MML Electrification: progress updates

[John Webb]

Little happening at the Napsbury Access Point adjacent to the North Orbital Trading Estate when I had a look today (30/01/22):

Notice on fence adjacent to entrance:

Not clear if this is past, current or to come work!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Is there any word on the long lead stuff needed for the power supplies further north (Kegworth??)?

yes - see post 4828. Long story short the connection to the grid has been applied for.

 

[snowball]

Levelling up: Sheffield and Wolverhampton chosen for government regeneration plans https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60183453

Morning all. Can anyone shed some light on this story?

“In Sheffield, there are plans to focus on the Integrated Rail Plan electrification and upgrades for journeys between Sheffield and London.”

I assume this is not ‘new’ news…how is this any different to plans that have already been announced?

This item about it appeared on the Guardian and Observer website last night:

Conservatives accused of ‘levelling up’ stunt to save Boris Johnson’s job

Lisa Nandy slams claim of boost for 20 towns saying ‘new’ fund for poorer areas is recycled pledge

www.theguardian.com

The government has been accused of trying to manipulate announcements on extra funding for poorer parts of the UK in a desperate attempt to save Boris Johnson’s premiership.

An extraordinary row blew up after Michael Gove’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities released a press statement – before publication of a levelling up white paper this week – saying 20 towns and cities would benefit from a “new £1.5bn brownfield fund”. The release, which named only Sheffield and Wolverhampton as recipients, said the 20 areas “will benefit from developments combining housing, leisure and business in sustainable, walkable beautiful new neighbourhoods”.

Gove added that the “radical new regeneration programme” would prove transformational and deliver on the government’s flagship policy to create a more equal country. “This huge investment in infrastructure and regeneration will spread opportunity more evenly and help to reverse the geographical inequalities which still exist in the UK.”

But after the Observer contacted senior sources at the Treasury to ask if its ministers had signed off on the promised £1.5bn, Gove’s department backtracked and confessed that the “new” fund was not new money at all but would be made up of levelling-up funds that had been announced by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in his spending review last autumn.

The confusion was seized upon by Labour and other opposition parties as evidence of the lengths Johnson and his ministers are prepared to go in order to persuade Conservative MPs in so-called “red wall” seats to stick by the prime minister before the imminent publication of a report into the “partygate” scandal this week by the senior civil servant Sue Gray. If at least 54 Tory MPs write to Sir Graham Brady saying they want Johnson to go, it would trigger a vote of confidence in the prime minister. If he were to lose the vote of Conservative MPs it would mark the end of his premiership.

Shadow levelling-up secretary Lisa Nandy said the Tories had been caught out trying to spin that extra money had been found for poorer areas when the white paper actually contained nothing they did not already know about.

“I don’t think Tory MPs are going to find it very reassuring when the supposed new pot of gold contains not a penny of new money,” Nandy said.

 

[59CosG95]

Little happening at the Napsbury Access Point adjacent to the North Orbital Trading Estate when I had a look today (30/01/22):
View attachment 109523
Notice on fence adjacent to entrance:
View attachment 109524
Not clear if this is past, current or to come work!

This looks like work to come - but it's more related to the cables in the troughing. That being said, it might involve the installation of an R.S.C. (Return Screening Conductor) in the troughing (existing or new) which would pave the way for deboostering Borehamwood to St Albans. It looks as if everywhere north of St Albans (except a bit around Luton) is done.

 

[Bald Rick]

The boosters between Sandridge neutral and Harpenden have now been removed. Curiously some new current carrying flexible droppers have been installed on the catenary at the same place.

 

[59CosG95]

The boosters between Sandridge neutral and Harpenden have now been removed. Curiously some new current carrying flexible droppers have been installed on the catenary at the same place.

Are the droppers just at the overlaps, or along the whole tension length?
ISTR there was/is a Campaign Change to put flexible current carrying droppers in at insulated overlaps

 

[Bald Rick]

Are the droppers just at the overlaps, or along the whole tension length?
ISTR there was/is a Campaign Change to put flexible current carrying droppers in at insulated overlaps

At the overlaps.

 

[59CosG95]

At the overlaps.

Thought so!

 

[Flying Phil]

There were no changes to be seen at the Harboro end. No masts up in the station yet. At the Braybrooke Supply site the trackside area is nearly fenced off and the black underground cable pipes are nearly buried.

No changes around Desborough but the supply site near Rushton has a lot of Piles, mast posts and cantilevers stored. There are a few more masts up and the odd cantilever between there and Rushton itself.

 

[swt_passenger]

Your first picture also shows the large coverage of yellow high voltage hazard warning tape that is there to stop anyone accidentally digging where they shouldn’t.

 

[Flying Phil]

Also in the first picture, in front of the pylon, there is the start of installation of the 25kV switchgear?

 

[Ploughman]

Does Yellow tape as a marker actually work?
Or should they use something a bit more Digger Repellant?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

There were no changes to be seen at the Harboro end. No masts up in the station yet. At the Braybrooke Supply site the trackside area is nearly fenced off and the black underground cable pipes are nearly buried.

Much appreciate your time lapse photos of the construction of this site

Also in the first picture, in front of the pylon, there is the start of installation of the 25kV switchgear?

Thats the 400Kv side by the looks of the size of the insulators.

 

[themiller]

Does Yellow tape as a marker actually work?
Or should they use something a bit more Digger Repellant?

They usually place tiles over the entire cable run before backfilling to ground level. https://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/ele...ansmission_lines_The_technical_issues_INT.pdf

 

[Elecman]

Much appreciate your time lapse photos of the construction of this site

Thats the 400Kv side by the looks of the size of the insulators.

Absolutely the 400kv Side of The supply

 

[Nottingham59]

Also in the first picture, in front of the pylon, there is the start of installation of the 25kV switchgear?

You can see the layout of the National Grid equipment in post #4940. Everything in direct line of sight between the pylon and the camera is the 400kv feed from the pylon to the left-hand transformer.

 

[Flying Phil]

Thanks for those corrections.....I never was very good with electrics!

 

[InTheEastMids]

Not part of the MML scheme but tweets yesterday (linked below) from Noel Dolphin of Furrer & Frey show progress on a demonstration at Wellingborough yard of retractable electrification to allow electric locos to be used end-end on freight. The MML contractor SPL are involved though.

https://twitter.com/NoelDolphin/status/1491474850455736323?t=A9sHgea7uCUjeu7VwtMgbw&s=19

 

[Flying Phil]

There has been a lot of activity around Market Harborough Station this week with temporary fencing and several "Portacabins" being put in place....but it is for toilet works not electrification. Old toilets being removed and new ones being built. There are now about 88 masts up on the west side and 82 on the East side between H'bro and Glendon Junction.

 

[Mollman]

Not part of the MML scheme but tweets yesterday (linked below) from Noel Dolphin of Furrer & Frey show progress on a demonstration at Wellingborough yard of retractable electrification to allow electric locos to be used end-end on freight. The MML contractor SPL are involved though.

https://twitter.com/NoelDolphin/status/1491474850455736323?t=A9sHgea7uCUjeu7VwtMgbw&s=19

Interesting, especially as it is working with GB Railfreight who don't really have any electric locos that could be used on the MML if it is going to be tested.

 

[Bald Rick]

Interesting, especially as it is working with GB Railfreight who don't really have any electric locos that could be used on the MML if it is going to be tested.

IIRC Wellingborough Yard is leased by GBRf

 

[midland1]

What is happening about all the low bridges between Kettering and Market Harborough ?

 

[Hairy Bear]

There still low !!.
No sign of any work being started upon them.

 

[59CosG95]

The compound at Rushton looks perfectly placed (IMO) to assemble and install a pre-fab bridge to replace the existing one. Of course, it could be track lowering that occurs here...

 

[londonmidland]

Some piles as well as some catenary ‘bits n’ bobs’ awaiting to be installed, laying on the ground just north of the car park at Market Harborough.

 

[Flying Phil]

What is happening about all the low bridges between Kettering and Market Harborough ?

I thought that some would be OK, others are having track lowering beneath them. There is certainly no sign of any major work at present.

 

[gordonjahn]

Interesting, especially as it is working with GB Railfreight who don't really have any electric locos that could be used on the MML if it is going to be tested.

GBRF have 92s - or do you mean they'd be out of gauge?

 

[59CosG95]

GBRF have 92s - or do you mean they'd be out of gauge?

Don't believe they are; however, the MML is currently an "island" of 25kV without any connection to the rest of the network except at St. Pancras Int'l Low Level (via the Canal Tunnels), which freight can't go down anyway.
Unless there are plans to link the MML to the GOBLIN (via the Tottenham Curve), the WCML (via the Marston Vale Line to Bletchley, or the route via Hinckley), or the GWML (via the Dudding Hill Line from Cricklewood), that "island" status isn't going to change any time soon.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Yes and at one time Sheffield to Doncaster (ECML) was in scope and plans and that too has long gone by the wayside.

 

[Mollman]

GBRF have 92s - or do you mean they'd be out of gauge?

Whilst they do have 92s they are only used for Cally sleeper work and some tunnel freight. Getting them cleared on the MML will more be an issue of their electrical interaction with the 360s and 700s as modern EMUs have a habit of causing a 92 to shut down.