Virgin West Coast - PUG2

[Failed Unit]

I am interested if anyone has any documents / memories of what the journey times / frequencies would have being had PUG2 completed and the WCML was running with moving block signals at 140mph (something that would probably still be challenging to do if it was attempted again today)

Was London - Glasgow all proposed to be under 4 hours?
Was London - Manchester / Liverpool proposed to be under 2 hours?

From my memory the frequencies were proposed to be about the same as now, but I don't recall the journey times.

 

[Bald Rick]

I am interested if anyone has any documents / memories of what the journey times / frequencies would have being had PUG2 completed and the WCML was running with moving block signals at 140mph (something that would probably still be challenging to do if it was attempted again today)

Was London - Glasgow all proposed to be under 4 hours?
Was London - Manchester / Liverpool proposed to be under 2 hours?

From my memory the frequencies were proposed to be about the same as now, but I don't recall the journey times.

I’ve answered this somewhere before.

London - Manchester was 1h53 (via Crewe, no Wilmslow stop). But only two Manchesters an hour.
London - Glasgow was still well over 4 hours. PUG2 works didn’t go north of Crewe.
London - Birmingham was 4 trains an hour, and about 3 minutes quicker.
No hourly Chester service.

Everything else much the same. 140mph saved 3 minutes south of Rugby and 2.5 mins Rugby - Crewe. Then one of the PWay engineers worked out you could save nearly 2 minutes just by remodelling Rugby, at much lower cost!

 

[Failed Unit]

I’ve answered this somewhere before.

London - Manchester was 1h53 (via Crewe, no Wilmslow stop). But only two Manchesters an hour.
London - Glasgow was still well over 4 hours. PUG2 works didn’t go north of Crewe.
London - Birmingham was 4 trains an hour, and about 3 minutes quicker.
No hourly Chester service.

Everything else much the same. 140mph saved 3 minutes south of Rugby and 2.5 mins Rugby - Crewe. Then one of the PWay engineers worked out you could save nearly 2 minutes just by remodelling Rugby, at much lower cost!

Thanks. So it really was a vanity project.

 

[30907]

I’ve answered this somewhere before.

London - Manchester was 1h53 (via Crewe, no Wilmslow stop). But only two Manchesters an hour.

I thought there were also 2tph via Stoke?

Then one of the PWay engineers worked out you could save nearly 2 minutes just by remodelling Rugby, at much lower cost!

I thought Rugby remodelling was in the original plan, only not thought through? Again, source may have been biased.

 

[Bald Rick]

PUG2 was mostly about capacity; the 140mph was the icing on the cake / vanity bit.

In the end, what was delivered provided more capacity than PUG2 was designed to do. Albeit how 4 trains an hour was to work on the Coventry corridor was never satisfactorily resolved.

I thought there were also 2tph via Stoke?

No, just the one.

I thought Rugby remodelling was in the original plan, only not thought through? Again, source may have been biased.

There were some early vague proposals for Rugby, based on the need to do ‘something’ as it was due for resignalling. But nothing as substantial as what was built. Certainly the early plans didn’t have 125mph through lines and three extra platforms. It was only around 2000/1 that the idea for a full remodelling gained traction, and by then work elsewhere was in full swing.