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12 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

Why isn’t the GWML OLE connected to the West London Line near Acton?

 

is there any likelihood of OLE joining Cricklewood to Acton ?

Two separate but in one respect very closely linked questions.

 

The close link is the the Up & Down Poplar Lines on the bank between Acton and Acton Wells Jcn.  It was originally intended to electrify them to the WR/LMR boundary (at the top of the bank) as an add-in to the Paddington - Airport Jcn electrification but it ran into major technical difficulties so what would have been a very cheap add-in had to be dropped.  The next time it came up was a bit later in the 1990s when it would have been electrified as part of the St. Pancras - Heathrow Airport  link but that died a death fairly rapidly due to its very high infrastructure costs - the flyovers between Acton and Ealing Broadway would have cost a mint and that was just the works on the WR/GWML portion of the route plus it still didn't solve the problem which had killed the original proposal.

 

That problem - was very simple.  There was insufficient clearance under the bridge carrying the Western Avenue near the Acton end of the bank.  So it was decided instead to lower the track - and as that idea was investigated it was found that there is a large diameter gas main underneath the line exactly where the formation would have to be cut down - and that put the stop on the original proposal, and no doubt didn't do much to help the Sp.Pancras - LHR proposal either.

 

Since then of course the Western Avenue bridge has been completely rebuilt but there seems to have been no further movement on electrification there - most likely because NR can't find a scheme (and any traffic?) to justify it.  But I wonder if the bridge rebuilding fully resolved the clearance question?

 

Going round to the West London Lin would also involve electrification through South West Sdgs although i don't think that would necessarily meet any major difficulties.

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48 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Since then of course the Western Avenue bridge has been completely rebuilt but there seems to have been no further movement on electrification there - most likely because NR can't find a scheme (and any traffic?) to justify it.  But I wonder if the bridge rebuilding fully resolved the clearance question?

A design was done to electrify the line as an add-on to the GWML scheme which had no such issues, but since the main project has been extensively descoped, add-ons didn't stand much of a chance. It would also have electrified the WCML links near Willesden Junction.

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5 hours ago, Northroader said:

There is also the indirect connection through the North Pole Hitachi maintenance depot, entered from the Paddington direction. Presumably the Junction is still made at the West London end?

It appears to be there but whether or not it is still actually usable I don't know.  The original connection - along the course of the Victoria Branch to North Pole Jcn appears to be severed at the Hitachi depot end.

 

Even if the other connection is still usable it would involve a reversal to use it (or two reversals for a train coming from the west)

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16 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

It appears to be there but whether or not it is still actually usable I don't know.  The original connection - along the course of the Victoria Branch to North Pole Jcn appears to be severed at the Hitachi depot end.

 

Even if the other connection is still usable it would involve a reversal to use it (or two reversals for a train coming from the west)

Plus payment to Hitachi for use of 'their' depot.

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On 10/08/2019 at 19:21, Northroader said:

There is also the indirect connection through the North Pole Hitachi maintenance depot, entered from the Paddington direction. Presumably the Junction is still made at the West London end?

this one?

looking towards Scrubs Lane.

IMG_0066.JPG

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On 10/08/2019 at 16:40, ess1uk said:

Why isn’t the GWML OLE connected to the West London Line near Acton?

 

is there any likelihood of OLE joining Cricklewood to Acton ?

 

I believe there is a proposal to wire the Poplar Lines through Acton onto the West London line as part of the Old Oak Common Station works.

 

On 11/08/2019 at 00:56, The Stationmaster said:

It appears to be there but whether or not it is still actually usable I don't know.  The original connection - along the course of the Victoria Branch to North Pole Jcn appears to be severed at the Hitachi depot end.

 

Even if the other connection is still usable it would involve a reversal to use it (or two reversals for a train coming from the west)

 

Yes, the connection is still there, that's how they got the Class 802's onto the Depot when they were delivered.

 

Simon

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On 16/08/2019 at 21:23, St. Simon said:

 

I believe there is a proposal to wire the Poplar Lines through Acton onto the West London line as part of the Old Oak Common Station works.

 

 

Yes, the connection is still there, that's how they got the Class 802's onto the Depot when they were delivered.

 

Simon

 

The 395s going to North Pole depot recently for tyre turning whilst the Ashford lathe is out of commission have been using the link too

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This is probably a stupid question, so apologies if it is and apologies if it has been discussed elsewhere previously.

 

With regards the issue of not electrifying between Cardiff and Swansea, and the Swansea service thereby requiring bi-modes (if I've understood that correctly), would it not have been more cost effective and/or convenient to use a pure electric IPE and couple up a high powered Diesel Locomotive to the front at Cardiff to drag it to and from Swansea? 

 

Between London and Cardiff, the IPE would not then be carrying the dead weight of diesel engines, just for the final portion of its journey?

 

 

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It would be technically possible, but that kind of thing isn't something that the DfT are willing to entertain these days.

 

In fairness it would increase dwell time at Cardiff, add another interface to potentially go wrong and the signalling might need work to allow such moves (though probably not, I've seen 3 different trains in the same platform at Cardiff so permissive working must be possible on that platform at least).

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But it isn’t just through trains beyond Cardiff to Swansea, you have Cheltenham  beyond Swindon, Hereford beyond Didcot,  Penzance beyond Reading  or Bristol, Bimodes have to be the answer for a long time to come.

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5 minutes ago, Northroader said:

But it isn’t just through trains beyond Cardiff to Swansea, you have Cheltenham  beyond Swindon, Hereford beyond Didcot,  Penzance beyond Reading  or Bristol, Bimodes have to be the answer for a long time to come.

 

I appreciated the South-west required diesel or bi-modes, but perhaps didn't appreciate Cheltenham, Hereford, etc. 

 

That said the drag option might have meant fewer IEP would have had to have their configuration changed to bi-mode.

 

Anyway, I appreciate the responses; curiosity satisfied!

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The option of coupling a diesel locomotive (a bit like the old Weymouth push-pull operation) was discussed at the time of original procurement of the IEP but it was decided to order a mix of straight electric units for the main routes and bi-modes for the non-electrified extensions.  I think this was because of the risk of delays attaching the locomotive and probably also the loss of the various loco sidings that existed near major stations when loco changes were routine.  With many of the off-wires runs being once or twice a day the locomotives might have ended up being rather numerous and poorly utilised.

 

This decided, unsurprisingly Hitachi came up with a modular design where any of the intermediate cars could have a diesel power pack fitted (and indeed the straight electrics have some diesel power for low-speed emergency operation if the power is lost).  So when the GW electrification was cut back and it became obvious that nearly every duty would involve operation off the wires, it was a relatively easy if not cheap decision to ask Hitachi to fit diesels to many of the cars not so fitted.  There are still straight electric units in the ECML fleet.  

 

Incidentally Hitachi has now tweaked the design further for the Midland order.  The cars are slightly shorter to fit the platform length at St Pancras and all the units are five cars with diesel engines in four of them and a transformer in the fifth.  The various ECML and GWML versions didn't allow a diesel engine in the end cars.  

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2 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Incidentally Hitachi has now tweaked the design further for the Midland order.  The cars are slightly shorter to fit the platform length at St Pancras and all the units are five cars with diesel engines in four of them and a transformer in the fifth.  The various ECML and GWML versions didn't allow a diesel engine in the end cars.

Somewhat along the same lines as the proposals made ten years ago for the existing Meridian units, which ought to have many years of life left in them yet.

 

Jim

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2 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

Somewhat along the same lines as the proposals made ten years ago for the existing Meridian units, which ought to have many years of life left in them yet.

 

Jim

I believe that quite a bit of design work was done on the provision of transformer cars for the meridians and possible the voyagers. IIRC it didn't make a good business case as too much re wiring of the existing vehicles would have been needed to allow the traction currents to have been transmitted.

 

Jamie

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4 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I believe that quite a bit of design work was done on the provision of transformer cars for the meridians and possible the voyagers. IIRC it didn't make a good business case as too much re wiring of the existing vehicles would have been needed to allow the traction currents to have been transmitted.

 

Jamie

Agreed and I think too that the jigs for building the cars no longer exist, so a short run of vehicles would be very expensive.

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4 hours ago, david.hill64 said:

Agreed and I think too that the jigs for building the cars no longer exist, so a short run of vehicles would be very expensive.

Why are jigs destroyed, and what makes them so expensive to recreate?

I thought these things would be modular anyway.

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There's probably some new standard a new design would have to follow so might not be possible to run more of the existing design - that's certainly the case with the contemporary Pendolinos.  Another problem is that the longest train in the St Pancras MML platforms is 10 cars of 23m-ish, so electrifying the Meridians would have involved converting one car to electric (difficult) or scrapping it (expensive).  This is the reason the Hitachi units will have a slightly shorter bodyshell than on ECML and GWML, and if the scheme had gone ahead it would probably have concentrated on the 4-car Voyagers that can be made up to 5-car without major platform issues on XC.  There were also techno-political issues with Bombardier wanting to use their own traction equipment (made in Sweden) rather than the British-made Alstom equipment fitted to the existing units.  

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On 21/08/2019 at 07:25, rodent279 said:

Why are jigs destroyed, and what makes them so expensive to recreate?

I thought these things would be modular anyway.

Jigs and patterns are large items, and need careful storage; no-one's going to keep them on the off-chance that there will be a repeat order in the unspecified future. Hopefully, there will be drawings or CAD files...

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6 hours ago, SouthernMafia said:

Trouble at Didcot last night with a dewirement caused by an 802 coming off the Chester Lines, appears to have panned up too early and brought the run off section down. Platforms 3, 4 and 5 OOU this morning UFN.

 

No access to Didcot from the Oxford direction (at all), or from Cholsey (on the Relief Lines). A number of orange clad staff at work when I passed at around 1310 today.

 

(This woudn't have happened if Didcot/Oxford was wired, of course !)

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi, with the arrival of our first grandchild a lot of time over the last few days has been spent in Sainsbury's Cafe in Didcot regaining calm before returning to renew the roles of modern grandparents.  Having finished the paper I started counting the trains passing through.  Why is it that all the suburban trains in both directions  have pantographs up (ALL diesel MUs having sensibly replaced) but I only saw ONE class 800 /802 train out of seven passing on up and down lines using its pantograph to collect power from the overhead.  What secret explains this reluctance to use the overhead?

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