Transpennine Route Upgrade and Electrification updates

[deltic08]

Personally I've never really understood why at least one of the northern trans-Pennine rail routes wasn't electrified years ago. And as for 'discontinuous' electrification of a route with a very high frequency train service - I despair, it makes me feel embarrassed as an engineer that it's even being considered. It's not 'smart' it's just weasel-word penny-pinching.

It was called the Woodhead route between Manchester and Sheffield completed as long ago as 1954 with a brand new tunnel and electrification through the Pennines. Had it remained open for passenger traffic, the line could easily have been upgraded to 100mph for most of its length. A new chord should have been built between Victoria and Midland stations instead of turning back at Victoria. Had that happened in 1954 together with 25kvac electrification adopted as standard only two years later, I think Woodhead would still be open.

 

[Senex]

It was called the Woodhead route between Manchester and Sheffield completed as long ago as 1954 with a brand new tunnel and electrification through the Pennines. Had it remained open for passenger traffic, the line could easily have been upgraded to 100mph for most of its length. A new chord should have been built between Victoria and Midland stations instead of turning back at Victoria. Had that happened in 1954 together with 25kvac electrification adopted as standard only two years later, I think Woodhead would still be open.

From the curvature that I remember it would never have been a 100-mph line, though it could have been faster than the 65 (with a number of lower restrictions) that applied and could have offered a faster Manchester-Sheffield service than we have now. I agree with you about the need for the chord in Sheffield, and it's something that could have been built back in the 50s, but at that time BR wasn't even thinking about routing rationalisations.

 

[ac6000cw]

What's the relevance of the (southern Pennines/Peak District) Woodhead route to a northern trans-Pennine train service (read my earlier post carefully)?

Are you suggesting routing Manchester-Leeds trains via Barnsley/Wath (the freight-only north-eastern extremity of the Woodhead electrification scheme) to Leeds?

That would be a routing the old GWR (Great Way Round) would be proud of...

 

[snowball]

What's the relevance of the (southern Pennines/Peak District) Woodhead route to a northern trans-Pennine train service (read my earlier post carefully)?

Are you suggesting routing Manchester-Leeds trains via Barnsley/Wath (the freight-only north-eastern extremity of the Woodhead electrification scheme) to Leeds?

That would be a routing the old GWR (Great Way Round) would be proud of...

One of the ideas discussed for HS3/NPR/whatever a couple of years ago was a tunnel east from Manchester on a line similar to Woodhead, with a triangular junction at its east end with the NE arm of HS2, thus providing routes to both Leeds and Sheffield. Then the NE arm of HS2 was routed further east and the idea seemed much less attractive.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

One of the ideas discussed for HS3/NPR/whatever a couple of years ago was a tunnel east from Manchester on a line similar to Woodhead, with a triangular junction at its east end with the NE arm of HS2, thus providing routes to both Leeds and Sheffield. Then the NE arm of HS2 was routed further east and the idea seemed much less attractive.

There is also a proposal to build a new Manchester-Sheffield motorway largely in tunnel, with the suggestion of an adjacent rail tunnel with shared approach routes.
Makes more sense if there is a Liverpool-Manchester Airport rail route as part of "NPR" (using some of the HS2 route).
Only ideas at this stage though.

 

[snowball]

There is also a proposal to build a new Manchester-Sheffield motorway largely in tunnel, with the suggestion of an adjacent rail tunnel with shared approach routes.
Makes more sense if there is a Liverpool-Manchester Airport rail route as part of "NPR" (using some of the HS2 route).
Only ideas at this stage though.

The road tunnel proposal now seems to be developing largely independently of any rail tunnel. The five routes still in the running are shown here:

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=12012&mode=view

7 and 8 are the most likely.

 

[furnessvale]

The road tunnel proposal now seems to be developing largely independently of any rail tunnel. The five routes still in the running are shown here:

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=12012&mode=view

7 and 8 are the most likely.

The chances of a new rail tunnel are about the same as your survival in that hot place below!

 

[urbophile]

Relevant piece in today's Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ail-conservative-northern-rail-chris-grayling

 

[misterredmist]

Manchester to Sheffield, whether by road or rail, has been an open, festering wound for decades, and how the residents in places like Tintwistle cope with the choking fumes from stationary traffic on roads not suitable for HGVs is beyond me.

The lack of modern connections between such large cities is embarrassing, and requires urgent action. But of course, when you have the Mayor of London and the Transport Minister based so close to No. 10, London will get what it wants, and who will care about the area between Manchester and Sheffield, which has not many voters and plenty of sheep that can't vote anyway ?

T'was ever thus I'm afraid..........

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Manchester to Sheffield, whether by road or rail, has been an open, festering wound for decades, and how the residents in places like Tintwistle cope with the choking fumes from stationary traffic on roads not suitable for HGVs is beyond me.

The lack of modern connections between such large cities is embarrassing, and requires urgent action. But of course, when you have the Mayor of London and the Transport Minister based so close to No. 10, London will get what it wants, and who will care about the area between Manchester and Sheffield, which has not many voters and plenty of sheep that can't vote anyway ?

T'was ever thus I'm afraid..........

You had 4 years when a local MP was Transport Minister (and the current Rail minister is a Blackpool MP).
Patrick McLoughlin presided over the mega-plans for the north (with a northern Chancellor).
In any case they are supposed to be even-handed.
You can't avoid the fact that half the population lives in the south east.

 

[northwichcat]

You had 4 years when a local MP was Transport Minister (and the current Rail minister is a Blackpool MP).
Patrick McLoughlin presided over the mega-plans for the north (with a northern Chancellor).
In any case they are supposed to be even-handed.

Who are you referring to there? McLoughlin was Stafford born and represents Derby. Greening was Yorkshire born but didn't spend 4 years as Transport Secretary and doesn't appear to have lived in the north since she finished school. Prior to McLoughlin the last Transport Secretary to spend 4 years in the role was Darling (who's Scottish.) For under secretary of states Andrew Jones (from and representing Yorkshire) recently spent two years in the role.

You can't avoid the fact that half the population lives in the south east.

Yes you can because that's fiction. 8.6m live in the South East and 8.1m live in London (which is considered separate to the South East by the government.) The population of England is 53m. 16.7m is not half of 53m.

You can't ignore the fact that more people live in Yorkshire than either Scotland or Wales though or that more people live in the North West than Yorkshire.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Who are you referring to there? McLoughlin was Stafford born and represents Derby.

Patrick McLoughlin is MP for Derbyshire Dales, which includes Ashbourne, Matlock and Bakewell and much of the Peak District National Park.
I think that counts as reasonably "local" to Tintwistle, and with a stake in trans-Pennine transport routes.
Not a southern MP anyway.

 

[muddythefish]

Manchester to Sheffield, whether by road or rail, has been an open, festering wound for decades, and how the residents in places like Tintwistle cope with the choking fumes from stationary traffic on roads not suitable for HGVs is beyond me.

The lack of modern connections between such large cities is embarrassing, and requires urgent action. But of course, when you have the Mayor of London and the Transport Minister based so close to No. 10, London will get what it wants, and who will care about the area between Manchester and Sheffield, which has not many voters and plenty of sheep that can't vote anyway ?

T'was ever thus I'm afraid..........

Nothing will change until parliament and/or whole government departments including all the Sir Humphreys are shifted out of London.

 

[AndrewE]

Nothing will change until parliament and/or whole government departments including all the Sir Humphreys are shifted out of London.

Why don't they just move the 2 Houses of P to Leeds and Manchester Town/City Halls while the H of P are being refurbished? The politicans and Sir Humphreys would get a rude awakening when they find the infrastructure that is (not) available in conurbations outside London!
Moving some of the BBC northwards was a good start...

 

[northwichcat]

Patrick McLoughlin is MP for Derbyshire Dales, which includes Ashbourne, Matlock and Bakewell and much of the Peak District National Park.
I think that counts as reasonably "local" to Tintwistle, and with a stake in trans-Pennine transport routes.

I missed the reference to Tintwistle in the earlier post by the time you mention the Blackpool MP and former Chancellor in the same sentence in your reply to it. Tintwistle is a village with a population of 1,400 - hardly big enough for McLoughlin to change national transport policy for! The Conservatives annoyed much larger villages in Cheshire by giving planning permission for runway 2 at Manchester Airport.

Not a southern MP anyway.

Don't forget there's two regions both larger than Wales (by population) between the North of England and South of England!

 

[IanXC]

Why don't they just move the 2 Houses of P to Leeds and Manchester Town/City Halls while the H of P are being refurbished? The politicans and Sir Humphreys would get a rude awakening when they find the infrastructure that is (not) available in conurbations outside London!
Moving some of the BBC northwards was a good start...

Well Manchester Central has been suggested as a suitable home for the Houses of Parliament during the works....

 

[snowball]

NR publicity is linking de-vegging work at Morley to electrification:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGTOADfUQAAgkqk.jpg

 

[GRALISTAIR]

NR publicity is linking de-vegging work at Morley to electrification:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGTOADfUQAAgkqk.jpg

I have a feeling - yes I am the eternal optimist - that come about November ,when the fresh costings and the new GRIP 3 ?? is done, that the route will get MAINLY electrified. I can see that where there are difficult bits it may not get done immediately and it maybe that neutral sections get done under certain expensive bridges, but I just have this feeling.

 

[zuriblue]

I have a feeling - yes I am the eternal optimist - that come about November ,when the fresh costings and the new GRIP 3 ?? is done, that the route will get MAINLY electrified. I can see that where there are difficult bits it may not get done immediately and it maybe that neutral sections get done under certain expensive bridges, but I just have this feeling.

It would be great to see that but I can't help thinking that Standedge Tunnel would be a heck of a long neutral section.

 

[Senex]

It would be great to see that but I can't help thinking that Standedge Tunnel would be a heck of a long neutral section.

Can someone explain to me why Standedge tunnel is so much more difficult than other twin-track tunnels built quite late on in the nineteenth century? Elsewhere tunnels generally seem to have posed far fewer problems than a good many bridges do.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It would be great to see that but I can't help thinking that Standedge Tunnel would be a heck of a long neutral section.

Can someone explain to me why Standedge tunnel is so much more difficult than other twin-track tunnels built quite late on in the nineteenth century? Elsewhere tunnels generally seem to have posed far fewer problems than a good many bridges do.

Yes I would like to know that too. Obviously we are talking total possession - but in the PWI presentation they said that would happen over the summer months in the future anyway. Yes repair, grout, Gunnite the tunnel and track lower and do improved drainage, slab or whatever while you are at it - surely it would not need a re-bore a la Farnworth?

Call me crazy, but surely in tunnels that is best to have electric rather than diesel fumes?

 

[Ploughman]

Having worked in Standedge Tunnel a number of times on track renewals.
I can positively say that Electric would be better than Diesel fumes.
In my case, Loco fumes from 56s and 37s, Diggers and dozers exhaust were also mixed with Stone dust and other sources of dust, best not to mention at the table.
Many a time you could see the smog layer getting lower until the sentry from Scientifics with the meter called everybody out into the single bore for a fresh air break.

Later fans were found to be useless due to wind changing during the work or being sited behind an obstacle.

 

[childwallblues]

Can someone explain to me why Standedge tunnel is so much more difficult than other twin-track tunnels built quite late on in the nineteenth century? Elsewhere tunnels generally seem to have posed far fewer problems than a good many bridges do.

Agreed. They are doing the Severn Tunnel

 

[snowball]

Whilst partial electrification for the route now seems the most likely possibility, I'm not sure how much basis there is for the idea that the tunnel may be one of the gaps. It was mentioned as a possibility in the leading article in a recent issue of Rail (I think the one before the current one) but was it any more than a guess by that writer?

 

[Bantamzen]

Whilst partial electrification for the route now seems the most likely possibility, I'm not sure how much basis there is for the idea that the tunnel may be one of the gaps. It was mentioned as a possibility in the leading article in a recent issue of Rail (I think the one before the current one) but was it any more than a guess by that writer?

How would that work with the bi-modes as a matter of interest? Would the engines switch fire up as the units made their ascent up to Standedge, or would they be powered up at Huddersfield / Stalybridge in preparation? If the former it seems like a risky move if the engines don't kick in before the gap, and if the latter it seems like an excuse to simply not wire the entire section from Stalybridge to Huddersfield.

I'm rather hoping the engineering to get the sparks into the tunnel isn't as complex as the cabinet & DfT might be implying.

 

[Spod]

I still don't understand why the suggestion of discontinuous electrification was made in the first place. Besides ignorance on the part of the government, which wouldn't be a first. Why spend hundreds of millions on electrification, yet miss out on the large amount of cheap, high performing EMU stock by skipping a few "hard bits"? There's such a variety of stock operated over this route, they can't expect everything to be switched to bi-mode, so the reality would be that most stock would still be diesel.
Well, it's just a statement, if it turns out that full electrification is necessary to achieve the time savings (which seem to depend on how fast stoppers can get out of the way of the fasts - are they going to mandate that all the stoppers will have to be bimodal in order to achieve that?) then they'll build whatever they have to, regardless of what other options the government has asked them to consider.
Is there a way discontinuous electrification can be the best option? How would it actually work out, financially speaking? How much slower and more expensive would the stock be? Would the savings from electrification be lost in the cost, weight and maintenance of bi-mode stock?

 

[Wavertreelad]

I still don't understand why the suggestion of discontinuous electrification was made in the first place. Besides ignorance on the part of the government, which wouldn't be a first. Why spend hundreds of millions on electrification, yet miss out on the large amount of cheap, high performing EMU stock by skipping a few "hard bits"? There's such a variety of stock operated over this route, they can't expect everything to be switched to bi-mode, so the reality would be that most stock would still be diesel.
Well, it's just a statement, if it turns out that full electrification is necessary to achieve the time savings (which seem to depend on how fast stoppers can get out of the way of the fasts - are they going to mandate that all the stoppers will have to be bimodal in order to achieve that?) then they'll build whatever they have to, regardless of what other options the government has asked them to consider.
Is there a way discontinuous electrification can be the best option? How would it actually work out, financially speaking? How much slower and more expensive would the stock be? Would the savings from electrification be lost in the cost, weight and maintenance of bi-mode stock?

The actual statement according to the Dft website states

"Technology is advancing quickly, and this government is committed to using the best available technologies to improve each part of the network. New bi-mode train technology offers seamless transfer from diesel power to electric that is undetectable to passengers. The industry is also developing alternative fuel trains, using battery and hydrogen power. This means that we no longer need to electrify every line to achieve the same significant improvements to journeys, and we will only electrify lines where it delivers a genuine benefit to passengers.

These new technologies mean that we can improve journeys for passengers on the Great Western Main Line in south Wales, the Midland Main Line, and on the Lakes Line between Windermere and Oxenholme sooner than expected with state of the art trains, instead of carrying out disruptive electrification works along the whole of these routes."

Interestingly there is not a single mention of the Trans Pennine electrification in this section.

Later on there is a section entitled The North which continues.

"We have listened to concerns about electrification gantries spoiling protected landscapes. Northern, the train operator, will therefore begin work to explore the possibility of deploying alternative-fuel trains on the route by 2021, improving comfort and on-board facilities for passengers whilst protecting the sensitive environment of this World Heritage Site. This trial will pilot an alternative-fuelled train, removing the need to construct intrusive wires and masts in this National Park. Journeys between Windermere and Manchester Airport will be improved sooner and with less disruption to services and local communities. This replaces plans to electrify the line between Windermere and Oxenholme."

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/rail-update-bi-mode-train-technology

Still no mention of Trans Pennine cancellation.

Then there is the follow on Bi-Mode announcement.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...assengers-in-wales-the-midlands-and-the-north

Still no mention of Trans Pennine cancellation.

Then there is Rail Infrastructure Funding 2019 to 2019 Control Period 6 (CP6) which states

"The HLOS is therefore focussed on the operation, maintenance and renewal of the existing railway — the areas of activity that will deliver a more reliable railway for passengers. The government is already delivering significant enhancements to the railway, including High Speed 2 and Crossrail and it expects to continue to invest in the enhancement to the wider rail network in the next control period. In light of the findings of the Bowe Review, which emphasised the need to enable better planning, cost control and alignment with the needs of users of the railway, government will take forward the funding of these enhancements separately. The government is developing a new process for delivering enhancements and intends to publish more information on this in the autumn.

Before committing to the specific levels of funding required, I have decided that the government requires more assurance on the likely costs of the work programme. Network Rail’s progress on improving its efficiency in recent years has fallen short of my expectations. Improving efficiency is vital if we are to maximise the value of taxpayer spending on the railway in driving improvements for passengers and freight shippers.
The government will therefore carry out further work to examine the approach to setting appropriate levels of maintenance and renewals activity for control period 6 and to improving Network Rail’s efficiency. This will enable me to confirm the extent of government’s funding envelope through the publication of a statement of funds available by 13 October 2017. This work will draw on a number of sources, including the new independent review of progress on efficiency planning which the regulator has commissioned"

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/rail-infrastructure-funding-2019-to-2024

It looks to me like we might have to wait till the Autumn to learn the final plan?

 

[snowball]

The stories about discontinuous electrification on TP North may have entered the mainsteram media from a report in the FT on either 20 July (the day of the DfT announcements) or the following day, but similar rumours were alredy circulating in the railway press.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It looks to me like we might have to wait till the Autumn to learn the final plan?

The next likely "event" is the TfN report into improving connectivity in the north, linked to the Northern Powerhouse initiative.
That's likely to provide priorities and options for rail upgrades including electrification.

I hope it does better than the Rail North report which carefully prioritised the next round of electrification projects, assuming TP was already done...

 

[snowball]

Might not the GRIP 3 report on electrification/ route improvements come first? Though I don't know whether that will be actually published.