Settle-Carlisle as solution to Northern WCML capacity problems

[Ken H]

And possibly Redhill - Ashford.

Great Central?

 

[The Planner]

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.

I am not sure that is the case, there are certainly structure and other issues that means it isn't just a case of raising it. Rolling stock was a problem as they couldn't take advantage of the speed uplifts to the maximum extent and the time savings weren't as high as could be hoped for, especially as you are 1 in 100 from Settle to Blea Moor and don't start downhill until Ais Gill which is again 1 in 100 to around Appleby. The stations from Langwathby to Armathwaite are closer together too so getting benefits there is harder.

 

[Neptune]

I am not sure that is the case, there are certainly structure and other issues that means it isn't just a case of raising it. Rolling stock was a problem as they couldn't take advantage of the speed uplifts to the maximum extent and the time savings weren't as high as could be hoped for, especially as you are 1 in 100 from Settle to Blea Moor and don't start downhill until Ais Gill which is again 1 in 100 to around Appleby. The stations from Langwathby to Armathwaite are closer together too so getting benefits there is harder.

It depends on what train is supplied. A 158 will easily zip up the gradient at linespeed. I remember talking with NR staff when the track relaying was in progress and it was laid to 90mph running quality for future improvements. It would certainly be an improvement if the line speed was at least raised to 75mph.

There are bottlenecks including the 30mph restrictions at Ribblehead (including single line) and Dent and yes some stations are close together which means linespeed cannot be obtained between them (mind you you can’t get to 90mph between Bingley & Crossflatts on the Airedale line stoppers but that doesn’t stop the higher line speed).

I‘m still bemused by the commentators who seem to think it should be closed as it’s a rural backwater without looking at the line as a whole. The potential of this route is phenomenal but needs that commitment from NR and Northern to improve it even further.

 

[edwin_m]

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.

Great Central?

It's arguable whether Brunel's activities were foresight or over-engineering, but true that London-Bristol was one of the few main lines that hasn't "baked in" major speed restrictions or had to have expensive work done to remove them. Routes such as Redhill-Ashford run through pancake-like terrain where building straight was the cheapest way of connecting two places and fortuitously allowed for higher speeds when suitable traction was developed. But other routes were laid out for whatever the designer's view was of what the likely maximum speed of trains would be, with frequent exceptions when that became too expensive or the powers that be changed their mind about where the line was going to go! I suspect later main lines were more prone to this, because there was a better scientific understanding of how fast trains could go round curves so they made the curves suitable for the anticipated speed of around 90mph and no more. Much of the Great Central for example consists of long straights separated by short curves with radius of about 1 mile, which would only be good for that sort of speed.

The northern WCML and the S&C are a bit different because they are mostly in hilly areas where making it straighter would have cost a lot more. Where the terrain allows, as around Preston and Langwathby, they are fairly straight. So there was much more justification at the time to design it only to the limits of the traction available.

 

[The Planner]

It depends on what train is supplied. A 158 will easily zip up the gradient at linespeed. I remember talking with NR staff when the track relaying was in progress and it was laid to 90mph running quality for future improvements. It would certainly be an improvement if the line speed was at least raised to 75mph.

There are bottlenecks including the 30mph restrictions at Ribblehead (including single line) and Dent and yes some stations are close together which means linespeed cannot be obtained between them (mind you you can’t get to 90mph between Bingley & Crossflatts on the Airedale line stoppers but that doesn’t stop the higher line speed).

I‘m still bemused by the commentators who seem to think it should be closed as it’s a rural backwater without looking at the line as a whole. The potential of this route is phenomenal but needs that commitment from NR and Northern to improve it even further.

There isn't the massive amount of time savings to be had that people originally thought though. That is the problem, if it doesn't stack up it doesn't get done.

 

[S&CLER]

I love the S&C, have made many journeys on it since my first on Sunday 11 August 1968, and walked most of the route by nearby paths, but every time I go on it I realise that if it hadn't been built, we wouldn't miss it. If only Parliament had been more sensible back in the 1870s, forced the Midland and LNW to come to terms about the Ingleton route, as they were ready to do, and dismissed the objections from the L&Y. If the Midland had been required to buy Ingleton-Low Gill, the LNW had been sole owner of Lancaster-Low Gill, and the 2 companies had then operated Low Gill to Carlisle as a joint line, their pooled financial resources could have easily paid for a Sharnbrook-style low grade freight line in tunnel under Shap at a fraction of the cost of building the S&C. The savings in coal would have paid for it over the decades. By now we would probably have had an electrified route from Skipton to Low Gill, and Ingleton, Kirkby Lonsdale and Sedbergh would still be rail-served. (The stations at the last two are not as remote from their towns as Kirkby Stephen West.)

 

[yorksrob]

I love the S&C, have made many journeys on it since my first on Sunday 11 August 1968, and walked most of the route by nearby paths, but every time I go on it I realise that if it hadn't been built, we wouldn't miss it.

Only if we'd had the sense not to close the Ingleton route. I'm not sure that that would have been a foregone conclusion !

Would have been an interesting one to travel though !

 

[Senex]

I love the S&C, have made many journeys on it since my first on Sunday 11 August 1968, and walked most of the route by nearby paths, but every time I go on it I realise that if it hadn't been built, we wouldn't miss it. If only Parliament had been more sensible back in the 1870s, forced the Midland and LNW to come to terms about the Ingleton route, as they were ready to do, and dismissed the objections from the L&Y. If the Midland had been required to buy Ingleton-Low Gill, the LNW had been sole owner of Lancaster-Low Gill, and the 2 companies had then operated Low Gill to Carlisle as a joint line, their pooled financial resources could have easily paid for a Sharnbrook-style low grade freight line in tunnel under Shap at a fraction of the cost of building the S&C. The savings in coal would have paid for it over the decades. By now we would probably have had an electrified route from Skipton to Low Gill, and Ingleton, Kirkby Lonsdale and Sedbergh would still be rail-served. (The stations at the last two are not as remote from their towns as Kirkby Stephen West.)

The Midland and the LNW came to an agreement and an abandonment Bill for the S&C was presented to parliament, which threw it out (that's the bit about the opposition of the L&Y and also the GSW). The Lancaster & Carlisle would have become joint. The Midland would have saved £3½ million (including the overspend of something like £1½ million) and the S&C would not have existed. (As for the Lancaster & Carlisle itself, there would have been easier gradients if one of the other options, involving running through Kendal and upo Long Sleddale, had been built back in the 1840s.)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Aug 2020 ==

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.

I don't think you can really argue that the West and East Coast lines were laid out as main line. Both of them are made up of bits and pieces joined together, some of which are pretty bad. The WCML starts off over Stephenson's London & Birmingham line, which was excellently laid out (until mucked up by the deviation at Wolverton and the way Rugby developed). But then you switched at Rugby to the Trent Valley, which was OK till it got to Colwich, at which point it left the originally-surveyed route towards Manchester to take an awkward route to Stafford, where another well-engineered line, the Grand Junction was joined by way of a really bad curve. That took you to Earlestown and a sharp turn right to the L&M, followed by a sharp turn left to get to Wigan and Preston (with the direct line under the L&M as a half-hearted later cut-off). And so the story goes on till you reach the superb Caledonian main line — superb if you were trying to take the originally-planned route to Edinburgh, but with a pretty awful approach to Glasgow (even if rather better than the later one). The ECML is a similar storyof bits and pieces. As for the Midland, Market Harborough suffered by the decision to cut costs by using the LNW line for a mile, Wellingborough was a Hudson bribe, and Kettering the combination of two distinct routes. Brunel had the luxury of being able to build a single line right through from London to Bristol, but it wasn't nicknamed the Great Way Round for nothing! There's a pretty big contrast between the way our system cam about and the way in which, for example, the great French main lines were developed. The German system developed more like ours, but much more was later invested in improving the joints between bits.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

The WCML starts off over Stephenson's London & Birmingham line, which was excellently laid out (until mucked up by the deviation at Wolverton and the way Rugby developed).

Excellently laid out at Berkhamsted?

 

[randyrippley]

Electrify Preston-Carlisle via Clitheroe and the S&C, and also Carlisle-Glasgow via Dumfries and Kilmarnock, re-dualing any singled track. That would then give four electrified tracks between Preston and Glasgow allowing better separation of freight and low speed services away from the WCML expresses.
Electrifying or improving the S&C only works if you consider it and the Dumfries line to be one continuous route.

 

[Ianno87]

Electrify Preston-Carlisle via Clitheroe and the S&C, and also Carlisle-Glasgow via Dumfries and Kilmarnock, re-dualing any singled track. That would then give four electrified tracks between Preston and Glasgow allowing better separation of freight and low speed services away from the WCML expresses.
Electrifying or improving the S&C only works if you consider it and the Dumfries line to be one continuous route.

...what does freight do when it reaches Glasgow? How does it thread its way through Kilmarnock, the single track to Barrhead, around the Larkfield curve, across the Argyle line service at Rutherglen and then via Whifflet into Mossend?

 

[randyrippley]

...what does freight do when it reaches Glasgow? How does it thread its way through Kilmarnock, the single track to Barrhead, around the Larkfield curve, across the Argyle line service at Rutherglen and then via Whifflet into Mossend?

There must be an answer to that: it was seriously suggested in Modern Railways back in the 1980s as something BR were actively considering. If they thought it was feasible then, there must be a way of making it work now

 

[Ianno87]

There must be an answer to that: it was seriously suggested in Modern Railways back in the 1980s as something BR were actively considering. If they thought it was feasible then, there must be a way of making it work now

The railway is a tad busier now than it was in the 1980s..

 

[Senex]

Excellently laid out at Berkhamsted?

Touché — but there weren't many bits like that (and Brunel too wasn't perfect — look at Tilehurst, west of Box tunnel, or Bath). But seriously, the original alignments of the London & Birmingham, the London & Southampton, the London & Brighton, and the London & Bristol were far better than most of what followed for a good many years. There's not much that's as good as those very early lines (and others of the time) until you get to the Settle & Carlisle, which was a line built for speed and competition through very difficult country.

 

[S&CLER]

The Midland and the LNW came to an agreement and an abandonment Bill for the S&C was presented to parliament, which threw it out (that's the bit about the opposition of the L&Y and also the GSW). The Lancaster & Carlisle would have become joint. The Midland would have saved £3½ million (including the overspend of something like £1½ million) and the S&C would not have existed. (As for the Lancaster & Carlisle itself, there would have been easier gradients if one of the other options, involving running through Kendal and upo Long Sleddale, had been built back in the 1840s.)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Aug 2020 ==


I don't think you can really argue that the West and East Coast lines were laid out as main line. Both of them are made up of bits and pieces joined together, some of which are pretty bad. The WCML starts off over Stephenson's London & Birmingham line, which was excellently laid out (until mucked up by the deviation at Wolverton and the way Rugby developed). But then you switched at Rugby to the Trent Valley, which was OK till it got to Colwich, at which point it left the originally-surveyed route towards Manchester to take an awkward route to Stafford, where another well-engineered line, the Grand Junction was joined by way of a really bad curve. That took you to Earlestown and a sharp turn right to the L&M, followed by a sharp turn left to get to Wigan and Preston (with the direct line under the L&M as a half-hearted later cut-off). And so the story goes on till you reach the superb Caledonian main line — superb if you were trying to take the originally-planned route to Edinburgh, but with a pretty awful approach to Glasgow (even if rather better than the later one). The ECML is a similar storyof bits and pieces. As for the Midland, Market Harborough suffered by the decision to cut costs by using the LNW line for a mile, Wellingborough was a Hudson bribe, and Kettering the combination of two distinct routes. Brunel had the luxury of being able to build a single line right through from London to Bristol, but it wasn't nicknamed the Great Way Round for nothing! There's a pretty big contrast between the way our system cam about and the way in which, for example, the great French main lines were developed. The German system developed more like ours, but much more was later invested in improving the joints between bits.

Yes, the idea of a route north from Kendal via Long Sleddale is a fascinating might-have-been, if off topic for this thread. A friend who lives in Skelsmergh near Kendal and is a local historian once took me on a walk up the Sprint valley to Garnett Bridge and Long Sleddale, more or less following the planned route. It would have been easy as far as the head of the valley, about 231 metres above sea level, under Buckbarrow Crag, but would then have required a tunnel for about 2 miles under Gatescarth Pass (590 metres a.s.l.). Emerging from that to run alongside Haweswater (252 metres a.s.l. at Mardale Head) would have been pretty spectacular. On the other hand, I can't be too sorry that Long Sleddale was left unspoiled.

 

[daodao]

Yes, the idea of a route north from Kendal via Long Sleddale is a fascinating might-have-been, if off topic for this thread. A friend who lives in Skelsmergh near Kendal and is a local historian once took me on a walk up the Sprint valley to Garnett Bridge and Long Sleddale, more or less following the planned route. It would have been easy as far as the head of the valley, about 231 metres above sea level, under Buckbarrow Crag, but would then have required a tunnel for about 2 miles under Gatescarth Pass (590 metres a.s.l.). Emerging from that to run alongside Haweswater (252 metres a.s.l. at Mardale Head) would have been pretty spectacular. On the other hand, I can't be too sorry that Long Sleddale was left unspoiled.

Joseph Locke, the principal engineer of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, preferred an "up and over" route rather than a tunnel. The consequence is Shap summit and its adverse effects on train speeds and thus line capacity.

 

[Peter Kelford]

but as I posted above they become less useful because stopping and re-starting it make the freight train slower still

The loops would be designed long enough for a freight to be kept moving whilst in the loop.

I would guess a lot of the "wrong direction" running is down to engineering closures rather than overtaking.

IPCS was designed for regular use, the P in it meaning permanent.

 

[edwin_m]

The loops would be designed long enough for a freight to be kept moving whilst in the loop.

That means they have to be about seven miles long if kept running at full speed, shorter if they slow down.

IPCS was designed for regular use, the P in it meaning permanent.

I'm not disputing that, just trying to point out that on the WCML it would hardly ever be useable as such.

 

[Senex]

Full Bi-Di (i.e. not SIMBIDS) has existed on a long section of the Midland line for more than 30 years, and as far as I know has never been used for regular timetabling purposes — and, as edwin_m says of the WCML, ity's hard to see how it ever could be, given the traffic levels of the regular timetable. However, it has been extremely useful in times of perturbation or planned engineering works. Also, in the years when I was in a position to have a good idea of what was going on, the short section between Leicester and Wigston, where the signallers were free to use the Bi-Di as they saw fit, did get much more use, especially for Birmingham-bound starters from Leicester running "wrong line" to Wigston.
It may also be relevant to say that in considerable experience of rail travel on the German network, which is extensively signalled for bi-directional working, my personal experience was that the facility was normally used only to assist in recovery from perturbation and (much more comonly) to ease working during engineering operations.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Touché — but there weren't many bits like that (and Brunel too wasn't perfect — look at Tilehurst, west of Box tunnel, or Bath). But seriously, the original alignments of the London & Birmingham, the London & Southampton, the London & Brighton, and the London & Bristol were far better than most of what followed for a good many years. There's not much that's as good as those very early lines (and others of the time) until you get to the Settle & Carlisle, which was a line built for speed and competition through very difficult country.

The impression I've gained from watching in-cab videos on YouTube is that in flat landscapes the railways were normally laid out straight with fairly easy curves, regardless of the company and railway engineer involved. For example between Brough and Selby, there is an 18 mile stretch of straight track. Where the terrain was hilly, many railway lines followed the contours of the land and gave us routes with numerous speed restrictions today, Manchester to Leeds being a prominent example.

 

[Ianno87]

The loops would be designed long enough for a freight to be kept moving whilst in the loop.

Which makes them expensive in the terrain involved (earthworks etc.). And the timetable would have to be set *exactly* around them for the freight to not stop (unless the loop made even longer and more expensive).