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Transpennine Electrification : Manchester/Leeds


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On 02/04/2021 at 15:05, Edwin_m said:

I've seen a couple of online presentations on the project from the parties involved, at least one of which opened with a graphic of Saddleworth Viaduct with OLE added. 

Love to see that! Some bits of it are almost, if not actually, unique; the span over the canal is a skew arch on a curve, so I suspect it will take as much designing as anything else.

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3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

That might solve the Alleged Standedge tunnel  problem. Wires up the bank either side where there is plenty of available piwer from Heyrod and Thornhill, then battery for thectunnel which is level as it follows the canal. There even used to be water troughs inside it.

 

However  I am surprised that the tunnel is a problem as double track tunnelsvusually have quite good clearances. Morley isn't seen as a problem, and that was dug many years before the double track at Standedge.

 

Jamie

Would have thought the clearance problems, on the Western side at least, would be Scout Tunnel, the Stamford Road overbridge at Mossley Station, and the A670 overbridge at Greenfield station; the last two because of problems with road junctions as well.

 

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I know that the eastern side ones are, Cross Gates Ring Road, the single bore diveunder at Heaton Lodge and the road bridge at thwestern exit from Huddersfield Station where  large sewer pipe is the problem. I think that the new lines at Heaton Lodge solve one of those.

 

Jamie

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3 hours ago, 62613 said:

Love to see that! Some bits of it are almost, if not actually, unique; the span over the canal is a skew arch on a curve, so I suspect it will take as much designing as anything else.

I don't think it would be too difficult technically.  The curve at Saddleworth doesn't look extreme enough to require any special measures on its own account, so I expect they'd just work out the minimum spacing required by geometry and tensioning, then reduce that if necessary so each support is fixed above a pier.  The same has been done on other visually sensitive viaducts such as Durham and the Royal Border Bridge, where they also used some special support designs to minimise the visual intrusion. 

 

The biggest risk is probably that some heritage interest will start questioning whether that's good enough.    

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I have been told by a couple of people that masts are going up between York and Church Fenton; although I live in York I haven't been to see for myself (lockdown etc.), but I haven't read of this anywhere.  I know Church Fenton might will one day be the northern end of HS2 but I should have thought it was a bit premature to be putting up wires for that, so is it connected with the Trans Pennine Upgrade, does anyone know?

 

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If there is any electrification being built between Church Fenton and Colton Junction then it'll be TPE related, but I'd be a bit sceptical about that unless someone can produce a photo to confirm what it actually is that's being done.

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14 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

That might solve the alleged Standedge tunnel  problem. Wires up the bank either side where there is plenty of available power from Heyrod and Thornhill, then battery for the tunnel which is level as it follows the canal. There even used to be water troughs inside it.

I hope not. To limit the only electrified connection between the ECML and WCML between the North London Line and the Midcalder Line to specific bi-mode traction would seem to be something that would be regretted fairly quickly.

 

Discontinuous electrification has a place and could well prove useful on secondary and minor routes, but I don't like it for trunk routes.

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13 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I know that the eastern side ones are, Cross Gates Ring Road, the single bore diveunder at Heaton Lodge and the road bridge at thwestern exit from Huddersfield Station where  large sewer pipe is the problem. I think that the new lines at Heaton Lodge solve one of those.

 

Jamie

 

The Cross Gates location shouldn' be too difficult if they can lower the tracks a little under that bridge. It is spacious enough to allow excavation without stopping trains on the line altogether, although that would interfere with trains stopping in the station.

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11 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

I don't think it would be too difficult technically.  The curve at Saddleworth doesn't look extreme enough to require any special measures on its own account, so I expect they'd just work out the minimum spacing required by geometry and tensioning, then reduce that if necessary so each support is fixed above a pier.  The same has been done on other visually sensitive viaducts such as Durham and the Royal Border Bridge, where they also used some special support designs to minimise the visual intrusion. 

 

The biggest risk is probably that some heritage interest will start questioning whether that's good enough.    

That's the bit I was thinking of. Saddleworth is strange place, in some ways; there used to be a lot of 'professional' Yorkshiremen lived there, there still are, to some extent. These days, it having become more of a dormitory for the surrounding cities, with expensive housing, there would be plenty who would complain about the loss of visual amenity. For instance, a new secondary school is needed; the complaints bout the chosen site, and the road changes for it have been going on for years.

 

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

If there is any electrification being built between Church Fenton and Colton Junction then it'll be TPE related, but I'd be a bit sceptical about that unless someone can produce a photo to confirm what it actually is that's being done.

 

Someone has pointed this out to me, which mentions electrification:

 

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/railway-upgrade-plan/key-projects/transpennine-route-upgrade/york-to-church-fenton-improvement-scheme/

 

The monthly project trackers include OHLE structure installation.

 

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I don't quite understand why some (admittedly small) electrification schemes are going on "under the radar" - this is one and Kettering to Market Harborough is another.  I would have expected these to be trumpeted by politicians as examples of decarbonisation and "levelling up".  Perhaps after all the announcements in the period after 2010 they reckon nobody will believe them, or they don't want to annoy the faction that reckons electrification is unnecessary?  

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On 04/04/2021 at 12:24, Edwin_m said:

I don't quite understand why some (admittedly small) electrification schemes are going on "under the radar" - this is one and Kettering to Market Harborough is another.  I would have expected these to be trumpeted by politicians as examples of decarbonisation and "levelling up".  Perhaps after all the announcements in the period after 2010 they reckon nobody will believe them, or they don't want to annoy the faction that reckons electrification is unnecessary?  

I suppose that part of it is to keep the teams and expertise alive. As they discovered, in a very costly way, with the GWML, such expertise needs to be retained. I'm very glad that this bit is being done. I have seen talk of a new feeder station near York and wonder whether this is a way of connecting it to the ECML. The main reason for Market Harborough is to connect up to the feeder station at Brayebrook. Heyrod was specified for continuous electrification on the Trans Pennine route and they have had to install an expensive 25Kv feeder cable down to Manchester Victoria to make use of it.  It's a lot easier to use overhead wires.

 

Jamie

 

Location corrected.

Edited by jamie92208
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14 hours ago, 31A said:

I have been told by a couple of people that masts are going up between York and Church Fenton; although I live in York I haven't been to see for myself (lockdown etc.), but I haven't read of this anywhere.  I know Church Fenton might will one day be the northern end of HS2 but I should have thought it was a bit premature to be putting up wires for that, so is it connected with the Trans Pennine Upgrade, does anyone know?

 

Before I retired (March 2020), I was chatting with the OLE chap in our office who has some involvement with the design review process of the TPE Electrification project (as an aside, he is also involved in a similar capacity for the Werrington dive-under project). He was telling me back then that the proposed costings just for the York - Church Fenton section was circa £300M. Why such a high cost for a relatively short section of route I asked? It's because the York - Church Fenton section is the first phase of the project, and therefore heavily risk loaded/biased for the whole project - some sort of Project Management/Finance Management mitigation process. So I'm not surprised that some masts have finally started to appear on the route. 

Edited by iands
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2 minutes ago, iands said:

Before I retired (March 2020), I was chatting with the OLE chap in our office who has some involvement with the design review process of the TPE Electrification project (as an aside, he is also involved in a similar capacity for the Werrington dive-under project). He was telling me back then that the proposed costings just for the York - Church Fenton section was circa £300M. Why such a high cost for a relatively short section of route I asked? It's because the York - Church Fenton section is the first phase of the project, and therefore heavily risk loaded/biased for the whole project - some sort of Project Management/Finance Management mitigation process. So I'm not surprised that dome masts have finally started to appear on the route. 

 

That's interesting!  I wonder whether what's being done is all four lines, or just the Leeds lines?

 

As far as I know a serious intention to electrify York-Leeds hasn't been formally announced, even in connection with the Trans Pennine Upgrade announcements that seem to have come out recently, so I wonder what electrifying about 5 miles Colton Jn. - Church Fenton actually achieves?  The Trans Pennine bi modes seem to change from electric to diesel whilst stopped in York station at the moment which seems quite sensible and they would only gain about 10 miles further south 'under the wires' before they would have to change to diesel anyway, 'on the fly'.

 

Church Fenton-Neville Hill is about another 14 miles and would allow ordinary electric trains to run as well as bi modes (e.g. Northern locals and LNER diversions).  The 'low bridge' at Cross Gates has been mentioned and I think there are also a couple of stone arch bridges between Micklefield and Cross Gates which are of historic significance from the Leeds & Selby Railway which might be an issue, but on the whole there's nothing that seems particularly complicated about it.

 

Maybe it's being held back as proposals for four tracking (parts of) Neville Hill-Garforth seem to have come up again and perhaps an electrification announcement may follow when they've been 'firmed up.

 

 

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Crossgates station in February 1999: some rather shaky video footage I took on a trip to England to visit my Mother in Leeds. Note that the suburb is Cross Gates, but the station name is Crossgates - I hadn't noticed this before but the station name boards show this quite clearly. It had snowed overnight and was still quite chilly on the rather windswept platforms.

This shows the Ring Road overbridge mentioned in earlier posts.
 

 

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1 hour ago, 31A said:

 

That's interesting!  I wonder whether what's being done is all four lines, or just the Leeds lines?

Afraid I don't have that level of detail, but my assumption is that assuming the Leeds - York route is electrified, then electrifying all four lines York - Church Fenton would make sense for operational flexibility. 

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1 hour ago, SRman said:

Crossgates station in February 1999: some rather shaky video footage I took on a trip to England to visit my Mother in Leeds. Note that the suburb is Cross Gates, but the station name is Crossgates - I hadn't noticed this before but the station name boards show this quite clearly. It had snowed overnight and was still quite chilly on the rather windswept platforms.

This shows the Ring Road overbridge mentioned in earlier posts.
 

 

I've mentioned it before but some 4 or 5 years ago I went to a presentation about the then propised TransPennine electrification where the engineers said that there were only 6 or 7 structures likely to cause a problem.  The problem at Cross Gates was that they could easily put wires under the centre, shift the tracks and extend the platforms. That would have kyboshed 4 tracking, which they also wanted to do.  There wasn't sufficient clearance above the existing tracks so demolition and reconstruction was the only way forward. I don't think that it's an original Leeds and Selby bridge and certainly part of it dates from the 1930's .

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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10 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I've mentioned it before but some 4 or 5 years ago I went to a presentation about the then propised TransPennine electrification where the engineers said that there were only 6 or 7 structures likely to cause a problem.  The problem at Cross Gates was that they could easily put wires under the centre, shift the tracks and extend the platforms. That would have kyboshed 4 tracking, which they also wanted to do.  There wasn't sufficient clearance above the existing tracks so demolition and reconstruction was the only way forward. I don't think that it's an original Leeds and Selby bridge and certainly part of it dates from the 1930's .

 

Jamie

 

I don't really have any idea on costings, but would it also be possible to lower the tracks and rebuild part of the station - obviously the platforms would have to be lowered to match the lowered tracks, or truncated short of the bridge and extended at the other ends. Would that be any cheaper or more cost effective than demolishing the road bridge and rebuilding, including raising the road level? The way I was looking at it (with no engineering expertise), they could excavate the centre roads and put new tracks in with wires, then once that was up and running, excavate and rebuild the existing tracks/platforms while still running through trains on the new tracks.

There have been some vaguely similar projects here in Melbourne associate wth level crossing removals, and around 20 years ago, with the experimental double decker train on my local lines, which involved lowering tracks under some bridges and modifying platform clearances along the line.

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Lowering tracks under structures might not be feasible as unlike some of the roads that were amended so that double deck busses could get under them, this might have a noticeable dip in the gradient profile.

 

The footbridge at Garforth station is going to be replaced and has been offered for reuse to various societies.

 

Perhaps if York to Leeds was wired the Aire valley trains would go through Leeds to York.  I'd have thought the Bradford one might be prime candidate.  

 

With Hull wanting the line from Doncaster wired I could also see them pressing for this linking to Selby and Leeds as well.

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Are we, in fact, almost seeing electrification by stealth? "Guerilla" electrification, as it were; a little bit here; a little bit there; then, all of a sudden, there's a coherent system.

 

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I aalso suspect that the guerilla method may be being used, almost like the travelling workets, who happen to be working nearby. Each little pieve may also come in below a certain threshold that doesn't involve Whitehall for authorisation.

 

Jamie

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1 hour ago, 62613 said:

Are we, in fact, almost seeing electrification by stealth? "Guerilla" electrification, as it were; a little bit here; a little bit there; then, all of a sudden, there's a coherent system.

 

The danger with that is if it's not coherently designed as a system it'll look like a network but won't actually work as one. But once the wires and bridges are done then changing the distribution is easier.

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Following on from my post on 1st April, now that the Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) application has gone into the DfT, Network Rail has promptly and correctly started the formal Applications and Objection procedure.

 

The attached photo from 2nd April shows one of the signs on a lamp post adjacent to the Leeds Road A62 rail bridge at Deighton.  Similar signs that also include a map were on a lamp post adjacent to Deighton station, so it would seem reasonable to assume that they've gone up along the entire route affected by the TWAO application.

 

1114008845_Deighton02042021-RMweb.jpg.d4a4c2f890bb293486b280132f44c5c3.jpg

 

For those unfamiliar with the area, the long list of roads and streets at the start of the first bullet point, as far as Red Doles Road (under bridge), will be in connection with work along the Huddersfield Viaduct.

 

This Google maps reference might also help;

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Huddersfield/@53.6534944,-1.779451,2101m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x487962132bcdb7bb:0x653c3a498c896a17!8m2!3d53.645792!4d-1.7850351

 

 

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