Great Western Electrification Progress

Linda smith · 30 Sep 2019

edwin_m said:
Is that "switched on" or "operational"?

They say switched on in one report & being installed in another, so it depends on what report you read tbh

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R G NOW. · 30 Sep 2019

edwin_m said:
Probably because if it was any more than a like-for-like replacement it would involve changing the signaling. I believe this is nearly life-expired and the type and state of the interlocking probably makes changing very costly and disruptive. From Rick's comment it seems the junction couldn't be kept going until track and signaling could be changed at the same time.

Bristol East signaling was of similar vintage but was replaced a couple of years ago with few or no layout changes, making it easier to change the layout in stages as they did with Reading.

Although not about electrification I wish to Answer edwins post about track layouts. The only alteration to the signalling needed, is the removal of the route from G158 to G162 at over and removal of a pos 4 junction indicator. Although thinking in bed last night, they would have to change the ones on signal g31 to pos 1 4 5 version. Then they could of removed over junction and relaid the points outside the station and fitted pos 1 indicators to signals 258 and 358. That is what I believe the dispatcher was telling me once, he got very upset that they had wasted an opportunity to get Gloucester ready for relocating the signalling to T.V.S.C.

yorkie · 1 Oct 2019

Please use this thread for electrification progress and updates.

For suggestions and ideas regarding potential extensions that may or may not happen, please use the following thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/great-western-electrification-extension-suggestions.192922/ thanks

geoffk · 4 Oct 2019

oglord said:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/quicker-train-services-south-wales-16973276

"From London, electrification currently extends as far as the Severn Tunnel, with Network Rail planning for it to reach and be operational to Newport by Christmas."

Can someone confirm please whether GWR trains are now in electric mode as far as Bristol Parkway?

JN114 · 4 Oct 2019

geoffk said:
Can someone confirm please whether GWR trains are now in electric mode as far as Bristol Parkway?

Essentially.

I believe westbound the restriction still stands that if proceeding towards either S Wales or Filton trains will Pan Down between Westerleigh Junction and Bristol Parkway.

oglord · 4 Oct 2019

JN114 said:
Essentially.

I believe westbound the restriction still stands that if proceeding towards either S Wales or Filton trains will Pan Down between Westerleigh Junction and Bristol Parkway.

Indeed, although that could well be extended after the timetable change in December, before complete running to/from Cardiff on the 28th December.

option · 6 Oct 2019

59CosG95 said:
Berks & Hants Line (Reading-Newbury) - LIVE

Project Postponements

Thames Valley Branches:

Windsor & Henley deferred to at least CP6. The first few yards of the Windsor branch (Not the Henley Branch) have been wired as an overrun.

Marlow removed from scope of current programme. The first few yards of the branch have been wired as an overrun.

Southcote Jct to Basingstoke deferred to at least CP6. The first few yards of the Basingstoke Lines have been wired as an overrun.

Appleford LC to Oxford paused; if CP6 accounts allow for wiring to be extended to Oxford, it would be very likely to happen now that Oxford has been remodelled.
Catenary & Contact wires between Chippenham (Cocklebury Lane Overbridge) & Thingley Jct have been deferred until at least some point in CP6. All Large steelwork to remain, unless required elsewhere.

Reading - Newbury is 18-19 miles
Wootton Bassett - Chippenham is 11miles

Didcot Parkway - Oxford is 11miles
Bristol Parkway - Temple Meads is 6miles

Why has infrastructure been built out to Newbury & Chippenham, which are quite frankly in the middle of nowhere, when the two obvious end/pause points have been somewhat shelved?

Was it always planned to have two electrified routes to Bristol? If so, why not build the shorter/busier (south from Parkway) route first?
Why Newbury? Was it intended to go further, & if so, where to?

swt_passenger · 6 Oct 2019

option said:
Reading - Newbury is 18-19 miles
Wootton Bassett - Chippenham is 11miles

Didcot Parkway - Oxford is 11miles
Bristol Parkway - Temple Meads is 6miles

Why has infrastructure been built out to Newbury & Chippenham, which are quite frankly in the middle of nowhere, when the two obvious end/pause points have been somewhat shelved?

Was it always planned to have two electrified routes to Bristol? If so, why not build the shorter/busier (south from Parkway) route first?
Why Newbury? Was it intended to go further, & if so, where to?

Yes, for two routes to Bristol.
No, it was never intended to go beyond Newbury. AIUI Newbury was decided on as the logical end of a Paddington to Newbury stopping EMU service.

Brissle Girl · 6 Oct 2019

The two routes to Bristol Temple Meads were put on hold as it didn't make sense to electrify prior to the remodelling of Bristol East, which I believe is scheduled for Dec 2020. On the southern route it conveniently avoided a battle with campaigners who don't want Bath disfigured by horrid electrification. I suspect that is still a battle to be won if it is reinstated.

The Ham · 7 Oct 2019

swt_passenger said:
Yes, for two routes to Bristol.
No, it was never intended to go beyond Newbury. AIUI Newbury was decided on as the logical end of a Paddington to Newbury stopping EMU service.

There had been discussions about extending the wires to Bedwyn so that those services could have been EMU, however they now have 80x services.

jimm · 7 Oct 2019

The Ham said:
There had been discussions about extending the wires to Bedwyn so that those services could have been EMU, however they now have 80x services.

It was a bit more than discussions. It was a fairly detailed study, which looked at options for electrification to Bedwyn, Westbury, the Mendip quarries and to Bath.

There are some details of the findings at this link. While it showed taking wires to Bedwyn had a viable cost-benefit ratio, any option for going beyond there did not.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=12464.0;wap2

Envoy · 7 Oct 2019

Brissle Girl said:
The two routes to Bristol Temple Meads were put on hold as it didn't make sense to electrify prior to the remodelling of Bristol East, which I believe is scheduled for Dec 2020. On the southern route it conveniently avoided a battle with campaigners who don't want Bath disfigured by horrid electrification. I suspect that is still a battle to be won if it is reinstated.

Let us hope that future electrification will not use the ugly system that they have used thus far for the London to Cardiff line. I note that Bath has a problem with air pollution due to all the traffic and the fact that it is confined in a valley. I therefore contend that the people of Bath should welcome rail electrification.

If the 6 miles of 4 track railway from Temple Meads up to the south Wales mainline were electrified, then that would surely open the way to have an all stops electric service between Cardiff and Bristol Temple Meads. New stations could be built on the reliefs at Llanwern and St.Mellons (Cardiff East Parkway). Hopefully, the speed limits on the reliefs would be raised.

option · 7 Oct 2019

option said:
Reading - Newbury is 18-19 miles
Wootton Bassett - Chippenham is 11miles

Didcot Parkway - Oxford is 11miles
Bristol Parkway - Temple Meads is 6miles

adding to this
Chippenham - Temple Meads is 25miles

So, if the Newbury & Chippenham routes had been dropped, that's ~54miles of work saved.
That's enough to have done Oxford & Parkway-TM, with 37miles saved.
(I know it won't have served Bath, but it's not yet served anyway)

Aren't there more trains doing Oxford & Temple Meads than Newbury & Chippenham?
So there would have been greater running cost savings from doing those instead.

oglord · 7 Oct 2019

option said:
Aren't there more trains doing Oxford & Temple Meads than Newbury & Chippenham?
So there would have been greater running cost savings from doing those instead.

Except all Paddington-Temple Meads services currently go via Chippenham.

jimm · 7 Oct 2019

Envoy said:
Let us hope that future electrification will not use the ugly system that they have used thus far for the London to Cardiff line. I note that Bath has a problem with air pollution due to all the traffic and the fact that it is confined in a valley. I therefore contend that the people of Bath should welcome rail electrification..

A special design of overhead support, tailored for Sydney Gardens in Bath, exists. I expect someone can track down the details.

A low-profile portal design for use on listed bridges and viaducts has been used with few complaints ever since the East Coast electrification in the late 1980s, including at Maidenhead Bridge and Moulsford viaduct on the GWML.

swt_passenger · 7 Oct 2019

The Ham said:
There had been discussions about extending the wires to Bedwyn so that those services could have been EMU, however they now have 80x services.

I don’t recall it was ever officially listed in the finalised project by NR, (as per the EDP) but it was assessed by them and decided against. But it was certainly proposed and discussed regularly in these forums.

ArchieWoodbine · 7 Oct 2019

option said:
adding to this
Chippenham - Temple Meads is 25miles

So, if the Newbury & Chippenham routes had been dropped, that's ~54miles of work saved.
That's enough to have done Oxford & Parkway-TM, with 37miles saved.
(I know it won't have served Bath, but it's not yet served anyway)

Aren't there more trains doing Oxford & Temple Meads than Newbury & Chippenham?
So there would have been greater running cost savings from doing those instead.

I’m afraid it doesn’t work quite like that. Reading - Newbury is a route littered with stations, which means lots of stopping services. These are the types of services that benefit most from the quick acceleration of electric stock.

Being able to introduce electric services on the majority of the Thames Valley commuter lines is far more valuable than creeping the wires 25 miles more towards Bristol.

Additionally, the cost of electrifying the 25 miles on from Chippenham towards Bristol will be far greater than Reading - Newbury. The former has serveral long tunnels, a few viaducts and lots of heritage issues to contend with - all of these features will increase the time and cost of electrification.

Brissle Girl · 7 Oct 2019

ArchieWoodbine said:
I’m afraid it doesn’t work quite like that. Reading - Newbury is a route littered with stations, which means lots of stopping services. These are the types of services that benefit most from the quick acceleration of electric stock.

Being able to introduce electric services on the majority of the Thames Valley commuter lines is far more valuable than creeping the wires 25 miles more towards Bristol.

Additionally, the cost of electrifying the 25 miles on from Chippenham towards Bristol will be far greater than Reading - Newbury. The former has serveral long tunnels, a few viaducts and lots of heritage issues to contend with - all of these features will increase the time and cost of electrification.

Agree with most of what you say, although remember that a lot of the difficult work has already been carried out in preparation for electrification. Most notably, there was a 6 week closure in the summer about 4 years back during which Box Tunnel was made ready, which was the most difficult project. Similarly, Bath Spa station had a major tweak, including extending the platforms outwards to enable sufficient clearance for the wires from the canopies (which were cut back). So any remaining work should be relatively straightforward.

Meerkat · 7 Oct 2019

How simple/expensive would extending to the Mendip quarries be?
Converting the jumbo trains to Acton would be a PR win, cutting diesel use in urban areas and presumably aiding performance, but where else do trains from the quarries go?

-Colly405- · 7 Oct 2019

Meerkat said:
How simple/expensive would extending to the Mendip quarries be?
Converting the jumbo trains to Acton would be a PR win, cutting diesel use in urban areas and presumably aiding performance, but where else do trains from the quarries go?

Won't that all change when Freightliner take over the Mendip contract from DBS, especially as Acton and Westbury are both DB-owned (I think?).

ArchieWoodbine · 7 Oct 2019

Brissle Girl said:
Agree with most of what you say, although remember that a lot of the difficult work has already been carried out in preparation for electrification. Most notably, there was a 6 week closure in the summer about 4 years back during which Box Tunnel was made ready, which was the most difficult project. Similarly, Bath Spa station had a major tweak, including extending the platforms outwards to enable sufficient clearance for the wires from the canopies (which were cut back). So any remaining work should be relatively straightforward.

You're right that the clearance/enabling works have been completed, but that doesn't really make the installation of the OLE any less difficult for the most part. Yes, the track and Box has been lowered, but one still has to install the actual OLE / ROCS into the tunnel itself; Sydney gardens will still need fixings to retaining walls and heritage structures; Chippenham viaduct will need to have fixings installed also. All of these are complex pieces of work that carry a cost and time risk to continued electrification towards Bristol.

The previous works have enabled electrification to happen; but they haven't made the actual installation any easier (just possible in the first place).

Brissle Girl · 7 Oct 2019

I think we're getting into speculative territory here, so this probably isn't the right thread for it. Sufficed to say, around 60 track miles to do both Merehead and Whatley isn't a small add-on project, so unlikely to be on anyone's radar soon unfortunately.

Brissle Girl · 7 Oct 2019

ArchieWoodbine said:
You're right that the clearance/enabling works have been completed, but that doesn't really make the installation of the OLE any less difficult for the most part.

Why? The big ticket costs peculiar to the line (except for Bristol East, which is planned as discussed earlier) are done. So not sure why you're suggesting that electrification would now be any more expensive than any other scheme of a similar mileage.

ArchieWoodbine · 7 Oct 2019

Brissle Girl said:
Why? The big ticket costs peculiar to the line (except for Bristol East, which is planned as discussed earlier) are done. So not sure why you're suggesting that electrification would now be any more expensive than any other scheme of a similar mileage.

Apologies I sent that message before I'd finished typing - see my comments above.

The big costs/works haven't been completed, though. They've lowered track and widened the platforms at Bath, not inconsiderable tasks in their own right, but all that does is permit electrification to happen. There's still several tunnels, viadtucts, retaining walls and heritage areas to install OLE through - all of which will be a far more costly excersise than installing the equivelant route-mileage of wires on a route with fewer man-made obstacles.

edwin_m · 7 Oct 2019

ArchieWoodbine said:
I’m afraid it doesn’t work quite like that. Reading - Newbury is a route littered with stations, which means lots of stopping services. These are the types of services that benefit most from the quick acceleration of electric stock.

Being able to introduce electric services on the majority of the Thames Valley commuter lines is far more valuable than creeping the wires 25 miles more towards Bristol.

Additionally, the cost of electrifying the 25 miles on from Chippenham towards Bristol will be far greater than Reading - Newbury. The former has serveral long tunnels, a few viaducts and lots of heritage issues to contend with - all of these features will increase the time and cost of electrification.

It also means the Newbury commuter services can go over to EMU operation rather than needing bi-modes (except for the Bedwyn extensions). On the other line out of Reading there would be benefit in operating EMUs as far as Oxford, whereas the service west of Didcot to Swindon and beyond is provided by intercity trains for Bristol, Cardiff etc which are all bi-modes and would almost certainly remain so with further electrification. Combined with the fact Oxford has now mostly been re-modelled and Bristol hasn't, this make a reinstatement of electrification to Oxford more likely than to Bristol.

edwin_m · 7 Oct 2019

ArchieWoodbine said:
The big costs/works haven't been completed, though. They've lowered track and widened the platforms at Bath, not inconsiderable tasks in their own right, but all that does is permit electrification to happen. There's still several tunnels, viadtucts, retaining walls and heritage areas to install OLE through - all of which will be a far more costly excersise than installing the equivelant route-mileage of wires on a route with fewer man-made obstacles.

Wouldn't the Bath platform work been needed even if electrification had been cancelled first, to provide adequate clearances and stepping distances for 80x units?

Brissle Girl · 7 Oct 2019

Agree, but the point is, it's now been done, so any discussion on how expensive or otherwise electrification is now going to be can exclude any cost to make the station compatible.

ArchieWoodbine · 7 Oct 2019

edwin_m said:
Wouldn't the Bath platform work been needed even if electrification had been cancelled first, to provide adequate clearances and stepping distances for 80x units?

I'm not entirely sure - I think the lengthening works were a seperate project? If I recall, the main reason for the platform widening at Bath was to move the tracks (and hence the wires) away from the listed canopies. But, you might also be right, as the 80x units do have quite an overhang on the carriage ends.

Brissle Girl · 7 Oct 2019

ArchieWoodbine said:
Apologies I sent that message before I'd finished typing - see my comments above.

The big costs/works haven't been completed, though. They've lowered track and widened the platforms at Bath, not inconsiderable tasks in their own right, but all that does is permit electrification to happen. There's still several tunnels, viadtucts, retaining walls and heritage areas to install OLE through - all of which will be a far more costly excersise than installing the equivelant route-mileage of wires on a route with fewer man-made obstacles.

I think you're overstating it. The biggest jobs (Box (and I presume Middle Hill) tunnel and Bath Spa) have been done. Other work has been done, eg Keynsham canopies, even some piling. So there are 4 short tunnels, and a longer one that may require some work. I don't imagine retaining walls present much of an issue, and once a design is agreed for the heritage area, that should be relatively straightforward. I expect others will be getting bored with this debate though, so let's just agree to disagree!

Mikey C · 7 Oct 2019

edwin_m said:
It also means the Newbury commuter services can go over to EMU operation rather than needing bi-modes (except for the Bedwyn extensions). On the other line out of Reading there would be benefit in operating EMUs as far as Oxford, whereas the service west of Didcot to Swindon and beyond is provided by intercity trains for Bristol, Cardiff etc which are all bi-modes and would almost certainly remain so with further electrification. Combined with the fact Oxford has now mostly been re-modelled and Bristol hasn't, this make a reinstatement of electrification to Oxford more likely than to Bristol.

A bit off topic but I always thought it was ridiculous (and a direct result I guess of the chaos surrounding the privatised railway in its early years) that when Heathrow Express was being planned, there was no plan to continue the wiring a bit further out and electrify many of the GWR commuter services 20 years ago...

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