Settle-Carlisle as solution to Northern WCML capacity problems

[yorksrob]

It really depends whether you've got to (say) wait for an hour and three quarters for an already full (diverted) train on which you will stand for over two hours travelling through the darkness as opposed to hopping on a fast coach via the M6 in a few minutes.

Do you ever travel by bus? Even being of an age where I have an English bus pass I really don't find it a "major inconvenience". Before these COVID times I made loads of combined rail and bus trips to all sorts of places. And I've been very thankful for scheduled buses getting me out of various train 'strandings' during strikes and disruptions, quite apart from occasional RRBs.

I've been on rail replacement bus services before, some of which have been standing room only. At least the train would have had bogs, whereas on one of the RRB's, we got to the station, only to be told that the bogs had closed.

I find buses unreliable. When the railway (which I love) is making a shambolic fiasco of itself (which is far too often, and at present) I usually get another rail route.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

What we need is a set of generator cars which enable the pendolini to use their motors. Fitted with auto couplers. Rather than diesels dragging all that weight. Of course impossible to justify for a few Sundays. The engine would have to be pretty beefy too.

The power requirement for an 11 car Pendolino is 6MW, just a little less than 4 HST power cars. The original specification was 6.7MW for a 9 car unit at 140mph, thankfully that didn't quite come to pass.

The idea of a generator vehicle for electric rolling stock keeps coming up in various discussions, so time to try and put it to sleep once and for all. Talgo do a generator vehicle which fits inside of the AC locomotive on their high speed trainsets, that works because it's a semi-permanent part of the configuration of the trainset and can make use of the existing traction bus. It's the same with the power car in the Stadler bi-mode units.

If you were to try and make a generator vehicle for the Pendolino stock (and ignoring the issues about dragging it at the rear of the consist and shunting it around so it remains at the rear of the consist for a return journey) you will encounter some massive issues.

If the generator vehicle produces 6MW at 25kV to connect into the existing 25kV bus on the Pendolino, you'll need a transformer to take the alternator output and transform it to 25kV AC, then a lengthy and large jumper cable to connect your generator vehicle to the Pendolino - we use 61mm or 66.7mm diameter cable for ATF feeds where we can't mount unscreened wire on a mast. 6.5kg to 10kg per metre. The alternative is to have your generator vehicle produce 6MW at 1000V DC (that's the output from the traction transformers) which then feeds the Onix traction motors on the Pendolino. The downside with trying to feed 6MW at 1000V DC is you'll need cable capable of withstanding 6000 Amps.

 

[alistairlees]

If talking trains per hour in a standard hour London-Edinburgh represents 40% of LNER's business (as a whole service).

Meanwhile London-Glasgow is about 11% of Avanti's.

LNER have "more to lose" by not diverting as a portion of their whole business.

If I were a passenger travelling from London to Glasgow this would be irrelevant to me. See what I mean about lack of customer focus?

 

[Ianno87]

If I were a passenger travelling from London to Glasgow this would be irrelevant to me. See what I mean about lack of customer focus?

Avanti would be focused on the 89% of customers not doing London-Glasgow.

With finite resources, it is simply not possible to fully please everybody.

 

[alistairlees]

Avanti would be focused on the 89% of customers not doing London-Glasgow.

With finite resources, it is simply not possible to fully please everybody.

It’s absolute numbers that are important; not percentages. Customers are actually absolute numbers.

 

[Ianno87]

It’s absolute numbers that are important; not percentages. Customers are actually absolute numbers.

In which case, the number of passengers travelling London/North West to Carlisle or Glasgow is a small proportion compared to the rest of Avanti's network.

And those travellers would be put off by a 2 hour journey time extension almost as much as they would be put off by an RRB.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

In which case, the number of passengers travelling London/North West to Carlisle or Glasgow is a small proportion compared to the rest of Avanti's network.

And those travellers would be put off by a 2 hour journey time extension almost as much as they would be put off by an RRB.

If you're doing London to Glasgow during engineering works, surely common sense will dictate you don't buy an Avanti only ticket, and that you head to Kings Cross for an LNER service to either Glasgow Central, or to Edinburgh where one can connect with a variety of ScotRail services which may take you closer to your eventual destination, such as a North Clyde Line service.

 

[BayPaul]

If you're doing London to Glasgow during engineering works, surely common sense will dictate you don't buy an Avanti only ticket, and that you head to Kings Cross for an LNER service to either Glasgow Central, or to Edinburgh where one can connect with a variety of ScotRail services which may take you closer to your eventual destination, such as a North Clyde Line service.

Exactly! I don't get the issue with this one. There are non-bus options for just about every major possible flow - ECML London - Edinburgh, XC from Birmingham, TPE from Liverpool and Manchester, or even LNER to Leeds and then take the regular S&C service to Carlisle for all those who are desperate to take that route. Why do we need to have insanely complex ways to send a Pendolino that way?

 

[tbtc]

So it's a minor inconvenience for passengers to Chester to have to change, but a major inconvenience for passengers to Glasgow to need to do so

Agreed - a big flaw in the "we mustn't inconvenience passengers by making them change" argument (i.e. people are perfectly happy to inconvenience *other* passengers, just as long as they get a nice scenic jaunt on rare tracks)

in the previous culls

You keep hyping up the idea that lines are going to be permanently closed - I don't think it helps your overall cause.

Just because nobody is ever going to justify electrifying the S&C and it's not always possible to maintain direct services during disruption, I don't think that equates to sounding the death knell for a double track line that does at least manage a Sprinter every couple of hours

Going via the S&C from Preston to Carlisle (for example) would add around 1.5 to 2 hours to journey times - depending on how it was resourced / what stick was used

So, bearing in mind that there are two Avanti services per hour to Scotland and one TPE service, that would need a dozen additional trains to maintain the current frequency - even if you could find locos to "drag" them (or swapped services around so that Avanti/TPE use self-powered trains).

Where does the additional twelve units come from?

And, if you are going to swap stock around so that TPE run 185s on their WCML service and Avanti run 805s, what is going to provide the services that the 185/805s will be running?

Is the plan that we inconvenience passengers doing journeys like Manchester - Sheffield - Cleethorpes or Holyhead - Chester - London so that we can have some service (at reduced capacity and probably reduced frequency) from Preston to Glasgow? How many passengers further south are worth inconveniencing so that others can take a slow diversion up the S&C (rather than a fast coach up the M6)?

Avanti would be focused on the 89% of customers not doing London-Glasgow.

With finite resources, it is simply not possible to fully please everybody.

It’s absolute numbers that are important; not percentages. Customers are actually absolute numbers.

Customers may be "absolute numbers", but the customers doing journeys like Liverpool/ Manchester/ Birmingham - London significantly outweigh those travelling north of Preston.

And if you have about seventy nine (once the 805/807s replace the Voyagers?) then there's not a lot of slack to find eight additional trains to run two services per hour via Settle.

Worth bearing in mind that the 390 fleet is used so intensively that there's a diagram that does something crazy like Liverpool - London - Glasgow - London - Manchester (IIRC?) - it's a very tightly diagrammed TOC - I know some people want to see eleven coach trains on the S&C but there's really not the spare resource (and, in the grand scheme of things, it'd be a real luxury for a heavily subsidised railway to have dozens of carriages sat idle just in case they come in handy at times like this).

If you're doing London to Glasgow during engineering works, surely common sense will dictate you don't buy an Avanti only ticket, and that you head to Kings Cross for an LNER service to either Glasgow Central, or to Edinburgh where one can connect with a variety of ScotRail services which may take you closer to your eventual destination, such as a North Clyde Line service.

Agreed - much faster than a long diversion through Settle

Exactly! I don't get the issue with this one. There are non-bus options for just about every major possible flow - ECML London - Edinburgh, XC from Birmingham, TPE from Liverpool and Manchester, or even LNER to Leeds and then take the regular S&C service to Carlisle for all those who are desperate to take that route. Why do we need to have insanely complex ways to send a Pendolino that way?

...because people have started at their desired solution ("eleven coach trains running over RIbblehead") and worked backwards to try to come up with a very complicated way of justifying it (even if it inconveniences significant numbers of people elsewhere in the country).

 

[HSTEd]

It's important for Yorkshirians to get to the North and West. There are enough of us.

Really it only really provides a direct service for people from West Yorkshire to North and West.

Since the other Yorkshires have to change anyway, the S&C has little to recommend it to the other existing routes.
And if you are going to Scotland the ECML routes thrash you anyway.

So its to allow people in the vicinity of Leeds to go to the Vicinity of Carlisle - thats about it.

EDIT:

Does anyone happen to know the size of the physical bore at Blea Moor?
The entrance arch way looks quite "peaked" in the middle, but anyone got actual dimensions?

 

[HSP 2]

I thought that this thread was to do with using the S & C as a way of reducing some of the load on the WCML. Not about how to get from London via the ECML.
You have three routs to get to Scotland and retune one that takes approx 70 miles, one that takes approx 85 miles and one that takes approx 115 miles.
I'll let you work them out.
There is no reason for any of them not to be used as a diversion. All of them are clear for C3 coaches.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

There's also the issue of Avanti soon ceasing to have 20 diesel units, and instead having just their 13 new bi-mode units which can work the S&C (without loco haulage).

I honestly don't know if electrification of the S&C would make an enormous benefit either, it would likely need the InterCity West Coast franchise to serve Leeds on some sort of Anglo-Scottish service (Leeds-Settle-Carlisle-Glasgow) to ensure there's the level of route knowledge needed for the line to work as a proper diversionary route.

I don't see what a Leeds to Glasgow via the S&C service brings to the party though, given there's already a good XC Leeds to Glasgow service which manages to also serve York, Durham, Newcastle, Berwick, Edinburgh and Motherwell.

 

[Leyther]

Several freight trains currently go off the west coast main line via the settle and Carlisle line.
There's a regular mountsorrel Carlisle service.
The Carlisle chirk is route by either west coast or settle Carlisle.
Also a Carlisle crewe operated by DRS

(The chirk one doesn't seem to have operated recently.
Class 70's have been on the mountsorrel's going off the fast line through Leyland northbound recently).

These are daytime services.

As for space to slot in a grade separated junction at
Farrington junction
My gut feeling is it would be extremely tight to get through Fowler lane. The A582. A housing estate and part of the DAF previously Leyland truck plant.

 

[Peter Kelford]

Massively so, and highly controversial as well (wires across Ribblehead Viaduct). Can't see it ever being viable.

I imagine coasting trains across the viaduct might be a choice?

 

[daodao]

There's also the issue of Avanti soon ceasing to have 20 diesel units, and instead having just their 13 new bi-mode units which can work the S&C (without loco haulage). I honestly don't know if electrification of the S&C would make an enormous benefit either, it would likely need the InterCity West Coast franchise to serve Leeds on some sort of Anglo-Scottish service (Leeds-Settle-Carlisle-Glasgow) to ensure there's the level of route knowledge needed for the line to work as a proper diversionary route. I don't see what a Leeds to Glasgow via the S&C service brings to the party though, given there's already a good XC Leeds to Glasgow service which manages to also serve York, Durham, Newcastle, Berwick, Edinburgh and Motherwell.

Leeds to Glasgow via Carlisle is far more direct. There would be a stronger case for electrifying Skipton-Carnforth via the little NW line, and building a curve to join the WCML going northwards, than electrifying the S&C line. An express electric train service could be run between Leeds and Glasgow via Skipton and Oxenholme and should take less than 4 hours. However, I accept that this route serves few intermediate places of any size, and some intermediate signals/block posts would need to be re-established between Settle Junction and the WCML.

 

[Ianno87]

Leeds to Glasgow via Carlisle is far more direct.

In distance terms, yes. In journey time terms it is near equal to a direct XC via the ECML.

I suspect that the level of demand suppressed by the need to change at Carlisle is tiny.

 

[daodao]

In distance terms, yes. In journey time terms it is near equal to a direct XC via the ECML. I suspect that the level of demand suppressed by the need to change at Carlisle is tiny.

What may suppress demand is the lack of any high quality fast inter-city express service between Leeds and Carlisle. There is just a slow stopping service operated by sprinters.

 

[Ianno87]

What may suppress demand is the lack of any high quality fast inter-city express service between Leeds and Carlisle. There is just a slow stopping service operated by sprinters.

Even so the current "slow stopping service" is competitive journey time wise with a car journey, centre-to-centre.

Not that I'm convinced there's massive demand specifically between Leeds/West Yorkshire and Carlisle needing to be satisfied.

 

[furnessvale]

What we need is a set of generator cars which enable the pendolini to use their motors. Fitted with auto couplers. Rather than diesels dragging all that weight. Of course impossible to justify for a few Sundays. The engine would have to be pretty beefy too.

What is really needed is joined up thinking which would enable freight locos to be coupled to passenger trains as required rather than needing specific thunderbird locos.

We can't even join many different passenger units together in emergency, thanks to the plethora of coupling standards that has been allowed to develop.

 

[daodao]

Even so the current "slow stopping service" is competitive journey time wise with a car journey, centre-to-centre. Not that I'm convinced there's massive demand specifically between Leeds/West Yorkshire and Carlisle needing to be satisfied.

If the Carnforth-Skipton line was electrified and a curve built to link it with the northbound WCML, it should be possible to run an express electric train from Leeds to Glasgow Central in 3.5 hours, calling at Carlisle, Oxenholme and Skipton only. That is faster than anything possible via the roundabout ECML. Glasgow to Lancaster is currently 125 minutes (it would be 5 min less to a junction at Carnforth), and Skipton to Leeds 40 minutes; it should be possible to run fast from the WCML via Bentham to Skipton in 50 minutes.

 

[JonathanH]

If the Carnforth-Skipton line was electrified and a curve built to link it with the northbound WCML, it should be possible to run an express electric train from Leeds to Glasgow Central in 3.5 hours, calling at Carlisle, Oxenholme and Skipton only.

This thread is about capacity on the northern WCML and finding alternatives. Adding another passenger service over the northern WCML doesn't really help with that problem, no matter how much it may seem to support the needs of the people in West Yorkshire to get to Glasgow (and not much else, maybe the Lakes).

 

[Philip Phlopp]

What is really needed is joined up thinking which would enable freight locos to be coupled to passenger trains as required rather than needing specific thunderbird locos.

It really isn't.

Freight locomotives have become specialised freight hauling machines, they have lower top speeds, optimised gearing for heavy slow consists and an absence of the electrical equipment needed to provide an electrical supply to the passenger train. There's only a small number of mixed traffic diesel locomotives that can haul passenger services at any great speed, there's even fewer than can provide the necessary electrical power to heat and light a full length modern InterCity EMU, and provide enough air pressure to release the brakes.

If the Carnforth-Skipton line was electrified and a curve built to link it with the northbound WCML, it should be possible to run an express electric train from Leeds to Glasgow Central in 3.5 hours, calling at Carlisle, Oxenholme and Skipton only. That is faster than anything possible via the roundabout ECML. Glasgow to Lancaster is currently 125 minutes (it would be 5 min less to a junction at Carnforth), and Skipton to Leeds 40 minutes; it should be possible to run fast from the WCML via Bentham to Skipton in 50 minutes.

I mentioned the provision of electrification of the S&C and the subsequent provision of a Leeds-Settle-Carlisle-Glasgow service in the context of providing a more easily used diversionary route and for maintaining route knowledge, not to start a discussion about sending more services onto the WCML and then needing to divert them onto the S&C when parts of the WCML are closed for engineering work.

 

[daodao]

This thread is about capacity on the northern WCML and finding alternatives. Adding another passenger service over the northern WCML doesn't really help with that problem, no matter how much it may seem to support the needs of the people in West Yorkshire to get to Glasgow (and not much else, maybe the Lakes).

Apologies for having gone off topic, but I am not aware of a capacity problem for fast trains on the WCML. Is not the issue the slower freight trains, but are there many of them these days?

 

[Ianno87]

If the Carnforth-Skipton line was electrified and a curve built to link it with the northbound WCML, it should be possible to run an express electric train from Leeds to Glasgow Central in 3.5 hours, calling at Carlisle, Oxenholme and Skipton only. That is faster than anything possible via the roundabout ECML. Glasgow to Lancaster is currently 125 minutes (it would be 5 min less to a junction at Carnforth), and Skipton to Leeds 40 minutes; it should be possible to run fast from the WCML via Bentham to Skipton in 50 minutes.

Which other services into Leeds are you taking out to make that possible? Who loses out?

 

[daodao]

Which other services into Leeds are you taking out to make that possible? Who loses out?

At present, there appear to be 3 direct tph from Leeds to Newcastle; are they all needed?

 

[Philip Phlopp]

I am not aware of a capacity problem for fast trains on the WCML.

Other than the WCML being full and/or needing power supply upgrades to make use of the last remaining drops of capacity ?

 

[Ianno87]

At present, there appear to be 3 direct tph from Leeds to Newcastle; are they all needed?

That doesn't help capacity between Leeds, Armley Jn and Shipley.

 

[edwin_m]

Apologies for having gone off topic, but I am not aware of a capacity problem for fast trains on the WCML. Is not the issue the slower freight trains, but are there many of them these days?

The problem relates to the mix of freight and passenger trains and the speed difference between them. Speeding up the slower freight trains would help, for example by doing those power supply upgrades and incentivizing the freight operators to use electric haulage.

 

[Meerkat]

What are the economics of having electric pilot locos to get freight over the hills, Carnforth to Carlisle/Carstairs? Faster so get more paths and less looping vs going the long way round via S&C?
They could also act as Thunderbirds.
Personally I think the government should be subsidising electric freight provision but that’s another Topic.

 

[furnessvale]

It really isn't.

Freight locomotives have become specialised freight hauling machines, they have lower top speeds, optimised gearing for heavy slow consists and an absence of the electrical equipment needed to provide an electrical supply to the passenger train. There's only a small number of mixed traffic diesel locomotives that can haul passenger services at any great speed, there's even fewer than can provide the necessary electrical power to heat and light a full length modern InterCity EMU, and provide enough air pressure to release the brakes.

That's why I called for joined up thinking. To me, it certainly isn't joined up thinking to turf passengers off trains onto buses as the bedraggled lines of passengers with heavy luggage in the depths of winter will testify.

On specific points, intermodals move at 75mph which is sufficient for most routes and faster than any bus. Yes, HEP would need to be addressed, if needs be, double head. I must express surprise that a loco capable of blowing off the brakes on up to 40 megafrets would struggle with an 11 car EMU.