Carstairs Junction

[route:oxford]

Travelling from Edinburgh to Birmingham by the West Coast route is great. just under 4 hours usually.

The trouble is the "walking pace" trip through Carstairs Junction and associated crawl on appraoch. It's just so slow - if this was improved to allow say 90mph running, then it (feels like) at least 5 mins could be knocked off the cross border timings.

Viewing from the carriage, alongside the line is what appears to be a former trackbed. Going to Google maps, there is clearly a good straight former track bed with far shallower curve leading to the main Glasgow/Carlisle route.

Of all the potential improvements to infrastructure on the West-Coast route, surely this would offer distinct benefits without excessive expenditure...

 

[DaveNewcastle]

You're quite right. Its potentially a quick-win improvement just waiting to to be upgraded, though a graded flyover would be better - there's plenty land.

I had a rant about Carstairs on here only yesterday, but stupidly, I posted it in a thread about Lockerbie! (don't ask why). So I'm copying it in here . . .
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Although its further south than Berwick on the east coast, due to the electrification choices made twenty years ago, its on the route the EC electric service have to follow to get from Glasgow to Edinburgh (before they travel north again. its pretty much a 90 degree turn);
those 140mph capable trainsets go through at a linespeed of 15mph;
its bi-directional single line onto/off the WCML before the Calder-Edinburgh line splits into a dual;
they never set down nor pick up pax;
its got a lot of platform for very little stopping trains;
trying to book tix to get there from Carlisle give you services to Edinburgh with connections doubling all the way back to Carstairs (which is quicker than waiting for something that might actually go there and stop. Not that there's an easement to allow this);
and the asylum aka prison that you circle round at 15mph is a sad place (I'd better not post anything about that on here);
its also on a neutral section, whilch means coasting at that 15mph. (Is there a neutral section on any other mainline OLHE whose linespeed is 15mph?);
on board EC staff have asked, while tip-toeing round the asylum at 15mph with the power off, "why do we come here" - and nobody knows.
its a mistake.
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There are two disused lines with wider radius curves, one from the Edinburgh-Calder line going south, which has been abandoned entirely (that would help as you suggest), the other is from Glasgow turning left, beyond the platforms, to reach the Calder-Edinburgh line. Its on the inside of the existing curve and appears to be unuseable though it was partially electrified and has its own neutral section where here is still track at the north end. Linespeed on that is now 5mph

I vaguely remember from when I was a small child, standing on Carstairs and being bewildered by the large number of possible routes trains took when going through there. Not so many options now.

 

[rail-britain]

Is there any real cost benefit though?

All Edinburgh trains need to slow, to use this triangle :
Motherwell - Edinburgh / Edinburgh - Motherwell
Edinburgh - Carlisle / Carlisle - Edinburgh

Trains need to brake, then accelerate back to the faster line speeds, which costs money
Even a line speed of 60mph would probably save some money, plus reduce any delays as trains pass to use this junction (quite often a northbound Carlisle - Edinburgh or Edinburgh - Motherwell will be held to allow a southbound Motherwell - Carlisle to pass)

Even the Motherwell side of the triangle could be realigned, although the buildings would need to be replaced
However, a more radical option there would be simplify to electrify the Shotts line!

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Is there any real cost benefit though?

All good questions, rail-britain.
My hunch is "YES". But it can only be a hunch.
Based on the facts I do know (in my post above) - a 15mph single track section of national Mainline is almost unique (the only other one I can quickly think of is the Tamar Bridge), and with also a neutral section right in there, requireing electric trainsets to coast through at that speed, makes it a very time-consuming move.

That's not just a delay for passengers, but also absorbs more time on the network, particularly for west-bound services (which then must cross both WCML up lines at those degraded speeds).

So I would suggest that any benefits must be quantified by looking at :-
the overall time requirement for a single train placed on
a) the single link from the Edinburgh-Calder line through Carstairs,
b) the up slow and up fast WCML lines which are locked out by a west-bound move , and
c) the delay incurred by any movement through the east-west junction at Carstairs due to the 15mph linespeed.

But to put my rant in some sort of perspective - I find it astonishing that we're talking about a new 200mph (or whatever) new tunnel under London's Primrose Hill and Abbey Road, and remaing silent over the bizarre anomaly of this single-track 15mph unpowered neutral-section on the only electrified line between Kings Cross - Edinburgh and Glasgow.

(I don't think I need to do a full cost-benefit analysis. I think I need to do an anlaysis of political devolution!)

 

[ChrisCooper]

From the way the route goes it seems like the electrification was done more to allow electric trains of the WCML to reach Edinburgh than to allow trains from the ECML to reach Glasgow, as from Edinburgh trains head south west quite a distance before turning north again. On the other hand the route for WCML trains to Edinburgh is quite logical, with Carstairs being the junction of a Y. Berwick upon Tweed - Edinburgh - Carstairs - Glasgow is a reversed N. The fact it was done along with the ECML electrification, not the WCML electrification though makes it seem a very odd choice of route, presumably done due to being easiest to electrify rarther than being the most sensible route. It's even worse now that very few electric trains off the WCML go that way.

 

[rail-britain]

From the way the route goes it seems like the electrification was done more to allow electric trains of the WCML to reach Edinburgh than to allow trains from the ECML to reach Glasgow

The southern part of the triangle was electrified as part of the original WCML electrification
It was there simply to allow electric locos to turn round, if required to do so

Prior to the electrification between Carstairs and Edimburgh, all passenger services reversed at Carstairs
Only non-passenger services used the southern route, with the exception of the sleepers, so the restrictions were not an issue at the time

With the electrification, reversal at Carstairs was no longer required, which was a side-benefit to WCML
The time savings were quite substantial for passengers between Carlisle and Edinburgh, removing the need to change locos (as well as Glasgow services no longer having to stop at Carstairs either)

This is quite evident now, as the number of passenger services serving Carstairs is down from about 40 a day in the 1980s to about 4 per day

 

[45378]

The true horror is being stuck on a diesel Super Voyager for a journey entirely under the wires from Edinburgh (or Glasgow) to Birmingham - approx 300 miles.

I despair of the logic behind Netwrk Rail's electrification plans in NW England if there isn't an associated push on the TOCs and the ROSCOs to put electric stock on the job - and the answer isn't a 319 or a 350 over that distance.

Rgds

45378

 

[starrymarkb]

Thats not the TOC's doing - The Birmingham to Glasgow/Edinburgh is the remains of a cross country route from the unwired South West - when the route was split the DfT ordered the existing stock from VXC was used even though it is under the wires!

 

[me123]

The best option, in my opinion, for Carstairs would be to upgrade the Edinburgh-Lockerbie line by "cutting the corner", and re-routeing Glasgow-Edinrbugh services past Carstairs to the North, again "cutting the corner".

Easier said than done, of course. It's a lot of money to save a mere five minutes. And I don't see it happening, especially the Glasgow-Edinburgh suggestion. Not unless you were to get more frequent trains that way. The Edinburgh-Lockerbie avoider would be more feasible, however, as there's very little in that area anyway.