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No thanks, leave the Clacton service well alone, it's a long enough journey as it is!
I use it monthly to visit family in Clacton (No, I have no idea why they moved there either) I can't fault the reliability of the GA Clacton services or GA services in general but it's a long old journey, not helped by the 720s being an unpleasant train to travel on, it doesn't need to be longer!
If an even 2tph (or indeed 4tph - but not the 20 min cycle of today) - from Southend could be cleanly pathed from the fast lines at Stratford into the Crossrail core. Big if - then that might be a very appealing service. And journey times wouldn’t be a worry re toilets and indeed direct service to many places. But for all stations, not at all.
But I don’t think it’s possible and any delays could pollute the fast lines too.
A minor hobby horse of mine, eventually all trains will be BEMUs because they allow higher performance than a train limited by the current a OHLE can deliver.
A BEMU will be able to accelerate like a tube train all the way up to 100mph, the contexts of metroisation this means that you can get express train journey times from stopping services.
This argument is frequently wheeled out with reference to Cambridge. I'm sceptical that property value uplift can be captured, and suspicious that its proponents spend the supposed bounty many times over. Public transport won't be the only claimants on that bounty, and, in the East of England they won't be top of the pile, because water comes first.
There are plenty of existing means to pay for public transport using property values which have been used to pay for stuff like Crossrail or the Jubilee extension.
A BEMU will be able to accelerate like a tube train all the way up to 100mph, the contexts of metroisation this means that you can get express train journey times from stopping services.
If an even 2tph (or indeed 4tph - but not the 20 min cycle of today) - from Southend could be cleanly pathed from the fast lines at Stratford into the Crossrail core. Big if - then that might be a very appealing service. And journey times wouldn’t be a worry re toilets and indeed direct service to many places. But for all stations, not at all.
But I don’t think it’s possible and any delays could pollute the fast lines too.
If this could be done, with parallel electric to fast line moves east of Stratford how would you deal with the timetable gap at the stations east of Maryland?
Looking at the masses and power outputs for that model suggests that max acceleration drops off at 23mph with an empty train, mass is 157 tonnes power is 1760KW.
With BEMU my 5 car IET based BEMU design study would have 22.5MW and mass 243 tonnes, and accelerate at 1.3ms/s until it hit 125mph+, that's using commercially available BEV batteries and drive trains and masses from the 80X trains. Pulling BEV technology into rolling stock will allow a step change in performance and cost, to put this into context that train could hit 300kph in 68 seconds in a distance of 3km from a standing start.
From an energy perspective 80% of the energy used to accelerate it out of the station is coming from the braking on the way it, thus the electrical demand is mostly what is needed to fight drag.
Looking at the masses and power outputs for that model suggests that max acceleration drops off at 23mph with an empty train, mass is 157 tonnes power is 1760KW.
With BEMU my 5 car IET based BEMU design study would have 22.5MW and mass 243 tonnes, and accelerate at 1.3ms/s until it hit 125mph+, that's using commercially available BEV batteries and drive trains and masses from the 80X trains. Pulling BEV technology into rolling stock will allow a step change in performance and cost.
I honestly don't think the issue is with the OLE, but instead tractive effort, of the unit as it starts to decrease which prevents as high acceleration rates.
Motors naturally have a higher torque when starting and a lower torque when at high speed. Extra weight of the batteries could slow the units down as they have increased mass.
Although there is a difference in that Stratford is a major hub for connections in London, sometimes a good third of the train empties there, or at least the carriage I'm in!
For Norwich, Stratford is the 8th most important destination in the traffic flows data. From Diss Stratford is 4th and from Stowmarket Stratford is 5th.
Chelmsford is the third busiest station in the East of England, and Norwich is 10th. Given that London-Norwich trains have to pass through Chelmsford, there needs to be very good reasons not to have any calls there.
St Albans City is a comparable station on the Midland Mainline - it’s busier than Leicester and Derby but nobody is suggesting fast trains to Nottingham (a similar distance from London as Norwich) should stop there.
One of the Norwiches could be replaced by 3 Flirts (which you sometimes see running), with 1 splitting at Ipswich for Lowestoft and 2 continuing to Gt Yarmouth. They would terminate and return at approx the same time.
A minor hobby horse of mine, eventually all trains will be BEMUs because they allow higher performance than a train limited by the current a OHLE can deliver.
I am a huge fan of battery technology, and eventually you may be right. But, from where we are now, the priority battery train applications are not going to be on lines that already have OHL, and an almost new fleet of straight EMUs that will last for another 30 years.
There are plenty of existing means to pay for public transport using property values which have been used to pay for stuff like Crossrail or the Jubilee extension.
A BEMU will be able to accelerate like a tube train all the way up to 100mph, the contexts of metroisation this means that you can get express train journey times from stopping services.
Burning thousands of tonnes of extra carbon carting around untold extra tonnes of batteries to create a bit of buffer room in timings that TOCs will fritter away on dwell and performance time to protect punctuality.
For Norwich, Stratford is the 8th most important destination in the traffic flows data. From Diss Stratford is 4th and from Stowmarket Stratford is 5th.
Chelmsford is the third busiest station in the East of England.
Pretty simple do an economic assessment of freight trains vs passenger trains and chuck the one that loses off the tracks.
A passenger train can take hundreds of cars off the roads a freight train takes 30 lorries off, an HGV is only worth 2 cars from a congestion stand point.
Simple in theory, in practice v complicated. Freight companies are all private and need a high degree of certainty in the medium term on access to the track to justify investment in locos, freight wagons, staff etc. One of the many unknowns about GBR is who will decide track access issues, and using what criteria. Eg what time scale should you look at? Next year/5years/10years? If look at only short term that probably means little new investment in freight. Long term, projections are little better than finger in the air, see eg London commuting in 2010s which increased rapidly until it slowed down, then permanently reduced post covid. And on the freight side no one knows whether/when bi and tri mode engines can replace dirty diesels (who could have predicted that in 2023 DB cargo class 66 diesels would replace class 90 electrics because of the price of electricity?).
If this could be done, with parallel electric to fast line moves east of Stratford how would you deal with the timetable gap at the stations east of Maryland?
My assumption was that if just 2tph, that it was on top of the existing service.
If a Romford stop could be pathed (take it from an outer) at 2tph, I’d say it could take 2tph from the core service - potentially peaks only and the Gidea extras. Bonus if Ilford or Brentwood too.
I remember when all the Southends were Stratford/Ilford/Romford… and there are unused paths right now.
My assumption was that if just 2tph, that it was on top of the existing service.
If a Romford stop could be pathed (take it from an outer) at 2tph, I’d say it could take 2tph from the core service - potentially peaks only and the Gidea extras. Bonus if Ilford or Brentwood too.
I remember when all the Southends were Stratford/Ilford/Romford… and there are unused paths right now.
Trying to accommodate 3 speed profiles on an intensive 4-track railway will only end one way.
The Elizabeth line needs absolute rolling stock layout and performance uniformity in the core. You are looking at an actual micro-fleet with 345 door positions but toilets for 2tph peak only services. You don't need me to tell you it ain't gonna happen.
Pull them out and see what happens! I think it’s about a reasonable distance for a call, and has plenty of intra-Essex / inbound demand too. More than Shenfield!
Trying to accommodate 3 speed profiles on an intensive 4-track railway will only end one way.
The Elizabeth line needs absolute rolling stock layout and performance uniformity in the core. You are looking at an actual micro-fleet with 345 door positions but toilets for 2tph peak only services. You don't need me to tell you it ain't gonna happen.
I don’t think anyone was suggesting it, re toilets for a micro fleet. These should be covered by stations on metro/regional journeys IMO, or planning ahead! And a fast Romford and then Southend service would be likely shorter than Reading CR still.
For Norwich, Stratford is the 8th most important destination in the traffic flows data. From Diss Stratford is 4th and from Stowmarket Stratford is 5th.
Chelmsford is the third busiest station in the East of England, and Norwich is 10th. Given that London-Norwich trains have to pass through Chelmsford, there needs to be very good reasons not to have any calls there.
You don't read this forum very much. There are frequent suggestions that EMR should stop at all of St Albans, Luton Airport and Bedford.
This would be crazy. The lack of resilience of joining 2 portions, both of which have come off single track routes, would be a huge performance risk.
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I am a huge fan of battery technology, and eventually you may be right. But, from where we are now, the priority battery train applications are not going to be on lines that already have OHL, and an almost new fleet of straight EMUs that will last for another 30 years.
For the Jubilee extension Olympia and York, the Canary Wharf developers, escaped by going into administration.
So perhaps trains should stop at Stratford but Chelmsford seems an anomaly since it still gets a very frequent service to London. Most comparable places that close to London don’t have longer distance trains stopping at them. Stevenage perhaps an exception. But St Albans City, Luton, Watford Junction, Woking, Slough etc don’t have many long distance trains stopping there.
I guess the London to Norwich line is probably comparable more with Midland Mainline to Nottingham/Sheffield or South Western Line to Bournemouth/Weymouth than the major inter city lines.
Norwich to London Liverpool Street class 745s are intercity-lite quality I would say. If Cross Country Voyagers are deemed to be inter city then I would argue a 745 definitely is.
Chelmsford isn't just for London commuters. It is one of only 11 settlements in the East of England with >100k population. Chelmsford is HQ of Essex County, a Cathedral City, and part of Anglia Ruskin University. amongst other things. It is a significant destination in the East of England both economically and demographically.
Chelmsford has more in common with Norwich than Luton has with Nottingham, Slough with Bristol, or Woking with Bournemouth.
The East of England doesn't have many good transport links, but Norwich-Ipswich-Colchester-Chelmsford links together 4 of its biggest settlements.
Then there is the simple practical point that non-stopping trains can only pass through Chelmsford at 60mph, so there isn't much of a time penalty from stopping there.
I honestly don't think the issue is with the OLE, but instead tractive effort, of the unit as it starts to decrease which prevents as high acceleration rates.
Typical motor behaviour is to be torque limited up to a certain point then power limited beyond that point, eventually back EMF will start rising and power will drop off as RPM increases, see these torque curves for a Tesla motor.
The point is that the class 331 doesn't have a drive train that can put out more than 1760KW, that will likely include motors, transformer and inverter all being scaled for this power output. Whilst you can draw more power from the OHLE the highest power output trains are the Chinese CR400's which are 400m long high speed trains and draw 20MW through two pantographs and have correspondingly high specification OHLE with frequent sub-stations. In the UK Euostars which can draw a max of 12MW overloaded the ECML OHLE.
With a BEMU we can have 5 car 240t express metro trains putting down 22MW whilst using current standards of OHLE even at very high frequencies as they are just using the wires as a mobile charger rather than putting peak loads into the system. If we scale this up to HS2 style trains these BEMUs would need 70-80MW to approach max performance of 1.3ms/s (limited by people falling over) accelerations up to a significant fraction of max speed which is likely totally unfeasible via OHLE.
With this level of performance you can basically make every train on a line a stopping service whilst keeping a good end to end journey time. This is how you end up with a "national metro".
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Burning thousands of tonnes of extra carbon carting around untold extra tonnes of batteries to create a bit of buffer room in timings that TOCs will fritter away on dwell and performance time to protect punctuality.
I think we might actually need an "ok boomer" here!
Firstly I think you are doing a knee jerk reaction to something that is actually a more expansive "vision". The point is that BEMUs enable trains to achieve the maximum theoretical performance that a train can achieve. This then allows us to re-imagine what the railway does at a national level and turn it into something more like a national metro (most trains stop at all stations, services are simplified). At this level worrying about the behaviour of TOCs is pretty parochial, where we're going there is no TOCs.
Secondly whilst we could build a 22MW train today and do so at very reasonable costs using BEV technology it doesn't currently exist so what we are talking about is new build vehicles that will have much lower CDa than existing trains which is useful as BEMUs benefit from the extra range jumping across un-electrified bits of the network.
Thirdly a very rapidly accelerating train doesn't actually use much more energy, the energy usage is proportional to the average speed not the peak power usage and ~80% of the energy discharged when the train stops is used to get it back up to speed.
Fourthly, even if Miliband is off in plans by a few years the UK grid is going to be only emitting a residual amount of carbon by the time we are widely using high performance BEMUs making any additional energy usage from going faster or accelerating harder pretty minimal in terms of carbon emissions and this is a problem which is only going to shrink over time. We should not worry about electricity consumption we should happily trade it for better service.
Fifthly, the amount of batteries said trains will need are very much "told", it's in the region of 5-10% of dry mass of the train, or in the case of my exemplar vehicle a class 800 with some improvements and all the mass of fuel and diesels given over to batteries. Siemens managed to find comparable % mass reductions going between generations of Valero so it's likely that these purpose built battery trains will weight approximately nothing more than current vehicles.
It’s a fair cop. For the bulk of my railway ops career, causes have been remedied rather than symptoms, hence a much-electrified GE predating today’s fudges on train and infrastructure, designed to avoid further or enhanced electrification.
Firstly I think you are doing a knee jerk reaction to something that is actually a more expansive "vision". The point is that BEMUs enable trains to achieve the maximum theoretical performance that a train can achieve. This then allows us to re-imagine what the railway does at a national level and turn it into something more like a national metro (most trains stop at all stations, services are simplified).
I totally support multi-traction technology enabling exploitation of OHLE and through journeys but adding kit to trains operating fully under wires is a power supply enhancement fudge adding unnecessary vehicle weight.
OK. No TOCs, but the lack of acceleration (or indeed slowing) of services that need to compete with other modes is widespread and far from parochial. Talking GE, as here, London to Norwich is unchanged in 35 years.
Fourthly, even if Miliband is off in plans by a few years the UK grid is going to be only emitting a residual amount of carbon by the time we are widely using high performance BEMUs making any additional energy usage from going faster or accelerating harder pretty minimal in terms of carbon emissions and this is a problem which is only going to shrink over time. We should not worry about electricity consumption we should happily trade it for better service.
Battery production is not carbon-free at around 73kg/100kwh of battery and the suggestion here is 20-40 tonnes (your 5-10% of weight) of batteries on every full length train plus the carbon footprint of the steel rail seeing increased wear from inflated train tonnages.
Fifthly, the amount of batteries said trains will need are very much "told", it's in the region of 5-10% of dry mass of the train, or in the case of my exemplar vehicle a class 800 with some improvements and all the mass of fuel and diesels given over to batteries. Siemens managed to find comparable % mass reductions going between generations of Valero so it's likely that these purpose built battery trains will weight approximately nothing more than current vehicles.
Saving weight has been an imperative since vehicles became so bloated, see class 185 for example. Reducing weight is an energy saver. Adding it back as batteries rather than enhancing OHLE capability is yet more fudge.
I have huge admiration for the engineers innovating these solutions. I have rather less time for the false accountancy that creates the need to tackle symptoms.
You means calls for the Connect to add a St Albans call and for some ICs to call at Luton and Bedford on weekdays? The main reason I'm sure is lack of capacity on Meridians that would be crowded too easily, like XC's Voyagers.
We’ve just got away from individual Norwich services calling at Stratford and Chelmsford. We don’t want to return to that. The current timetable is far better.
We’ve just got away from individual Norwich services calling at Stratford and Chelmsford. We don’t want to return to that. The current timetable is far better.
Agreed, splitting Chelmsford and Stratford traffic balances the loads more and Chelmsford-Stratford traffic is pushed onto the following GE stopper which has much more capacity.
Agreed, splitting Chelmsford and Stratford traffic balances the loads more and Chelmsford-Stratford traffic is pushed onto the following GE stopper which has much more capacity.
Senior conductors have also seen reductions in trouble onboard Intercity services. It seems the Stratford-Chelmsford flow was quite high for those travelling with the wrong tickets or worse, none at all.
Senior conductors have also seen reductions in trouble onboard Intercity services. It seems the Stratford-Chelmsford flow was quite high for those travelling with the wrong tickets or worse, none at all.
Senior conductors have also seen reductions in trouble onboard Intercity services. It seems the Stratford-Chelmsford flow was quite high for those travelling with the wrong tickets or worse, none at all.
I imagine they short ticket and buy just a Stratford - Liverpool St return because we so rarely get revenue inspectors onboard. Then I'm not sure how they get past barriers at both ends.
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I imagine they short ticket and buy just a Stratford - Liverpool St return because we so rarely get revenue inspectors onboard. Then I'm not sure how they get past barriers at both ends.
They are barriered but often they manage to get through or use some other way. Intercity onboard staff were so happy when the timetable change was announced.
Saving weight has been an imperative since vehicles became so bloated, see class 185 for example. Reducing weight is an energy saver. Adding it back as batteries rather than enhancing OHLE capability is yet more fudge.
I have huge admiration for the engineers innovating these solutions. I have rather less time for the false accountancy that creates the need to tackle symptoms.
The extra weight from the improved acceleration could result in lower line speeds as found on the 185s, which could make your train actually slower than a regular unit.
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