Jodrell Bank
Jodrell Bank telescope is now clean and pristine and it would appear that Network Rail have cut back the vegetation, so you get good views of the iconic radio telescope from the train to Manchester.
In the 1960s, when the line was first electrified to Manchester, some of the new engines were built in Manchester and there was a lot of publicity photos of blue electric engines running past Jodrell Bank. I can remember one, where the dish was upside down for cleaning. I found one like that here from 1960. The locomotive in the picture is actually a Class 84, which was built in Glasgow.
I called Jodrell Bank iconic. It must be one of the few scientific instruments or laboratories, that if you showed most people a picture, they could name it.
A Job Well Done
Everybody is breathing a sigh of relief after the reopening of the rail line to Plymouth and Cornwall yesterday. It’s all reported here on the BBC.
The only problem this summer is going to be that with all the publicity, many of those, who want to go to Devon and Cornwall, might decide to use the train. So can the wonderful Inter City 125s cope? They have yet to fail to meet a challenge yet!
There has been talk of opening an inland route, which could go round the North of Dartmoor by way of Okehampton and Tavistock. This is the route of the old London and South Western Railway from Exeter to Plymouth. The article in Wikipedia includes this.
There are proposals to reopen the line from Tavistock to Bere Alston for a through service to Plymouth. In the wake of widespread disruption caused by damage to the mainline track at Dawlish by coastal storms in February 2014, Network Rail are considering reopening the Tavistock to Okehampton and Exeter section of the line as an alternative to the coastal route.
I suspect there’s a team of exhausted engineers in Network Rail, who have the special engineering envelopes ready with a plan to reinstate this route for an encore after Dawlish. According to Wikipedia, the main viaducts seem to be intact, so it might not be the major job some might think.
As an engineer of sorts, I’d put the opening of this line in a box marked Difficult But Possible With Good Engineering.
Of course, Sod’s Law being what it is, if the old LSWR line was reinstated, there wouldn’t be any more trouble on the Dawlish line. But it would provide an easy route to get to Dartmoor and the surrounding part of Devon by train.
Enthusiasm For Class 68 And Class 88
I found this article from Rail Engineer about the new Class 68 and Class 88 locomotives that will soon be pulling freight and passenger trains on the UK rail network.
The article is enthusiastic about the two classes, but notes that the Class 68 will not meet the toughest EU pollution regulations. This is particularly appropriate given that the UK and some European countries are suffering high levels of air pollution. The Rail Engineer article says this about compliance to the new regulations.
The CAT engines meet European Stage IIIA emission standards, and can be modified to meet 2012 IIIB emission standards by replacing the exhaust silencer with a diesel particulate filter. However, because of the UK’s restricted loading gauge, this would involve considerable re-design work if it were to be applied to the Class 68.
It is important that rail locomotives are improved, as the current mainstay, the Class 66 is not liked by those who live on busy freight routes, due to its noise. I’ve also talked to drivers, who feel they have other problems too.
As an engineer, I feel that the best solution is the next generation of locomotives like the Class 88, which will be a 200 kph electric locomotive with an on-board diesel for running on non-electrified track. I wrote about the Class 88 here.
Inside The New London Bridge Station
The first two completed platforms, 14 and 15, of the new London Bridge station opened today.
Thery’ve now closed platforms, 12 and 13, so they can be refurbished.
It’ll be interesting to watch as the new station appears platform by platform!
Crossrail Goes To Reading
I talked about this happening in this post nearly a year ago.
Now according to various reports like this one in Modern Railways, it’s going to happen.
I do think sometimes that the planning of Crossrail wasn’t done by those possessed of great imagination, unlike some of those involved in the actual building of the railway.
Extending to Reading would appear to be an improvement that doesn’t need much new infrastructure or trains.
If you look at extending the Shenfield branch of Crossrail, there is no suitable station, as the only large conurbation; Chelmsford has a very cramped station.
The Most Surprising News Of The Day
I must say, I was surprised that Hitachi are going to make London the worldwide headquarters of their rail business.
It is reported here on the BBC.
Using The Power Of Water
We’ve seen enough rain this winter and it has caused a lot of damage at places like Dawlish. This story from the BBC, shows how to make working safe at Dawlish, the Devon Fire Brigade is using water to bring down an unsafe landslip. Here’s the first bit.
Fire crews are pumping sea water on to the cliff at Dawlish to bring down 350,000 tonnes of potentially unstable rock and soil in a controlled landslip.
Network Rail called in firefighters to prevent a “catastrophic” collapse that could have posed a risk to workers repairing the main Devon railway line.
What I find interesting, is that lots of people are against hydraulic fracking or fracking, which on a grand and more open scale, Network Rail are doing at Dawlish.
Rail Travel Along The South Coast
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve travelled along most of the South Coast by train in two trips; one to Bexhill and the other to Littlehampton and Yeovil.
Effectively the South Coast is covered by two main rail routes; the East Coastway line from Brighton to Hastings and the West Coastway line from Brighton to Southampton.
The fastest trains from Hastings to Southampton take five minutes over three hours with a change of train at Brighton. But there are twenty-three stops.
So it could be a journey that only a masochist would take, but at least you’d probably be in a comfortable Class 377 with a trolley service.
Even if you go via Clapham Junction, it will still take nearly three and a half hours.
So it is definitely a journey where most people would drive. But a lot of the roads are dreadful.
So could anything be done to make this journey faster and better?
The Class 377 trains are 100 mph units, but some of the route has a lower speed limit, but as I found on the route, the slow speed is probably more due to the number of stops than the speed of the trains.
The only improvement being talked about is to improve the Marshlink line from Hastings to Ashford, so that high speed services could run between St. Pancras and Eastbourne.
Judging by the troubles that the current Hastings line is suffering from, it would seem that this scheme might be cheaper than sorting out the Jerry-built Hastings line.
If you search the Internet for South Coast Main Line, you find this document from the East Sussex Rail Alliance.
I think we can file that under In Your Dreams.
The Great Eastern Main line has a similar problem of slow speed which is hopefully being solved with the Norwich in Ninety project.
Perhaps a similar approach could be used along the South Coast.
East London To Yeovil By The Long Way
Yeovil is a long way from London and when I saw the fixture list, I felt it was a game that would be impossible to see.
So when I found out that Thomas Heatherwick had designed a café at Littlehampton, a town I’d never visited, I thought perhaps I could go there on the way and have a decent lunch.
So I booked a ticket to Littlehampton from Clapham Junction and then another from Littlehampton to Yeovil, with changes at Fratton and Salisbury.
I started just after ten and took a Class 378 London Overground train to Clapham Junction.
I just missed a Littlehampton train at Clapham Junction, so I had a cup of hot chocolate on the bridge at Knot Pretzels.
The train I did get to Littlehampton was direct, but it did take an hour and thirty five minutes in a comfortable Class 377. I did walk to the beach at Littlehampton see the café and have lunch.
I just caught my train out of Littlehampton at 15:23, which was the first leg of my journey along the South Coast to Yeovil to Fratton. The train was an elderly but well-refurbished Class 313.
From Fratton it was a First Great Western Class 158, which was going all the way from Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff.
The final leg was a South West Trains Class 159 from Salisbury to Yeovil Junction. I arrived on time at 18:40.
I think this journey shows up our trains in a reasonable light. The journey times are slow not because of slow trains, but because of the frequent stops and complicated route. The journey took three hours seventeen minutes from Littlehampton to Yeovil, but there was only thirty-three minutes wasted in connections.
Although some trains date from the 1980s, there wasn’t anything as bad as the dreaded Pacers that inhabit the North. The services were pretty well-used and except for the short leg from Littlehampton to Fratton, there was a catering trolley on all trains.
Would I do this journey again? I might, but I doubt I’ll ever need to do it. My next trip to the South Coast involves a trip to Brighton, which will be a lot quicker.
I had hoped to take a few pictures, but my camera died at Littlehampton.
Could Hebden Bridge Be The UK’s Second City?
This sounds like the sort of idea dreamed up by someone, who really does think that Yorkshire is the centre of the earth.
But the BBC has published a piece entitled The Case For Making Hebden Bridge The UK’s Second City by Evan Davis on their website.
This extract sums up his logic.
The suggestion that it is Britain’s second city came from resident David Fletcher, who was active in the 80s saving the town’s old mills and converting them to modern use.
His point is that Hebden Bridge is an inverted city with a greenbelt centre and suburbs called Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.
His point was that the real second city of the UK is a northern, trans-Pennine strip that extends the relatively short distance across northern England, joining the built-up areas that lie second, fourth and sixth in the UK ranking.
I think he has a point and treating the area from Liverpool and Blackpool in the West to Leeds and Sheffield in the East, as a megacity, may be a very good idea.
Davis says that it would need a lot of infrastructure, and there would be rivalries and infighting. But there’s enough of that in Manchester already, with one of the worst bus systems in the UK.
To be fair to Network Rail, their plans for the Northern Hub, very much fit the proposal for the Northern megacity and the government, especially in the statements of George Osborne, seem to be backing them.
Is there anything I’d like to see in the North?
I would like to see London’s local transport information systems and ticketing imposed on the North. And probably on everywhere outside London as well.
- I should arrive at any station and be able to find my onward route, by foot, bus or tram without difficulty or bothering any of the station staff.
- If say, I wanted to use a bus where my bus pass is valid, I would just touch in with my pass. Every town or city seems to use a different system.
- If I need to pay for my ticket, then I would just touch in with a contactless bank card.
- All buses would have fully disabled access and at least a separate entrance and exit, like most buses in London.
- I should also be able to find out the next bus, with a simple text-based system, based on five digits for the stop and a short text code. If larger London can do it, why do cities like Leeds have a system that is so difficult.
I shall be watching Evan Davis’s program tonight with interest.
Don’t forget there would be one great argument for making Hebden Bridge the UK’s Second City. It would eventually stop all the arguments.
You also have to ask, whether other megacities could be created.
- Newcastle-Sunderland-Middlesbrough
- Glasgow-Edinburgh
- Wolverhampton-Birmingham-Coventry
- Southampton-Portsmouth-Brighton
Are four that come to mind.
The Anonymous Widower 