Taken from https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...3rd-rail-electrification.205175/#post-4664361
I've never heard of that one but it sounds intriguing and perhaps similar to the concept of taking 444s off the Portsmouth line and running them to Weymouth with a backfill of 450s.
You suggest that CIGs would have gone on an electrified route to Weymouth and the REPs would have run to Salisbury propelling TC stock. At what point was this? (As an aside, did CIGs (rather than VEPs) work to Bournemouth in the REP+TC era?)
Would there have been enough CIGs for this? What would have backfilled them and where from? Wouldn't REP+TC stock have been a downgrade from the Mark 2A/2B stock on the Exeter line? I thought that one of the things which saw off the REPs was asbestos insulation. Wouldn't CIGs to Weymouth have been a (slight) downgrade on the REP+TC formations?
I remember reading a Modern Railways article about options for the line when the 50+Mk2 stock started to become a real problem but that must have been later - eg half HSTs, 159s, Networker derived units but that must have been after Solent Link and Wessex Electrics were already approved.
It's a shame that the mid-1980s Network South East original plan to extend 3rd rail to Weymouth, substituting 4-CIG stock, and transferring the REP+TC arrangement to an electrified service through to Salisbury (or 4-CIG for what terminated there), with the 33s taking one set on to Exeter, was never seen through. Apparently it was a quite close decision.
I've never heard of that one but it sounds intriguing and perhaps similar to the concept of taking 444s off the Portsmouth line and running them to Weymouth with a backfill of 450s.
You suggest that CIGs would have gone on an electrified route to Weymouth and the REPs would have run to Salisbury propelling TC stock. At what point was this? (As an aside, did CIGs (rather than VEPs) work to Bournemouth in the REP+TC era?)
Would there have been enough CIGs for this? What would have backfilled them and where from? Wouldn't REP+TC stock have been a downgrade from the Mark 2A/2B stock on the Exeter line? I thought that one of the things which saw off the REPs was asbestos insulation. Wouldn't CIGs to Weymouth have been a (slight) downgrade on the REP+TC formations?
I remember reading a Modern Railways article about options for the line when the 50+Mk2 stock started to become a real problem but that must have been later - eg half HSTs, 159s, Networker derived units but that must have been after Solent Link and Wessex Electrics were already approved.