Locations were approximate, for a clearer explanation of my concept see this snip:
Fair, I've got no local knowledge of the commuting patterns.
Ah fair enough I've obviously misremembered or conflated various non-official ideas.
The problem is that there isn't a huge amount up near Widdrington, so an extension isn't necessarily justified from a local services point of view. For intercity services, a Morpeth bypass certainly works.
I'd extend when massive expansion of Pegswood and Widdrington begin to build housing for the Newcastle commuter belt. Until then, turning at Morpeth is fine. But as I say, you could absolutely tie in just east of Pegswood.
I'll live with one less golf course in the world. More important is missing the Northumberlandia/Lady of the North monument.
From my eyeballing of it on google maps informed by a fair few involvements with actual rail projects, starting north of Cramlington means the divergence would impose a speed restriction below 125mph. 140mph isn't going to be worth it on legacy infrastructure (it's not just in-cab signalling, it's swingnose crossings, higher-spec OLE, no open platforms, etc), so this line is intended to diverge at 125mph and maintain that speed. The classic line could potentially be derated to ease cant deficiencies and maintenance burdens if worth it. Once the high-speed stuff is out you only need 90-100mph for the commuter units as the freights are limited to 75mph (although worth leaving it at 100mph if the freight ever gets that fast).
There are quite strong commuter flows on the ECML into and out of Newcastle (I mean we're not talking South Eastern into Cannon Street or something but still, comparatively strong
) which do cause issues from time to time.
I agree, would XC and TPE cease serving Morpeth as well? They do seem to like their intercity services. However a frequent local with a good connection at Newcastle could be better but it was mentioned previously that there aren't any more paths between Newcastle and Benton Junction. How about Northern order 110-125 capable stock as part of their Sprinter replacement order so they can fit better with LNER, XC and TPE? Also upgrading the turnouts at Benton to be higher speed would also improve capacity
Maybe Pegswood would be suitable for that, but I think more urban extensions north of that aren't feasible. More development of that nature is probably heading for Blyth and Ashington, if anywhere in Northumberland.
I would agree, although golf courses are notoriously difficult to negotiate with in the planning stage. Avoid the hassle by avoiding it and it will save time/money.
I agree that we should be aiming for a minimum of 125mph, but shouldn't we be aiming for 140mph and above on new stretches of line, whether they are integrated into the classic network or not?
I would strongly suggest the upcoming large regional order for TOCs including Northern will be 100mph capable units for fleet uniformity reasons.
I would like to future proof for 2150, but I recognise the constraints. I also have an idea of building something similar to the old curve between Pegswood and Ashington so that the Northumberland line services can be turned into rounders without having to worry about turning off one station too early (this would allow Morpeth-Bedlington to be abandoned and save a fair bit of cash). An ECML cutoff would need to avoid such a link.
Buying out the golf course would be pennies in the scheme of this project tbh. Maybe get a long-term plan and encourage as many railway staff as possible to join up first so they can vote in the AGM....
The difference between 125mph and 140mph is in the order of 2-3seconds per mile. A cutoff like this is accepting the 125mph ruling speed, so 140mph makes no sense. If you're building a completely new line from Newcastle to Edinburgh, then you'd build it for 180-200mph (300-350kph), not 140mph.
Yes but between Newcastle and Morpeth are they actually hitting 100mph? I'd suggest only for the briefest of margins. Improving journey times is about raising the lowest common denominator, not the highest individual point. Floors not ceilings, if you will.
In my mind, no. Morpeth would be served by a 2tph or more even-interval connection to Newcastle station timed to connect to Southbound LNER.
Does anybody have the link to this study? The biggest capacity issues are usually stoppers vs fast, then platform capacity, then conflicts at junction. There's only Manors on that section, it's not supremely fast, it's not that long. IIRC the headway is 4 or thereabouts, so in theory there's 15 paths in each direction, minus a few for the single line at Benton North, minus a few more for the slower runtimes of freight and the trains that stop at Manors.
the hypothetical line is not an engineer's proposal, but a rough indication of the concept. It would almost certainly need to be straightened out for a 125mph speed and would likely go straight through at least part of the golf course.
The fundamental problem with any ECML cut off north of Newcastle is that the ECML is around 10-12 minutes slower than HS2 for London-Edinburgh traffic, and while Newcastle and Leeds are important markets, there's limited point in building a cutoff just for them. The WCML going to host trains from London, the Midlands and Manchester to Scotland.I would like to future proof for 2150, but I recognise the constraints. I also have an idea of building something similar to the old curve between Pegswood and Ashington so that the Northumberland line services can be turned into rounders without having to worry about turning off one station too early (this would allow Morpeth-Bedlington to be abandoned and save a fair bit of cash). An ECML cutoff would need to avoid such a link.
Buying out the golf course would be pennies in the scheme of this project tbh. Maybe get a long-term plan and encourage as many railway staff as possible to join up first so they can vote in the AGM....
The difference between 125mph and 140mph is in the order of 2-3seconds per mile. A cutoff like this is accepting the 125mph ruling speed, so 140mph makes no sense. If you're building a completely new line from Newcastle to Edinburgh, then you'd build it for 180-200mph (300-350kph), not 140mph.
Yes but between Newcastle and Morpeth are they actually hitting 100mph? I'd suggest only for the briefest of margins. Improving journey times is about raising the lowest common denominator, not the highest individual point. Floors not ceilings, if you will.
In my mind, no. Morpeth would be served by a 2tph or more even-interval connection to Newcastle station timed to connect to Southbound LNER.
Does anybody have the link to this study? The biggest capacity issues are usually stoppers vs fast, then platform capacity, then conflicts at junction. There's only Manors on that section, it's not supremely fast, it's not that long. IIRC the headway is 4 or thereabouts, so in theory there's 15 paths in each direction, minus a few for the single line at Benton North, minus a few more for the slower runtimes of freight and the trains that stop at Manors.
I'd have thought getting that throughput at Newcastle's long platforms would be the issue, not the plainline section.
Although I'd also support 4-tracking of this section in a paired by use arrangment (fasts on the west, slows on the east) to reduce conflicts at Heaton and Benton between trains turning out and fasts.
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the hypothetical line is not an engineer's proposal, but a rough indication of the concept. It would almost certainly need to be straightened out for a 125mph speed and would likely go straight through at least part of the golf course.
Oh I completely agree, but the premise of the thread was about ECML cutoffs. You'll get far better returns from building Preston-Carlisle and Carlisle-Carstairs sections of HS2.
Northern currently use mostly class 156s with the occasional 158 on Morpeth services, so no they don't hit 100mph!
FLIRTs are probably the best fit given that Northern want BEMUs I believe. Acceleration would definitely be needed for getting off Benton Junction
Not a terrible idea.
It's not the price I was thinking about, it was their ability to disrupt the planning process!Buying out the golf course would be pennies in the scheme of this project tbh. Maybe get a long-term plan and encourage as many railway staff as possible to join up first so they can vote in the AGM....
Indeed, but I don't think we will get a HSL Newcastle to Edinburgh, and the IET (which will be around for decades longer) has a design speed of 140mph. So if we are talking incremental bypasses built on a few sections, why not claw back a bit of time with a 140mph top speed?
No, but they will need to elsewhere on the network and it's simpler to standardise one fleet order with one top speed for maintenance reasons.
Although you have to consider that the Tyne and Wear Metro will be using part of the line, so it's unlikely that it could accomodate a truly fast service.
Maybe, 140mph seems best to start with (maybe the alignment itself could be suitable for 150-180mph) and then upgrading speeds a la LGV if rolling stock speeds keep up.
Once you tick up to 126mph, there is no point in going for anything less than the maximum achievable.
There are two factors against that:
How about building with higher speeds in mind but starting operations at 125mph? A Morpeth bypass could be the first bit of a longer line which is built in stages but sadly unlikely to be built anytime soon. I'd extend to just north of Alnmouth to dodge the 85mph restriction there but obviously would be more expensive. Future-proofing sounds like a good idea for new lines. Maybe future proof for 250kmh?
Which there is. The (southern) ECML is currently first on the list for ETCS conversion and work is AFAIK already underway.
How many swingnose crossings would a cut off line actually require?
I've thought about this a lot, and is this sort of routing really better than simply going west of Morpeth and sticking close to the A1?
I think you'd look at both routes for engineering feasibility. Both routes would have tricky sections of engineering but both seem much of a muchness. The advantage of 'cutting the corner' is that you keep the railway's footprint relatively contained but the advantage of 'flattening the curve' is that you're following the already reasonably straight not-a-motorway-honest-guv route.
Perhaps
1.) Maybe, but I thought that the most of the line north of Morpeth as far as Berwick was reasonably straight (and rural, so land is typically available should any upgrades of existing alignment be needed to reach 140mph).
Perhaps 125 would be a good starting point, but by the time the Morpeth bypass is built, I do think it will be the ideal place to test 140mph on the northern end of the line and therefore opening with in cab signalling would make sense. I don't think a bypass encompassing Alnmouth all the way from Morpeth would make more sense.
Considering there are few to no intermediate stations on that section of route bypasses are fairly feasible without the locals getting annoyed about losing their local station. Maybe north of Berwick where the line gets curvier?
If you mean the stretch just north of Berwick, the line has already been tweaked inland just a bit many years ago, through the site of the present Marshall Meadows caravan park, but it’s only a relatively small offset, so I don’t think rapid cliff erosion was expected.