Wasn't this one of the bits of the Operation Princess grand plan that never got done because Railtrack was incapable of delivering on its part of the agreement?
I think be more use to have increased speed on the pedestrian Exeter to Penzance stretch where possible as about three hours journey for 120 miles is a poor 40mph average.
It would have a greater effect, but on fewer journeys. Not that say that it shouldn't be done, but it's probably more of a discussion for GWR customers, and on the face of it it's a lot harder.
Indeed, the 36 miles between Long Ashton and Cogload would save 4.5 mins, plus anything you might get south of Taunton. A 5 min saving on the hour between Bristol and Exeter is not too shabby, particularly if a similar improvement could be yielded between Bristol and Birmingham. If the govt wants to get people out of their cars and also generate modal shift on the longer distance cross country rail routes it needs to look at all the areas where incremental improvements can be achieved. In isolation each one doesn't appear much, but added together start to make a difference. Likewise, "levelling up" should mean trying to improve connectivity between the regions, not purely a London-centric approach of improving the regions' transport links to the Capital.
Please remember that the ECML was progressively upgraded in small incremental steps, a minute save here, two minutes saved there. It all adds up.
No, the linespeeds were increased to an extent a few years back, but not to the level they thought they could. Level crossings were certainly an issue.
Except where there are similar enhancements all along the route, so it all adds up to a meaningful saving.
Depends what it unlocks, one or two minutes often won't do a lot, but 3 is often a path and can cascade out.
Not at all. That was a completely different situation and a step change. I am referring to a number of infrastructure changes that, in isolation, don’t appear much, but when added together amount to a meaningful improvement.
I think it's probably added a little capacity to the mains north of Barnt Green and at Bromsgrove, although of course that probably only makes up for the extra traffic on the Lickey itself. South of there it's pretty much a case of sticking new signals in the same places as the old ones.
Gloucester is a good way off, but all of the above hasnt altered the issues.
Hasnt done anything at all to capacity.
There definitely isn't an extra path in it. I was mostly thinking about the fact that the terminators now get to turn around in the middle of the line at Bromsgrove rather than having to cross all the way over to the reversing siding at Longbridge. IIRC there were also a couple of extra signals on the bit that transferred over from Saltley, including one on the Kings Norton - New Street section, which probably just allows the trains to queue up slightly closer together, but nevermind.
If you travel south of Bromsgrove they have replaced a lot of the signal heads on to the existing posts with 4 aspect led heads. I know that some have also been replaced in Gloucester, so maybe they are getting ready to increase the linespeed on that line, but probably not to 125mph though.
