woodenhead

As it's being paid for by Pension funds and Chinese investors, perhaps the Treasury aren't that bothered and it will be for Network Rail to raise the income from track charges and savings to fund repayment

Then again one of these reports claimed the electrification would start from Guide Bridge not Victoria, thus nulllifying the reason for the newly-authorised Ordsall Curve.

They're probably referring to the 2009 RUS document which pre-dates the Ordsall Curve so expected all services to go via Piccadilly only, still makes interesting reading and it states Calder Valley wiring makes for a diversionary route and also refers to the benefits of wiring to Hull and Middlesbrough.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/networkrus_electrification.pdf

These 319 units look way to much like a 150 to please the passengers who have to ride in them IMHO

But way better than 142s, I would hope the 319s would displace 150s who in turn would displace the 142s.

Diesels were only ever meant to be a stop gap to full electrification of BR, unfortunately for a long time the political leaders forgot about this and ran the railway into the ground.

It might have been a long time getting to this point, but finally the investment in the railways is focusing on a step change rather than more of the same but cheaper.

OK there will be a cascade of some old BR stock suitably refurbished around the NW but Trans Pennine riders will have an expectation of better than a 185 which is a good unit in my opinion and that can only mean new build.

What's Sheffield got that Manchester hasn't - apart from a lot of model shops

Re-opening Woodhead for a marginal time saving so the people of Manchester can visit Meadowhall, yep I can buy that as it means less cars to the Trafford Centre and more parking spaces for me.

Opening to St Marylebone would also be a non starter - too slow and duplicating other routes and not even thinking about the Great Central Railways a lot of the route will have been lost - they are wiping it off the map in Leicester.

There was a plan to use bits of the GC route including Woodhead for a freight line from Europe to Liverpool but it never got off the ground, probably too early to have caught the new railway optimism, suffering the high access charges to the Chunnel and too much pressure from NIMBYs/road lobbyists/road freight companies to get any support.

High Speed 2 will put paid to any more routes into London from the North and it would not be able to compete with ECML, MML or WCML services and it would need to take custom off all three to have any chance.

When the WCML was being rebuilt for the Pendolinos there was a service between Manchester Piccadilly and St Pancras, it was a slow pondering service, unless it was built as a high speed line any new line taking the old GC route out of Sheffield to London would be similar and not popular.

The actual line serves nothing in terms of population, I don't see it happening, it will be cheaper to add to the existing route than re-build something that didn't go to Sheffield Midland which means new chords not to mention renovating the old tunnels so that the National Grid can put the cabling back there and out of the 1954 tunnel.

Maybe it shouldn't have closed but re-opening just because some of the trains between Manchester and Sheffield get full is not a good enough reason. Once Standedge gets wired reopening will become even more remote.

Port Salford doesn't replace Trafford Park, though it is possible it may take some freight away from it. Part of the Northern Hub scheme is supposed to double the number of paths via Oxford Road to Trafford Park from one an hour to two (off-peak only I think). That's part of the reason why extra platforms are still needed at Piccadilly. Western access from Trafford Park has been looked at, but it's a bit pointless because the CLC line doesn't connect with anything else until it gets to Allerton, and then the trains would have to run round somewhere.

The purpose of Port Salford is to take traffic away from Trafford Park, it releases the Oxford Road corridor from freight pathing and removes lorries off the roads in the area, clearly it doesn't replace any of the businesses in Trafford Park but it will lead to the closure of container terminals with rail loading because there will be surplus capacity if all stay open - the land is all part of the Peel empire so they are not going to build a massive intermodal terminal and leave the existing cramped terminals in place. DB have already mothballed their terminal leaving just Freightliner and Containerbase, the latter is already giving up space it used to house containers on to the Trafford Centre and I expect they will get favourable terms to move to Salford. Not sure where the metro line is planned but I am sure that having Containerbase out of the way will also make it easier to route the tram track from Lostock under Parkway and onto Trafford Centre land using the existing underbridge.

Putting all the container traffic onto Chat Moss is the goal getting trains much faster to the WCML without crossing the city as now and also east to Hull where there is expected to be more traffic over time to transfer containers from the East to West coasts.

Whatever the strategy though it's good investment for the area ensuring there will be a modern freight hub within the Greater Manchester region

Also noted the reference to Port Salford - that'll be the big container terminal to replace everything in Trafford Park - removing the last freight traffic on the Oxford Road corridor freeing up some capacity especially after the new chord brings in more trains that used to arrive from the East into Piccadilly to reverse and exit West to the Airport. Of course it won't happen like that with the extra passenger trains coming down that corridor long before Freightliner and DB get anything moved to Port Salford.

I don't think Woodhead is in anyone's plans so those yearning re-use of that tunnel will have to keep on dreaming.

Warren Buffet clearly felt investing in railways was good business, ok this was 2010 but he represents the sorts of folk who manage the pension funds.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2010-03-25-buffett23_CV_N.htm

I thought they had already agreed to wire up to Stalybridge to alleviate some of the reversals at Victoria and free up platform capacity.

Is this the L&Y TransPennine route via Summit tunnel were talking about of the LNWR line via Standedge Tunnel? Either will be interesting with tunnel clearances for overhead to worry about.

Standedge is the proposal and I'm musing about Summit.

Last week the West Yorkshire Metro people were talking about preparing the new Bradford Low Moor station for electrification, wonder what they know as perhaps there is also a plan to do Huddersfield to Bradford to Leeds as well, or better to Manchester via Rochdale.

Having both routes electric does give diversionary options that will be lost if just one route is given wires and the major services go over to electric.

I agree Manchester to Leeds doesn't make any sense without going on to York, and ideally Hull and Middlesbrough too. I think the plan is to avoid electrifying to Scarborough by taking that out of Transpennine and extending the Blackpool-York there instead.

But once Blackpool to Preston is wired it will mean the only bit of the route unwired will be York to Scarborough. Maybe Scarborough will lose out on direct Transpennine services.

Can see where you get your inspiration from - another simple but very effective railway modeller.

Doesn't he want to join RMWeb.

That's why I was asking, I didn't think you'd scoped another WCML type layout - still 6 coaches is a cross country type rake which would be right for the Oxford Road corridor - perhaps you could swap traction in the station electric to diesel.

How many coaches can you manage on the Virgin MK2s in the fiddleyard?

The layout certainly looks a lot bigger than it actually is, how do you manage that? I remember the layout before Ring Road which was a similar feat of making a small layout look big.

Isn't that Bill Bailey (fresh from Kraftwerk tributes, no doubt) in the yellow hi-viz?

Nah, it's Terry Nutkins

Is this chap also the wrong side of the fence?

Actually I've discovered the truth about this, it's actually a Heljan O gauge Class 22, it's still at pre-production hence the missing doors (which will open not be open on the model). Unfortunately it has the Tubby Duff syndrome but the guys at Bressingham are hopeful that Heljan will listen to reason and re-work the CADs

Looks like they have also used the secret shrinking ray to be able to store them in car garages. No wonder it was so difficult to find the reserve, we were looking in old railway tunnels when the MOD had shrunk them and put them into lockups.

And my plan is to get some really cheap coal and fire her up at the MHR by the side of the side of that guy's house in Alresford who's been complaining about all the smoke.

From the same seller! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/L-K-GOOD-SIDING-BURNT-OUT-COACH-/270803099674?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item3f0d1f601a

 

Just check out his other weathered c**p!

Kak by name........

Sorry, some UAV's are being used as strike aircraft, but the majority are being used for intelligence purposes.

 

The Air Combat side of things is still the domain of the manned fighter aircraft, and I think will stay like that for some time to come

Manned aircraft still make up the majority but armed drones have been around since the Balkans and are becoming ever more useful, look up the MQ9 Reaper - it drops all sorts and is also armed with air to air missiles. The US and British Airforces operate armed Reapers as do the CIA - hours of loiter to wait for that elusive terrorist and no worry about captured pilots should an airframe fail or get shot down.

Actually, 6th generation fighter aircraft have not been even designed, the current UAV's (unmanned Aerial Vehicle) are only for intelligence purposes. The British, in fact the whole of europe, is yet to develop a 5th generation aircraft.

Current UAVs are nothing special, we don't/won't know what else has been developed in America for some time as they will be black projects, but here is a taster of what the British are looking at:

http://www.baesystems.com/Taranis/

Some American words on the topic:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/20071026.aspx

http://www.slashgear.com/the-air-force-is-aiming-for-pilot-less-next-generation-fighter-planes-08112911/

The pilotless drones are developing fast, I can see why Europe wouldn't want the expense of developing a proper 5th generation fighter because by the time it took to the skies it would be out of date.

As an example of why we wouldn't know about technologies being developed - the F117 Stealth Fighter was conceived in 1975, first flew in 1981, went operational in 1983 but only became public knowledge in 1988 - 13 years after the project was conceived, there could be weapons being tested in Afghanistan that we won't see for years.