MML Electrification: progress updates

[InTheEastMids]

August 1975 58 minutes with APT-E

Would be interesting to note how much of that was attributable to tilt, how much to better acceleration than other trains, and how much through having higher line-speeds for record-breaking runs.

As said above, a 222 is timed at 60.5 mins to Leicester according to RTT (e.g. 1058 from St Pancras).

Or, to put it another way, if everything was all tilt-enabled, how much faster would a 221 be than a 222? I'm can't believe NR won't have modelled this at some point

Corby electrification could help real-world average timings, by reducing the number of stops at Kettering and points further South on the services that stop, but obviously it depends on how the timetable evolves.

 

[Robertj21a]

Apologies for going off at a tangent but wasn't there some MML work at Loughborough, in conjunction with the Great Central Railway bridge etc, due to start about now ?

 

[Roast Veg]

Even if the 2.5 minute saving was all tilt, that's not a great saving for the work required on its own. Further afield the increased line speeds might stack up, but the fist hour out of London doesn't seem to be worth it in my eyes.

 

[Flying Phil]

Apologies for going off at a tangent but wasn't there some MML work at Loughborough, in conjunction with the Great Central Railway bridge etc, due to start about now ?

There is a thread on this in the "Railtours and Preservation" section but yes work has now restarted with excavation for the North abutment starting.

 

[Bald Rick]

Coming into Bedford from the south, if there was a fast diversion line south of Bedford to the North of Bedford it would save 5 minutes.

Making use of the little known ripple in the space-time continuum at Kempston?

 

[asylumxl]

Making use of the little known ripple in the space-time continuum at Kempston?

As far as I know, there are infact no actual curves or speed restrictions on the MML, they're actually due to the curvature of space-time and resulting relativistic effects.

 

[Robertj21a]

There is a thread on this in the "Railtours and Preservation" section but yes work has now restarted with excavation for the North abutment starting.

Many thanks, hadn't thought of finding it there !

Well worth keeping an eye on those developments.

 

[doa46231]

1953
Thames-Clyde Express. 'Jubilee' plus 10/11 coaches St P. to Leicester 108 minutes.
RC plus TC St P to Glasgow St. Enoch.
Travelled on it many times!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

1953
Thames-Clyde Express. 'Jubilee' plus 10/11 coaches St P. to Leicester 108 minutes.
RC plus TC St P to Glasgow St. Enoch.
Travelled on it many times!

I did it in the 1970s on the Thames-Clyde - but the first time was behind D60 Lytham St Annes Class 45 Peak

 

[QueensCurve]

The original route had a straight alignment through Bedford station heading towards Hitchin...

Thank you for an excellent potted history of the route and why it is so curvaceous.

Apart from Market Harbrough where we know there is a solution in hand, are there any simple realignments that could solve any of these problems?

 

[snowball]

Press release
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/feeds...ovements-continue-major-milestone-approaches/

Network Rail will reach a major milestone in its project to upgrade the Midland Mainline, as it carries out track improvements in Kettering as part of the Railway Upgrade Plan.

The upgrade will see the renewal of switches and crossings, more commonly known as ‘points’ – the equipment which allows trains to move from one piece of track to another.

The work will begin late evening on Friday 24 February with train services returning to normal for the start of service on Monday 27 February. During the upgrade there will be no direct trains to and from London St Pancras International and the North.

Passengers are being advised to check East Midlands Trains’ website before they travel and to allow extra time for their journeys.

This work is the seventh and final piece of work to renew switches and crossings on the line between Kettering and Corby. Work to improve the track is now 90 per cent complete, with Network Rail moving on to the next phase of the work, which will be to upgrade signals on the route.

The work we are doing in Kettering is a vital stage in our project to upgrade the Midland Main Line, as part of our Railway Upgrade Plan.

When the Kettering to Corby upgrade is completed in 2018, trains will need to be able to move from the current track to the newly installed one. This work will allow them to do so, which will enable more trains to run and will benefit passengers.

I’d like to remind passengers who plan on travelling to London from north of Kettering to check before they travel and apologise to them for any inconvenience caused.

Gary Walsh, area director for Network Rail in the East Midlands

The work is part of a wider programme of improvements to upgrade the Midland Mainline. Once completed, passengers will benefit from more seats and a smoother journey. The upgrade will also provide a cleaner and quieter railway for those living nearby.

This is an essential piece of work that is needed to upgrade our rail network and we will continue to work with Network Rail to deliver these improvements.

During the work, we won’t be able to run any direct services between London and the North, and customers will either need to use alternative train services or our replacement bus services.

We’re strongly advising people to allow extra time for their journeys and to check before travel by visiting our website.

Jake Kelly, managing director for East Midlands Trains

 

[richieb1971]

Making use of the little known ripple in the space-time continuum at Kempston?

I was thinking more along the lines of Ampthill - Oakley. Its practically a straight line coming out of Ampthill tunnel going directly north (West of Kempston) and hitting the Radwell straight..

I just think if your going to OHLE everything you might as well straighten it up. Because the trains are already more advanced than our network will allow. We should be building a network that can cater for 300mph trains. In 20 years time all these other countries will have even faster trains and we will have to special order the equivalent of 2050's pacers.

Its my opinion, but the short sighted vision here is the need to use whats pre-existing, and whats pre-existing will be a problem in a 10th of the time the railway has already existed.

Carillion have setup shop at Sharnbrook in the old scrap yard I noticed 2 weeks ago.

 

[Bald Rick]

I was thinking more along the lines of Ampthill - Oakley. Its practically a straight line coming out of Ampthill tunnel going directly north (West of Kempston) and hitting the Radwell straight..

I just think if your going to OHLE everything you might as well straighten it up. Because the trains are already more advanced than our network will allow. We should be building a network that can cater for 300mph trains.

You missed the point. Non-stop trains already do the 10miles from where the line curves east a mile north of Ampthill tunnel to Oakley in 5mins, it being 125 all the way (save for a half mile of 110 at Bedford on the down only).

Therefore a cut off line, which would only be a mile shorter, could only save 5 minutes if the trains travelled at light speed. Even at 300mph, and assuming instant acceleration and deceleration, it would save only 3 minutes.

However in this country we obey the laws of physics.

 

[richieb1971]

You may be right, but Bedford was indicative of whats needed on the whole line. A few minutes here and there make a big difference on the overall package. Concentration south of Leicester is paramount in my opinion.

I don't think trains will go faster through Bedford than what they do now. So any advancements in train technology will be lost on a lot of the MML as it stands today. I think we are kicking the can down the road and after 10 billion of whatever its going to cost, will argue that not enough was done. Welly and Kettering have even worse scenarios to overcome.

 

[HSTEd]

These schemes start to get so expensive that it might even be cheaper to build a King's Cross to Bedford stub-HSL, which would probably get a better business case and would allow the soon to be surplus platforms at King's Cross to be used to relieve the MML.

It would certainly be superior to a bodge solution involving expensive but relatively ineffective realignments.

 

[richieb1971]

You could spend the 10 billion on straightening the track and running 150mph diesel trains on it.

If EWR is done right, it could be running faster trains in 2035 than half the main routes out of London. This is a reality that needs to be recognized before moving forward. OHLE remains a 20+ year solution in my eyes, after that the MML and WCML will be considered at 100% capacity for speed and passenger numbers and I believe we will be talking about this again then. Its up to the government if they want a short term fix, which is what I believe OHLE on the MML to be.

 

[DarloRich]

You could spend the 10 billion on straightening the track and running 150mph diesel trains on it.

If EWR is done right, it could be running faster trains in 2035 than half the main routes out of London. This is a reality that needs to be recognized before moving forward. OHLE remains a 20+ year solution in my eyes, after that the MML and WCML will be considered at 100% capacity for speed and passenger numbers and I believe we will be talking about this again then. Its up to the government if they want a short term fix, which is what I believe OHLE on the MML to be.

no - the reality to be considered is that your idea would cost an absolute fortune and deliver about zero benefit. We cant just rebuild main lines as if we were drawing lines on a map. We have to work, broadly, in the existing envelope and with existing or proven technology.

 

[Bald Rick]

You may be right

Complying with the laws of physics is compulsory. There's no 'may' about it!

 

[A0]

Corby electrification could help real-world average timings, by reducing the number of stops at Kettering and points further South on the services that stop, but obviously it depends on how the timetable evolves.

It will make no difference at all - because you currently for most of the day only have 1 tph from Leicester stopping at Kettering and vice-versa.

The other Kettering stopper is the Corby one.

There are long-standing complaints about the loss of northbound connectivity from Wellingborough and Kettering when the Corby's were introduced at the expense of one of the Nottingham stoppers.

 

[A0]

You could spend the 10 billion on straightening the track and running 150mph diesel trains on it.

If EWR is done right, it could be running faster trains in 2035 than half the main routes out of London. This is a reality that needs to be recognized before moving forward. OHLE remains a 20+ year solution in my eyes, after that the MML and WCML will be considered at 100% capacity for speed and passenger numbers and I believe we will be talking about this again then. Its up to the government if they want a short term fix, which is what I believe OHLE on the MML to be.

But with a totally different route profile to the routes out of London - so that's not really a valid comparison.

From Oxford, EWR will have 2 / 3 at the most key stations en route to Cambridge - Bletchley, Bedford and Sandy. Beyond that the places on the route are relatively insignificant - on an end to end route of roughly 90 miles.

Whereas all the routes out of London have more than that in the first 90 miles, which is why they have two or even three groups of services.

 

[richieb1971]

no - the reality to be considered is that your idea would cost an absolute fortune and deliver about zero benefit. We cant just rebuild main lines as if we were drawing lines on a map. We have to work, broadly, in the existing envelope and with existing or proven technology.

So the MML doesn't want "available" technology capable of 200mph trains on it then "ever". Never wants to cut times that only a straighter track can deliver and never wants to stop trains visiting villages that zero trains have stopped at since 1955-1960.

Fair enough. But when all that is an idea in some governments/engineers head, it will cost another 50 billion quid and all that OHLE being put up before 2018 will be taken down again.

Of course I could be wrong and the railway continues on its current alignment until doomsday and has bottle neck speed restrictions starting at Bedford pretty much all the way until north of Leicester.

I stopped thinking about money when I found out from this very forum that EVERYTHING the railway does costs an absolute fortune. Even thinking out loud costs too much.

 

[DarloRich]

So the MML doesn't want "available" technology capable of 200mph trains on it then "ever". Never wants to cut times that only a straighter track can deliver and never wants to stop trains visiting villages that zero trains have stopped at since 1955-1960.

Fair enough. But when all that is an idea in some governments/engineers head, it will cost another 50 billion quid and all that OHLE being put up before 2018 will be taken down again.

Of course I could be wrong and the railway continues on its current alignment until doomsday and has bottle neck speed restrictions starting at Bedford pretty much all the way until north of Leicester.

I stopped thinking about money when I found out from this very forum that EVERYTHING the railway does costs an absolute fortune. Even thinking out loud costs too much.

But your idea lacks even the most basic grounding in reality and doesn't even have a passing acquaintance with economics or cost benefit analysis!

 

[A0]

So the MML doesn't want "available" technology capable of 200mph trains on it then "ever". Never wants to cut times that only a straighter track can deliver and never wants to stop trains visiting villages that zero trains have stopped at since 1955-1960.

Fair enough. But when all that is an idea in some governments/engineers head, it will cost another 50 billion quid and all that OHLE being put up before 2018 will be taken down again.

Of course I could be wrong and the railway continues on its current alignment until doomsday and has bottle neck speed restrictions starting at Bedford pretty much all the way until north of Leicester.

I stopped thinking about money when I found out from this very forum that EVERYTHING the railway does costs an absolute fortune. Even thinking out loud costs too much.

To get 200 mph trains you need a completely new network for that kind of speed on a sustained basis as the French and Japanese have demonstrated.

France has the benefit the UK doesn't of a low population density - both have populations of 60-70m yet France has an area of 248 sq miles against the UK at 93 sq miles.

There are enough challenges trying to build HS2 and find a sensible route through without coming up with half-baked schemes to 'divert' about 5 miles of the Midland Mainline to avoid a curve in Bedford.

Other solutions do exist such as tilting trains or some lessening of the severity of curves - similar to the work which was done on the ECML in the past, but wholesale new formations for large stretches of the MML is unlikely ever to justify itself.

 

[richieb1971]

I suppose if hs2 connects to mml destinations making the current alignment of the mml more of a stopper route then it doesnt make sense.

 

[edwin_m]

I suppose if hs2 connects to mml destinations making the current alignment of the mml more of a stopper route then it doesnt make sense.

HS2 doesn't serve Leicester and the London journey times for central Derby and Nottingham via HS2 are little faster than current with the disincentive of a change of train. So there will still be a need for a fast MML service, at least for Leicester.

 

[richieb1971]

If you can get faster trains on the slows north of Bedford you can get even faster non stoppers on the fasts. This will drastically reduce journey times to Leicester and beyond.

I heard a rumour years ago stating that EMT will not stop south of Kettering and that the local stoppers will use the slows.

 

[InTheEastMids]

If you can get faster trains on the slows north of Bedford you can get even faster non stoppers on the fasts. This will drastically reduce journey times to Leicester and beyond.

I heard a rumour years ago stating that EMT will not stop south of Kettering and that the local stoppers will use the slows.

Slow lines between Bedfore & Kettering are proposed to be 90mph railway (I think). I could imagine that fast accelerating EMUs limited to 90 on that stretch won't lose too much time compared to the current service? Maybe a minute or 2 between Bedford & Wellingborough?

A gain for EMT might be to accelerate morning peak services, when the south end of EMT is a commuter railway. Most arrivals before 9am stop at least 3 out of Market Kettlingborough, Bedford and Luton/LAP, adding 10-15 minutes. Would there be a payback from getting a couple of peak services from Leicester to London without these stops?

However connectivity might be further degraded e.g. St. Albans to Sheffield might end up needing 3 changes at e.g. LAP, Kettering and Leicester. Although if hardly anybody does this, or they're very price-sensitive, should the railway be worrying about it?

 

[John Webb]

Slow lines between Bedfore & Kettering are proposed to be 90mph railway (I think). I could imagine that fast accelerating EMUs limited to 90 on that stretch won't lose too much time compared to the current service? Maybe a minute or 2 between Bedford & Wellingborough?

A gain for EMT might be to accelerate morning peak services, when the south end of EMT is a commuter railway. Most arrivals before 9am stop at least 3 out of Market Kettlingborough, Bedford and Luton/LAP, adding 10-15 minutes. Would there be a payback from getting a couple of peak services from Leicester to London without these stops?

However connectivity might be further degraded e.g. St. Albans to Sheffield might end up needing 3 changes at e.g. LAP, Kettering and Leicester. Although if hardly anybody does this, or they're very price-sensitive, should the railway be worrying about it?

Of course, at one time Intercity trains stopped at St Albans City, and included other destinations such as Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow, as well as Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham!

 

[Bald Rick]

However connectivity might be further degraded e.g. St. Albans to Sheffield might end up needing 3 changes at e.g. LAP, Kettering and Leicester. Although if hardly anybody does this, or they're very price-sensitive, should the railway be worrying about it?

In my experience it's usually quicker to do St Albans to anywhere on the MML from Leicester northwards by going via St Pancras.

Actually that's not true. It's quicker on the M1.

 

[edwin_m]

Last time I had reason to visit St Albans from Nottingham, the train journey took as long as to St Pancras, and to add insult to injury the fare was about the same as well.

The main reason for the long journey was the need to use the slow MML service with four stops between Leicester and Luton Airport Parkway. So for this particular journey transferring the Bedford and Wellingborough stops to the 2TPH Corby service would result in a small time saving.