Radlett Strategic Rail Freight Interchange/WCML

[mr_jrt]

Now this appears to actually be moving forward, it reminded me of some old musing back from when it was first announced. Whilst I'm extremely sceptical of just how much rail freight this will ever actually see given how these things tend to pan out (let alone the capacity constraints on the southern MML), let's give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

Specifically, I was wondering if could it ever be worthwhile to also have a connection to the Abbey Line to provide a rail freight connection to the WCML? There once upon a time was a contractor's connection from just north of How Wood, used during the construction of the Midland's London extension from Bedford that appears to be in a perfect location. Obviously, the branch would need major upgrading, but it could act as the justification needed to finally get that done for wider benefits.



The options as I see them are either to double the branch and treat it as two separate bidi routes, which would have the advantage of keeping them operationally separate, but would force you to do expensive doubling works. An alternative is to introduce signalling with loops, the number and location of which would all depend on how many freight paths you needed (you might just need the proposed one at Bricket Wood to let a long freight pass a short passenger service, for example). Or you go the whole hog and double the whole thing and signal accordingly to get all the capacity you would need for freight and increased passenger services.

 

[The Planner]

Where is the freight going? its no use to you if you want to go north. Your only option is for a run round at Wembley, and by the time you have done that you will be at Wellingborough if you were heading north on the MML.

 

[mr_jrt]

The junction to the MML appears from what I've seen to also be south facing, so I suspect the same question applies to that (unless a north-facing link is what the strange curves branching off the south facing link are for?). I would imagine this would be freight currently being interchanged at Wembley being interchanged at Radlett for easier access to the northern M25 without having to squeeze though the north London outer urban road network. Wonderful as the north circular is, it's largely a car park for large chunks of the day.

If the need to head north were desired, the obvious initial option on the WCML is to expand the neck south of Watford Junction to enable a loco to run around in Watford yard, propel its train into the neck, then cross over to head off northwards. The neck is currently ~340m, and you could easily double that by widening the embankment before needing a major new bridge. I'm not aware of typical freight lengths, but I suspect 500m should suffice? If those curves are for a north-facing MML link, then that would have to likely be a quite similar operation?

 

[Nottingham59]

Wtih my cynical hat on, I suspect the MML rail link was merely to tick the right boxes in order to get planning permission for the site. I don't suppose it will get used much. It may be possible to get intermodal paths through London from London Gateway and Barking, and other South Coast ports, but I'd expect those to be extremely limited, except at night.

Looking at the map, it may be that a rail connection to the Abbey Line would be cheaper than building a connection to the MML slows. Which might appeal to the developers as a way of ticking the "rail connection" box at a lower cost? I can't see that two separate rail connections would ever happen.


EDIT: I see that site development is now far too far advanced for any change to proposed layouts of rail links to be considered.

 

[The Planner]

The junction to the MML appears from what I've seen to also be south facing, so I suspect the same question applies to that (unless a north-facing link is what the strange curves branching off the south facing link are for?). I would imagine this would be freight currently being interchanged at Wembley being interchanged at Radlett for easier access to the northern M25 without having to squeeze though the north London outer urban road network. Wonderful as the north circular is, it's largely a car park for large chunks of the day.

If the need to head north were desired, the obvious initial option on the WCML is to expand the neck south of Watford Junction to enable a loco to run around in Watford yard, propel its train into the neck, then cross over to head off northwards. The neck is currently ~340m, and you could easily double that by widening the embankment before needing a major new bridge. I'm not aware of typical freight lengths, but I suspect 500m should suffice? If those curves are for a north-facing MML link, then that would have to likely be a quite similar operation?

If its Intermodal then you are going to need 800m to factor in 775m trains and standback. Spend no money at all on that and go to Wembley instead with the same time issues I noted above.

 

[D7666]

Ask a silly question but intermodal was mentioned above (albeit in a conditional phrase) - did that mean container : is MML north actually gauge cleared for /any/ modern container boxes ?

Apart from those containers (lying at the smaller end of the box size range) used on the former Cricklewood rubbish trains (that were limited to south of Bedford anyway) MML does not have modern container trains.

And:

//www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Network-Rail-freight-map-intermodal-sector-with-gauge-clearance.pdf

shows no MML intermodal gauge clearance at all.

Are there intermodal gauge clearance - to one gauge or another - works being done on MML ? As part of electrification works or other ? as part of the Radlett project ?

Does this all indicate intermodal - if there are any - are going to head south anyway, not north ?

Further evidence this is a sham rail connection just to get planning permission - as they can then use lack of gauge clearance to not serve rail borne containers ?

Further, when we are all supposed to be going green, there is no electrified route off MML connected to any other electrified route, no AC route at the London end. Even when MML reaches Leicester or much beyond, there is still no OLE connection to anywhere else. So yet more 66s hauled box trains then ?

Hardly much strategic planning going on is there.

PS
BEFORE some wit comes along and posts it, I did underline the word modern to avoid someone citing the Hendon Condor or Kentish Town Tartan Arrow operations.
ALSO other wits do not need to comment MML is connected to other electrified route via Thameslink thence DC - but that would be a silly comment to make anyway since pretty obviously you can't run container trains through there.

 

[Bald Rick]

Specifically, I was wondering if could it ever be worthwhile to also have a connection to the Abbey Line to provide a rail freight connection to the WCML?

In a word, no.

Radlett will be a distribution park receiving inbound boxes from ports, and sending them back empty. A connection from the WCML is little use for that, let alone one that runs through the middle of the largest warehouse on site (per your drawing), would require to elevated right next to the back gardens / back windows of around 50 residential properties and a primary school, and would cost several hundred million pounds.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jun 2024 ==

Are there intermodal gauge clearance - to one gauge or another - works being done on MML ? As part of electrification works or other ? as part of the Radlett project ?

The new electrification has delivered some gauge clearance. But there’s nothing being done or planned anywhere between Bedford and Carlton Road Junction. And it would be very expensive.

If there is ever a container service into Radlett, it will have pocket wagons, and that makes it inefficient, which is not helpful for the short trips involved.

 

[MP33]

I regularly visit a location near to the Abbey line. From viewing the infrastructure, particularly the overbridges, I think that they would not be capable of supporting heavy freight trains without strengthening.

 

[jagardner1984]

This site is about the M25.

Full stop.

All associated photos on websites of trees, electric trains or smiling wildlife are all part of a backdrop of a scandal that has been the best part of 20 years in the making.

St Albans MP makes blistering attack on county Conservatives over Radlett airfield sale - St Albans Times

Liberal Democrat Daisy Cooper writes exclusively for the St Albans Times on the decision to sell the former Radlett airfield for a rail freight depot. Residents and campaigners have fought against these plans for a monstrous terminal on their doorstep from start to finish for more than 20 years...

stalbanstimes.co.uk

I suppose assuming John Curtice et al are not monumentally wrong with their predictions of the very near future, as we “go for growth” there will be many similar conflicts between people who see their immediate infrastructure from their kitchen window at near breaking point / gridlock, and the national desire to run many many Amazon Lorries through their, as the saying goes, backyard.

It would be interesting to see a project (also bringing growth) like this which had more than the traditional 200m of track from an already overflowing railway to a dead end. For example, 4 or 6 tracking from the point of the freight flow to somewhere near where the freight would like to go. Or much longer additional passing loops to give the freight somewhere to go without quite so much risk to an already painfully tight passenger timetable.

For example, the congestion on the north WCML is often talked about in the congestion of freight and passenger services between Carlisle and Glasgow.

At some point, whoever is standing outside the black door on 5th July, there will need to be some realisation that opportunities for growth which do not involve even more Lorries are rather constrained by the lack of additional capacity (HS2 being the headline but far from only example) built to the UK rail network over most of the last century.

 

[Bald Rick]

I’ve never been directly involved in this project, and for good reason. I have written on these pages a number of times my personal view that use of it as a rail freight interchange will be minimal. It will have inefficient rail operations, pathing the trains will be extremely difficult except at night, and the runs from Felixstowe, Gateway and Southampton are too short to compete with road.

Of course I could be wrong.

 

[D7666]

I’ve never been directly involved in this project, and for good reason. I have written on these pages a number of times my personal view that use of it as a rail freight interchange will be minimal. It will have inefficient rail operations, pathing the trains will be extremely difficult except at night, and the runs from Felixstowe, Gateway and Southampton are too short to compete with road.

Of course I could be wrong.

I don't think you are wrong.

High level overview on the face of it looks like a wonderful location to have a road rail freight interchange. But anyone can stick pins in maps.

The detail of it is very different - and the very details that are missing gives it all away - the lack of rail gauge widening and what are practical limits on MML access to logical freight connections beyond MML, and never mind the lack of possible electric freight routes, not even sure if the present MML OLE power upgrade is big enough to take freight ACL on top of 300/700/800 EMU***. The rail sidings seem to me to be both not enough and not long enough : it needs to be on the Daventry scale to be of any large scale use.

IMHO as already posted by me and others, lever to get planning permission is the only reason it has any rail link.


*** and before anyone posts it, 1990s use of 87s/90s on WCML diversions is irrelevant; that was all done by bespoke easement w.r.t. power supply.

 

[HSTEd]

This project does appear to be a pretty good example of the phenomenon of "rail connection as planning tool".

 

[westcoaster]

Now this appears to actually be moving forward, it reminded me of some old musing back from when it was first announced. Whilst I'm extremely sceptical of just how much rail freight this will ever actually see given how these things tend to pan out (let alone the capacity constraints on the southern MML), let's give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

Specifically, I was wondering if could it ever be worthwhile to also have a connection to the Abbey Line to provide a rail freight connection to the WCML? There once upon a time was a contractor's connection from just north of How Wood, used during the construction of the Midland's London extension from Bedford that appears to be in a perfect location. Obviously, the branch would need major upgrading, but it could act as the justification needed to finally get that done for wider benefits.

View attachment 160177

The options as I see them are either to double the branch and treat it as two separate bidi routes, which would have the advantage of keeping them operationally separate, but would force you to do expensive doubling works. An alternative is to introduce signalling with loops, the number and location of which would all depend on how many freight paths you needed (you might just need the proposed one at Bricket Wood to let a long freight pass a short passenger service, for example). Or you go the whole hog and double the whole thing and signal accordingly to get all the capacity you would need for freight and increased passenger services.

Does the Branch from Watford, have multiple open/half barrier crossings. Also there is no passing place for unit shuttling backward and forwards all day.

 

[Bald Rick]

Does the Branch from Watford, have multiple open/half barrier crossings. Also there is no passing place for unit shuttling backward and forwards all day.

There is one highway LX at Watford North - an ABC(L) (Automatic Barrier Crossing, Locally Monitored). Theres also a footpath crossing at How Wood, and another in St Albans.

 

[John Webb]

Does the Branch from Watford, have multiple open/half barrier crossings. Also there is no passing place for unit shuttling backward and forwards all day.

There have been occasional proposals to reinstate the passing loop at Bricket Wood station but costings of such proposals have brought forth the comment "We can't afford it" and they have died as a result. Shame as such a loop would allow a regular 30min 'clockface' service rather than the existing 45min one.

 

[Haywain]

This project does appear to be a pretty good example of the phenomenon of "rail connection as planning tool".

It looks to be an alarmingly expensive example then, with the requirement for an access bridge under all 4 tracks of the MML, and the lengthy closure for installation.

 

[mr_jrt]

IIRC (though I can't for the life of me tell you where I once read it) the Midland intended to extend what are currently known as the Hendon lines to St Albans, but it fell by the wayside at grouping. It's a shame that project never happened, as there would be all the capacity to this terminal you could need, had it done so.

 

[D7666]

IIRC (though I can't for the life of me tell you where I once read it) the Midland intended to extend what are currently known as the Hendon lines to St Albans, but it fell by the wayside at grouping. It's a shame that project never happened, as there would be all the capacity to this terminal you could need, had it done so.

Except had that been built BR would have rationalised it in or before 1980s - just as they rationalised the two track Sharnbrook goods line to a single line, then then had to go back and reinstate it in the 2d 21C decade.

IMHO no way would 6 tracks to StAlbans have survived into or past MML 1980s resignalling (i.e. the one that commissioned West Hampstead power box), and I'd suspect 6 tracks would have gone in 1960s.

 

[mr_jrt]

Probably. But the odds are the formation and any major works (i.e. a third bore of the Elstree tunnel) would still be there, as was the case for the formation north of Bedford.

The Hendon lines did survive though, so maybe they would have still been there. I would imagine Silkstream junction would not exist in its present form either, with an equivalent probably just south of St Albans, possibly even adjacent to the aerodrome site. The costs of building something akin to the present Silkstream junction would make any savings from rationalisation pale into comparison, I would imagine.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

Well, whether freight trains will or will not use the Radlett site, iNetwork Rail have announced a 9-day possession between St Pancras and Harpenden this Christmas, with major engineering works, amongst which are

• Replacing the bridge deck on a road over rail bridge at Agar Grove in Camden.
• Continuing work to upgrade the overhead lines, which power trains, between London St Pancras and Bedford.
• Installing a new bridge under the railway to provide access to Radlett Strategic Freight interchange.

Railway upgrades between London St Pancras and Bedford this Christmas

Passengers are being advised to plan ahead this festive period as vital engineering work will be taking place to improve reliability for passengers.

www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk

It had been rumoured many years ago that Royal Mail were interested in having a Superhub at Radlett, and vacating the Princess Royal Distribution Centre in Willesden.
Obviously, the long delays between planning permission and the start of the construction may have kyboshed any such plan. Also, now that withdrawal from using the Class 325 fleet has happened, it seems even less likely.
If only there were a new hybrid Class of locomotive that could run on both electricity and diesel…

 

[Bald Rick]

the new underpass has been under construction for months, on the east side of the line. It will be slid in during the block (assuming it‘s ready).

 

[Skimpot flyer]

the new underpass has been under construction for months, on the east side of the line. It will be slid in during the block (assuming it‘s ready).

I passed the site today, and grabbed these images of the underpass, awaiting the move into place

 

[masekwm]

How on earth will it be moved?

 

[Haywain]

Pushed by large jacks probably. There have been a number of similar operations in recent years.

 

[Nottingham59]

How on earth will it be moved?

This is how they pushed a similar box at Werrington on the ECML

 

[masekwm]

Thanks @Nottingham59

Makes more sense after going to see it, here is some drone footage of the bridge being built before being pushed into place at Christmas.

 

[John Webb]

Thanks @Nottingham59

Makes more sense after going to see it, here is some drone footage of the bridge being built before being pushed into place at Christmas.

I'm astonished at the comments of the commentator about the lack of a direct connection to the M25. The DoT refused to allow one because of the closeness of J21/21A and J22 on the M25 to the site. It was a major reason why St Albans District Council refused planning permission. I thought that was well-known - apparently not!

 

[furnessvale]

How on earth will it be moved?

I was involved in quite a few in my youth. Heavy bridges were slid sideways on PTFE faced skids running on beams faced with stainless steel. The problem often was stopping them once you had got them moving!

Lighter bridges could be slid on cannonballs running in tracks formed of bullhead rail laying on its side.

 

[Nottingham59]

Thanks @Nottingham59

The bit that shows only for a few seconds in the Werrington video (at 1:00 to 1:06) is that they used a small boring machine to lay two concrete pipes, like big sewer pipes, through the embankment when it was still in use. Inside these, they laid the sliding beams and concrete guide edges.

So on the day of the move, all they have to do is remove the embankment itself and break open the top of the sewer pipes to reveal the sliding surface ready to bear the weight of the underpass structure as it slides into place.

 

[Haywain]

So on the day of the move, all they have to do..

"The day"! I admire your optimism.