Midland Mainline Tilt - Good or Bad idea

[43096]

Thank you for making that clarification, you're spot on. At least someone understands the context of the comment!

Where's the "whoosh" icon on here?

Obviously my comment has gone right over both of your heads - it wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

 

[AndrewE]

No one has said that tilt would be removed, and I very much doubt it will.

I read this

I suspect that once HS2 opens then tilt will be dead in this country,

as saying exactly that.
I agree with Jack Hay. Given that HS2 is mainly London/Manchester/Leeds focussed I very much hope that the Pendolinos or their successors are concentrated on Liverpool and Manc, maybe even Brum to Scotland. There is a big potential market for good services round "the North" if only the London-based powers can bring themselves to alllow investment and ongoing support like the SE gets.

 

[The Planner]

Why would we remove tilt after the investment to put it in? There would be next to no saving in maintenance etc...

 

[AndrewE]

Why would we remove tilt after the investment to put it in? There would be next to no saving in maintenance etc...

But a big saving in rolling stock build and maintenance costs in the longer term if it was abandoned when the Pendolinos are retired, maybe less in infrastructure.

 

[swt class 450]

Just a thought. Should the Midland Mainline follow the West coast mainline by upgrading the whole line to tilt capability be a good idea or a bad idea?

I personally think it would be a bad idea and not really necessary. I really hope the MML does not use tilting trains. Tilting trains are horrible to travel on in my opinion.

 

[43074]

I personally think it would be a bad idea and not really necessary. I really hope the MML does not use tilting trains. Tilting trains are horrible to travel on in my opinion.

It's a curvy route and tilting trains would enable journey times to be cut to the minimum possible, that can only be a good thing. It wouldn't be a 'bad' idea per se, just that it is unlikely to happen anyway.

 

[Chris125]

Why would we remove tilt after the investment to put it in? There would be next to no saving in maintenance etc...

By the time HS2 opens replacements for the 390s will surely be on the cards, and I can't see how another expensive one-off fleet of relatively heavy, complex tilting trains could be justified without the lucrative long distance traffic.

Conventional, lightweight, off-the-shelf 110-125mph EMUs will surely be the way to go.

 

[The Planner]

Still don't see it, just because HS2 is open doesn't mean journey time won't be a factor on the existing network.

 

[Bald Rick]

By the time HS2 opens replacements for the 390s will surely be on the cards, and I can't see how another expensive one-off fleet of relatively heavy, complex tilting trains could be justified without the lucrative long distance traffic.

Conventional, lightweight, off-the-shelf 110-125mph EMUs will surely be the way to go.

They'll still have another 15 years in them when HS2 opens, and the tilt equipment isn't that expensive.

 

[gsnedders]

They'll still have another 15 years in them when HS2 opens, and the tilt equipment isn't that expensive.

The equipment isn't that expensive, but it would likely mean a purpose-built EMU design rather than something "off-the-shelf", which would encompass far more of the expense of replacing them.

 

[The Planner]

Someone will still look at the trade off between the capital expenditure needed for the new fleet vs the cost of any slower journey time. If the slower journey time devalues the franchise in a significant way then the capex will appear.

 

[Bald Rick]

It's simple.

The extra cost of a (smaller than current) fleet of Pendolini v2.0 over a non tilt off the shelf job will be compared to the value of the expected revenue loss from an extra 10-15 mins journey time.

Personally I would expect the tilt to win. It did last time, and that included a whole load of infrastructures that doesn't need to be done again.

 

[43096]

It's simple.

The extra cost of a (smaller than current) fleet of Pendolini v2.0 over a non tilt off the shelf job will be compared to the value of the expected revenue loss from an extra 10-15 mins journey time.

Personally I would expect the tilt to win. It did last time, and that included a whole load of infrastructures that doesn't need to be done again.

But last time there wasn't a brand new high speed railway serving similar destinations.

It's a very different scenario when the 390s are retired.

 

[HH]

But last time there wasn't a brand new high speed railway serving similar destinations.

It's a very different scenario when the 390s are retired.

And it cost rather more than they estimated. And was delivered much later. What was the actual BCR?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Still don't see it, just because HS2 is open doesn't mean journey time won't be a factor on the existing network.

Would the problem be that, once HS2 opens, the WCML north of Crewe will be shared between the existing Pendolinos (coming up from London via Milton Keynes) and the new HS2 trains. The new HS2 trains won't be tilt-capable, and I would assume that means they'll have to run at the lower non-tilting speeds north of Crewe. I would also infer that would make it difficult for the Pendolinos to run at tilting speeds because, without careful timetabling, they'd just catch up the HS2 trains. (Of course, the tracks are already shared with non-tilting TPE trains north of Preston, but it's presumably not so much of a problem because frequencies aren't too great. But I'd expect HS2 will bring more frequent services, as the HS2 trains get added to all the existing trains, so then pathing trains at different speeds may become more problematic).

(Obviously, no problem with tilting continuing to be used south of Crewe, although if - as I'd expect - most Virgin trains stop at more places after HS2 opens, the time saving would be less than at present)