Northern Powerhouse? Unlikely if this is true.

[jjb1970]

I think that Clearwater has explained the reason why a the principal UK container ports are where they are very well. These things tend to be determined by two things, proximity to demand or production, and ease of access to the major trade lanes. The major trans-oceanic routes for Europe remain the Asia - Europe routes which access NW Europe via the English Channel and for which Southampton is ideally located and Thames port and Felixstowe also well placed. Feeder ships operate by taking a percentage of the cargo from hubs to a wider network which means that they are anchored to a hub. The reality of trade flows means that in NW Europe those hubs will remain Rotterdam followed by Hamburg and Antwerp. Even if some of the ships serving the Europe - Asia trade switch to the Northern route the hub ports will remain in continental Europe as most of the cargo will be going to continental Europe.

[jjb1970]

As an aside, the changes in the list of biggest ports over the last 20 - 30 years provide a very stark illustration of changes in the world economy.

[jonny777]

The fresh water from the 'Great Spring', 6 million gallons a minute, is pumped out by the pumping station at Sudbrook, which also deals with the river water which enters the tunnel in what would be considered a considerable quantity until it is compared to that of the Great Spring.  This is in fact potable and can be used as drinking water, but the ingress of seepage is from the river, and is brackish except at high tide, when there is some 70 feet of depth and quite a bit of pressure, when it is more or less salt seawater.  

 

Even at low tide it is fairly corrosive, and becomes highly acidic on percolating through the general filth that pervades everything down there.  The Great Spring is diverted directly into the drainage tunnel built for it, but the river water runs off in the cess in the conventional way, and is dealt with separately.  At one time the fresh water was piped directly to Llanwern steelworks for cooling, and some is, or was, used as domestic supply locally, but the bulk is fed back in to the estuary.

 

The Severn Tunnel is in fact a system of tunnels, with the rail tunnel being supplemented by a runoff drainage tunnel and the Great Spring's tunnel, following the line and gradient of the English Side down to the bottom and continuing in that direction until it is below the Sudbrook Pumping Station, where the original shaft has been used to raise this water to the surface.

 

If you ever get a chance to read it, 'The Severn Tunnel; it's Construction and Difficulties' by A J Walker, the engineer who was responsible for it's building (Brunel suggested it but had no further involvement and was dead before it was started) is well recommended.  Walker has the gift of being an entertaining writer for amateur readers, and very good at explaining some of the engineering problems he and his men had to overcome.  It was quite an adventure!

 

 

 

Thanks very much. I had no idea of the complexities of the subject. I will try and get the book. 

[Northmoor]

Pretty much.  The difficulty is in isolating the power rail from the very damp tunnel structures; once in use the system should be fairly reliable and low maintenance, and of course saves a good bit of space in a restricted area.  Had it not been employed in the Severn Tunnel, the trackbed would have had to either been lowered at very great expense or an unacceptable speed restriction imposed.  It is a solid construction and untensioned.

...And is exactly what is used on the Elizabeth Line.  It's quite impressive, to see an accurate "stagger" built into a welded RSJ.

 

By the way are your leakage rates correct (6 million galls/min)?  I just did a head calc that the volume of the tunnel is only a bit over 7 milion cubic feet, so the entire tunnel would fill in a little over 7 minutes.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Northmoor

[APOLLO]

It's not going to happen either way, but it would cost a huge amount of money to reopen Woodhead, and the result would be a railway on a Victorian alignment, with all the compromises that entails. It would need land purchases, rerouting of the current contents of the run tunnels and no doubt a large proportion of the bridges would basically need to be knocked down and started again.

 

I highly doubt a brand new 100+mph alignment would be that much more expensive, but the result would be a 21st century railway. There's not really any settlements of note to serve between the outskirts of Manchester and Sheffield, so I really don't see the point of holding on to the old alignment.

 

But in reality, wouldn't upgrading the hope valley line (electrification and maybe some multi-tracking to allow faster trains and more freight) be a more realistic proposal, if it is really necessary to increase rail connectivity between Manchester and Sheffield?

 

Exactly the same when (if ?) HS2 ever gets to Bamfurlong, just south of Wigan - a straight 4 & 6 track from there for a couple of miles to Wigan North Western then 2 tracks on a very Victorian alignment up to Standish Jcn. A 4 track alignment from there to Preston (4 tracks start at Euxton these days - easy to redo the 4 track north of Standish. To 4 track / re-align Wigan - Standish would be VERY expensive - 60 mph curves through Wigan etc. Perhaps reopen & realign the Whelley loop ? (discussed before) - All down to £££

 

As to shipping from the far east - don't forget the Chinese are pushing the "Belt and Road" and have trialled container trains China - Europe. May not come to much but they are investing £Billions into Thailand's rail infrastructure, double tracking the line from the north (and eventually China) down to Thailand's container port at Laem Chabang (near Pattaya). This by passes Bangkok. I saw this construction last year - they're not messing about (like we do) either. The containers from China will go onboard ships at Laem Chabang - it making the ships journey time considerably shorter.

 

Brit15

Edited December 9, 2018 by APOLLO

[Mike Storey]

On the issue of any new formation, the Northern Powerhouse strategy only requires a new railway on the North Trans-Pennine route (and some to the East of Leeds and between Liverpool and Manchester), and just upgrades for the rest. If even they are not demanding a new Southern route, I am not sure what the debate is about?

 

It will be worrying if the government ignore even the basics of what NP/TfN are submitting.

[APOLLO]

Thanks very much. I had no idea of the complexities of the subject. I will try and get the book. 

 

The video I posted above describes the water ingress problems at construction and the pumping arrangements (in the 50's) very well.

 

Brit15

[APOLLO]

On the issue of any new formation, the Northern Powerhouse strategy only requires a new railway on the North Trans-Pennine route (and some to the East of Leeds and between Liverpool and Manchester), and just upgrades for the rest. If even they are not demanding a new Southern route, I am not sure what the debate is about?

 

It will be worrying if the government ignore even the basics of what NP/TfN are submitting.

 

I tend to (slightly) agree. The closure of Woodhead late in the day still angers me (and many others) - but realistically the freight it carried had / now has gone. A "nice to have again" route now probably gone for ever.

 

However the Manchester - Huddersfield - Leeds route is very busy indeed and a prime candidate for electrification AND development into a major freight artery. Our current Government have let us down badly here up north, and I doubt "the other lot" would do any better.

 

It will be nice however to see the new loco hauled trains on this route soon.

 

Brit15

[Gibbo675]

I have seen that Peel Ports plans are based around transshipment between the ports of Liverpool and Hull including some traffic by barge to Warrington and Salford for onward movement. Port Salford will be rail linked with a triangle to allow east or west arrival/departures.

 

They clearly see a future in the Standedge route as an access to more business.

Woodenhead, my dear Fellow,

 

Do please accept that I intend no insult to you in my earlier post, #4, above by in any way associating the term wooden head as a derogatory of the various fools in Parliament and Government with your good self !

 

Gibbo.

[caradoc]

I tend to (slightly) agree. The closure of Woodhead late in the day still angers me (and many others) - but realistically the freight it carried had / now has gone. A "nice to have again" route now probably gone for ever.

 

However the Manchester - Huddersfield - Leeds route is very busy indeed and a prime candidate for electrification AND development into a major freight artery. Our current Government have let us down badly here up north, and I doubt "the other lot" would do any better.

 

It will be nice however to see the new loco hauled trains on this route soon.

 

Brit15

 

Every time Woofhead is mentioned a huge amount of heat is generated, however the fact is we have managed without it now for 49 years (passenger) and 37 years (freight). It was a truly a wonderful and fascinating railway but as you say much of its traffic had already gone, what mostly remained was no longer yard-to-yard but colliery to power station (therefore usually requiring two loco changes and three crews) and no longer exists now anyway. If only there had been a direct connection between Sheffield Victoria and Midland, could the passenger service have survived ? We will never know.

 

Regarding Manchester/Leeds (and in fact the whole Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds/York/Newcastle axis) this is a nationally important transport link and not fully upgrading and electrifying it throughout would be a pathetic failure of Government transport policy (particularly as large parts of the route, including all the complex bits, ie the major stations, are already wired).

[runs as required]

deleted

Edited December 9, 2018 by runs as required

[The Stationmaster]

Are you sure the water entering the Severn Tunnel is brackish? 

 

As I understood it, the water was from a fresh water spring, and nothing to do with the Severn Estuary. 

 

Having been down there and stood next to it (and having touched some of the brickwork in the vicinity and come away unharmed) yje simple explanation is as follows -

 

There are tow drainage channels in the tunnel - one for the Great Spring and another to deal with seepage.  The water from the Great spring is reputedly very pure, so much so that it encouraged Whitbread to build a brewery not far away on the Welsh side to use water from the Great Spring which apparently is chemically very similar to water drawn from boreholes at Burton-On-Trent.

 

Like all tunnels the Severn Tunnel suffers from water seepage plus an element of surface water run-off because of the steep gradients falling towards it at either side although I have heard it said that the wettest area is the section under and near to land at the Welsh side.  This water also has to be pumped out but is nothing like the threat posed by the Great Spring which if not continuously pumped would flood the tunnel in well under 24 hours.

 

The tunnel itself is actually remarkably dry at track level unlike, say, Ledbury Tunnel which is atrociously wet underfoot (and it is a long way from going under any water of course) and I certainly didn't notice any dampness, let alone wetness, underfoot when I was down there.  But there is an element of dampness in the atmosphere and it does not react kindly in the presence of certain electrical equipment.  The track circuits installed for the IB signals (introduced c.1943 to cope with increased wartime traffic levels) were very susceptible to failure and hence they, and the signals, were removed in Post-War years,. Little was seemingly learnt from history as in July 1969 the line through the tunnel was transferred to the control of Newport panel and track circuiting plus intermediate stop signals (one in each direction) were once again provided in the tunnel but the track circuits went within 20 years to be replaced by axle counters- basically due to the same atmospheric moisture problems.  These sort of problems are incidentally not limited to the Severn Tunnel as the same sort of thing occurred in the Mersey Tunnel where the rate of rail wear was much faster than normal (as also happens in the Severn Tunnel but nowhere near as bad as it is under the Mersey).

[The Johnster]

...And is exactly what is used on the Elizabeth Line.  It's quite impressive, to see an accurate "stagger" built into a welded RSJ.

 

By the way are your leakage rates correct (6 million galls/min)?  I just did a head calc that the volume of the tunnel is only a bit over 7 milion cubic feet, so the entire tunnel would fill in a little over 7 minutes.

 

No, the Great Spring, a fresh and potable groundwater source encountered by the tunnel builders and a very different thing to seepage from above, produces 6 million gallons a minute; not surprisingly it was the biggest problem they had to deal with.  Seepage from the river is brackish or salt (well, all brackish water is at least part salt) and comes in at a rate which is pretty scary if you see it in the headlight of Central Wales 120 as I once did during my railway career in the 70s on Bristol-Cardiff working, but is nowhere near 6 million gallons a minute; the tunnel would be unfeasible and structurally compromised at that rate!.  But seeing that amount of water coming in and knowing what is above your head concentrates the mind and makes you thankful that it's normally dark down there; modern drivers have high intensity lights and less re-assurance!

 

Your head calculations are pretty good, though, Northmoor; the Great Spring is said to be capable of completely inundating the Tunnel in less than 10 minutes if all the pumps were to fail simultaneously.  The only thing that could realistically cause such a failure given the backup capacity of the pumping station and it's independent power supply would be a tsunami type overflowing of the estuary's banks, and that would inundate the tunnel anyway!

 

I'd have to second Mike's comments that the trackbed is pretty well drained in the Severn Tunnel, and that Ledbury can be wetter (though less acidic).  Badminton Tunnel is the worst I have personally experienced; it is a full deluge in there if there is heavy rain in the Cotwolds, and sometimes leads to closure and diversions via Box.

[The Stationmaster]

...And is exactly what is used on the Elizabeth Line.  It's quite impressive, to see an accurate "stagger" built into a welded RSJ.

 

By the way are your leakage rates correct (6 million galls/min)?  I just did a head calc that the volume of the tunnel is only a bit over 7 milion cubic feet, so the entire tunnel would fill in a little over 7 minutes.

 

I'm not sure of the exact figure it being a long time since I was told it but the time that would be taken for the tunnel to flood from the Great Spring is measured in hours and from what I can recall from nearly 40 years ago is definitely hours numbered in double figures.  Quite how quickly it would become unusable is obviously a different figure.

 

An article about electrification work in the tunnel published in 'Rail Engineer' in 2016 quoted the Great Spring as producing between 10 and 20 million gallons daily which fits with my memory of being told that the figure is not constant but does vary seasonally.  A Wiki source says 50 million gallons per day but we are still a very long way from 6 miliion gallons per minute.

 

A far more detailed and authoritative source is a 2008 article in 'Railnews' which quotes a daily average of 13.86 million gallons from the Great Spring in 2007 - of which 2 million gallons went to the Whitbread (not named) brewery.  Seepage and run off from farmland etc at the ends of the tunnel amounted to a further 6.6 million gallons of water daily.  There is no mention of any seepage from the river itself.  At one time Llanwern steel works was also said to take water from the pumping station but I don't know which source it came from and can't establish that for certain..

Edited December 9, 2018 by The Stationmaster

[Northmoor]

I'd have to second Mike's comments that the trackbed is pretty well drained in the Severn Tunnel, and that Ledbury can be wetter (though less acidic).  Badminton Tunnel is the worst I have personally experienced; it is a full deluge in there if there is heavy rain in the Cotwolds, and sometimes leads to closure and diversions via Box.

Thanks for the clarification, we have a few generations of great engineers to thank for the Severn Tunnel having been so reliably available for 130+ years.

 

I know Chipping Sodbury Tunnel - or at least the cutting at the West end - always floods and closes the line after a prolonged spell of heavy rain.  From memory, NR have said that it is impossible to make a business case for diverting the necessary watercourses, for what happens perhaps one day every two years.  It is preferable to just let it flood and make sure the damage from that is mitigated as far as possible.

 

Getting off-topic I know but isn't the Channel Tunnel actually drier than predicted?

[Fat Controller]

Thanks for the clarification, we have a few generations of great engineers to thank for the Severn Tunnel having been so reliably available for 130+ years.

 

I know Chipping Sodbury Tunnel - or at least the cutting at the West end - always floods and closes the line after a prolonged spell of heavy rain.  From memory, NR have said that it is impossible to make a business case for diverting the necessary watercourses, for what happens perhaps one day every two years.  It is preferable to just let it flood and make sure the damage from that is mitigated as far as possible.

 

Getting off-topic I know but isn't the Channel Tunnel actually drier than predicted?

It is; like the Severn Tunnel, the wettest points are under land. On the UK side, the portal is at a location called Holywell; the water from the spring used to feed the Silver Spring pop factory, now closed.

One of my grandfather's family used to work on maintaining the Severn Tunnel.

[jonny777]

Thanks for all this tunnel information, everyone. It is great to have first hand knowledge from those who have actually worked in them. 

 

I have to say that I have travelled through the tunnel behind (or on) a variety of motive power, but never a class 120 DMU - which would have been a red-letter day for me. 117s were the nearest I came, although I may have had a 119 once, but my memory is getting rather unreliable at times. 

[APOLLO]

Last time I went under the severn was back in 1967 behind D1011 "Western Thunderer" .

 

Brit15

[caradoc]

Not only are resources apparently being diverted away from Northern Powerhouse Rail to the south, the same has happened to this topic ! Nevertheless a very interesting discussion, thanks for the info on the Severn Tunnel. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

The underlying problem with the Woodhead route was that it was taken in isolation, people were perhaps blinded by the fact that it was the only electrified line and therefore the odd one out of the Pennine crossings.

Now, with the honours degree in hindsight which we all would like to have had, imagine if the MSW had taken all the trans Pennine freight, alright, it would have added on mileage to most of it, but that would have been on good routes which could have been speeded up. Imagine the long term benefits it would have given, conversion to 25kv would only have entailed a relatively short length from Doncaster to Wath, and maybe Tinsley yard via Treeton North Junction and presumably electrification to Hull would have been a possibility. With all the freight out of the way, the passenger services could have been developed independently and would presumably have been better than they are now.

All the aforementioned has been one of my pet theories for many a year, it assumes joined up thinking from various people in power, and that things would have developed in a different time frame, but as we know, that will never happen and it's all pie in the sky.

 

Mike.

[jjb1970]

After reading that article I feel sorry for the engineers who designed and installed the system, who've now been basically been described as incompetent by some opposition MP out to score cheap political points. 

 

I suppose we should be grateful that they didn't also make their usual claim that everything would be just so much better if the railways were nationalised.........

[caradoc]

The underlying problem with the Woodhead route was that it was taken in isolation, people were perhaps blinded by the fact that it was the only electrified line and therefore the odd one out of the Pennine crossings.

Now, with the honours degree in hindsight which we all would like to have had, imagine if the MSW had taken all the trans Pennine freight, alright, it would have added on mileage to most of it, but that would have been on good routes which could have been speeded up. Imagine the long term benefits it would have given, conversion to 25kv would only have entailed a relatively short length from Doncaster to Wath, and maybe Tinsley yard via Treeton North Junction and presumably electrification to Hull would have been a possibility. With all the freight out of the way, the passenger services could have been developed independently and would presumably have been better than they are now.

All the aforementioned has been one of my pet theories for many a year, it assumes joined up thinking from various people in power, and that things would have developed in a different time frame, but as we know, that will never happen and it's all pie in the sky.

 

Mike.

 

Interesting ideas Mike. The issue in 1981 was that BR had two routes between Manchester and Sheffield but not enough traffic to justify both (with the other Trans-Pennine routes further north). Given that only one of the routes still had a passenger service, that route also directly served Sheffield Midland and a major freight customer (the cement works at Hope) the Midland was always going to be the winner. It does seem wrong that an electrified main line was closed but I'm not sure BR had any choice in the circumstances of the time.

[Barry O]

While potential ( and real) tunnel problems are important to any form of trans pennines upgrade ....once you get to Leeds the two track "viaduct" out towards Neville Hill seems to be missing from any discussions. Obviously DaFT haven't got that far in their thought process.

 

Perhaps DaFT HQ should be moved up to just North of Leeds?

Baz

[4630]

While potential ( and real) tunnel problems are important to any form of trans pennines upgrade ....once you get to Leeds the two track "viaduct" out towards Neville Hill seems to be missing from any discussions. Obviously DaFT haven't got that far in their thought process.

 

Perhaps DaFT HQ should be moved up to just North of Leeds?

Baz

 

 

With my tongue very firmly in my cheek, I imagine that DaFT think that there must be a 'digital solution' for the route into Leeds from the Neville Hill direction.   That is after all their preferred only solution to the two-track section of railway, also on a viaduct, between platforms 13 and 14 at Manchester Piccadilly through to Deansgate. 

 

It seems that a digital solution or 'new technology' miraculously resolves all these issues! 

Edited December 10, 2018 by 4630

[great central]

New technology solves everything don'tcha know?

Ah but only until someone pushing buttons in a land far away decides otherwise. Or the certificate expires like O2 last week.