From Coventry To Nuneaton
The Coventry To Nuneaton Line is in the process of being upgraded, as this paragraph from Wikipedia details.
The line runs near to the Ricoh Arena football stadium on the northern edge of Coventry. Funding for two new stations, Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park, was approved in December 2011. New plans will also see the number of carriages increased from 1 to 3 and the service upgraded to half hourly, a new platform built at Coventry station and also future extensions of the line to Kenilworth and Leamington Spa.
After coffee with an old friend in Coventry, I decided to hop to Nuneaton using this line , from where I could get a train back to London.
The pictures show the character of the route and some of the building work at the new Coventry Arena station. I caught a glimpse of work at Bermuda Park station, but was unable to get a picture.
There is a third station being built in the area and that is Kenilworth station on the related Coventry to Leamington Line.
I think that the ambitious team that run Chiltern Railways will be looking to at least get a feeder service running from Nuneaton to Leamington, via Coventry and Kenilworth.
If HS2 goes ahead and Euston station is rebuilt, this could be an invaluable route to take pressure off the West Coast Main Line
Good Progress At The Bicester Chord
I went past the Bicester Chord today on my way to Birmingham and Coventry and some progress has seemed to have been made since I last did this in November last year.
The start of services is supposed to be in September 2015, when Chiltern Trains will reach Oxford Parkway station.
For more about this chord and the stations being built in the area; Bicester Town, Islip and Oxford Parkway, there is a lot of information at the Oxford to Bicester Collaboration web site.
Every project and especially major ones, should have a web site as good as this one.
An Impressive Visualisation
The Croxley Rail Link is a major project to improve the links of the Metropolitan line into Watford and connect the line to Watford Junction station.
Out of curiosity I looked at this 3d visualisation of the new link.
I found it very impressive.
Note the following.
1. After Croxley station, the line bends away to the right on a viaduct.
2. At present the line goes straight on at this point to the current Watford station. This line will become a siding, when the Croxley Rail Link is built.
3. As the Grand Union Canal is crossed, this is in the area of this post.
4. Ascot Road station shown in the visualisation is now to be called Cassiobridge station.
5. The next station is Watford Vicarage Road, which serves the football ground and the hospital.
6. The existing Watford DC Line of the London Overground joins before Watford High Street station, from where the two lines share the same track to Watford Junction.
Hopefully, I’ll still be here and can try this route for real to get to the football ground in 2017.
But I don’t think that the project will be implemented as is currently planned. The Watford Observer is reporting that London Underground is taking over the responsibility for the project and I think this will result bin some changes, most likely for the better.
1. Some parties want Watford station to stay open. As it will be possible to run trains from the Croxley Rail Link through Rickmansworth and on to Amersham, could a shuttle be introduced between Amersham and Watford stations? There is a precedent for this type of arrangement in that there is a shuttle between Dalston Junction and New Cross stations on the East London Line. The main purpose is to increase the service frequency on the core of the line through the Thames Tunnel.
2. Both Amersham and Chalfont & Latimer stations are served by Chiltern Railways, who may want to put their view forward.
3. Could the changes mean that costs rise further and a delay is introduced into the project?
Two Nose-To-Nose Turtles
Turtle seems to be becoming the nickname for the new Class 68 locomotives.
Two Nose-To-Nose Turtles
I spotted these two in the sidings alongside the Chiltern Line. There will be a total of twenty-five delivered to the UK in the current order and they will be followed by the Class 88, which is a locomotive than can either use electrical or diesel power.
The purpose of the unusual power arrangement of the Class 88, is so that on a journey say from Felixstowe to Acton, it can use electrical power for most of the journey with short runs using the diesel engine at the start and finish. In passenger duty they could be used on a run like London to Norwich under electrical power and then under diesel power to Great Yarmouth.
The politicians may have dithered over electrification, so engineers have come up with an electric locomotive, that can jump the gaps.
Merry Christmas From Chiltern Trains
I photographed this at Marylebone.
Merry Christmas From Chiltern Trains
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this before as the Class 165 trains were built twenty years ago and have been refurbished since.
Solihull Station
To get to Stratford, I changed at Solihull station.
The pictures show what an excellent job has been done in creating a modern station, with nice details and what looked like a proper buffet.
The Bicester Chord Takes Shape
I took the Chiltern Line to Stratford upon Avon today and I was able to get these pictures of the building of the Bicester chord.
This will allow Chiltern Trains to start services between Oxford and Marylebone sometime in 2015.
The Bicester Chord is the first idea of several to come to fruition and transform railways in the area between Oxford, Banbury and Milton Keynes.
The East West Rail Link will be built and electrified, to link Oxford, Bicester, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich.
The Cowley Branch at Oxford will be opened to passenger traffic.
Marylebone to Birmingham will drop to ninety minutes.
Chiltern Trains will probably want to expand. This is probably just as well, as if HS2 is to be built and Euston rebuilt, someone will have to get the passengers between London and Birmingham.
To Stourbridge And Back
I went to Stourbridge today essentially to see the town and the Parry People Mover, but I took these pictures on my way up by Chiltern from Marylebone and back on Virgin to Euston.
The trips illustrated the best and worst points of the two companies and their trains.
Chiltern has the more comfortable trains, with big windows and free wi-fi, but the journey takes longer.
One small thing that surprised me was the quality of both the Class 172 trains and the stations it passed through, on the way from Birmingham Moor Street to Stourbridge Junction. In some ways though it is a reasonably modern line, as it was only reopened in 1995 as the Jewellery Line Project, which created Birmingham’s cross-city passenger route between Moor Street and Snow Hill. Wikipedia says this about the Birmingham to Worcester via Kiderminster Line, on which Stourbridge Junction is located.
It is a future aspiration of Chiltern Railways and Network Rail to electrify the entire line, including the Chiltern Main Line to London Marylebone.
I’ve always thought that electrification of the Chiltern Line should be done before HS2, so that there is adequate capacity between London and Birmingham, whilst Euston is rebuilt.
Another reason to electrify the Snow Hill Lines sooner rather than later would be so that some of these Class 172 trains could be released for other routes.
Crossrail Could Have Wi-Fi
This article from the Standard, discusses wi-fi on Crossrail. Here’s the first paragraph.
Commuters will soon be able to use their mobile phones on trains and in tunnels on the new Crossrail rail link under plans being drawn up by TfL.
It won’t be many years before all trains, buses and trams in the UK, have full mobile access. Chiltern have already gone that way, and Virgin Trains are planning a roll-out.
Virgin To Introduce Free Wi-Fi For All Passengers
Virgin Trains have retained their franchise to run West Coast Main Line services, according to this article from Modern Railways.
What I particularly like is this announcement.
All 76 Pendolino and Super Voyager trains will be equipped with superfast WiFi, which Network Rail intends to support by providing track-side infrastructure, said Virgin: ‘This would be the first major intercity deployment of 4G technology on the UK rail network and provide free WiFi to all customers.”
So they are following Chiltern Railways in making wi-fi free and accessible to all.
This will mean that if say I’m going to somewhere like Huddersfield, where I could use another company, I will travel on a Virgin!
The Anonymous Widower 