DarloRich
Veteran Member
Only parts of the Marston Vale are 70mph possible. The bits at each end are plagued with sharp turns. The eventual run into the new bit of track heading east of Bedford might alleviate some of that if the spur coming off the vale line is pretty straight. If the priority is running times between Oxford and Cambridge, Bedford will take a much lower priority in the proceedings unless they build a flyover over the whole town.
If this railway existed today, I bet quite a few Thameslink customers would be re-routing to other railways via the east-west link.
Trains don't accelerate from 0 to 100mph instantly! When people talk about a 100mph railway they don't mean 100-mph all the way ( although that would be great) they mean the infrastructure is built to a standard that will support 100mph running. There obviously has to be a part of the track given over to accelerating and breaking. Most of the Vale is perfectly suitable for that with an upgrade. It is mostly flat and mostly runs through open countryside. It is also worth noting that the new E-W trains wont use the existing curve into Bletchley but will instead run via the flyover to a high level platform. The curve at St Johns is also very tight but it is perfectly possible the E-W trains wont serve midland station at all.
Interesting, thanks Richie - would tilt make a significant difference on the Marston Vale?
No.
I've always preferred serving Bedford from a Parkway station where the Marston Vale is crossed by the MML, with a recast MML timetable having fast trains serving this station and skipping Beford Midland Road and having to reverse. In this scenario, EWR would swing either up through the original site of Bedford St Johns and recreate the original alignment as closely as possible to Sandy (though this means bridges up and over the country park and the A421, or a bored tunnel from St Johns (original) to the other side of the A421 (c. 2km)), or, more radically in a bored tunnel for 3km on a much straighter alignment from the MML/Marston Vale interchange to surface east of the A421.
Whereas in the real world.............
(Why do MML trains have to skip Bedford and reverse?)
The benefit of the first would be that it would make for a simple triangular connection to Midland Road from the East, whereas the long tunnel would make that much more expensive. I guess it depends on what your priorities are, and how important Bedford Midland - Sandy - Cambs flows are expected to be - I'm assuming that they'ii be increasingly important.
The obvious determent would be the vast amount of money that would require to simply make lines look nice on a crayon map.
The restriction on the vale line appears to be because of the level crossings. So tilting trains and making them go even faster would only make the railway more of a health and safety hazard.
NR want to replace all level crossings with road bridges going over the railway but this is cost prohibitive. There were murmurings of considering a new passage via MKC to Bedford and only using a partial of the vale line as this would be cheaper, but I think its still cost prohibitive.
The crossings need to go to facilitate faster and safer running. That costs money and is one of the issues the scheme faces.
Ah, thanks very much, Richie - makes sense.
No it doesn't! There isnt going to be tilting trains or a new route from Bedford to MK.
I think the main hurdles are -
Maintaining 100mph across the whole route
I think there is a clear misunderstanding of what a 100 mph railway means!
Making Bedford Midland a viable station to support EMT, THL and EWR trains for the 10+ years until a parkway station is built going East.
Finding the most cost effective route going east of Bedford (I think going to Hitchin is better than Sandy since cost might stop this. Getting a route to Hitchin off the ground is better than not getting anything off the ground).
There isnt going to be a Bedford parkway station. The location of the cross over point of the MML & the Marston Vale simply isnt suitable without significant land take, road changes and the removal of newly built commercial units.
390s will be 30 years old in the early 2030s, so it isn't beyond possibility that they could be cascaded to something like EWR (which i expect to be electrified in CP7 in time to open the whole thing as an electric railway). But the broader point is well taken.
I swear, even though I now can't find a source for it, that the 390s were only intended to run for 27 years. Of course, the 4 newer 2012 units are still young things (even if now based on a 20+ year old design) and might be sticking around a bit longer.
Who knows - tilting requires so much gauge clearance work that NR's current preferred method seems to be re-alignment, such as what's currently occurring at Market Harborough. Of course, only a decade ago NR was very anti electrification (ha!) so tilt might come back into favour.
There wont be titling trains running on these services. There is no indication the line will be built in such a way as to support titling trains.