East-West Rail (EWR): Oxford-Bletchley construction progress

[swt_passenger]

Chiltern drivers will also have to do the traction learning on the class 196s which I presume WMR driver trainers will assist in the early days. With route learning it will be the the freight drivers who will learn first so I would assume that the Chiltern driver trainers will join them. The very first trainers will have gone out during the construction stage and where necessary walked the parts of the line checking sightings, turnouts etc.

I expect there’s a fairly accurate VR simulation of the whole route as well nowadays?

 

[12LDA28C]

Chiltern drivers will also have to do the traction learning on the class 196s which I presume WMR driver trainers will assist in the early days. With route learning it will be the the freight drivers who will learn first so I would assume that the Chiltern driver trainers will join them. The very first trainers will have gone out during the construction stage and where necessary walked the parts of the line checking sightings, turnouts etc.

I very much doubt Chiltern drivers will be route learning with freight drivers, that's not how it works. I expect route-learning trains will run using either the 196s or other Chiltern traction as required, with the Driver Managers and Assessors learning it first, then the Instructors and then finally the rank-and-file drivers.

 

[The Planner]

Depends where from. I'm not sure it's easier to find a path up the WCML north of Milton Keynes than it is via the Cherwell Valley.

Cherwell Valley isnt that easy either as you are either threading them across Coventry and Nuneaton, or trying to get them up through Dorridge and Landor St.

Useful from Daventry, Northampton Gateway and the midlands when the Cherwell Valley is closed or disrupted.

It will actually allow some more engineering access as you get hardly any along the Cherwell Valley as it is.

I've often wondered if there was scope for a reversing crossover between Crewe and Sandbach to allow freights from Basford Hall to access the Trent Valley lines via Stoke, to avoid crossing moves at Colwich.

EDIT: I think that quite a lot of stone trains have different routings for loaded and empty wagons, to avoid gradients.

That would stitch up the Crewe to Sanbach section a treat. By the time you found a gap as well as needing to top and tail you would be nigh on at Stafford.

Correct.....as do the Liverpool-Drax biomass trains for the same reason - mainly to avoid the loaded trains causing disruption by stalling on the steep gradient between Manchester Victoria and Miles Platting. However this routing via Northwich, Stockport and Denton actually causes a number of conflicting moves.

They run too heavy full stop for Miles Platting bank. They have little other choice apart from Castlefield, which is also nigh on impossible. Heaton Norris is the biggest issue they cause.