quantinghome
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Jun 2013
- Messages
- 2,265
I don't believe 1. to be the case, as there are no significant SP, MU or HST speeds through the core at all, and it's only at the extremities of the line where the 185s are subject to speed restrictions. Surely if the ground conditions were particularly poor there would be significant restrictions for these heavy units? One of the reasons they can have so much power and weight (for improved tractive effort) is that the route they were designed for didn't require them to meet the weight requirements for differential speeds.
The ground around Mirfield probably isn't the easiest to work with when doing the big work for the upgrade (I heard the water table is quite high round there) but I don't think the existing formation has any major issues. It even manages to avoid all (or most) of the old mine workings that the West Riding is littered with.
I was thinking about Selby-Hull.