Where next to four track?

[Stopper]

Edinburgh-Inverkeithing is absolutely impossible and not really necessary at the moment. Dalmeny Jn is the furthest you can feasibly get.

One of Haymarket-Newbridge Junction (pretty hard) or Haymarket-Dalmeny Jn (plus the Almond Chord) would be ideal just to provide the necessary service as at the moment, most E-G & SDA stations are underserved.

Other obvious Scottish ones would be Finnieston West Jn to Hyndland East Junction (Partick-Hyndland corridor) and as much as possible of Edinburgh-Drem.

 

[Bald Rick]

Just wondering but when they get around to 4 tracking the West Anglia via Tottenham Hale, will this allow MORE Greater Anglia services from Cambridge, Hertford and Bishops Stortford or even allow for the introduction of a fast service to rival the GTR service?

Also does this mean there are any plans to close the countless level crossings on this route at all?

Probably a couple more. Liverpool St is still at capacity now though. A fast(er) service from Cambridge would only be possibly by getting other services out of the way between Cambridge and Broxbourne, and that means the slower services either need to drop stops, or be looped at Harlow.

 

[Bald Rick]

Just how many trains are people expecting on the Coventry corridor to 4 track it!?

Quite. And where would they go once they got to Proof House Jn?

 

[The Planner]

Details sir, details.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Quite. And where would they go once they got to Proof House Jn?

Presumably down the Crayonista West Midlands version of Crossrail.....

Boring fact - the LMS supposedly looked at this in 1938 , there was a panic in 1999 or so under PUG2 to look at it. Just a bit tricky.

Medium term ideas for pushing the tram to Elmdon airport will assist , plus of course HS2 in releasing capacity. Short term - some strategic peak extra cars on LNWR.

 

[Bald Rick]

Presumably down the Crayonista West Midlands version of Crossrail.....

Boring fact - the LMS supposedly looked at this in 1938 , there was a panic in 1999 or so under PUG2 to look at it. Just a bit tricky.

Medium term ideas for pushing the tram to Elmdon airport will assist , plus of course HS2 in releasing capacity. Short term - some strategic peak extra cars on LNWR.

A former colleague, who knows his railway history in this area (once the AGM of the LM) assured me that the LMS won powers for the 4 tracking of the Cov Corridor, but events in Europe rather got in the way.


Meanwhile, while we are that side of Birmingham, I’m surprised no one has suggested Solihull to Tyseley.

 

[Meerkat]

Leeds to Milford would surely be a huge help to TPE and XC, and would mean decent suburban services with more stations were possible.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Quadrupling to Swindon would make it easier to re-introduce a local service to Swindon as stops at Wantage Road for Grove (the housing development near Wantage) and Wantage itself and possibly also at Uffington and Shrivenham would be easier to timetable without getting in the way of the fast Bristol, South Wales and Cheltenham trains.

And South Marston - put a parkway by the A419/A420 junction.

 

[RichJF]

As a Southerner & regular user of the BML I would advocate 4-tracking Three Bridges to Ouse Valley Viaduct & Haywards Heath - Brighton.

I don't know if you'd ever get permission for another structure in similar size to the brick viaduct in rural Conservative stronghold today. Then again if you're going to drive extra tunnels to Brighton to accommodate 4 tracks they might approve it!

 

[Aictos]

Probably a couple more. Liverpool St is still at capacity now though. A fast(er) service from Cambridge would only be possibly by getting other services out of the way between Cambridge and Broxbourne, and that means the slower services either need to drop stops, or be looped at Harlow.

Could they actually join the Hertfords via Tottenham Hale and Bishop Stortford services and run them as one service between Liverpool Street and Broxbourne if that helps on pathing?

The alternative I guess is for more use of Stratford for WAML services if that's possible?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Just how many trains are people expecting on the Coventry corridor to 4 track it!? The line will be a damn sight easier to plan once Hs2 opens. There have never been any plans to 4 track the lot, the closest has always been Stechford to Beechwood tunnel.

What makes you think the line will be easier to operate post HS2? At the moment, each hour off-peak there are 4 slowish trains on the line (though one of the LMR one is fast between Birmingham and International), competing for paths with a fast Arriva Wales (only as far as International), one XC, and three Virgins. The three Virgin trains are the only ones that could plausibly lose many passengers as a result of HS2. I guess it's possible that one of those trains might disappear as a result, but can't see it would be more than that - and a more likely scenario is that all three of those trains remain, but they all stop at Watford/MK/Rugby etc. to provide better connections to those towns. That suggests to me that HS2 won't make any difference at all to ease of operating that line.

And then you need to consider that the current timetable is essentially a compromise... the best that can be delivered with only 2 tracks, but one that clearly represents a massive lost opportunity to provide a decent metro service to the intermediate stops in Birmingham. Adderley Park, for example still only has 1tph, which must be significantly suppressing demand. To my mind, that is where the argument for 4-tracking comes (aside from improving robustness of the timetable).

I am aware that proposals for 4-tracking have tended to suggest only 4-tracking part of the route. But I'm guessing that's because those proposals are heavily influenced by the need to keep costs down and have tended to focus on what is needed to make the current timetable robust, rather than looking at what service ought to be being provided to avoid suppressing demand. (Am I correct?)

And to directly answer your question: I would imagine a reasonable long term ambition for the line ought to be something like: 1 fast train every 10 minutes calling only at International, most of which would continue to London, plus 1 or 2 hourly XC fasts. Plus an all-stops metro service every 10 minutes New St.- International, with half of those continuing as all stops to Coventry.

 

[Bald Rick]

Could they actually join the Hertfords via Tottenham Hale and Bishop Stortford services and run them as one service between Liverpool Street and Broxbourne if that helps on pathing?

The alternative I guess is for more use of Stratford for WAML services if that's possible?

It would release paths, but not provide additional capacity, as the joint train would still have to fit into Liverpool St. In current train lengths, you’d have 2 x 8 cars joining up. Also it would extend journey time.

You can’t get more than 4tph into Stratford from Tottenham Hale as you need to keep a line free for the ECS to/from Orient Way.

What makes you think the line will be easier to operate post HS2? At the moment, each hour off-peak there are 4 slowish trains on the line (though one of the LMR one is fast between Birmingham and International), competing for paths with a fast Arriva Wales (only as far as International), one XC, and three Virgins. The three Virgin trains are the only ones that could plausibly lose many passengers as a result of HS2. I guess it's possible that one of those trains might disappear as a result, but can't see it would be more than that - and a more likely scenario is that all three of those trains remain, but they all stop at Watford/MK/Rugby etc. to provide better connections to those towns. That suggests to me that HS2 won't make any difference at all to ease of operating that line.

And then you need to consider that the current timetable is essentially a compromise... the best that can be delivered with only 2 tracks, but one that clearly represents a massive lost opportunity to provide a decent metro service to the intermediate stops in Birmingham. Adderley Park, for example still only has 1tph, which must be significantly suppressing demand. To my mind, that is where the argument for 4-tracking comes (aside from improving robustness of the timetable).

I am aware that proposals for 4-tracking have tended to suggest only 4-tracking part of the route. But I'm guessing that's because those proposals are heavily influenced by the need to keep costs down and have tended to focus on what is needed to make the current timetable robust, rather than looking at what service ought to be being provided to avoid suppressing demand. (Am I correct?)

And to directly answer your question: I would imagine a reasonable long term ambition for the line ought to be something like: 1 fast train every 10 minutes calling only at International, most of which would continue to London, plus 1 or 2 hourly XC fasts. Plus an all-stops metro service every 10 minutes New St.- International, with half of those continuing as all stops to Coventry.

I guess what makes him think that way is that he has something to do with the timetable on that line.

The main issue is, as hinted at previously: where would all these trains go when they reached Proof House Junction and New Street?

 

[AndrewE]

The main issue is, as hinted at previously: where would all these trains go when they reached Proof House Junction and New Street?

Easy: make the new HS2 terminus a deep level through station instead and widen it out to take some of the express trains coming in from Coventry too, plus some other services that might make sense. That would allow New St to be mainly a suburban station with the long-distance stuff concentrated in the new station (with rising travellator links to New St and Moor St.)

 

[The Planner]

What makes you think the line will be easier to operate post HS2? At the moment, each hour off-peak there are 4 slowish trains on the line (though one of the LMR one is fast between Birmingham and International), competing for paths with a fast Arriva Wales (only as far as International), one XC, and three Virgins. The three Virgin trains are the only ones that could plausibly lose many passengers as a result of HS2. I guess it's possible that one of those trains might disappear as a result, but can't see it would be more than that - and a more likely scenario is that all three of those trains remain, but they all stop at Watford/MK/Rugby etc. to provide better connections to those towns. That suggests to me that HS2 won't make any difference at all to ease of operating that line.

And then you need to consider that the current timetable is essentially a compromise... the best that can be delivered with only 2 tracks, but one that clearly represents a massive lost opportunity to provide a decent metro service to the intermediate stops in Birmingham. Adderley Park, for example still only has 1tph, which must be significantly suppressing demand. To my mind, that is where the argument for 4-tracking comes (aside from improving robustness of the timetable).

I am aware that proposals for 4-tracking have tended to suggest only 4-tracking part of the route. But I'm guessing that's because those proposals are heavily influenced by the need to keep costs down and have tended to focus on what is needed to make the current timetable robust, rather than looking at what service ought to be being provided to avoid suppressing demand. (Am I correct?)

And to directly answer your question: I would imagine a reasonable long term ambition for the line ought to be something like: 1 fast train every 10 minutes calling only at International, most of which would continue to London, plus 1 or 2 hourly XC fasts. Plus an all-stops metro service every 10 minutes New St.- International, with half of those continuing as all stops to Coventry.

A half hourly pattern (which is likely to happen after HS2) is a damn sight easier to plan than a 20 minute interval one. And to repeat what Bald Rick has said, where are all these trains going at Proof House and Coventry? The 4 track proposals are not needed for the robustness of the current timetable at all, International does not need 14tph and I would fully expect the next route study to back that up.

 

[The Planner]

Easy: make the new HS2 terminus a deep level through station instead and widen it out to take some of the express trains coming in from Coventry too, plus some other services that might make sense. That would allow New St to be mainly a suburban station with the long-distance stuff concentrated in the new station (with rising travellator links to New St and Moor St.)

You forgot the after "easy"

 

[DynamicSpirit]

A half hourly pattern (which is likely to happen after HS2) is a damn sight easier to plan than a 20 minute interval one. And to repeat what Bald Rick has said, where are all these trains going at Proof House and Coventry? The 4 track proposals are not needed for the robustness of the current timetable at all, International does not need 14tph and I would fully expect the next route study to back that up.

Half hourly pattern? Which trains? Bear with me as I try to understand what you're saying

I can well see that International doesn't need 14tph (don't think it gets anything like that many to Birmingham today though, does it?), but I'd have thought that Coventry, Rugby, Northampton and Milton Keynes would between them be able to support a fairly frequent fast service to Birmingham (plus of course the XC trains), and that stations between New Street and International could support a more frequent stopping service than they are currently getting, so it would surprise me if there's much of a case for reducing the number of services compared to today. I understand that New Street has capacity constraints which would prevent more services than at present on that corridor, but I still don't see how that all adds up to an easier timetable?

 

[Bald Rick]

Half hourly pattern? Which trains? Bear with me as I try to understand what you're saying

I can well see that International doesn't need 14tph, but I'd have thought that Coventry, Rugby, Northampton and Milton Keynes would between them be able to support a fairly frequent fast service to Birmingham (plus of course the XC trains), and that stations between New Street and International could support a more frequent stopping service than they are currently getting, so it would surprise me if there's much of a case for reducing the number of services compared to today. I understand that New Street has capacity constraints which would prevent more services than at present on that corridor, but I still don't see how that all adds up to an easier timetable?

The Cov corridor is currently on a 20 minute pattern to fit around 3 x West Coast trains an hour. This causes various compromises in the timetable, not least a lot of pathing time or dwell time in the WMT services to from London, plus the hourly International shuttle which is a rather inefficient use of resources.

Post HS2, the West Coast trains ‘fast’ services via Coventry will reduce to half hourly, which will make it much easier to fit the WMT services in, as there will be bigger gaps without a fast train on their tail lamps. It could, potentially, mean an extra WMT service (or even two) on the corridor compared to today, although that would obviously be subject to finding space at New St. Having one less WC train occupying a platform for half an hour plus each hour will certainly help in that respect.

 

[Meerkat]

Is a Birmingham cross city tunnel at all plausible? Can you get enough trains through it to make it worthwhile without having underground junctions - i am thinking ‘simplest’ would be on the Cov to Wolverhampton corridor under the current line (depending on the piling under New Street) with a station with an exit at one end into New Street and the other into Moor Street/HS2?

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I agree with everything you say. I was posting on the premise of this being a speculative idea. Reality comes back rather hard.

I would add quadruple track between the Ruislips and passing loops for both lines at Princes Risborough.

I'm not sure what you'd gain at the Ruislips, there are already passing loops at both stations, the loop at West Ruislip is bi directional. It's relatively easy just to have the timetable set out so that the express overtakes the stopping service while it's at a stand in the platform. Sometimes the stopping service has a longer dwell time than is ideal (5 minutes or so) as a couple of trains are booked to overtake but the money required for an utterly minimal gain just isn't worth it in my opinion. It's a similar story at Risborough, the passing loop is bidirectional and a lot of the trains which are overtaken there are heading to/from Aylesbury which means they are in the bidirectional platform 2 anyway. Much like the number of stations, the Chiltern service really does thin out once you leave the Chiltern hills. There are only typically 5 trains per hour in each direction (two Oxfords, two Birminghams and the Banbury semi fast) and they don't tend to get in the way of each other all that much beyond things which could be tweaked by adding a few more signals and removing the stock which is limited to 75 mph. Reinstating four tracking at the Birmingham end of the line between Dorridge and Moor Street would probably see more tangible benefits but even then I'm not sure the business case is as strong as other areas of the network.

Is a Birmingham cross city tunnel at all plausible? Can you get enough trains through it to make it worthwhile without having underground junctions - i am thinking ‘simplest’ would be on the Cov to Wolverhampton corridor under the current line (depending on the piling under New Street) with a station with an exit at one end into New Street and the other into Moor Street/HS2?

I'm not sure what you are proposing. New Street is already underground, all access to and from the stations is in tunnels and the two tunnels on the east side of the station are literally beneath the platforms at Moor Street station already (and the track at Moor Street is practically at right angles to the lines coming into New Street) so linking the two lines by rail would be almost impossible. The tram will connect New Street and HS2 once the east side extension is complete and the bus service along that corridor is pretty frequent too. It's really not that far to walk either, hundreds of people every day already walk between Moor Street and New Street and you can go from gateline to gateline at the two stations in five or six minutes. If HS2 gets the entrance next door to Moor Street as expected then it's not going to add much more.

I'm not sure what kind of connections people will be looking to make either. Presumably it's not going to attract significant numbers of people away from existing intercity lines not serving Birmingham so will it be Birmingham's suburban network feeding into HS2? If so then it's "turn up and go" frequencies of service connecting onto a London train which is going to be leaving Curzon Street at a "turn up and go" frequency too. Even if they've pre booked the London leg, people will just be jumping on the first available local connection, right?

 

[The Planner]

The Cov corridor is currently on a 20 minute pattern to fit around 3 x West Coast trains an hour. This causes various compromises in the timetable, not least a lot of pathing time or dwell time in the WMT services to from London, plus the hourly International shuttle which is a rather inefficient use of resources.

Post HS2, the West Coast trains ‘fast’ services via Coventry will reduce to half hourly, which will make it much easier to fit the WMT services in, as there will be bigger gaps without a fast train on their tail lamps. It could, potentially, mean an extra WMT service (or even two) on the corridor compared to today, although that would obviously be subject to finding space at New St. Having one less WC train occupying a platform for half an hour plus each hour will certainly help in that respect.

This, you could even get the old all station stoppers back along with the defacto second XC. A repeating 30 minute pattern allows more options than a 20 minute one.

 

[Aictos]

The Cov corridor is currently on a 20 minute pattern to fit around 3 x West Coast trains an hour. This causes various compromises in the timetable, not least a lot of pathing time or dwell time in the WMT services to from London, plus the hourly International shuttle which is a rather inefficient use of resources.

I've highlighted the text in bold to which I have a question - Was it not thought of to drop the shuttle and instead put the calls on the WMT services instead so the 2YXX's at xx:54 from New Street picks up the stops OR drop the shuttle and put the calls on the TfW services instead as they terminate at International which is where these shuttles expire.

All in order to improve connectivity at these stations onto regional services.

 

[Bald Rick]

I've highlighted the text in bold to which I have a question - Was it not thought of to drop the shuttle and instead put the calls on the WMT services instead so the 2YXX's at xx:54 from New Street picks up the stops OR drop the shuttle and put the calls on the TfW services instead as they terminate at International which is where these shuttles expire.

All in order to improve connectivity at these stations onto regional services.

@ChiefPlanner or @The Planner will be along shortly to confirm, but just about every possible combination of services were looked at.

For your examples:

if the 2Yxx at xx:54 from New St picked up the extra calls, then the following XC would have to be delayed, as it is on minimum headway behind the 2Yxx at Coventry. And that would then muck up the single line to Leamington.

The TfW service could, in theory, take the calls on the way to International, although having a train that has come from the wilds of West Wales to become an inner suburban service in east Birmingham might push it a bit. However, timetables need to work in two directions, and the return TfW service is on minimum headway into New Street from Marston Green (with pathing time to make it work) and on minimum headway in front of the following Virgin from Euston (also with pathing time to make it work). So the stops couldn’t go in there.

 

[Harbornite]

For a start...


Birmingham New Street - Kings Norton

In a way, there already are four tracks between these two locations...

 

[Killingworth]

Attercliffe - Swinton, Sheffield - Dore and Huddersfield - Thornhill LNW Jn, a few nice easy wins in serious bottlenecks, with minimal structural work required. Sheffield to Dore would enable a station to be built between Dore and Sheffield (Heeley), thus helping reduce some serious congestion there: even a third line operating as an up and down slow would be very useful, or just putting in as much as possible without replacing bridges

Dore to Sheffield was 4 track from 1993 until the 1960s. The girders were removed from the bridge crossing London Road/Chesterfield Road at Heeley and if that were replaced the line would have to be built up as the old bridge was regularly a truck strike victim.

In the 1980's the western half of the trackbed between the two Archer Road bridges (the road's a crescent shape) was sold off and now contains a third of a Tesco's superstore, a Friends meeting house, and other units.

HS2 is due to come that way (by 2033...?) when a third track is envisaged.The Heeley loop is soon to be extended to hold longer freight trains. Creeping tripling?

Hopefully more of the trackbed can be retained in appropriate condition to allow future simple quadrupling.

 

[Meerkat]

When I looked at google maps the Tesco encroachment didn’t look a showstopper- there is room to slew 4 tracks over a bit isn’t there (at the cost of at least one new bridge)?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

@ChiefPlanner or @The Planner will be along shortly to confirm, but just about every possible combination of services were looked at.

For your examples:

if the 2Yxx at xx:54 from New St picked up the extra calls, then the following XC would have to be delayed, as it is on minimum headway behind the 2Yxx at Coventry. And that would then muck up the single line to Leamington.

The TfW service could, in theory, take the calls on the way to International, although having a train that has come from the wilds of West Wales to become an inner suburban service in east Birmingham might push it a bit. However, timetables need to work in two directions, and the return TfW service is on minimum headway into New Street from Marston Green (with pathing time to make it work) and on minimum headway in front of the following Virgin from Euston (also with pathing time to make it work). So the stops couldn’t go in there.

A long time ago now , and the TT re-cast for the 2004 era , began (as I have said before) , with Proof House to Rugby. Without doubt the trickiest section , (apart from Camden to Northampton on the slow lines - but I had a cunning plan for that before the real work started in anger !)

One of the tricky issues was what to do with the long-standing Coventry to Wolverhampton all stations trains. Whilst considering the skip stop pattern , at some cost - a very detailed passenger survey was done on actual journeys carried out on the service - which yielded the actual result that there were few cross New St trips , (despite what the PTE claimed) , and most trips were either OK with the "plan" or mildly altered. There was always the odd station pair links that were broken , but the numbers were incredibly low. Ergo , we went with more or less what we have now.

Yes it was a bit tight , and still is - BDR mentioned the pathing of the TfW Cambrian / Holyhead instances (which I can certainly confirm having the pleasure of using it from time to time) - and most people would argue that imposition of extra calls south of New Street would be detrimental , especially as this service needs a decent lay-over at International , part of it having come from Pwllheli and the other part from Aberystwyth. It also needs an internal clean and labelling etc , as well as a stretch for the crews !. Making it into a local , would in any case increase the dwells on arrival at New Street. (with more "offs" as well as "ons". - slowing down the LNW services from New Street also not a good move , apart from tightening up on following services , it increases journey time (and probably ambience) for intermediate and longer journey times to the Rugby's and Northamptons etc of this world.

A peruse at Coventry will show a series of 3 min headways in any case - "legal" but up to the planning rules.

As I have said before , the answer in the short term a bit of strategic lengthening. UK is not short of AC Emu's coming up in the next few years.

 

[LOL The Irony]

The Castlefield Corridor

 

[Killingworth]

When I looked at google maps the Tesco encroachment didn’t look a showstopper- there is room to slew 4 tracks over a bit isn’t there (at the cost of at least one new bridge)?

In a word, safely, no, but it seems to be possible to slew enough for a third track without demolitions for HS2. The original tracks to the left side of the over bridge from which picture below was taken served the platforms of Millhouses and Ecclesall station. Old motive power depot behind in this old picture; https://www.hpacde.org.uk/picturesheffield/jpgh_sheffield/y01847.jpg

It's a shame British Rail sold off all the land, and the planners allowed this building 20-30 years ago! It could have made an excellent park and ride site AND accommodated the supermarkets and church.

 

[Meerkat]

I was thinking of stealing a strip of line behind the fence on the right, though not sure how close to the Sainsbury’s building you can put the fence.
Might be cheaper just to make the Tesco’s smaller or extend it another way instead - they are only tiny sheds and judging by the efforts Sainsbury’s near me are making to repurpose (Argos etc) the space they have Tesco’s might not be too bothered about it - market changes have meant the big stores are often now too big.

 

[Killingworth]

I was thinking of stealing a strip of line behind the fence on the right, though not sure how close to the Sainsbury’s building you can put the fence.
Might be cheaper just to make the Tesco’s smaller or extend it another way instead - they are only tiny sheds and judging by the efforts Sainsbury’s near me are making to repurpose (Argos etc) the space they have Tesco’s might not be too bothered about it - market changes have meant the big stores are often now too big.

That's why many are pressing for the original 4 track layout to be followed as far as possible to allow the demolition and rebuild option to be followed even if 3 tracks are accepted for now (and 'now' may be 15 years). It's all a matter of hard cash and business cases!

Note the Heeley loop is to be extended southwards to take longer freight movements. It's on railway land so no need for a TWAO.

Bear in mind that anything new that's proposed now won't go ahead before Control Period 7 anyway - at the earliest. Things don't move fast on the railways!!