Edwin_m

Pacers and 150-156s don't. Rather surprisingly 700s have tread brakes on some bogies, but I assume can still meet the braking standard required for discs.

However there is or was an open access proposal to use them on London-Swansea, which passes through ceremonial Gloucestershire and the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire.

However, looking at an aerial view I think that to use the footprint of the freight lines without also re-aligning the track over at least one of the bridges either end, they'd actually have to tighten the radius at the extreme ends of the curve. I know they're widening the Queens Road bridge (Victoria end) which is the more severe constraint. Not sure about Oldham Road bridge though.

There were also the trams for Strasbourg and I think the final ones (so far?!) were the Electrostars for South Africa.

I guess we no longer had a railway export industry, just that BREL didn't know it.

Perhaps because the B4 didn't need air suspension, which might have been difficult with said absence of brake piping? What is your reason for thinking it's a mk1? Not questioning, just wondering because the underframe is hardly visible.

I hope while they're at it they re-route the path at C so people following it don't have to swim the river twice...

It wouldn't surprise me to find that Brunel had diverted the river for a short distance (near where it says "Bristol 8" on the left hand map), to avoid having to cross it twice, thereby introducing the bend in question. If you look at the modern OS map the boundary that follows the river in the 1968 map is still on the old course.

I count 24 freight paths through Flitwick, northbound between 0600 and 2000 M-F, so nowhere near four per hour currently. Providing for existing paths is one thing, making provision for new ones that might never be needed is quite another. Discussion on other forums suggests Radlett will never generate a train, as it's on the wrong side of the line and there's no capacity anyway. And the MML has four tracks or alternative routes all the way to Trent so engineering access is less of an issue than elsewhere.

Without going back into what is a rather turgid document, it said something like that the extra tracks were needed to allow for four freight trains per hour on the MML. If EWR converged with the Slows just north of Bedford it would only conflict with those freights plus the southbound stops on the Corby service. I would question whether the prospect of 4TPH freight on the MML in full service hours is realistic. I doubt that many could continue into Thameslink-land, and if they ran to Bletchley the same conflict would exist whether or not they shared tracks on that section. Two or three MML freights per hour would apparently work on existing track, so perhaps this requirement that someone has given them is too onerous?

The big surprise in this consultation is that they propose to add two new tracks east of the existing from Bedford Station to the northern edge of the town, which affects several dozen houses either by demolition or by reducing their gardens.

There's a signal box diagram at the link below, but only from 1960: https://signalbox.org/~SBdiagram.php?id= 205 Is this the one @Stationmaster is referring to? It seems a very close match to what's visible the photo, and as I pointed out above the box shares a couple of peculiarities with the identifiable photo I linked. I think that should be enough to satisfy the jury.

Only if they've been able to get within swiping radius. Usually the cat is off up a tree well before that happens, or if it stands its ground the dog doesn't know what to do.

Went around 1990 I think. There were a couple of searchlights in Nottingham station, installed I presume in the re-signalling around 1969 and survived until the 2013 re-modelling. I presume there was some sighting issue, possibly to do with the footbridge.

This photo shows that Kettering North was wider than usual (in the direction perpendicular to the tracks) and had, I think, the same unusual arrangement of locking room windows - although it shows the other end. https://www.flickr.com/photos/64518788@N05/8022462618/

Sorry no, but I don't think the background would match Harpenden. It has a long straight to the south and while there is a right hand curve to the north as in the picture, if you can see the curve you would probably also see a footbridge. Also, if this was looking north from Harpenden, there would probably be some evidence of the bay platform that was on the west side in MR days. If its track was behind the camera then the signal visible to left would probably be behind the camera too. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/harpenden_central/

Apologies, I missed that subtlety!

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Probably because there were several disused or underused railways that could be linked to form a reasonable network using a fairly small amount of new alignment. There are very few such opportunities in other parts of London.

However they may require more supports on curves, because the wire has to follow the centre of the track within the width of the pantograph head, but a trolley pole can swing out quite a way to the side of the vehicle.

I doubt the double-track bottleneck out of Leeds will be addressed before NPR, if at all. That has been suggested to use part of the HS2 York leg, and a new viaduct could create an independent route from there into the south side platforms at Leeds and on towards Manchester (or to Sheffield via a connection onto the London-Leeds HS2 route). In the meantime, complete electrification of the existing might squeeze out another path an hour, by allowing the stopping service to use higher-performance EMUs that are better at keeping ahead of the following fast.

I think at least one place in Germany has used 2.65m width trams (the normal maximum for standard gauge) on metre gauge track, but I can't remember where. They certainly looked top-heavy on a photo I saw 20-odd years back. It becomes more difficult with low floor trams, which would be the obvious choice for a new tram route. The wheels need to project above floor level, so must be fitted in boxes underneath seats, and with a narrow gauge everything is closer together so it's harder to fit a passenger gangway down the middle.

The track gauge has surprisingly little effect on costs, unless it allows tighter curves, but I think they claimed about 15m radius for standard gauge VLR which is better than most trams. It might allow a narrower vehicle, but that's not really an advantage unless there are some particularly narrow gaps it has to fit through. If you're laying on a poor foundation like dirt or asphalt, a wider gauge is probably better as it distributes the load over a larger area.

There is certainly container traffic doing that, but it had been doing so for some years before the re-modelling and I don't think it's particularly gauge restricted. This link is a structure gauge map showing it as W10 in 2016. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-52e5892653ddf6641dbf340e68006211 Containers need extra space in the top corners of the gauge, so generally more of a problem for arches than for bridges like this one with horizontal beams.

My rather more optimistic view is that although extra vigilance will be needed for new variants, most people will be able to live a fairly normal life most of the time. There are at least two reasons for hope: the same mutations are turning up independently in different places, suggesting that there is a limited number of viable mutations; and what we have learned about vaccination should make it much quicker to tweak the vaccine for new variants. Rather than shortening trains, I think commuter operators should re-launch first class as a lower-density seating option. This would be useful to people who were working part time in offices, quite possibly making their office visits off-peak and working on the train. Prices would be somewhat more than Standard (which I would keep for essential workers who are lower paid and can't do their work on the train) but a similar cost for someone now using it two or three days each week.