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Scotland's Railway - Potential Enhancement Options

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Stopper

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47271 said:
Scotland's railway roadmap: think tank reveals wish-list for our train network

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news...p-think-tank-reveals-wish-list-train-network/

I'm really just posting this latest output from Railfuture for the record. I'm not sure if it adds anything to the discussion, and with the exception of three or four items, most of it's pie in the sky, but here it is anyway.
Click to expand...

The mind blows why Grangemouth hasn’t been proposed yet. An estimate of around 400k a year...

The problem with Grangemouth is that the branch faces the Glasgow direction. Grangemouth has varied commuter flows but more people commute to Edinburgh, Falkirk, Stirling and the Linlithgow/Bo’Ness area. If you ran a 2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow via Cumbernauld service, by far the biggest flows on the whole line would be Grangemouth-Falkirk.

You have several ways you could run a Grangemouth service.

Idea A

2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow Queen Street via Cumbernauld. The most likely and most spoken about option would be to extend the former Queen Street to Grahamston service to Grangemouth. This would provide a solid (and likely very busy) half-hourly shuttle between Grangemouth and Falkirk, while maintaining the service towards Glasgow for the likes of Stepps and Gartcosh. Given that Grangemouth has fairly decent flows towards Edinburgh, Larbert, Stirling & Linlithgow, Grahamston could become a very busy interchange. It would mean finding an alternative Edinburgh service for Camelon, Falkirk Grahamston and especially Linlithgow & Polmont, likely from the Stirling direction. It wouldn’t affect Stepps & Gartcosh negatively as the vast majority of their passengers are travelling to Glasgow. Cumbernauld and Springburn have seen a sharp decline recently but the majority are travelling to Glasgow or beyond.

Idea B

2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow Queen Street via Croy. Benefits of this are that it would probably be a faster service, and allow you to leave the Cumbernauld service untouched. It would provide Falkirk Grahamston with a decent service to Glasgow for the first time, and pending capacity it may allow the Stirling/Alloa services to speed up and skip Lenzie & Bishopbriggs, depending on commuter flows.

Idea C

1tph extension of the Dalmuir-Cumbernauld/Argyle Line services. This is more of an add-on to one of the above, and may be unlikely. It may not benefit Grangemouth much, but would link Falkirk with Motherwell, Coatbridge and South Lanarkshire.
 
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najaB

najaB

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Stopper said:
The problem with Grangemouth is that the branch faces the Glasgow direction.
Click to expand...
If that's the big problem, build a chord. It doesn't look like it would be that hard, even with a flying junction over the Edinburgh-Glasgow line:grangemouth.png
 
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gingertom

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Stopper said:
The mind blows why Grangemouth hasn’t been proposed yet. An estimate of around 400k a year...

The problem with Grangemouth is that the branch faces the Glasgow direction. Grangemouth has varied commuter flows but more people commute to Edinburgh, Falkirk, Stirling and the Linlithgow/Bo’Ness area. If you ran a 2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow via Cumbernauld service, by far the biggest flows on the whole line would be Grangemouth-Falkirk.

You have several ways you could run a Grangemouth service.

Idea A

2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow Queen Street via Cumbernauld. The most likely and most spoken about option would be to extend the former Queen Street to Grahamston service to Grangemouth. This would provide a solid (and likely very busy) half-hourly shuttle between Grangemouth and Falkirk, while maintaining the service towards Glasgow for the likes of Stepps and Gartcosh. Given that Grangemouth has fairly decent flows towards Edinburgh, Larbert, Stirling & Linlithgow, Grahamston could become a very busy interchange. It would mean finding an alternative Edinburgh service for Camelon, Falkirk Grahamston and especially Linlithgow & Polmont, likely from the Stirling direction. It wouldn’t affect Stepps & Gartcosh negatively as the vast majority of their passengers are travelling to Glasgow. Cumbernauld and Springburn have seen a sharp decline recently but the majority are travelling to Glasgow or beyond.

Idea B

2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow Queen Street via Croy. Benefits of this are that it would probably be a faster service, and allow you to leave the Cumbernauld service untouched. It would provide Falkirk Grahamston with a decent service to Glasgow for the first time, and pending capacity it may allow the Stirling/Alloa services to speed up and skip Lenzie & Bishopbriggs, depending on commuter flows.

Idea C

1tph extension of the Dalmuir-Cumbernauld/Argyle Line services. This is more of an add-on to one of the above, and may be unlikely. It may not benefit Grangemouth much, but would link Falkirk with Motherwell, Coatbridge and South Lanarkshire.
Click to expand...
there appears to be enough space to build a chord so trains could reach Edinburgh. However that would be yet more services arriving from the west at the bottlenecks of Newbridge / Haymarket.
 
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Tobbes

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Surely if you were going to do this, you'd CPO Benny T's chip shop, burrow under the road and have a c. 1.1km embankment across the A9 and through the Thornbridge Sawmill to a junction just west of the Laurieston Road overbridge. This should knock the gradient back to something steep but not impossible for modern EMUs - but whether direct trains to Edinburgh would ever be worth this level of investment seems pretty dubious to me.
 
C

Class 170101

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Stopper said:
The mind blows why Grangemouth hasn’t been proposed yet. An estimate of around 400k a year...

The problem with Grangemouth is that the branch faces the Glasgow direction. Grangemouth has varied commuter flows but more people commute to Edinburgh, Falkirk, Stirling and the Linlithgow/Bo’Ness area. If you ran a 2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow via Cumbernauld service, by far the biggest flows on the whole line would be Grangemouth-Falkirk.

You have several ways you could run a Grangemouth service.

Idea A

2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow Queen Street via Cumbernauld. The most likely and most spoken about option would be to extend the former Queen Street to Grahamston service to Grangemouth. This would provide a solid (and likely very busy) half-hourly shuttle between Grangemouth and Falkirk, while maintaining the service towards Glasgow for the likes of Stepps and Gartcosh. Given that Grangemouth has fairly decent flows towards Edinburgh, Larbert, Stirling & Linlithgow, Grahamston could become a very busy interchange. It would mean finding an alternative Edinburgh service for Camelon, Falkirk Grahamston and especially Linlithgow & Polmont, likely from the Stirling direction. It wouldn’t affect Stepps & Gartcosh negatively as the vast majority of their passengers are travelling to Glasgow. Cumbernauld and Springburn have seen a sharp decline recently but the majority are travelling to Glasgow or beyond.

Idea B

2tph Grangemouth-Glasgow Queen Street via Croy. Benefits of this are that it would probably be a faster service, and allow you to leave the Cumbernauld service untouched. It would provide Falkirk Grahamston with a decent service to Glasgow for the first time, and pending capacity it may allow the Stirling/Alloa services to speed up and skip Lenzie & Bishopbriggs, depending on commuter flows.

Idea C

1tph extension of the Dalmuir-Cumbernauld/Argyle Line services. This is more of an add-on to one of the above, and may be unlikely. It may not benefit Grangemouth much, but would link Falkirk with Motherwell, Coatbridge and South Lanarkshire.
Click to expand...

Idea B will probably have the same problem at Glasgow QS in terms of platform capacity as Edinburgh.

Idea C you could make half hourly if the terminators from Motherwell were also extended north to Grangemouth via Coatbridge Central, but thre is no direct link to either Glasgow or Edinburgh.
 
47271

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I always like to take lessons from history. How did Grangemouth connect to the passenger network before it closed?
 
tbtc

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Stopper said:
The mind blows why Grangemouth hasn’t been proposed yet. An estimate of around 400k a year...
Click to expand...

If it was going to happen it should have happened a few years ago.

To do it now would mean reducing the frequency from Edinburgh to Grahamston, making Linlithgow and Stirling passengers cram onto the one train for Edinburgh, you slow the journey down for Stirling passengers... for all the loud complaints made by the supposedly large numbers of Linlithgow to Stirling passengers inconvenienced by the recent doubling of Waverley - Grahamston services, I can't see it being so popular with the majority of passengers.

If we were having this conversation a few years ago then I'd have been all in favour, Grangemouth to Edinburgh should be prime commuting territory (low house prices in a town within good commuting distance to big booming city etc etc) but in 2020 it's going be damn near impossible to find the paths given the opportunity cost for any paths at Waverley and Queen Street.

Whereas, Methil may have lower passenger numbers but at least it's more practical to extend some Fife Circle services down the valley to serve it.
 
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NotATrainspott

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Grangemouth suffers from the surrounding area having really quite good rail connections. That means a good chunk of the people who would ever get the train from there would just be abstracted away from other stations, without actually unlocking any new capacity to carry more people at the stations they used to use. A shuttle bus up to the two Falkirk stations with integrated ticketing and timetabling would probably do more good per pound spent, as it would give Grangemouth the express services to Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as all other stopping services instead of just one stopping service to Glasgow.
 
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tbtc said:
If it was going to happen it should have happened a few years ago.

To do it now would mean reducing the frequency from Edinburgh to Grahamston, making Linlithgow and Stirling passengers cram onto the one train for Edinburgh, you slow the journey down for Stirling passengers... for all the loud complaints made by the supposedly large numbers of Linlithgow to Stirling passengers inconvenienced by the recent doubling of Waverley - Grahamston services, I can't see it being so popular with the majority of passengers.
Click to expand...

If the Grangemouth trains were to go via Cumbernauld, you’d likely have another service running from Stirling to Edinburgh alongside the existing one (4tph) so unlikely to be much overcrowding there chief. However, as you say, it’s unlikely to happen now.
 
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railjock

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Alloa/Dunfermline to Grangemouth shuttle? Parry people mover Grahamstoun to Grangemouth shuttle?

It's really hard to see a viable service ( existing or new ) that would fit all the constraints.
 
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Scotrail12

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Where did the info about the temporary Argyle line closure in 2021 come from?

If it's true, why? Whilst some of the stations could do with a bit of a refurb, they could just close them one at a time like they did on the London Underground. Also, where would the services go? It's a busy line serving many different places and the High Level surely can't take another 6tph?
 
ScottDarg

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Scotrail12 said:
Where did the info about the temporary Argyle line closure in 2021 come from?
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Info on it is contained within the Engineering Access Statement for 2021. I've attached a screengrab of the relevant section below:
49360697553_4f8d202999_b.jpg


Posts on another forum state that the main work is to do with tunnel lining repairs, though that screengrab indicates that there is other renewal work being done also. I imagine it's easier to take it as a blockade and batter through it all at once with an overall touch up of one or two stations thrown in, rather than a longer period of weekend closures.
 
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ScottDarg said:
Info on it is contained within the Engineering Access Statement for 2021. I've attached a screengrab of the relevant section below:
49360697553_4f8d202999_b.jpg


Posts on another forum state that the main work is to do with tunnel lining repairs, though that screengrab indicates that there is other renewal work being done also. I imagine it's easier to take it as a blockade and batter through it all at once with an overall touch up of one or two stations thrown in, rather than a longer period of weekend closures.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, makes sense. Not surprised that Argyle Street isn't getting a refurb as it's in fairly good shape. Hopefully they make Central Low Level & Anderston a bit more pleasant.

I wonder what happens with the 6tph on that line as it serves several places? If the Whifflet branch is totally shut, then that will make North Clyde services very busy, it's already bad enough at rush hour. Hamilton and Larkhall branches also serve many passengers, so I'm not sure how they are supposed to get into Glasgow.

There may be a limited number of slots at the High Level, but I doubt there is enough for 6tph unless there are some serious timetable changes and unless Central is one's regular station, going to the High Level is no good anyway (I remember the uproar when Bellshill services changed to the High Level a few years back as it meant no direct service to Argyle Street, Dalmarnock, Exhibition Centre etc, all stations which many people use).
 
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One thing that I'm pleased to see, and have noticed elsewhere recently, eg when they closed the whl at Auch viaduct, is that they use the blockade to deliver works over several locations at the same time.
 
ScottDarg

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Scotrail12 said:
I wonder what happens with the 6tph on that line as it serves several places? If the Whifflet branch is totally shut, then that will make North Clyde services very busy, it's already bad enough at rush hour. Hamilton and Larkhall branches also serve many passengers, so I'm not sure how they are supposed to get into Glasgow.

There may be a limited number of slots at the High Level, but I doubt there is enough for 6tph unless there are some serious timetable changes and unless Central is one's regular station, going to the High Level is no good anyway (I remember the uproar when Bellshill services changed to the High Level a few years back as it meant no direct service to Argyle Street, Dalmarnock, Exhibition Centre etc, all stations which many people use).
Click to expand...

I imagine 2 of the Hamilton Circle services will be covered through extension of the current Newton terminators as per the Rutherglen blockades in 2018. That would mean you're only having to find room in the High Level for an extra 4tph instead of 6, though even that might be a bit difficult.
 
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They found extra room at Glasgow Central High Level for Aberdeen and Inverness services during the Queen Street High Level Closure.
 
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diamond chap

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Some interesting titbits in the agreed Scottish budget:
"In addition we have already committed to electrification of the line to Longannet in the event that Talgo pursue proposed investment, in the context of STPR2. Ahead of that we will begin the work to explore options to improve connectivity for passengers in the area, including options for extension of the line. We are also already delivering a range of enhancements on the Milngavie and East Kilbride lines. I am pleased to commit to further review of the scope of these projects to work up detailed proposals for final investment decisions, such as re-dualling the line, together with early STPR2 outputs, by the end of 2020. To facilitate this range of work I have allocated an additional £5m to Transport Scotland."
Click to expand...

https://cdn.prgloo.com/media/de2c73d9cccb41babf30e45244406bf7
 
Macwomble

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EMU303

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With the Scottish government budget being finalised, is there any confirmation of new infrastructure investment e.g. more electrification, line doubling, Almond cord etc?
 
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mcmad

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Macwomble said:
Assume the electrification to Longannet is a "sweetener" to Talgo...otherwise there's no point. Why not extend the wires all the way to Dunfermline, extend the Alloa terminators, and West Fife then gets a modern, regular, direct connection to Glasgow (albeit a not very quick one).
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Because it would be quicker changing at Waverly still.
 
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