The New Age Of The Train
The Independent today has an article which talks about the proposed costs of building HS2. Buried in the text is this paragraph.
Tomorrow, George Osborne, the Chancellor, will announce plans for what has been dubbed HS3, a line across the Pennines that would act as a major economic boost to the North. Writing on page 42 today, the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, and former Transport secretary Lord Adonis dismiss the promise as “pre-election posturing”.
I shall be awaiting what the Chancellor says with interest.
The problem of trains in the North has existed for years and so if the Labour Party was in government unchallenged for over ten years, what did Balls and Adonis do about the problem?
Since 2010, and the Coalition Government, the closet trainspotter, has signed off the first part of the improvement in the North, the Northern Hub and extended electrification in the area.
In my view this improvement across the Pennines is the most important rail project outside London.
It is worthwhile looking at the list of large rail projects that are scheduled for completion in the current decade.
Crossrail and Thameslink
Crossrail and Thameslink should always be thought of together, as they will have an important hub at Farringdon and will revolutionise travel across the wider South East and possibly further. So many journeys like Ipswich-Gatwick, Reading-Cambridge and Brighton-Heathrow will be easy journeys with a just a change or two.
Last night, I had an awful taxi journey back from the Gherkin, as roadworks meant that the whole area was gridlocked. The taxi driver was sceptical about trains, so I asked him, where he lived. As he said Goodmayes, I asked him how he got to Gatwick and he replied it was an awful drive of well over an hour. By train today it takes nearly an hour and a half, with two changes, although both are step-free at Stratford and London Bridge. After Crossrail/Thameslink is fully open the first leg to Farringdon will take 24 minutes and currently the Farrington-Gatwick link takes 50 minutes. But there is only one change at Farringdon and I suspect that trains on the Farringdon-Gatwick leg will be much more numerous and perhaps even quicker.
This sort of improvement will be delivered all over the South East.
But that is not the end of it!
Many towns and cities will be just a train ride away from a Crossrail or Thameslink terminus. Bristol, Norwich, Nottingham, York, to name just three, all have fast trains, that link to the network. So for many there will be no humping heavy cases across the Underground network to go to and from places like Heathrow, Gatwick, Brighton, Cambridge and the Thames Valley.
I think the only problem many passengers will have is choosing the best change to get to their destination. For instance with a journey from Nottingham to Gatwick or Brighton, would you change at Bedford, Luton or St. Pancras. I suspect it wouldn’t be the badly-designed St. Pancras. So if one of the others was just a simple walk across that would get the traffic.
Some main lines out of London and the areas they serve though, are not well-connected to Crossrail or Thameslink. If I go round London, the only major lines that come to mind are the West Coast Main Line and South Western Main Line. There are published ideas about taking Crossrail to Tring or Milton Keynes, which solves the problem of the former, but getting to Waterloo or Clapham Junction from Crossrail or Thameslink is a problem. But then Basingstoke to Reading is down to be electrified as part of the Electric Spine, so surely if this is done properly, this could mean Basingstoke was almost part of Crossrail.
Great Western Main Line Electrification
After Crossrail, the full modernisation of the Great Western Main Line is the next most expensive project at £5-billion.
It is comprehensive and includes resignalling and electrification of the line all the way to Swansea.
It will be interesting when both this project and Crossrail are complete how the passengers use the two lines to get to say Bristol and South Wales. I for one, might get my Crossrail train to Reading to pick up the Great Weatern there, if the interchange is easier.
I suspect too, that in the first few years of the next decade there are various tweaks to the Great Western/Crossrail interface.
Plans at present are for a lot of Crossrail trains to turnback at Paddington, but will train companies tend to run some of these trains past Reading to perhaps Oxford or Basingstoke.
It will all depend on what the passenger statistics throw up!
Northern Hub
Talk to most people, including many in the North, about the Northern Hub and they won’t have heard of it. Even if they’ve seen some of the related projects like Huyton station.
If Crossrail is unlocking tremendous potential for London’s rail network, then the Northern Hub should do the same for the Greater Manchester area. On a personal note, getting from London to places like Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn and Huddersfield should be a lot easier, but even from December 2015, the first tangible benefit of the Northern Hub should be seen, when faster electric trains between Liverpool and Manchester start to run. So they are 1980s-vintage Class 319 trains, but being Mark 3 coach-based, they should scrub-up well and be magnitudes better than Northern Rail’s scrapyard specials.
Electric Spine
If the Northern Hub is invisible, then the Electric Spine is even more so, although it is costed at £800-million.
It will have a big effect, as it creates an all-electric railway from Southampton to the Midlands and ultimately Sheffield, Doncaster and the North, which will enable more freight trains to travel up and down the spine of the country, helping to free up road space on the A34 and the motorways.
Midland Main Line Electrification
Th Midland Main Line electrification is effectively now part of the Electric Spine and the two proects should probably be treated as one large one.
East-West Rail Link
The East West Rail Link is the reinstatement of the old Varsity line between Oxford and Cambridge, via Bletchley and Bedford.
The Western section will be opened first and part of it will be in the Electric Spine. This section of the line will also be used by Chiltern’s new Oxford service, which according to this press release should be fully running by Spring 2016.
But the line’s main use will be probably be freight winding it’s way between Southampton and the West Coast and Midland Main Lines. In some way the East West Rail Link is a new section of the M25 for freight trains.
Cardiff Valley Lines
I explored the Cardiff Valley Lines on my recent trip to Cardiff. This £350-million project is a follow on to the Great Western Electrification. A good proportion of the track-work seems to have already been done.
Greater Bristol Metro
The Greater Bristol Metro is a proposal to upgrade all the local lines around Bristol. The upgrade is not as comprehensive as that in South Wales, but it should provide a substantial improvement to train services in the area.
Waverley Line
Like the East-West Rail Link, the Waverley Line or Borders Railway is another reinstatement of a line closed in the 1960s. I said in this post, that this line has more significance than anybody thinks. If it’s the success I think it will be, it could mean that we see more proposals for reopening lines turning from dreams to reality.
Class 88 Locomotive
I like to think I’m an innovative engineer and the Class 88 locomotive is the sort of idea I like. It is effectively an electric engine with an onboard diesel engine, so that it can work away from the wires if necessary.
I was talking to a freight locomotive driver yesterday and as an example, he said that they have to use diesels like Class 66 or Class 70 to take trains into Felixstowe, as they can’t put wires up in the port, due to cranes loading and unloading the trains.
But I do think that the concept of the Class 88, may well be well suited to the UK, where there are still a considerable number of places like Felixstowe, where there is no overhead wiring, but electric lines aren’t far away.
If the first engines delivered in the next few years, prove to be up to the work, I could see lots of Class 88s working the network.
Conclusions
It is a good time to be any sort of railway engineer!
But the public don’t seem to realise what is happening for the better! And in some places like South Wales, they still think it won’t happen!
There’s certainly an awful lot of taxpayers investment going in! Only time will tell, if it’s worth it!
Thoughts On The Borders Railway
I’ve been looking at a page, which describes progress on the Borders Railway.
To my untrained eye, progress appears slow, but as I can’t find anybody saying it is on the Internet, I suspect I’m wide of the mark.
I did find some commentators sceptical about the railway, but unless someone drops a complete haggis, I suspect that the railway will be a success.
Just look what happened with the London Overground, which wasn’t a new railway, but the rebuilding of a zombie line, where the trains smelt like travelling urinals.
Near me, Transport for London took the old East London Railway, which had been part of the old Metropolitan Line and extended it with some new infrastructure to create the East London Line we have today.
They made two miscalculations with the East London Line and its cousin; the North London Line.
In the first place, they underestimated the passenger demand and they have been playing catch-up ever since, my lengthening trains and platforms.
And then, I don’t think they realised how much property prices would rise along the updated lines.
I also think that no-one has found a way to properly model, the novelty factor, which often gets someone to use a new railway or road in the first place.
I know the Scots are canny people and don’t exaggerate, but I would be very surprised if the costs and predictions for the Borders Railway weren’t very conservative, as they had to satisfy so many different politicians, companies and agencies.
East Londoners immediately liked the London Overground and used it, as they’d never seen anything like it. Clean smart trains running to time, even if some of the stations weren’t up to the standard of the trains, got them excited and they recommended it to their friends. Young people got a new way to get to that decent job a couple of boroughs away. New trains were so much more cool than red buses.
I have a feeling that the people of the Borders will embrace their new railway in the same way and in a year or two’s time, they will be clamouring for more trains and extension of the railway all the way to Carlisle.
So at a time when Scotland is probably getting more independence, the railways seem to be getting joined up again!
One final thought concerns the affect a successful Borders Railway may have on England. Will it give further impetus to the reopening of long-closed rail lines?
September 6th 2015 – A Date For All Scots
According to this report in Global Rail News, Alex Salmond has just announced that the Borders Railway will open on this date.
Perhaps a bigger uncertainty than the opening date, is whether he will open this significant new railway in an independent Scotland?
The Borders Are Getting A Top Class Railway
The Borders Railway is starting to take shape and according to this article on Global Rail News, the first track has now been laid. This is the first couple of paragraphs.
The first section of track of the new 30-mile Borders Railway has been laid in Bowshank tunnel.
Although the Borders line is a single track railway, the 200-metre tunnel has double track which is part of a 6.4-kilometre dynamic passing loop. In the tunnel clearances are tight due to the requirement for passive provision for electrification. Hence the tunnel has slab track.
The interesting point is that the railway is being built so it can be electrified in the future.
The Big Disadvantage Of The New Borders Railway
The Borders Railway which is Scotland’s new rail line from Edinburgh to the borders, is progressing well according to an article in Modern Railways.
Speaking of the new terminal station at Tweedbank, the article ends with this sentence.
It will have platforms of sufficient length to accommodate charter trains and thus give Borders tourism a welcome boost.
Do the locals really want more tourists from Edinburgh?
The Anonymous Widower 