If they really went for it they could do.
Liverpool to Manchester via Warrington Central.
Preston to Ormskirk.
Kirkby and Southport to Wigan.
Warrington Bank Quay to Chester and Halton Curve.
Crewe to Chester.
Sandbach to Northwich, then Northwich to WCML via Greenbank Curve.
OR. Sandbach to Northwich and all of the mid Cheshire line. Or convert to Manchester Metro.
Blackpool South.
Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury.
Hereford to Bromsgrove.
Stockport - Sheffield
Stoke - Derby
Wow you have spent a lot of time spending hard earned tax payers cash with very little idea.
Kirkby line Headbolt Lane-Wallgate I could see happening if some form of Merseyrail vertical integration occured, theres also reportedly a positive BCR for reopening to Skem either from Ormskirk or Kirkby approachs.
Pfffffttttt. No chance unless Merseyside takes over the area. The other issue is the tunnel and the route being closed from 7pm onwards due to the local people. They would be better off extending to Skelmersdale then running a Skem to Wigan Parry People Mover.
I am a very green person
If you electrify Crewe to Chester, then Chester to Warrington can be a diversion route for the WCML.
It's the same as painting a house, you paint 1 room then you notice others need doing, we electrify Blackpool North, then Blackpool south looks odd, you see what I mean.
Proposing 100% electrified railway on our network by 2030.
#
WTF is that logic. You're ****ing away a lot of money. I assume you have heard of embodied carbon of the trains and the infrastructure.
Most services from Crewe to Chester terminate at Chester (the hourly ATW shuttle and the hourly VT service from Euston), its only a few morning services from Holyhead and a few evening ones to Holyhead which run further. Wiring Crewe - Chester would allow Virgin to get rid of all Voyagers *if* they could sort out a drag for the token Holyhead services.
Yeah, they could ditch them. If Wales wants to electrify it they can. If not, they can get the diesel trains. It is not our problem in England.
The one I would like to see is the big one -- over the top to Leeds. With a little in-fill in Yorkshire, the whole route from Liverpool to Newcastle would be electrified. To me, that's the prize to go for.
Only half of the TPE's will become diesel if that was undertaken so it is not that big of a prize.
Its still just one train an hour (plus a stopper from Huddersfield to Leeds, usually Pacer run). To do Transpennine properly you have to decide whether to electrify to Middlesbrough/ Scarborough/ Hull, to cut their direct services to Manchester or to run DMUs under the wires. I think the electrification from Manchester to York would be a good thing, but only if the majority of services on the line move to EMU. This may mean cutting some of the direct services from Middlesbrough/Scarborough to Manchester since you'd need to convert a lot of the Transpennine services to EMU to justify wiring it.
Scarborough would get an extension on the York to Man Vic, whilst the Scarborough TPE would terminate at York.
I think there are 8 London - Holyhead trains per day (M/F), mostly in the peaks. There are also some Bangor terminators, clearly not serving the Irish ferries. It's not an insignificant amount for a secondary trunk line.
But is 8 trains per day enough to justify so many miles of electrification? I don't think it is and it is a devolved decision anyway. We should leave it to the devolved Welsh adminstration to decide if they can afford a London service for these towns.
Already funded and planned by Network Rail for a few years now as part of the plan to extend some Cross-city trains to Bromsgrove. My local knowledge is a bit out of date now so not sure what is going on with this and the re-siting of Bromsgrove station.
Check out the FoI that I put in and responded to by the DfT in January. It is on their website.
Hurrah! "An awful lot" of DMUs = 8 x 170s (total 21 vehicles) that it takes to run Ipswich - Cambridge, Ipswich - Peterboro and Cambridge - Norwich. And for only 128 route miles of knitting!
Alternatively, the money could be spent on the 125 route miles from Bedford to Sheffield / Nottingham, freeing up almost a whole fleet of Meridians (143 vehicles) and 9 HSTs.
And/or, as PhilipW says, North Trans-Pennine Machester - York, which with a bit of selective service alteration would release most of the 185s.
Electrification has to be prioritised on the routes where the most diesel vehicles (and thus mileage) is replaced with electric mileage for the lowest cost.
My cunning plan would be to wire the MML in time for HS2 opening in the mid 2020s, then the displaced Pendolinos can find a new home on the twisty turny MML, which will also reduce journey times.
This is the cunning thinking of electrification.
The quick wins are the enhancements that will deliver additional capacity and replacements of the network. For example, the Morecambe and Windemere branches would be ideal candidates removing wasteful DMU use and allowing for services to be enhanced in the area. It then leaves Barrow as the only route in North West TPE that remains diesel post electrification. Leeds services can be diverted from Morecambe to serve Barrow instead.