Christopher125

It would be more flexible if it had junctions with "classic" lines more often, if it was signalled so that "classic" trains could use it as a diversionary route and if, instead of being designed for ultra-high speed (totally unnecessary in a country the size of England), the money was spent making it four tracks so it could have stations in the home counties and further north so that those areas of the country left devoid of trains by Dr Beeching, and having to put up with the disruption, could be served by the railway which their taxes are helping to build.

A major reason for building HS2 with an alignment suitable for high speeds is that a single pair of tracks between London and Birmingham can provide competitive journey times to both the North West *and* North East despite the extra distance - helping free up the southern WCML and ECML of much of the non-stop long distance traffic.

Just building another conventional four track mainline for a significantly greater cost without the intermediate population of the existing routes makes no logical sense to me.

I cannot understand the blind loyalty shown towards the current design of HS2 by some on this forum. I can only recall one concession to what will otherwise apparently be a perfect railway - i.e. that there should be the ability to run trains from the Birmingham branch into New Street, so that The Black Country and beyond can be served by express trains to London. Exactly the same arguments apply to the non-standard, isolated nature of HS2 as applied to the non-standard, isolated broad gauge lines of Mr Brunel.

I see no 'blind loyalty', just an understanding of what's actually being proposed - HS2 can hardly be described as isolated when connections at Handsacre, Crewe, Golbourne and Church Fenton have always been in the plans with another south of Chesterfield planned for Sheffield services and more expected as part of HS3/NPR.

A connection at Birmingham was never likely given the obvious capacity and platform length constraints at Birmingham New Street and the potential to import delays from this notorious bottleneck onto HS2.

Does anyone know anything more about the uncompleted branch off the Paddington main line line which looks like it could be the basis of an interesting "might have been" urban branch.

Isn't this the 'Latimer Road and Acton Railway'? I was fascinated by this a few years back, even looking for remnants in old aerial photos (with limited success IIRC).

There are  some photos on Flickr which should help:

Reading Platform 15 has Overheads by dan warman, on Flickr

Reading Platforms 13 + 14 has Wires by dan warman, on Flickr

First Great Western 43147 by Ajax46., on Flickr

Mayfield itself is expected to be flattened and re-developed.

The plans are still being developed but complete demolition appears unlikely - at the City Council meeting to confirm the development partner, retention was cited as a key element of the successful bidders proposed approach:

"A high value given to retaining existing heritage assets. The retention of the former Mayfield Depot building is the primary concept, in order to create a distinctive sense of place. However, this would need to be agreed with Network Rail as the main part of the depot is currently identified as a required compound site for the Northern Hub works at Piccadilly"

You can get an idea of the current thinking from the images on the Skyscrapercity thread.

I see a 'Driver's Eye View' has been uploaded of the reopened line between Bicester Village and Oxford which should help illustrate the infrastructure provided, well worth a watch:

Isn't the present plan that the only new intermediate station will be Winslow? If so, only journeys to/from that and/or either end of the route (e.g MK to Bicester) would stand any chance of taking cars off the road.

I believe passive provision is being made for a station at Steeple Claydon

http://www.eastwestrail.org.uk/proposed-station-at-steeple-claydon/

The "top dogs" jumping ship ......Mmmmm?

Not really, Kirby was headhunted and IIRC this is consistent with what Higgins said he would do - with the Lords publishing their report, Royal Assent just weeks away, construction proper starting later this year and the route for Phase 2 finally nailed down the nature of the job is changing from planning to delivery and so it's an appropriate time to look for a successor.

I think the beef the residents had over the lack of 'quiet track' was that the Council had granted planning permission or suchlike (although whats it really go to do with them ?) to NR on the basis that dampened track (rubber cushioned ?) was used through Wolvercote. NR then said they weren't going to use the quiet track anymore as it was too expensive and wouldn't help with the noise much anyway, and the Council did nothing.

IIRC they only committed to fitting the 'silent track' technology if they concluded it was value for money, which they concluded it didn't.

Have you seen some of the road bridges?

OHE would add a heck of an amount to the cost and it's inclusion would probable have been enough to kill the scheme completely.

Bernard

It should be noted that Bicester-Oxford was a Chiltern Railways scheme, long before East-West Rail was funded and there was any expectation of electrification.

However the DfT did later fund 'future proofing', with double track throughout rather than dynamic loops and electrification/freight clearances through the tunnel at Wolvercote - while there was no prospect of the wires themselves going up at this stage I don't see any reason to think that passive provision hasn't been made.

An interesting video this, showing the 387 drag including the coupling procedure at Paddington.

According to The Sunday Times today, HS2 will have to be built with low platforms. Interesting times ahead.

This was brought up at the Transport Select Committee hearing with David Higgins and IIRC they are applying for a derogation, as I think has been reported before. 

Found this thread after I had become curious about what's going on near Wolvercot(e) following a visit to family there at the weekend (I also took a trip along the newly opened Parkway-Oxford section).

 

On Sunday they had the down line (ie the main one) up and seemed to be relaying it - this somewhat to the north of Wolvercote. The down loop has a chunk missing from it (roughly opposite Wolvercote green where the pub is) and I was wondering why. I was also wondering why it was laid with a gap between it and the other 3 lines, but reading this thread it seems that's just because what the old alignment was (for unknown reasons)?

Oxford North Junction is currently incomplete, IIRC the final track layout is awaiting the resignalling when everything will be connected up.

Some interesting points being made in this topic. I hadn't realised that Sheffield was to be served by a spur; I would have thought running the main HS2 line through Sheffield wouldn't be impossible, given that the Midland approach from the south was at one quadruple track but is now only double, and that the area alongside the Midland immediately north of Sheffield is not exactly salubrious !

A route through Sheffield isn't impossible, but a balance has to be found between benefiting one area at the expense of others and doing so affordably - an east-west alignment may be attractive to Sheffield but it doesn't justify the extended journey time for through passengers, aside from the practical issues of a suitable, affordable route that wouldn't compromise existing railway capacity. 

A 'South Yorkshire Station Options report' was published back in July which may interest you:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/536075/South_Yorkshire_Station_Options_Report_07072016.pdf

That £27m comes from the recommendations of the National Infrastructure Commissions interim report into the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, which also addresses East West Rail.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/569867/Cambridge-Milton_Keynes-Oxford_interim_report.pdf

The bodge is in the DfT insisting on underfloor engines, not in the implementation of them.

I don't recall them 'insisting', Hitachi settled on it as the best solution - a very sensible decision, given continuing passenger growth and the relative simplicity by which the GWR sets can all be turned out as bi-modes to cope with electrification delays.

It should be noted that construction proper won't begin on Brierley Hill-Wednesbury until 2021.

There's much more detail of the metro extensions in the (large pdf) document for the October meeting of the WMCA's transport delivery committee

Roger Ford mentions the legal challenge in his latest Informed Sources e-preview

Informed Sources were confident quite early in the bidding for the East Anglia franchise that Stadler was nailed down as the supplier of the electro-diesel regional multiple units, plus the long distance Stansted/Norwich EMUs. But with the suburban EMUs views were divided between Siemens and Bombardier.

When the contracts were announced Bombardier had turned out to be the winner. Siemens seemed genuinely shocked at the result and could only assume that Bombardier had snatched success with a killer Best & Final Offer.

But then  the recently appointed  Transport Secretary chose to announce the franchise award at Bombardier’s Litchurch Lane works at Derby, rather, than, say, Norwich.  To rub it in further the DfT press release headline read ‘Enhanced services and faster trains across East Anglia franchise including new trains from Bombardier’.  

There was also a reference in the release to ‘one of the biggest orders for British-built trains as part of a contract that will secure 1,000 jobs into the next decade’.  Stadler’s contribution was not mentioned.

So if Siemens was already feeling paranoid, the Government was not helping.  And on 25 August the company confirmed that it had issued a legal challenge in the High Court against Abellio’s decision to award the contract to Bombardier.

 According to Siemens’ formal statement, the company has ‘serious concerns about the procurement process’ and has been left with no option ‘but to commence legal proceedings to obtain transparency of how the evaluation of bids has been conducted’.

The Felixstowe container trains are pretty much all going to go via the Bacon Factory curve in future and head across via Ely - Crossrail has seen to that.

In what way? Surely there's not much change between the GEML inners now and under Crossrail, it's the Overground putting the squeeze on freight using the NLL.

Thanks for that.  This is why I used 'allegedly' - as it happens this is the fourth  lot of information I have seen about Crossrail service patterns and the first from a non-Crossrail official source.

Is that a 'non-Crossrail source'? The information in that post comes directly from this TfL consultation

There are a few more videos of these now cropping up on youtube, looking at twitter a few Greenford branch users are understandably a little aggrieved but otherwise it seems to have been well received.

Nice to hear 'GWR' being used by the audio announcer, though the new one does sound a little odd at times.

Today was the first day in passenger use for the GWR 387s, 4 units in a pair of 8-car formations.

Which sort of ignores the fact that already in the peaks there are already 20tph running on the Mains and have been for some years.  If Class the 800s run at higher than 125 mph then the reduction in speed differential secured by the 387s will again open up - thus reducing capacity (or extending journey time between London and reading) and in any case any acceleration above or extension eastwards of the existing 125 mph linespeed will reduce capacity because the HEX units would no no longer match running times from Paddington to Airport Jcn (in fact that could well happen anyway depending on the acceleration rate of the Class 800 on 25kv?).

If you look through the Route Study you'll see that they've identified the potential for up to 24tph on the Mains - one option for semi-fast services is to take advantage of these paths, another would be dynamic loops on the Reliefs for semi-fast Crossrail services.

Remember that it's a strategy document looking decades into the future, any funding decisions would be subject to much more detailed analysis nearer the time when we should have more clarity on the impact of Crossrail, electrification, the future of HEx, how Western Access services are operated etc.

We (and I'm talking what local commuter groups) have already said they certainly don't want toilet-less, uncomfortable, Crossrail sets running Thames Valley services - ideally these inner-suburban trains should have been kept in an inner suburban area and not used on longer journeys.

Whether they want them or not it's already been decided.

And don't forget - as I've already said there are potentially 6 running lines available from Old Oak West inwards and there are already more than 6 from Old Oak Common East.

I'm well aware that room could be found at a cost, but so long as Crossrail operates such an intensive service out to Airport Junction an extra pair of tracks only as far as Old Oak Common would achieve very little. 

And don't forget that further out Crossrail is very much the new arrival and whether or not they have yet sussed it they are inevitably going to have to be the last on the graph in order to produce a workable train service on the Relief Lines and to allow proper use of line capacity when they will be easily outrun by freights.

From what I gather the opposite is true, with Crossrail the driving force behind a new timetable for the GWML from 2019.

Incidentally what appears to be the finalised service pattern for Crossrail can be found on page 8 of their current consultation to designate the core as 'specialised infrastructure'.

No, it won't. So what is clearly needed is a better offering by way of ferries. The catamarans are convenient at Portsmouth (Harbour Station) but inconvenient at Ryde (end of the pier which must be a big part of the railway's costs).

As can be seen below, Ryde Pier is half a mile long for good reason:

Ryde Ferry Terminal Pier - Low Tide by gundust™, on Flickr

It's an expensive bit of infrastructure but that's not unusual for many regional and rural lines - no one is questioning the future of the Cambrian Coast, S&C, Conwy Valley Line despite the huge sums required to keep them open. If Island Line was physically connected to the national network and seen as just another branch people would quite rightly see it as small-beer in the context of the whole network.

There's been a recent development regarding the wording of the ITT; Government yields to protests over Island Line plan

They've ditched the idea of a solution making it 'self-sustaining' for the more realistic and less threatening 'more sustainable'. According to the DfT letter it's all just a 'misunderstanding'...

And you have to remember how close everything is and the geometry of being able to cut across the island Ryde to Yarmouth 20mins compared to Portsmouth to lymington 1hr if you are lucky
 

Woah, 20mins? Nearer 40mins if the roads are quiet, but an hour if your unlucky.

I think you'll find the answer in that document - the Mains will not meet the capacity required so some (slower) trains will have no alternative but to use the Reliefs.

IMO it suggests the exact opposite - they anticipate Crossrail taking over the 2tph 'residual' service and 'all remaining Relief Line capacity east of Old Oak Common' with the potential for more capacity on the Mains.

That extra capacity could be used by semi-fast services running fast to Langley where a grade separated junction would allow them to join the Reliefs; the other option given is a pair of dynamic loops on the Reliefs, with the semi-fasts operated by Crossrail.