tweed
- LNER – King’s Cross and Edinburgh via Alnmouth
- TransPennine Express – Liverpool Lime Street and Edinburgh via Morpeth
- TransPennine Express – Manchester Airport and Newcastle.
Note.
- All have a frequency of one train per hour (tph)
- All trains call at Newcastle.
- Two tph terminate at Newcastle and four tph terminate at Edinburgh or beyond.
There is also a new and Edinburgh service from East Coast Trains, that will start this year.
- It will run five trains per day (tpd).
- It will call at Newcastle.
- It will stop at Morpeth between Newcastle and Edinburgh.
There will also be High Speed Two services to Newcastle in a few years.
- There will be two tph between Euston and Newcastle
- There will be one tph between Birmingham Curzon Street and Newcastle.
Note.
- All services will be run by 200 metre long High Speed Two Classic-Compatible trains.
- There is no High Speed Two service to Newcastle, that calls at Leeds.
- Only one High Speed Two service to Newcastle calls at East Midlands Hub.
I suspect High Speed Two services need a dedicated platform at Newcastle, especially, if another High Speed Two service were to be added.
Extra Paths For LNER
In the December 2020 Edition of Modern Railways, there is an article, which is entitled LNER Seeks 10 More Bi-Modes.
This is the last paragraph.
Infrastructure upgrades are due to prompt a timetable recast in May 2022 (delayed from December 2021), from which point LNER will operate 6.5 trains per hour out of King’s Cross, compared to five today. As an interim measure LNER is retaining seven rakes of Mk. 4 coaches hauled by 12 Class 91 locomotives to supplement the Azuma fleet and support its timetable ambitions until new trains are delivered.
There would certainly appear to be a path available if LNER wanted to increase the frequency of trains between King’s Cross and Edinburgh from the current two trains per hour (tph) to three.
I laid out how I would use this third path to Edinburgh in A New Elizabethan.
The Possible Long Distance Trains Through And To Newcastle
These trains can be summed up as follows.
- 1 tph – CrossCountry – Plymouth and Edinburgh or Glasgow via Alnmouth, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Dunbar.
- 1 tph – CrossCountry – Southampton Central or Reading and Newcastle.
- 1 tph – LNER – King’s Cross and Edinburgh via Berwick-upon-Tweed
- 1 tph – LNER – King’s Cross and Edinburgh via Alnmouth
- 1 tph – TransPennine Express – Liverpool Lime Street and Edinburgh via Morpeth
- 1 tph – TransPennine Express – Manchester Airport and Newcastle.
- 5 tpd – East Coast Trains – King’s Cross and Edinburgh via Morpeth
- 2 tph – High Speed Two – Euston and Newcastle
- 1 tph – High Speed Two – Birmingham Curzon Street and Newcastle
- 1 tph – LNER – King’s Cross and Edinburgh – Extra service
This is ten tph and the five tpd of East Coast Trains.
Capacity Between Newcastle And Edinburgh
I wonder what capacity and linespeed would be possible on the East Coast Main Line between Newcastle and Edinburgh.
There are a few freight trains and some suburban electrics at the Northern end, but I suspect that the route could handle ten tph with some upgrades.
Edinburgh As A Terminal
Consider.
- Not all trains terminate at Edinburgh, but several tpd go through to places like Aberdeen, Glasgow, Inverness and Stirling.
- Edinburgh has several shorter East-facing bay platforms, that can take five-car Class 802 trains.
- Edinburgh has undergone a lot of reconstruction in recent years, so that it can turn more trains.
I very much feel that Edinburgh could handle, at least ten tph from the South.
Conclusion
I think it would be possible to extend all trains to Newcastle to at least Edinburgh.
Would it increase passenger capacity between the two capitals?
It would certainly avoid the difficult and expensive rebuilding at Newcastle station.
Starter Homes At Cockfosters
This would seem to be the final failure of a 1960s office development at Cockfosters.
It must have been about 1962, when I remember my mother telling me about the topping-out ceremony of these blocks by Cockfosters station.
They probably will satisfy a need, but it wouldn’t be my place to choose to live.
- You may have the Piccadilly Line to Central London, but it is a long way. It takes 43 minutes to Leicester Square.
- Cockfosters shopping centre hasn’t improved much since the 1960s.
- I doubt that the development will have lots of parking.
But then on top of the hill with all the wind blowing from the East in the winter, it will be a bitterly cold place to live!
There are perhaps two good points.
- The development is close to Trent Park for walking.
- The buildings do seem to be structurally fairly sound.
But they’ll need to be, with all that cold wind!
HybridFLEX Battery-Diesel Train Continues Programme Of Testing
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Global Railway Review.
This is the first two paragraphs.
The HybridFLEX battery-diesel train is currently undertaking a programme of tests between Duffield and Wirksworth, prior to returning to Chiltern Railways in the summer.
Fitted with a Rolls Royce MTU hybrid drive, the HybridFLEX will cut noise emissions in stations and deliver zero emissions when operating under battery power.
All seems to be going well, according to the article.
I like the concept, as to replace a diesel engine with a diesel-battery hybrid power pack must surely be a sensible way to at least partially decarbonise.
In the UK, the following diesel multiple units are fitted with modern MTU engines and could be candidates from a replacement power pack.
- Class 168 train – 19 trains – 82 diesel engines
- Class 170 train – 136 trains – 350 diesel engines
- Class 171 train – 20 trains – 56 diesel engines
- Class 172 train – 39 trains – 93 diesel engines
- Class 195 train – 58 trains – 149 diesel engines
- Class 196 train – 26 trains – 80 diesel engines
- Class 197 train – 77 trains – 180 diesel engines
That is a total of 990 diesel engines.
As some of the Class 196 and Class 197 trains have yet to be delivered, I do wonder, if it would be sensible to deliver them as diesel-battery hybrid trains.
Somerset: Plans For New Railway Station On Levels
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Plans for a new railway station have moved forward after councillors agreed to help fund a feasibility study.
The stations at Somerton and Langport on the Somerset Levels were closed in the Beeching cuts during the 1960s.
I put my thoughts on this station in Beeching Reversal – New Station For Langport And Somerton Area.
The BBC article says this about the study.
The study, to be carried out by the Langport Transport Group (LTG) will identify possible sites, which may include a parkway-style station between the towns, possibly on the site of the former Long Sutton and Pitney station.
This Google Map shows the railway between the two villages of Langport and Somerton.
Note.
- Langport is in the South-West corner of the map.
- Somerton is in the North-East corner of the map.
- The Reading-Taunton Line goes through both villages, although both stations are now closed.
The map is probably best clicked to show on a larger scale.
This second Google Map shows the area between the two villages of Long Sutton and Pitney.
Note.
- Pitney is in the North-West corner of the map.
- Long Sutton is in the South-East corner of the map.
- The railway runs across the middle of the map it looks as if there was a station site to the North of the village of Upton.
- The only major road in the area; the A372, runs across the bottom of the map.
It is certainly a possibility for a Parkway station, but are the road connections good enough?
Thoughts On Seating In East Coast Trains’ New Class 803 trains
This page on RailAdvent contains this YouTube video of one of East Coast Trains’ New Class 803 trains under test.
On this page on the First Group web site, they give some details of the service.
- Five trains per day, seven days per week in both directions.
- One class of travel
- Offer tickets at an average price of less than £25.
- At seat catering on every train.
- Introduce an additional 1.5 million seats on the route every year.
They also expect 80 % of passengers to be new to rail.
The internet doesn’t give the number of seats on the train, so I will estimate a number.
The number of trains per year will be at least 365 * 2 * 5, which is an easy 3650 trains.
Dividing this into 1.5 million gives 410.9 seats per train. I’ll call that 411.
After I made that estimate, I found this page on the Beacon Rail Leasing web site.
It gives this information.
- Power – 4.5 MW
- Speed – 125 mph
- Passenger Capacity – 400
- Weight – 228.5 tonnes
Using the figure of 400 passengers and 3650 trains per year, that gives a total number of 1,460,000 passengers per year, which is probably within the margin of error for the arithmetic of marketing experts.
If you watch the video, the following can be ascertained.
- The two driver cars have six large windows each.
- The three centre cars have nine large windows each.
- It looks like the seating in the train is three on one side and two on the other.
This picture shows the Standard Class seating bay layout on a Great Western Railway Class 802 train.
Note.
- The seats are arranged either side of the window.
- There are lots of tables.
- If the blind was up, passengers will get a good view.
If as I surmised from the video, seating is two+three and there are 39 bays, that means that the train has a base seating capacity of 390 seats.
That leaves ten seats to find places for, or just two per car.
With two+two seating, there would be 312 seats in the bays under windows, so there would be a need to fit in another 86 seats.
It appears to me that to meet their objective of 1.5 million additional seats that a two+three layout is needed.
But it could be that most passengers will get a proper table and possibly reasonable leg room. Try getting that on a budget airline!
A Few Questions
These are a few questions.
When Will The Service Start?
Your guess is as good as mine, but First Group are saying Autumn 2021.
Is The Service Geared For Group Or Family Travel?
Each train has thirty-nine groups of six seats and the same number of groups of four seats.
If say it was granny’s birthday in Edinburgh or a group of six friends were going to Scotland-England at Murrayfield, the layout would accommodate groups and families well.
They certainly need a good seat allocation algorithm.
Will I Be Able To Use My Railcard?
I would suspect not!
But then it would only save £8.33!
What About Delay Repay?
This will be automatic! I can’t ever be bothered to claim otherwise!
Will There Be Disabled Toilets?
It’s the law! But I have seen some much smaller ones that are well-designed and meet all aspects of the law in some new trains, so I would expect to find innovative designs.
Will There Be Single Seats?
I can sleep anywhere and regularly find myself returning to London curled in the corner of my seat fast asleep.
A single seat in the corner of the carriage might be ideal for some passengers.
Will Everybody Get A Table?
If I’m right about each seating bay having a table, then it would look like around ninety-seven percent of passengers would get a proper table. Not big enough for a copy of the Daily Telegraph, but they should have enough space for a laptop and/or a few beers.
What Food And Drink Will Be Offered?
I suspect, it will mainly be drinks and snacks like crisps or nutrition bars, which can be easily served from a trolley.
It should be noted that the three major stations on the route King’s Cross, Newcastle and Edinburgh all have a good selection of places to buy a carry-on!
But unlike at an airport, I suspect passengers won’t turn up two or three hours before departure, so will be unlikely to eat before departure.
I do think, that we could see improvements in the food offerings for taking on the train at Stevenage and Morpeth.
East Coast Trains may also contribute to the development of carry-on shops at some stations.
Will The Trains Accept Bicycles?
This is a tricky one and personally I feel that offering a decent bike hire service could be better value all round.
Using The Fleet Of Five Trains
Wikipedia and other sources indicate that the fleet is just five trains.
We know these facts or proposals.
- King’s Cross and Edinburgh are 393.15 miles apart.
- LNER run trains between King’s Cross and Edinburgh in four hours and twenty minutes (4 stops) and four hours and forty minutes (9 stops)
- The record time between King’s Cross and Edinburgh was set in 1991 by a shortened all-electric InterCity 225 train at three hours twenty-nine minutes and thirty seconds, which represented an average speed of 112.5 mph.
- Trains start leaving King’s Cross and Edinburgh about 05:45.
- The Werrington Dive-Under will, be completed in 2021.
- The King’s Cross Remodelling should be completed this year.
- Full digital in-cab signalling is being installed between King’s Cross and Doncaster. This will allow 140 mph running and as a Control Engineer, I believe it could ease the bottlenecks at Newark and over the Digswell Viaduct.
- East Coast Trains’ Class 803 trains appear to have been designed for sparkling acceleration.
- East Coast Trains will only make three stops.
- East Coast Trains intend to compete with the budget airlines.
- East Coast Trains intend their first train to arrive in London by 10:00. Does that mean Edinburgh as well?
I have just checked on Real Time Trains and this East Coast Trains timetable can be found.
King’s Cross and Edinburgh
- 05:45 – Arrives 10:10 – 4 hours 25 minutes – Stops at Stevenage
- 10:45 – Arrives 15:17 – 4 hours 32 minutes
- 12:18 – Arrives 16:41 – 4 hours 23 minutes – Stops at Stevenage
- 14:36 – Arrives 19:15 – 4 hours 39 minutes
- 20:18 – Arrives 00:46 – 4 hours 28 minutes
Edinburgh and King’s Cross
- 06:14 – Arrives 10:51 – 4 hours 37 minutes
- 09:11 – Arrives 13:48 – 4 hours 37 minutes
- 11:14 – Arrives 15:46 – 4 hours 32 minutes
- 16:12 – Arrives 20:47 – 4 hours 35 minutes – Stops at Stevenage
- 19:58 – Arrives 01:05 – 5 hours 7 minutes – Stops at Stevenage
Note.
- Times appear to be in-line with those of LNER.
- East Coast Trains’ objective of arriving by 10:00 is not met.
- Paths exist for East Coast Trains from the 7th June.
I believe this timetable is based on what is possible today without the improvements at King’s Cross and Werrington, and the digital signalling.
What Could Be Possible?
Consider.
- The improvements that are underway will help to reduce journey times.
- I also believe that by being clever, East Coast Trains could reduce turn-round times at King’s Cross and Edinburgh.
I think it is likely, that East Coast Trains could probably run between King’s Cross and Edinburgh in a time of around four hours.
I can also see a turn-round time of five minutes, if East Coast Trains use all their First Group experience.
Could this mean, a train starting from King’s Cross doing the following trips in a day?
- 05:50 – King’s Cross to Edinburgh – Arrives 09:50
- 09:55 – Edinburgh to King’s Cross – Arrives 13:55
- 14:00 – King’s Cross to Edinburgh – Arrives 18:00
- 18:05 – Edinburgh to King’s Cross – Arrives 22:05
- 22:10 – King’s Cross to Edinburgh – Arrives 02:10
Note.
- A second train would mirror this time-table starting in Edinburgh.
- Every minute saved on each journey between King’s Cross and Edinburgh will bring the final arrival forward.
- There is tremendous potential to speed up services.
This time-table would be straight out of Michael O’Leary’s notebook about making assets sweat.
Conclusion
I think that East Coast Trains have done a Ryanair and designed the train to accommodate the maximum number of passengers. But the quoted £25 fare does appear to be good value.
I am certain that two+three seating will be used.
It Was Once Called The Only Rear-Engined Front-Wheel-Drive Car In Captivity!
A friend has just moved to Ainsdale and I once went to see cars racing on the flat sandy beach.
One of the cars I saw was the Cooper-Buick, which was a 1964 Mini-Cooper with a 3.5-litre Buick V8 engine in the boot, driving the front wheels, through the back axle of an E-type Jaguar.
This page on the Road and Track web site gives more details.
It certainly threw a lot of sand about!
Will This Be The First Electric Air Service To Take-Off?
This article on GeekWire is entitled MagniX Inks Deal To Retrofit Seaplanes With electric Motors For Blade Flights Around NYC And Hamptons.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Everett, Wash.-based MagniX will provide electric aircraft motors to power Cessna seaplanes flying between Nantucket, the Hamptons and downtown New York City, under an agreement announced Thursday.
The zero-emission motors will be retrofitted onto nine-passenger Cessna Caravan seaplanes operated under the Blade brand name. If all goes to plan, MagniX will start delivering motors for the Cessnas in 2023. The total number of planes to be converted will be determined later.
This is significant for the following reasons.
Blade Is A Different Company
This paragraph describes the company in their Wikipedia entry.
BLADE Urban Air Mobility, Inc. (stylized “BLADE”) is a publicly-traded, technology-powered, global urban air mobility platform based in New York City committed to reducing travel friction by enabling cost-effective air transportation alternatives to some of the most congested ground routes in the U.S. and abroad. Blade users can book by the seat on scheduled flights throughout the Northeast and West Coast or charter or crowdsource a flight anywhere in the world.
Blade is also the first publicly traded urban air mobility company.
Cessna Caravans Are Reliable Utility Airplanes
Cessna Caravans first flew forty years ago and over 2,600 have been produced.
The picture shows the one I flew in from Nairobi airport to the Masai Mara.
Note.
- The single turbo-prop engine in the nose.
- They can take up to nine passengers.
- They have range of nearly 1300 miles.
FedEx operate 260 as parcel carriers.
MagniX Have Already Flown An Electric Caravan
This video shows the Electric Caravan in flight.
This is a video of a testflight on YouTube.
The guy behind the project;Roei Ganzarski gave a very optimistic interview on BBC Breakfast.
Electric Caravans Can Fly On A Supplemental Type Certificate
I explain this in magniX, Sydney Seaplanes And Dante Aeronautical Partner For World’s First All Electric Cessna Caravan STC Program.
It means that the certification process can be shortened, as it builds on what was done to certify the aircraft iby the original manufacturer.
Blade Are At the Top End Of The Aviation Market
The Hamptons says it all!
Conclusion
I think this will be a successful venture.
Gravitricity Battery Generates First Power At Edinburgh Site
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first paragraph.
A project to create electricity from gravity has generated its first power at a demonstrator site in Edinburgh.
The article gives a good explanation of the uses of the Gravitricity system and shows a video.
I suppose, I should declare an interest, in that I have invested money in Gravitricity through crowdfunding.
But then I like the concept and they are also using some of the best winch technology in the world from specialist company: Huisman.
Plans For £100m Coventry To Nottingham Rail Link Announced
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first two paragraphs.
A £100m scheme to reconnect three Midlands cities by rail could be running by 2025, subject to funding, according to a regional transport group.
Midlands Connect said it had completed a strategic business case for a direct link between Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham.
The article also says this about the route.
The group said there was a “strong case” for the project and it had narrowed it down to two – one which called at the Warwickshire town of Nuneaton and one which ran direct between the three cities.
In A Potential Leicester To Coventry Rail Link, which I wrote in February 2019, I talked about this link and came to the conclusion it was feasible.
But things have moved on in those two years and these are my updated thoughts.
Via Nuneaton Or Direct
This Google Map shows the rail layout to the South of Nuneaton station.
Note.
- The multi-track electrified railway running North-West and South-East is the Trent Valley section of the West Coast Main Line.
- Branching off to the South-West is the Coventry and Nuneaton Line.
- Branching off to the South-East is the line to Leicester.
Nuneaton station is off the map to the North on the West Coast Main Line.
Unfortunately, services to Coventry and Leamington Spa call in Platform 1 on the Western side of the station and services between Leicester and Birmingham call in platforms 6 and 7 on the Eastern side.
This probably rules out a clever solution, where perhaps an island platform, has Birmingham and Leicester services on one side and Coventry and Leicester services on the other.
This Google Map shows Nuneaton station.
Note.
- Platform 6 and 7 form the island platform on the North-East side of the station.
- Birmingham trains call in Platform 6.
- Leicester trains call in Platform 7.
The track layout for Platforms 6 and 7 appears comprehensive with crossovers allowing both platforms to be used for services to both cities.
This Google Map shows the crowded track layout to the South of the station.
The only possibility would appear to be a single track dive-under that connected Platform 6 and/or 7 to the Coventry and Nuneaton Line on the other side of the West Coast Main Line.
I feel that costs would rule it out.
I suspect that a direct solution cutting out Nuneaton might be possible.
This Google Map shows the three routes diverging to the South of Nuneaton station.
It might be possible to connect the Coventry and Leicester Lines, but the curve might be too tight.
The alternative could be to build a dive-under that would connect Platform 1 to the Leicester Line.
- It would appear that it could be the easiest and most affordable option.
- Trains would reverse in Nuneaton station.
It is certainly a tricky problem, but I do believe there is a simple cost-effective solution in there somewhere.
Nuneaton Parkway Station
This page on Coventry Live gives some information about the proposed Nuneaton Parkway station.
There is also a proposed station, to be called Nuneaton Parkway, situated off the A5 between Hinckley and Nuneaton.
This Google Map shows the area where the A5 crosses the Birmingham-Peterborough Line, that runs between Hinckley and Nuneaton..
This must surely be one of the best sites to build a new Parkway station in the UK.
- The triangular site is a waste transfer station operated by Veolia Environmental Services UK.
- It has a direct connection to the A5, which could be easily improved, with perhaps a roundabout.
- Doing a crude estimate from the Google Map, I calculate that the site is about sixteen hectares, which is surely a good size for a Parkway station.
- There’s even quite a lot of new housing within walking and cycling distance.
It would also appear that the station could be built on this site without major disruption to either road or rail traffic.
The Stations And Timing
This document on the Midlands Connect web site, gives their aims for the service.
- Coventry and Leicester – 38 minutes from 54 minutes with one change.
- Coventry and Loughborough – 50 minutes from 88 minutes with otwo changes.
- Coventry and East Midlands Parkway – 56 minutes from 104 minutes with otwo changes.
- Coventry and Nottingham – 70 minutes from 108 minutes with otwo changes.
The service would have a frequency of two trains per hour (tph).
If the train did the same station stops as the current services between Coventry and Leicester, it could stop at all or a selection of the following intermediate stations.
- South Wigston
- Narborough
- Hinckley
- Nuneaton
- Bermuda Park
- Bedworth
- Coventry Arena
The total time would appear to be around fifty minutes, with 28 minutes for Leicester to Nuneaton and 22 minutes from Nuneaton to Coventry. Although the BBC article says that Coventry and Leicester would drop from the current 54 minutes to 38 minutes.
Currently services between Leicester and Birmingham New Street stations are run by CrossCountry.
- One tph – Birmingham New Street and Cambridge or Stansted Airport
- One tph – Birmingham New Street and Leicester
Note that not all intermediate stations receive a two tph service.
Would a two tph service between Leicester and Coventry enable all the stations on the route to have a two tph service?
The Current Leicester And Nottingham Service
Currently the following services run between Leicester and Nottingham.
- 1 tph – EMR InterCity – Direct
- 1 tph – EMR InterCity – Via Loughborough, East Midlands Parkway and Beeston
- 1 tph – EMR Regional – Via Syston, Sileby, Barrow-upon-Soar, Loughborough, East Midlands Parkway, Attenborough and Beeston
Note.
- Timings vary between 23 and 49 minutes.
- Four tph between Leicester and Nottingham would be a Turn-Up-and-Go service that would attract passengers.
- The BBC article is indicating a Coventry and Nottingham time of 70 minutes, which would indicate a Leicester and Nottingham time of 32 minutes, which would appear to be in-line with the EMR Intercity service that stops at Loughborough, East Midlands Parkway and Beeston.
It looks to me that a fourth semi-fast service between Leicester and Nottingham would not be a bad idea.
But Midlands Connect are proposing two extra tph between Coventry and Nottingham.
A Coventry And Nottingham Service
Consider.
- An two tph service would fit in well and give a Turn-Up-and-Go service between Leicester and Nottingham.
- The Coventry and Nottingham time of 70 minutes indicates that the train would need to be to EMR InterCity standard.
- If there is an allowance of twenty minutes at either end of the route, this would indicate a round trip of three hours.
This standard of service would need an operational fleet of six five-car Class 810 trains or similar for a frequency of two tph.
I very much feel that there should be electrification of the Midland Main Line between Leicester and either East Midlands Parkway or Derby.
This would mean that the Coventry and Nottingham route would break down as follows.
- Coventry and Nuneaton – 19,2 miles – No electrification
- Nuneaton and Leicester – 18.8 miles – No electrification
- Leicester and East Midlands Parkway – 19.1 miles – Possible electrification
- East Midlands Parkway and Nottingham – 8.4 miles – No electrification
Note that electrification is already available at Coventry and Nuneaton.
The Coventry and Nottingham route would appear to be possible with battery-electric trains, after the route between Leicester and East Midlands Parkway is electrified.
An Improved Birmingham And Cambridge Service
If Nottingham and Coventry needs a fast two tph service stopping at the major towns and cities in between, surely Birmingham and Cambridge need a similar service.
- It could call at Nuneaton, Leicester, Melton Mowbray, Oakham, Stamford, Peterborough, Ely and Cambridge North.
- Some services could be extended to Stansted Airport.
- It would have a frequency of two tph.
The Birmingham and Cambridge route would break down as follows.
- Birmingham and Nuneaton – 21 miles – No electrification
- Nuneaton and Leicester – 18.8 miles – No electrification
- Leicester and Peterborough – 40 miles – No electrification
- Peterborough and Ely – 30.5 miles – No electrification
- Ely and Cambridge – 14.7 miles – Electrified.
Note that electrification is already available at Birmingham, Nuneaton and Peterborough.
The Birmingham and Cambridge route would appear to be possible with battery-electric trains, if Leicester station were to be electrified.
Midland Connect’s Proposed Leeds and Bedford Service
I wrote about this service in Classic-Compatible High Speed Two Trains At East Midlands Hub Station.
It would run between Leeds and Bedford stations.
It would use the Midland Main Line between Bedford and East Midlands Hub stations.
It would use High Speed Two between East Midlands Hub and Leeds stations.
It would stop at Wellingborough, Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough and East Midlands Hub stations.
- The service frequency could be hourly, but two trains per hour (tph) would be better.
- Leicester and Leeds would take 46 minutes.
Obviously, it wouldn’t run until the Eastern Leg of High Speed Two opens, but it could open up the possibility of Coventry and Leeds in under ninety minutes.
Driving takes over two hours via the M1.
Conclusion
This looks to be a very feasible and fast service.
It also illustrates how extending the electrification on the Midland Main Line can enable battery-electric trains to provide connecting services.
Enough electrification at Leicester and a few miles North of the station to fully charge passing trains would probably be all that is needed.
The Anonymous Widower 