Midland Main Line ready for 125mph running

[DavidB-AU]

EAST Midlands Trains will launch accelerated services between London, central England and South Yorkshire on December 9 following the completion of a £70m project to upgrade sections of the Midland Main Line for 200km/h operation.

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/europe/midland-main-line-ready-for-200km-h-running.html

[Rugd1022]

Great.... more 'flyboys' getting in the way of my 60mph freight jobs! Means I'll be spending even more of my time at work staring at red signals...

[LNERGE]

Yup that was me running around like a looney on Saturday night uncovering all the new speed signs and checking them against the sighting forms. I reckoned i must have walked about 15 miles..<g>

[Talltim]

Great.... more 'flyboys' getting in the way of my 60mph freight jobs! Means I'll be spending even more of my time at work staring at red signals...

Think you need to up your game

[NXEA!]

And if you want to sample/witness 180's alongside 222's at 125mph along the MML, 27/12 is your date as Hull Trains are (provisionally) being diverted from Doncaster via the Old Road, Toton, Loughborough, and thence to St Pancras because of an ECML blockade. The two down services are tightly timed between London and Leicester; 66 minutes allowed in the case of one service.  Schedules are below.  

 

Up: 

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/N49640/2013/12/27/advanced

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/N49642/2013/12/27/advanced

Down: 

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/N49956/2013/12/27/advanced

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/N49648/2013/12/27/advanced

 

 

Thanks must go to Supercoss for the information, and Sleaford Zoo for the RTT links on WNXX. 

[Shed]

about time too

[Talltim]

Ooh,two of the services pass each other pretty much at Tapton junction at 16:32/16:33

[ess1uk]

about time too

agreed. pity they couldnt have done it years ago, would have made getting home from college so much quicker

[jamie92208]

That's got a lovely bit of rare trackage in it plus the pass of Toton.  Me and a mate fancied doing the round trip from Donny but even with Senior railcards it was going to be £46 each so we'll wait  for another day.  However well done to Hull Trains for doing the route.

 

Jamie

[Enterprisingwestern]

Personally, although I realise line improvements are necessary, I think this is a complete waste of time and money, saving me 5 minutes to/from London is negligible, I would far rather travel in a more comfortable train which ran to time.

 

Mike.

[Hairy Bear Digital]

Personally, although I realise line improvements are necessary, I think this is a complete waste of time and money, saving me 5 minutes to/from London is negligible, I would far rather travel in a more comfortable train which ran to time.

 

Mike.

.

 

You can be on time or you can have a comfortable ride........you have to chose one or the other. You cannot have both. !!!.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Personally, although I realise line improvements are necessary, I think this is a complete waste of time and money, saving me 5 minutes to/from London is negligible, I would far rather travel in a more comfortable train which ran to time.

 

Mike.

Line speed improvements are more for publicity than train running.

 

When London-Manchester was electrified it was originally designed for 90mph. Someone thought they should have 100mph as that's what the Deltics were going to do on East Coast. Fortunately the tolerances in signal sighting were sufficient to allow 100mph where the track would stand it but without major realignments to get rid of speed restrictions the gain was only about 4 minutes from Euston to Manchester.

 

More recently when cuts were being made to the WCRM budget 140mph running was an early casualty due to Railtrack having promised Virgin a signalling system that hadn't been made, let alone proved in service and it costing £(several)billions to do. The net time losses being quoted for the lower speeds were 4 minutes to Birmingham, 7 minutes to Manchester and 11 minutes to Glasgow.

[pete_mcfarlane]

And if you want to sample/witness 180's alongside 222's at 125mph along the MML, 27/12 is your date as Hull Trains are (provisionally) being diverted from Doncaster via the Old Road, Toton, Loughborough, and thence to St Pancras because of an ECML blockade. The two down services are tightly timed between London and Leicester; 66 minutes allowed in the case of one service.  Schedules are below.  

 

 

Even more astonishing than these HT services is the hourly EMT service from St Pancras to Grantham on the 27th. Peterborough appears to be closed for engineering works.

[caradoc]

So the railways should not bother trying to increase line speeds ? It should be remembered that, for example, the 4 mins saved to Birmingham is 4 mins per passenger, as well as per train; So for a train carrying say 300 passengers that's 1200 mins saved, And with 3 express trains/hour between Euston and Birmingham, that's what, say at least 40 trains each day, so a total time saving, for one day, of 48000 passenger minutes. Is that not worth something ?

[TheSignalEngineer]

I'm not saying that railways shouldn't bother to increase line speeds. There have been instances where I have worked on jobs where the timetable was not significantly improved but the train punctuality went up by several percent, thus improving the passenger perception of the service. 

 

When planning schemes we were given a figure that the accountants thought could be gained through the Booking Office window per minute of saving. This taken with savings on renewal budgets, possibly less sets or crews required because it fitted rostering better, helped to evaluate the net cost of the scheme.

[Enterprisingwestern]

So the railways should not bother trying to increase line speeds ? It should be remembered that, for example, the 4 mins saved to Birmingham is 4 mins per passenger, as well as per train; So for a train carrying say 300 passengers that's 1200 mins saved, And with 3 express trains/hour between Euston and Birmingham, that's what, say at least 40 trains each day, so a total time saving, for one day, of 48000 passenger minutes. Is that not worth something ?

 

You must be an accountant!

To me, 4/5 minutes saved isn't worth anything when the train is running late anyway. I would much rather have a guaranteed service that I knew I could rely on.

In the case of onward connections that 4/5 minutes saved equates to 4/5 minutes longer wait for a connecting service.

 

Mike.

[jamie92208]

I think that the main thing was to get the headline time to Sheffield down to 2 hours.   More big savings will no doubt come in due course with new faster through lines at Market Harborough etc.

 

Jamie

[RJS1977]

You must be an accountant!

To me, 4/5 minutes saved isn't worth anything when the train is running late anyway. I would much rather have a guaranteed service that I knew I could rely on.

In the case of onward connections that 4/5 minutes saved equates to 4/5 minutes longer wait for a connecting service.

Depending on how the timetable's arranged that 4-5 minutes could increase your chances of making the connection!

[big jim]

you can have as fast linespeed as you want but get stuck behind me pootling along at 40mph leaving wigston towards leicester and its all immaterial

[eastwestdivide]

you can have as fast linespeed as you want but get stuck behind me pootling along at 40mph leaving wigston towards leicester and its all immaterial

Think of it as an opportunity to tell your boss you need more power! What could they rustle up that you'd like to drive?

[roythebus]

There's a nice picture of Bittern waiting to go faster somewhere on the preservation section...that does 90, is that fast enough?

[jonathan452]

More big savings will no doubt come in due course with new faster through lines at Market Harborough etc.

 

Jamie

But when is Market Harborough actually going to happen?

 

Bearing in mind I first read about it in 'Modern Railways' back in the mid seventies.

 

Then in the same magazine a month or so back I find it hasn't even been given the go-ahead.

 

So it now seems Nottinghamshire County Council are having to push for it. (Even though the afore mentioned curve is actually in Northamptonshire).

 

Any further updates would be welcome.

Edited December 12, 2013 by jonathan452

[The Stationmaster]

You must be an accountant!

To me, 4/5 minutes saved isn't worth anything when the train is running late anyway. I would much rather have a guaranteed service that I knew I could rely on.

In the case of onward connections that 4/5 minutes saved equates to 4/5 minutes longer wait for a connecting service.

 

Mike.

 

5 minutes saved in each direction makes 10 minutes saved in the cycle time of a unit and if you have 20 minute or 30 minute minute turnround times you are starting to get some real productivity and/or performance benefits over the course of a day.  Do enough of it (if you can) and you might get an extra trip without an increase in fleet size - and that is big money.

[RJS1977]

And of course, providing crews' rest hours aren't shortened, not only are extra services run without extra trains but in theory also without requiring extra crews, saving more money.

[82C]

you can have as fast linespeed as you want but get stuck behind me pootling along at 40mph leaving wigston towards leicester and its all immaterial

Or when your knackered 56s sit down and block the line for hours in end, causing chaos.

 

GW