It was not! Nobody in that part of the world raised any objection whateoever, and the National Park is supporting anything which wiill enhance public transport.
It doesn't. Trolley wire on simplified supports has been mentioned.
Nobody says it does or that there would be any problem - except the politicians or their spin doctors who withdrew funding and wanted to divert the blame onto some other (innocent) scapegoat.
It most certainly was - by the Secretary of State at the time. The excuse was undoubtedly contrived to justify it, but it was definitely used.
Exactly... it was the politician's justification. i defy you to find any amenity or other group which raised any objection. So it is not true to say the electrificatiion was cancelled because of [local] concerns. Note that there is absolutely nothing in his statement to point at (i.e. defame) any specific alleged objector.It most certainly was - by the Secretary of State at the time. The excuse was undoubtedly contrived to justify it, but it was definitely used.
Sheffield, Swansea and Windermere electrification cancelled
UK: The government confirmed on July 19 that it had cancelled the planned 25 kV 50 Hz electrification of the Midland Main Line between Kettering, Nottingham and Sheffield, the Cardiff – Swansea route and the Oxenholme – Windermere branch. ‘Rapid delivery of passenger benefits, minimising...www.railwaygazette.com
It most certainly was - by the Secretary of State at the time. The excuse was undoubtedly contrived to justify it, but it was definitely used.
Sheffield, Swansea and Windermere electrification cancelled
UK: The government confirmed on July 19 that it had cancelled the planned 25 kV 50 Hz electrification of the Midland Main Line between Kettering, Nottingham and Sheffield, the Cardiff – Swansea route and the Oxenholme – Windermere branch. ‘Rapid delivery of passenger benefits, minimising...
The SoS cancelled the scheme and used that justification. So what I said was completely accurate. Nowhere did I do other than repeat the reason he gave. It was obvious at the time that it was an outrageously made-up excuse, and I completely agree it was bollocks.
Oh, it most definitely was exactly that!
Could it be that Grayling is a remote decendant of William Wordsworth?
Delta Rail did a report of low cost electrification on branch lines in 2010. I don't know if this was considered for Windermere.
No more bizarre than having them operate Worcester to Bristol stopping services, which only see wires for about 3 miles.
Royal Wootton Bassett would be easy to add to the Melksham branch services, however that does currently have a frequency too low to support the business case for the station and I imagine cannot be increased without at least putting in a passing loop at Melksham.
Why? They are both cities and it’s an express service.
I suspect it would also need the added acceleration of emus (or reinstatement of the ability to loop it into the third platform at Chippenham (which would, in itself, be no bad thing).
Is there also a limitation with capacity into Bristol, through Bath, and into Swindon?
You wouldn't run 800s, with their small end doors and lack of standing space, from London to Brighton, Canterbury or Cambridge.
Precisely. It's not as if 800s are running shuttles to Ipswich, Peterborough, Corby, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Banbury, or Oxford (via the other route) either.
The Oxford trains only stop at Reading though, and need to run on the fast lines, so 800s are fine.
To be fair they now stop at Didcot a lot, but that's still intercity, the stopping they do at the end of the London to Penzance runs is far less so than on London to Oxford.
Those lines aren’t 125. Are there enough paths for a 110mph train to replace the 800?
Tbh it looks like just about. A single sample shows the 1623 Oxford is 3 minutes ahead of a HEx service at Heathrow Airport Junction. The 1606 Pad-Didcot (110mph cl.387) does Pad-Heathrow Airport jn in 9 minutes rather than the 8.5 of the 80x, so if the Oxford terminator was diagrammed for a 387 it'd be 2.5mins ahead of the HEx at the junction, which is compliant (2 minute headway following a non-stop service). The next departure after the Oxford from Reading is a Taunton via Bristol 6 minutes later, although there may be a problem at Didcot East as the current path has a 4.5 minute gap ahead of the conflicting Cardiff-London. Not quite sure how much time a fast 387 would lose and if it would be unable to make that gap, and there's no slack in the Cardiff east of Didcot to take any time back.
www.oxfordmail.co.uk
What - no balises?
I can't see any mention of (lack of) electrification clearance in the article, that was MikeyC's comment.
However, is it not the case that NR would only need to contribute anything if providing clearance for electrification was an “additional enhancement” rather than replacing like-for-like clearances? Given the fact that electrification clearances have been increased in recent years, it is unlikely that a bridge that now needs replacement already conforms, unless by accident.
I'm unclear about whether there has been any increase in required clearance under a bridge. Perhaps someone on here can explain. Most of the discussion I've seen has been about such matters as the height of parapets on overbridges, or safety for passengers on platforms carrying helium balloons, selfie sticks, fishing rods etc.
It's possible NR had a plan to deal with electrification if the bridge wasn't raised through lowering the track, but as the opportunity came up to rebuild the bridge they might as well.
According to the wikipedia list of Route-KM, we are 16th globally. I'd be interested to know what our Route:Track KM ratio looks like in comparison to other countries, but I'd imagine that we're not too bad on that front in Europe. Anybody got a link to some decent statistics on Route and Track KM by electrifcation type?
