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Favourite Mainline?
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brad465
Established Member
As soon as I saw the polling options my first thought was "the absence of so many routes with 'mainline' in the name will be causing uproar."
Russel
Established Member
WCML Because it's scenic and the tilting tech is simply impressive.
ECML To me has always seemed dull, flat and straight for a lot of the route, never had any interest in it.
ECML To me has always seemed dull, flat and straight for a lot of the route, never had any interest in it.
Sad Sprinter
Established Member
I think I'm going to have to instantly say the Great Eastern simply because the Brighton Main Line is my favourite, well the Southern Region system in general. And the Great Eastern is the closest thing resembling it. I suppose my love for the other lines have been soured from my childhood criteria of what makes a line great; sprawling suburban system/lots of branches. The West Coast falls down in that regard, as does the Midland (although I was always extremely impressed with the Kentish Town to St Pancras corridor as a child during the Thameslink blockade). I always thought the Great Western, despite it being the line I most use and being from a long line of Great Western men, was always a bit of a joke with their 2 car Turbos seemingly ambling to nowhere. So the Great Eastern it is.
The Midland would be a contender if they managed to get it to Bradford, and if the GOBLIN went to St. Pancras.
The East Coast has the best suburban system, but has bland stations and a boring route.
Pre-nationalisation, the LMS would have been my favourite of the Big Four. But I think the West Coast is almost too big with too little suburban traffic.
If only the Great Eastern still had the same rolling stock as it did circa 2019 - I could never get bored with it then. If I could make 1 change with the Great Eastern though, it would be to make a bigger, more interesting Chelmsford station.
The Midland would be a contender if they managed to get it to Bradford, and if the GOBLIN went to St. Pancras.
The East Coast has the best suburban system, but has bland stations and a boring route.
Pre-nationalisation, the LMS would have been my favourite of the Big Four. But I think the West Coast is almost too big with too little suburban traffic.
If only the Great Eastern still had the same rolling stock as it did circa 2019 - I could never get bored with it then. If I could make 1 change with the Great Eastern though, it would be to make a bigger, more interesting Chelmsford station.
consettman
Member
Speaking as a local, i can't help thinking that the northern end of the ECML is oversold. Yes there are some brief spectacular moments - Durham, the Bridges at NCL, the cliffs north of Berwick (you need to be lucky with your seat for the latter), but for a lot of it (e.g. Holy Island) you're squinting at the occasional flash of something in the distance. It's mostly just a drag through a generic UK rural landscape, occasionally rolling a bit, often just a plain. The newspaper/phone/laptop will get a rest for about 5% of the time. On the WCML, they'll all be put aside 100% of the time between Preston and Penrith.
cactustwirly
Established Member
I put the Midland Mainline as it's interesting than the southern WCML, better scenery especially through the Chilterns and Derby to Chesterfield on the edge of the Peak District.
Operational interest with Thameslink, Trent Junctions and Toton
Interesting station architecture, a lot of the WCML is nasty 1960s concrete, the MML maintains original Midland Railway stations, Nottingham is a great example of this
ECML is flat and boring, GWML is a less scenic. Although I enjoy Chippenham to Bristol through Bath, Newbury to Castle Cary and Goring Gap.
GWML probably serves more interesting places to visit.
Operational interest with Thameslink, Trent Junctions and Toton
Interesting station architecture, a lot of the WCML is nasty 1960s concrete, the MML maintains original Midland Railway stations, Nottingham is a great example of this
ECML is flat and boring, GWML is a less scenic. Although I enjoy Chippenham to Bristol through Bath, Newbury to Castle Cary and Goring Gap.
GWML probably serves more interesting places to visit.
philosopher
Established Member
- Joined
- 23 Sep 2015
- Messages
- 1,454
On the north ECML almost all the good scenery is on the east side, so if you are sitting on the western side you will to some extent miss out on the good views. On the WCML, the views on both sides are good.
I lived in and around Portsmouth 1984-1994 and I used the BML out of preference, it was faster and once I had a car and had to drive to a station anyway it made sense. Old Winchester Hill for the drive Winchester-Clanfield, for example. It was definitely a more interesting line than the Portsmouth Direct, pretty although the latter was in places.
The 92 to Eastleigh for a DEMU to Fareham worked well.
No doubt a great mainline with a great history, but in it's early days it was quite uneconomical in it's operations such as using a three-cylinder Gresley Pacific for an 80-mile journey.Sodor mainline
Nottingham59
Established Member
No more inefficient than proposing 300kph+ High Speed Rail for NPR with four intermediate stops between Liverpool and Leeds (65 miles as the crow flies)!No doubt a great mainline with a great history, but in it's early days it was quite uneconomical in it's operations such as using a three-cylinder Gresley Pacific for an 80-mile journey.
norbitonflyer
Established Member
Two cylinder - as Awdry decribes (and he discusses with Flying Scotsman in "Enterprising Engines") he had a rebuild at Crewe.No doubt a great mainline with a great history, but in it's early days it was quite uneconomical in it's operations such as using a three-cylinder Gresley Pacific for an 80-mile journey.
In reality this is to explain why he looks different to an A1/A3
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ECML for sentimental reasons.
MML for superior rolling stock experience (at least until it succumbs to the all-conquering IEP)
You can tell it's part of the UK network then.
Yeah but he was built and running express trains before his rebuild. But of course your second point trumps all in this case.
Kneedown
Established Member
As a Midland man, I'd have to say MML, closely followed by WCML. Third place goes to GWML as my Paternal Grandfather was a GWR Driver.
ECML in last place behind every other line in the country..... That's the Midland man in me coming out again!
ECML in last place behind every other line in the country..... That's the Midland man in me coming out again!
Railwaysceptic
Established Member
- Joined
- 6 Nov 2017
- Messages
- 1,604
As a hangover from my boyhood, that is my favourite main line. (I first travelled from Waterloo to Woking when I was a few weeks old!)
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DarloRich
Veteran Member
The answer is the east coast main line.
Close thread. No further debate required!
Close thread. No further debate required!
a close second!Sodor mainline
WilloughbyGC
Member
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2017
- Messages
- 18
Surely the Great Central wins hands down. Purpose-built, no level crossings, beautifully engineered. (that should trigger a few people on here....)
I think so, as ultimately these are three competing routes to Edinburgh and Glasgow. And that to me denotes the highest grade of ML.
GWML being the outlier. As of course it’s far busier and more important than the MML these days. Maybe on par with the ECML…
GEML is barely a mainline and Norwich isn’t especially huge but is very old, and had the IC heritage, and it runs to ports too, re historical importance.
Below those, there are many other lines and branches (South Wales/Cornish) called main lines but I don’t think they’re quite as established or up the hierarchy as such.
Sad Sprinter
Established Member
I’m a Great Central fan but people seem to hate it.
Hate is quite a strong word. Who "hates" it?
styles
Member
WCML. I regularly choose a slower WCML London-Edinburgh journey over ECML. I enjoy the views and the branches, and currently the seating is comfier than ironing boards.
D6130
Established Member
I think it is disparaged by a few people because its numerous island platform stations effectively imposed a speed limit of 70 mph.
That sounds more like a legitimate criticism than hate.
Topological
Established Member
They even built it over the top of the WCML (Rugby) and MML (Loughborough and Nottingham) to emphasise the superiority.
That said, it closed so cannot be my favourite.
Really?
Standards have changed because there are island platforms with 125mph running these days, admittedly many will have fences and gates restricting access to the fast lines.
Many stations have 125 through the platforms.
I wonder if the GCR had restrictive curvature through theirs though, looking at Rothley & Quorn it's certainly not unnoticeable.
norbitonflyer
Established Member
I stand corrected - he did run on Sodor before his rebuild, but not on the GNR.
https://ia903402.us.archive.org/25/...odor_-_its_people_histoy_and_railways_PDF.pdf (sadly out of print since 1992)
See page 128
The back story written by the Rev himself to explain the illustrations
"GORDON ......... was built at Doncaster as an experimental prototype for Mr Nigel Gresley’s‘ 4-6-2 for the Great Northern Railway. Inevitably there were faults which needed correction; so Gordon was kept “hush hush’’ and, apart from test runs, was never put into regular traffic or given a GNR number. He was used experimentally till all defects had been cured and the first batch of Pacifics had appeared in 1922/23. In 1923 therefore Gordon was no longer needed, and was sold to the NWR together with a spare boiler and firebox. Gordon’s present form is interesting. ................ This is the result of a heavy overhaul at Crewe in 1939. Gresley’s conjugated valve gear had been giving endless trouble, so Topham Hatt persuaded Mr Stanier to substitute a 2 cylinder chassis of his own devising instead"
Awdry contrived accidents for both Thomas (in book 12) and Henry (in book 6) so that they could change their appearance in later books, as he was not happy with the first illustrator's efforts.
(I really am too invested in these books!)
They truly are some fantastic books with arguably J.R.R. Tolkien level worldbuilding and lore, so you're invested in some very good books! Interestingly enough Sodor's main line is easier to define than most of Britain's because it really is just a trunk route running along the island with some branches veering off every now and then.