Oops, my mistake, I thought Manchester-Stockport and Sheffield-Chesterfield were actually 125mph routes
Erewash valley is 100mph I thought however.
Even if Man-Stockport were 125 you'd never get up to that speed due to the short distance and volume of traffic, not mention the bottleneck at Slade Lane Jct, where everything gets in everything else's way.
Currently, the maximum permissible speed on the Erewash valley line is 80mph.
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Now to look at one suggestion it is proposed to replace 2 x 2 car Class 158s between Liverpool and Norwich with 2 + 7 HSTs. What is the cost of this likely to be? Replacing a 150 ton, 1400 hp train with a 390 ton 4500hp train is going to be expensive in every possible way. Can the traffic on the route support such a change? I for one doubt it. This route has significant commuter traffic but this is typically Warrington to Manchester and Sheffield to Manchester, which does not generate anything like the cash of long distance commuting into London. The off peak traffic although buoyant doesnt stretch the 4 car 158s in my experience.
Four years ago EMT published details of passenger counts on this route and only 2 out of 26 journeys during Monday - Thursdays recorded 100+ passengers east of Nottingham, on Fridays it was 6 out of 27. None of these journeys had as many as 150 passengers.
On the busiest section of the route between Liverpool and Manchester the highest recorded load was 421 (3 times any other train) arriving into Manchester at 08:40 or so. The busiest trains the other way held 200 - 300 passengers. Even on the notorious Manchester Sheffield section it was only on Friday afternoon that loads exceeded the capacity of a 2 car Class 158. These high loads largely generated by discount student travel.
Now it is possible that these figures are 20% higher now due to general growth and very recently by more trains being available but it doesnt sound to me like a recipe for success to use expensive trains to provide excessive capacity on this route. I expect most other routes suggested will suffer from the same problems.
I work on the entire route from Liverpool through to Norwich, day in, day out.
The patronage on the Nott's-Liv route could certainly support longer trains at all times as all seem to be full to capacity, although 5 coaches would be more sensible than 7, as long as there is sufficient luggage space. Even on the Nott's-Norwich section two coaches can currently cope, but there will be problems if there is any growth in passenger numbers.
A shortened HST would be great for capacity, but i can't ever see it happening. Once at full power they can out accelerate a 158, and could reach the permitted speeds quite quickly, so although limited to 70mph over the Hope Valley route, timings wouldn't suffer too much as the 158's spend most of the time at 70something with the throttle wide open trying to go faster!
Where time would be lost however, is at the stations, as an HST takes a fair bit more stopping than a 158, and there is a lot more lag in the brake. The length of some of the platforms is fairly short, and so a cautious approach to enable stopping in just the right place would have to be made. This would add significantly to timings.
A shame really, as i'd love to work an HST over the route, and it certainly needs something with a bit of power to get up the hills and up to linespeed. The 158's at the minute seem to be weaker than a Fairtrade teabag, even the 400hp one's.
I think, come the next bout of re-franchising, the route may be split at Nottingham, with two different TOC's working the Liverpool and Norwich sections.
