woodenhead

Maybe it will also come out in 2mm at the same time if it's a new moulding, not that the existing Farish is that bad.

Seperate cab moulding - does that mean token catcher versions (with/without the equipment) as the side windows differed.

I struggle with N gauge so you must be a masochist to want to model in T. But I think that in order for T gauge to have any future other than as an obscure 'look how small it is' object then points and slow running mechanisms are a must.

Must have been one hell of a failure, the station lights are out and it's blown out all the oil lights in the signals.

Then my next suggestion would be a fibre optic, can't really get thinner than a hair - though many women have tried.

LEDs arranged in a line should provide a look of a white neon light

One could claim you are as closed as you believe we are when it comes to opinions on railways. Just because we have an interest does not mean we don't accept the reality of life, not every railway line was ever needed - duplicate routes occurred not necessarily because of need but because of the fierce rivalry between companies. Woodhead had a primary purpose - the transport of coal from Yorkshire to Lancashire to fuel the industrial revolution, carrying passengers was a side benefit. When it came to electrification it was to move the coal more efficiently, the passenger side was a test of electric services which might have borne fruit had 1500 dc not quickly been overtaken by events. When it came time to prune passenger services and with the loss of the GC routes through Nottingham to London the Woodhead route never had a chance, local politics also had a hand and that was that. By 1981 the equipment was becoming life expired and with a new Conservative government asking for more trimming and who was to say not some fore knowledge of what was to come in 1984 the line was closed and it's remaining traffic diverted. With limited resources in today's climate, why should we believe the line which is almost removed from the landscape, with little raison d'etre and no growing villages/conurbations between the principal cities to serve would be re-laid. I love reading about the line, I enjoy walking and cycling it, I have an interest in railways but I make no apology for applying a sense of realism, it's not 1955 anymore.

The licensee has to be named Wayne Kerr.

Aren't Merseyrail looking to procure replacements for it's 508 fleet, these are based on the same bodyshell design as a 313 so perhaps these could be modified for use under wires. In times of austerity it's a hand-me-down world.

And therein lay DFTs difficulties on stock procurement - more diesels even though really we don't want them or sign off electrification schemes which has extra infrastructure costs over a simple order of diesels. Now that it's been made clear that a rolling programme of electrification is policy then it makes procurement a whole lot simpler, DFT knows what it needs, the builders know what is required and the ROSCOs can take a punt.

What we will see from here is a cascade of electrification across the North East, West and South Yorkshire and onto the MML. As has been picked up a few times, having teams of people available to do the work and trained up it makes sense to keep them employed, it looks like the days of building diesel MU stock might be at an end.

I can agree with that, at least before 1981 if you were crawling behind a lorry you might see a train go by. But in the dark with rain it can only be likened to that scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles where he falls asleep and the two HGVs are coming towards them and they go though the middle.

Despite all the hoo hah about PFI from the Government, it is still the tool of choice I was reading about this only last week and it's frightening how many new PFI schemes had been signed in the past year. The Government has nothing available to spend, it would have to rob Peter to pay Paul - they are attracting long term investments from the private sector - lets face it Europe is in a mess and our railways must look attractive as numbers are still going up so it has to be a safe investment. I think as long the the Government maintains the confidence of the markets it will be able to raise finance which in turn generates jobs which raises tax revenue and so endeth my political slant on this.

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

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

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.

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.

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