Beyond EGIP

[och aye]

With the completion of Queen Street nearly complete, I wonder if the Scot Gov. have plans to push forward with parts of the original EGIP scheme that were dropped (an EGIP2 if you will).

From Wikipedia (so obviously may not be up to date):

Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

• Construction of turnback sidings at Abbeyhill Junction and Croy.
• Remodelling of Greenhill Junction to provide a non-conflicting junction;
• Construction of a new chord line at Dalmeny to allow trains from the west to access the Haymarket north lines without obstructing existing services at the junction on approach to the station.

Another proposed scheme the Garngad Chord, near Springburn had already been dropped from the scheme. It was intended to allow Glasgow-Cumbernauld services to use the North Clyde Line into Queen Street Low Level, thus freeing up capacity on the High Level station. Instead services started on this route in 2014 with a reversal in Springburn, creating a slightly longer journey time.

I can see the Dalmeny/Almond chord being built this decade. Are there any other realstic improvements that could be made on the Edinburgh-Glasgow lines that could happen within CP6 or CP7?

 

[waverley47]

The proposals listed above were given on the assumption of 6tph each way, at six coaches each. Subsequently, the spec changed to 4tph at eight coaches, giving broadly similar capacity.

The Abbeyhill turn back was needed because platform occupation at Edinburgh wouldn't allow everything to terminate, and so they would run through to turn around. Subsequent remodelling, especially platforms 5&6, means that some of the through platforms can be used to terminate trains, and so the turn back isn't needed.

The Croy turnback, similarly was needed to turn the local stoppers around off the main line. These now run through to Stirling, and so no longer terminate at Croy.

The Dalmeny chord absolutely, I think it's probably a matter of when, not if, it gets built, but as you said it's a decade away at least.

Grade separation at Greenhill is more interesting. It's probably needed, but with maximum four conflicting moves in each direction per hour, it's not at the top of the pile. Probably still in the pipeline, but after the Dalmeny chord for sure.

If 6tph on the Falkirk High route is revisited in the future (likely) we may have to come back and look at these again. Until then though, it works just about well enough not to fall down at the slightest disruption, so we'll see.

 

[och aye]

Interesting responses.

Hopefully the Dalmeny chord gets built at some point this decade, it'll certainly help boost numbers at Edinburgh Gateway.

 

[clc]

With the completion of Queen Street nearly complete, I wonder if the Scot Gov. have plans to push forward with parts of the original EGIP scheme that were dropped (an EGIP2 if you will).

From Wikipedia (so obviously may not be up to date):

Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I can see the Dalmeny/Almond chord being built this decade. Are there any other realstic improvements that could be made on the Edinburgh-Glasgow lines that could happen within CP6 or CP7?

The Outline Business Case for Dalmeny Chord was due to be submitted this month. Hopefully it will complete in the first half of the decade.

 

[jopsuk]

has there ever been any proposals to grade separate Polmont junction? In theory it should be relatively easy, given the lines diverge vertically quite quickly, with the old shed location providing some of the space that would be needed? I feel like I've often been in trains stopped at signals here, BUT mainly coming from Falkirk Grahamston towards Edinburgh, so grade separation wouldn't help that. Would there be enough advantage to separating here? it would certainly be easier than at Winchburgh (proposed I think as part of Dalmeny Chord)?

 

[adrock1976]

has there ever been any proposals to grade separate Polmont junction? In theory it should be relatively easy, given the lines diverge vertically quite quickly, with the old shed location providing some of the space that would be needed? I feel like I've often been in trains stopped at signals here, BUT mainly coming from Falkirk Grahamston towards Edinburgh, so grade separation wouldn't help that. Would there be enough advantage to separating here? it would certainly be easier than at Winchburgh (proposed I think as part of Dalmeny Chord)?

Would the Union Canal be in the way though of any grade separation at Polmont?

 

[waverley47]

Problem with Polmont is what exactly you're trying to solve. There isn't enough room at Polmont for grade separation, because the main line climbs quite quickly up the hill towards Falkirk High, as the branch drops off and falls quickly towards Grahamston. The junction is just before the end of the platforms with signalling overlaps ect, and the cutting/houses/canal all mean you can't take any new land.

Moving the junction west means the gradients would be too steep, expensive and involve demolishing a lot of houses. Move it east and you have to demolish half the town, and the station. The only real solution is to do nothing. There are only 4/5 crossing moves in each direction per hour, paralel moves can be timetabled, the junction speed (40mph) isn't too slow and electrification has massively sped up everything over the junction, so less time for conflict.

The best solution is probably a new high speed line between Edinburgh and Glasgow, meaning everything on the old lines can stop at Polmont. In the meantime, wait until grade separation at the Almond Chord which will make timetabling more easy, as less conflicting moves ect across junctions further East.

Edit: just to say that splitting the station so that it has platforms on each line to the west of the junction has been looked at but not cheap, and not great for access either. Also, as mentioned above, sticking platforms on the steep gradients isn't entirely an ideal outcome.

 

[92002]

Would the Union Canal be in the way though of any grade separation at Polmont?

Probably yes, considering it overflowed onto the line recently East of Polmont.

 

[jopsuk]

If you had the line diverge where the access to the old loco shed was (which is level with where the east bound points are, and is west of where the canal gets closest to the railway) then a combination of the track only needing to accommodate trains heading downhill and the noted changes in elevation of the tracks means that in reality it should be possible to fit the dive under in using just the old shed site and some of the woodland beside/between the lines, without demolishing any houses

 

[waverley47]

Almond works because all the infrastructure you need at each end is a bridge over the exisiting tracks and a set of points where they diverge. Greenhill falls into this category too. Where there is space, grade separation is easy. You build it without impacting the running lines, and plug it in when it's done.

Problem at Polmont is, in order to be of any use it needs a long distance of track for turnout, diving down to get below the track, and optimally, not have to dive down too deep. There isn't enough room to do all of that at Polmont without basically ripping it all up, building a new concrete monolith to take the fast tracks, and rebuilding everything.

Shutting the E&G for probably a year to build all this is a non starter. It's not flat like Werrington, it's not empty fields like Norton Bridge. It would be like trying to grade separate one of the junctions at Haymarket. It's just too difficult at Polmont, there's just not enough space on the south side of the track to do it.

 

[alangla]

It would be like trying to grade separate one of the junctions at Haymarket.

I’ve actually wondered about this. Not literally at Haymarket but nearer Saughton so you’d have, from North to South, the up Fife, up E&G, down Fife, down E&G. Haymarket P1/2 would therefore be Edinburgh bound and P3/4 would be Glasgow bound. It would probably make the Princes St Gardens to Haymarket West bit more efficient, but it would cause a nightmare every time something came from the Slateford direction.

 

[waverley47]

I’ve actually wondered about this. Not literally at Haymarket but nearer Saughton so you’d have, from North to South, the up Fife, up E&G, down Fife, down E&G. Haymarket P1/2 would therefore be Edinburgh bound and P3/4 would be Glasgow bound. It would probably make the Princes St Gardens to Haymarket West bit more efficient, but it would cause a nightmare every time something came from the Slateford direction.

This probably wouldn't be worth it in all honesty. It would be great to have between Haymarket and Saughton, and there would be benefits, but would be terrible when it came to the Waverley station throat. Think of the running lines outside Kings Cross, the up slow crosses over the fast lines because at terminals it's better to have paired by use. Paired by direction works great for plain line, but junctions and stations exist, throwing a spanner in the works every ten miles or so.

Paired by direction and you screw over timetabling and capacity of terminators. On paired by use, you screw over the pathing of through trains, but there aren't very many of them proportionally. It's not perfect, but at the end of the day if it's not broken, is it worth spending X billion pounds to fix?

The E&G is difficult because it's so many things at once. It's the main line between two very big cities, outer urban and suburban routes and a trunk line for freight and LDHS services across the border. Why spend billions when it might all be superceded by a new high speed line. But equally, why wait for a new line when that's decades away, and improvements are needed now. It's a difficult circle to square in many ways.

 

[alangla]

This probably wouldn't be worth it in all honesty. It would be great to have between Haymarket and Saughton, and there would be benefits, but would be terrible when it came to the Waverley station throat. Think of the running lines outside Kings Cross, the up slow crosses over the fast lines because at terminals it's better to have paired by use. Paired by direction works great for plain line, but junctions and stations exist, throwing a spanner in the works every ten miles or so.

Thinking more about this, the ultimate would probably be to do the grade separation at Saughton but keep the lines east of there as they are. Would let you sort Waverley arrivals by platform without conflict and would let you leave Waverley on any line regardless of destination (except Slateford obviously) only problem is the cost of a double flyover or burrow would be astronomical and as you say, there probably aren’t the benefits to justify it.

 

[mcmad]

not sure I follow what you're trying to achieve there? The lines East of Saughton are already paired by destination so what would the grade separation at Saughton achieve?

 

[alangla]

not sure I follow what you're trying to achieve there? The lines East of Saughton are already paired by destination so what would the grade separation at Saughton achieve?

It would cut conflicting manouvers that currently happen at Haymarket Central, Princes St Gardens or the Waverley throat. Basically if, say, a Bathgate train was scheduled via Haymarket P1 to Waverley P18, (e.g. https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y48341/2020-12-17/detailed#allox_id=0) it could run on the Fife lines from Saughton. It would also cut conflicts at Calton for the through trains from the Borders to Fife as they’d be able to run via the south side of the layout & cross to the Fife lines just before the divergence. At the moment, everything apart from the Dundee train runs via the “wrong” Calton tunnel & the north side of Waverley.

 

[mcmad]

you'd need a double grade separation then? Not sure there is room for that and still allowing Haymarket Central and West junctions alongside the tram flyover.

 

[alangla]

Aye. Realistically if you were going to do it you’d probably end flattening the eastern end of Forrester Park Ave/Green/Drive. As I say, astronomically expensive and that’s assuming you could get the land at all.

 

[waverley47]

would cut conflicting manouvers that currently happen at Haymarket Central, Princes St Gardens or the Waverley throat. Basically if, say, a Bathgate train was scheduled via Haymarket P1 to Waverley P18, (e.g. https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y48341/2020-12-17/detailed#allox_id=0) it could run on the Fife lines from Saughton.

So firstly, I think we can all agree this would be eye-wateringly expensive in ways we probably couldn't even begin to imagine, resulting in some monstrosity of a three level grade separated junction at Saughton when you include the trams, which TfE just spend a fortune on.

Now, let examine the benefits of grade separation in an infinite money situation.

At the moment, if everything runs to plan, there should be something approaching 15tph in each direction on the south lines at Haymarket. That 15tph is a bit ridiculous when you think that there are three very busy flat junctions at Haymarket, Newbridge and Polmont. Each of these has at least 8 conflicting moves each hour, to the point that parallel moves for each train on each junction are impossible to timetable. Trains additionally can't be 'flighted' and so suffer from ever more conflict at the slightest cough in the timetable, and with Bathgate line services importing delays from Milngavie and Helensburgh single line sections.

In practice, this is solved by trains crossing over to the north lines to use the higher numbered west platforms at Waverley, and to spread services in the event of delays across both lines. This also saves something snaking across the formation in Princes Street gardens in the peaks.

Grade separation at Saughton just doesn't really solve delays, it just shifts them around a bit. Bear in mind the north and south sets of lines are separate at Waverley, and so every train would now have to snake across Princes Street pointwork if it was paired by direction.

Instead, this is what the almond chord should achieve. Shifting trains to the north lines via grade separated junctions should go some way to solve the problems by removing conflicting moves between Saughton and Haymarket, and also at Newbridge. Its a bit of a problem looking for a solution.

 

[Class 170101]

If you did do it then it it would either be grade separated to the east with the Grahamston Line then tunnelled under the existing route or the High route put on piers over the top of the existing route but seems rather expensive.

 

[waverley47]

The more I think about this thread, the more I realise how unique the E&G really is. It's a two track railway with almost the entire communing, suburban and intercity networks of the central belt shoved through it.*

Beyond a new high speed line, or expansive scheme of grade separation, there's also not really much that can be done to improve it. It's almost like a condensed version of the Birmingham-Rugby line, most other comparable lines have at least some four tracking. Granted it's no WCML, but it also has traffic flows and commuter flows at both ends, which makes it more difficult.

It's interesting to see what the future holds for this line.

*South Clydeside notwithstanding

 

[diamond chap]

A 'Permitted Development Notification' notice has been submitted to City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) by Network Rail for the 'Formation of Temporary Compound' at Turnhouse Road. The documents can be viewed in the link below but they state that:

Bam Nuttall, on behalf of Network Rail, are currently carrying out Site Investigations to support the future development of railway infrastructure to the north west of Edinburgh.

https://citydev-portal.edinburgh.go...s.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=QPIG2DEW0GY00

 

[waverley47]

Yes, had an ask around old mates in NR, this is going to be part of the wiring up as far as dalmeny. Should be relatively easy, but does involve some works.

South gyle station bridge, Ladywell avenue bridge and the bridge of the lane off standingstane road all need works doing.

*There have also been rumblings of investigating the possibility of moving the platforms at dalmeny onto the loops there to allow overtaking. (This was in the Scotland route study and again in the improvements to Waverley eastern approaches study but looks unlikely for the time being).

Shouldn't be digging the piles or stringing up knitting for a while yet but the bridges and some other works will go on in the meantime.

Edit. Note this is NOT to do with the almond chord, that project is firmly on ice until approved by up on high

 

[Altnabreac]

Yes, had an ask around old mates in NR, this is going to be part of the wiring up as far as dalmeny. Should be relatively easy, but does involve some works.

South gyle station bridge, Ladywell avenue bridge and the bridge of the lane off standingstane road all need works doing.

*There have also been rumblings of investigating the possibility of moving the platforms at dalmeny onto the loops there to allow overtaking. (This was in the Scotland route study and again in the improvements to Waverley eastern approaches study but looks unlikely for the time being).

Shouldn't be digging the piles or stringing up knitting for a while yet but the bridges and some other works will go on in the meantime.

Edit. Note this is NOT to do with the almond chord, that project is firmly on ice until approved by up on high

Yes I've heard word that Almond Chord has not found favour with the powers that be and is not being progressed at the moment.

 

[och aye]

Yes I've heard word that Almond Chord has not found favour with the powers that be and is not being progressed at the moment.

Really? That is disappointing news if that is the case.

Things could change after May depending on the outcome of the election.

 

[clc]

A huge amount has been invested bringing Glasgow and Edinburgh closer together, which is fantastic, but I think the time has come to shift the focus to improving mass transit within both cities. I’d prioritise Glasgow Metro and Edinburgh Trams over Almond Chord.

 

[Altnabreac]

Really? That is disappointing news if that is the case.

Things could change after May depending on the outcome of the election.

I think the decarbonisation is seen as the priority in CP6 with significant extra capacity from projects such as Almond Chord waiting for CP7. Suspect Covid further reinforces that decision.

 

[route101]

A huge amount has been invested bringing Glasgow and Edinburgh closer together, which is fantastic, but I think the time has come to shift the focus to improving mass transit within both cities. I’d prioritise Glasgow Metro and Edinburgh Trams over Almond Chord.

Yes, even though Glasgow has a decent rail network, would like to see later and earlier services, I feel its stuck in 1990.

 

[clc]

Yes, even though Glasgow has a decent rail network, would like to see later and earlier services, I feel its stuck in 1990.

Also needs a new fixed link along the ‘South Clyde Growth Corridor’ to the airport, either an automatic metro as in Copenhagen or a hybrid segregated/street running LRT as in Porto.

 

[CW2]

There are routes from Edinburgh to Glasgow via 1) Falkirk High, 2) Falkirk Grahamston, 3) Bathgate / Airdrie, 4) Shotts, and 5) Carstairs.
These are the two most intensely connected cities in the entire UK.
Perhaps the way forward it to take a strategic view as to what each route is supposed to be achieving, i.e. which market does it serve, what frequency should the trains be, what other route users are there?
Given the downturn in both passenger numbers and income, any major expenditure is likely to be kicked into the gutter for a decade or so. A comprehensive strategic review seems like an attractive alternative to me.

 

[waverley47]

There are routes from Edinburgh to Glasgow via 1) Falkirk High, 2) Falkirk Grahamston, 3) Bathgate / Airdrie, 4) Shotts, and 5) Carstairs.
These are the two most intensely connected cities in the entire UK.
Perhaps the way forward it to take a strategic view as to what each route is supposed to be achieving, i.e. which market does it serve, what frequency should the trains be, what other route users are there?
Given the downturn in both passenger numbers and income, any major expenditure is likely to be kicked into the gutter for a decade or so. A comprehensive strategic review seems like an attractive alternative to me.

The project isn't dead, instead it's on ice until such a time as most of the ongoing stuff is done. Wiring and redoubling will eat up a significant amount of planning and building capacity, and the current service level should be good for a couple of years at least, so while it's unlikely we'll be seeing the chord any time soon, it will definitley come back.

The chord allows better capacity use at haymarket, which will in turn improve connectiveness across the central belt and better semi fast services. Currently, a lot of services skip stops and with new stations at winchburgh and a desire to better serve the airport, so the chord will allow better utilisation of paths to better separate stopping and fast services, and help differentiate the two a bit more.