Recent content by zwk500

Mostly but not exclusively. IIRC trying to provide a balanced service at Redbridge and Millbrook broke the timings and it was felt better to get the branch trains running at all. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the connections to Salisbury were the same at Southampton anyway. Given how...

Arguably the crossover should be shown in the diagram, but fundamentally the Down Line is not reversible at that location, as any route from the north end of P3 reads directly to the Up Main, whereas the Up Lines are reversible because a train signalled from the Down Main to Platforms 0 or 2...

I would expect the proportion of track miles to drop much less sharply than route miles.

Volk's Electric Railway offers no meaningful public transport option in Brighton. A modern tram system would make no difference. As for complaints from the great and good of Hove - the lamposts on the seafront are as visually intrusive as any tram OLE is likely to be, even if you didn't go for...

373s Require the ability to work on 1.5 & 3kv DC OLE as well as with Belgian signaling which 395s don't have to worry about. That was one proposal, but keeping 2 stations in London was always going to be difficult to make work. A route is marked from Euston certainly (badly, I will admit) via...

Not quite so significant, but the general principle probably still applies. Especially if you are keeping both stations open for passenger traffic regardless.

One important upgrade that HS1 achieved was to allow 25KV OLE and UIC Gauge Clearance throughout the route (and French signalling throughout). This removes some of the costs associated with running the additional systems needed to run onto the classic lines in Kent and allows standard European...

Dorking and Dorchester's stations are on separate lines with no obvious way to connect them (even in the 50's/60s) so closing one or the other of them would have restricted traffic. Given both town's primary station would be on the busier line towards London, closing the station on the quieter...

I think this thread refers: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/3-5-working-signalling.209575/

That would probably be my plan, although the 810s may have been designed to allow the diesel gensets to be easily removed (at least some of the other IET derived trains have this feature) to convert to a pure EMU and then stay on the MML.

Again, hence the 'investment' and 'effort'. Don't just take the easy answers. A good start would be putting wires up all the way to Temple Meads so that stoppers can be run with EMUs to take advantage of their better acceleration, and IETs can use the pan all the way into Bristol. 1713703572 12...

May not be 5%, but the allowance above raw runtime that's included in SRT calculations.

Eastgate would still be a problem today even if it had survived, as the loop was rather tight and through the middle of the town. No, I'm thinking of a line diverging pretty much immediately north of Standish Jn (where the Swindon/Yate lines merge) then swinging west around the town to a new...

5.5 miles @ 100mph = 3 mins 18 secs 5.5 miles @ 110mph = 3 mins 00 secs 5.5 miles @ 125mph = 2 mins 39 secs For completeness :D

Although if possible it would be better to avoid the need for any form of diesel (or even anything involving a fuel tank) because of the additional costs associated with having a fuel supply chain - transporting, storing, and handling fuel are all a big fire risk and subject to environmental...