Recent content by Karl Bough

On Michael Palin's 'Himalaya' series (UKTV Documentary), when he was visiting Tibet, he made reference to a new high-speed railway line connecting Lhasa and Tibet to the rest of China. The series was filmed in 2003 or 2004, and they mentioned that it would be opened in 2008, ready for the...

Last year, when travelling down the AP-7/E-15 (Spain's east coast motorway) on the way to the Costa Blanca, I noticed that there were concrete supports in place for a new high-speed line. I think it will run from Madrid to Barcelona via Zaragoza. The Spanish 'east coast main line' runs alongside...

The CTRL connects to the WCML, MML and ECML on the approach to St Pancras International. Does this mean that any rail traffic (passenger or freight) can make an all-electric trip to Europe? Will it eventually be possible to buy a 'through ticket' from any UK station to one on the continent?

Virgin has missed one of the cities along its route - Milton Keynes. I think they also ought to have trains named after some of the significant towns, like Rugby, Stafford and Crewe. Also, is 390 033 City of Glasgow repaired and back in service yet? It is now six months after the Grayrigg...

Another reason to electrify the line (and therefore to run Class 390s along it) is that two of the Pendolino trains are named after cities along the route - City of Chester and City of Bangor/Dinas Bangor. It would seem unusual to have trains which can no longer visit the places they are named...

The third part of The Secret Life of Motorways is on tonight. Has anyone else seen this? A similar documentary could have been made for railway electrification, as the building of motorways and the electrification of the WCML started at about the same time in the late 1950s. On the first...

Does this imply grade-separation?

Looking at the current southbound VT7 timetable, the last southbound service of the day goes via Wilmslow, Crewe and then Stoke-on-Trent (no Stafford stop, so presumably via the direct Stone-Colwich line) and then most of the other intercity stops to London. Any reason for this unusual route...

The line is also set to see much more Pendolino activity after December 2008, when an hourly Euston-Manchester via Wilmslow service is introduced. Although I doubt this would happen, this new service should run via the Styal Line (maybe even calling at Manchester Airport), as Stockport will...

It amazes me, whenever driving along certain sections of the A55 that run alongside the railway, that there are still semaphore signals controlling some sections of the line. Are there any plans to re-signal the NWCL? If so, they should also be electromagnetically immunised, to allow for future...

I have noticed that at Madeley the signalling has been renewed, with new two-aspect signals. The codes for the signals are now SC followed by a four-digit number. Where are these now controlled from? The OLE also seems to have been partially upgraded (fast lines only), with the old copper...

The Crewe to Manchester Line seems to have been the subject of a number of rail experiments - it was the first section of WCML to be switched on in September 1960, and now it is the first to be controlled by this new signalling software. Are there any plans to introduce this system elsewhere on...

The completion of the Trent Valley project next year will mark another major milestone for the West Coast route. But what next? The most pressing work that still needs to be done is at Crewe and Stafford. Are there any plans to quadruple Winsford to Weaver Junction?

Does anyone know whether the 0705 ex Man Pic runs via Macclesfield and Stoke or Wilmslow and Crewe? It is impossible to tell by looking at the VT7 timetable. If it ran through Crewe, would it use the Up Fast through the centre or pass non-stop (slowly) through Platform 1? One of the...

I would have thought that with climate change being such a universally important political issue right now - coupled with the record price of oil (recently over the $78/barrel mark) - there would have been a great deal of impetus for electrification projects. If the project were ever to come to...