HSTEd
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2011
- Messages
- 16,734
Well I am sure many of you are aware of the basic concept of the "Central railway" project, but I will briefly restate it here for the uniniated.
They wish to build a railway from the Channel Tunnel terminal at Cheriton to the vicinity of Birmingham/Manchester to carry "piggyback" TOFC services to the various logistics depots in that area from the continent, using the rationale that there is already two transhipment moves taking place and that TOFC with flat wagons would not be that hard even compared to the current drive on move.
Moving trailers on flatwagons requires an enormous gauge and is only just accomodated by the Channel Tunnel (which incidentally allows passage of doublestack 8'6" containers but those are pretty much obsolete).
So this line would require rather excessive guaging which is why I'm not sure the choice of following much of the alignment of the Great Central Main line is a wise decisision, as I think that if we are going to do this we should do it properly (the rather puny loading gauge the GCML was built to may have been better than the others at the time but is hardly adequate these days).
In my opinion the route should throw the European loading gauge book out of the window and go for a derivative of AAR "Plate H" with 20'2" of clearance above the railhead. This would enable any future domestic double stack operations to be accomodated (for instance with a branch to Felixstowe)
Unfortunately such a route would, with overhead wiring, require going on 23 feet of overhead clearence above the railhead to accomodate all the extra equipment.
So what would be a route from FOlkestone to Birmingham/Manchester that required the least amount of work?
Using a combination of new track to disused railway alignments, a route east of the capital is preferred with a new Thames crossing as this allows access to the Thames Gateway port project and the prospect of a short branch to Felixstowe.
Any suggestions then?
They wish to build a railway from the Channel Tunnel terminal at Cheriton to the vicinity of Birmingham/Manchester to carry "piggyback" TOFC services to the various logistics depots in that area from the continent, using the rationale that there is already two transhipment moves taking place and that TOFC with flat wagons would not be that hard even compared to the current drive on move.
Moving trailers on flatwagons requires an enormous gauge and is only just accomodated by the Channel Tunnel (which incidentally allows passage of doublestack 8'6" containers but those are pretty much obsolete).
So this line would require rather excessive guaging which is why I'm not sure the choice of following much of the alignment of the Great Central Main line is a wise decisision, as I think that if we are going to do this we should do it properly (the rather puny loading gauge the GCML was built to may have been better than the others at the time but is hardly adequate these days).
In my opinion the route should throw the European loading gauge book out of the window and go for a derivative of AAR "Plate H" with 20'2" of clearance above the railhead. This would enable any future domestic double stack operations to be accomodated (for instance with a branch to Felixstowe)
Unfortunately such a route would, with overhead wiring, require going on 23 feet of overhead clearence above the railhead to accomodate all the extra equipment.
So what would be a route from FOlkestone to Birmingham/Manchester that required the least amount of work?
Using a combination of new track to disused railway alignments, a route east of the capital is preferred with a new Thames crossing as this allows access to the Thames Gateway port project and the prospect of a short branch to Felixstowe.
Any suggestions then?