The Anonymous Widower

Thoughts On The Class 360 Trains On The London St. Pancras And Corby Route

In May the Class 360 electric trains will be introduced by East Midlands Railway on the service between St. Pancras and Corby stations.

The Class 360 train is on the left.

The following data has come from Real Time Trains.

  • St. Pancras and Corby are 79.3 miles apart.
  • The current service stops at Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford and Luton.
  • The new electric service stops at Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford and Luton and Luton Airport Parkway.
  • Current services take between 67 and 73 minutes
  • The new electric services take between 71 minutes
  • Services leave St. Pancras at XX:15 and XX:45
  • Services leave Corby at XX:11 and XX:40
  • Turnround at St. Pancras appears to be about 23-25 minutes
  • Turnround at Corby appears to be about 12-16 minutes.
  • St. Albans and St. Pancras takes 14 minutes.

Note.

  1. The Class 222 train has a top speed of 125 mph and a maximum acceleration: of 0.80 ms-2
  2. The Class 360 train has a top speed of 110 mph and a maximum acceleration: of 0.98 ms-2

Looks like a case of swings and roundabouts to me!

I can deduce the following.

Average Speed

Consider.

  • Assuming a trip time of seventy minutes for the Class 222 train, gives an average speed of 68 mph including stops.
  • Assuming a trip time of seventy-one minutes for the Class 360 train, gives an average speed of 62 mph including stops.

These speeds don’t seem to be too difficult to achieve. Especially, as the Midland Main Line is a series of straight line between a number of stations., which are ideal for a quick dash in between.

It’s A Three Hour Round Trip

Add up the two 71 minute trips and the turnaround times and it looks to be a comfortable three hour round trip.

So for a two trains per hour (tph) service, you will need six formations of Class 360 trains.

As it looks like each formation will be twelve cars long, that will mean that eighteen of the current twenty-one trains will be needed.

The three spare trains will be very useful, whilst the trains are refurbished with new liveries and interiors.

Route Capacity

This picture shows a five-car Class 222 train at Corby station.

Consider.

  • The current five-car Class 222 trains have a capacity of 50 First Class and 192 Standard Class seats
  • Four-car Class 222 trains have a capacity of 33 First Class and 132 Standard Class seats.
  • A four-car Class 360 train has a capacity of 16 First Class and 264 Standard Class seats.

I can do a simple calculation.

  • The current one tph service, if run by a five-car Class 222 trains would have an hourly capacity of 50 First Class and 192 Standard Class seats.
  • The planned two tph service if run by twelve-car 360 trains has an hourly capacity of 96 First Class and 1584 Standard Class seats.

First Class capacity on the route has doubled and Standard Class accommodation has gone up by a massive 8.25 times.

The latter figure will probably be reduced as some of the seats are to be removed for a more spacious interior with tables.

Serving Luton Airport

It looks like these trains will enable a quick journey to Luton Airport.

  • The St. Pancras and Corby train will take 22 minutes between St. Pancras and Luton Airport Parkway stations.
  • There will be the Luton DART connecting Luton Airport Parkway to the Airport from 2022.
  • I suspect Luton Airport will be aiming for a thirty minute journey between St. Pancras and the Airport.
  • The fast service will have a frequency of two tph.

It will not compare badly with rail times from London to Gatwick of 35 minutes and to Stansted of 50 minutes.

Services To Oakham And Melton Mowbray

Consider.

  • Oakham and Melton Mowbray stations are on the route between Corby station and the Midland Main Line North of Leicester.
  • Oakham and Melton Mowbray stations have a one train per day (tpd) in both directions to London via Corby.
  • In Beeching Reversal – Increased Services To Nottingham And Leicester, via Syston And Loughborough From Melton Mowbray. I wrote about how the local MP wants better services at Melton Mowbray.
  • Oakham is 11.5 miles from Corby.
  • Melton Mowbray is 25.8 miles from Corby.
  • Leicester is just over forty miles from Corby and could be covered in under an hour.
  • A pair of Class 810 trains are the same length as a trio of Class 360 trains, so both trains would fit all platforms.

I think that there are a lot of possibilities for services through Corby.

  • Class 810 trains could use Corby as a diversion, when the Midland Main Line is closed for engineering works.
  • Class 810 trains could run a service between St. Pancras and Leicester via Corby, Oakham and Melton Mowbray.
  • If the Class 360 trains could be fitted with batteries, they should be able to provide a service from St. Pancras to Melton Mowbray and perhaps Leicester.

It could even provide an alternative route to London, if Leicester station has to be substantially rebuilt for electrification..

Conclusion

This not the longest of electric services, but I can see it carrying a lot of passengers.

It will also give a boost to Luton Airport.

April 7, 2021 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Luton DART Fly Through

This video does what it says in the title.

It certainly looks like the DART will greatly improve the experience of getting to Luton Airport.

February 24, 2021 Posted by | Health, Transport/Travel | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Construction Of The Luton Direct Air-Rail Transit (DART) Has Started

The Luton DART will connect Luton Airport to Luton Airport Parkway station.

This map from the London Luton Airport web site shows the route.

 

It is comprehensive with three planned stations.

  • Luton Airport Parkway station.
  • Central Terminal
  • as it is planned to build a stop at the Mid-Stay car park, at a later date.

Note how the DART runs along the Airport side of the Midland Main Line before crossing over into the Airport on the Gateway Bridge, which is shown as an inset on the map.

These pictures show the construction of the DART underway at Luton Airport Parkway station.

It certainly looks substantial.

According to Wikipedia, it will open in 2021.

September 3, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 1 Comment

East Midlands Railway Announces Three Brands

The title if this article is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.

This is a quote about their electric trains to Corby, which will run under the brand name of EMR Electrics.

EMR said that once various developments had been completed, passengers would be able to reach the terminal at Luton Airport in ‘a little under half an hour’ from central London.

Currently, the fastest services going to between St. Pancras and Luton Airport Parkway stations take twenty-four minutes using 125 mph Class 222 trains with Luton Airport Parkway as the first stop.

Thameslink using 100 mph Class 700 trains take 30 minutes and more!

I question, whether the 100 mph Class 360 trains, running with Luton Airport Parkway as the first stop, can do the trip in the 24-26 minutes to get to the terminal in under half an hour, even with Luton Airport’s  DART shuttle train working!

In Are Class 360 Trains Suitable For St. Pancras And Corby?, I looked at Class 360 trains running the service between St. Pancras and Corby stations.

I came to this conclusion.

In my view there is a lot of upgrade work to be done to the Class 360 trains to make them suitable for working on the services between St. Pancras and Corby.

  • They need a new upgraded interior.
  • The trains need upgrading to at least 110 mph.
  • A possible upgrading with digital signalling.

I can’t help feeling that the Class 360 trains would make a good stop-gap, but in the long-term it might be better to have a small fleet of electric trains.

Electric AT-300 trains must be one of the favourites, although Class 745 trains, similar to those that Abellio will run between Liverpool Street and Stansted Airport, would do nicely.

So will East Midlands Railway have updated and faster Class 360 trains or will they be bringing in 125 mph trains to hit the required schedule to Luton Airport Parkway?

Conclusion

Luton Airport will have a real Airport Express!

But will the Class 360 trains, be able to deliver it? I have my doubts!

August 21, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Little Has Been Said About East Midlands Railway’s Promised Hydrogen Trains

In their proposal for the East Midlands franchise, Abellio said that they would trial hydrogen-powered trains on the Midland Main Line.

But little has been heard of this promise since winning the franchise.

So where could the franchise use hydrogen-powered trains on the Midland Main Line?

Extending Corby Trains To Oakham And Melton Mowbray

This is a distance of under thirty miles, so it would probably be within range of a well-designed hybrid battery-hydrogen-electric train.

  • Refuelling with hydrogen could be at Corby or Melton Mowbray stations.
  • Trains would be 240 metres long.
  • In addition batteries would be charged between St. Pancras and Corby stations.
  • Trains would run at 125 mph for much of the route between St. Pancras and Corby.
  • Hydrogen power would be used as a top-up between Corby and Melton Mowbray if required.

The service could even go further and turn back at Leicester.

Perhaps one train per hour (tph) of the two Corby services could be extended.

Non-Stop London To Leicester Trains

The Midland Main Line will be electrified as far as Market Harborough, so there would be under twenty miles without electrification on the route between St. Pancras and Leicester stations.

  • Trains would run at 125 mph for much of the route between St. Pancras and Leicester.
  • Refuelling could be at Leicester.
  • To publicise the service, it might be best to run two tph non-stop.
  • Perhaps the only stop would be Luton Airport Parkway, as the Airport wants more fast services.

As with the Corby Extension service, it wouldn’t require a great deal of running on hydrogen.

Why Not Run A Loop From London?

If the Corby Extension service went as far as Leicester it would approach the station from the North, whereas the London service would approach from the South.

So why not run the services back-to-back?

  • There could be two tph in each direction.
  • There could be a longer stop at Leicester to take on hydrogen.
  • Stops could include Luton Airport Parkway in both directions, to give the Airport four tph to and from London and Leicester.
  • There might also be the possibility of an improved station at Syston, which is to the North-East of Leicester.

It wouldn’t need any new platforms or other infrastructure, except for the hydrogen filling station at Leicester and the possible improvements at Syston.

It would deliver high speed hydrogen-powered trains to Leicester at a frequency of two tph direct and two trph via Corby.

It would fit Luton Airport’s ambitions as I outlined in Luton Trains Its Eye On Sub 30-Minute Express.

What would that do for the prestige of the Leicester and the ambitions of Luton Airport?

Who Would Build The Trains?

These are my thoughts.

  • Alston have the technology, but do they have the train?
  • Bombardier have stated they are not interested in hydrogen.
  • CAF have the train and the battery technology, but do they have the hydrogen technology?
  • Hitachi have the train, but do they have the battery and hydrogen technology?
  • Stadler have the train and the battery technology, but do they have the hydrogen technology?

I have heard rumours they are pushing hydrogen technology and also that their PowerPack concept works at 125 mph, so I suspect that Stadler are as likely as any to produce a working high speed hybrid hydrogen train.

But they will have several dozen trains working in the UK in a year or so.

They are not to be underestimated.

But then the prize for successfully running a 200 kph or 125 mph zero-carbon train will be immense, and this will not be lost on the train builders.

Or East Midlands Railway for that matter!

The first person, who does something is always remembered!

Losers come second!

August 21, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

Oyster Card Scheme Extension Agreed

The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC,

This paragraph describes the extensions.

Its extension, due in early 2019, will include Hertford North, Welwyn Garden City, Luton Airport Parkway and Epsom.

As the Oyster Card extension will also include intermediate stations, the following stations will be included on the four routes.

  • Hertford North – Crews Hill, Cuffley and Bayford.
  • Luton Airport Parkway – Radlett, St. Albans City and Harpenden
  • Welwyn Garden City – Potters Bar, Brookmans Park,Welham Green and Hatfield

All intermediate stations to Epsom are already in the Oyster Card Scheme.

Fourteen new stations will be added.

These are a few random thoughts.

Contactless And Oyster

Oyster card and most contactless payment methods with a card or mobile device can be used on Oyster Card reader, so in this post, I will use contactless to cover all methods.

I believe that in a few years, Oyster could be phased out, as cards and mobile devices will take over the ticketing.

Luton Airport Parkway

Adding Luton Airport Parkway station to the network, brings Luton Airport in line with Gatwick and Heathrow Airports.

This is very much a logical extension.

Airport Services

This is a list of the current times for airport services from London.

  • Gatwick – Express – 29 minutes – Thameslink – 39-60 minutes
  • Heathrow – Express – 15 minutes – Crossrail – 28 minutes
  • Luton – East Midlands Trains – 21 minutes – Thameslink 30-47 minutes
  • Southend – 52-53 minutes
  • Stansted – 49-52 minutes

If you look at the passenger statistics for Gatwick Airport station, they have been rising at around a million passengers a year for the past few years. How much of the recent rises have been due to the station going contactless in January 2016?

Certainly, if you’re late for a plane, contactless ticketing might save a couple of minutes.

I always remember an incident at Southend Airport station.

My plane was late and arrived very close to the departure time of the last train to London. There had recently been a lot of arrivals and the queues for tickets were long.

So a Greater Anglia employee took the decision to tell everybody to get on the train and we all went to London without tickets.

If ticketing had been contactless, Greater Anglia might have collected some fares.

But contactless at an airport is not solely about making money, but getting the passengers away from the airport quickly.

Hertford East And Hertford North Stations

Hertford East station accepts contactless cards.

Adding the facility to Hertford North station may open up some journey possibilities and ease ticketing.

The National Rail web site recommends that to go between Ware and Bayford stations on either side of Hertford, that you walk between the East and North stations.

An anytime ticket will cost you £19.50.

But buy two separate tickets between Ware and Hertford East stations and Hertford North and Bayford stations and it’ll cost £6!

Using contactless ticketing and touching in at all stations will save £13.50! Will this cost difference encourage more journeys with a walk in the middle?

When I visited the Hertford East Branch recently in mid-morning, I thought that it was surprisingly busy. Does lower-hassle contactless ticketing encourage more passengers?

Analysis of contactless touches will provide the answers to my two questions.

St. Albans City And St. Albans Abbey Stations

The Abbey Line between Watford Junction and St. Albans Abbey stations is not contactless, although Watford Junction station is so enabled and St. Albans City station will be.

There is surely a case for adding contactless ticketing to this short line of five intermediate stations.

Welwyn Garden City Station

Enabling Oyster on the route to Welwyn Garden City station, will mean that all stations on the Great Northern Route from Moorgate station will be enabled except for Watton-at-Stone  and Stevenage.

This would surely be less confusing for passengers, than the current arrangement, where Oyster tickeing is stopped at Hadley Wood and Gordon Hill stations.

Hopefully a suitable announcement would wake-up accidental fare avoiders at Hertford North station.

Epsom Station

The two routes to London from Epsom station are both fully Oyster-enabled, so surely adding one station to the routes shouldn’t be a difficult problem technically.

Further Routes For Oyster

Distances of the new Oyster-enabled stations, with a few existing ones, by rail from Central London are as follows.

  • Epsom – 16 miles from Victoria.
  • Gatwick Airport – 26 miles from Victoria
  • Hertford North – 20 miles from Moorgate
  • Luton Airport Parkway – 29 miles from St. Pancras
  • Shenfield – 20 miles from Liverpool Street
  • Welwyn Garden City – 20 miles from Kings Cross

So what other stations could be added?

Southend And Stansted Airports

Airports seem to like Oyster and as I said earlier, it can help to sort out ticketing problems at certain times.

  • Southend Airport station is 39 miles from Liverpool Street and there are five other stations between Southend Airport and Shenfield stations.
  • Stansted Airport station is 36 miles from Liverpool Street and there are six other stations between Southend Airport and Broxbourne stations.

This story on ITV is entitled Rail Minister Urged To Roll Out Oyster Card Payments To Stansted, Luton And Southend Airports.

Luton Airport will soon be Oyster-enabled, so hopefully Stansted and Southend Airports will be enabled soon.

Thirty Miles From London

There are a lot of places within thirty miles of London on commuter routes, that I’m sure eventually will be Oyster-enabled.

  • High Wycombe and Aylesbury – Chiltern have ambitions for this.
  • Rochester – 30 miles from London and on Thameslink.
  • Windsor

There will be other suggestions.

Extending Freedom Pass

I’d like to be able to just touch-in and touch-out to go to any station in the Oyster card area.

My Freedom Pass would be connected to a bank or credit card and I would be charged beyond the Freedom Pass area.

If Oyster cards can be linked to a bank or credit card, surely London’s control computer can be programmed to do something very powerful for Freedom Passes.

It could be a nice little earner for cash-strapped Transport for London.

Conclusion

Oyster is extending its reach and after this flurry of extensions in the next few months, lot of places will be wanting to be Oyster-enabled.

I suspect the only objector to this roll-out, will be the RMT, who have made the Luddites look like pussycats!

 

 

 

December 15, 2018 Posted by | Computing, Transport/Travel | , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Work Starts On £225m Luton Airport Automated People-Mover

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

This is said about the contractors.

A VolkerFitzpatrick-Kier joint venture is the project’s civil works contractor and Doppelmayr Cable Car UK is supplying the APM system.

Note that Doppelmayr Cable Car  built the Emirates Air-Line and the AirRail Link at Birmingham Airport.

This video shows the proposed system at Luton Airport.

It appears to be very similar to the Birmingham system.

This Google Map shows the position of the terminal at Luton Airport Parkway station.

The terminal is in Bartlett Square, which is indicated by the red arrow in the top right corner.

My initial thought, is that it could be a long walk for some.

April 18, 2018 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

A Fur Coat And No Knickers Station

St. Pancras station is not my favourite.

My hate affair with the station started when I wrote Could St. Pancras Thameslink Station Have Had An Island Platform?, where I first called the dreadful concoction a fur coat and no knickers station. I said this.

St. Pancras is very much a fur coat and no knickers station!

Show on top and draughty and lacking at the bottom!

I don’t take back one word of what I said.

The station is the interchange between the following lines.

  • Metropolitan and Circle Lines of the Underground
  • Midland Main Line to Corby, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield.
  • Piccadilly Line of the Underground
  • South-Eastern Highspeed services to Kent.
  • Thameslink between Bedford and Brighton
  • Victoria Line of the Underground.

So to say the least it’s complicated.

Problems For Train Operators

The three main operators of the services in the above ground station, must despair at how few platforms, they have been allocated.

If you catch a Midland Main Line train to Nottingham say, you often have to walk to the second train in the platform. If they had a couple more platforms, then this walk would be avoided and extra services like a Luton Airport Express, that I wrote about in Luton Trains Its Eye On Sub 30-Minute Express, would become possible.

It’s the same with South-Eastern Highspeed services on the other side of the station.

Eurostar is perhaps better. But, if other operators wanted to run services, is there the space to accommodate their trains and the services they require?

Endless Walking For Passengers

Problems for passengers are very much concerned with the difficulty of changing between the various lines at the station.

I’ll give exchanging between the Victoria Line and Thameslink as an example.

It’s a very long walk down a tunnel to get from the Victoria Line to St. Pancras station and then you have to descend into Thameslink.

I wonder how many trains out of St. Pancras are missed because first-time passengers, assume that the time they’d habitually allow at Waterloo, London Bridge or Euston, is totally inadequate?

Thameslink Is Not An Island Platform

Thameslink needs this so that passengers on the Bedford branch can easily walk across the platform to get the Cambridge/Peterborough branch.

But it’s all too late now to do anything.

Elizabeth Line

It is a mistake that the Elizabeth Line doesn’t call at King’s Cross St. Pancras station for Eurostar and East Coast services.

Crossrail 2

How do you fit Crossrail 2 into this mess?

What Would I Do?

I would ask a friendly earthquake to completely destroy the complex, so it is rebuilt as a properly functioning station.

My serious ideas follow.

Short Term Improvements To St. Pancras

These would mainly be concerned with handling passengers.

  • Thameslink needs a link at the Southern end of the platforms to the Metropolitan Line Ticket Hall.
  • The Metropolitan Line Ticket Hall is decluttered and just serves as an interchange between lines.
  • Eurostar needs to educate its passengers, so they use contactless bank card ticketing or Oyster.
  • Perhaps Eurostar in-train staff, should sell a suitably-valued Oyster on board.
  • Less shopping and more ticket machines and staff to handle passengers from and to Eurostar.
  • More escalators are needed to the Midland Main Line platforms.

I suspect all operators have their own pet projects.

A Luton/Gatwick Express

Four Thameslink trains an hour between Gatwick and Luton Airports could be dedicated as Luton/Gatwick Expresses.

  • Paint them red, so passengers don’t end up in Peterborough instead of Luton.
  • Use trains with tables, wi-fi and space for luggage.
  • Run them between Bedford and Brighton.
  • Stop at Luton, Luton Airport Parkway, St. Albans City, West Hampstead Interchange, St. Pancras, Farringdon, City Thameslink, Blackfriars, London Bridge, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport, Three  Bridges and Haywards Heath or whatever travel patterns say.

This would give Luton Airport the service they desire, without needing any extra platforms in the Midland Main Line station.

Since the opening of the Luton DART, services to Luton Airport have improved.

It would be interesting to see the passenger patterns to and from the airports. Do they have a different pattern than that of commuters, so some degree of smoothing numbers, will be naturally applied?

A Heathrow Express

Four trains per hour to Heathrow via West Hampstead Interchange and Old Oak Common for HS2, would be what Heathrow and HS2 needs.

But where do you find the single platform to turn the trains at St. Pancras?

More Platforms At St. Pancras

On resource grounds alone this is essential.

Conclusion

The architects who created this mess, shouldn’t be let near a station again.

October 27, 2016 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Fur Coat And No Knickers Station

Luton Trains Its Eye On Sub 30-Minute Express

This was the headline on a small piece in The Times on Monday.

Luton Airport want the following from the new East Midlands Franchise.

  • A dedicated fast train.
  • Four trains an hour (tph) to and from St. Pancras.
  • A journey time of less than thirty minutes.

The airport says it won’t need any new infrastructure, but they are planning a fast link from Luton Airport Parkway station, which I wrote about in Luton Airport Goes For Light Rail.

This is an extract from the article..

The move would add up to £110million of extra fare revenue to the government over ten years and take almost 1 million cars off the road, a study by North Star, the consultancy found.

At present there are two separate services to Luton Airport.

  • Thameslink, which leaves from the low-level Thameslink platform takes 45 minutes to the airport, with a frequency of six tph.
  • East Midlands Trains, which leave from the high-level platforms take around 30 minutes to the airport, with a frequency of 1-2 tph.

Note these points about the current service.

  • The lack of a dedicated platform for the fast trains to the airport, must confuse occassional passengers.
  • The time of sub-thirty minutes is certainly possible on East Midlands Trains.
  • There is not enough platforms in the high-level station for a dedicated platform for an express Luton Airport service.

The problems are made worse by A Fur Coat And No Knickers Station at St. Pancras.

The new franchise will probably be buying new electric trains for the Midland Main Line services. These could be key to providing an express airport service to Luton Airport.

Abellio has stated that their new Flirts and Aventras for Greater Anglia, will have a very fast stop and restart time, thus enabling services like Norwich in Ninety and Ipswich in Sixty.

So we then have the possibility of similar trains on the Midland Main Line  to Corby, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield stopping at Luton Airport Parkway, without adding a large delay to the service. This would give Luton Airport, the following express services.

  • At least four tph to and from St. Pancras in under thirty ,minutes.
  • At least two tph to and from Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield.
  • At least three tph to and from Leicester.

The only complaints would come from East Midlands Airport.

As there will be at least eight tph on Thameslink, this should be enough trains for everyone.

 

October 26, 2016 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | 2 Comments

Luton Airport Goes For Light Rail

This article in The Guardian is entitled Luton airport to replace bus transfers with £200m light rail link.

Passengers will take the light rail link between Luton Airport and Luton Airport Parkway station, where they will use Thameslink and Midland Main Line trains to travel North and South.

This Google Map shows the area, where the rail link will run.

Luton Airport And Luton Airport Parkway Station

Luton Airport And Luton Airport Parkway Station

The Midland main Line and the station are close to the end of the runway.

A few months ago, an article in Railway Technology was entitled Luton Airport reveals plans for new direct rail service.

What isn’t shown from the map, but is very much obvious if you’ve piloted an aircraft out of Luton Airport, is that the end of the runway is on top of a hill and the railway is at the bottom.

I said this in Will Bombardier Develop The Ultimate Airport Train? about running trains into a Luton Airport station.

I think that railway engineers can create an elegant junction here, where trains can easily go in both directions between London and the Airport. Designing a line connecting the North and the Airport could be more difficult, but even so given the terrain and that some of the junction will be inside the airport boundary, a solution must be possible.

One thing that could help, is that if Class 387/2 IPEMUs were to be used on all Luton Airport services, then the branch would not need to be electrified.

If it was decided to run it in a tunnel under the car parks, then surely a tunnel without overhead wiring would be a smaller, simpler and more affordable proposition.

As the Railway Technology article was only published in July 2015, after promising results from the IPEMU train, could it be that this rail link is not possible with conventionally-powered electric trains?

But I now think that there are other problems with a direct rail link into the airport, even with the help of IPEMU and other recently-developed technology.

  • In other documents, it is stated that Luton Airport wants four trains an hour to the capital and it has to be asked if there are enough paths available to the South.
  • It probably is more difficult than I thought to run trains to and from the North to the airport.

I also wonder, if after Luton Airport Parkway station has been rebuilt for the light rail link, that this might open up other possibilities for development in this part of Luton.

I also found the original press release about the link. This is said.

The light rail link is part of a broader rail connectivity improvement plan, which aims to introduce a 20 minute express rail service with four fast trains per hour between LLA and central London as part of the upcoming East Midlands rail franchise. LLA is also currently working with Transport for London to add the airport to the Oyster network which will help ensure smooth connections for passengers travelling by rail.

Everything will hopefully become clearer, when the full plans for the link are published.

In a few months time, when Luton and Gatwick have contactless ticketing, who will be next in the queue; Heathrow or Stansted?

Transport for London have certainly started the game of contactless cards, by playing two powerful aces.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Stansted and Southend accept contactless ticketing before the end of 2016, leaving Heathrow as the odd one out!

 

 

April 15, 2016 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | 1 Comment