Settle-Carlisle as solution to Northern WCML capacity problems

[daodao]

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

How come the WCML is full between Oxenholme and Carstairs with only 3 passenger tph?

 

[daodao]

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

If there is insufficient capacity, any remaining diesel stopping passenger services on the S&C line itself could be curtailed to run between Carlisle and Skipton only.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

for example by doing those power supply upgrades and incentivizing the freight operators to use electric haulage.

Currie/Curriehill power supply upgrade isn't a railway issue - can't get a grid connection until 2022.

That only allows a path to go electric, it won't necessarily release additional capacity.

How come the WCML is full between Oxenholme and Carstairs with only 3 passenger tph?

There are paths available between several pairs of isolated points on the WCML, but no way of joining them up in a way that creates a useful through path (technically not actually true, but joining up several of these pairs of paths won't be TPR compliant and risks shredding the timetable on the WCML if anything is delayed by even a few seconds).

 

[Ianno87]

If there is insufficient capacity, any remaining diesel stopping passenger services on the S&C line itself could be curtailed to run between Carlisle and Skipton only.

....and bang goes the tourist market for the S&C.

That, and Leeds-Skipton-Carlisle is a reasonable contender for bi-mode trains.

 

[YorksLad12]

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.

Indeed. Not sure I'd put the words "good" and "XC" in the same sentence, but... back in the day Northern ran Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow, which proves the point that just because you *can* do a thing it doesn't mean that you *should*. It compromises both S&C and WCML routes.

 

[tbtc]

If the S&C was really such an important/busy line then we wouldn't need to subsidise "via Appleby" tickets to provide a cheaper Yorkshire - Scotland journey than going up the ECML.

IF Leeds - Carlisle is such a big market then it's only an extra ten minutes running via Burnley if you get a good connection (or twenty minutes running via Manchester), with the advantage that both of those routes have much larger intermediate places than the S&C). If we found an extra Sprinter and extended some of the Hull - Halifax services through to Preston then there'd be much better connections for journeys from Leeds to Carlisle. But where's the fun in modest improvements like this, when people want to have fun running eleven coach trains over RIbblehead? Carlisle isn't that big a place - it only looks to be of significant size because there's nowhere within thirty miles of it (the thirty thousand people of Dumfries being the closest alternative, I guess)

IF Leeds - Glasgow is such a big market then the existing frequency could be doubled with just one additional Voyager (i.e. extending the current XC services that terminate at Waverley). Or, as above, find a couple of Sprinters to extend the Hull - Halifax service to Preston every hour (which will improve the number of connections for West Yorkshire - Clydeside journeys)

There are already three regular passenger trains per hour from Preston to Scotland (a mixture of Glasgow/ Edinburgh), as well the irregular Liverpool - Glasgow service, so are you going to cut some of these to make room for a Leeds - Glasgow service? Would a Leeds - Glasgow service be Northern 158s or five coach Avanti 805s?

The whole thing is just Solutions In Need Of Problems - but a number of otherwise realistic/cynical posters seem to have a real blind spot when it comes to scenic lines like the S&C, and all logic gets replaced with "let's electrify a hundred miles of lightly used double track railway".

Just think of the opportunity cost (e.g. a hundred miles of double track wiring could mean Leeds - Calder Valley - Manchester, Leeds - Knaresborough and Doncaster/Moorthorpe to Sheffield...) - but where's the fun in that?

 

[edwin_m]

How come the WCML is full between Oxenholme and Carstairs with only 3 passenger tph?

Because, as I've posted several times on here already, there are also several slower freight trains, and the mix of speeds as the passengers catch up the freights is what eats up the capacity. There comes a point when loops don't help much because stopping and restarting the train slows it down even more.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Lancaster can be pretty busy.

True, but given that it tends to be shorter sections that are closed Lancaster might well (depending what's closed) retain Barrow services, and possibly some extras. It is very much the busiest station of the three.

 

[Bletchleyite]

....and bang goes the tourist market for the S&C.

The tourist market from Leeds. Most of the rest of it shows up on coaches at Settle (or DalesRail services from Lancashire), and people know the line as the Settle-Carlisle, the Leeds bit is arbitrary.

 

[yorksrob]

I think it's standard Strawman argument, we must man the barricades and whip up some "resistance" (even if nothing is under threat - look at how hard it is to close a tiny section of unused line at Newhaven or Weymouth) - but I guess you need to try to energise your supporters by pretending that something sacred is being threatened - modern political discourse. Depressing!

Actually, I was responding to the post I've quoted below.

I personally don't think that the Government would be foolish enough to follow such a course of action, however I don't think that it's a straw man argument to point out that there would be political resistance to such a policy.

Post pandemic when the country is skint there will be much interest in how much sparsely used lines are subsidised. If it must be kept have it as a slow goods line only to serve quarries and non revenue earning trains.

 

[yorksrob]

The tourist market from Leeds. Most of the rest of it shows up on coaches at Settle (or DalesRail services from Lancashire), and people know the line as the Settle-Carlisle, the Leeds bit is arbitrary.

There are always lots of people who stay on the train through Skipton.

 

[muddythefish]

Amazing. In the early 1960s there were far less than that S of Preston on the WCML. I remember longish periods of no trains at Skew Bridge during daytime - except summer Saturdays and bank holidays.

You had me worried until I looked at some old log books from those days. I noted 41 movements at Hest Bank during one hour in March 1965, 42 in November of the year and 38 in April 1967. They were the busiest i saw there and could possibly have been because of hold-ups on the line but it certainly was a great place for spotting in those days. The line now seems like a secondary route in comparison

 

[Neptune]

From what I can gather from various opinions on here is that the S&C should be closed. It’s not a sexy fast mainline and serves sparse populations.

I have worked this route for 20 years and the generalisations on who use it is incredible.

Here’s what they provide and are well used in each case:-

Express commuter services at the south end of the route complimenting the stoppers very well.
A tourist route which provides a hell of a lot of trade.
Most if not all stations are a destination for walkers/cyclists.
A quicker and cheaper alternative to the XC service between West Yorkshire and Glasgow with a decent connection at Carlisle.
But most importantly of all better access for those in the remote communities it serves. The roads quickly become blocked up there in the winter.

Most posts on here seem to think a service is all about the start and end destination and don’t care about what happens in between. Cutting it back to Skipton is a popular thing with this route and the Lancaster route on this forum. Why? Do people from Leeds and the Aire Valley not deserve a through service to the North West? Someone intimated that the tourist trade doesn’t exist south of Settle as that’s where ALL the coach parties join/leave. Well I can tell you I’ve taken plenty of coach parties to/from Skipton and even Keighley and on a few occasions Leeds.

In the 20 years I’ve been working it I’ve seen a huge increase in passenger numbers. Huge improvements in infrastructure too. Platform raising, more services, a complete track upgrade (come on Network Rail, raise the line speed, it’s fit for 90mph running now) and improved capacity since the IB signalling was done. The local user groups have worked hard to advertise the line and brought back into use many station buildings for accommodation, business let’s and even a museum.

The potential is there to improve things even more should the line speed be raised to allow more capacity. There also needs to be an upgrade in stock as 2 car 158’s aren’t enough. There is a case for bi-mode to take advantage of the wires for the first 26 miles and pan up in Carlisle station to keep the systems running in the train without polluting Carlisle. Whole scale electrification is a low priority at this time.

In my vast working experience the S&C is so much more than a tourist railway and I find it incredulous that some people seem to think it is and should be closed/curtailed as a result.

 

[Peter Kelford]

Would the straightforwards solution not be making some longer passing loops and (as is done in France on many lines - See voie banalisée and IPCS) offering the opportunity to redirect slower trains onto the 'wrong' line for overtaking?

 

[xotGD]

In addition to journeys to Glasgow, the S&C also offers an alternative route to Edinburgh and beyond for passengers in Airedale. I've gone that way on a work trip and it was just as quick and cheaper than via Leeds.

 

[edwin_m]

Would the straightforwards solution not be making some longer passing loops and (as is done in France on many lines - See voie banalisée and IPCS) offering the opportunity to redirect slower trains onto the 'wrong' line for overtaking?

Some longer loops have been laid already or are planned, but as I posted above they become less useful because stopping and re-starting it make the freight train slower still, so more likely it will have to go into another loop later in its journey. This is even worse for loops on ascending gradients like Shap. On much of the northern WCML it would be very difficult to make what are effectively four-track sections due to the nature of the countryside and much of it being protected. If contemplating construction on that scale it's probably better to start considering high speed bypasses of the slower parts of the route, which will immediately achieve a small time saving for the HS-compatible trains and might ultimately be joined into longer sections with bigger savings. Freight and stopping passenger can remain on the old route to serve any intermediate stations thus bypassed.

The length of track needed for a train running at 110mph to overtake one running at 75mph, including creating enough spacing to avoid either train seeing adverse signals, is at least seven miles. If applied to a simple double track this would need a gap of well over 10min in the trains approaching in the opposite direction, occurring at exactly the right time. Timetabling this would be very complex and introducing that sort of dependency between trains is liable to make the timetable very fragile, with delays in one direction knocking on to the other one like they do on a single line. In France (and certainly in North America where this is also common) the traffic density is lower and I would guess a lot of the "wrong direction" running is down to engineering closures rather than overtaking.

 

[Ianno87]

Some longer loops have been laid already or are planned, but as I posted above they become less useful because stopping and re-starting it make the freight train slower still, so more likely it will have to go into another loop later in its journey. This is even worse for loops on ascending gradients like Shap. On much of the northern WCML it would be very difficult to make what are effectively four-track sections due to the nature of the countryside and much of it being protected. If contemplating construction on that scale it's probably better to start considering high speed bypasses of the slower parts of the route, which will immediately achieve a small time saving for the HS-compatible trains and might ultimately be joined into longer sections with bigger savings. Freight and stopping passenger can remain on the old route to serve any intermediate stations thus bypassed.

The length of track needed for a train running at 110mph to overtake one running at 75mph, including creating enough spacing to avoid either train seeing adverse signals, is at least seven miles. If applied to a simple double track this would need a gap of well over 10min in the trains approaching in the opposite direction, occurring at exactly the right time. Timetabling this would be very complex and introducing that sort of dependency between trains is liable to make the timetable very fragile, with delays in one direction knocking on to the other one like they do on a single line. In France (and certainly in North America where this is also common) the traffic density is lower and I would guess a lot of the "wrong direction" running is down to engineering closures rather than overtaking.

Very eloquently put.

I agree that the (very) long term solution for Shap / Beattock will be a "Gotthard Base Tunnel"-style cutoff for the most severely graded sections. Many, many years away, of course.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Very eloquently put.

I agree that the (very) long term solution for Shap / Beattock will be a "Gotthard Base Tunnel"-style cutoff for the most severely graded sections. Many, many years away, of course.

That and lengthening the existing trains. 11 car Pendolinos are of course pretty much maxed out already, but the 9-cars could be used elsewhere, and 5-car 397s are a waste of capacity if the line is getting full - they should in that case at least portion work the Liverpools with the Manchesters, particularly if both are to be hourly long-term.

 

[A0]

That and lengthening the existing trains. 11 car Pendolinos are of course pretty much maxed out already, but the 9-cars could be used elsewhere, and 5-car 397s are a waste of capacity if the line is getting full - they should in that case at least portion work the Liverpools with the Manchesters, particularly if both are to be hourly long-term.

Splitting units is a PITA - you'll be creating *far* more problems than you solve.

You can start by reflecting on the fact that the journey time to Manchester Airport from Preston (where you'd have to split / join) is 10 mins longer than to Liverpool Lime Street.

If you're looking to retain the destinations of both Edinburgh and Glasgow you'd be introducing splitting at Lockerbie.

When LM split / joined at Northampton they were adding a 10 mins to the journey time to allow the split / join to take place - and that was at Northampton where there was platform capacity and didn't create any blockages.

And if you do that you'll also be consolidating them into a single path - so rather than have 2 tph one from Liverpool one from Manchester serving intermediate stops, you'll end up with one.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Splitting units is a PITA

Pretty much every other European country respectfully disagrees. It's an excellent way of serving destinations that don't justify a full length train. If a line is congested it should not host trains that are not full-length.

 

[The Planner]

Pretty much every other European country respectfully disagrees. It's an excellent way of serving destinations that don't justify a full length train. If a line is congested it should not host trains that are not full-length.

Worked well with WMT if I recall....

 

[Bletchleyite]

Worked well with WMT if I recall....

There are many reasons why the WMT timetable was a disaster, and it wasn't only splitting and joining. There are ways it could have been made reliable, but they wouldn't have achieved WMT's aim which was clearly to put those through services on without using substantial extra crew or units.

If, for example, they had ensured that the diagrams were self-contained, it would have worked better. By that I mean that a unit and crew going from Rugeley to Euston as part of a train from Liverpool, say, would, that day, only ever work between Rugeley and London. If that was the case, if you got to the join point and one unit hadn't made it, you could terminate that unit at New St and keep it there on one of the centre roads until it was due back to Rugeley, then the overall knock-on wouldn't happen, what would happen is that the passengers coming from Rugeley would be delayed 20 minutes to board the next service, and the service would be busy due to being short-formed (though if you kept hot spares at Northampton it could be re-lengthened for the most busy bit) as well as people from Euston having to change (but with no delay) at New St on the way back.

Same with crews - a crew that did the Rugeley-Brum leg, or Liverpool-Brum, or Euston-Tring, or whatever, would do that all day, so again no knock-on.

There was also an issue with them not providing adequate layover at key points.

Yes, if you have a bad timetable splitting and joining will make it worse, but saying that splitting and joining was the cause of the WMT problems is oversimplistic. My view would be that inadequate layovers on very long routes was the primary cause. If they'd all had half an hour at Euston, 20 minutes at New St (as, at least pre-COVID, was going to actually happen) and half an hour at Liverpool/Rugeley, I reckon it would have worked fine.

The problem wasn't doing what they did - it was doing it on the cheap. And TPE would be no different.

 

[Ken H]

people say the S&C is slow - too slow for diversions.
It was laid out as a main line, so should support higher speeds.
70 or even 80 would help. For diversions and the leeds-carlisle service.
or is that another thread?

 

[A0]

There are many reasons why the WMT timetable was a disaster, and it wasn't only splitting and joining. There are ways it could have been made reliable, but they wouldn't have achieved WMT's aim which was clearly to put those through services on without using substantial extra crew or units.

If, for example, they had ensured that the diagrams were self-contained, it would have worked better. By that I mean that a unit and crew going from Rugeley to Euston as part of a train from Liverpool, say, would, that day, only ever work between Rugeley and London. If that was the case, if you got to the join point and one unit hadn't made it, you could terminate that unit at New St and keep it there on one of the centre roads until it was due back to Rugeley, then the overall knock-on wouldn't happen, what would happen is that the passengers coming from Rugeley would be delayed 20 minutes to board the next service, and the service would be busy due to being short-formed (though if you kept hot spares at Northampton it could be re-lengthened for the most busy bit) as well as people from Euston having to change (but with no delay) at New St on the way back.

Same with crews - a crew that did the Rugeley-Brum leg, or Liverpool-Brum, or Euston-Tring, or whatever, would do that all day, so again no knock-on.

There was also an issue with them not providing adequate layover at key points.

Yes, if you have a bad timetable splitting and joining will make it worse, but saying that splitting and joining was the cause of the WMT problems is oversimplistic. My view would be that inadequate layovers on very long routes was the primary cause. If they'd all had half an hour at Euston, 20 minutes at New St (as, at least pre-COVID, was going to actually happen) and half an hour at Liverpool/Rugeley, I reckon it would have worked fine.

The problem wasn't doing what they did - it was doing it on the cheap. And TPE would be no different.

I'm sure there are a multitude of reasons why WMT didn't do what you suggested - not all of which would have been cost.

If you know the answers, why don't you go and work for them - because clearly you know more than the people who actually do these things as their day job....... and I'm sure posters like @The Planner will be delighted to know that such people exist....

 

[class26]

people say the S&C is slow - too slow for diversions.
It was laid out as a main line, so should support higher speeds.
70 or even 80 would help. For diversions and the leeds-carlisle service.
or is that another thread?

A driver on the line up thread says it is suitable for 90 mph now and even Network rail have said it is suitable for 75 mph but needs signal re spacing. If suitable for 75 as a blanket speed then for lightweight DMU`s it ought to be ok for 90.

 

[A0]

people say the S&C is slow - too slow for diversions.
It was laid out as a main line, so should support higher speeds.
70 or even 80 would help. For diversions and the leeds-carlisle service.
or is that another thread?

Laid out as a mainline in the 1870s - just because it was laid out as that, doesn't mean it was high speed particularly by today's standards.

Both the ECML and WCML were laid out as mainlines, both have needed significant re-engineering to allow for the 100mph + running of today - curves needed their profiles changing, junctions removing / remodelling etc etc. Even now in 2020 the southern part of the Midland Mainline is slower because of the routes the Midland railway selected in the 1800s - curves such as those at Market Harborough and Wellingborough for example.

Just about the only Victorian line which was laid out as a mainline and was suitable for higher speeds - though other engineering works were done on it - was the GWR mainline - because Brunel had the foresight to build a line as straight as possible.

 

[Neptune]

people say the S&C is slow - too slow for diversions.
It was laid out as a main line, so should support higher speeds.
70 or even 80 would help. For diversions and the leeds-carlisle service.
or is that another thread?

As I mentioned above, the S&C track is good for 90mph according to NR but is still limited to 60mph as the higher linespeed would lead to higher track access charges. The main issue though is the signalling. The resignalling a few years back to include new IB sections is more than fine for the current service levels (especially now that freight is sparse compared to when it was done) but would not be enough for full scale diversions as there are far more local services than when diversions happened previously (1 train every 90mins on average compared to 1 train every 2 hours on average). The S&C service should not be sacrificed for non stop diversions from another route.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

people say the S&C is slow - too slow for diversions.
It was laid out as a main line, so should support higher speeds.
70 or even 80 would help. For diversions and the leeds-carlisle service.
or is that another thread?

Line speed increases won't equate to journey time decreases on the S&C until there are more passing loops and/or stations gain an additional pair of platforms to allow non stop express services to pass the slow stopping services.

The time penalty for using the S&C is baked in to the line at the moment, it can be engineered out of course, but even in doing so, given the lack of electrification/the need for locomotive haulage with attendant time penalties for attaching/detaching and the lack of route knowledge amongst potential users of the S&C, it's never going to be an attractive option for diversions.

 

[Ianno87]

Pretty much every other European country respectfully disagrees. It's an excellent way of serving destinations that don't justify a full length train. If a line is congested it should not host trains that are not full-length.

A particular problem with combining portions at Preston from Liverpool and Manchester is binding particular paths into Central Manchester and into Liverpool with each other to meet a common path north of Preston. Fixing one fixes the other, in perhaps a not very optimal timing.

Splitting/joining works best when the paths are fixed at the common end, but are relatively flexible on the bits of route after the split.

 

[yorksrob]

Laid out as a mainline in the 1870s - just because it was laid out as that, doesn't mean it was high speed particularly by today's standards.

Both the ECML and WCML were laid out as mainlines, both have needed significant re-engineering to allow for the 100mph + running of today - curves needed their profiles changing, junctions removing / remodelling etc etc. Even now in 2020 the southern part of the Midland Mainline is slower because of the routes the Midland railway selected in the 1800s - curves such as those at Market Harborough and Wellingborough for example.

Just about the only Victorian line which was laid out as a mainline and was suitable for higher speeds - though other engineering works were done on it - was the GWR mainline - because Brunel had the foresight to build a line as straight as possible.

And possibly Redhill - Ashford.