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Scottish Electrification updates & discussion

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NotATrainspott

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Parapets have been raised sympathetically on various routes using the same sorts of stonework as the rest of the wall.
 
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PaulLothian

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Still looks horrible in the short / medium term with the new stone on top of the old, weathered stuff. Royal Terrace in Linlithgow looks ridiculous.
Every time I pass that bit of wall, I wonder if we couldn't get a squad together to apply some weathering products...
 

InOban

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IMG_20181125_112629.jpg

Sorry this is such a poor image. It's looking at the bridge carrying the A701 (Craigmillar Park) across the Sub at the site of what I assume was called Newington station. In the foreground is fence separating the car park for the flats from the railway, and behind is the bridge with metal railings and a gate which led down to the island platform. Rather more will be needed than raising the height of a parapet!
 

takno

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View attachment 68663

Sorry this is such a poor image. It's looking at the bridge carrying the A701 (Craigmillar Park) across the Sub at the site of what I assume was called Newington station. In the foreground is fence separating the car park for the flats from the railway, and behind is the bridge with metal railings and a gate which led down to the island platform. Rather more will be needed than raising the height of a parapet!
You'd need to get rid of the steps (presumably they were kept for maintenance access since there's no sign of the platform left), the rail level of the building is essentially a warehouse IIRC, and if there are windows at the office level they can presumably be replaced with something non-opening. Failing that the whole building could probably be got rid of for not that much. The bridge itself is a fairly nondescript Victorian bridge carrying an unsightly 4-lane road and is currently disfigured by old station noticeboards. Can't remember whether they still have 10-year old ads in them. Building up the parapets wouldn't cause any real downside at all. The next road along is probably more of an issue, although again I don't think the parapet work would be a significant negative impact on the scruffy row of shops and the builders yard. Overall I think Braids Road is the only bridge along the route which isn't already a bit of an oasis of ugly in an otherwise fairly nice area
 

Photohunter71

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Those bridges are in the Morningside and Grange Conservation Areas. They have low parapets at present (i.e. you can watch the trains easily from the bridges). With electrification the parapets would probably need to be raised which would create difficult architectural problems with these characterful stone bridges in this sensitive area. You could not just slap some metal screening onto the existing parapets.

This streetview at Braid Avenue (Woodburn Terrace) shows a good example.

I wasn't thinking about metal screening,,possibly lowering the trackbed? Is that feasible?
 

edwin_m

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I wasn't thinking about metal screening,,possibly lowering the trackbed? Is that feasible?
One of the relevant hazards is of people dangling items over the parapet that might come into contact with the wires. Increasing the distance down to the wires or the rails doesn't mitigate this significantly, but making the parapet high enough that people can't easily see over does.
 

Meerkat

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All these really high parapets - there will be kids who almost never see a train
 

Morayshire

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The Stirling-Dunblane-Alloa Rail Electrification project has won an award from the Institution of Civil Engineers at the Scottish Civil Engineering Awards.

https://www.ice.org.uk/news-and-insight/latest-ice-news/dundee-v-a-museum-top-engineering-award

Dundee’s V&A Museum of Design, the stunning flagship of Dundee’s £1 billion waterfront regeneration, has won the Greatest Contribution to Scotland award at the Scottish Civil Engineering Awards.

Infrastructure Awards were also picked up by the Stirling-Dunblane-Alloa Rail Electrification project (Infrastructure Award for Rail) and the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (Infrastructure Award for Roads). And it’s a double win for Dundee, with The Mixed-Use Redevelopment of Dundee Station winning the Building Award.

Launched this year, the new Scottish Civil Engineering Awards are jointly organised by CECA Scotland and ICE Scotland. The Awards recognise excellence, ingenuity and innovation in civil engineering and celebrate its contribution to our quality of life and to community wellbeing.
 
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66C

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Have any of the Scottish electrification schemes been officially confirmed yet?
I understand Barrhead was first in line to be followed by East Kilbride with the City Union and Anniesland to follow. The Edinburgh Sub and Tweedbank at Grip3
 

d9009alycidon

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I would hope that electrifying to Barrhead would be a stop gap as the train services to that station are part of a greater service pattern including Kilmarnock, New Cumnock and Carlisle, many services will continue to be formed by class 156s (whereas the East Kilbride line would be totally electric), I suppose they have to start somewhere but an extension to Kilmarnock should be a priority and probably bi-mode over the rest of the route south.
 

route101

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Have any of the Scottish electrification schemes been officially confirmed yet?
I understand Barrhead was first in line to be followed by East Kilbride with the City Union and Anniesland to follow. The Edinburgh Sub and Tweedbank at Grip3

Nothing confirmed. Bit of veg clearence on Ek branch first.
 

Photohunter71

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Not to mention the monthly delivery of a refurbished HST (we hope,)

I posted up a wee while ago saying that I hadn't noticed any HST movements around the Sub, well, I'm pleased to report that last night around 7 ish, there was an HST movement from the West side of the Sub past my flat to either Millerhill, Craigentinny or Waverley. What alerted me to the movement was horn tones from the HST. Engine seement to be making a whining tone. Are they using VP185's on the sets?
 

hwl

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I posted up a wee while ago saying that I hadn't noticed any HST movements around the Sub, well, I'm pleased to report that last night around 7 ish, there was an HST movement from the West side of the Sub past my flat to either Millerhill, Craigentinny or Waverley. What alerted me to the movement was horn tones from the HST. Engine seement to be making a whining tone. Are they using VP185's on the sets?
All MTUs. VP185s are only at EMR.
 

NotATrainspott

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The Fife end needs to be grade-separated or it's all a waste of time.

The Winchburgh end is currently a single-lead junction. This would need upgraded to a full double-lead junction (or even swapped over and the chord made the mainline route) but it might still be viable to add in the grade separation later if ever required.
 

Meerkat

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Almond end - will the chord be shorter and curved to keep it North of the River Almond?
 

Stopper

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Almond end - will the chord be shorter and curved to keep it North of the River Almond?

Can’t imagine any scenario where the chord wouldn’t be North of the River Almond?

Anything south of the Almond would be too long and the entire area is covered by the Airport anyway.
 

NotATrainspott

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The airport has a long-term plan to add a second parallel runway to the north, so no railway infrastructure (unless in tunnel) would ever be built in the way.
 

AndrewE

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The airport has a long-term plan to add a second parallel runway to the north, so no railway infrastructure (unless in tunnel) would ever be built in the way.
Let's hope that the plan is abandoned pretty soon then, especially if it puts constraints on rail development.
 

NotATrainspott

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Let's hope that the plan is abandoned pretty soon then, especially if it puts constraints on rail development.

It won't interfere with any likely Almond Chord design, as it would involve only a fairly small section of new track (about 2km) to link up the existing tracks at reasonable linespeed. There's no need for anything fancier which would get in the way of the airport.
 

snookertam

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Any grade separation at the Winchburgh end would involve a lot of work would it not? Pretty constricted in terms of space if I remember correctly.

I'd be amazed if anything gets built requiring grade separation, which if it is required at the Almond end will probably mean the project doesn't happen although I hope I'm wrong.

Isn't the biggest issue likely to be Princes Street Gardens anyway? Struggling to see how you get anything else through there - an extension of Haymarket station might be necessary to have some terminating trains there.
 

takno

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Any grade separation at the Winchburgh end would involve a lot of work would it not? Pretty constricted in terms of space if I remember correctly.

I'd be amazed if anything gets built requiring grade separation, which if it is required at the Almond end will probably mean the project doesn't happen although I hope I'm wrong.

Isn't the biggest issue likely to be Princes Street Gardens anyway? Struggling to see how you get anything else through there - an extension of Haymarket station might be necessary to have some terminating trains there.
The whole point is that you can get more trains through PSG on the north lines, but not on the south ones. The almond chord lets you move traffic from the south to the north, reducing the need for dramatic interventions in PSG. Terminating at Haymarket probably isn't going to work for anybody
 

AndrewE

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The whole point is that you can get more trains through PSG on the north lines, but not on the south ones. The almond chord lets you move traffic from the south to the north, reducing the need for dramatic interventions in PSG. Terminating at Haymarket probably isn't going to work for anybody
PSG? (It's not recognised by RTT as a location!) (sorry, I now see that it is Princes Street Gardens)
 

alangla

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The whole point is that you can get more trains through PSG on the north lines, but not on the south ones. The almond chord lets you move traffic from the south to the north, reducing the need for dramatic interventions in PSG. Terminating at Haymarket probably isn't going to work for anybody
I’ve often wondered if grade separation and/or pairing by direction from Saughton would work. Option 1 would be the up south line going up with the down north to south crossing under it, then back down to the up north & south or, more radical, BOTH down lines on the south, both up lines on the north and a flyover to take the up south across to the north side.
The problem with this, other than land take which I think should be possible, is that you don’t bypass Edinburgh Park and can’t serve Edinburgh Gateway or South Gyle from the Linlithgow line. I guess you’d also have Edinburgh bound Slateford traffic crossing 3 lines at Haymarket as well.
 

InOban

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The whole point is that you can get more trains through PSG on the north lines, but not on the south ones. The almond chord lets you move traffic from the south to the north, reducing the need for dramatic interventions in PSG. Terminating at Haymarket probably isn't going to work for anybody
Absolutely. The standard schedule over the Forth Bridge has just 7 trains per hour. Adding together all the EGIP trains (8) , the Bathgate (4) the Shotts (2), and the Carstairs (1-2) and it's no wonder that some trains have to cross over to the Fife side at Saughton. The Almond Chord will even up the flows.
 

snookertam

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Absolutely. The standard schedule over the Forth Bridge has just 7 trains per hour. Adding together all the EGIP trains (8) , the Bathgate (4) the Shotts (2), and the Carstairs (1-2) and it's no wonder that some trains have to cross over to the Fife side at Saughton. The Almond Chord will even up the flows.

Okay, that makes sense. I take it the thinking might be to run the Queen Street - Edinburgh (E&G) service via Almond - could it be done while maintaining the 42 minute schedule? - that would leave Dunblane-Edinburgh and the Cumbernauld line trains to continue via Edinburgh Park. Would there not be a plan to introduce additional services then, given that you'd be left with 8 trains per hour through Edinburgh Park and the south lines before Haymarket? A ten minute frequency Bathgate service? And that's before you consider the fact that any future service increases for Fife could be ruled out by it.

I'm not against it by any means, but it seems quite an exensive way to just even out usage of the North & South lines at Haymarket, unless there's a bigger plan involved. That's why my gut feeling is that the plan might not go ahead.
 

Brissle Girl

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IIRC the original plan before it was descoped was that the Almond Chord would facilitate the increase to 6tph between Edinburgh-Glasgow. It would seem a lot of money unless there is a very tangible improvement in services that can be seen by passengers.
 
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