Which section of track would most benefit from a 140mph line speed?

Brubulus · 7 Jun 2025

Zomboid said:
Would doing as much of the ECML as seems credible with current alignments save enough time to offset a meaningfully capacity increasing reduction in line speed through Welwyn without adversely impacting journey times?

With ETCS, I am not sure how much capacity would be released by reducing line speed through Welwyn, what might increase capacity slightly is enabling GN services to operate at 110mph, alongside LNER not calling at Stevenage. Stevenage would still get 4 fast trains an hour to London, just only with 700s.
If the ECML could reach 155mph, it would substantially reduce journey times, but 140mph would likely have a marginal effect of around 4 mins at most if all possible areas were done.

I'm not sure how much OLE work would be required for 140, since it seemed fine on headspans in the 1990s, with signalling being the primary impediment. Germany uses unstaffed partial barriers at 230kmh, so 145mph, so this should not be a major issue.

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MarkyT · 7 Jun 2025

brad465 said:
There's also a section of 100-105mph between Peterborough and Huntingdon, which IIRC is down to ground stability reasons. If any line speed improvements are to be made on the ECML south of Peterborough, this is where I'd start.

Regarding the wider question, the sections I'd go for 140mph upgrades are the ones where the headline journey time of a route goes below a particular hour threshold, as the PR/advertising potential for the route is much better given human psychology. So if there's a route that takes say 3h4m currently, if enough sections of upgradable track reduce this by 5 minutes, one could sell a sub-3h journey time. In contrast, a route with a journey time of 3h25m that could be reduced by 10 minutes would not sell as well, even though the raw saving is higher.

You'd get more bang per buck tackling remaining areas with limits below 125mph today. You'd need a lot of continuous 140 to gain 5 minutes. If you're still sharing with slower trains, the fastest going faster still will reduce capacity. ETCS may help raise some of the sub-125mph today on the ECML fast lines if signal spacing is a constraint and other issues can be resolved, but on the south section below Stevenage, there's already benefit in most trains using the fasts having similar section times. Accelerating the fastest express paths could result in them catching up and being checked by other trains in front that were previously able to get out of the way in time. While ETCS can allow catching up a little closer without losing so much speed, some paths may be lost nonetheless.

Bald Rick · 7 Jun 2025

Zomboid said:
Would doing as much of the ECML as seems credible with current alignments save enough time to offset a meaningfully capacity increasing reduction in line speed through Welwyn without adversely impacting journey times?

reducing speeds through Welwyn don’t increase capacity.

MarkyT said:
ETCS is planned to have additional shorter blocks through the bottleneck, which should marginally improve capacity and reliability by allowing trains to follow each other more closely.

Slight correction here - it has the shorter blocks; they are commissioned and in service! It just needs the trains to use it.

brad465 said:
If any line speed improvements are to be made on the ECML south of Peterborough, this is where I'd start.

That is a very expensive restriction to resolve.

Brubulus said:
Germany uses unstaffed partial barriers at 230kmh, so 145mph, so this should not be a major issue.

It is a major issue. UK standards prohibit a linespeed over 125mph through open platforms. The chances of that standard being eased were zero in 1997 when the question was asked, and will not have improved since.

cle · 7 Jun 2025

It sounds like the best stretches are those with no platforms or stations. The ECML is a mixed bag in that regard.

Could the Carstairs - Haymarket stretch be good (the rural parts anyway) ? Know some halts (could be closed until a train calls - like Wembley Central) - but this stretch helps re the journey time goal mentioned above and specifically is THE flight route to go after.

Pete_uk · 7 Jun 2025

Paddington to Bristol (or at least Swindon)

The Planner · 7 Jun 2025

Pete_uk said:
Paddington to Bristol (or at least Swindon)

Saves you a minute or 90 seconds at best between Reading and Swindon as discussed up thread. Doubt you would get anything meaningful between Paddington and Reading.

zwk500 · 7 Jun 2025

Pete_uk said:
Paddington to Bristol (or at least Swindon)

Going fast between Paddington and Reading is pointless unless you remove the slower trains.

Harpo · 8 Jun 2025

zwk500 said:
Going fast between Paddington and Reading is pointless unless you remove the slower trains.

The Western gave up on being fast decades ago. Services are slower than they were at the start of HSTs with far more stops and a driving policy seemingly based on Bath Road’s most cautious loose-coupled driver plus an added safety margin.

The Ham · 8 Jun 2025

zwk500 said:
For some comparison,
1 mile @ 100mph = 36 secs
1 mile @ 125mph = 29 secs
1 mile @ 140mph = 26 secs

To add to that:
1 mile @ 30mph = 120 secs
1 mile @ 45mph = 80 secs
1 mile @ 60mph = 60 secs
1 mile @ 75mph = 48 secs
1 mile @ 90mph = 40 secs

As each time you double the speed you half the journey time, however doubling the speed from 1mph to 2mph is far easier than doubling from 70mph to 140mph and the latter has a smaller impact on the journey time.

If you could build track which was at at 30mph so it could then run at 140mph you'd save 94 seconds per mile whilst only saving 3 seconds per mile if you increase it from 125mph to 140mph.

For that 1 mile from 30mph you'd need 31.33 miles off 125mph track to be upgraded.

Even 1 mile increasing from 60mph to 75mph would still need 6 miles to increase from 125mph to 140mph.

Whilst improving low speed limits to moderate speed limits doesn't have the sexiness of running at 140mph, it's actually far more useful.

I'd argue getting something like the Cornish Mainline or the West of England Line (through Salisbury) or other similar lines to get more miles to be closer to 90mph (or even higher) would likely be better than speeding up the ECML to 140mph and likely be cheaper to do.

brad465 · 8 Jun 2025

The Ham said:
I'd argue getting something like the Cornish Mainline or the West of England Line (through Salisbury) or other similar lines to get more miles to be closer to 90mph (or even higher) would likely be better than speeding up the ECML to 140mph and likely be cheaper to do.

Had the Dawlish avoiding line proposal to go straight from Exeter-Plymouth under Dartmoor ever got off the ground, that would have been a prime candidate for at least 125mph but potentially including 140mph provision, and could have cut the Exeter-Plymouth journey time in half (currently around an hour), but that's obviously a new line rather than existing.

The WEML has lots of relatively straight sections, so if battery 450s or some other 100mph unit is able to take on services, I can see 100mph being possible on large swathes of the route if combined with other necessary upgrades.

FGWHST43009 · 8 Jun 2025

I think a candidate for upgrades are sections of the South Wales mainline west of Bristol Parkway to 125mph. Cardiff to Newport may be possible but it's too short to make any substantial time savings. Greater journey time savings are more likely through upgrading this line than 140mph on the Great Western mainline.

20 miles at 125 = 9.6 mins
20 miles at 140 = 8.6 mins
20 miles at 155 = 7.7 mins

Each value rounded to the nearest 0.1 decimal. Lines in Germany have been upgraded to 155mph but what was the original pre-upgrade linespeed? Another thing that needs removing is crawling in and out of stations at 15mph.

Failed Unit · 8 Jun 2025

There was a rumour that BR had intended that the following sections of the ECML were to be upgraded to 140mph

Peterborough - Grantham (it even did have the signs at line side)
York - Doncaster
York - Northallerton.

Of course it probably wasn’t the whole section, but I can see from this thread why it didn’t happen, saving a whole 3 minutes of London - Edinburgh (Which would probably be lost at Doncaster station or waiting for a platform at York)

The Planner · 8 Jun 2025

FGWHST43009 said:
I think a candidate for upgrades are sections of the South Wales mainline west of Bristol Parkway to 125mph. Cardiff to Newport may be possible but it's too short to make any substantial time savings. Greater journey time savings are more likely through upgrading this line than 140mph on the Great Western mainline.

20 miles at 125 = 9.6 mins
20 miles at 140 = 8.6 mins
20 miles at 155 = 7.7 mins

Each value rounded to the nearest 0.1 decimal. Lines in Germany have been upgraded to 155mph but what was the original pre-upgrade linespeed? Another thing that needs removing is crawling in and out of stations at 15mph.

You need to factor getting to 155 and braking from it.

Brubulus · 8 Jun 2025

FGWHST43009 said:
I think a candidate for upgrades are sections of the South Wales mainline west of Bristol Parkway to 125mph. Cardiff to Newport may be possible but it's too short to make any substantial time savings. Greater journey time savings are more likely through upgrading this line than 140mph on the Great Western mainline.

20 miles at 125 = 9.6 mins
20 miles at 140 = 8.6 mins
20 miles at 155 = 7.7 mins

Each value rounded to the nearest 0.1 decimal. Lines in Germany have been upgraded to 155mph but what was the original pre-upgrade linespeed? Another thing that needs removing is crawling in and out of stations at 15mph.

I believe the Berlin to Hamburg line was 120kmh (with single track sections), so almost a doubling in speed to 230kmh while Berlin to Hannover was also either 120 or 160kmh, which properly justifies an upgrade program. The one bad thing about incremental upgrades is that they make the next incremental upgrade less justifiable when compared to a single massive upgrade.

I would agree that eliminating slow spots, especially on secondary lines probably has more impact on journey times overall.

On the ECML, however what would be cheaper, upgrading Stoke-Tallington and Doncaster-Northallerton to 140/155, or bypassing Morpeth.

Journey time reductions on classic mainlines get very expensive once the "easy wins" have been reached, which was a key justification for HS2.

Bald Rick · 8 Jun 2025

Brubulus said:
On the ECML, however what would be cheaper, upgrading Stoke-Tallington and Doncaster-Northallerton to 140/155, or bypassing Morpeth.

bypassing Morpeth, at an educated guess, but the benefit woul dbe less if the time saving was the same.

Sir Felix Pole · 8 Jun 2025

Brubulus said:
I believe the Berlin to Hamburg line was 120kmh (with single track sections), so almost a doubling in speed to 230kmh while Berlin to Hannover was also either 120 or 160kmh, which properly justifies an upgrade program. The one bad thing about incremental upgrades is that they make the next incremental upgrade less justifiable when compared to a single massive upgrade.

Berlin to Hannover is mostly new build, although largely parallel to the old line - you often pass at speed a RE service trundling along! Berlin to Hamburg was a fast line pre WW2 but singled and degraded during the DDR era so a relatively easy upgrade.

Failed Unit · 8 Jun 2025

Bald Rick said:
bypassing Morpeth, at an educated guess, but the benefit woul dbe less if the time saving was the same.

To my simple head, the Morpeth Bypass would be a good way of getting trains to overtake each other. The fast trains taking the new route. That said, and one for a different thread, it probably still would not be possible to run an hourly slow train between Edinburgh and Newcastle.

It seems like if the costs where the same, doing things such as grade separation at Doncaster would be money well spent, probably providing a better speed improvement,

Bald Rick · 8 Jun 2025

Sir Felix Pole said:
Berlin to Hannover is mostly new build, although largely parallel to the old line - you often pass at speed a RE service trundling along! Berlin to Hamburg was a fast line pre WW2 but singled and degraded during the DDR era so a relatively easy upgrade.

I travelled the route shortly after the wall came down (and Hamburg - Berlin), and both routes were, compared to today, interminably slow and also quite bumpy!

Halish Railway · 9 Jun 2025

FGWHST43009 said:
Each value rounded to the nearest 0.1 decimal. Lines in Germany have been upgraded to 155mph but what was the original pre-upgrade linespeed? Another thing that needs removing is crawling in and out of stations at 15mph.

Between Rastatt and Offenburg (soon to be Karlsruhe to Offenburg) the 250 kph/155 mph lines were built in parallel to the original 160 kph/99 mph lines of the Upper Rhine Railway.

Upthread upgrades of the ECML to 140 or even 155 have been mentioned as being the most likely candidate, which I agree with, especially if such works coincide with the rollout of ETCS and the replacement of fragile OLE components.

Should Peterborough to the Stoke Tunnel section be upgraded to higher speeds it would be nice if this could be expanded with a Grantham and Newark bypass to extend the four track provision and avoid capacity bottlenecks and the 100mph restrictions created by the curve through Grantham and the Newark flat crossing to create 50 miles of 140/155mph running as far as the Tuxford and East Markham reverse curves, providing that the many level crossings were closed.

mike57 · 9 Jun 2025

Perhaps the way to look at this would be to say £'s cost per minute saved, divideded by tph. This identifies the best places to start looking at upgrades, however I am not sure that the economics would stack up, which is probably why the main inter city routes are still 125mph

If you look at the slowest sections of line first, this will have the biggest impact on journey time. On the line I am most familiar with, the ECML, the standout 'slow(er) spots' are: Morpeth curve, Grantshouse and Dunbar. In these three cases any improvements are pretty much going to mean a new railway, and economically that it not going to happen, so then you look at the next tier, Newark flat crossing, South of Peterborough, Grantham, Welwyn Viaduct, Darlington - North of Durham and again its major reconstruction, and probably not going to happen.

So then look at the easiest sections, which are probably Selby diversion, York - Northallerton, and the section north of Peterborough where 140mph was experimented with years ago., How much time would these 3 upgrades save on a London - Newcastle journey? My own guess would be maybe 4-5 minutes, which to be honest is inconsequential on a 3hr +- journey.

That brings me to the thinking that if you are making this sort investment there other things that could be done to improve our major routes. To be honest comfortable trains would make more difference to me on a long distance journeys than saving a few minutes. Ensure there is enough rolling stock to run full length services on the main lines. Seeing 5 car units running up and down the ECML just seems like a waste of capacity for example.

I know this is a negative response to the OPs question, but I dont see spending large sums of money to save a few minutes as being the right thing to do in the current climate.

Magdalia · 9 Jun 2025

Brubulus said:
Berlin to Hannover was also either 120 or 160kmh, which properly justifies an upgrade program.

I have travelled by train between Hannover and Berlin. I have just checked the distance, which is about 150 miles/250km. In between is almost featureless, including mile after mile of nothing crossing Luneberg Heath. No line in Britain is anything like Hannover-Berlin.

mike57 said:
I know this is a negative response to the OPs question, but I dont see spending large sums of money to save a few minutes as being the right thing to do in the current climate.

I think this is absolutely right. The answer to the OP's question is nowhere, because there are no suitable sections of track that are long enough.

Western Lord · 9 Jun 2025

Magdalia said:
I have travelled by train between Hannover and Berlin. I have just checked the distance, which is about 150 miles/250km. In between is almost featureless, including mile after mile of nothing crossing Luneberg Heath. No line in Britain is anything like Hannover-Berlin.

I think this is absolutely right. The answer to the OP's question is nowhere, because there are no suitable sections of track that are long enough.

50 odd posts to get the right answer. I wish the speed merchants on here would realise how much more higher speeds would cost, just to save a couple of minutes. There's a very good case for reducing speeds in some cases, I've long been of the opinion that the GW main line would be better off with a 110 mph maximum, as it is these days more like a glorified outer suburban operation with frequent stops, By the time you have accelerated to 125 mph, let alone 140, it is time to start slowing down for the next stop.

mike57 · 9 Jun 2025

Magdalia said:
In between is almost featureless, including mile after mile of nothing crossing Luneberg Heath. No line in Britain is anything like Hannover-Berlin.

It much the same in France, Once you get out of the cities the population density is much lower. Paris - Lyon for example is about 275 miles and there are lot of trains which are first stop Lyon after leaving Paris. Which is why what suits France and Germany is not suitable for our network. This discussion then feeds into the various discussions on HS2.

To be honest I think the most benefit in UK would be in trying to speed up inter-regional services. A good example is Liverpool - Norwich, which is actually 15 minutes quicker (on average) via London, than on the direct train. Faster and better inter-regional services would help relieve load on regions - London services, and probably get more people out of their cars. Gold standard upgrade would be 125mph capable stock, so that it doesn't get in the way where they share routes, and upgrade inter regional routes to say 100mph where track geometery without rebuilding allows, and more if its an easy task. Then use 'proper' Inter City stock, with long enough trains to ensure that the travel experience is pleasant. (Yes XC I am pointing at You!!!). A side effect of improving inter regional routes would be that local services sharing the route would probably get a bit of a speed up.

Bletchleyite · 9 Jun 2025

mike57 said:
To be honest I think the most benefit in UK would be in trying to speed up inter-regional services. A good example is Liverpool - Norwich, which is actually 15 minutes quicker (on average) via London, than on the direct train.

While a lot of people see that as a long distance service it isn't. It is a long string of regional services similar to what you often get in Germany (there are quite a few 3-4 hour RegionalExpress services) which has significant passenger turnover at Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham. There is really not much demand for travel from Liverpool to Norwich bar students at the start and end of term.

I wouldn't confuse it with XC or even TPE, it's quite different. The speed of it overall isn't that significant, the connectivity it provides is more important. If it's faster to go via London, go via London!

ac6000cw · 9 Jun 2025

mike57 said:
I know this is a negative response to the OPs question, but I dont see spending large sums of money to save a few minutes as being the right thing to do in the current climate.

I agree, and 'the railway' has come to same conclusion doubtless several times over the 35+ years since the class 91 + Mk4s entered service (our first 140mph-capable fleet).

BR originally did 125mph on the cheap, with diesel power, slam doors with droplights, more powerful (and smelly!) friction brakes so they didn't have to move the signals, no requirement for installing cab-signalling or even something basic like automatic train stops (AWS isn't that). They did have to make various track improvements though. But 'doing it on the cheap' at the time was probably the only choice BR had (other than doing nothing much, beyond rolling stock/traction cascades, like the cl. 50s made redundant by electrification).

Quite a lot of the 'nose cone' effect of increased loadings and revenue (when the HST service stared) on the GWML was down to the increased frequencies and improved acceleration sustained to higher speeds of the much more powerful trains (4500hp versus 2700hp of a cl 50), rather than the 125mph running - basically the same reasons that drive the 'sparks effect' from electrification.

The original mid-1960's WCML electrification was for 'only' 100mph, but it doubled passenger traffic on the route by 1975 (according to Wikipedia) in an era when it was largely static or declining elsewhere on the system.

zwk500 · 9 Jun 2025

Bletchleyite said:
While a lot of people see that as a long distance service it isn't. It is a long string of regional services similar to what you often get in Germany (there are quite a few 3-4 hour RegionalExpress services) which has significant passenger turnover at Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham. There is really not much demand for travel from Liverpool to Norwich bar students at the start and end of term.

I wouldn't confuse it with XC or even TPE, it's quite different. The speed of it overall isn't that significant, the connectivity it provides is more important. If it's faster to go via London, go via London!

That doesn't mean speeding it up is pointless though, even if there are other priorities.

Personally, I'd focus on removing slow junctions over speeding up plain line. Westerleigh junction would be my first port of call, build a new GSJ a bit further west and smooth out the corner.

Magdalia · 9 Jun 2025

Bletchleyite said:
While a lot of people see that as a long distance service it isn't. It is a long string of regional services similar to what you often get in Germany (there are quite a few 3-4 hour RegionalExpress services) which has significant passenger turnover at Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham. There is really not much demand for travel from Liverpool to Norwich bar students at the start and end of term.

A tiny number of people see Liverpool-Norwich as a long distance service, and most of them seem to be here! There is also huge passenger turnover at Peterborough, especially East Anglian travellers changing to/from ECML trains. For them, that's the main purpose. Nearly all of the journeys are short distance, with frequent stops, and they are never going to need 140mph.

Nottingham59 · 9 Jun 2025

philosopher said:
Excluding HS1, there are currently no sections of track in the UK with a line speed greater than 125mph. Therefore, if issues of cost were ignored, which stretch of track would most benefit from having its line speed raised to 140mph. By section of track I mean a stretch of track of between 20 and 100 mph.

Crewe South Junction to Edinburgh.

London-Edinburgh is the most important passenger flow in the county, ranked by passenger-km. If HS2 2a ever gets built, then the fastest route to Edinburgh will be via Carlisle.

Brubulus · 9 Jun 2025

Nottingham59 said:
Crewe South Junction to Edinburgh.

London-Edinburgh is the most important passenger flow in the county, ranked by passenger-km. If HS2 2a ever gets built, then the fastest route to Edinburgh will be via Carlisle.

Even with just HS2 phase 1, from London to Edinburgh stopping at Preston and Carlisle, will be 3h56mins, so about the same as the Flying Scotsman with 140mph.

zwk500 · 9 Jun 2025

Nottingham59 said:
Crewe South Junction to Edinburgh.

London-Edinburgh is the most important passenger flow in the county, ranked by passenger-km. If HS2 2a ever gets built, then the fastest route to Edinburgh will be via Carlisle.

The section from north of Preston to Carstairs area would be an off-line replacement, not an on-line upgrade (with probably a small gap around Carlisle). And if you're building it offline, you'd not restrict yourself to 225kph but rather aim for 300+.

Which section of track would most benefit from a 140mph line speed?

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