Railway electrification

Fri 24 Jul 2009, 09:42

The Oxford resignalling keeps slipping - the last I heard was 2016 when Oxford box will go & the signalling will be tied back to the new Didcot superbox.

The Super-Expresses (whether electric or diesel) are meant to have in-cab signalling, so there'll need to be a complete resignalling exercise done at some stage. As part of the redoubling, the Cotswold Line signalling is being moved into Didcot box, and the boxes along the line closed.

There will still be need for diesel trains after electrification - two engines mean twice the engine weight being carried by any hybrid. I suspect that the electric super-expresses will be built - they'll be needed for Oxford / Bristol / Wales trains. Whether they biuold the diesel versions immediately, or keep some HSTs running is the moot point....the latter I reckon - which can be used for West of England and Cotswold services. There will be very little gained for running under wires to Reading & then needing a diesel engine all the way to Cornwall.....

Of course, the rest of the West of England would follow, certainly to Plymouth. Beyond there may be become a branch line though, because demand beyond Plymouth quickly tails off....maybe attaching diesel locos to the front?...it really is too early to do more than guess.

The turbos aren't claimed for the Bristol area by any means - that decision remains untaken & is for the DfT to make. THe guage to which the Turbos were built may only exisat in the Thames Valley area. I've asked the question of FGW engineering whether they could work elsewhere on the network.

It may be that Liverpool - Manchester gets electrified first, in which case there would be class 158s available - and they are held by another First TOC.....

There really are just too many variables to be sure about anything - and a likely change in Government within 12 months could see all these developments change then too.....

Thu 23 Jul 2009, 14:43

Only one for it ,BRING BACK THE STEAM TRAINS .They were the days .

Thu 23 Jul 2009, 13:00

The consensus among railway analysts appears to be that the "bi-mode" (i.e. switchable between diesel and electric) train is a bit of a dead duck.

For Great Western, it's needed for the Devon/Cornwall services, the Cotswold Line, and the South Cotswolds (Kemble/Cheltenham/Gloucester). The analysts, principally a very erudite chap called Roger Ford, have worked out that a 10-car bi-mode train simply can't keep to the time of an existing HST. So for the principal use, which is Devon/Cornwall, you're getting a slower, vastly more expensive train just for 30 miles (London-Reading) of electric running. That doesn't make any sense.

I'd personally expect that we'll keep HSTs for a few years more, then when/if the Midland Main Line is electrified, we'll get their cast-off Meridians (which are much like the CrossCountry Voyagers that pass through Oxford, but more comfortable). But I'm no expert!

The Turbos are already claimed for Bristol/South-West local services, I believe, freeing up Sprinters to be used in the North (Turbos are supposedly too wide to go anywhere except the Great Western).

Thu 23 Jul 2009, 12:21

Does anyone have an informed view about these potential - well, let's call them complications?

1. As I understand it, we don't get two lines eastward till the signalling at Wolvercote gets rewired. Is London-Oxford electrification liable to delay this?

2. GWR is going to operate trains here with a diesel/electric hybrid. In today's Times, Lord Adonis - terrifyingly - says such a train is "under development". Which is usually code for "not likely to be ready in your lifetime if you're over 40" Any guessing how long this is likely to take? And what'll GWR do if there's no hybrid when the power gets switched on? Put those back-breaking turbos you can't work on onto ALL Cotswold routes?

3. Once they've got the hybrid, is it going to lead to more operating delays? Today, they can use any old train ("old" being the operating word here) if things go wrong. Is "wrong sort of train" going to take over from "wrong sort of rain"?