Proportion of EMU Services through Manchester, Leeds & Birmingham.

[Purple Orange]

It’s how much new railways cost!

No doubt it is. I’m intrigued as to specifically what infrastructure cost that much though.

Either way, as a network, it has cost roughly £1.8bn in 2019 prices to build the whole lot (according to Wikipedia).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It’s even worse at Victoria, where only 6 out of 26 tph are EMUs.

Are you sure about that.
There's the Preston EMU, the peak Northern EMU to Liverpool (but normally parked up all day in the Exchange siding), and TPE's Nova 1s.
In most hours, I think that means only 2 departures on electric.

 

[Efini92]

I’d say it’s only 2 an hour. The 319 that used to sit in the turnback all day hasn’t been there since the contingency timetable started.

 

[hst43102]

What was strange about it? At the time 1500V dc was quite common. The NER/LNER had been using it as far back as WW1 (and it is still used on the Tyne & Wear Metro). It's still in use in France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and many other countries.

Nothing was strange about DC overheads at the time, but to have a single line with DC and the rest of the network using AC, which would be the situation if Woodhead wasn't closed, would just mean that through freights and passengers would use diesel haulage. It would need an expensive conversion to function as an asset to the railway network.

 

[Purple Orange]

Are you sure about that.
There's the Preston EMU, the peak Northern EMU to Liverpool (but normally parked up all day in the Exchange siding), and TPE's Nova 1s.
In most hours, I think that means only 2 departures on electric.

I’m counting the Nova 1s twice. In any given hour there will be 2 Nova 1 services heading east and two Nova 1 services heading west, plus the Preston EMU and the Liverpool EMU. Meaning 6 EMU trains make an appearance at Victoria. I wasn’t aware that the Liverpool EMU was peak only - I thought that was all day.

I’m not considering the covid-19 timetable as it’s not a reflection of normality.

 

[LMS 4F]

Isn't it 2 tph in normal times? A battery-electric train might work - running on overhead line to Castleford, charging up the battery on the way then switching to battery power for the remainder. That's being proposed for some areas of the network. But not electrifying that stretch would leave an odd gap in overhead line coverage for Grand Central services. Future demand for freight would also be a significant consideration. Network Rail are moving towards a rolling programme of electrification and it would be strange to electrify to Castleford but then leave the 5 mile stretch to Knottingley, which doesn't seem to have any major obstacles to electrification. It may be more efficient to do the whole area in one hit rather than do one bit then come back years later for the rest.

I hope you are correct but as the money tree is bare now and no doubt for a long time in the future I think this and many other similar lines will be using 30 year old diesels for a long time yet.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Nothing was strange about DC overheads at the time, but to have a single line with DC and the rest of the network using AC, which would be the situation if Woodhead wasn't closed, would just mean that through freights and passengers would use diesel haulage. It would need an expensive conversion to function as an asset to the railway network.

The Altrincham line from Manchester was also 1.5kV DC from 1931 until it was converted to 25kV AC in 1971 (and then back to 750V DC for Metrolink in 1992).
The surviving Hadfield/Glossop section (12 miles) was converted to 25kV AC in 1984.
The remaining 28 miles to Sheffield would have been fairly simple to convert, unless new power supplies were needed.
But there would have been big network problems at the Sheffield end with onward connections.
The Penistone-Wath freight section would not have survived anyway.