Funding confirmed for East West Rail route re-opening

[Eagle]

I'm sure Bedford-Bletchley services will use EMU's - platform length shouldn't be an issue following the upgrade and it will allow LM to cascade their small fleet of 150's.

No it won't, only one 150 works the Marston Vale (otherwise it's a 153); the rest of their 150s are on Snow Hill duties (a no-brainer for electrification if ever I saw one).

 

[The Planner]

Has always puzzled me this one as a Reading MK service, whilst always planned, is going to cause some lovely conflicts at Oxford in the down direction as it is going to have to cross the job. Especially if the plan to make the middle roads the freight loops goes forward.

 

[MK Tom]

Who will run services on the EWRL ?

The video showed the following routes I think
1) High Wycombe - Aylesbury - Bletchley/MK (obviously Chiltern with 16Xs. which also fits with the comment about Aylesbury-Claydon not needing electrification).

2) Bletchley - Bedford. Presume the existing London Midland with 153s ?

and the interesting one...

3) Reading - Oxford - Bletchley / MK. Great Western with some of it's future EMUs?

I expect Chiltern would take over Bletchley-Bedford and may well run all of the E-WR services. We might see bubbles on the Marston Vale once more with the Aylesbury-Risborough shuttle no longer needed!

The upgrade would probably only lengthen the platforms at Woburn Sands and Lidlington so that may still be an issue. (not for bubbles though )

 

[RPM]

I expect Chiltern would take over Bletchley-Bedford and may well run all of the E-WR services. We might see bubbles on the Marston Vale once more with the Aylesbury-Risborough shuttle no longer needed!

The upgrade would probably only lengthen the platforms at Woburn Sands and Lidlington so that may still be an issue. (not for bubbles though )

I doubt it. Much more likely LM's successor will run the main east-west service with Chiltern running the HWY - MKC service, but nothing is set in stone yet.

Incidentally I doubt the bubble cars will be able to run past 2020 owing to the DDA regs so by the time East-West Rail comes along they will be ready for final retirement anyway.

 

[Kettledrum]

I doubt it. Much more likely LM's successor will run the main east-west service with Chiltern running the HWY - MKC service, but nothing is set in stone yet.

I had thought that with the electric spine, the East West route could be part of a new X country franchise, with an electrified route from Sheffield -Derby - Leicester - Bedford - Oxford - Southampton - Bournemouth.

 

[tbtc]

Incidentally I doubt the bubble cars will be able to run past 2020 owing to the DDA regs so by the time East-West Rail comes along they will be ready for final retirement anyway.

Nobody mentions the bubble cars when talking about DDA-complaint regulations from 2020 - they'll need to be scrapped just like the Pacers - presumably because there are only a couple of them and people don't hate them in the way that they dislike Pacers, but still...

 

[jimm]

Well while you're all busy awarding the operation to Chiltern or LM, it should be noted the FGW got its pitch in last week with this press release:

First Great Western Managing Director Mark Hopwood has welcomed the decision to include the Western section of the East West Rail (EWR) in the Government’s strategy for transport.

Speaking at the East West Rail Consortium event to celebrate the announcement, Mark Hopwood said:

“Re-opening of the East West route provides some really exciting opportunities for First Great Western Customers. It opens up the potential to not just link Oxford and Milton Keynes but to develop other links from places like Bristol and Reading.

“We look forward to working with our partners to develop the line and the possible train service options. This is fantastic news for the towns and cities that the East West Rail will serve.”

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/...reat-Western-welcomes-East-West-Rail-go-ahead

So don't count out FGW (a company which is ambitious to expand its reach - it is on the record as wanting to resume Oxford-Banbury-Stratford-upon-Avon through services (believed to figure in its franchise bid) and also put money into the study of prospects for Stratford-Honeybourne reopening) or any other GW franchisee wanting a piece of the action, plus they should have electric trains available by the end of 2016 - something Chiltern won't, with the Aylesbury-MK service being diesel for its early years at least.

While LM may have electric trains and a depot at northampton, I don't think a GW franchisee would welcome being told to allow LM or Chiltern to operate on to its patch beyond Oxford. To Reading would be bad enough from a GW point of view, but LM to Bristol (which has long featured in discussions of East-West's potential) as well? Would hardly do much to keep the franchise map reasonably simple and logical, would it?

 

[anthony263]

A Milton Keynes or Bedford - Oxford - Bristol service would be better being operated by FGW.

One question regarding this, If crossrail is extended to take over the West coast local services to say Tring how many class 350's would be released as I wonder whether some could be released to work an hourlys ervice between say Bedford & Bristol service via Oxford.

Also any idea whether the class 350/2's could be uprated to operate at 110mph which would be good for the GWML

 

[Eagle]

Of course we could always create a new smallish franchise to deal with it, kind of like a southern equivalent of Transpennine Express. Bundle in some extra routes like Reading to Gatwick if it's not big enough.

 

[The Ham]

Of course we could always create a new smallish franchise to deal with it, kind of like a southern equivalent of Transpennine Express. Bundle in some extra routes like Reading to Gatwick if it's not big enough.

With the option to run trains Milton Keynes to Gatwick (using the underpass east of the Reading) onces the north downs line is electrified.

 

[tbtc]

If crossrail is extended to take over the West coast local services to say Tring how many class 350's would be released

Crossrail is going to have long toiletless trains with capacity for 1,500 people but only 450 seats (i.e. most of the space inside is going to be for people to stand).

There's no chance of it being extended up the WCML any time in the next couple of decades - it'd be better to think of it as a second "Central Line" than an "east west Thameslink".

As for "who will operate the EW services", that really depends on the franchise map. By the time it opens, all of the current franchises in that area will have expired (unless the Government keeps extending every franchise by nine months to avoid making difficult decisions!), and the "map" may well have changed once electrification happens.

For example, the current FGW franchise will lose some Thames Valley services inc Greenford and won't have any involvement in Heathrow Connect, so there may be scope for expansion...

...but then if the only DMUs required at Reading are for the North Downs line then that could easily pass to SWT/ SN since there's no economies of scale in FGW running the same 165/166s on other Reading-area routes too. Too early to say!

 

[jimm]

Has always puzzled me this one as a Reading MK service, whilst always planned, is going to cause some lovely conflicts at Oxford in the down direction as it is going to have to cross the job. Especially if the plan to make the middle roads the freight loops goes forward.

Have been pondering this point as well. However, given that while the future of Oxford station and the wider Oxford area is up for discussion (there is a rail industry/city and council councils working group looking at it) at the moment, anything could happen - perhaps with reordering of the tracks to be paired by purpose (like Paddington to Didcot) rather than direction of travel.

You, I'm sure, will know rather better than me if it would be a better idea to sort trains out on to such a formation at Wolvercot junction and Radley (the outer extremities of the existing four-track formation available in the Oxford area, though there are only two or three tracks on much of it at present), rather than near the station.

The theoretical Oxford station layout included in the GW route utilisation strategy http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse...trategies/great western/great western rus.pdf (page 248) a couple of years ago showed a twin-island layout with two through roads for freight.

There is information somewhere in the mountain of Evergreen3 paperwork that says the proposed Chiltern bay platforms at the north end of the station are designed and aligned to form part of any future through island platform at the eastern side of the station (the existing main building would be demolished).

If the lines through the station were to be paired by purpose, rather than direction, then you could potentially minimise conflicting moves at Oxford North junction by having Marylebone/East-West trains using the eastern island (and moving straight off on to the proposed segregated through line past the stabling sidings) and GW main line and XC services on the western one.

I'd admit though, that pairing in a fast lines/relief lines fashion may not make best use of the freight through lines.

But I can't see a flyover at Oxford North ever getting off the (rather soggy) ground, so some other approach will probably be needed.

 

[route:oxford]

But I can't see a flyover at Oxford North ever getting off the (rather soggy) ground, so some other approach will probably be needed.

Soggy ground wouldn't be the problem, it would be the locals and the various action groups.

A flyover would definitely be useful though - particularly if funding is found to pay the small fortune on re-instating a line between Oxford & Carterton (instead of the large fortune on dualling the A40). I had the pleasure of driving against the flow of traffic at peak time last Monday - 6 miles of nose-to-tail traffic.

 

[jimm]

Soggy ground wouldn't be the problem, it would be the locals and the various action groups.

A flyover would definitely be useful though - particularly if funding is found to pay the small fortune on re-instating a line between Oxford & Carterton (instead of the large fortune on dualling the A40). I had the pleasure of driving against the flow of traffic at peak time last Monday - 6 miles of nose-to-tail traffic.

Why shouldn't the locals object? If someone was going to plonk a flyover down outside your home, what would your reaction be?

Never mind that a flyover would be a very expensive solution anyway. The Ipswich flyover for Felixstowe container trains is budgeted to cost £41m and the Hitchin flyover £47m. For that kind of money you could probably complete much of the redoubling of the remaining single-track sections on the Cotswold Line.

And why would a flyover be useful if the Witney line reopened? The sole point of a flyover would be to carry eastbound trains towards Bicester over the north-south lines to avoid conflicting moves, of which there would be plenty, whether or not another route out of Oxford opened, if you stick with lines paired by direction through the Oxford area.

 

[mr_jrt]

...alternatively, keep slow lines on the eastern side of the formation and extend them from Oxford down to Didcot...

 

[The Planner]

You, I'm sure, will know rather better than me if it would be a better idea to sort trains out on to such a formation at Wolvercot junction and Radley (the outer extremities of the existing four-track formation available in the Oxford area, though there are only two or three tracks on much of it at present), rather than near the station.

I'd admit though, that pairing in a fast lines/relief lines fashion may not make best use of the freight through lines.

You have answered your own question, Oxford will be a strategic looping point (as it is now), pairing the lines won't work. The plan is capable of stacking two 775m trains each way in the middle.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

...alternatively, keep slow lines on the eastern side of the formation and extend them from Oxford down to Didcot...

No need, more signals are planned to go in which will drop the headway.

 

[Bald Rick]

Never mind that a flyover would be a very expensive solution anyway. The Ipswich flyover for Felixstowe container trains is budgeted to cost £41m and the Hitchin flyover £47m. For that kind of money you could probably complete much of the redoubling of the remaining single-track sections on the Cotswold

Ipswich is a chord, not a flyover.

 

[eastdyke]

Ipswich is a chord, not a flyover.

Hi BR,

Are you able to post a link for me to view a plan (drawing) for the Ipswich chord works please? My efforts to find one have so far blanked.

Thanks.

 

[aylesbury]

Announced on local news M/bone Oxford approved so another new service for Chiltern as will Aylesbury MK a service that is urgently needed for employment and shopping plus acces to the WCML whoever is providing the service.Aylesbury Parkway is up and running with increasing patronage ,expansion for MK services will include a new platform as the station building is more than adequate.

 

[Eagle]

Are you able to post a link for me to view a plan (drawing) for the Ipswich chord works please? My efforts to find one have so far blanked.

Best I can find is this one on Network Rail's Felixstowe to Nuneaton page.


EDIT Found the detailed drawings, they're here (in vector PDF format so large file warning).

 

[MK Tom]

(from page 5) Are the bubbles not DDA compliant? I was under the impression that the guard's compartment could take a wheelchair.

FGW does actually make a lot more sense now come to think of it. I've long thought that Oxford and beyond is way out of LM's area and LM for all their great work on the WCML treat the Marston Vale just as poorly as NSE used to so I'd like to see that pass to anyone else. It seems like the sort of operation Chiltern are really good at.

 

[tbtc]

FGW does actually make a lot more sense now come to think of it. I've long thought that Oxford and beyond is way out of LM's area and LM for all their great work on the WCML treat the Marston Vale just as poorly as NSE used to so I'd like to see that pass to anyone else. It seems like the sort of operation Chiltern are really good at.

Assuming that FGW, Chiltern and LM stay broadly the same shape over the rest of this decade, both FGW and LM are going to lose a large chunk of their diesel work (most services from Paddington will be electric post GWML electrification, LM will see the Chase line, the Nuneaton-Coventry line and Marston Vale DMUs replaced by EMUs), whereas Chiltern will remain wholly DMU in CP5 - which may affect who gets to run any new services?

 

[jimm]

Ipswich is a chord, not a flyover.

Oops - but does not get away from it being a very expensive, very short bit of railway, which the flyover at hitchin certainly is and any flyover at Oxford (even if you could get it approved, which I seriously doubt, given the sensitivities of the location).

You have answered your own question, Oxford will be a strategic looping point (as it is now), pairing the lines won't work. The plan is capable of stacking two 775m trains each way in the middle.

I suppose the two extra platforms will at least allow for many more passenger trains to turn round in the station, rather than going to the sidings and back, so that removes plenty of conflicting moves across the north end of the station which could be 'reallocated' to Oxford North for freight to turn off towards Bicester.

While I can see the logic in putting freight down the middle, the old wartime goods loop west of the existing formation to Wolvercot is going to need some serious rebuilding if passenger services are to run at any kind of speed on it, as speed was most certainly not uppermost in the minds of those who laid it out in the 1940s. Albeit it was used by passenger trains way back when http://www.flickr.com/photos/tone71/2964185613/in/photostream

It is certainly to be hoped that Wolvercot junction gets a direct connection to the Cotswold Line from the loop again, as seen here http://www.flickr.com/photos/tone71/2964194053/in/photostream

Trains from the loop which were heading to Banbury rejoined the main line at a crossover just under the bridge the photographer was standing on.

The first set in this photostream contains some more old railway gems from the 1950s and 1960s - well worth a look.

 

[The Planner]

Loop will end before Wolvercot Jn.

 

[jimm]

Loop will end before Wolvercot Jn.

Short-sighted then, as it would mean you could not carry out parallel moves by trains going to Worcester and Banbury on both tracks north from Oxford without one of the trains being brought to a halt, which provision of something as simple as that connection would allow. Doesn't exactly say higher capacity, more flexible railway - which is what the Oxford area needs - does it?

 

[The Planner]

In the grand scheme of things it is pretty negligible, you wouldn't plan a parallel move like that in the first place if you knew that would be the consequence. For what is likely to be a difference in the departure of the second train being 3 minutes, the benefits the parallel running would produce are probably not affordable and wouldn't stack up in a BCR.

 

[eastdyke]

EDIT Found the detailed drawings, they're here (in vector PDF format so large file warning).

Perfect.

Thank you very much for your time and trouble.

 

[jimm]

In the grand scheme of things it is pretty negligible, you wouldn't plan a parallel move like that in the first place if you knew that would be the consequence. For what is likely to be a difference in the departure of the second train being 3 minutes, the benefits the parallel running would produce are probably not affordable and wouldn't stack up in a BCR.

And when things go wrong or a train is delayed and doesn't fit into the ideal planned world? Which they do. And when the train going towards Banbury is a long heavy freight (I deliberately did not say passenger train) which they would prefer to keep on the move for obvious reasons? The Cotswold passenger service gets held for the want of a short section of track. This already happens now at Oxford on the remnant of the loop near the station and is frustrating enough there. To get all the way to Wolvercot and then get the same treatment strikes me as plain daft, when the GWR left behind the trackbed and bridge needed to avoid the problem.

 

[moggie]

Typical short sighted, or perhaps more accurately typical silo mentality between EG3 / EWR / Southampton - Nuneaton electrification / guage enhancement projects where each looks at their own needs but fails to spot the obvious pinch points remaining when the sum of the parts are taken into account. I don't doubt (I wouldnt know) if individually the BCR doesn't stack up but has a BCR been carried out taking into account the combined projects? I wonder?

One things for certain; it will be a darn sight more expensive to revisit the problem after in the light of short term experience and delay costs.

 

[Chris125]

Interesting write-up from Railfuture of a DfT presentation into the project's progress - PROGRESS REPORT JANUARY 2013

Perhaps most intriguing is the following passage:

The complexity all parties are tackling at present is the progressive opening of services and route electrification, fitting in with the wider national electrification programme (Oxford 2016) and the delivery of Chiltern’s Evergreen 3 (opening between Easter and May 2015).

By December 2017 they envisage the following services:
- EMU : Paddington – Reading – Oxford – Bletchley – Milton Keynes
- DMU (fast): Oxford – Bletchley – Bedford
- DMU: Marylebone – Princes Risborough – Aylesbury – Bletchley – Milton Keynes
- DMU (local): Bletchley – Bedford
- Freight (diesel)

By December 2019 the range of services could become
- EMU: Paddington – Reading – Oxford – Bletchley – Milton Keynes
- EMU (fast): Paddington - Oxford – Bletchley – Bedford (could extend northwards, e.g. to Corby, if there is demand and MML paths can be found, and from 2021 when a new link is built it could possibly go via Heathrow)
- DMU: Marylebone – Princes Risborough – Aylesbury – Bletchley – Milton Keynes
- EMU: Bletchley – Bedford local
- Possible Southampton – Reading – Oxford – Bletchley – Milton Keynes – Manchester
- Other passenger services may also possible – for example Luton Borough Council would like to see Luton-MK direct trains and has been looking at three locations for a curve from the MML to the Marston Vale line
- Freight (electric and diesel)

The debate is whether extending the Paddington – Oxford EMUs in 2017 and 2019 is worthwhile or if a smaller train formation is required on EWR from the outset whilst traffic develops. The Southampton – Manchester is one way of gaining the 30 min long distance journey time reduction but the XC service might take a variety of forms. It could be a Reading starter if that’s a better path. Mr Sexton is trying to encourage all parties to be realistic about traffic prospects as experience shows it take several years for new train services to build up demand, especially where it is expected to act as a catalyst for housing and job growth.

Chris