MML Electrification: is it going to be completed?

[1D54]

Seems to have been a good bit of work going on at Wigston North junction area as well over the weekend. New track gone down but I'm not sure what it is for. I thought there was track renewal on the MML but there were no speed restrictions first thing this morning so probably wrong on that one.

 

[QSK19]

Having to post in here as the main MML electrification thread has been locked:

A post from Network Rail East Midlands on X of the work which has taken place this weekend at Wigston South Jn:



The talk of trial holes sparks interest(?)

Despite nothing MMLE-specific being mentioned in the spending review, this just seems too public for something not to be happening. Surely the government would stop them from putting out such public statements if MMLE were outright cancelled?

 

[londonmidland]

Seems to have been a good bit of work going on at Wigston North junction area as well over the weekend. New track gone down but I'm not sure what it is for. I thought there was track renewal on the MML but there were no speed restrictions first thing this morning so probably wrong on that one.

I notice there’s still several weekend closures of the line around here, so further work looks to be taking place. The question is, what is it that they’ll be doing?

 

[class442]

I guess the track didn't need lowering much at Blaby Road if they could do it in one weekend.

It's been lowered by 15cm, apparently.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Having to post in here as the main MML electrification thread has been locked:

The talk of trial holes sparks interest(?)

Well even though trial holes spark interest nothing is concrete so everything at the moment is of a speculative nature. I am sure the main thread will be unlocked when/if something more concrete and official occurs or gets announced.

 

[Zomboid]

I notice there’s still several weekend closures of the line around here, so further work looks to be taking place. The question is, what is it that they’ll be doing?

Might be unrelated to electrification. But if they're presently doing trial holes and stuff like that then it won't be any actual construction.

 

[NCT]

Despite nothing MMLE-specific being mentioned in the spending review, this just seems too public for something not to be happening. Surely the government would stop them from putting out such public statements if MMLE were outright cancelled?

Outright cancelled or not outright approved?

 

[QSK19]

Outright cancelled or not outright approved?

Could be interpreted it either way, but I meant “outright cancelled” because this is the scenario whereby (and sorry for stating the obvious) everything stops, tools are downed, surveys end, SPL take down their compound at Loughborough, etc. But here, a public sector body is clearly stating that MMLE prep is progressing - being so open with information suggests that cancellation is not on the cards.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

------- being so open with information suggests that cancellation is not on the cards.

I agree. Labour will not cancel. Massively slow down to help with cash-flow - absolutely!

 

[Zomboid]

I think it's very likely to carry on at a fairly slow pace, at least until Nottingham and Derby. I'd like to think it'll go beyond, but I wouldn't be totally shocked if not.

 

[Killingworth]

I think it's very likely to carry on at a fairly slow pace, at least until Nottingham and Derby. I'd like to think it'll go beyond, but I wouldn't be totally shocked if not.

The costs of doing a comprehensive job at Sheffield must make the final lap a deferrable ad infinitum possibility/probability? Bristol anyone?

 

[may032]

The costs of doing a comprehensive job at Sheffield must make the final lap a deferrable ad infinitum possibility/probability? Bristol anyone?

This would be the UK way!

 

[Zomboid]

I'm sure we'll find a way to mean that the eventual 810s replacements will also have to be bi mode.

 

[londonmidland]

There were/are several blue pegs in the ground at Wigston South junction prior to the engineering works, which hopefully on Wednesday I'll be able to take a quick look at what/if anything has been done here. Said blue pegs were placed higher/are longer than the wooden brown pegs we've been seeing across the route.

 

[GraphitProjekt]

I'm sure we'll find a way to mean that the eventual 810s replacements will also have to be bi mode.

not lost the Erewash and Corby diversionary routes.
Although, when considering the latter - most of it would fall into a theoretical Felixstowe-Nuneaton which wouldn't be a totally mad route to wire up one day.

 

[Technologist]

I'm sure we'll find a way to mean that the eventual 810s replacements will also have to be bi mode.

Stasis fallacy?

We are talking about replacing a train that hasn't yet gone into service, I have updated my nominal battery 800to show what we could do with a BEMU using today's cutting edge automotive battery tech. So I am assuming that we keep the same axles load as today, delete the engines and their fuel, also delete the transformer and replace it with a DC-DC converter of around 1/10th the mass. I have then also assumed a structural battery which has allowed me to delete about 10% of its mass from the remaining structure of the carriage and put this back into the battery pack.

Up shot is that we have enough storage to run 80% of the distance from London to Newcastle at Express speed, this assumes we don't improve aerodynamics, which we will.

Masses	5 Car	9 Car
Tare Electric 801 (has one diesel engine)	233.00​	420.00​
Tare Bi-Mode 802	243.00​	438.00​
Mass Difference	10.00​	18.00​
Mass per engine	5.00​	4.50​
Mass of Fuel per engine	1.27​	1.27​
Mass of Transformer	4.00​	6.50​
Mass of Electric Train Minus Aux Diesel and Transformer	224.40​	409.65​
Mass of battery pack inc. 10% improvement due to making it structural	24.90​	38.56​
Capacity of Pack End of Life (MWh)	3.74​	5.78​
Max Discharge 6C (MW)	22.41​	34.71​
Max Power (1000 bhp)	30.04​	46.52​
Power to Weight (bhp/t)	121.73​	104.69​

Second up-shot is that we can discharge and charge those batteries at much greater charge rates than we can draw from OHLE and with automotive motor tech we can put a 700bhp motor/inverter that weighs 100kg and costs £3k on each axle and get a train with incredible performance, 0-300kph in 70 seconds, or 0-125mph in 910 metres. This potentially gives us two things:

1: Stopping services can have very high end to end speeds particularly if we design intercity trains to have doors more like commuter trains to reduce dwell times.
2: If we pull tech from self driving cars potentially we could have these trains braking and accelerating out of corners like a rally car allowing us to have much higher line speeds on even relatively short sections of straight track.

In short every train will end up being a battery train eventually.

 

[Brubulus]

Stasis fallacy?

We are talking about replacing a train that hasn't yet gone into service, I have updated my nominal battery 800to show what we could do with a BEMU using today's cutting edge automotive battery tech. So I am assuming that we keep the same axles load as today, delete the engines and their fuel, also delete the transformer and replace it with a DC-DC converter of around 1/10th the mass. I have then also assumed a structural battery which has allowed me to delete about 10% of its mass from the remaining structure of the carriage and put this back into the battery pack.

Up shot is that we have enough storage to run 80% of the distance from London to Newcastle at Express speed, this assumes we don't improve aerodynamics, which we will.

Masses	5 Car	9 Car
Tare Electric 801 (has one diesel engine)	233.00​	420.00​
Tare Bi-Mode 802	243.00​	438.00​
Mass Difference	10.00​	18.00​
Mass per engine	5.00​	4.50​
Mass of Fuel per engine	1.27​	1.27​
Mass of Transformer	4.00​	6.50​
Mass of Electric Train Minus Aux Diesel and Transformer	224.40​	409.65​
Mass of battery pack inc. 10% improvement due to making it structural	24.90​	38.56​
Capacity of Pack End of Life (MWh)	3.74​	5.78​
Max Discharge 6C (MW)	22.41​	34.71​
Max Power (1000 bhp)	30.04​	46.52​
Power to Weight (bhp/t)	121.73​	104.69​

Second up-shot is that we can discharge and charge those batteries at much greater charge rates than we can draw from OHLE and with automotive motor tech we can put a 700bhp motor/inverter that weighs 100kg and costs £3k on each axle and get a train with incredible performance, 0-300kph in 70 seconds, or 0-125mph in 910 metres. This potentially gives us two things:

1: Stopping services can have very high end to end speeds particularly if we design intercity trains to have doors more like commuter trains to reduce dwell times.
2: If we pull tech from self driving cars potentially we could have these trains braking and accelerating out of corners like a rally car allowing us to have much higher line speeds on even relatively short sections of straight track.

In short every train will end up being a battery train eventually.

The limitation is passenger comfort, acceleration will be limited to around 1m/s² for that reason, though that still enables incredible performance. The arguments for on train batteries are wide ranging - they enable redundancy, which is important, alongside increased performance and substantially lessen the need for power supply upgrades, since trains will be able to manage their load on electrification independently of their acceleration.

However for battery trains to work effectively, core routes, such as the MML have to be electrified.

Network rail sadly has a limited desire to reassess line speeds in light of increased performance, given the likely increase in maintenance costs for them.

 

[londonmidland]

Looks like there’s still replacement track to be installed at Wigston South Jn, as it looks to be installed in stages.

That would explain the subsequent weekend closures.

 

[Technologist]

The limitation is passenger comfort, acceleration will be limited to around 1m/s² for that reason, though that still enables incredible performance. The arguments for on train batteries are wide ranging - they enable redundancy, which is important, alongside increased performance and substantially lessen the need for power supply upgrades, since trains will be able to manage their load on electrification independently of their acceleration.

However for battery trains to work effectively, core routes, such as the MML have to be electrified.

Network rail sadly has a limited desire to reassess line speeds in light of increased performance, given the likely increase in maintenance costs for them.

I used 1.3m/s² as it is what tube trains and Flirts can manage, our battery train would be able to keep on accelerating at that level to about 150mph. It would still be doing 0.8m/s² at 186mph!

First rule of innovation is to question the requirement, I don't think passenger comfort during acceleration has every really been traded against actual train performance as nobody has every really proposed a train having the same power to weight as a mild performance car! It's really coming from the perspective of not jerking passengers of their feet coming to stop or moving away from standstill.

Buses subject passengers to up to 2.0m/s² in longitudinal and lateral acceleration (4m/s² in emergency braking) and they still allow passengers to stand. If you had a train that went for 1 hour and then abruptly braked at 0.2g to probably wouldn't be acceptable. However if we have a service where the train is accelerating for 90 sec to reach 360kph, travelling 30km in 5 minutes and then taking another 90 seconds to slow down to a stop, nobody is going to have enough time to get complacent.

I think this sort of thing is where GBR could make a difference, if they can do the scoping and start prototyping this sort of high performance BEMU they work out the cost benefit of the increased cost of track maintenance and it won't be a case of having to go through a massive contractual rigmarole.

 

[1D54]

Looks like there’s still replacement track to be installed at Wigston South Jn, as it looks to be installed in stages.

That would explain the subsequent weekend closures.

Including XC services?

 

[londonmidland]

Including XC services?

Yes. There are rail replacement buses to Nuneaton for the remainder of the engineering works period.

The junction itself where the EMR and XC services diverge, I don’t think has yet been replaced. Only the tracks leading up to it from the south(?)

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It's really coming from the perspective of not jerking passengers of their feet coming to stop or moving away from standstill.

Jerk - mathematically that is d^3s/dt^3 - yes? So basically the rate of change of acceleration. Displacement, velocity, acceleration, jerk and jounce. Definitely a factor at design etc stage.

 

[1D54]

Yes. There are rail replacement buses to Nuneaton for the remainder of the engineering works period.

And charging £15.80 for a single RR trip from Leicester but that is for another thread!!

 

[HSTEd]

I used 1.3m/s² as it is what tube trains and Flirts can manage, our battery train would be able to keep on accelerating at that level to about 150mph. It would still be doing 0.8m/s² at 186mph!

First rule of innovation is to question the requirement, I don't think passenger comfort during acceleration has every really been traded against actual train performance as nobody has every really proposed a train having the same power to weight as a mild performance car! It's really coming from the perspective of not jerking passengers of their feet coming to stop or moving away from standstill.

Buses subject passengers to up to 2.0m/s² in longitudinal and lateral acceleration (4m/s² in emergency braking) and they still allow passengers to stand. If you had a train that went for 1 hour and then abruptly braked at 0.2g to probably wouldn't be acceptable. However if we have a service where the train is accelerating for 90 sec to reach 360kph, travelling 30km in 5 minutes and then taking another 90 seconds to slow down to a stop, nobody is going to have enough time to get complacent.

I think this sort of thing is where GBR could make a difference, if they can do the scoping and start prototyping this sort of high performance BEMU they work out the cost benefit of the increased cost of track maintenance and it won't be a case of having to go through a massive contractual rigmarole.

I think 1.3m/s^2 is probably about as far as we can push it.

There was a study on acceptability of acceleration that suggested that was about the limit for very high accceptability, if we hold jerk to low levels.

But taking a few seconds to ramp acceleration up and down gently probably won't alter performance significantly.

1.3m/s^2 with a five second acceleration ramp holds jerk to ~0.26m/s^3.

 

[Technologist]

I think 1.3m/s^2 is probably about as far as we can push it.

There was a study on acceptability of acceleration that suggested that was about the limit for very high accceptability, if we hold jerk to low levels.

But taking a few seconds to ramp acceleration up and down gently probably won't alter performance significantly.

1.3m/s^2 with a five second acceleration ramp holds jerk to ~0.26m/s^3.

I might actually propose that people subjectively differentiate between performance and poor design and thus be more tolerant of one than the other. Jerky acceleration which knocks one of your feet clearly has no purpose and is just poor design and operation. Whereas sustained acceleration is getting you to where you want to go quickly, it's purposeful and exciting. Our high performance BEMU has just matched an Aston Martin V12 Vantage to 300kph (though as it makes the time up toward the upper end of the run where the car is hitting aero drag the car will take a little longer to haul back in), I think people might appreciate this.

Also the faster you go the shorter the journey time and the less likely people will be using toilets and similar.

 

[Brubulus]

I think 1.3m/s^2 is probably about as far as we can push it.

There was a study on acceptability of acceleration that suggested that was about the limit for very high accceptability, if we hold jerk to low levels.

But taking a few seconds to ramp acceleration up and down gently probably won't alter performance significantly.

1.3m/s^2 with a five second acceleration ramp holds jerk to ~0.26m/s^3.

That sounds about perfect. My only concern here is strain on the batteries would be extremely high, which could cause issues being done multiple times an hour, 16+ hours a day, every day for years.

This would shave a substantial amount of time off journey times, especially on commuter routes, and if timetables can take advantage of this, it's likely to have an actual impact on long term economic growth, as people are brought closer to each other and city centres.

Doesn't negate the need for electrification to enable said train to travel a substantial distance.

 

[HSTEd]

That sounds about perfect. My only concern here is strain on the batteries would be extremely high, which could cause issues being done multiple times an hour, 16+ hours a day, every day for years.

This would shave a substantial amount of time off journey times, especially on commuter routes, and if timetables can take advantage of this, it's likely to have an actual impact on long term economic growth, as people are brought closer to each other and city centres.

Well such a train could stop from 125mph in around 45 seconds, dwell for 45 seconds (Achievable with big doors) and then accelerate back to 125mph in 45 seconds.
The actual net increae in journey time would be around 90 seconds.

That implies Shinkansen levels of stop to stop performance (170kph average with dwells at 30km spacings), even with only a 125mph/200kph top speed.

The instantaneous power the batteries were demanding would peak quite high, but only for very brief periods.
If, as noted, the train is traction limited to 150mph then the time the batteries spend very heavily loaded would be a matter of seconds per cycle.

They likely wouldn't even have time to heat up strongly.

 

[eldomtom2]

Buses subject passengers to up to 2.0m/s² in longitudinal and lateral acceleration (4m/s² in emergency braking) and they still allow passengers to stand.

This is designed out of the electric buses TfL is currently moving to: https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-ar...l-confusion-designing-out-electric-bus-danger

To limit the rate of acceleration, by design, the modern electric buses have a maximum acceleration curve of 1.2m/s2 which limits how fast the vehicle can speed up. This provides the driver with adequate driving acceleration while not subjecting passengers to excessive force.

So I doubt 2.0m/s² acceleration in a train would pass a safety case.

 

[chris2]

As a general point on OHLE, what is the feasibility of putting wires up around the stations to provide power for the main acceleration, then letting the batteries take over once up to speed?

 

[Zomboid]

It'd be a very expensive way to build an inflexible system. Continuity of OLE is used for power distribution, and you'd either need to provide a lot more infeeds or along-track cables, neither of which would be especially cheap.