[whhistle]

Originally Posted by BBC News

Midlands line 'to be electrified'

A £500m scheme to electrify the Midland Mainline is expected to be announced by the government, the BBC understands.

Transport Secretary Justine Greening is set to outline plans to complete the electrification of the route from Sheffield to London on Monday.

The decision comes after business groups and politicians in South Yorkshire and the East Midlands campaigned for the line to be upgraded.

At present the line is electrified only between St Pancras station and Bedford.

Extending overhead wires to the rest of the line would see the current fleet of inter-city diesel trains replaced with electric ones.

However, it is not yet known if the announcement will also see track improvements, especially at Derby and Leicester stations, which might potentially improve journey times.

The Derby-based train-maker Bombardier, which was threatened with closure after missing out on a contract last year, is likely to be a beneficiary of the government's plans, Mr Dodge, the BBC's political reporter for Derby said.

A spokesman for the Derby and Derbyshire Rail Forum said: "If the Midland Mainline is upgraded, the supply chain waits ready to meet the needs of the industry.

"We hope it is not just electrification - there are great benefits to be found in upgrading the current infrastructure."

In June, Conservative MP for Kettering Philip Hollobone told MPs that while £12bn had been spent in recent years on Britain's rail network, just £200m had gone to the Midland Mainline.

Source - BBC

Still interested what they will do with Leicester's London Road junction.

[mainframe444]

Wouldn't it make sense to continue the electrification from sheffield through to Doncaster?

[Failed Unit]

The detail I guess will follow, but you would hope electric trains could run to Leeds via Wakefield and Doncaster. It would be nice if the following lines were included.

Kettering - Corby
Birmingham - Derby
The long eaton junction
Nottingham - chesterfield and the Erewash valley.

Shall see on Monday.

[YorkshireBear]

Lets just hope she is set to announce it shall we ...

[Yew]

Is it bad that part of me doesn't want electrification of the MML, for the fear of pendolinos?

[tbtc]

Originally Posted by Yew

Is it bad that part of me doesn't want electrification of the MML, for the fear of pendolinos?

No danger of anything that plush. Mention of Bombardier getting work as a result of this suggests panto cars in 222s (which would be A Bad Thing on the MML, when we could have proper EMUs here with panto 222s moving to XC).

Regardless, the journeys on the MML are nothing like as long as the London -Glasgow route

[notoemt]

I'm torn about this. On the one hand I would like to get to London much faster than the current 1hr 30 mins during peak time. On the other hand I and a lot of other people are already worrying about how much the season ticket will go upto at the end of the year. Wondering if we would still be able to afford to work in London. This is going to make the price even higher. On cosmetic note I'm not a fan of 222s I find them dark and there seems to be less in the seating areas and a lot less luggage space than the HST (even with the improvements).

[Wyvern]

Will believe it when I see it.

[SuperOwl86]

http://www.emcouncils.gov.uk/write/C...Line251111.pdf

Posted on another forum, surprised about the Sheffield station improvements mentioned.

[John55]

Originally Posted by notoemt

I'm torn about this. On the one hand I would like to get to London much faster than the current 1hr 30 mins during peak time. On the other hand I and a lot of other people are already worrying about how much the season ticket will go upto at the end of the year. Wondering if we would still be able to afford to work in London. This is going to make the price even higher. On cosmetic note I'm not a fan of 222s I find them dark and there seems to be less in the seating areas and a lot less luggage space than the HST (even with the improvements).

With a positive business case the cost of running the service with electric trains will be lower than with diesel trains. There is no particular need to increase prices to pay for electrification. There may be an opportunity for the railway to charge more for a better service but that's life.

[GNER 91128]

It's happening! Woohoo!

Great news for the railways.

[shinkansen1966]

Originally Posted by John55

There is no particular need to increase prices to pay for electrification.

May be not.

But the DfT will use MML electrification as an excuse to increase fares.

[Masboroughlad]

IF the Meridians are to get an extra carriage with panto, I assume there will be more new trains too to replace HSTs?

Where will the HSTs go? A swap with XC for some Voyagers?

[rail-britain]

Originally Posted by SuperOwl86

Posted on another forum, surprised about the Sheffield station improvements mentioned.

This is most likely a franchise commitment by East Midlands Trains, so it is no real surprise there has been no announcement until the electrification details were available

[SuperOwl86]

Its not the station its self this was improved towards the end of Midland Mainline. It mentions new track layout and additional platforms at Sheffield.