HSTEd
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2011
- Messages
- 16,980
Just to put this out there but there is about 56 miles worth of 125mph running on the MML now south of Trent Junction/East Midlands Parkway. Yes in comparison to the ECML actually stretches of 125mph aren't as long, but as a total amount this is still reasonable amount of the lines route, and this doesn't include the stretches of 120/115/110mph along the rest of the MML.
A short stretch of 125mph is not actually a section of 125mph running, you have to take account of the traction performance of the train, and after my exams are complete I will run an Excel (bow before the might of Excel! ) analysis to demonstrate what I mean. (And I know its primitive but it is useful for demonstrating things).
Just a primitive fag packet calculation - 56 miles takes ~27 minutes at 125mph, at 110mph it takes 30.5 minutes (so a loss at most of 3.5 minutes), and if the 115mph Desiro actually happens it will take only 29.2 minutes ( a loss of ~2.2 minutes).
The actual losses will be less than this due to the aforementioned acceleration/decelleration time.
I think you will find that there are 2tph which run non-stop from Leicester to London, which I'd call more than a handful.
2tph is the minimum that is useful in the modern railway, how about having four?
That would be more like it and gains the walk up passenger some 7.5 minutes.