It seems to be a truism that the less important a railway line is, the more interest there is in it. Of all the lines in the southern Home Counties it is the line to Uckfield which seems to incite the most passion and desire to comment on it. This is despite the fact that relatively few people use it. We have briefly covered this before in part 2 and, with reference to the Brighton Main Line 2 proposal in part 10 but because there are so many controversial proposals for this line, and because they arouse such interest, we will cover it again in depth. For completeness, and to appreciate the bigger picture, we also look at the modern day East Grinstead Line – a line that in many ways is so similar yet so different.
Diagram of the Oxted lines
We saw in our article on South Croydon that there is a line there that diverges eastwards from the Brighton Main Line. This line goes to Oxted and the station beyond, Hurst Green, where it then diverges again. One branch continues southwards three stations to East Grinstead whilst the other takes a more southeasterly route for a number of miles. It then turns and heads southwesterly before eventually terminating at Uckfield. In both cases these are remnants of former through routes that went all the way to Lewes.
For convenience we split our look at these lines into three:
- The line to Oxted and Hurst Green
- The branch to East Grinstead
- the branch to Uckfield
South Croydon to Oxted and Hurst Green
The railway to Oxted starts just south of South Croydon station, but for most purposes can be thought of as starting at East Croydon – as few trains for Oxted call at South Croydon. In between South Croydon and Oxted are four stations of very different character.
Sanderstead station looking north
Sanderstead station is, in many ways, a typical suburban station. There is a trailing crossover to the south which is used once a day to enable an early morning train to Victoria to start from there.
Riddlesdown station looking south with Riddlesdown tunnel in the distance
Riddlesdown station is also fairly typical, but it is also located in an area where bus services are not good and so is more important to the local inhabitants than a cursory look at a map might suggest. Its rural feel belies the fact that it is surrounded by houses.
South of Riddlesdown station the line tunnels under Riddlesdown itself and runs parallel to the Caterham Line for a while – but at a much higher elevation on the other side of the valley – before it gets to Upper Warlingham. One is now out of London and indisputably in Surrey, but still in Zone 6. The station at Upper Warlingham is roughly as well used as that at nearby Whyteleafe, which suggests that the slightly faster journey time from Upper Warlingham (typically 5 minutes faster to East Croydon) and the two storey car park in some ways make up for the more frequent service from Whyteleafe. Upper Warlingham is also the current limit of signalling control from Three Bridges – to the south it is locally controlled by a signal box at Oxted covering both the East Grinstead and Uckfield lines.
A surprisingly rural scene at Upper Warlingham looking north towards London
In complete contrast to the previous stations is the extremely rural atmosphere of Woldingham station. The houses around the station are more noticeable because of their size than their number. Put simply, Woldingham is a very desirable location for those who want to live in a well-to-do Surrey village but need to commute to London.
Woldingham station looking south
After Woldingham the Oxted Line reaches Oxted itself by means of a tunnel under the North Downs. Oxted is a typical Surrey town, but it owes a lot of its vitality to the fact that it has quite a good rail service to Croydon and London. Oxted is the busiest station on the line, marginally busier than East Grinstead, but as a town one really needs to take into account that Hurst Green is effectively a suburb of Oxted – so it can be truly said that Oxted is by far the most important town on the line. There is a bay platform at Oxted for trains terminating form the south but during the week this is only used by couple of trains in the evening peak. On Sundays the hourly Uckfield service terminates here.
Hurst Green looking north
Fast from Oxted to East Croydon
South Croydon – Oxted
It can probably be appreciated that, once the service from Oxted gets up to a certain frequency, it makes sense to run some trains non-stop from Oxted to East Croydon. This is, in fact, what happens. Things are generally kept very simple with East Grinstead trains (up to 4 per hour in the peak and 2 per hour off-peak) serving intermediate stations, and Uckfield trains and the solitary train starting from Oxted (up to 2 per hour) running fast from Oxted to East Croydon. The choice is probably determined by a combination of the desire to provide the intermediate stations with 3-4 trains per hour in the peaks, the preference of having electric trains, with their superior acceleration, being the ones assigned to stopping trains and the desire to keep the long journey time from Uckfield (typically an hour to East Croydon) and subsequent stations on the line as short as possible.
The stopping trains from Oxted to East Croydon take around 21 minutes, but that can increase to 25 minutes if a call is made at South Croydon as well. The slightly erratic figures in the morning peak suggest pathing issues also exist. Non-stop trains typically take 13 minutes, which suggests that each station stop adds two minutes. With an eight minute difference it is relatively easy to fit in a fast train just before a stopper at Oxted as it will not have caught up the previous stopping train. This would also suggest that up to four fast and four stopping trains could be run each hour from Oxted to East Croydon providing the paths could be found through East Croydon and beyond, but more than that could be challenging as there are no obvious places for passing loops.
Trying to run fast trains on a two-track railway that has intermediate stations is an age old problem. In London in particular, with ever more passengers travelling from the suburbs, it is a problem that is getting worse. It is easy to see why. It would only take an extra 15 seconds dwell time at Sanderstead, Riddlesdown, Upper Warlingham and Woldingham for yet another minute to be added to the additional time needed for the stopping trains.
It should be noted that if the BML2 proposal to run trains via the disused line through Selsdon and onto the Hayes Line were to be implemented then the problem of capacity between Oxted and north of Sanderstead would not appear easy to solve. Of course one could suggest reducing the number of stopping trains but it is unlikely that would go down well. There are other workarounds such as “skip-stopping” – where the suburban stations are served by different trains that stop at just just one or two of them – but these workarounds are never entirely satisfactory.
The East Grinstead Line
Oxted – East Grinstead
Beyond Hurst Green the East Grinstead service serves only three stations.
Lingfield would not be a busy station by London standards and its annual total of users (less than half a million) includes peaks that arrive on race days.
Dormans has a name suggestive of its general usage. With annual usage hovering at 100,000 journeys it is certainly appropriate. It is clearly not the driving force behind the line’s high usage.
East Grinstead by comparison is by far the busiest station of the three, as one might expect from a station in a major town which, surprisingly, is in West Sussex. Numbers have grown (ORR statistics) from 1 million a year ten years ago to 1.5 million in 2015. Whilst this might partially be explained by the arrival of the Bluebell Railway (which reached East Grinstead in March 2013) the steady rise suggest this is more to do with the growth of East Grinstead and the surrounding areas as people are priced out of London and look for somewhere within a reasonable commuting time with a fairly decent train service.
Bluebell Railway
An unusual feature of East Grinstead station is the physical link to the Bluebell Railway. It is a cumbersome procedure to transfer trains from one line to another and, with completion of the excavation of a cutting during the Bluebell’s reconstruction, is little used. The original plan was to have charter trains from London direct to the Bluebell Railway but the operation of a few of them made the Bluebell Railway very aware of the problems that ports have when an ocean cruise liner calls – you have a lot of people descending on you, which means you have to have plenty of staff about, but your visitors come and go very quickly meaning they don’t actually spend much money. To add insult to the injury the income per person received from the charter train is a fraction of the normal fare and special arrangements involving extra staff have to be made available just to run the extra train on the line. Nevertheless the link is extremely useful for the Bluebell railway when hiring in track maintenance equipment such as tamping trains.
East Grinstead Branch goes from strength to strength
Whilst interest focuses on the Uckfield Line, the East Grinstead service and its development over the past 30 years has gone largely unnoticed. For many years the line had a poor Cinderella service of 3-car or 6-car DEMUs (“Thumpers”) supplemented by a loco-hauled service to and from London Bridge in the peaks. Electrification in 1987 saw longer platforms and 8-car trains and the end of the operationally-inconvenient loco hauled service. More recently platforms have been extended to 12-car length and the power supply has been upgraded.
At East Grinstead the single lead points needed to be moved due to the platform extensions and, slightly surprisingly, were replaced by a full scissors crossover which means that, in the right circumstances, trains can simultaneously arrive and depart at East Grinstead. Given that generally only three trains a day actually depart from platform 1 this seems like a certain amount of overkill, founded either on paranoia concerning single lead junctions or expectation of more trains in future.
The rise in usage on the line appears to be continuing unabated and from this December timetable another 8-car train will be extended – this time to 10 cars. By December 2018 the line should have a half-hourly peak-period Thameslink service but there is some doubt as to whether these will be 12-car trains – or at least whether they will all be 12-car trains. Ironically, the need to extend the platform to 12-car trains was originally for Thameslink, though this was subsequently brought forward due to rising demand.
Thameslink will produce a further anomaly on the line with the Thameslink trains being Driver Only Operated. Currently East Grinstead trains have a guard. Whilst the requirement for a guard fits in with the policy of having guards beyond the London metro area, it does seem unnecessary when the service is comparable in time with that to Tattenham Corner – it is only 4 minutes longer from East Croydon to East Grinstead off-peak than to Tattenham Corner.
The Uckfield service
Because the line to Uckfield has been discussed so much, much of what is written has been mentioned before. It is probably worth restating the main points though, even if it means a little bit of repetition.
Oxted – Uckfield
- The line from Hurst Green Junction to Uckfield is unelectrified. The distance from Hurst Green Junction (where the third rail runs out) to Uckfield is around 25 miles, whereas Hurst Green Junction to London Bridge is less than 21½ miles. So if one were to think of electrification then one cannot regard it as a simple infill scheme.
- The service is currently run by Class 171 2-car and 4-car units. Some services are run with two units coupled together, which is not ideal as there is no interconnection between the units. The trains are refuelled and maintained at Selhurst depot.
- Much of the line from Hever to Uckfield has been singled.
- The peak-period service is 2 trains per hour. Off-peak Mondays to Saturdays it goes down to one train per hour. On Sundays an hourly shuttle service, requiring two trains, operates between Oxted and Uckfield – except for the first two trains out which start in service from East Croydon and the last one in, which continues in service to East Croydon.
- There are eight stations south of Hurst Green to Uckfield (inclusive). Of these only three have a significant number of passengers. They are Edenbridge Town, Crowborough and Uckfield itself.
- Even Uckfield itself only manages around half a million passenger journeys a year – a figure that would be considered really low by London standards. To put this in comparison, only Roding Valley and Chigwell on the Underground are less busy than Uckfield. Having said that it is only fair to point out that the passenger numbers for Uckfield have been rising consistently and rapidly.
- Fares are around 20% lower than comparable other lines. This reflected the poor service with indifferent rolling stock at the start of privatisation. Fare increases from then on have been strictly regulated by an RPI formula, while improvements in services, generally, have not been taken into account.
- The line is incredibly rural. Edenbridge is a small town but manages to have two stations on different lines. Hever, Cowden, Ashurst and Eridge (aka Tunbridge Wells Parkway) are in the middle of nowhere. The station euphemistically called Crowborough is actually at Jarvis Brook, right at the edge of the built up area referred to as Crowborough itself. In a similar way the station at Buxted manages to be at the very edge of the village (population 3,343 in 2011). If it wasn’t for town of Uckfield itself (population over 15,000) the line would have probably been closed a long time ago.
- Although the line is thought of as a line through Sussex, Edenbridge, Hever, Cowden and Ashurst are all actually in Kent. Because of the closeness of the county boundary and Tunbridge Wells, Eridge probably also has many passengers from Kent who may have the alternative available of using Southeastern Trains.
- All trains on the Uckfield route have a driver and a guard. This means that even operating a two-car train at marginal cost would be quite expensive and is probably one reason why the service is only one train an hour except at peak times.
Why is the Uckfield Line well used?
The above description of the rural nature of the line would tend to suggest that the Uckfield Line is a complete basket case and should have been put out of its misery years ago. The question then has to be asked as to why the line has a reputation of being so busy. There seems to be three main reasons.
- The Uckfield Line it is not really that busy south of Hurst Green. Numbers are boosted by users from Hurst Green and Oxted especially as the Uckfield trains run non-stop betweeen Oxted and East Croydon.
- The line has an incredibly large catchment area. Most people arrive by car and travel a considerable distance to get to the station. The line goes through a large area of Kent and rural Sussex that would otherwise be not rail served.
- The lower fares and the likelihood of getting a seat (or possibly a space in the car park or on surrounding roads) means that a lot of people who would otherwise use the Southeastern service from Tunbridge Wells or alternative Southern services choose to use this line instead.
The last reason can of course work both ways, and an improvement in either service or car park space elsewhere may lead to a reduction in usage on the Uckfield Line. Alternatively, if services don’t increase capacity elsewhere and numbers using the railway keep on rising, the usage of the Uckfield Line may well outstrip anything that happens on surrounding lines. No Network Rail document appears to acknowledge this factor and all their planning appears to be done on the basis of steady standard rate growth based on current figures. There do appear to be good arguments for suggesting that the increase in use of the Uckfield Line will outstrip increase in use of the railway in general.
Proposals for the Uckfield Line
We will ignore the specifics of the BML2 proposal but will briefly cover the issue of extending southwards as far as Lewes, which is part of that proposal but has also been suggested as a standalone scheme.
Hurst Green Junction where Uckfield trains turn off to the left (east)
The oft-repeated suggestions are as follows:
- Lengthen the trains
- Remove or at least reduce the length of single track sections
- Increase the line speed
- Electrify using third rail system
- Electrify using 25kV overhead system
- Reinstate line to back to Lewes
Clearly these cannot be considered in isolation. For example if one were to extend and electrify that may well strengthen the argument for third rail electrification, as it would allow the existing (and future) Southern fleet to use the line as a diversionary route. This would add to flexibility and eliminate two locations where there is a need to change from one type of electrical supply to another. If you increase line speed then single track sections can be traversed quicker and there may be less need to double the track where it is single. There is also the issue that if you electrify (especially on the overhead system) it is better to do this after any track changes. We will go through these suggestions.
Lengthen the trains
There is a good argument against lengthening the trains on the Uckfield branch. The branch south of Hurst Green doesn’t really need it and demand at Hurst Green and north thereof would be better served by electric trains to and from East Grinstead. In any case, diesel units are currently at a premium. Furthermore, you can’t lengthen the trains unless you also lengthen the platforms so it is a big job – all for just 2tph in the peak period.
One problem eminently visible from the heady heights of LR Towers is also that the East Grinstead trains are already being extended to their maximum length, so any more increase on that line will soon have to come through more trains. The problem is that at the moment there simply aren’t the train paths available through East Croydon and northwards from there and, if there were, there would probably be better uses for them anyway. So, given the current shortage of train paths, the argument in favour of longer trains on the Uckfield Line is that one can increase capacity without requiring extra train paths. It does mean that the carriages will be lightly loaded for much of their journey in both directions though.
At least with this issue the argument is over, and longer trains will come in the near future. Network Rail has already embarked on substantial lengthening of platforms with details of the work at each station on its website. Being a lightly used branch – not often the case when you need to extend the platforms – the task is made easier by being able to close the line outside peak hours and put on replacement bus services instead. Further information – including the usual stuff about dormice and newts as well as information on the extra carriages – is on the Southern Railway website.
At the end of this work all of the platforms will be able to accommodate a 10-car train consisting of 23 metre long carriages – so only slightly shorter than a normal Southern 12-car train with 20 metre carriages. It is intended that the longer trains will be introduced in July 2016.
Some of the class 170 diesel units (12 cars in all) are already at Selhurst depot being converted into class 171 Southern units. This involves obvious things like repainting, as well as less obvious things like installing compatible couplers and undoing the damage done by the Scottish salty sea air. The solution of using converted class 170s and the existing class 171s formed as a number of 4-car and 2-car units will not be ideal, as a 10-car train will mean three coupled non-interconnecting units running together.
Remove or at least reduce the length of single track sections
Reinstating double track has been suggested for the line to Uckfield. It would increase reliability but be very expensive and would again be extremely difficult to justify for a peak service of 2tph. If it were otherwise possible to increase the service then there may be a case for this. Even with double track throughout, the ability to combine fast and slow services would be severely limited. You could put passing loops at Eridge which has four platforms. Currently only two are used – one for the Uckfield service and one for the Spa Valley Railway.
Alternatively, if you were only running a more intensive service in the peaks and more intensive in one direction you could, with modern signalling, have fast trains overtaking stopping trains on a two track railway.
Increase line speed
The disadvantages of doing this are similar to reinstating doubled track. The line speed is already around 75mph and the higher you go the harder it gets for a smaller reduction in time. Indeed increasing the maximum line speed has been described as “the Jeremy Clarkson approach to rail improvement”. Given the lack of non-stopping trains it would appear to be very hard to make a case for this. If there were non-stop trains the situation may be different, but then the faster the fast trains run, the quicker they catch up with the stopping trains.
Electrify using the third rail system
This is often mentioned. Electrification with third rail pickup stock would have a number of advantages. It would allow more fleet flexibility and ensures consistent performance throughout the network which then either enhances capacity or aids reliability. It would make life easier at Selhurst depot and free up diesel units for elsewhere. It would also reduce the rather unsatisfactory situation of the Mayor of London trying to clean up the city streets from traffic pollution but having diesel-fume-emitting trains at various London termini.
Nevertheless electrification would be expensive and (yes, you guessed it) normally would not be justified on a line that gets only one train an hour in each direction most of the time. If it were electrification for electrification’s sake then there are probably other lines that could produce a better case (e.g. infill between Reigate and Wokingham on the North Downs Line) and these logically ought to be tackled first. There is also a big question mark about continuing with any expansion of the third rail system, given the obvious danger to rail workers.
Less of a consideration nowadays, but seriously considered a few years ago, was the possibility of the Brighton Main Line from East Croydon to Preston Park (just north of Brighton) being converted to the 25kV AC overhead system. As this would have been a follow on from the “Electric Spine” conversion proposal for the railway between Southampton and Basingstoke, and as that shows no sign of happening, this issue seems less important. Nevertheless it does raise doubt as to whether more 3rd rail electrification is wise, given question marks over its long term future.
Electrify using 25kV overhead system
This is often suggested as a better alternative to the third rail system – and with dual-voltage stock it is not technically that difficult to mix with third rail electrification anyway. There is generally a desire to minimise the number of changeover points and avoid dual voltage track as much as possible. Overhead electrification generally offers superior performance and would remove the 90mph ultimate limit that is generally applied to the third rail pick-up system.
The disadvantage of electrifying on the overhead system to Uckfield is that you lose some flexibility as you would have to allocate specific stock to the line. It would save many expensive electrical substations though and be more electrically efficient, albeit at the price of having to install a suitable changeover facility – or two if extending the line to Lewes.
Reinstate line to back to Lewes
The final suggestion we are going to cover is that of reinstating the line back to Lewes.
Technically this is the original line that comes into Lewes from the west rather than the line closed in 1969, which more usefully approached Lewes from the east, but which has now been built on.
There are basically two campaigns to reinstate this line. One is the Wealden Campaign, which morphed into BML2. The other is that of Railfuture, which has been simply campaigning for the link to be reinstated though they do have suggestions as to how a direct (in the sense of not having to change trains) service to Brighton could be provided. Railfuture also currently have a bigger campaign called Thameslink 2 which could incorporate a reopened link between Uckfield and Lewes, but the reopened link is not fundamental to that scheme.
In the latest revised map from BML2 the emphasis is very much on going south from Uckfield towards Falmer by means of a tunnel under the South Downs. Lewes, once the primary objective, and the county town of East Sussex, is now shown as being accessed from a short spur off “BML2”. BML2 in this scenario would appear to have at least 4 but probably 6tph (from Brighton, Seaford and Eastbourne) running through the rural East Sussex, Kent and Surrey countryside whilst missing out on the travel demand centres of Gatwick and East Croydon.
Here it is worth stating something rather bluntly. In 2008 a report by Network Rail but commissioned by East Sussex County Council poured cold water on the idea of extending from Uckfield to Lewes. The resulting board report summarises the situation well. The extra traffic would be minimal (and next to none of it to and from London) so the Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) is not good. It would also have cost around £140 million at presumed 2008 prices for around 10 miles of very basic track. It is probably worth bearing in mind that in recent years Network Rail has not been noted for overestimating cost.
The publication of the report was a disappointment. There were almost immediately complaints that other benefits had not been factored in and unreasonable assumptions were made. Indeed the report itself states:
(point to note: the terms of reference assumed that there would be no extra capacity provided at East Croydon, no electrification north of Uckfield, and no dualling of single track sections)
This almost immediately led to the accusation that the bigger picture had not been looked at, but in fact all the assumptions made are very double-edged. If there is extra capacity at East Croydon wouldn’t more be achieved for less simply by running extra trains to Lewes and beyond via the current route? If the existing line is already electrified then electrification has, realistically, to be factored into reopening costs. It is hard to see why existing track would be dualled without a need to run more trains, but conversely if reopening Uckfield – Lewes led to a need for more dualled track shouldn’t that be included in the cost of reopening?
At London Reconnections we are going to pour some additional cold water on discussing these plans by arguing that, for the most part, they have very little relevance to London.
It is generally accepted that extending the line would make virtually no difference to London users who would continue to travel to and from Lewes using the faster route via Plumpton. Running some limited stop services on the Uckfield Line from Lewes, whilst not impossible, would be a bit problematic and it is hard to see from where they would pick up sufficient passengers to justify their existence – and, more importantly, deprive another well-established passenger flow of sufficient trains to cater for a known demand.
A few figures from the National Rail Journey Planner illustrate the point about journey times. Currently Uckfield to East Croydon takes about an hour in the morning peak. That is already longer than a journey on the existing route from Lewes to East Croydon via Plumpton, which is generally done in under the hour. Uckfield station is also around 12 miles by road to Haywards Heath station, where one can catch a train to East Croydon. From there journey time is around half an hour.
The idea of extending the line, often forgotten, is to enable more people from mid-Sussex to be able to work at the employment centres on the coast – Brighton in particular. Here the expanding town of Uckfield is seen as being of major importance and the desire is to provide an opportunity to work within the county (taking Brighton as part of Sussex) rather than just be a distant dormitory town for London. Unless a good case can be made for a BML2 style proposal, it is on this basis that any future decision on re-opening the line would sensibly be made. The situation may well have changed since 2008 or the sentiment in East Sussex and local investment plans may well mean that there is a case above and beyond Network Rail’s justification for not reinstating, but in London we have to concede that on the current evidence this is a local issue and of very little relevance to us.
It has been argued, principally by BML2, that the line, if extended back to Lewes, would make a good diversionary route. Network Rail rejects this notion arguing that it is too much of a long way round. It is unlikely that it could carry anything more than a small portion of the traffic if the Brighton Main Line were to be blocked. Even to provide a diversionary route for a portion of the traffic whilst maintaining local services would mean high capacity signalling. Additional substations would also need to be installed for almost the entire route between Brighton and South Croydon via Uckfield – not just the bit between Hurst Green and Lewes. This would cost a hefty sum and need to be maintained for use on only the few days in the year when a portion of Brighton Line passengers are generally affected by closure.
And the reason for reopening is …
With campaigners for a reopening of the line back to Lewes unable to agree on either its future purpose or a common rationale for their separate proposals, it is hardly surprising that that the line to Uckfield and possibly on to Lewes attracts a variety of views as to what the priorities should be and what enhancements should be made to the line. This is not helped, it seems, by the impression given that it is not universally recognised that the line is attracting a disproportionate number of passengers – whom, it must be said, may disappear if services improve elsewhere.
At LR Towers we do not claim to have the answers. We will say that there does always seem a particular romantic attraction to re-opening closed railway lines. Perhaps it is the nearest the human spirit can get to a feeling of being able to turn back the clock to imagined better days. This is not to say that old lines should never be reopened – London Overground shows that this can be done with considerable success – simply that there should be a clear justification for it, and you’ll struggle to find a column for “ineffable yearning” on the average cost/benefit spreadsheet calculator.
In this particular instance, we have already stated that any justification for reopening is likely to be found by looking south to Brighton and the South Coast, not north to London. We tend to agree that, as it is, the BML2 is correct that it would be hard to make a case for re-opening on a local basis. The trouble is they appeared to be looking for a scheme to justify it and that is very unlikely to work.
We will be bold and make a prediction. If Uckfield – Lewes does get reopened it will be because someone is looking to do something completely different from anything being publicly proposed now – and it will be because when they have modelled all the other options they have realised, as a last resort, that the solution to an outstanding issue is to combine utilising the line from Hurst Green to Uckfield more effectively together with a re-opened link to Lewes.
Whatever our opinions and predictions, given that the line for Uckfield to Lewes is safeguarded, we expect the arguments about reopening will continue for many years yet.
there’s a couple of times the “problem” of units running in multiple without interconnections is raised. It’s hardly unusual though, is it? The only operators that don’t currently do it are Virgin Trains East Coast, Grand Central, Hull Trains and Caledonian Sleeper and that’s simply because they don’t run any units in multiple- VTEC will in the future!
@AL_S
I’m fairly sure that East Midland don’t run any units in multiple without through gangways. But I agree it’s not really an issue.
Timbeau there’s too many negatives in your comment for me to compute at this time of night, but EMT do run units in multiple with, and without, through gangways.
You mention the ultimate speed limit for third rail trains is 90mph, but didn’t the Wessex Electrics on the South Western run at 100+ mph?
Going by what Uckfield line guards say, the problem with no gangways is that the hardcore fare dodgers from the urban centres like Crowborough find their dodging a much easier job if the guard can’t reach them. Talking of guards I’m not sure a comparison with the Tattenham branch is appropriate; working Tattenhams is a far easier affair as the numbers even in the peaks are not notable. I wouldn’t like to dispatch Grinsteads by myself in the peaks. Also Tattenham is Oysterised whereas having the guard to buy tickets for onward travel (or even getting a fare from some who might not bother at barrier-less stops) on the train appears to be a service that is still wanted by the Oxted line users.
@tiger tanaka
Yes they did.
@Sad Fat Dad
Do EMT run Meridians in multiple in normal use then? All of their other dmus have gangwayed ends.
All SWT units had gangwayed ends until the 456s arrived.
Back on topic, PoP has summarised the situation well – re-opening to Lewes is a classic example of a solution looking for a problem – and even if there is a problem that it would solve, there are better solutions available.
@GTR driver
Your comment crossed with mine.
On the revenue protection point, if the train is busy enough to need two units, one conductor/guard is not going to be able to cover the whole train between stops anyway.
If it becomes an issue, would it be possible to retrofit 171s (which appear to be very similar) with gangwayed cabs? After all, there is a lot of commonality with 172s, some of which were built with gangway ends, and the 377s are of similar design too.
There’s a bit of a parallel with the Borders Railway – years of ineffable yearning and vague “diversionary route” arguments had no effect, but some hardheaded calculation about expanding demand for housing within reach of Edinburgh did the trick for a partial reopening. For Edinburgh read Brighton.
But it’s rare for a solution in search of a problem to dovetail with a problem in search of a solution like that, and devolution helped in Scotland. Time for a Transport for Sussex, anyone?
I’m not sure what happened to this sentence, but I think you might have got your exc- words tongue-tied:
[Oops yes. The was an omitted “completion of” which does rather make a nonsense of it! PoP]
Without wishing to pass comment on the merits or otherwise of the Uckfield line specifically, why is it that trackbed encroachment is considered such a permanent issue when it comes to reopening old lines? Obviously it adds large and unwelcome extras to the cost and disruption, but I’ve only ever heard it discussed in terms of being a final, irreversible, eternal fate. I’m not sure I buy the theory that an old railway trackbed has to be perfectly pristine before being relaid – after all, someone managed to build it in the first place…
“Overhead electrification generally offers superior performance and would remove the 90mph ultimate limit that is generally applied to the third rail pick-up system.”
You mean 100mph, surely? That’s the limit on the SWML, and I suppose probably on the BML too (though I’m less sure about this).
Is it as slow a route as claimed?
Uckfield to East Croydon is about an hour but if intermediate stations between Uckfield and Oxted were skipped (as well as those between Oxted and East Croydon) that would fall to about 45 minutes based on the 2 minutes per station as per the East Grinstead line.
Lewes to East Croydon is upto about 55 minutes on direct services, with some down to 50 minutes.
To me those figures suggest that if the Oxted line was fully upgraded then the journey time from Lewes to East Croydon would be broadly comparable on the Oxted Line to the present route, maybe 5 minutes slower.
PS since the present diesels are slow to accelerate the 2 minutes per station from the East Grinstead line is probably conservative and the time for a fast electric from Lewes to East Croydon via Oxted might even be as quick as the current route.
@Muzer:
The general consensus is that 80 mph. is the point where 3rd rail’s efficiency starts to drop off rapidly due to the nature of DC electricity transmission…
Part of the problem is the need for ever more substations as demand on the line increases. And the demand has increased quite dramatically over the last few decades. Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire have all seen major power supply upgrades since the 1980s to cope with longer trains, more modern (and power-hungry) trains, and more frequent trains. Trains have gotten “hungrier” since the 1980s too: multiple electric sliding doors, air conditioning, passenger information displays, new signalling systems, and so on have all added to the weight and energy demand of each train. Trains have also gotten longer, which also adds to the energy demands.
Now, power is supplied to railways as AC which can be transmitted over long distances very efficiently. But 3rd-rail trains need that converted to DC and that process is absolutely not 100% efficient.
[Snipped and edited for brevity and clarity, twas much too long. I cannot vouch for its accuracy however. LBM]
@Kate:
The original article does answer your question, though not all in one convenient paragraph.
Basically, you have a mostly single-track un-electrified railway at present. It’s also not built for speed as all trains between Uckfield and Oxted are stoppers and the line has become optimised for this over the years.
Before you can electrify the line, you must first choose the form that electrification will take: do you go for 3rd-rail DC, or overhead AC power? The latter would be fine for Thameslink trains, which can already switch between the two systems, but it would mean trains switching multiple times on every single journey. That involves big, expensive moving parts, which means more maintenance and – critically – more chances for something to break and cause the train to come to a standstill.
DC power looks like the obvious choice, but there is a policy at Network Rail that no expansion of the 3rd rail network should be done as it’s approaching the end of its usefulness given the increasing demands on their infrastructure. (See my earlier reply to @Muzer for more details.)
But before you can even do that, as the original article points out, you must first decide what the new through line will be for. That dictates everything: track layout, station improvements, platform lengths, train types and lengths, likely power demand, signalling, and so on. All of which not only requires money up-front to plan and build, but it also requires ongoing expenditure just to keep it all working properly.
[Non-London transport and redundant paragraphs snipped. LBM]
@Anomnibus I know all that, I’m just pointing out that the “ultimate limit” of 90mph mentioned in the article is no such thing, or else I’ve misunderstood. I’m aware that low-voltage systems (which is the real issue, as you could quite easily transmit 750V AC through third rail and it’d still have the same problems) are stupidly inefficient in this day and age. I’m just saying that there are a few third rail 750V DC routes that (efficiently or not) work just fine at 100mph.
@Pedantic of Purley:
A good read. One point to note is that the Upper Warlingham section, parallel to Whyteleafe, is in a steep-sided valley. The A22 runs down the valley between the two lines, which is the focus for most of the bus routes around here; to the east of Upper Warlingham, it’s mostly lightly residential with a lot of open countryside as well, so you wouldn’t see a high-frequency bus service up there.
Also, there is a level crossing to access Whyteleafe station from this side of the A22. As that’s the busier route, and just getting across the A22 itself during the peaks can be a chore in itself, it’s probably not quite so surprising that Upper Warlingham sees plenty of patronage.
Just a couple of typos:
“with the excavation of a cutting during the Bluebell’s reconstruction, is little used.”
Someone mentioned this earlier, but I think the problem is the “with” should be “despite”. Maybe. It definitely reads oddly.
“Why is Uckfield Line well used?”
This heading is missing the definite article: “Why is the Uckfield Line well used?”
“This almost immediately let to the accusation…”
I think “let” should be “led”.
[All now fixed. Thanks PoP]
@Muzer:
I assume you’re referring to the “Wessex Electrics” trains (Class 442; most recently seen running between Gatwick and Victoria). These do indeed hold a – if not the – record for 3rd-rail speed, but they do have a couple of points in their favour: they have few of the big power drains that modern commuter trains have, like multiple sliding electric doors on each side; they have long-distance “airline”-style seating arrangements, with little standing room except in the vestibules; you can’t ram them to crush loads remotely comparable with, say, an 8-car District Line train.
It’s the repeated acceleration and deceleration of commuter stopping services that really hammers the power supply. Accelerating up to 90+ miles per hour really sucks the juice. Braking means you’re throwing energy away – literally, if you don’t have regenerative braking that converts the energy back to electricity and returns it to the power supply. Modern commuter trains can do the regenerative braking bit, which helps, but it did require modifications to the power supplies.
Once you’re running at your cruising speed, the train’s power requirements are much lower. Which is why express trains aren’t directly comparable to commuter ones. They demand less power for most of their journey as they’re just cruising along, sipping electricity as they go. You don’t see up to 24 of them passing in each direction every hour either: for London’s 3rd-rail areas, express trains are the exception, not the norm.
Also, while the trains themselves can often handle much sharper acceleration and braking, the passengers inside would be rolling around like ninepins. So the maximum speed isn’t really the key metric any more, but service throughput: how many passengers you can shift from A to B along a given stretch of track.
The 80 mph threshold isn’t a hard technical speed limit: trains can, and do, exceed that routinely today. What it represents is the point at which high-voltage AC power starts to become more cost-effective on paper than low-voltage DC using 3rd-rail. (Overhead DC systems also exist, but I don’t think any remain in the UK outside of tram networks, so it would be extremely non-standard for Network Rail.)
Another interesting article from PoP. Hopefully civil servants and policy wonks will be reading it and tapping notes to their masters/mistresses. May I help them by summarising PoP’s argument:
* BML2 bigger picture: there is no bigger picture.
Re LBM on Anomnibus 0557 comment,
“I cannot vouch for its accuracy however. LBM”
It is accurate (and Anomnibus has simplified it very well too)
Re Muzer and Anomnibus,
Even before you get to electrification there is big difference in the level of required track maintenance to operate at <=90mph and above 90mph. Hence 90mph is a very popular speed limit for quieter routes electrified or not across the whole of Britain.
As speed increases it is increasingly harder to engineer the 3rd rail reliably so the ramp angle at the end of run of 3rd rail has to get much shallower (and longer) at higher speeds to avoid ripping off the shoes. This leads to design compromises resulting in more arcing (with more 3rd rail and shoe wear especially with higher current draw on new units) and the potential for short units that stop to get "gapped" and hence stuck till rescued (single cl 456 operation being prohibited in parts of SWT land for this reason as the effective gap is longer than the unit). High speed, points and 3rd rail also don't mix and the BML has much more frequent junctions that the higher speed sections of the SWML.
Hence 90mph has been found to be a more practicable limit of 3rd rail on NR's Kent and Sussex routes.
[The world speed record for 3rd rail is 108mph which was I think on the SWML in 1988 when 442s were "new" and being tested.]
“Given that generally only three trains a day actually depart from platform 1 this seems like a certain amount of overkill, founded either on paranoia concerning single lead junctions or expectation of more trains in future.”
When Gatwick’s station was closed for rebuilding a couple of Christmases ago, East Grinstead used instead with buses linking (in the freezing cold rain) to Three Bridges.
@Anomnibus
“Now, power is supplied to railways as AC which can be transmitted over long distances very efficiently. But 3rd-rail trains need that converted to DC and that process is absolutely not 100% efficient. ”
All electric trains need conversion from AC to DC – the only question is whether this is done on board or on shore. And the economics of that depend on the number of substations compared with the number of trains – the higher the density of trains on the track, the more favourable a DC supply becomes, although as onboard equipment has become lighter and more reliable, the balance point has shifted further towards AC.
As a standalone scheme, Uckfield would undoubtedly be ac. But it would be connected to dc at both ends. Unlike at, say, Farringdon, a train that couldn’t switch to from ac to dc at Oxted or Lewes would be stranded.
@Anomnibus…..But in placing an effective moratorium on 3rd rail infill electrification (which really only affects the Uckfield line, the Marshlink line and the non-electrified bits of the North Downs line…..hardly a huge network, relatively speaking), aren’t NR just making a rod for their own back?
Yes, 25kV is a better choice overall if you’re starting from scratch…..but in the ex-SR region, we’re not though, are we? Do NR seriously think that when the time comes to renew the electrical infrastructure, they can just string up the wires and rip out what’s there already? People say that it would be cheaper, but I’m not so sure about that. Considering the amount of bridge/tunnel clearance work and associated service disruption (not to mention possible objections to new overhead masts on a route that is already electrified with something that is not visually intrusive), I still think it would be better for NR to accept what is already there and renew the third rail electrical infrastructure when the time comes.
Otherwise, all they’re doing is indefinitely postponing a decision about electrifying these remaining lines in the ex-SR area until they make up their minds regarding third-rail renewal vs OHLE conversion. Which surely can’t be a good thing in the long term (running and maintaining those diesel units, which happen to spend a considerable portion of time running on electrified track, must be incredibly wasteful both financially and environmentally).
Re Kate,
2minutes is about right for an electric unit with 30s dwell times and only reaching 40-50mph between stops.
How would you run a fast Lewes – Uckfield – Oxted – East Croydon service without it getting “stuck” behind a stopping services at existing frequencies?
@ngh….Those are very interesting insights into the difficulty of high speed operation using third-rail. But given the relatively short distances between London and the Sussex / Kent Coasts, isn’t 90mph enough? Perhaps more effort should be given to increasing line speeds to this limit, wherever possible.
One question though….has there been *any* new engineering developments over the last 20 years allowing higher speed and/or more efficient operation using third-rail electrification? One would hope that some progress had been made, given how much of it we have in this country!
Timbeau, yes EMT run Meridians in multiple.
Kate – you *could* run a fast service from Uckfield to Croydon in 45minutes, indeed the empties beat that every morning. But to do that in service means missing out stops of course, and that gets the locals excited. We know you can’t run more frequent trains on the line without redoubling, and also without sorting out Croydon / Windmill Bridge. And as PoP says, when the latter is done, it is likely there is far greater demand elsewhere to be satisfied by that extra capacity.
The trouble with reopening Uckfield – Lewes (or Lewes – Uckfield depending on your point of view) is that it doesn’t serve anywhere new to the rail network – almost every other reopening in this country has done that. If East Sussex CC / Wealden District Council were to suggest building a new town with several thousand new homes in it somewhere between the two, no doubt a case could be made. It is precisely this sort of link to redevelopment / regeneration that has enabled (and in some cases helped pay for) most other re openings in the past decade, eg Ebbw Vale, Larkhall, Borders, Alloa, Airdrie – Bathgate, Aylesbury Vale, East-West Rail, Corby. Campaigners for reopening would do well to bear this in mind.
timbeau
re-opening to Lewes is a classic example of a solution looking for a problem
Disagree … this is an possible attempt to correct a disastrous mistake ( or part of one, at any rate)
In SE England, there was a group of Marples/Beeching closures that were always extremely problematic & controversial.
Needless to say, those are areas where population has since increased, re-opening therefore becomes more difficult & expensive &, most importantly, road congestion becomes horrendous.
Guildford – Horsham, 3 Bridges – Tun-Wells & Uckfield-Lewes.
We are discussing the last of these.
I think a 3rd-rail + small amount of re-doubling of the last, via the “Hamsey curve” would be surprisingly viable ….
The parallel, as Ian J has said is “Borders Railway”. – housing + local road transport.
We also have to remember that, so far, every single re-opening or “new” service has over-provided itself with passengers & custom, exceeding the “official” figures used, which should tell you something.
Re Timbeau,
And then all DC then needs to be converted back to variable frequency AC but that is a different story…
The current (and that of the last 50+ years*) economics say that the higher the density of trains on the track particularly if they are larger, longer, stop everywhere and mostly operate not in old tunnels (e.g. NR land) than you need AC OHLE to deliver the amount of power required. The post privatisation Alstom**, Bombardier and Siemens 3rd rail units south of the Thames all have software current draw limits that are between 55% and 72% of the AC current draw limits due to the inability of DC power supplies to provide the amount of total power required even after recent and future upgrade in including bigger national Grid Supply point connections at New Cross and Wimbledon the supply most of the inner network. (e.g. limited number of 12car trains on suburban SE services).
[Rail uses just over 3TWh of electricity p.a.]
The max acceleration of current units on AC or DC is very similar up to 25mph but above that AC has much better. I.e. AC makes the biggest difference if you have lots of stops and get to 50mph between them (and lots of trains running…)
Hence if you have 2 track railway with mixed stopping patterns you really need 25KV OHLE to get the maximum out of the rest of the infrastructure and rolling stock (can compensate for dwell time issues).
* See SNCF 3rd rail to OHLE conversion on suburban routes in 1960s and 1970s as the real tipping point for conversion economics. The increasing efficiency (inc mass reduction) of on board electronics has made AC even more efficient economically in the last 20 years include even more in the last few years (see SiC traction electronic being trialled in service in Japan etc.) Also see 1955 BTC report recommending 25kv OHLE on all new electrification schemes on technical and economic grounds!
**The SWT 458/5 conversion programme is actually removing traction motors from cars and regearing the the remaining ones as there isn’t enough power available (which works nicely until one motor is isolated and the unit can’t keep to time any more! – also partly due to the way the current limiting software works and is configured as it is effectively capped per set of traction electronics resulting in other motors not being able to be supplied with more power to compensate when one of the others is out of action).
When I look at the Uckfield line (rather than the East Grinstead section) I can’t help thinking that it is great, great shame that we don’t have a off-the-shelf automated solution to lines like this.
I know that the general consensus here doesn’t like the DLR (“toy trains” being one response), but it does have many advantages that would be highly suitable here.
Fully automatic services could operate one single-track rails with passing places with complete confidence and safety: the number of trains per hour could be increased making the railway more useful to the people of Kent and East Sussex.
An automatic railway could also be a cheaper solution to link Uckfield up with Lewes too.
A DLR-style system could also be operated at low cost: with no drivers and centrally operated CCTV monitoring for all the stations, the service could run often and safely. Yes, the power issue would still need addressing.
Given the noted lack of paths north of East Croydon, having a Two-County-LR service ending there would provide good access to London destinations.
It might them be possible to mix express Thameslink services going from East Grinstead to Oxted using one of the existing pairs of rails and the County-LR using the other making the best possible use of the existing rails.
In effect this line needs to become a trailblazer for automatic rural railways! If it could work here there are many other parts of the UK where such services could be fiscally effective.
Sad Fat Dad says “almost every other reopening in this country has done that [served somewhere new to the rail network]“.
True, but the Croxley link will not. However, I don’t think that invalidates your point at all, for various reasons, including the fact that it is not built yet, and there are alternative justifications for it.
Greg says “so far, every single re-opening or “new” service has over-provided itself with passengers & custom“.
Indeed. But every single re-opening or “new” service has been done with the support of railway professionals and the people who provide the money. No scheme rejected by railway professionals has succeeded*, so history provides no evidence as to what might happen if such a scheme were implemented.
* (Obviously, pressure groups can assert that their scheme would have succeeded, if only it had been built, but there is no proof).
Re Timbeau et al,
Looking at an old NR presentation to IMechE from 2012 (can’t find on line currently), conversion from DC to AC makes sense if you have more than 4 stops (30 second timings used on NR issue? As small gains aren’t big enough to make difference in 30s increments or pathing issues?) and above that the time saving is circa 30s per stop vs DC. (Modelling assuming max 60mph line speed on SWML slow lines and branches).
AC therefore reduces the gap between Stopping and Semi-Fast and Fast Services so it is easier to make more stops of fast services as there is less time penalty and the stopping services are also faster so there is less benefit to a fast service.
Malcolm, point taken, although arguably there is a whole swathe of West Watford that the Croxley link helps to regenerate. Hence the significant proposals for the Watford General Hospital site and surrounding area.
Re Malcolm,
But Croxley will be on the underground rather than have National Rail services on re-opening so is potentially different to all the other examples…
@Briantist – and the cost? and the demand? Adopting a whizzy technical solution that saves little if any money doesn’t turn the proverbial pig’s ear into a silk purse.
@Greg T – sometimes you may be right, sometimes you may be wrong, but there have really been so few re-openings that your generalisation is, err, difficult to verify, doubly so, given the general background of a substantial rise in traffic across the country. The re-openings that have been successes have almost all (all?) been concerned with adding new settlements (Corby, Mansfield) to the network, and substantial settlements at that. Uckfield-Lewes doesn’t do that; as has been pointed out just above, you really need a very large (say 25000+) new settlement between the two existing stations – where is that?
It’s a myth that every single opening / reopening has exceeded its demand forecasts.
What is true is that the Sponsors of every single opening / reopening that has exceeded demand forecasts has publicised that fact, whilst those that haven’t, err, haven’t. Which is hardly surprising.
There a PhD thesis in there somewhere to compare forecast vs actual demand for new bits of railway (including stations) and isolate the reasons for variance. This would give a very clear indication of the factors necessary for success.
PRecedent
In the 1930’s it was decided to electify the Wirral lines of the Wirral Railway as was …
The consensus then was for 1.5kV DC OHLE & several years were wasted on insisting on this – whilst there was already a DC low voltage ( 660? ) DC end-on – the pre-existing Mersey Railway.
Finally, sense broke out & a consistent one-voltage scheme was adopted.
I suggest that this is highly relevant.
NO MORE 3rd rail outside existing large boundaries ( i. Salisbury or Basingstoke if going W (?) should be the limit) but for “Infill”, then use existing – it’s going to be so much simpler & cheaper.
So even if Uckfield to Lewes was reopened, journey times would be little better than the existing services, and there would no new communities served. So where is the traffic going to come from to pay for this project ?
With the Great Western electrication sucking up all of NR’s money at the moment, causing all other major national rail projects to be significantly delayed (and possibly descoped), there just isn’t the business case here for this project to go ahead anytime soon. The only way forward today would be for political reasons – how marginal are the seats in the area covered by this line ?
Just to clarify on the 90mph limit thing. When I referred to “the 90mph ultimate limit that is generally applied” I meant ultimate in the sense of once other speed restrictions due to track, signal sighting etc were eliminated. And I said “generally applied” because, as far as I am aware, this is now the limit although there may still be exceptions on South Western. Meanwhile with mods to Siemens class 350s the limit of overhead pickup for convention multiple units outer-suburban units seems now be 110mph. Possibly not relevant but it depends on what you are proposing.
Since I wrote this, the Hendy report has mentioned the Electric Spine – but only once. Nevertheless it suggests CP6 for implemention. If this happens and is successful I would suggest that third rail for the Uckfield line would be an absolute non-starter.
Kate,
a fast electric from Lewes to East Croydon via Oxted might even be as quick as the current route.
Entirely agree, or even faster. One could have 110 mph double track railway with some passing loops. You still have a to fit the trains in between
OxtedHurst Green and South Croydon Junction (or Croydon Gateway!). If there were a good reason for having a fast line from South Croydon to Lewes then it could probably be done. It would have to be a very good reason though to justify the cost and make the BCR worthwhile.Greg,
If British Rail hadn’t have closed the line when they did then we as taxpayers would have had about 50 years of subsidising a little used line with very little purpose for most, if not all, of that 50 years. More sensible is the idea of closing the line and safeguarding the track which in practice is what has more or less happened – admittedly more by luck than anything else. Sadly the direct route to Brighton has been built on but this is understandable given the need for better road links and housing in a town that is severely constrained by geography.
Briantist,
I think your really don’t appreciate the economics of automated train operation which is generally only worthwhile on intensively used lines to increase capacity. The extra cost in staff to maintain the equipment along 25 miles of track alone would probably offset any other benefits.
Crudely, approximately 1 million passenger journeys from Hurst Green (exclusive) to Uckfield per annum. Even if you assume each journey generates £15 million of revenue – a very generous assumption – the economics of the line do not stack up. If you double the numbers and double the revenue then you have £15 million to play with which isn’t much. You could argue social benefit of those additional journeys but I suspect this would be very limited. £15 million buys very little ATO. The Hurst Green – Uckfield section is longer than the Jubilee line where the cost of ATO was phenomenal. And the railway works perfectly well as it is. ATO isn’t solving anything.
All re housing etc.
I think from the comments given than most people seem to agree that it is a case of never say never. The thing is that looking at this from a transport perspective is entirely the wrong approach. Either you reopen the line because of localised major development, probably involving housing, in East Sussex (e.g. greatly expand Uckfield) or because something else in plans for the Brighton Main Line involves something sufficiently substantial to justify sending trains to Lewes via the Uckfield line rather than via Gatwick. We have not yet seen such a reason and remember it has to be good enough to be a cheaper or better solution than Network Rail’s upgrade of the Brighton Main Line.
@Anomnibus
The parallel lines on either side of the valley at Upper Warlingham/Whyeleafe have always looked ripe for some sort of rationalisation, if only to reduce the number of junctions between East Croydon and Stoats Nest. However, there doesn’t appear to be an easy answer which doesn’t involve cutting off Caterham or building a new tunnel from there to Oxted, or a dirty great viaduct across the valley.
Similar considerations apply in the Blackwater Valley, served by two parallel lines – only one of which is electrified – neither of which have a direct service to London
@ngh
“And then all DC then needs to be converted back to variable frequency AC but that is a different story…”
Not all DC – in fact AC traction motors are a fairly recent innovation – GTO circuitry only started to become practical in the 1980s and there are still many trains around using dc motors.
@PoP
“something sufficiently substantial to justify sending trains to Lewes via the Uckfield line rather than via Gatwick. ”
Expansion of Gatwick Airport itself? If more capacity is needed between Gatwick and London, some traffic to London from further south might have to be squeezed out (same argument as for why HS2 would allow more services to Milton Keynes)
But bypassing Gatwick is not enough, if everything still piles into a bottleneck at Croydon.
Sad Fat Dad,
Well two obvious examples spring to mind. Eurostar is the main one and this costly wrong prediction would probably more than offset the correct predictions of all other schemes combined. We need not go into the reasons it turned out to be so wrong – the fact is for whatever reason they were wrong.
The other is Croydon Tramlink where ridership was predicted at 24 million per annum shortly after opening. It took a long while to reach that figure and even then it relied on differential fares with buses being removed (not part of the plan) and subsequent free travel for schoolchildren being intoduced as a political measure. If one breaks it down by branch then it, arguably, looks worse with the New Addington branch even having a slightly reduced service implemented – though of course they got the Wimbledon branch massively wrong too but in the other direction (and of course this is the one that got all the publicity).
Today that figure is easily exceeded (c 30m) but that has only happened in recent years.
@timbeau – more capacity for Gatex (if you really must)? Simples – double the train lengths. Job done.
timbeau,
Expansion of Gatwick itself would be the obvious one but even then I suspect Network Rail will claim they can confidently handle that with other, cheaper measures. I suspect it would take more than just the expansion of Gatwick although that is an obvious potential factor.
Re timbeau,
“@ngh
“And then all DC then needs to be converted back to variable frequency AC but that is a different story…”
Not all DC – in fact AC traction motors are a fairly recent innovation – GTO circuitry only started to become practical in the 1980s and there are still many trains around using dc motors.”
Indeed but it will on any stock in service by the time anything would happen on Uckfield electrification and it already happens on all stock used on East Grinstead services. The remaining DC traction motor stock will be gone by the end of the following management contract (or franchise).
Re Graham H,
“More capacity for Gatex (if you really must)? Simples – double the train lengths. Job done.”
So 16 or 24 car on GatEx then? As the peak services will be split fairly evenly 8/12car after the introduction of the 387/2s shortly.
Expansion of Gatwick may change NR’s priorities, but not, I suspect, as much as one might think. The southern Home Counties have poor orbital connections, with their rail networks being almost entirely radial. That means, while Gatwick is well connected to Brighton and London, it’s a pain to get to by rail from almost anywhere further east or west. There’s a service via Reading, but it’s hardly a turn-up-and-go option.
Most airport users tend to arrive by road, not rail, simply because it’s often the quickest way to get there, and the most convenient too. Especially if you’re travelling with family and / or hold luggage.
I suspect Gatwick’s station might gain some additional platforms to keep terminating services out of the way of through trains, but I don’t see what else Network Rail could do. Thameslink might reroute one of its branches (e.g. Tattenham Corner) to terminate at Gatwick instead, but that’s operations, not infrastructure, and has little to do with NR.
Anomnibus,
I can’t really see what point you are trying to make.
In any case, Gatwick currently has a generous provision of platforms (7 in all) with suitable facilities for terminating trains. This is especially true of the Gatwick Express.
There are plans for minor signalling and track improvements and there is a potential scheme for an eighth platform if really necessary.
There are also aspirations to have the Reading service reach Gatwick half-hourly – currently it is once an hour beyond Redhill. With a lot of infrastructure improvements the route to Redhill (from Brighton?) could be improved and support longer distance services e.g. Brighton-Oxford.
There have also been proposals to try to open up access to Gatwick from the east (e.g. Tonbridge via Gatwick). So far these have failed to show value for money.
The question is whether any or all of these ideas for extra services, if implemented, would be more than the main line can handle after suitable cost-effective updates.
Network Rail have also found the connection with the Bluebell useful on occasion — apparently it’s easier to transfer rail vehicles from low loaders at Sheffield Park than it is at their own facilities.
Regarding extending third rail electrification, ORR’s policy is worth a read. To quote from the summary: “There is a presumption against the reasonable practicability of new-build or extended DC third rail in view of the safety requirements duty holders must satisfy in order to justify the use of third rail.”
ISTM the difficulty in discussing these suburban rural branches is that we are ‘framing’ the question as one of ‘re-instatement’; PoP’s ‘yearning’. This misses the point that the world looks very different today; many more people, different travel patterns, etc.
Re Bearded Spotter,
Typical underground trains are circa half the length of a 12 car national rail service, (and geared for lower top speed) so the power consumption/train is lower. The new Vic line stock was/is* software limited to 2.2MW where as 12 car 377 can take 3.6MW. Peak power wise 36tph on the Victoria line is broadly equivalent to 22tph in NR terms.
*Subject to power supply upgrade they could take 3.4MW (upping to 750V and increased max current draw) not sure what the status is on those upgrades. At introduction ’09 stock was limited to 78% of max current draw (3500A vs 4500A).
@ngh
the use of variable-frequency ac traction motors is not relevant to whether the power supply is ac or dc, as the control circuitry requires a dc supply (otherwise the 50Hz signal interferes with the frequency at which you are trying to turn the motor). Thus even if you have ac in the OHLE, and ac in the motors, there will be dc at some point in between.
The Bluebell’s extension was much more to do with getting people there, rather than trains – East Grinstead has more local population, and better transport links to the outside world, than Horsted Keynes or Sheffield Park. The physical connection is a bonus, but it would not have been worth extending on that account alone.
The best illustration of that is the Festiniog’s extension from Ddault to Blaenau Ffestiniog back in the 1970s. This was a major undertaking because of the need to build most of it on a new alignment, but considered worthwhile – despite the break of gauge meaning there is no prospect whatsoever of through running!
@Anomnibus 0705
“Class 442………. have few of the big power drains that modern commuter trains have, like multiple sliding electric doors on each side”;
They do, unlike their close relations the HSTs, have power-operated plug doors
“you can’t ram them to crush loads remotely comparable with, say, an 8-car District Line train.”
There have been no 8-car trains on the District Line since 1971!
@ngh
“Typical underground trains are circa half the length of a 12 car national rail service, (and geared for lower top speed) so the power consumption/train is lower. ”
Indeed the installed power is less, but they are using it more often because of the frequent starts and stops. They are also running at closer headways. Consequently, the amount of power that has to be fed into the system is greater. (Regenerative braking helps, of course) . This is, I thought, the point you were making when you said “due to the inability of DC power supplies to provide the amount of total power required even after recent and future upgrade”. The limitation is the rate at which you can deliver energy into the system, not the rate at which the trains can draw it out.
If I were a Brighton commuter – which I am not – I would not view with much enthusiasm a “fast” train that takes a scenic tour of the Sussex/Kent/Surrey border and takes no quicker than today. If – and it is a big if – more capacity between Brighton and London is needed, then I suspect some bold thinking – and even bolder spending to match – would be needed. Perhaps a whole new long length of line. Not so much BML2 as HS-BML. With all of the other HSn’s and Crossrail-n’s already in the queue for government dosh, I am not sure this boldness will see much daylight
Re timbeau,
“The limitation is the rate at which you can deliver energy into the system, not the rate at which the trains can draw it out.”
3rd/4th rail has the limitation in all busy places!
This is the fundamental difference between DC 3rd rail which is effectively limited by rate of current input and a modern autotransformer (AT) AC system (effectively 50KV input to guarantee local delivery of a relatively stable 25KV at the pantograph) where the current draw will be max of circa 225A for train (11car 390 on WCML)
Indeed though I might add “transmit through the system” e.g. conductor rails as well unless you have a local power supply every 2-3 train lengths to be comparable with AT systems (in comparative voltage drop terms etc).
On LU the network distances are shorter and they now use aluminium conductor rails to reduce resistive losses along with increasing the supply voltage to 750V when they can at some point. (NR are doing similar with heavier section steel conductor rail used at replacement).
With the Northern line post signalling upgrade you can really feel when the traction motors come on and off as it is a lot more binary than with a human driver, you then realise the installed power isn’t used for that long overall. A clever timetable /signalling system might try to even out max power draw off peak?
When I first read “effectively 50KV input to guarantee local delivery of a relatively stable 25KV at the pantograph)” I thought “What? 50% of the power is lost in getting it to the train!”. But of course this is nonsense, because most of that voltage drop is caused not by resistive losses (which would make for incandescent overhead wires!), but by other kinds of impedance, which drop volts but not watts. Moral: it requires knowledge somewhat above the “Boy Electrician” level to understand this stuff.
@ngh – well, if 5 car sets satisfied demand from Gatwick until very recently (and probably still would), 10s should do nicely, probably for ever…
@Tim Burns – yes, Brighton although an important station in terms of volume relatively – see my recent post on the preceding thread, doesn’t generate the sort of money that would support financially really substantial investment. Would heavy investment generate sufficient economic benefits? Some how, I doubt it – time savings aren’t worth what they were (HS2 passim) and agglomeration benefit, whilst useful, may imply a Brighton that none of the planners and present inhabitants would recognise. That leaves quality improvements, and, sadly, people don’t appear to want to actually pay much for the relief of overcrowding. Oh, and there’s shinyness – not going to cut it when the leading Brighton MP is a Green.
Re Malcolm,
+ve and -ve 25KV supplies (max PD of 50KV) to enable 25kv on the contact wire to be maintained by local auto transformers. Some similarities with the 240V to 110V (or rather +/-55V) transformers used in building site power supplies except done in reverse on the railway (+/-25kv to create an actual 25kv post losses at point of use).
The porosed BML AC conversion would have been 3 AC feeds (near Purley Oaks, Gatwick and Haywards) with 4 autotransformers in “gaps” near Stoats Nest – Merstham area, Redhill, Balcombe & Hassocks)
Re Graham H,
Except soon half of them will be Brighton Expresses with a stop at Gatwick…
(I wonder if any arrivals at Gatwick in the am peak will be able to get on one?)
@ngh Thanks for that. I now understand it a little better; it is nothing to do with the “other kinds of impedence” which I imagined, just a way of getting the power to the train at a lower capital cost.
@ngh – well – to be persistent, you can still go to 12s throughout the hour – delivers 48 cars per hour, compared with the post December position of 34/hr – a third increase. (Actually a lot more because of the lack of dedication).
Uckfield – Lewes, as a very basic local single track railway with passing loops, could work well unelectrified using Vivarail D-Trains converted from London’s old D78 stock (trying to keep it London related!). On Southern territory these units might retain 3rd rail pickup to become a flexible bi-mode IPMU (independantly powered multiple unit), also useful for Ashford- Hastings and elsewhere perhaps. To the north these local trains might terminate at Tunbridge Wells West in an extra platform, so heritage operations could continue to run on the same track to Eridge in the long margins between hourly Brighton trains. London trains could continue to terminate at Uckfield or every other one could project south, also as a stopper, so providing a 30 min. Brighton – Uckfield – Eridge all stations frequency. The electro-diesel bimode configuration might also be a useful templete for renewal of the main line rolling stock eventually, avoiding the electrification issue altogether, whilst releasing some DMUs for use elsewhere. Bi-modes could switch off their engines at Hurst Green for a DC powered run to either London Bridge or Victoria. As a locally focused service it is particularly important the Uckfield trains can reach the major activity centres of Falmer and Brighton, but better by means of a lower cost surface loop connection at Lewes (the ‘Horseshoe’ as Railfuture calls it) than by the expensive fast BML2 bypass tunnel. Importantly the loop option allows Uckfield- Brighton trains to serve Lewes station, with its connections to Newhaven and Eastbourne etc.
As a single line and unelectrified, it would be of little use as a capacity relief for the Brighton line but does nevertheless offer an (albeit limited capacity) alternative direct route perhaps useful for diversions if there were major problems on the main line, or planned closures at weekends, not that it could ever be justified on those grounds alone.
A local (almost ‘light’) railway character, where trains all stop at all stations could be important in making the case to reinstate some of the level crossings in the vicinity of the stations along the route, and that could be very important in containing costs and opposition for a local service based scheme. Either OD (obstacle detector) monitored full barrier crossings could be used with little risk, or the locally monitored half barrier variety might be appropriate. The latter type are observed to be clear by the train driver before crossing at low speed on entering a station or just before departure on exit (no different to tram crossings really). That wouldn’t add to journey time for the stopping trains, but locally monitored does mean diverted non stoppers would be subject to the same necessarily low approach speed limits and any stop and proceed rules associated with these crossings.
Could the battery packs being developed for buses be fitted to trains, and third rail/overhead/regenerative braking energy all be passed through the battery pack, so the external power is much smoothed as it trickle feeds the battery rather than surges on acceleration/braking?
Mark: Some interesting thoughts there. But of course, like any other “light railway”, it would be very hard to make a financial case, as what it offers could probably be provided much more cheaply by a bus service, particularly if some of the money not spent on rails and level crossings was (shock horror!) used for selected road improvements in the area.
@Mark Townend – all of which is true but does nothing to justify the re-opening in the first place. Basically, what you are creating is another country branch line (in this case with two quite small settlements at either end and not much in between) and we all know the economics of those. As a rule of thumb, the capital costs (including financing costs ) amount to about 50-60% of all the costs of rural lines. and rolling stock is usually another 20-30% of the rest. That means that economising on operations doesn’t shave much off the costs nor does cheaper rolling stock. [It was a common ministerial fallacy that cheap trains – aka Pacers – would transform the economics of rural railway operation and nothing would persuade them otherwise, particularly as they faced a steady stream of inventors who had just the thing… Since the railways were recapitalised on privatisation, the issue has become even less relevant as infrastructure now looms so large in the balance sheet. Think back to the days of the pre-1923 companies and how they bought out the little branch line companies for a shilling in the pound – writing down the capital was the only way to make the thing seem to pay* – until proper accounting controls ran that over…]
A BOFP suggests that re-opening just that section will cost £150m or so to include the infrastructure, additional stock, new stations and any associated works; of this, £100-120m would be infrastructure, whose carrying cost will be about 20-25m; stock and ops might add another 5-10m to that – say £30m in round numbers. That sounds like fares to be raised from around 75-100m passenger miles pa at the usual sort of current fares. Turning that into journeys, say 10m journeys pa = 30 000 daily trips (15000 return trips). Do we really believe that the entire population of Uckfield and Lewes are going to make weekly trips by train to see each other? [Note that’s in addition to the trips they are making now by train].
*Nowadays, we’d say they were planning to go bust, and so they were.
This Christmas/New Year, the main line is partly closed. Gatwick passengers can go via Dorking and Horsham with a reversal. Brighton passengers have to go via East Grinstead then a bus to Three Bridges then a further train. If Uckfield to Lewes had never been closed they would have been going that way. Even with a change or reversal at Lewes, that would surely be preferable. I think the argument that had the line not been closed we would have been subsidising the route to serve nowhere for fifty years is a bit dubious. It was not a Beeching target, it was to make way for a road that was never built and BR had plans to reroute it which fell foul of the inevitable cash constraints. It might have kept the double track, it might have been electrified, and the important Tunbridge Wells to Brighton flow might not have been lost, but as soon as it became a stub at Uckfield for good the whole thing became a liability. The same claim could be made about the Dorking to Horsham route but that has proved its usefulness on many occasions. And logistically, it doesn’t strike me as a problem. Drivers could simply sign on to Lewes (just as plenty sign between Dorking and Horsham without signing Purley to Horsham) and the trains could terminate in the siding there if necessary. But the link to the coastway would be there. With 3rd rail electrification the common pool of stock can be used and it becomes no less flexible than any other route. I do feel that the route is in the unfortunate position that had its closure not occurred it would not have been necessary to bring it about.
@GTR Driver – yes, but the cost of re-opening it for its diversionary value is close to zero. The punters would not pay what would probably be double the present London-Brighton fares just to avoid the sort of country bus rides you describe. For the same money as the annualisesd cost of BML2, as I pointed out in the preceding episode of this series, you could keep a fleet of 2-3000 taxis on permanent standby. Of course, the punters don’t like replacement bus services (that’s why I’m taking the car to Oxford this weekend; the train would have been quicker, alas) but it’s no justification to spend such large sums, especially as keeping the line going when it’s not being used for diversions is likely to be expensive.
And yes, even if it hadn’t been closed, it would have required subsidy to keep it going. One of the (very) few advantages of privatisation is that it has enabled us to see how little of the railway actually covers its full costs. Pre-privatisation, there was a vast hidden cost which was the value being stripped daily out of the business by running down the assets (especially the track and infrastructure); this was not covered by the subsidy then paid to BR. There is absolutely no reason to think that Uckfield-Lewes would somehow have been an outstandingly different performer to the rest of, say, the London commuter network, which lost money hand over fist until the ’90s..
“you could keep a fleet of 2-3000 taxis on permanent standby” – famously, there was a station manager at Brighton in the ’80s who did just that (on a smaller scale), until he was found out and sacked.
If you look at Uckfield – Lewis dispassionately there is a whole list of more worthy schemes ahead of the queue. If you take a view from the locals, compared to the majority of the South East, then the Sussex/ Kent border gets a very bad deal – Hastings Line, Marshlink Line and Uckfield Branch. It is this sense injustice which fuels vocal campaigns. Brighton’s economy is relatively overheating, this is the primary goal of any reopening (particularly housing). As the numbers are “challenged”, then searching for additional justification drives further costs and debate.
Unless something radical happens like a garden city at Isfield and further expansion of Uckfield, I can’t see where the money or passengers will come. Hever and Cowden add very little; being controversial should close. Ashurst and Eridge should become proper parkways. Reconnecting the Spa line to Tunbridge Wells station is not easy, but a Brighton-Tunbridge (West) service have a better chance today. Collectively this with some other direct source money could tip the case for Uckfield – Lewis in isolation. Electrification surely is a CP7+ priority. I’m not sure this is an outcome that the good people of Wealdon would find palatable.
From a London perspective running short formed diesel trains along capacity constrained routes into major termini does not make a lot of sense.
On the East Grinstead route. The number of 8-car Thameslink services really depresses me, why did NR fail to extend the platforms that little bit further to fit 12-car? (The restrictions on bottom of MML will evolve with Brent Cross; which really leaves Kentish Town as the true northern blocker)
If Bakerloo does go to Hayes then this practically kills off BML2. Personally trying to fit fast and metro services through 6 stations has always been a non-starter on this branch. I hold the suspicion that the recent consultation was in part a defensive move in this direction.
And interestingly, if this winter’s closures had been seen in a crystal ball 50 years ago, and people wished to arrange for their children and grandchildren to eschew buses, instead of keeping open Uckfield-Lewes, they could have retained East Grinstead to Three Bridges!
In which case why hasn’t privatisation resulted in closures of all routes requiring subsidies? Why don’t we taxstitute services full time? Why don’t we close all the little used country roads if the locals can’t cover all the costs out of their council tax? Presumably because we have to consider the wider society. Such as that one of the findings after the Beeching massacre was to find that if you chopped an unprofitable route you also as an unintended consequence lost some of the more valuable through traffic. no Uckfield to Lewes leads to no Tunbridge Wells to Brighton, so in the end, no Tunbridge Wells to Eridge, then Hurst Green to Uckfield starts to look unviable too. And in the process, you make life more difficult when the main line starts to creak. Repeating the mantra of unjustifiable cost to another stranded punter whose season ticket has just gone up again with, as they see it, no prospect of improvement, does represent something of the gulf I see on the railway between its management and its customers.
There have been a couple of mentions of Tunbridge Wells to Brighton. Is there any evidence that a worthwhile number of people want to make this particular journey? It may be my limited imagination, but I can’t think of any special reason why they should. If Disgruntled wants a trip to the seaside, what’s wrong with Hastings?
Maybe because Hastings is a depressed town and Brighton offers vibrant shopping, eating and nightlife AND a university, ie where lots of people seem to want to go for one reason and another.
@Saintsman: the smaller stations on the ECML (exactly the ones which will be served by Thameslink) are almost all 8-car; some of these cannot easily be extended.
@GTR Driver – there is absolutely no reason as to why the railway system is its present shape. It’s basically been left at the point where ministers concluded that they couldn’t stand the flak from any further closures. So, Bedford -Bletchley survived, Hornsea and Keswick didn’t. This was made plain to me by the then Permanent Secretary when I took over the Railways desk in 1985. “We pay the |Board £1bn; they promise not to rock the boat any more and take all the flak for poor service”. [We were all still recovering from the “crumbling edge of quality” just then].
You are right (1) in saying that a cost benefit approach would keep lines open, but not all of them, of course, and the results would be highly surprising – the most likely outcome would have been the collapse of the rural rail network altogether and massive subsidies to InterCity. And (2) logically, there should – as you say – have been a matching road closure programme – as some DTp colleagues argued. Most of the road traffic is concentrated on about 30% of the network. About 10-20% of the 100 000 or so miles of public roads sees virtually no traffic, even these days, and yet is expensively maintained. A visit to the wilds of Northumberland or Lincolnshire would demonstrate the point. One doesn’t need to be heavyweight political analyst to see why that didn’t happen.
Yes, of course, the punters don’t like to be mucked about with bus replacement services but often the selfsame punters rail against higher taxes and waste. Don’t expect them to be rational. As public servants we just smile wearily and move on. These financial hoops are there for your – and their – protection – were it not so, then every stupid pork barrel scheme would be built depending on the volume of political noise. Humber Bridge anyone? Or another helping of TSR2 perhaps? {With apologies to the moderators – I emphatically didn’t want to start a diversionary route on silly schemes with no financial justification and no one should seize the opportunity to cite their favourite daftness].
Good points from GTR Driver @1752. The explanation on the Southern website is
“The project at Purley, which replaces a major railway junction, will sever the main line meaning major changes to trains to Gatwick Airport from London, and Coastal services to London from 10pm on Christmas Eve until 4am on Monday 4th January. As a result, during this period there will be no trains between South Croydon and Redhill, and the Gatwick Express service will be suspended.”
Although irrelevant in the hard world of engineering efficiency, from an aesthetic point of view, third rail beats OHLE every time. Mile after mile of upright girders supporting ‘knitting’ despoil the countryside much more than a barely-noticeable extra rail.
What Ray said about the ugliness of overhead wiring. But when it comes to despoiling the countryside, the really disruptive things are the trains, especially if they are fast ones. Give us a nice empty little track with the occasional two-carriage push-pull steam train, about 3 times a day. Trouble is, that’s not very economic either…
Malcolm…a glance at the A26 at any time of day will show you that demand is there,for whatever reason or purpose.
Mainstream debate on Lewes-Uckfield seems to concentrate on (it seems to me) two straw-men…BML2 and its obvious shortcomings on the one hand,and the amount of potential traffic between two Sussex towns of no great size (Lewes and Uckfield) on the other,with brief diversions down the “diversionary route” line of thinking…when the real opportunity is for medium-distance connectivity along the A26 corridor.
This is touched upon in the article and subsequent comments but to me,it is the nub of the issue.
GTR Driver hits the nail on the head,and I do not understand why more is not made of this line of enquiry…the point of Lewes-Uckfield re-opening would be to enable people along the A26 axis to forgo their cars for at least some of their journeys.
In an ideal world,trains could also be run via the Spa line to Tunbridge Wells,Tonbridge and Medway enabling such short and medium journeys to be made comparatively easily….precisely the sort of orbital journeys that are fiendishly difficult by any mode at present…
There are stretches of the SWML cleared for 100mph eg DF Farnborough to Basingstoke, UF Basingstoke to Byfleet & New Haw including through P2 at Woking.
SWT may have had an all gangway fitted fleet before the arrival of the 456s (apart from when they had the Class 170s that went to TPE) but passengers are not allowed through the inter-unit gangways on Class 455s in normal service, nor were they allowed through them on Class 458s in their original 4 car incarnation.
@Slugabed – the M25 is busy too but no one would believe that it could be replaced with a railway “for part of the journey”. Many country roads have heavy traffic eg the A303, but replacing them with a train service would be wholly uneconomic. The trouble is that roads, even more than railways are used by “bundles of part journeys” just like the M25 – always busy, but with traffic making at best use of 90 degrees of the circuit on the way to somewhere else. Worse, experience (bitter) shows that people won’t, just won’t get out of their cars unless they have to. Fortunately for London, the prospects of driving there are sufficiently discouraging for most to abandon their cars at their nearest station; it’s difficult to see A26 O/D points having the same effect.
There may be some demand for orbital journeys but the numbers are likely to be very small in relation to the cost. Why, we cannot even justify financially or economically orbital railways in outer London, where the population is several orders of magnitude greater than any pair of settlements along the A26,so why should there be any sort of case for building between Lewes and Tunbridge Wells when we cannot justify building between, say, Croydon and Bromley?
Graham: Slugabed did not suggest “for part of the journey”. He suggested “for some of their journeys”. Altogether more plausible.
But, that misunderstanding apart, I tend to agree with you. But it’s quite difficult to demonstrate. Your Croydon-Bromley versus Brighton-Tunbridge example is complicated by the presumably vastly different capital costs involved. Journeys closer in to London (and thus with potentially sufficient demand) go through more expensive territory.
Orbital proposals using partly-pre-existing railway corridors have been often advanced – indeed Boris’ London ring is full of them. Some have succeeded, and are thriving bits of Overground. Some are well advanced (e.g. East West Rail). Others struggle to gain traction.
Still, to return to cynicism, if that particular reason for rejoining Uckfield to Lewes struggles, we could always go back to one of the others…
Malcolm @ 18:20: Since Three Bridges – East Grinstead was only ever single track, I think that even had it survived to the present day it would have been of limited use as a diversion.
It seems that there is a desire to load the cost of new rolling stock onto any new / re-opened railway. Historically they would never have had new stock.
Surely there should be a cascade of old stock to these new lines, there should be other cascaded stock every ten years or so as the busier lines demand more modern stock.
I recommend that coastway gets newer trains and the best of the forty year old class 313 ex NCL trains retire to the renewed sleepy Lewes – Oxted line until they reach the age of Island Line trains.
@Malcolm – you are correct and my apologies to readers; however, the material difference is not important. Thre will.ofcourse, always bepeople wanting to make journeys from Ipswich to Beford and Reading to Stevenage, but there aren’t too many of them.
I think it worth a recap on the arguments for re-opening L-U [Lewes-Uckfield. LBM]:
(1) a vital diversionary route – 3000 taxis say that’s a waste of money
(2) an alternative to BML1 – only for those who like “the slow train”
(3) a country branch line – well down the pecking order of country branch lines to be re-opened
(3a) a high tech cbl – not much cheaper than an ordinary cbl so far as you’d notice
(4) an orbital route – one that wouldmissmost of the obvious traffic generators in kent and Sussex, even if these megacities generating millions of journeys
(5) Somebody needs to work hard at 5.
Err, that’s it…
Graham: We could add (5) A proof of the adage that “the squeaky axle gets the most grease”
Kit refers to cascading rolling stock. Depending on your accounting conventions, if a re-opened line gets stock at the bottom of the cascade, it should still be charged for causing the cascade in the first place. Something taken off the shelf should be charged at the price of replacing it, not the price it cost 40 years earlier.
(And, arguably, older stock built when rules were less tight – e.g. no disabled toilets – has higher capacity and is more suited to the busy lines).
@POP
Quote
The Uckfield Line it is not really that busy south of Hurst Green. Numbers are boosted by users from Hurst Green and Oxted especially as the peak hour Uckfield trains run non-stop betweeen Oxted and East Croydon.
Unquote
I am probably being pedantic here, but off peak services to Uckfield are fast East Croydon / Oxted as well, not just peak ones, unless there has been an amendment not shown on the on-line timetables.
I would say there could well be a case for better service along rail routes that substitute for the M25 and the A303 – and more generally, the principle that if there’s a lot of road traffic between two points then it might be worth increasing rail provision between them is sound. Yes some road segments are just on the way between two places, but AIUI a substantial chunk of the M25 traffic is local too.
Since there’s been some talk about train lengths here, can I ask why 12-car seems to be treated as an upper limit? Indeed if I remember correctly Kings Cross has 15-car platforms that were intended to be shortened(?!) to 12-car. If e.g. the WCML London-Birmingham is as capacity-constrained as we’re told it is, why is it that we’re not talking about 15- or 20-car trains on those routes?
@LBM – Country Branch Line… [Thank you. LBM]
@Malcolm – I see we are going to have fun with 5! (LR might offer a small prize* for the most ingenious answer.)
*A ticket for the first public train on the re-opened L-U perhaps.
Steven Taylor,
off peak services to Uckfield are fast East Croydon / Oxted as well, not just peak ones
Not quite sure how I got that wrong especially as it is what I originally thought before checking. Maybe, embarrassingly, I misread the timetable. I have corrected the error in both places where I made it.
@Graham h
“Of course, the punters don’t like replacement bus services (that’s why I’m taking the car to Oxford this weekend;
You do know there are now two separate routes to Oxford?
@Graham H
I don’t think anyone would suggest that the reason for restoring L-U is to serve as a country branch line. AIUI, the traffic from the two closed stations en route is unlikely to be enough to reopen them. The main reason for restoration would be to (re)create a through route between the south coast and Sussex/Surrey (and Kent if you include the TW West line). IIRC, the main traffic from stations along the line prior to closure was towards the south coast, not London! And this despite the fact that most services terminated at Lewes, rather than continue to Brighton.
GTR Driver is absolutely right when he says that this and other 60s closures led to the loss of valuable through traffic (rather than drive to the nearest rail head, or use one of the bustitution services, people just drove all the way to their final destination). This, along with the running down of certain services, led to a chain reaction of decreasing traffic and revenue on the remaining lines, requiring increasing subsidy and in some cases leading to their closure as well (the TW West line is a classic example of this). So it’s no wonder people back then thought the railways had had their day…..it was a self-fulfilling prophecy!
And as for reason number 5…..may I suggest (provided the Croydon bottleneck is sorted out along the lines of PoP’s earlier articles) that a reopened L-U is used to provide a through service to Seaford/Newhaven from London by extending the current Uckfield terminators? A slow route to London for them would be better than no route at all! And a direct London service might stimulate development in these depressed towns, providing much needed housing (which is far less marketable when all you have is a shuttle to Brighton, even if it might actually be quicker to change trains at Lewes or Brighton….perception is key).
Can I expect my prize in the post any time soon then? ?
@timbeau….Except that the alternative route only takes you as far as the northern outskirts of Oxford at the moment (the connection into Oxford itself opens next year).
Re timbeau, Anomnibus…
I eventually found the presentation on the benefits of AC-DC conversion from 2012 mentioned earlier – note the map on p24 with East Grinstead and Uckfield routes being analysed as possible AC conversion/electrification targets. Much water under the bridge since then.
https://www.imeche.org/docs/default-source/events/Sir_Seymour_Biscoe_Tritton_Lecture-_DC_to_AC_Conversion_by_Steve_Yianni.pdf?sfvrsn=0
lmm raises an interesting question about perceived upper limits on train lengths. I would suggest that the ‘limit’ is actually 240 or 250 metres; there is probably no platform anywhere that will accommodate twelve 23-metre carriages. Typical carriage lengths may change again in the future, whereas metres are likely to remain constant.
Also, once E-W rail is up and running, the M25 will have a ‘rail relief line’ for at least half its route. In theory anyway, it will be possible to travel between Gatwick and Milton Keynes via a single change at Reading, avoiding London entirely.
@lmm/Anonymously – on the other hand, current useage of the Reading – Tonbridge route hardly supports the contention that it is some sort of alternative to the M25,particularly that section (Guildford-Gatwick) which most closely parallels the M25. In fact, the bulk of the traffic is either from the Blackwater Valley to Reading, or from west of Reading to Gatwick.That was one of the two pieces of argument that was used to transfer it to what became the FGW franchise. There was no evidence of people driving to, say, Redhill and boarding a train thence to, say, Guildford, nor indeed of significant numbers of people coming up from Portsmouth or Brighton to use the line to go somewhere offeither end.
@Greg T: The “righting an ancient injustice” argument never goes anywhere – the borders people were at it for decades without any effect until the housing developments came along. And you can hardly say Beeching lacked local knowledge.
The parallel, as Ian J has said is “Borders Railway”. – housing + local road transport.
But where is the new housing here? Would the local people who support reopening support it if it meant more housing along the route?
@Malcolm:
“almost every other reopening in this country has done that [served somewhere new to the rail network]“.
True, but the Croxley link will not.
The business case for the Croxley link is heavily dependent on the social and economic benefits of (re)adding West Watford to the rail network – it’s one of the most deprived areas in Hertfordshire and also home to a concentration of industrial-type employers.
No scheme rejected by railway professionals has succeeded
Did Borders have the full support of the railway professionals? It only became a Network Rail project fairly late in the piece.
@PoP: the Hendy report has mentioned the Electric Spine – but only once. Nevertheless it suggests CP6 for implementing
It suggests CP6 for development and implementation. This leaves open the possibility that the development process will find there is no business case, given that electrification costs for overhead AC have turned out to be about three times higher in practice than Network Rail (and ORR) thought they would be. Including it allowed Peter Hendy to say that “no scheme has been cancelled”.
On cascading rolling stock: remember it is all leased these days. So the capital cost (or lack of it) is irrelevant – you need to find a way of paying for leasing the stock from a ROSCO. Which means fare revenue (not going to happen here) or finding an organisation willing to pay X thousand pounds a year forever. Councils are skint and the government has just imposed a 25% cut on DfT ongoing funding. So that won’t happen either.
@Malcolm
” there is probably no platform anywhere that will accommodate twelve 23-metre [276 metres] carriages”
There are sixteen platforms in London (although only seven are in use) and a further four in Kent which can take trains 40% longer than that!
@timbeau: So there are! Perhaps it’s getting past my bedtime. (Possibly even more in Kent if you include Cheriton).
Ian J asks “Did Borders have the full support of the railway professionals? ”
Quite possibly not. But it must have eventually had some, however reluctant and tardy, or it could not have been built.
I was really making the rather Jesuitical point that railway professionals have ways of preventing a scheme from being successful, simply by preventing it from being built. No unbuilt scheme has yet succeeded. I was not claiming that railway professionals always get things right, nor of course that they are always (or even ever) unanimous.
But the discussion has moved on.
Someone earlier (John Elliot) mentioned that ORR doesn’t want any further third-rail electrification unless safety issues are addressed.
And yet looking at that NR presentation, it appears the reason why there is such a large difference in electrocution deaths between DC and AC lines is due to additional passenger and trespasser fatalities (for railway workers, it appears to be the same).
Given that passengers and trespassers shouldn’t be anywhere near the track (aside from at level crossings) in the first place, wouldn’t it be better for ORR to focus on measures to prevent this from happening (relevant for ALL railway lines, electrified or not!) rather than pointing the finger at the third rail?
@Anonymously, @Graham H
Unlike trying to drive through or anywhere near the centre, a cross London train journey from MK to Gatwick, although probably more expensive and overcrowded, will likely remain much quicker than the orbital route, which via Reading, is actually quite a long way round (over 30 miles further in fact). As has been suggested in the past, linking new EWR services directly across Reading to the Gatwick route might pick up some new MK, Bicester and Oxford to Wokingham, Farnborough and Guildford business but would probably not be attractive for longer journeys further around the ring. ‘Orbital’ links between nearby radial routes can be very useful, but outside the Overground ring in London, there’s little justification for actual orbital service patterns. Better to cover a outer M25 style rail ring ring, insofar as it exists, with various, perhaps partially overlapping route segments that can branch off the ring, as from Redhill to Gatwick, to make a useful link with a major traffic objective.
Anonymously asks “wouldn’t it be better for ORR to focus on measures to prevent this from happening?”.
In my opinion, not better. They should do both. Work to prevent incursion, yes. But, since some incursion is probably unpreventable (at achievable cost), they should also work to minimise the number of incursors who are killed.
@Anonymously, 28 November 2015 at 00:14
It could be argued that ORR policy of no new level crossings, other than in exceptional circumstances, together with NR’s strategy of progressive closure of existing ones (where possible) will slowly help to reduce the number of potential access points for trespassers. In my own experience, 3rd rail territory was a horrible working environment for those who duties take them onto the track when the rails are live. One is constantly aware that a simple mistake, a trip or fall, a misplaced tool, could so easily become a very serious incident.
“and remember it has to be good enough to be a cheaper or better solution than Network Rail’s upgrade of the Brighton Main Line.” – PoP
But a large part of my objection is that NR is not making that cost comparison because neither the Oxted upgrade has been properly costed nor has a complete set of upgrades for BML. We know NR have been truly crap at costing projects, particularly those on operational railways. Before NR start spending piecemeal on BML I would just like to see the two alternatives properly specced and costed.
If at that stage there is no case for upgrading the Oxted Line then fine. My objection isn’t that it isn’t being built but that, as a sensible option, it isn’t being properly appraised and that in each control period NR are doing what is cheapest in the short term without any clear sense (in published figures) how much more that may be costing tax payers in the long term by closing out other options.
For me this isn’t about the Oxted Line per se but is about NRs approach to strategic rail enhancement. I think maybe the whole issue of upgrades should be moved to a new organisation because NR inspire no confidence.
@Mark Townend….I completely understand your concerns. I just found it interesting that the statistics don’t seem to support this i.e. railway worker electrocution deaths on DC lines aren’t significantly different compared to AC lines. Which suggests that whatever safety precautions are in place for these workers seem to be working. Of course, that doesn’t change the *perception* of risk….you might also feel unsafe walking through a deserted park at night, even though statistically speaking the chances of anything happening are fairly remote. In any case, AC lines aren’t risk free either, due to the danger posed by arcing currents.
And as for incursors….call me hard-hearted, Malcolm, but I have little sympathy for those who consciously break the rules knowing full well the risks and potentially lethal consequences for themselves and others. Terrible for their friends and families, and very disruptive for the railway (I have had the misfortune of travelling on a train that hit a cyclist on a rural level crossing….I arrived at my ultimate destination 2 1/2 hours late). But ultimately, you can only do so much in the face of pure human stupidity.
As I said before, if the all the ex-SR lines were being electrified now, then 25kV AC would be the obvious choice. But thanks to the decisions made by the LSWR over a hundred years ago (subsequently followed by the SR), we’re stuck with third rail, and changing this is going to be hard and probably very expensive, due to all the overhead clearance work that will be required. And at a time when there are plenty of other unelectrified rail lines elsewhere in the country that would benefit from wiring up, and should take priority. Even the 1955 BTC report recognised this, and didn’t recommend 25kV AC for infill electrification on the Kent Coast etc, although one wonders what they might have said if dual voltage vehicles were available back then.
@Kate…..’I think maybe the whole issue of upgrades should be moved to a new organisation because NR inspire no confidence.’
Er, wasn’t that tried with the Strategic Rail Authority, which didn’t even outlast the same government that created it?! To this day, I am flummoxed by the whole saga of its creation and abolition, and why this happened…..
Kate @ 00:49
From the Hendy report, p. 4 While the vast majority of projects are being delivered on time and on budget, there are a small number of projects for which the forecast cost estimates are significantly higher than originally assumed, particularly the electrification projects and several projects where the scope was poorly defined at the outset.”
The work planned for the BML is specced and costed in the latest route study, and from the above, I would imagine that any historical estimate for cost of electrifying the Uckfield line to be “over optimistic”.
(2nd attempt after the first was eaten by Chrome and the internet)
Most of my thoughts when reading this article have already been mentioned, however
Does anyone know why Southern are sticking to the 2-car and 4-car formula? It seems to me that having 3 and 5 car units as well would allow 2 to 10 cars to form trains with a maximum of two units.
The long delayed NR electrification review will cover most of the options, but my thoughts are on the cost of a small number (five) of diesel locomotives that can push-pull Class 377 units between Edenbridge Town and Uxfield, so that at Edenbridge (away from the traffic on the East Grinstead line) the locomotive would be decoupled and further electric units attached. This would keep diesel trains out of London, but would 4 carriages be adequate for the traffic on this length of line?
This would mean works (signals, points, refuge for the locomotive) at Edenbridge, a short extension of the dc electrification from the junction, and additional electric trains to replace the Class 171s.
@Ian J -I agree entirely – the only reason I mentioned Guildford-Oxford was to address lmm’s point about the desirability of orbital railways to shadow the M25. Even in the one case where they do now, the results are hardly encouraging – for the reasons you state. For any orbital journey involving more than about 90 degrees of arc, the trip through the centre is usually more attractive in terms of time and frequency. There is also the problem of the end distribution of such orbital trips, where the total volumes get very low. [My actual journey was Milford (Surrey) to Botley (Oxford); the central part – Guildford to Oxford was reasonably quick, albeit with lousy changes at Reading*, and competitive with car times, but then I had to get to Guildford and at Oxford wait for COMS 4A up the hill to Botley. These were killers in terms of door to door times, and even though public transport is free for me, car was the better option.
All public transport depends on being able to bundle enough diverse journeys into a common trunk and for orbital journeys, the ttrip patterns are usually too diverse and low in volume to make that feasible. Of course, you could try for a grid pattern in the Swiss mode, as advocated by Jonathan Tyler and others, and that has its attractions, but it does depend crucially on (a) a wholly integrated planning and ticketing structure, which has never been achieved in the UK, and (b) it wastes a lot of capacity and assets at nodes.
@Kate -no one knows what BML2 will cost because no one knows what BML2 is. I don’t see that anyone other than its supporters is under any obligation to do the hard work of costing it. Even if it cost nothing, it would still be a waste of time as a relief to BML1 because it’s a longer way round. But then – who knows what BML2 is for?
*Back in the day, I did look briefly at extending the Reading-Gatwick service to Oxford, but the costs (then) of reinstating the flyunder at Reading and the likely volumes of extra traffic didn’t seem to add up.
@Graham H no.5 – would the Conservatives support the scheme if it would win back the Brighton Pavilion seat from the Greens ? Doesn’t seem likely that it would work anyway, and all the other seats in the area are already blue, but this is usually why pork barel schemes go ahead.
@Edgepedia….If you’re not going to electrify the whole line, why would you only electrify up to Edenbridge? Assuming your diesel push-pull idea is viable (and I’m not sure that it is), why not just couple and uncouple at Oxted? Pre-electrification, IIRC trains were loco-hauled to Oxted where they split before heading down the two branches, so the sidings and point work required for your idea to work might even still be there.
@Jim Cobb….I doubt it would make any difference one way or the other. Especially since Labour are probably the main challengers in that particular seat.
The one place where it may have made a difference is Lewes (and possibly Eastbourne), which they won back at the last election anyway. I have no idea what if anything the new MP is advocating, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they have been seduced by the BML2 snake oil salesmen….
@Edgepedia
“Does anyone know why Southern are sticking to the 2-car and 4-car formula? It seems to me that having 3 and 5 car units as well would allow 2 to 10 cars to form trains with a maximum of two units”
Southern does have 3-car 313s, 5-car 442s, and 377s in 3- 4- and 5-car sets. In the latter case, two units can form a train of any length from six to ten cars.
Its only remaining 2 car sets are the 171s. It would be relatively easy to create a 3- or 5-car diesel set if needed by shuffling the centre cars of the 171s.
@John Bull:
Is it just my imagination, or are there an awful lot of mangled posts appearing lately? Has Dr. Beeching’s ghost taken up a moderator position at LR Towers?
[I haven’t noticed any strange phenomena. But maybe others have? Malcolm]
@Graham H….I agree that orbital routes are only likely to attract relatively few passengers (+ train anoraks!) for long-distance journeys, but they are absolutely invaluable for freight traffic, removing them from congested passenger lines. If the whole of E-W rail to Cambridge ever comes to fruition, it’ll be invaluable for removing some freight traffic from the North London line to help improve passenger train frequency and reliability along that route.
And as for your inconvenient change at Reading when travelling to Oxford….you really only have yourself to blame, don’t you? ? Then again, the service you looked at extending could have been cut back at any point following the onset of privatisation, at the whim of one of your successors at DfT.
Anonymously
According to Google maps there are two south facing bays at Oxted. I’m thinking off-peak you would want to leave the extra carriages at the London end of a platform, or the diesel locomotive at the country end, not moving them until the next train arrived. Feels possible at Edenbridge, but at Oxted this would block the trains on the East Grinsted line.
It’s another option to ac or dc electrification; the large unknown is if someone would be willing to build or adapt the locomotives with suitable control gear. However, looking wider afield, perhaps we will see the lines out Marylebone electrified before this rural line?
Anonymously: I think most of the freight on the North London Line is travelling between east coast ports and the Midlands/North of England. That can already bypass London, by going via Bury St Edmunds and Peterborough, but issues of paths, electrification, fuel costs, journey times and reliability all push significant amounts of it onto the North London line instead. (Maybe other issue I have forgotten). These issues will remain (perhaps slightly ameliorated) even when/if there is a direct connection between Cambridge and Sandy/Bedford/Bletchley.
@Anonymously – totally agree that freight is a different issue, although I will probably be cut down by the moderators for discussing East-West in that context.
The more extended version of Oxford-Gatwick looked at an eastward extension to Ashford (then supposed to be a major Eurostar call) but the inevitable split at Redhill made that unattractive and we did no serious analytic work on it.
@Kate. NR doesn’t need to do a fully costed development of a complete set of alternatives for the BML. For one thing, all realistic options are considered at the conceptual stage, and those that are clearly unaffordable / over provision / bonkers are kicked in to touch.
For another thing, developing up alternatives costs time and money – lots of it; I would be surprised if the development work done on the BML upgrades to date is less than 7 figures. As I understand it, there’s 2 full time project sponsors working on it, plus a whole host of engineers, planners, estimators, timetablers, property managers, etc. These resources are scarce, and to have them spending time on something that is clearly in the unaffordable / over provison / bonkers category is a complete waste of taxpayers money.
Now you may disagree with that, but the cold hard facts are that development of projects such as these go through a clear industry planning framework, involving operators and the DfT and subject to challenge and scrutiny at several stages. It simply can not be the case that everyone involved has got it wrong.
Or to put it more bluntly, you appear to be suggesting that you are right whereas dozens of professionals in the rail industry and government are all wrong.
@Graham H
Not so long ago there were trains from Gatwick to Oxford – and considerably beyond.
http://www.1s76.com/1S76%202008.htm
@timbeau – indeed but in NSE days, we were interested in *NSE* service development – and we wanted to provide a frequent service, not something that ran twice daily.
@SFD – I couldn’t agree more but it seems difficult to persuade Kate (and the BML2 sponsors) that there isn’t some free consultancy service out there that has an obligation to appraise every daft scheme that turns up on the door step. The nearest she will get to one is, actually, probably, this site!
Since BML2 supporters can’t be bothered to tell anyone what their scheme is and what it is for, it’s virtually impossible to put a precise cost to it. Why should anyone waste time doing their job for them. {But just for devilment, the original version of BML2 might cost around £1bn, the latest version closer to £10bn – and all this to be supported on a revenue base of £150m or less. Now – remind me, why is this scheme being put forward?]
As has been said previously, reconnecting Lewes and Uckfield was only ever going to make sense in a regional strategy. Eridge to Lewes would never have washed its face as a London feeder line had it not survived as it has, it only fell into that role due to the closure of the direct line to Eastbourne (the Cuckoo Line).
If you adopt that position, then there is almost certainly merit in (re)linking Lewes, Uckfield, Eridge and Tunbridge Wells. Even more so if you can come up with a solution that then enables services through direct to Brighton whilst still serving Lewes (if anything, my money would be on the loop proposal, though a restoration of the Cliffe route would be the ideal). It’s the loss of serving Lewes that makes the tunnel proposed by BML2 a non-starter, IMHO.
I have several colleagues who live out around Tunbridge Wells and who drive to our office in central Brighton (and play parking hide and seek when they get there), and because the commute is so horrible they work from home 2-3 days a week. It would be much easier for the rest of us if they were in the office more though!
One has to wonder if Eastbourne had a faster (aka. direct) route to London if it would relieve some of the wider immense housing pressures in Brighton caused largely by it’s excellent rail service towards London…
@ Timbeau @1117: not sure there is a centre car in a 2-car.
ISTM the current Uckfield service is chiefly demanded in the peaks. A third car to create a hybrid with collector shoes throughout and electrics/electronics allowing 750v operation to/from East Croydon might be technically feasible. Whether it can be done at an acceptable price is a different kettle of boiling frogs ((c) Captain Deltic ).
17x and 37x classes are “kissing cousins” AIUI.
ISTR “Project Thor” looked at doing something similar for Voyagers, another Bombardier product.
(Snippable comment, as I am veering off topic) Such a hybrid might also help with Henley and Marlow, but with a 25Kv input via pantograph. If hybrids are “good enough” for IEP perhaps they are good enough for the GWML slows. A bigger installed base would spread the development cost further; & the Thor files should contain some useful intellectual property.
@Anonymously
“Except that the alternative route only takes you as far as the northern outskirts of Oxford at the moment (the connection into Oxford itself opens next year).”
— Then again, the traditional route only takes you as far as the western outskirts of Oxford. And there is no bus into town from the station.
@Anonymously, 28 November 2015 at 03:09
“railway worker electrocution deaths on DC lines aren’t significantly different compared to AC lines. Which suggests that whatever safety precautions are in place for these workers seem to be working. Of course, that doesn’t change the *perception* of risk….you might also feel unsafe walking through a deserted park at night”
It’s a good observation and it might be argued that the very clear and present danger of 3rd rail power actually heightens the caution of the rail workers concerned. It may even put off some trespassers as well.
The regulator’s policy regarding 3rd rail extensions clearly doesn’t intend to prevent short new chords or connections being DC powered in areas where DC is predominant already, but seeks to avoid any major new geographical links being electrified using the system. As far as the Uckfield line is concerned, it’s possible that had the line been electrified by BR on the cheap back in the 1970s or 80s then a notional 7 mile extension using DC to Lewes might be justifiable as a connecting link, but 25 miles all the way back to Hurst Green must be impossible to argue today I think.
Rather than push-pull diesel locomotive haulage of EMUs as suggested by Edgepedia, I think bi-mode diesel IPEMUs (a correction from my previous comment: independantly powered ELECTRIC multiple unit) is a better solutions for through working on non-electrified branches such as these. If Vivarail can prove the concept of their small modular underfloor diesel alternator rafts in the D-Train, then something similar could be added to other EMU designs, much as offline battery power has been trialed for a similar applications. The power density and long term maintenance costs of diesel packs is likely to beat batteries for many years to come I am convinced, and range will be much less constrained, with the diesels switched off on the main line diesel bi-mode, in the case of the the Uckfield line IPEMUs could allow Uckfield trains to return to Victoria under electric traction, if desired.
If an IPEMU was fully compatible with the standard EMUs, a (say) 6 car bi-mode from Uckfield could be coupled to additional electric cars at Oxted to strengthen up to a full 12 car formation for best path utilisation especially in the peak towards the London termini. With those electric portions starting from East Grinstead that could also provide an additional attractive fast tier of service from there to London.
@ ngh 27 Nov at 1240
The mods snipped my first para because I misunderstood you. (For those who missed it: I was comparing LU and NR, stupidly).
However, per Wikipedia for weights and ngh for power, the comparisons are:
1. Vic notional 4 car: 108.575t, 1100 kW; or 1700kW ungoverned. They run as fixed 8car sets of course.
2. 377 4 car: 173.6t, 1200kW.
The Vic stock can carry about 29t of people (291 people per 4-car, based on 20 people to the tonne, of whom 144 are seated) and I guess the 377s are about the same? Say 72.7 people per car. The 377s have twice the top speed of the Vic stock, so the gearing will be different.
But in raw kW per tonne the Vic has the edge, hasn’t it?
That is really my point Mr JRT. I don’t expect anyone to use the Vic-Selhurst-Epsom service to actually travel from Vic to Epsom, but I’d expect it to be used for Vic-Norbury, West Croydon-Sutton and Wallington-Epsom. And some of them changing for Dorking at Epsom. I don’t see Uckfield-Lewes as a solution to Croydon capacity or as an alternative to the main line in times of normal running, but as a regional line with diversionary uses – just like Dorking-Horsham.
@peezedtee: Very amusing. Distance Water Eaton Parkway to Carfax = 6.2 Km. Distance Oxford Railway Station to Carfax = 0.97 Km. (And Graham did say he was going to Botley).
Bearded Spotter: I have not reviewed your other figures, and I don’t think it affects your conclusion, but the usual assumption is 12 people to the tonne, not 20.
GTR driver – but this is the point. To use your example, West Croydon and Sutton are both significant traffic generators in their own right. Crowborough and Uckfield are not.
@Mr jrt
“It’s the loss of serving Lewes that makes the tunnel proposed by BML2 a non-starter, IMHO”
— And IIRC that was also the reason why the former MP for Lewes, Norman Baker (LibDem), who also happened to be a Transport minister in the Coalition, fell out with the BML2 people having previously been a strong supporter of the Wealden Line campaign.
@Old Buccaneer
“not sure there is a centre car in a 2-car”
Some 171s are 4-car
@pzt
“And there is no bus into town from the station”
Really?
http://parkandride.oxfordbus.co.uk/timetables-fares/500
Appreciate that Parkway is less than convenient for Graham H if he is going to Botley.
“The Vic stock can carry about 29t of people (291 people per 4-car, based on 20 people to the tonne, of whom 144 are seated) and I guess the 377s are about the same?”
But they are not – a 377 car is 20m long, a 2009 tube-stock car is only about 16m. And your estimate of 73 people in a class 377 car means only about a dozen standing – I’m sure you can get more in than that!
I read somewhere that the old rule of thumb for railway carriage design used to be “sixteen to the bum, sixteen to the ton”, (in imperial units!) but I think the average 21st century passenger is probably wider than 16″ and heavier than 10 stone.
It was,for me,the adoption of the “Tunnel” proposal that marked the victory of the Crayonist Tendency in the Wealden Line group,which had,hitherto,been eminently supportable.
@Slugabed…..But the tunnel is nothing compared with the crayonistic aspects of their CLP (Crazy London Plan).
@pezedtee….You may complain about the distance between Oxford Station and the city centre, but here in the ‘Other Place’ we would kill for something that close! Distance Cambridge Station to Great St Mary’s: 2km.
And it gives me no greater sense of amusement (and says rather a lot about them to boot) that the BML2 group managed to fall out with the one local politician who was actually in a position of power to help them!
@Anonymously. It doesn’t amuse me as such, but it does show the strength of the case for reopening Uckfield – Lewes; that even when the pro-rail local MP was also the minister responsible for Rail, and therefore in *the* best political position in the country to make it happen, he didn’t.
Incidentally, one thing I never quite understood about the DC-AC conversion proposal (as it was relevant here) was that the proposal was to convert East Grinstead to South Croydon to AC when the Uckfield branch was electrified with it. Surely you would want to have the changeover at a station where all services stop and to minimise the amount of dual electrification…and yet as we were shown in previous articles, South Croydon certainly doesn’t (nor could!) have every BML service stop there, so I would expect the AC would have to reach East Croydon with South Croydon to East Croydon being dual electrified.
Just strikes me it would surely be easier to either limit the dual electrification section to between Hurst Green Junction and Hurst Green (leaving the existing DC electrification largely alone) or to convert the whole route, but have the switchover at Sanderstead where it would be much simpler than South Croydon.
[Let’s not get too hung up about a past proposal, which we can now be fairly sure is not going to happen any time soon. Malcolm]
How busy are the East Grinstead services? I’m only vaguely familiar with the East Croydon – Oxted line but, if EG trains are overloaded due to their stopping at the 4 or 5 intermediate stations, Uckfield trains could be made to stop at them too. It would mean a longer journey for some people but a far more comfortable one for others.
@peezedtee
Oxford station has a bus terminus in its forecourt – Oxford bus route 1 will take you into town, as will Arriva 280, or Stagecoach S3, to mention but three routes. And a route 4 from nearby Frideswide Square will take you to Botley (though not necessarily the bit Graham H desired). They are all in the PlusBus zone.
@sadfatdad 1817
I don’t think Norman Baker ever held the rail portfolio. That was Theresa Villiers in 2010, subsequently passing to Simon Burns and Claire Perry.
With all the Oxford experts here, can we discuss their monorail proposal, pretty please!
{There is a short one-word answer to this question, starting with N and ending with O. Malcolm]
According to the relevant Wikipedia article, Norman Baker was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Transport from a date in 2010 until a reshuffle in 2013. Other encyclopedic Websites may be available.
From the article: ‘There do appear to be good arguments for suggesting that the increase in use of the Uckfield Line will outstrip increase in use of the railway in general’.
Not just arguments – statistics too. Comparing 6 BML stations, 6 Hastings line stations and 6 Uckfield line stations using 05/06 and 13/14 ORR station usage data: BML +36% increase, Hastings line 2% decrease, Uckfield line +128% increase.
(Stations: Brighton, Hassocks, Wivelsfield, Haywards Heath, Balcombe, Three Bridges; Crowhurst, Battle, Robertsbridge, Stonegate, Wadhurst, Tunbridge Wells; Uckfield, Buxted, Crowborough, Eridge, Cowden, Edenbridge Town – so a mix of busier and quieter stations on each route).
Whilst the actual numbers using the Uckfield line stations are lower than the BML, Uckfield itself is 6th busiest out of the 18 stations listed.
I believe the service on the Uckfield line has improved substantially over the period covered by those statistics, so perhaps more evidence of ‘provide it and they will come’?
The figures suggest to me that the improved utilization of the Uckfield line has eased some of the growth in demand in the BML and particularly so on the Hastings line.
I do continue to be surprised by the apparent desire here not to utilize the asset of the Uckfield line to its full potential.
Converting third rail to overhead, it’s just never ever going to happen. With GW electricrification costing a fortune and the AC Spine kicked into the long grass the chances of DC conversion must actually be less than never. Therefore the idea of creating little pockets of AC on the basis of saving money when everything else is converted to AC is non sensical.
Southern Region desiel pockets, including Basingstoke to Exeter, must be electrified at DC. I even doubt the economics of AC, all those poles, raised bridges and wires as against one extra rail? Then we get into reliability – the third rail doesn’t get pulled down or blown over. So I understand it’s less electrically efficient, well against lower capital costs and a falling price of electricity does it matter?
To keep with the topic we seem to have a stub of a desiel line that would have more traffic if it was electrified and was restored back to actually going somewhere. That wouldn’t make it a main line to Brighton but it would make a useful addition to the rail network.
@Joseph
Keeping it brief, everything has a working life and will need replacing. If, considering the wider cost implications, it’s cheaper to renew it with DC equipment, then that is what will be done. If it works out cheaper to renew it with AC equipment, that is what will be done, even if it creates pockets.
@timbeau @anonymously @Man of Kent
All I can say is that when I got off a train in Oxford earlier this year there was no sign of any buses, or bus stops, and I had spent a long time on the internet beforehand trying to discover information about local bus services and where the stops were. This showed that it was necessary to walk half way into the city centre before encountering any bus routes, and then they were going in the wrong direction.
I am familiar with the unsatisfactory position of Cambridge station but at least nowadays there are local town buses waiting right in front of you when you come out of the station.
Apologies to Man of Kent. I misunderstood his comment, and though my Wikipedia quote is accurate, I have realised that it misses the point of what Man of Kent said. The online record seems a bit confused over who did what in the DfT in that period. But for what it’s worth, Norman Baker was in the department (and he did make a pronouncement about rail fares), so was in a position to at least do some BML2-related prodding, had he wished to.
For what it’s worth, Norman Baker’s portfolio did include rail – this is his archived ministerial page from that time. A parliamentary under secretary is the most junior of ministers with quite constrained autonomy, so he probably couldn’t have done much even if he had wanted to, but he could have done something.
Going back up the thread a bit, it is not true that every re-opening has been successful in terms of passenger counts – I can think of two (admittedly not in London) that were such poor performers that they were re-closed (Sinfin and Corby), with the latter later re-re-opened.
I seem to remember that Norman Baker’s main responsibility was for road public transport (i.e. buses), whereas Theresa Villiers was the main minister responsible for rail. The reason why I remember it being this way is because Baker seemed to make media comments only in relation to buses, whereas Villiers seemed to be called upon for rail-related issues. If this is an overly simplistic interpretation, happy to be corrected by Graham H (if there’s anyone who is likely to know, it’s him!). The conspiracy-theory part of me wishes to imagine that he was deliberately kept away from the railway brief, due to his known strongly pro-rail views.
Just how much he could have done with regards to L-U is completely open to question (again, help us out please, Graham H!), but I imagine he became less inclined to come to the aid of the BML2 lot given that he profoundly disagreed with (quite rightly too, IMHO) a large part of what they are advocating.
@pezedtree….Yes, there are buses during the day, but they dwindle away to near-nothing by late evening. At least Oxford station is within reasonable *walking* distance of the city centre, should you so wish, whereas Cambridge station takes a good while longer by foot and isn’t practical for a larger number of people. Meaning that at those times when the buses aren’t operating as frequently, the taxi trade does a roaring business ferrying passengers from there!
@Mike….From what I’ve read, the first Corby re-opening (under NSE, despite being located well away from the core NSE area!) failed because (a) it was a shuttle service and (b) a fairly unreliable shuttle service at that, utilising ancient DMUs. Eventually, Corby Borough Council got so fed up that they withdrew funding, leading to its closure. The latest successful (re-)re-opening, with its regular direct services to London using modern rolling stock, must feel like something from another planet in comparison!
The lesson of this which is pertinent to L-U and other potential re-openings is that they are not worth doing unless an attractive service is provided from the start.
@Joseph…I am in complete agreement with what you say re. DC infill electrification, but even I would draw the line at Basingstoke – Exeter! The huge distance (just under 125 miles) means that this line would only ever be cost-effective to electrify using 25kV AC, I suspect. Plus Basingstoke would be ideally suited as an AC/DC switchover point for dual-voltage stock.
@Mike B…lol! Perhaps the people involved have been seduced by this guy:
http://youtu.be/ZDOI0cq6GZM
God help us all if the BML2 gang decide to employ similar tactics ?…..
Anonymously/Joseph: before advocating the expansion of third-rail electrification I suggest that you read the ORR document that John Elliott linked to above, and then think how difficult that it will be to justify any significant extensions.
@Mike – During a stakeholder meeting in 2014, I asked the Network Rail MD for the South East whether he had any opinion concerning converting the DC third rail operation to overhead AC. Immediate and emphatic answer: “DC is here to stay. There’s no way it will be converted!!”. That was during the period when electrifying Ashford-Ore was up the agenda.
In any case, I suggest in return that one doesn’t trust ORR documents – they are in for enough criticism as it is, what with the inadequate seating (comfort-wise) specified by them for the new Thameslink Class 700 trains in Standard Class and so on. This link provides a set of views of the train as delivered and on test this last week and judge for yourselves what the future holds for those travelling Standard Class on Thameslink:
http://goo.gl/KLWGey
As an aside, has anyone asked Chris Green recently why he (in my view rightly) proposed and thus supported the reopening of the Uckfield-Lewes route during his tenure at the top of Network Southeast?
GF: I didn’t realize that ORR’s brief included seat specification, and I never mentioned conversion of existing third rail – extension is a very different kettle of fish.
And I’m not sure that ORR’s regulatory performance is any reflection on the trustworthiness of its safety documentation.
@Mike…..But if you’re not going to convert DC third rail to AC OHLE, then where’s the logic in seeking to prevent its extension over those remaining unelectrified lines in the ex-SR area *only*? Mileage wise it is not very much, relatively speaking, as a proportion of the whole network. Otherwise you’ll end up with isolated islands of AC in a DC sea, which creates complications with maintenance, diagramming of suitable rolling stock and managing AC/DC switching failures.
Are you suggesting it should be avoided mainly for safety reasons (as the ORR document seems to imply)? My earlier comments highlighted that the additional danger only seems to cause excess deaths amongst people who have no business being anywhere near the railway line in the first place! I would argue that removing as many weak points in the network as possible where trespassers may gain access (e.g. level crossings) is more important, since that way you reduce deaths on the railway from ALL causes, not just from electrocution.
Brockley Mike,
To be pedantic, statistics suggest that usage of the Uckfield line (and usage of Uckfield in particular) has outstripped the general rise of usage of the railways. Statistics don’t tell us that this will happen – unless you happen to have the ORR 2016 and 2017 figures to hand.
I have tried to get across the fact that the usage of the line is potentially volatile and no-one seems to have much of an idea of how this will continue. Do people just use it because it is cheaper and they can find a parking space or is it the line would be many more people’s first choice anyway if there was a decent service? How many people would use it but prefer instead to take advantage of the better service from Tunbridge Wells or Haywards Heath?
I note your last paragraph “I do continue to be surprised by the apparent desire here not to utilize the asset of the Uckfield line to its full potential”. So the problem is that no-one really knows its full potential. And using the existing line to its full potential is something quite different to extending it to somewhere else.
Once the longer trains are introduced one could argue that during the peaks it pretty much is used to its full potential. You can electrify, double the track, extend to Lewes etc. but it is unlikely that you could run more trains with things as they are in the London area so any change would have to wait for that anyway.
One thing no-one has brought up is the fact that the off-peak service is only hourly and on Sundays only goes as far as Oxted. It doesn’t even reach East Croydon on Sundays so a journey not only involves a change, it involves an extra four station stops. So instead of wanting electrification, extension etc, it would make more sense for people to wish for something that actually improves the service to passengers, namely a better service! I doubt if the economics of running half-hourly will ever stack up but, if they do, surely that will be the tipping point.
Thank you PoP for another excellent article.
@Graham H Suggestions that little local traffic between Guildford and Redhill avoiding the M25 is incorrect. I’ve driven to and boarded a train at Redhill 3 times in last month to Guildford and I am sure I am not the only one. From my observations the train carries far more local passengers than Gatwick passengers – it’s noticeable that a significant portion of passengers empty at Guildford and new passengers getting on for rest of journey. Very few going through to Reading.
In my view the main problem with BML2 is not it’s feasibility or its aims but that it is taking up a lot of political and engineering time that is delaying improvements elsewhere. For example, the highly crowded and slow services from Redhill could do with some of the improvements suggested by NR but are being held back by no-one making the decisions that need enacting very quickly.
Such as Stoats Nest flyover for example. We’ve been asking for some time to get a regular Redhill to Brighton direct train but are told it’s not possible because the train would have to cross over to the slow South of Gatwick and again at Stoats making the time table unreliable. This statement whilst also diverting many Redhill route trains along the slows from East Croydon creating massive delays and unreliability as they try to cross East Grinstead trains then Cat/Tat’s before getting to Stoats Nest. Average late to Redhill of ex-London evening peak is touching 10 minutes now and we just lost two more evening peak services to the unreliability caused to them by running along this section of line – they’ve been diverted to the fast lines and inevitably the Quarry route. It seems very two faced by the timetable planners.
Brockley Mike, Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics as someone once said. Brighton line increases by 36% is an additional 8.3 million journeys, Uckfield line goes up 128% an additional 0.8 million journeys. Not really comparable. Interesting to me that the Redhill route has added 2.6 million journeys in the same period during significant cuts to service (37.3% increase in usage by my calculation). With those numbers I am thus surprised by the volume of investment in the Uckfield route – 10 car platforms, extended trains etc.
As mentioned earlier the roads south of Hurst Green to Uckfield are a nightmare. Eridge to Hurst Green takes around 100 minutes roundtrip by road and just over an hour to Brighton. Most of the roads in the Weald (which in itself a Saxon word for wooded wildness) were first used by the drovers driving their pigs from the Downs into the Weald for forage, hundreds if not thousands of years ago. This meant most roads go north to south not east to west. The A272 is a slow windy road so not very quick from Uck to Haywards. I would challenge anyone to take the Brighton and Hove 29 from TW to Brighton or the Stagecoach bus from TW to Eastbourne. An hour or more on these buses is horrendous and nauseous. So having an alternative and quicker option going by railway is to me a better option. The 2008 report was flawed. The difference between the draft and the final printed edition was staggering. The draft said Benifit Cost Ratio was good and was very supportive and when it was printed the BCR was changed to a negative and the supportive statements were removed. The Wealden area is meant to be taking thousands of new homes but no infrastructure to help.
Graham Feakins,
During a stakeholder meeting in 2014, I asked the Network Rail MD for the South East whether he had any opinion concerning converting the DC third rail operation to overhead AC. Immediate and emphatic answer: “DC is here to stay. There’s no way it will be converted!!”
I suspect, no I know, if South West Trains were asked the same question their answer would be “we don’t want it – or at least we don’t want to be first” but that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t happen. It has already happened on a small scale (the DC might still be there but AC is used) on the North London Line so why should SouthEastern be any different? And general manager Gerry Fiennes strongly opposed going from 1.5kV overhead to 25kV overhead on the Shenfield route but it happened anyway. These people can have an opinion but if, when the time comes, it is not their decision to make then their opinion might not count for much.
As an aside, has anyone asked Chris Green recently why he (in my view rightly) proposed and thus supported the reopening of the Uckfield-Lewes route during his tenure at the top of Network Southeast?
Like the above, I wouldn’t read too much into this. Chris Green was someone who would look afresh and wouldn’t rule anything in or anything out. All manner of things were investigated [proposed but not necessarily supported]. For example he, dare I mention it, proposed various alternative suggestions for the Waterloo & City Line instead of conventional trains. It didn’t mean he supported the ideas – indeed how could he support conflicting ideas at the same time?
Chris Green also tried to save the service to Croxley West by running an all day service before realising it was a no hoper and initiating closure. He generally tried to cut out expense on re-opening schemes. This tactic could work very well (Thameslink) or very badly (Corby – see a comment above). If he wasn’t hit by a downturn in the economy it is widely believed he would have managed to re-open the Dunstable branch and that was the one he pushed for. I don’t know of any evaluation of Uckfield-Lewes and am certainly not aware of any Network SouthEast report on it so suspect it was an aspiration to be looked into rather than something that was something they actually wanted to do.
@Anonymously, 28 November 2015 at 03:09
“railway worker electrocution deaths on DC lines aren’t significantly different compared to AC lines”
Sorry to return to this again but footnote 2 in ORRs DC Electrification Policy Statement, as linked previously by John Elliot, disagrees -:
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/17621/dc-electrification-policy-statement.pdf
“. . . despite the legacy (DC) network being only half the size of the AC
network (4400km compared to 8200km), it contributes almost eight times more (in terms of fatalities and weighted injuries per year) to overall risks on the railway. See FWI comparative data for OLE / conductor rail / non-electrified:
Network Rail Electrical Power Asset Policy December 2012 (Table 2.1, page 52). “
T33,
From my observations the train carries far more local passengers than Gatwick passengers – it’s noticeable that a significant portion of passengers empty at Guildford and new passengers getting on for rest of journey. Very few going through to Reading.
That is my anecdotal experience too.
Interesting to me that the Redhill route has added 2.6 million journeys in the same period during significant cuts to service (37.3% increase in usage by my calculation). With those numbers I am thus surprised by the volume of investment in the Uckfield route – 10 car platforms, extended trains etc.
I think the answer is “because they can”. You can make existing trains to Uckfield longer and it doesn’t disadvantage someone else – except maybe people in the North of England but let’s not go into that. I agree that the people of Redhill get a really poor deal and that in terms of passenger number there has been a big rise but this does does not change the fact that at the moment one can only improve the services from Redhill by depriving someone else of their service and they have an even better case.
My off-peak service from Purley in the new timetable will get worse because the trains from Redhill will now run fast from Redhill to East Croydon which improve things the for off-peak travellers from Redhill. Am I bitter? Yes, of course I am, but it doesn’t mean it is the wrong decision.
Re. Electrification and clearances:
It’s often forgotten that the LB&SCR originally started its own electrification scheme using overhead wires. It wasn’t 25kV AC, but it did involve some changes to clearances to make it fit. The wires actually extended along the South London Line and even all the way south to Sutton at one point, before 3rd-rail was chosen as the standard. The wires were removed, though some of the overhead supports were retained for signage and / or signalling equipment. You can still see some traces of it today if you look closely.
The upshot of the above is that converting DC to AC might not be quite as onerous for the “Surrey” parts of the network, while the use of an overhead rail instead of a catenary wire is becoming increasingly popular for routes where the options for improving clearances are limited.
All that said, it’s unlikely that any such conversion would happen within the near future. We’ve just seen the DC power kit in the south-east upgraded; NR will want to wait for at least some return on that investment. On the other hand, I can see it becoming a hot topic again around 2030 or so.
@Anonymous 10:35 – There is no doubting that transport infrastructure in the area is weak and so better connectivity would be really nice, but would the better infrastructure be translated into enough additional passengers to make it cost effective. No-one is going to pay for this without having a really good idea that it is cost effective.
In my view, by making this into a mega-project but without clear objectives, costs or revenues, the BML2 campaigners are not helping the local transport requirements. If better local services are required, then the local councils need to be applying the pressure, and providing some funds, rather than a pressure group with grandiose dreams.
@ Mark Townend
That statement you quote refers to *all* deaths (including trespassers and passengers), whereas I was specifically referring to railway worker deaths only.
The data I was referring to can be found here, on slide 18:
https://www.imeche.org/docs/default-source/events/Sir_Seymour_Biscoe_Tritton_Lecture-_DC_to_AC_Conversion_by_Steve_Yianni.pdf?sfvrsn=0
@Joseph:
“I even doubt the economics of AC, all those poles, raised bridges and wires as against one extra rail? Then we get into reliability – the third rail doesn’t get pulled down or blown over.”
The economics of AC are most definitely proven. The line clearance improvements are a one-off job that also pays for itself in supporting bigger trains, including freight trains. The main costs of the “Electric Spine” project are in providing those clearances so that conventional container trains can fit under the wires. The electrification equipment itself is not that expensive as it’s all standard off-the-shelf stuff.
One of the arguments against low-voltage DC electrification is that hardly anyone else uses it outside of urban metro networks, so the components available on the market reflect that, and are optimised accordingly. A key point to note is that the electrification system you use also affects the signalling systems you can use alongside it due to issues of interference.
Conventional catenary systems are also typically cheaper to maintain as the wear and tear is mainly on the lightweight contact wire, which can be simply unclipped and replaced – a procedure that is almost fully automated today. Similarly, if one of the masts is knocked down by a passing Land Rover, it’s not that difficult to get a replacement out to site in the back of a conventional truck. A replacement conductor rail would need to be brought to the site by a train, which is a much trickier logistical challenge.
Also, while cheaper overhead wire installations can and do struggle against high winds, those winds also tend to cause trees to fall onto the tracks as well, so it’s a moot point. DC rail struggles with leaves on the line and floods, so neither has a huge advantage over the other here. That said, only one of the two can be repaired while the floodwaters below are still being drained away.
@Jim Cobb, 29 November 2015 at 11:52
Very well said Jim. Uckfield-Lewes is a local/south east transport issue that has very little to do with BML capacity and traffic flows to and from London. That said, I’d love to see it reinstated but only if the industry can find a way to do this economically. Capital costs for schemes such as Scottish Borders seem to have run completely out of control and that may be convincing opinion formers that any rail expansion outside major city centres and high speed links is just too expensive to contemplate at all. Perhaps other smaller better managed schemes like Metro West to Portishead might be able to show rail in a better light, but if something isn’t done to correct this the industry may find it has lost an opportunity to establish a growing network dynamic that might not appear again for another generation, if at all. Outside cities the tide could very easily turn once again to major road building as a solution to meet transport demand growth, especially if increasing take-up of electric vehicles starts to dismantle the emissions benefit argument for rail.
@Anonymously, 29 November 2015 at 12:01
“That statement you quote refers to *all* deaths”
OK point taken, but amongst those very large majority of casualties who must be unauthorised are a small number who will not be responsible for their actions such as very young children and lost or disturbed people who are not actually attempting suicide.
Very interesting presentation. Thanks for sharing. BTW that fearsome glowing Frankenstein’s lab device on the last page is a mercury arc rectifier. With only these heavy, fragile and exceedingly dangerous things available for AC to DC conversion you can see why early electrification tended to keep rectification shore side in stationary substations rather than attempting to carry it about on board moving trains!
@Mark Townend – The December issue of Modern Railways makes interesting reading with regard to the capital cost of new railway schemes, and the Great Western Electrification Programme in particular. The excuse for the huge cost increases is poor estimating initially, which means all major projects will go back through estimating using the costs determined from the GWEP. As that programme is currently looking to cost around six times the per mile of the ECML electrification project, this shows how costly rail projects are becoming. Any new study on electrifying and extending the Uckfield branch are likely to show significantly higher costs, which will kill it off entirely.
Modern Railways also suggests why costs have increased so much – risk aversion.
To add to Anomnibus’ list of advantages of overhead, it generally handles snow and freezing temperatures better.
I find the suggestion that deaths of unauthorised people should weigh less than deaths of workers quite invidious.
Decades ago there was a perception that railways went to much greater lengths to keep their passengers alive than they did to make their workers safe. If that was ever true, it has now been rectified, I am glad to say. But please don’t let’s go to the opposite extreme by putting workers’ lives above others. All accidental deaths on the railway are bad, and anything affordable that can be done to minimise them, should be done.
@pzt
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/sites/default/files/folders/documents/roadsandtransport/publictransport/timetablesmaps/WTCYBOxfordRailStn.pdf
The main entrance to Oxford station
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7534434,-1.2696373,3a,75y,289.1h,85.04t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTD4cha0DeUF_m_G3sPX8Mw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
The LB&SCR electrification was AC it is true but it used a low supply frequency of 25Hz rather than the modern standard 50Hz industrial frequency. Equipment was supplied by a German company where similar vintage electrification was being rolled out at 15kV, 16 2/3Hz (the Germanic standard in Austria, Germany and Switzerland to this day) . The reason low frequency was chosen is that series wound ‘universal’ DC motors could be used without on board rectification, which could only be carried out at the time using those fearsome Frankenstein mercury arc devices. At 50Hz universal motors would suffer extreme spark flashover at their commutators and would destroy themselves pretty quickly. On the other hand transformer efficiency at the lower frequencies was lower so the values chosen were a sensible engineering compromise for the time, allowing more efficient longer distance transmission at higher voltages, whilst accepting that the main on board step down transformer would be bigger and heavier, but most importantly avoiding those nasty expensive rectifiers.
Anonymous at 10:35 refers to a difference between draft and final edition of a 2008 report. Such a difference does sound surprising, and worth investigating. But normally such reports do not just have a BCR, they have some supporting figures, so it would be interesting to know what changed between the two versions. (Removal of the ‘supportive statements’ would presumably be a natural consequence of the re-evaluation of the BCR, so not significant in itself).
………………..how did we get on to Oxford anyway? I thought we were talking about Oxted.
(reminds me that after that class 455 was squished by a cement-mixer, some ill-informed commenters were querying why the casualties were taken to Epsom General Hospital instead of the John Radcliffe – which is at Oxford, not Oxshott!)
@T33/PoP – well, I was referring to the last available figures for the line’s useage rather than anecdote, although for what the latter is worth,I have been making that journey several times a month at all times and seasons for many years now and that suggests two types of traffic – the long distance to/from Gatwick and the very short distance commuters (students to Guildford university) from the likes of Chilworth and Ash and reverse office worker commuting into Reading from Earley and Winnersh Triangle. The short distance traffic seems to be a fairly recent development (ie in the last 20 years) No matter,my original point response to lmm’s remarks about orbital rail as a substitute for the M25, was that none of these trips has, or could have had much to do with the M25 as an alternative. There is simply no evidence for swathes of people coming up to Reading-Gatwick, orbiting around and then moving off again to another radial route – which was the M25 traffic is.
@PoP – we spent no time on L-U re-opening either when I was in charge of DTp rail policy, nor in NSE days, when I was in charge of planning. If any thought was given to re-openings, apart from Corby, it would have been to Hailsham – still one the largest settlements in the country to have no rail service at all. New stations were much more the sort of thing.
@Jim Cobb – I entirely agree -the case – whatever it may be for a modest re-opening has no been smothered and wiped out with the irrelevant BML2 v2.0. If I had been a supporterof the original Modest Proposal,I would be spitting feathers by now.
More generally, I was much touched by the enthusiasm for my Oxford trip and advice on bus travel there. {I was struck by the very high volumes of inbound traffic to the city centre there on a Sunday morning – must have something to do with the quality of sermons at Christ Church, perhaps?] [I will avoid further off-piste comment…]
@timbeau I now find it was in late July 2014 that I visited Oxford, not earlier this year as I misremembered earlier. Maybe things have improved since then. I certainly did not find the information you have now provided, either beforehand or on arrival.
Very interesting reading of these comments about the whole Oxted line. Thanks to @GrahamH and @Pedantic of Purley for quite rightly pointing out that the line usage – even with the lowest possible cost automatic system – just isn’t going to have enough paying passengers to make any kind of upgrade work.
I think the above 178 comments (Oxford diversions aside) have totally pulled apart the whole of the BML2 idea in my mind.
Anomnibus 11:47
We’ve just seen the DC power kit in the south-east upgraded; NR will want to wait for at least some return on that investment.
I don’t think this is the problem you think it is. Modern substations come fully assembled. If you no longer need them then simply move them somewhere else where they are needed. Similarly conductor rails typically have 50 years of life in them and can be used elsewhere.
Of course, this re-using of infrastructure only works if there is still somewhere useful where the redundant equipment can be used.
This is nothing new. When south London was first electrified redundant assets such as water towers were often reused elsewhere rather than be scrapped.
Anonymous @ 1035. It may well take 100 minutes do do a round trip from Eridge to Hurst Green by Road (Google suggests 38 minutes one way). I suspect that all the individuals who do this trip regularly by car (both of them!) wish the roads were better. The fact that ESCC has not seen fit to spend money on the road system in that area either is further evidence that it is not a high priority.
Re the changes in the 2008 report – possibly because the draft was written before the business case work had been completed, and the authors had perhaps assumed it would be a good case, and were as surprised as anyone that it wasn’t?
Regarding types of electrification; as some one who has renewed, maintained and operated railways on both types, I can advise that AC is far more preferable. By far the biggest issue, not mentioned above, is that routine maintenance (particularly track) is far more difficult on the third rail system, as the power has to be off to do almost anything other than track patrolling. This adds 30-40 mins to both ends of the work time, which when you only have 3-4 hours to starts with seriously eats into productivity. And thus budgets. Also, in the (all too regular) event of an unauthorised person on the tracks, the power is switched off immediately over a large area, affecting trains nowhere near the incident. Around a quarter of all ‘signalling failures’ in DC land are actually caused by the presence of the third rail. Trains lose collector shoes far more frequently than trains lose pantographs. I could go on.
In contrast to Briantist, these comments have turned me from an interested sceptic to a believer in the southern portion of BML2:
– with flightimg so services run express from Uckfield to Oxted and Oxted to East Croydon, the time for Eastbourne to London can be improved: it need not be the slow route detractors claim
– the route would have capacity to offer 1tph direct services between London and Ashford bringing direct London connections to Rye, Ham Street etc for the first time
– direct London connections (probably 1tph) could be provided to Newhaven and Seaford, possibly regenerating Newhaven for housing development
– there is merit in stations like Hever becoming weekends only or closing to improve journey times
– with reinstatement of an eastern chord in Lewes as well as a western chord direct services from London to Falmer and London Road become possible: London Rd should then see as much traffic as Hove does now and Falmer possibly more
– there is potential for Tunbridge Wells, Eridge, Uckfield, Lewes and stations to Brighton (possibly with intermediate stops between Eridge and Uckfield)
I am not persuaded there is no potential traffic to support a business case. Lewes & Eastbourne are 5,000,000 passengers a year between them; Falmer and London Road could add another 2,000. It’s hard to say how much of that would be for London might be 50% and 4,000,000 extra passengers a year via Oxted wouldn’t be too insignificant – and that ignores smaller flows like Brighton to Tunbridge Wells. In turn, that frees up extra capacity on the main BML.
I think those against the re-opening tend to talk about the problems and talk down the potential traffic. It will require careful timetabling but I think the business case looks pretty decent.
Kate: “– the route would have capacity to offer 1tph direct services between London and Ashford bringing direct London connections to Rye, Ham Street etc for the first time“.
I must have missed this part of the BML2 proposal. Ashford and Hastings each have frequent direct trains to London; in principle some of either of these could be extended over the Marshlink line to bring “direct London connections to Rye, Ham Street etc for the first time”. There are of course certain difficuties (electrification, train lengths, demand etc), but the role of BML2 (multi-faceted though it may be) in overcoming such difficulties is to me an utter mystery.
@Kate, where is this business case that ‘looks pretty decent’ ?
@Kate – can I ask you to look carefully at the numbers and answer the following question: how much do you think BML2 (S) will cost? If you can’t answer then you can have no possible base for liking the business case.
@Kate – Apart from the local services in your last point, all the other points can be acheived without building BML2 or even extending the Uckfield branch to Lewes. If you want better local connectivity, then BML2 is the wrong answer.
@Malcolm….I apologies for sounding invidious. I didn’t mean to imply that unauthorised persons lives are somehow ‘worth less’ than railway workers lives. Every single death is a tragedy for everyone involved, and lessons should be learnt whenever they happen.
My point was that there are plenty of other (and perhaps more effective) measures to focus on for preventing these excess deaths instead of seeking to avoid any extension or renewal of third rail equipment. Indeed, I am sympathetic to the argument that no third rail extensions should be authorised unless adequate safety measures (e.g. level crossing removal) are implemented along the route to be electrified.
@PoP – “because they can” fair point just wish they could elsewhere too.
I can only assume that you mean the diversion of the Reigate or Tonbridge trains. Actually towards London you have lost the exact same train that we have. We’ve gone from 4 tph to London Bridge to just 2 tph. The replacement is a slow train from Three Bridges to Bedford which replaces the lost call at Purley. You’ve lost your service as its been diverted to crawl to Blackfriars.
I don’t agree with the statement of depriving anyone else of their services. The timetable was obviously built up Gatwick Express first, Thameslink Brighton trains second, existing Coastal services, East Grinstead & Uckfield then finally squeeze in a couple of services through Purley and Redhill. I don’t think it works for most people along the whole BML line as the gapping of services is awful. For example, from your Purley Station the fast London Bridge trains from Tattenham & Horsham leave within 5 minutes of each other then there is a 25 minute wait for the next one. I can point to many more similar issues right across the recast timetable. Anyway not right article for those items perhaps a future article on how not to write a timetable?
@Graham H – I was just pointing to my observation that most of the day the traffic is mostly local, not just students but shoppers, workers and even those on business as it’s easier to park at Redhill or Reigate than in Guildford. Plus, Guildford station is in walking distance of most places people wish to go. In any case it’s not swathes of people because generally there is no standing on a 3 car unit. Which is probably why the North Downs route has never had a major investment.
One point which I don’t think has been mentioned is that there is not further capacity to terminate (or turn) trains at Lewes. Given the way trains are facing, there are really three choices regarding L-U, not mutually exclusive:
1) extend them to Newhaven and Seaford (remembering Newhaven Town has a short platform);
2) turn them in a siding;
3) build the loop and extend them to Brighton.
The second option is cheapest but there really needs to be some thought as part of the ongoing review as to how much Brighton-headed traffic would transfer to the railway. Brighton isn’t just the seaside – it’s the largest city in the South-East region, and it has a large hinterland and associated traffic issues. Diversified transport links also cause people to move to the countryside.
Whether the BCR stacks up when all of the above is considered, I really don’t know.
@T33 – No standing on a 3 car unit? – try a trip on the 0817 Guildford* to Reading! But, yes, I agree with you, volumes and revenues from the North Downs route are poor in relation to eg route length, and as the only “living” orbital route, it only underlines the problem of making the business case for this sort of thing . And the further away from London, such as Brighton to Tonbridge, the more difficult it becomes.
* Not sure I agree with you about most destinations in Guildford being within easy walking distance of the town centre – the newer business parks are beyond Artington , or the other side of the bypass Mark I, or out beyond the Hospital, all of which are a 10 minute bus ride away The problem of Guildford is the topography pushes new development far away, but that’s probably enough of that for this thread…
@Graham H….And spitting feathers is precisely what I’ve been doing for the last several years ever since I first learnt of BML2! If what Anonymous says is true, then why on earth the did the Wealden Line campaign (WLC) decide to create BML2 instead of more closely examining and challenging the 2008 study on the basis that something had been changed to alter the final conclusions of the report?
Do you have anything to add regarding what Norman Baker could or couldn’t have done with regards to L-U whilst he was in office, as well as why the first Corby reopening went wrong (and why it was given to NSE to operate)?
@Kate…..I think what you seem to be now advocating is what the WLC used to advocate pre-2008 (+ the western-facing curve at Lewes). Which of course would require completely different costings and traffic assumptions to BML2. In fact, I doubt you could really call it BML2 at all if you’re not doing any of the work at the London end that they want.
And as for Rye to London via Lewes and Uckfield (including reversal at Eastbourne)??? That gives the GWR a whole new meaning (i.e. Gigantic Way Round)!!!
@Anominbus…And if only the SR had gone with the LBSCR overhead system instead of the LSWR third rail system, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all, would we? As with the 1500V DC lines, everything could have been (easily?) converted to 25kV AC in the post-war period.
Unless this has been covered before, this subject would make for a fascinating future LR article ?……
@Jim Webb….The ECML is a poor comparator, since that was done on a shoestring budget (hence the wide gantry spacing and use of headspans, and all the known problems this has caused subsequently). If the same standard of work now being undertaken on GWML had been applied to the ECML, the cost per mile would be a lot closer, I suspect.
And when you say ‘risk aversion’ is the reason for increased costs, are you able to expand on this?
@PoP 10.29am: ‘Statistics don’t tell us that this will happen – unless you happen to have the ORR 2016 and 2017 figures to hand’….fair comment of course, but the growth trends can be traced back 10 or more years and I do not think that is suggestive of the Uckfield line usage being ‘potentially volatile’ as you go on to note. Yes, perhaps if car parking was increased at the ‘competing’ stations or fares reduced on the BML or Hastings lines then users of the Uckfield line might be tempted away but if there are no significant plans on the table in these respects then I do not see how they have current relevance in term of impacting Uckfield line usage.
You also comment: ‘So the problem is that no-one really knows its full potential. And using the existing line to its full potential is something quite different to extending it to somewhere else’. I am not so sure that is the case – certainly to my mind having a 25 mile long dead-end railway has a lot less potential than extending it a few miles (on an existing route) to Lewes so that it connects into the network at both ends. As Kate and others have noted, that opens up journey opportunities to the south, so that passenger traffic along the line would be less one directional.
@T33 10.33am: ‘Brockley Mike, Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics as someone once said. Brighton line increases by 36% is an additional 8.3 million journeys, Uckfield line goes up 128% an additional 0.8 million journeys. Not really comparable’.
Yes, I appreciate that the actual passenger numbers are much lower, but at least those 800,000 extra journeys are not contributing to overcrowding on the BML or Hastings lines. To my mind the spectacular percentage increase on the Uckfield line is clear evidence of its potential to take more of the share of traffic in this south-central region and should be examined very carefully. The recent 100%+ growth in passenger numbers also means that the 2008 business case would now be hopelessly out of date.
Jim Cobb
Not only risk aversion of insane proportions (IMHO) but also multiple boiling frogs [aspirations cast have been snipped. LBM]
Meanwhile we don’t know what the real costs are.
Which is going to be a wonderful excuse, as said, to go back to road-building.
Oh dear.
Brockley Mike says “…extending it a few miles (on an existing route)…”
Or, to put it another way:
… extending it more than 8 miles on, or close to, a route, part of which was closed 46 years ago, and part in 1868, and on one mile of which there is an established heritage railway…
Graham H @ 14:30: I’m guessing that would have been south from Hailsham to Polegate rather than north from Hailsham to Eridge or northwest from Hailsham to Uckfield along the never-built Ouse Valley alignment.
(I first learned of the Ouse Valley route at the age of eight or so, an age at which crayonism involves literal crayons. Or, at the least, felt-tip pens).
@Anonymously 19:50 – I suggest reading the December edition of Modern Railways for more details as I don’t want to take this too off-topic.
In summary, yes, the ECML electrification was done on the cheap, but not that cheaply. The GWEP was costed at £625m in July 2009 (at todays prices), which was 1.4 times the ECML project. It is now close to £3b and so 6.6 times. Note that despite being more than a year in, they don’t have the budget under control yet and so this could still increase.
As for risk aversion, to give one example from the magazine, standard pile depth for masts is 3m, but GWEP is using 5.5m just to make sure, and sometimes 11m if they are unsure of ground conditions.
Brockley Mike,
I tend to agree that in the short term it is unlikely that usage will go anything other than up. My concern is that this is simply as a result of the alternatives being so over-crowded and if the BML was properly sorted out and sufficient parking made available this would be reversed for a large portion of users. Yes, it would be interesting to see the case based on current and projected figures. Maybe the WSP report commissioned by the chancellor will do that.
The issue with saying that we should use the existing line to its full potential is that this isn’t simply a case of extending to Lewes. It is extending to Lewes and finding a way of providing an attractive service to Brighton at the southern end. But that only really makes it attractive from Uckfield and possibly Crowborough. So on top of that you need to get back to Tunbridge Wells West to tap the Tunbridge Wells market and then back to Tunbridge Wells to tap the Tonbridge market. The latter one is probably not great and well beyond the point of diminishing returns.
I also go back to my point that there is only one train an hour off-peak. Extending one train per hour is not going to capture new markets. Far better to get two trains an hour on the existing line and then justify extending them. You can argue that extending would justify two trains an hour but then you have to add the operating cost of one train an hour into the operating costs of extending.
If there were a whole paradigm shift in the nature of Brighton and the South Coast (“Southern Powerhouse” anybody?) one could imagine the whole thing snowballing with incremental improvements. For the moment I can’t even see the most basic of enhancements – a half-hourly service – being justified. In any case, if Brighton needs improved rail links, it probably makes more sense to use lines closer to Brighton to the their full potential first and work outwards.
@Graham H – I tend to use Redhill to Guildford only so not aware of the other side of Guildford that much. The only way that I can see a BCR for electrification of the Redhill to Guildford is if you align it to a new Guildford to London Bridge service via Redhill. I suspect that would be well used if a calling pattern of all stations Guildford to Redhill, Purley, East Croydon, Norwood Junction and London Bridge. It would also pick up some M25 Guildford to Croydon traffic.
@Brockley Mike – but those 800,000 do when they hit East Croydon! Unless a brand new multi-billion-pound line is created to avoid East Croydon! That line would be much better from Gatwick to London not along the Uckfield lines preferably calling at Redhill. The areas on BML2 are so rural I don’t see the justifiable increase in numbers coming, just a low base to get high percentages.
@PoP are you continuing South to pick up the East Surrey section Sussex? It would be very interesting to hear your thoughts and analysis of the Redhill route.
Would it be OK at this point to mention the South Downs National Park which does rather take in the Lewes environs? It does rather suggest that it might be beyond “simple” to make changes to Lewes Station? How does BML2 cope with this exactly?
Map Map of South Downs National Park.
@T33….I’ve had the same thoughts myself about the North Downs line (probably achievable by extending the current Reigate terminators).
Once upon a time there was a London Bridge to Reading service (peak-hours only, I think, in its later years); I can’t recall precisely when it was withdrawn. Extending it that far now though would be too much of an ask, methinks……
@Briantist…It appears from this map (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140605090108/http://naturalengland.org.uk/Images/map-22_tcm6-14883.pdf) that the only part of L-U that would encroach on the national park is the Hamsay loop. In other words, tiny (seeing as the M6 was built through a tiny part of the Lake District park, I don’t see this a a major obstacle, IMHO)
However, the proposed western chord (whether by tunnel or station loop bypass line) is another matter entirely…..
@T33/Anonymously – the main stumbling block, costwise, in electrifying the eastern end of the N Downs was the need for another substation in the Shere/Dorking area (and another somewhere in the Blackwater valley in the west). Without that, the business case would have stacked on cost-savings alone. [BTW, the main cost saving in eliminating diesel islands is the abolition of the need to keep a stock os dedicated diesel spares and,in most cases, the elimination of dead mileage to depots -less of an issue for the N Downs but the timetable consequences of having a depot at one end of a route that long are plain to see.]
There used to be a Guildford-LBR service via Sutton which was appallingly slow. I used it once and have travelled faster in a Commie tram.
@anonymously
“As with the 1500V DC lines, everything [LBSCR] could have been (easily?) converted to 25kV AC in the post-war period. ”
The Midland Railway had a small electrified network using the same (6.6kV 25Hz) system as the Brighton. This was readily converted to 25kV 50Hz in 1953, but it was still isolated by fifty miles from any other ac electrified line when it was partly closed by Beeching and the rest de-electrified after thirteen years, on life-expiry of the fifty-year old converted ex-LNWR “Siemens”-stock trains.
Anonymously – I’m not seeking to prevent anything, but ORR is identifying significant issues. Given the facts that all modern DC fleets are designed to be able to work on AC too; that AC outperforms DC on almost every measure; and that AC/DC changeovers occur hundreds of time a day at four different locations in the London area alone (and many more times elsewhere in the world, on Thalys, TGVs to southern France, etc), I’m a bit bemused that such changeovers seem to be thought such a significant issue on the former SR.
As an aside, I’ve often wondered why NR doesn’t simplify Euston and its approaches by removing the 3rd rail.
@Mike
“As an aside, I’ve often wondered why NR doesn’t simplify Euston and its approaches by removing the 3rd rail.”
Will ohle fit in the dc lines tunnels at South Hampstead?
@Anonymously – Norman Baker, as a “mere” Parly Under Sec (and a member of the junior party in the coalition) would only have had any significant influence if a he had had a sympathetic Secretary of State (which he did not). In general, Parly Under Secs (PUS) are just spokespeople; decisions would not be presented to them for approval nor would they be copied in on the associated correspondence. We might address them as “Minister” but only as an unsubtle form of flattery (Hacker rules, OK?) and because Parliamentary Under Secretary is a mouthful and a bit pointed.
Why was Corby a failure first time round ?I seem to recall that it was effectively the first re-opening for a long time and there was considerable disquiet about using PSO money to do it;I recall the Corby New Town Development Corporation putting up some cash,and legal advice that if the line was not permanently re-opened then we wouldn’t have to go through the closure case if the line was not reasonably financially self sustaining. I vaguely recall the Development Corporation (or its successor) withdrawing its subsidy and the result was closure. There was a generic problem at the time with re-opening lines because of the terms of the PSO.
The line went to NSE because there was no obvious alternative – IC wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole and OPS had no nearby depot or operation to which it could be attached.
The mercury arc rectifier in the Science Museum was one of my early memories of the place from the late 50’s/early 60’s. Along with the demo of a 2-3m flashover (loud) at 11:00 every day. And GB2SM. And the mine in the basement.
I may have mentioned before the eerie sight of the blue light coming out of the windows of the substation by Putney Bridge station, glowing brighter as trains accelerated. Proper Engineering.
Mike refers to “ [AC / DC] changeovers seem[ing] to be thought such a significant issue”
I wonder if the concern about these is misplaced, because perhaps they are a sort of “fault concentrator”. Faults which would have happened anyway tend to show up at the changeover. If this is the case, then they could be thought of as an advantage; the staff and equipment needed to deal with a fault or its consequences can be likewise concentrated at a known point, rather than dispersed around the network. Well it’s a thought…
@Anonymously
“…that the only part of L-U that would encroach on the national park is the Hamsay loop. In other words, tiny (seeing as the M6 was built through a tiny part of the Lake District park, I don’t see this a a major obstacle, IMHO)”
Looking at a map of the Lake District National Park it doesn’t seem that the M6 was built inside it, but it does touch it very slightly.
I was under the impression that the whole point of having National Parks is that no new development takes place in them? People campaigned for years for the South Downs to be protected and people have their crayons all over it here!
Timbeau – I suspect clearances at South Hampstead would be an issue, so I’d look at changing over on the fly at Camden, after the Primrose Hill line diverges.
Briantist: new development in National Parks is subject to much stricter rules than outside them. But it is not actually banned. So anyone crayoning therein is typically confident that the strategic or other benefit from their wizzo idea will be sufficient to override the strong presumption against development. And who is to say that they are wrong?
Added to which, the “people campaigning for the South Downs to be protected” are probably different people from the crayoners. Or at least, one hopes they are.
@Graham H……I was thinking of trains that ran via Redhill and the North Downs line; you seem to be referring to trains that run via Sutton and the New Gulidford line (and, according to Wikipedia, still do!).
PS What is the PSO?
In the various AC/DC documents I’ve read, ‘changing over on the fly at speed’ using dual voltage stock is always mentioned as a precondition for introducing more AC/DC changeover points as part of a phased switchover.
ITSR the Eurostar used to do this at Dollands Moor before the CTRL was opened, but otherwise does anyone know how feasible or practical it would be to implement using current or future dual-voltage EMUs, and at what speed. If something goes wrong, that doesn’t seem to offer very much leeway…..
@PoP 20.59pm: ‘You can argue that extending would justify two trains an hour but then you have to add the operating cost of one train an hour into the operating costs of extending’.
Or possibly divert an off-peak Eastbourne – London train via Lewes-Uckfield?
@T33 21.05pm: ‘@Brockley Mike – but those 800,000 do when they hit East Croydon! Unless a brand new multi-billion-pound line is created to avoid East Croydon! That line would be much better from Gatwick to London not along the Uckfield lines preferably calling at Redhill. The areas on BML2 are so rural I don’t see the justifiable increase in numbers coming, just a low base to get high percentages’.
If I have understood PoP’s analysis of EC and SC, then the 800,000 extra people on Uckfield trains to London are using lines that would not be available to Redhill-originating trains, without crossing over tracks on the BML, so they are still helping to balance passenger numbers across all the available lines approaching EC. No need for a UML1!
Even the BML and Hastings lines pass through miles of rural land, so I am not sure that is that powerful a differentiator for the Uckfield line. Extending to Lewes would open up the line to passengers from Lewes, Seaford, Eastbourne, etc – and cater for people heading south too, so plenty of potential sources of growth.
I am not proposing BML2 either, for the avoidance of doubt! Just initially the basic connectivity between Lewes and Uckfield. Yes the Hamsey loop might be very useful, and a connection to Tunbridge Wells West further north, but all that could follow (as indeed could electrification). That just leaves the one-mile long heritage railway as the only remaining obstacle to a shovel-ready scheme I think….maybe anyway!
@Malcolm 20.26pm: ‘Brockley Mike says “…extending it a few miles (on an existing route)…”
Or, to put it another way:… extending it more than 8 miles on, or close to, a route, part of which was closed 46 years ago, and part in 1868, and on one mile of which there is an established heritage railway…’.
Well I may have understated it a little…but my understanding is that the track-bed is protected and the 2008 Study had no fundamental technical / engineering-type objections to the viability of reinstatement. Conceivably there would be a legal arrangement in place for the heritage railway to give up its use of the line in the event of reinstatement too (one would hope so anyway, otherwise it scuppers 46 years of effort in safeguarding the route).
@Anonymously
…I took ‘PSO’ as “Public Service Obligation”…?
Anonymously – as you say, 3rd rail/OH changing over at speed used to happen on Eurostars at Dollands Moor (later between Southfleet and Fawkham), and still happens – at a lesser speed – on the West London line (and on Metro North in New York), so it’s a well-established practice.
But if all relevant trains stop anyway, I can’t see an issue with a Drayton Park/Farringdon type stationary changeover.
Brockley Mike: The track bed being protected will prevent any development from being undertaken since the protection was put in place (whenever that was). It can do nothing about pre-existing development (if any). There may be some legal arrangement for the heritage railway, if not, then it can (subject to suitable safeguards and subject to public opinion) be evicted with a compulsory purchase order, as can any other occupier. So, as far as I know, nothing that makes the extension impossible. But plenty that might make it somewhat more troublesome and/or expensive than your original wording suggested.
@Timbeau
@Mike
As I understand it, the South Hampstead tunnels are indeed an obstacle to any OHLE conversion. The only significant one, mind, but a fairly significant one, made worse, IIRC, because they were constructed as cut ‘n cover, and as such are quite shallow, with little leeway for deepening them whilst maintaining support of everything on top unless that were also all demolished and rebuilt. Various HS2-related proposals for avoiding new Euston tunnels suggest they could be widened (for use by the AC/slow services), but I got the impression from the report that seemed very much in the “much too hard” pile. You could of course also remove the requirement for DC from the Euston approaches by diverting the LO service via Primrose Hill…
@Anonymously, mr_jrt
Indeed, PSO is Public Service Obligation, the grant from the government to make up operational shortfall on many railway lines.
Just a thought about Eastbourne trains to London. If some of these were diverted over a new line through Uckfield, they would take longer. That might be acceptable, but it would mean that the benefit to Eastbourners of the new line would be negative (to be offset against the positive benefits gained by some other passengers from I’m not quite sure where…).
@Malcolm
IIRC, the proposal I recall seeing proposed two options, CPO (and relocation to somewhere in the vicinity of Barcombe?), or a reduction of the new railway to a single line alongside the Lavender Line for that short section. Given how open the landscape is around there one can’t help but wonder if it might be as easier to just shift the railway across a few metres and run alongside the Lavender Line for the 2 or 3 miles or so that it exists (or vice versa). The only real tight spot would be Isfield station, and truncating the Lavender line 70m or so into the car park strikes me as a minor loss for a mainline connection…
…have to wonder what the proposal is to avoid having to reinstate the level crossing at Isfield though given the current policy to abolish level crossings. Short of an expensive bypass with a bridge over the railway I can’t see how any reinstatement could sell severing the only road through the village.
@PoP: If he wasn’t hit by a downturn in the economy it is widely believed he would have managed to re-open the Dunstable branch
There are apocryphal stories that the Class 319s had Dunstable on the destination blind rolls when first delivered, but I have never seen photographic evidence.
legal advice that if the line was not permanently re-opened then we wouldn’t have to go through the closure case if the line was not reasonably financially self sustaining
This would have been due to the 1981 Speller Amendment allowing “experimental” services to be introduced and then withdrawn within five years without going through formal closure.
The list in the link shows that mostly these were in PTE areas and regional services, and Corby is one of the very few that didn’t last through the five year experimental period to become a permanent part of the network.
Two other Network SouthEast reopenings under this basis were Oxford-Bicester, and Willesden Junction High Level to Mitre Bridge Junction (ie reopening the West London Line, technically a month after NSE ceased to exist but planned in the NSE era). Both went on to greater things of course.
All these involved introducing passenger services on existing freight-only lines (as was Dunstable in the Chris Green era), which is obviously a whole lot more feasible (but much less romantically attractive) than reopening a completely closed railway. I doubt that a post on something potentially genuinely useful, like say reintroducing a passenger service on the Dudding Hill line, would get anything like as many comments one about reopening a much-mourned rural railway, which does prove PoP’s truism at the beginning of the article.
Now, about the Woodhead line…
@Mike….I don’t know if this has changed, but when I last travelled on the WLL on the Southern service between Croydon and Milton Keynes, the train stopped for what seemed like forever to change over next to Wormwood Scrubs. Do the Electrostars and Capitalstars now do this at speed? How fast do they go when they do it? What happens if it doesn’t work, given that you’re not at the immediate vicinity of a station to detain passengers?
Anonymously – it’s been a long time since I went on the WLL, but I understand the need to stop was removed a while ago. Someone here will know! (There’s certainly no need to stop on the similar Metro-North changeover, which predates UK examples by many years).
As for what happens if something goes wrong, clearly there must be plans in place for this occurrence, which must also be rare – never heard of it happening on Eurostar, where there would have been not only more passengers much further from a station, but also border control issues that would probably prevent detraining. That would have indeed been a nightmare!
@Mike…..I also used to think that changeover failures were rare, before I started reading this blog and others’ comments mentioning this problem and provisions in place to deal with it on the TL core and NCL. Does anyone on here know the answer to this question?
@Malcolm…That’s why if L-U were ever reinstated, I would send extra trains from Seaford/Newhaven to London along it, giving the line a regular direct service for the first time. That’s probably the single largest group of passengers who would stand to gain from a reopening.
Of course if the fabled Ouse Valley Railway had been built, and survived the 20th century cutbacks, I would imagine most trains from Eastbourne to London would use this more direct route, with the additional benefit of serving Hailsham and Uckfield along the way. It would be interesting to know the BCR for this route if it were to be proposed today (the EML, or Eastbourne Main Line!).
Anonymously – “And if only the SR had gone with the LBSCR overhead system instead of the LSWR third rail system, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all, would we? As with the 1500V DC lines, everything could have been (easily?) converted to 25kV AC in the post-war period.”
Some clearances might need just a little bit of adjustment – see p516 of http://www.semgonline.com/RlyMag/ElectrificationLBSCRly.pdf.
There has been mention of mercury arc rectifiers (MAR’s) converting AC to DC and here is an example, for those who don’t know, of a Hewittic MAR of Manx Electric Railway (not to be confused in any sense with Graham H, I stress):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNAKL9qtnIA
@PoP – re. your comment on Chris Green and Network SouthEast “I don’t know of any evaluation of Uckfield-Lewes and am certainly not aware of any Network SouthEast report on it so suspect it was an aspiration to be looked into rather than something that was something they actually wanted to do.” Well, have a look at this:
http://railway-history.walkingclub.org.uk/2010/01/miraculous-survivor.html
and especially this extract: “In 1987 Network SouthEast agreed to contribute £1.5m to a scheme to re-open the line, a quarter of the projected cost, but local authorities would not fund the rest.”
To my mind that indicates that a study was indeed done under the remit of Chris Green or at least closely related.
Pulling a few bits together, what has been mentioned by me and others, is that, before the line closed between Uckfield and Lewes, the considerably greater traffic flow to/from Uckfield station itself was between there and Lewes and on to stations towards Brighton and Eastbourne and not towards London. Add to that the traffic over the route serving Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge, which was indeed not to be ignored, even when the through route on the Cuckoo line ceased between Eridge and Polegate via Hailsham (the latter station and area which Graham H mentions*). The ‘parallel’ roads were then – and so far as I can ascertain from comments above – remain, most inadequate for the traffic trying to use them. The topography dictates much of that. Meanwhile, the populations of the communities along the route, especially Uckfield, have grown significantly since the original line closure and of course further expansion is planned.
Apart from the Croydon – Uckfield -Lewes route, one must therefore also consider the route from Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge towards Lewes and Brighton environs via Uckfield. Indeed, I suggest the latter would have far greater impact in folks’ minds when considering reopening Lewes-Uckfield.
* When I used the Cuckoo Line, the diesel trains seemed healthily filled and it was quite clear that a lot was local traffic going about their daily business, just as was indeed to be found on the former route via Shoreham, Steyning and Guildford. In other words, they weren’t using those bits of railway simply to go to and from London but that didn’t make them less useful for busy ‘local’ traffic.
@Graham Feakins: Quote from Norman Baker at the time of the proposed Connex reopening scheme in 1998:
Provisional assessments suggest that it will be possible for the route to cover its operating costs but not necessarily the capital costs of reinstatement. That, in effect, is the same conclusion as the one reached by Network SouthEast in 1986. It is worth mentioning that, in 1986, the then director of Network SouthEast, Chris Green, ordered a serious review of the case for reopening, and inspected the disused line personally in February 1987. British Rail at the time indicated that it was minded to allocate £1.5 million towards the estimated cost of £6 million, but no other sources of funding were forthcoming at that time.
It sounds like Network SouthEast’s attitude was that, if it were still there, it would be worth keeping, but they weren’t prepared to pay for more than a proportion of the costs of reopening, and neither was anyone else.
Graham F, re historical flows from Uckfield being predominantly southwards.
This is undoubtedly the case, but that was nearly 50 years ago. I don’t have a 1965 timetable to hand, but I am willing to bet there wasn’t an hourly service all day to the borders of the City of London, upped to two an hour in the peak. Also, it was rarely the case that people commuted over an hour to work; why would they when house prices back then were somewhat more homogenised, and a nice house in Warlingham would have been little more expensive than a nice house in Uckfield.
Things change.
Not sure the word ‘truism’ is correct in the first sentence. A truism is a conclusion which is blindingly obvious from its facts so something cannot really only “seem to be” a truism, nor can the word be used to introduce something counterintuitive!
@SFD I have a 1968 tt at home. I think it was hourly off peak but to Victoria combining with East Grinstead portions at Oxted. I’ll check later if I have time
Braintist
At Lewes, it would be “simple” to put back the loop down slow platform on the London line, as the actual platform is still there. You “just” need to remove some tarmac, as it is now part of the car park ….
Mike P
The Royal Opera House used to use huge Mercury-Arc rectifiers to help power the lifting/lowering sections of their main stage, before the rebuild. Taken from an early British Submarine I believe.
They have kept one, stuffed & mounted, in one of their rehearsal studios.
@Graham F – interesting – for the avoidance of doubt, Chris never discussed the re-opening with the Department whilst I had the Railways desk there (1985-1990) and never discussed it within NSE whilst I was there (1990-1994). Had he asked us in 1986,I guess we might have said yes to a Spellar re-opening but only if it could be demonstrated that it covered its costs. (Applying Spellar to previously freight lines was a lot easier than to anything that required significant infrastructure works, for obvious reasons, and had we been presented with anything like that, we would have called it in for a full appraisal like any other major investment project. Which is probably why the Department was never approached about L-U). As (nearly) all the commentators earlier in this thread have agreed, if L-U has any value it is as a local service and that would have sat very uncomfortably with a policy of trying to minimise our engagement with that market segment.
Ian J is right – if it had still been open, it would probably still be open now because it would have been merely one amongst many loss-makers and by no means the worst either. But that is true of so many closure cases, of course. As remarked earlier, there is no rational basis for the present railway network, and the Beeching closures were not prioritised in terms of (poor) business performance – or indeed undertaken in any rational sequence. Beeching assumed a simple,single end position; how fast and in what order the closures came was not an issue for him.
Purley Dweller
My 1960/1 Southern tt says an hourly off-peak service S of Uckfield, but most of them started from Tonbridge, & they all appear to have gone through to Brighton.
Anonymously says “if L-U were ever reinstated, I would send extra trains from Seaford/Newhaven to London along it, giving the line a regular direct service for the first time“.
Yes (small issue of platform lengths), but if the timings were suitable, passengers from those places would still be able to get to London sooner by changing to a fast train at Lewes.
The M6 does encroach on the national Park briefly near Thrimby
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Thrimby,+Cumbria+CA10/@54.5843679,-2.7053093,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x487cf0afc0ed1301:0x6c0c6518c8ca61b, where the older A6 forms the boundary.
More controversial was the A30 Okehampton bypass, which cuts through a sliver of the Dartmoor National Park
@Mike
“As for what happens if something goes wrong, clearly there must be plans in place for this occurrence, which must also be rare – never heard of it happening on Eurostar, ”
I recall that several pantographs got scraped off in the Sandling area after they had failed to lower, and there was an incident in the other direction when the shoes failed to retract and hit some trackside equipment in the tunnel.
@MrJRT
“As I understand it, the South Hampstead tunnels …………..were constructed as cut ‘n cover, ”
I don’t think so – if the ground was so shallow there why were the original L&B tunnels dug?
They are bored tubes – difficult to find pictures because the GC line bridge is in the way of any view from the platform, and the other end emerges in a deep cutting, but the circular cross section can be discerned in these pictures.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/South_Hampstead_railway_station_MMB_02.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/South_Hampstead_railway_station_MMB_13_378219.jpg
The Met and GC lines, which cross at that point, were mainly cut and cover – the “cover” now being Lords cricket ground
For the Seaford connections at Lewes, see the travails of poor Bishopstone at http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=110286. There are 1170 messages in the thread about the London Bridge reconstruction, many from him on how his 4 minute connection at Lewes was never held, and missed 80% of the time, month after month. He must really like the area to attempt to commute to London. I see he’s going to switch to driving to a local job in January.
@timbeau
Ah. Mea culpa – my sole source came from the nimby* “Euston Express” proposal some influential chap in Primrose Hill threw together and HS2 were obliged to counter. Alas, I seem to have mis-remembered my tunnels….I was thinking of the cut and cover Park St. tunnels on page 33, but that said, page 44 provides the detail you may be after as apparently there is a 250m cut and cover section (the grade separation?) of the South Hampstead DC tunnels (and a 1150m bored section).
* [Moderator’s footnote: other opinions are available about this proposal, but let’s not go there. Malcolm]
@Malcolm….Yes, a transfer might be quicker in theory, but only if a) the connecting trains are timetabled appropriately and b) aren’t missed. And as John B points out, this results in a hugely frustrating experience for any passenger trying to get to London.
This is why a direct service or London would be so much more attractive to passengers (and property developers!), even if it is slower. I even suspect it would be quicker compared with changing at Brighton instead of Lewes using the current service.
@Brockley Mike Your “full potential” seems to just be the sunk cost fallacy by another name. Yes we have some spare capacity on this line that we’ve already paid for. But that doesn’t mean we should blindly throw more money at it so as not to “waste” what’s already there. If the BCR for a scheme that makes use of the existing capacity stacks up, great. But it’s also possible that the money would be better spent elsewhere.
I might be missing the point here, but when Nr have done the works at Croydon / Windmill Bridge, wouldn’t it be possible to run an additional hourly service Newhaven – Lewes – Haywards Heath – London? Thereby getting the ‘direct service to London’ benefits, PLUS ‘direct service to Garwick, Haywards Heath, Three Bridges’ benefits, and a quicker journey time than could possibly be hoped for via Uckfield?
No need for any reopening for that to happen.
There are two ECS trips a day that run non-stop through the high level platforms at Ebbsfleet International. These must change power systems on the move, but normally cl. 395s do it whilst stationary at Ebbsfleet or Ashford.
Thameslink plans to to continue to change over whilst stationary and on the new stock it will be initiated automatically through the ETCS/ATO.
Re SFD,
“I might be missing the point here”
You aren’t missing the point but there are plenty who don’t want to see that point…
(Possibly after a Keymer Jn grade separation too?)
I’ve always suspected a large number of those wishing for L-U reopening want it precisely because it would be a quieter option as it avoids all the population centres along the BML despite being slower thus giving a better chance of seat in both main peak directions. (The BML2 Croydon Gateway Station suggestion instead of East Croydon appears to be another population centre avoiding measure!). And by a seat they are thinking of a big one with lots of padding + proper tables, catering trolley, wifi…
They will soon be waking up to “ironing boards”* they are about to get on TL services in the area instead…
(*I quite like the “ironing boards” and they are better for bad backs than most existing seats.)
@ngh… You forgot the kippers! (Kippers are now available on the Bluebell breakfasts, and very nice too, if a bit pricey).
@Sad Fat Dad, 30 November 2015 at 12:44
“possible to run an additional hourly service Newhaven – Lewes – Haywards Heath – London? Thereby getting the ‘direct service to London’ benefits, PLUS ‘direct service to Garwick, Haywards Heath, Three Bridges’ benefits, and a quicker journey time than could possibly be hoped for via Uckfield?”
That’s the problem with so many crayon proposals for diverting south coast services away from the BML including Arun Valley via Sutton. The big towns and other traffic magnets en route are all on or nearby the BML. The Uckfield – Oxted line in particular seems to manage to avoid any large town until you reach Croydon. That’s not going to be good for off peak, counter peak and local journey numbers which all contribute to the economic and transport benefits of a service.
“Just a thought about Eastbourne trains to London. If some of these were diverted over a new line through Uckfield, they would take longer. ”
I thought we worked out earlier in the comments that the Oxted line offers a faster route from Eastbourne, not a slower one?
@ngh, 30 November 2015 at 13:10
“I quite like the “ironing boards” and they are better for bad backs than most existing seats.”
Me too. When I was commuting from Basingstoke I’d always try and time my journeys to get a bright and clean 444 if I could in preference to the too low and raked back 442 standard class seats with their sumptuous padding. The older saloons seemed so dowdy in comparison and there was a pervasive hint of that old train upholstery smell you got in the old Mk1s as well! (a sort of wet dog/commuter odour I suppose). I even preferred a 159 DMU seat to those Wessex electrics.
@Kate. No, I think you concluded that.
What was pointed out above is that whilst it would be possible to get from Lewes to East Croydon [via Uckfield if the Uckfield-Lewes link was reinstated] in around 50-55 minutes non-stop, it wouldn’t be able to run non-stop as there would always be stopping trains in the way. Or, without redoubling, trains coming the other way in the way.
Besides, the standard Lewes to East Croydon time from 2 weeks today is 46 minutes, and that’s with two stops and a unit attachment.
Re Kate,
Slower…
Uckfield is 46.1 miles from London Bridge
Lewes via BML 49.9 miles from London Bridge
A reinstated Lewes – Uckfield shortest route would be about 8.75-9.00miles
So Lewes via Uckfield would be 55 miles from LBG with an additional reversal and driver changing ends for Eastbourne. **So an extra 5 miles on a slower route.**
Some times:
Lewes – Eastbourne all stops is circa 21 minutes
Lewes – LBG is circa 63 minutes (based on ECR, Gatwick, Three Bridges and Haywards stops)
Uckfield – LBG present calling pattern is 81-89 minutes.
Uckfield – Lewes would be 9-13 minutes depending on stock (assuming shortest cheapest routes chosen).
So Lewes – LBG via Uckfield is 90-102minutes
So for a competitive journey time (ignoring reversal which will increase this) via Uckfield you need to save between:
90-63 =27 minutes
102-63 =39 minutes
If you were to cut 7 stops between Uckfield and Oxted (So LBG, ECT, Oxted, Uckfield, Lewes… only) current average speed around 30-35mph you would need to do Oxted- Uckfield at circa 85mph average (no stops acceleration or braking so a much higher max speeds) to match the journey time to Lewes via BML!
Assuming running at (current max) 70mph line speed where possible (including acceleration and braking) gets circa 25minutes. All stops Oxted – Uckfield is 46m min so saving is 21m so 6 minutes slower in the best case (with 3 fewer of stops than BML route equivalent) [27-21 = 6minutes].
So still quite a bit of line speed improvement on the Uckfield route (continuous above 90mph line speed minimum need to to find the other 6 minutes.
Then of course you need to remove or retime all East Grinstead services to achieve adding this extra service and get extra rolling stock to cover longer layovers at East Grinstead to try to make timetable and viable paths work…
Re. the growth of towns along the BML…
Out of interest, has there been any research that shows whether this was a result of the BML itself, or were these towns always important before the coming of the railways? (I’m excluding Gatwick Airport for obvious reasons.) I’m also curious about whether the line having a major destination at each end, rather than just the one, helps in this growth process.
The reason I ask is that, if the railway was the catalyst for growth, then perhaps there’s a case to be made for – and this is purely an example – extending and improving Arun Valley services to encourage growth of that line’s towns instead of just continuing the status quo along the BML. If we focus solely on enhancing capacity on lines that already serve bloated towns, there’s a danger of creating a vicious cycle whereby all the investment ends up targeted solely at a small number of increasingly sprawling towns, rather than being more spread out.
I ask mainly because I’d be interested to learn if there’s been any formal in-depth research into such issues. A few radial trunk routes might be better for London’s own growth, but I wonder if there’s a case to be made for broader coverage instead to encourage new growth outside London and reduce the pressure on the capital’s own infrastructure.
This is, I admit, a primarily political issue, but it’s something the GLA might want to consider as a way of buying Greater London some breathing space.
@ngh & Kate:
So, that’ll be four-tracking of the route north of Oxted to allow space for East Grinstead stoppers, closure of the quieter stations along the route to Uckfield, and overhead AC power to provide that 90+ mph line speed.
The chances of that happening are slim to none. And Slim just left.
Anomnibus,
Books on the London, Brighton and South Coast railway suggest that the route was chosen with almost the sole aim of linking London to Brighton. This is very similar to the East Coast Main Line which went for the extremely long distance traffic and not intermediate traffic – which, in contrast, is what the West Coast Main Line does.
In fact there are very few major centres on the Brighton Main Line south of Redhill – Gatwick excepted of course. If one takes Gatwick to mean Horley/Gatwick/Crawley/Three Bridges then you have Burgess Hill and its suburb around Wivelsfield station, and Haywards Heath and that is about it. Preston Park is a suburb of Brighton.
This really is part of the problem of the Brighton Main line. It has a lot of stations serving piddly little towns and villages. Nevertheless they may have a large number of commuters as the catchment area is large. In some cases though such as Balcombe they probably don’t but trains have to stop there occasionally which reduces end-to-end speed and restricts capacity.
@PoP – “there are very few major centres on the Brighton Main Line south of Redhill ” -but what did you expect? There’s only about 20 miles between the southern edge of “Greater Crawley” and the northern edge of Brighton – not much room for more than a couple of sizeable settlements, surely?
Anomnibus: don’t exclude Gatwick, it’s inconceivable that Gatwick would have anything like its current air traffic were it not for its direct, fast rail link to London.
Re Anomnibus,
“The chances of that happening are slim to none. And Slim just left.”
Exactly but Kate and others still wonder why NR aren’t examining it in detail.
1 sheet of A4, pencil (HB no colour involved!) calculator, track maps, sectional appendix, RTT and some common sense etc. says slim has left the planet.
It would probably be 4 tracks at least some of the way from Hurst Green not just Oxted.
The current Greater Crawley is already largely a product of bailing out London before, it is one of the 1946 batch of new Towns built to relieve population growth in London though slightly delayed as it got Nimby’d…
Re SFD,
Indeed Gatwick has the highest proportion of passengers accessing an airport by rail in the UK
@pOp
“almost the sole aim of linking London to Brighton. This is very similar to the East Coast Main Line which went for the extremely long distance traffic and not intermediate traffic ”
The GWR is the best example of this – Brunel went for the most direct route to Bristol, and Reading was the only large town actually on the route (and then only because he needed to go through the Goring gap). Swindon was a creation of the railway.
Hence the plethora of sizable towns only served by branches off the GWML – Brentford, Staines, Windsor, Marlow, Henley, Wallingford, Oxford etc.
Malcolm “there is probably no platform anywhere that will accommodate twelve 23-metre carriages.” – At the risk of it being seen as a diversion (much like the L-U route being discussed) I note that India has three longer than a kilometer (Gorakhpur railway station, Uttar Pradesh, at 1,366.33m is the longest) as does the State Street subway in Chicago, USA. The UK comes in at number 7 (Cheriton). [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform#Longest ]
Joseph: “the third rail doesn’t get pulled down or blown over.” – No, but it does get covered in leaf slime around this time of year (and with snow/ice) where knitting doesn’t.
On the matter of 3rd rail -v- OHLE, is there resale value in the tons of metal used in the manufacture of that third rail? Seems I’m always hearing about metal theft …
@ngh
Actually, you wouldn’t need a reversal at Lewes to reach Eastbourne (the Hamsay loop puts you in the right direction), so that wouldn’t affect the other times you have calculated. And I read somewhere that with track upgrades, line speeds on the Uckfield line could be increased to 90mph (third-rail, OHLE, even diesels….the max speed of the current 171 stock is 100mph!). But I accept that running trains from Eastbourne via Uckfield might be a non-starter due to the extra journey time, unless the route was re-doubled, speed upgraded and a way to path slow, fast and/or semi-fast trains was found. They manage to do it on the WAML to Cambridge (which is almost entirely two-track), so there must be a way of making it work, right?
Which then leaves the option of running Seaford/Newhaven trains to London over the reinstated route. ‘Just run them over the existing route via Haywards Heath to London,’ you might say. Ok then….assuming the Croydon pinchpoint was addressed, how can this be achieved using the current BML infrastructure? Answers on a postcard please to the residents of Newhaven and Seaford……
And the only reason Gatwick has more people accessing it by rail instead of by car is that road access from Central London is, to put it mildly, pants (as anyone who knows the A23 within South London can testify….PoP?). It is one of the few real advantages Heathrow has over Gatwick when considering airport expansion.
@AlisonW…..But leaves, snow and ice affect *all* railway lines, not just those with third rail. They settle on the track and affect braking and acceleration, and cause damage to the train (as AGA have recently found to their cost!). Therefore, I’m unsure why this should be considered an advantage of OHLE vs third rail; after all, you still have rail tracks that can be affected, whichever system of electrification you choose.
And there might be some scrap value in the third rail…..but nowhere near as much as the copper wiring used in OHLE!
Re my comment earlier. 1968 – hourly Oxted to Lewes with connection from the East Grinstead train. Hourly Tonbridge to Eridge. Two off peak through trains Victoria to Brighton which were fastish (East Croydon, Oxted, Edenbridge, Eridge and all stations. 1h45 Victoria to Brighton).
Anonymously: Trains could run tomorrow direct from Seaford/Newhaven to Victoria. (Well, maybe the next day). All that would be needed would be to decide which other trains, from which South Coast town or city, to cancel.
If the answer is “none”, then some capacity improvements, somewhere, will be necessary if this is to be achieved. As this series is studying. Most of us would not choose Lewes-Uckfield as the improvement-site to best achieve this particular objective, for reasons repeated many times.
But of course the objective could be misplaced anyway. Direct trains to London are not a human rights issue. Just ask the residents of, say, Bury St Edmunds.
Alison refers to metal theft. The main instances of which I have heard of metal theft from railways have involved copper signalling cables. The logistical difficulties of stealing conductor rails probably rules it out. Expensive cranes, heavy duty trucks, and a lot of cutting. And even though scrap yards are supposed to ask more questions these days, a plausible lie as to where it came from is probably rather more achievable with metal you can roll up.
Malcolm: even ignoring the shocking side of stealing conductor rail I suspect the sheer weight of it would also preclude theft, but that weight was the very reason I was wondering about resale value.
Anonymously: Yes, though braking and acceleration can be affected in autumn and winter conditions whether power is over or under it is only with the latter that you have to worry about having none. Power, that is.
@Malcolm – never underestimate the stupidity of thieves – we had a number of cases where the local gentry cut into and took away sections of fibre optic value cable (value c£0.10p/m at the time). Presumably, they got disappointed in the pub later – “Want some cheap cable? Got a vanload out the back…”
The local (Lea Valley) constabulary recently detained some gentlemen in the act of climbing a pylon with a view to stealing the copper cables hanging therefrom….
Anonymously, whilst snow and ice does affect all railways, it certainly affects those with third rail more. A short spell of freezing rain can rapidly incapacitate a train on a third rail line. But this will only ever be reported as a broken down train, so the public won’t get to hear about it. Conductor rail faults are rather more common than you might suppose.
Leaves are no different on third rail to OLE or non-electrified lines
Secondly, a postcard to residents of Newhaven and Seaford. Assuming Croydon is sorted out, direct trains London – Seaford can be achieved by, err, running a direct train via Haywards Heath. No other infrastructure required, and no services need to be cancelled, as the BML. Whether there is a case for it in comparison to other destinations served from Victoria, London Bridge or Blackfriars is a different matter.
@Sad Fat Dad/Alison W….Understood. I remember reading somewhere that Network Rail was going to trial conductor rail heating in order to address the icing issues. Does anyone know anything about this?
In this country, high winds seem to be as common as freezing conditions (i.e. varying and unpredictable amounts of both from year to year!). Ignoring the ECML, how common are downed power lines in comparison to frozen third rail issues?
ISTR that some of the German S-bahn systems use third rail (albeit at lower speeds and shorter distances). And we all know that continental Europe can get very cold in the winter. So how do they cope?
Sometimes, I wonder if BREL still existed (as an integral part of BR), they might have researched and improved third rail to address its problems and make it more cost-effective, given how much of it we have in this country. Oh well, I suppose I’d better return to my head-banging wall…..
ice can be a problem for ohle as well, either by damaging contact surfaces on pantographs (imagine one hitting icicles at 125mph!) or simply by building up on the wires until its heavy enough to bring them down.
https://carlaspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/ice-on-electrical-wires.jpg
http://cache1.asset-cache.net/xd/477618731.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=62CA815BFB1CE4809E44B2F7D375D0AC5145F92974FB5D8650CB4CF31BF717E016B9B02BB328CA63
@Anonymously: The Berlin and Hamburg S-Bahn systems use third-rail power, but with bottom contact in Berlin and side contact in Hamburg. One would expect ice build-ups in those positions to be less of a risk.
The Stockholm subway, which has some above-ground section, uses top-contact third rails, but the third rails are covered, presumably partly to reduce snow build-up. See e.g. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Stockholm_subway_johannelund_20060913_001.jpg
Conductor Rail Heating has been installed widely across the whole of the South East DC network, and is very effective (if expensive) in frosty conditions. Combined with the deicing trains which run on every cold night, it has practically eliminated conductor rail icing… Except … it is no good with high volumes of falling snow or freezing rain; it simply can’t warm up the con rail quick enough. Freezing rain is particularly bad; first it washes off the anti-ice fluid, then freezes to the con rail.
European countries – generally they have drier cold weather (if that makes sense) but when they do get similar wet cold weather as we do, their railways cope about the same as ours do. But you won’t see that in the Daily Mail.
Regarding service affecting failures caused by the DC third rail system in comparison to the AC OLE system, my very rough estimate is that DC has about twice as many failures per km than AC. This is all causes, not just weather. I have no stats to back it up; just a decade of being involved.
Since the demise of Manchester – Bury DC all UK DC is top contact third rail. The rest of the world uses either top,side or bottom contact with some of the top contact being covered. See –
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_transport_systems_using_third_rail
@Ray K. Not forgetting Docklands of course…
@SFD – nor indeed, given the nature of this thread, Volks Electric railway – now there’s a thought – extend it to Uckfield. I’m sure there’s a business case…
@Graham H
Thence to Bank incorporating the W&C!
Third rail standards: Paris Metro is Southern-style unprotected top contact on conventional routes. On rubber-tyred routes the vertical side guidance surfaces (B’ in the diagram linked below) double as power rails and the trains uses a side contact pick up (F):
http://esteemfoundation.org/emdx//rail/metro/Images/PrincipeMetroPneu.gif
Sad Fat Dad,
As a general guide for Daily Mail readers to ignore, it seems to be the case that any railway (and, to some extent, country) that is subject to a cold climate grinds to a halt when the temperature goes down by 5°C more than they are used to. Even the Finns can come to a halt. This is probably down to simple economics of how much it makes financial sense to invest in order to keep going.
@Malcolm
Trains could run tomorrow direct from Seaford/Newhaven to Victoria…[m]ost of us would not choose Lewes-Uckfield as the improvement-site to best achieve this particular objective, for reasons repeated many times.
Indeed not. But the point is that Lewes station cannot accommodate terminating trains from Uckfield unless the car park is dug up and a new platform provided. The trains have to go somewhere, and Seaford/Newhaven is as good a place as any. I realise that Newhaven Town station would have to be extended, but surely that is cheaper than a new platform at Lewes, never mind all the bad publicity this would cause?
I have located the 2008 re-opening study report for those interested:
http://uckfield.co.uk/lewes_uckfield_network_rail_final_report.pdf
When looking at increased passenger numbers as part of the business case, the report predicts (at clause 3.7.1) that numbers will increase from 2007 to 2019 between Edenbridge Town and Hurst Green by a little under 50% in the a.m. peak. This includes the estimated growth without any extension as well as the growth due to the extended line to Lewes.
However, even well before the 2019 date and without any extension, the annual usage (not just peak direction) has pretty much doubled already. So the input numbers forming the business case have proved to be woefully incorrect – indeed the report authors themselves spend several paragraphs at the start of section 3.4 outlining all the various shortcomings with their data and modelling techniques, but then do not reference back to that in their very ‘certain’ conclusions.
At 1.1.5 the authors (Network Rail) note: ‘Although the Central Rail Corridor Board has the ultimate objective of reinstating both the Lewes– Uckfield and Eridge – Tunbridge Wells sections of line, the Board took the decision to focus resources on the former.’ So they did not cover a key part of their own objectives, seemingly due to report funding issues, but then spend a lot of time and effort elsewhere in the report examining whether to re-open Isfield and Barcombe Mills stations, hardly a better use of their limited resources!
They do note that most of the options (eg running Newhaven-Uckfield-London trains) would actually cover the running costs of opening an extension, which may surprise some commenters here. Using more accurate usage numbers would only strengthen the case in relation to running costs.
The capital cost (£140m (including 30% contingency) for a basic single track extension to run a half hourly service) seems to be the problem in terms of the business case, but again with increased revenue to factor in to the calculation, that would improve the case. As would targeting contributions from housing developers, for which a figure of precisely £0m is included in the 2008 business case.
The report does confirm the route is technically feasible and does address questions noted here in the comments about dealing with level crossings and the heritage railway.
With a nod to Graham H @ 22.41, that’s all Volks!
@Sad Fat Dad….Well, it’s good to know that something can be done to mitigate the ice problem.
As for snow and freezing rain…..it is almost impossible to predict when and how frequently these will occur in the SE. The last couple of winters have been snow-free, for example, whereas 2009/10 and 2010/11 were terrible! And I’m unsure about how common freezing rain is, but I thought it was pretty rare in this country. As someone said earlier, there comes a point where it becomes pretty hard to justify extra investment for relatively infrequent events that don’t pose a major threat to life or property (as with flooding, for example).
So is this winter problem sufficiently frequent enough to have a major bearing on AC vs DC, which (thankfully) happens to be concentrated in the warmest part of the country? I’m not so sure that it does. If you really wanted to make our infrastructure weather resilient, the total cost of this would easily dwarf the price of DC to AC conversion, I suspect….
@timbeau: there was an incident in the other direction when the shoes failed to retract and hit some trackside equipment in the tunnel
SNCF got so fed up with non-retracted shoes damaging their trackside equipment that they installed a couple of concrete blocks by the tracks at the French end of the tunnel to knock off any protruding third rail shoes.
@Brockley Mike: So they did not cover a key part of their own objectives
Who do you mean by “they”? The Board (various local politicians, none of whom were associated with Network Rail), or the report’s authors? If the Board (who were the local MPs and councillors supporting the idea) chose not to consider an option, Network Rail would not spend time and money
the report authors themselves spend several paragraphs at the start of section 3.4 outlining all the various shortcomings with their data and modelling techniques
That cuts both ways – there is a risk of over-estimating as well as under-estimating demand southwards. And demand to London has no necessary logical relationship to demand southwards. In any case it doesn’t matter as the modelling shows it isn’t even in the ballpark of demand that would be needed. Quoting the report:
In order to make the case for the reopening of the line, the benefits realised
need to be at least double that forecast in order to meet the absolute minimum
BCR required of 1.5, and treble to meet the usual minimum BCR of 2.0. This in
turn will require a significant increase in population along the corridor as a
whole and/or a fundamental shift in the travel behaviour of the existing
population.
The sensitivity tests show that you would need to triple the demand to scrape a pass mark BCR of 2. The revenue modelling also assumed RPI +1% annual fare increases while government policy now is for RPI increases only until at least 2020.
To put it into context, Midland Main Line electrification has a BCR somewhere between 4.7 and 5.2 and has just been delayed because Network Rail and the government can’t afford it in the current Control Period.
The capital cost (£140m (including 30% contingency) for a basic single track extension to run a half hourly service) seems to be the problem in terms of the business case, but again with increased revenue to factor in to the calculation, that would improve the case
But remember that costs have increased as well as revenue since 2008 – for example electrification cost estimates have tripled since then, and the Croxley link, another (mainly) reopening has gone from £116 million to £284 million in a similar time period. And revenue growth is hampered by the current government’s RPI cap on regulated fares, compared with the RPI+1% assumed in the modelling.
Crucially, the £114 million costs quoted don’t include the 60% optimism bias that government would add before evaluating the business case. This would kill any bid for central government funding outright even if you could finesse the revenue projections.
As would targeting contributions from housing developers
So where would the housing go? And how much local support does it have? And as the report points out, developer contributions are not a net contributor to the economy – the money has to come from somewhere (generally it will increase the price of the houses built by the developers, and so be paid by their occupants).
@Anonymously – I think that what SFD meant by freezing rain (sleet) and the problems caused by it are the quite common occurrences of temperatures hovering and fluctuating around both sides of freezing point in southern England so that sleet falling on the rail can freeze and maybe then melt and then freeze again, thus creating an unpredictable and difficult situation to deal with. Deicing fluid may therefore get washed off by the sleet before the temperature drops again to below freezing.
Remedial work always tended to concentrate around point heaters in order to avoid packed snow and ice affecting their operation. However, since conductor rail heating has been introduced in 3rd rail territory, that has produced a significant improvement but it cannot cope in the short term with heavy, sustained snow fall as SFD explains (long before its introduction on NR, LT Underground railways heated conductor rails on open sections of line out of traffic hours by effectively shorting out the rails, thus warming them up; I suspect that that practice continues when required). The frequency of the service during traffic hours was expected to keep the conductor rails clear.
Meanwhile, here’s a Continental example of iced-up overhead wire supplying DC in jolly chilly conditions (2-minute clip – recommend watching to end):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM4bjxVY8NM
That 2008 re-opening study is clearly weighted against re-opening.
It adds to new stations which, as well as the cost, makes the journey via Uckfield less attractive. It assumes the existing stopping service will be extended rather than adding new express services. Unsurprisingly, given the assumptions little patronage will transfer across so the BCR looks crap.
The figures might look very different if no intermediate stations were added and if a 1tph of 2tph fast service was used.
P.S. To complement my DC iced-up overhead clip, here is one of a 10 car Networker up the Toomer Loop struggling between Strood & Rochester in heavy snow on 2nd December 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXXw7qQukjM
I am sure that SFD would agree that to install conductor rail heating everywhere would be prohibitively expensive and impractical anyway but maybe more de-icing trains running about would be of use (I have a feeling there were more before the old stock was scrapped and not directly replaced). It is pretty clear that nothing of the sort had been around that Toomer Loop, to start with.
@Kate: That 2008 re-opening study is clearly weighted against re-opening
Or is it just that real life is weighted against reopening? Remember the study was commissioned by a very pro-reopening group of people.
The figures might look very different if no intermediate stations were added
Not true: options were modelled with and without calls at intermediate stations (the A and B options in the report). There was little difference in the BCR.
and if a 1tph of 2tph fast service was used.
Which, even if it were physically possible (where would the paths through East Croydon come from? if you are adding paths through East Croydon, why not just run them down the BML where is greater demand? how do you save the 23 minutes needed to make the route via Uckfield as fast as via Haywards Heath?), would be unlikely to provide the more than tripling of demand needed to make the investment worthwhile (more than tripling because you would have to pay for the line speed and capacity improvements north of Uckfield too). And even if demand did triple, would one or two trains an hour be able to accommodate it?
@Brockley Mike. You need to check your sources for passenger numbers.
Assuming you mean Hurst Green to Uckfield, Official ORR data shows 2007/8 numbers to be 1.948m. Latest numbers (2013/14) 2.363m. That’s 21.3% growth. Hardly doubling, and a little way short of the trend line for 50% growth assumed to 2019. So perhaps the authors got it right?
If, on the other hand you did mean just Hurst Green to Edenbridge Town, then the same ORR figures show growth of just 5.4% over the same time period, principally because Ednebridge Town has shown a reduction in usage in that time.
Growth of passenger numbers on the line may have slowed down – as SFD points out – because the advent of HS1 in Kent has freed up some commuter capacity in the Tonbridge area. I think the peak service from Tunbridge Wells has also been strengthened, all of which serves to attract people back to the South Eastern route in preference to the Oxted line.
As for demand southwards, Brighton & Hove manage to run four buses per hour between Brighton, Lewes and Uckfield, two of which continue to Tunbridge Wells. It drops to half-hourly and hourly respectively on Sundays, and requires no service subsidies.
Alison W
Some of us remember platform 11 @ Manchester Vic, which metamorphosed into platform 3 of Manchester Exchange ….
I think it was over a kilometre from one end to the other (?)
SFD
Indeed, I understand, that, more than once Swiss/Swedish rotary snowploughs have been trialled here – and they clog up & stall & break down, because of our wet snow, that instantly turns to solid ice, when compressed in the scoops, thus err, buggering up the process ….
Anonymously
Freezing rain is horrible for everyone.
On the rare occasions that it happens, even my Land-Rover isn’t really an option – a completely glazed top-surface with a coefficient of friction of less than 0.1 really isn’t funny, & I’ve driven (VERY carefully ) on surfaces I couldn’t stand up on – packed snow )
@Man of Kent – all of which suggests that the Brighton-Uckfield corridor already has quite a good (very good by most non-London standards) public transport service, which raises the further issue as to whether, even if a rail service were installed there, many (how many) people would be willing to pay extra for a faster and perhaps more reliable journey. Certainly in terms of frequency, there is no likelihood at all of rail offering a comparable service.
I’ve always assumed that rural areas and small towns have a lower housing market churn, both fewer rentals and rarer sales, than larger urban areas. So is there a danger of building it, and them not coming, as while shopping traffic might divert quickly, new commuters might be slow to arrive.
Have there been studies as to how much response to a new link is due to existing people getting jobs in the new destinations, or incomers now viewing the area as viable? And is there a urban/rural split?
If you converted the Southern BML to AC you would also save a couple of minutes on semi fast (and more on all stops) journey times so L-U might need to potentially find a bigger time savings than calculated above.
Metal theft – Conductor rail is either 106lb/yd or the newer 150lb/yd (74.4kg/m)
so at current scrap prices a meter is only worth around £9/m and given the cost of cutting lift and transporting it isn’t worth it unless you do it on huge scale when steel prices are high (which they aren’t at the moment).
The theft of rail in recent years has been on closed / mothballed lines (Bletchley – Calvert and Leamside) and has been on a large scale over a period of time.
Back to weather – LU cope a little better by fixing ‘sleet brushes’ to the shoe beam of a proportion of units, and run them in service and also overnight. That, combined with the frequency of traffic helps keep the con rail(s) clear. The brushes wear out pretty quickly, but then they don’t have much distance to cover. It helps that nothing goes much above 50mph either.
Most of the NR network by distance has nowhere near the frequency of LU, and much as the infrastructure operators would like to run trains at high frequency overnight when snow is predicted, finding a train operator (and drivers) willing to do so is pushing the boundaries of practicality.
@SFD – I did check the numbers! The estimate in the report is for train loadings between Edenbridge Town and Hurst Green, that stretch presumably chosen as it would reflect the am peak maximum loading on the line before it merges with trains from East Grinstead. It is not related to users just at those two stations. My figures for comparison were taken from the ORR station annual usage figures (albeit the exercise I did earlier in the comments was 05/06 to 13/14) – these actual percentage increases would probably be even higher if just related to the peak direction flows used in the 2008 report, thus making the comparison even more stark.
@IanJ – the ‘they’ was indeed the Board, but the implication is they could not afford to look at the Tunbridge – Eridge feasibility. Nothing is said about them feeling it was unviable. Also the costed option was for non-electrified track, so the trebling of electrification costs would not impact an updating of the numbers.
Extending the line and then running services to Newhaven (as one of the assessed options) was predicted to cover its running costs, even with the massive underestimate in usage, so to my mind there are reasonable grounds to re-run the study using more current data (as is happening I believe anyway – so it will be interesting to see the outcome of that).
In the meantime it looks like there is something for everybody in the 2008 report!.
Does the wire used in OHLE have a finite life? Does it have to be replaced on a traffic or time basis, or a combination of the two? If so, is there an extra cost compared to third rail? I recall from my bus-spotting youth that in Trolleybus days the frogs and skates had to be replaced but I don’t remember any large scale wiring renewal.
@Graham Feakins 01DEC 05:28
The train was certainly struggling. I seem to remember by looking out my window overlooking Clapham Junction, that years ago the first pick-up was isolated (no sparking) so did not draw current, just acting as a shoe to `clear` to some degree the ice/snow. Does anyone know if this cannot be done now with all the computer control?
@BrockleyMike – unfortunately for us all, ORR station useage statistics up until about three years ago are wholly unreliable, being based on ticket sales rather than bodies making trips. In some locations, this has reflected the changing mix of ticket types rather than actual volume changes. The snag for planners is that no-one has carried out controlled studies yet (may not be possible,now) to understand the differences reliably.
BTW “Viable” before privatisation means something wholly different to “viable” now. The whole cost basis of the industry has shifted, with many new cost headings appearing – that is one reason why what had been a £4bn industry in 1995 became a £7bn industry by 1997…
@Brockley Mike. Something doesn’t add up. Traffic on the line has increased as per ORR figures, is 21.3% since the report. Therefore your quote of doubling since the study is patently incorrect,and it would be interesting to see your sources. The rate of growth assumed in the study therefore was not underestimated; if anything it was overestimated, although I would argue it is well within an acceptable margin of error. Flows at any one point etc are largely irrelevant in this context, it is purely numbers of bums on seats on the line and the fares they pay.
Anonymous, yes contact wire has a life, most closely related to the number of pantographs that pass under it. If you are fortunate enough to be able to locate any 1949 contact wire recovered during the current GE OLE renewal, you will see that in cross section it is roughly semi-circular. The replacement wire is circular. The difference is 60 odd years of wear.
@SFD – the earlier number crunching I did was based on 05/06 to 13/14 ORR numbers for station usage for Uckfield, Buxted, Crowborough, Eridge, Cowden and Edenbridge Town (so not all stations) and the totals for those stations were 817,010 in 05/06 and 1.658.819 in 13/14, so slightly more than double in that period.
I guess part of the discrepancy is that someone getting on at Uckfield and getting off at, say, Cowden is counted twice, being a user of both stations, but the perceived main usage would be that most people head further north to EC and beyond?
@Graham H – so in my figures above, 13/14 might be trustworthy but not the 05/06 based on your comment on ORR statistics reliability – and also that the figures used by NR in the 2008 report are equally prone to error? Garbage in / garbage out presumably. Thus no-one can really say if there was a business case or not back in 2008?
@Brockley Mike – Yes, I wouldn’t bet the house on any NR forecasts before about 2012 or so. The problem NR face is that, on the insistence of the regulator, TOCs are not allowed to give them passenger useage figures*, so the poor dears are somewhat stuck. Nor, of course, do NR have any relationship to the commercial railway other than via the sale of train paths. That is one reason why the first round of RUS were so much waste paper, and the successor Route Studies simply project known useage figures forward and translate that into paths. The assumptions are very weak and there is even less knowledge about alternatives and their evaluation (remember the emphasis on peak pricing in the RUS?).
It seems strange that there has been absolutely no mention of the alternative of evicting the Bluebell railway and reinstating that to Lewes. It might be totally impractical but it would be interesting to hear the reasons.
Re Steven Taylor,
3rd rail shoes.
The new units post privatisation (Bombardier, Siemsens etc) have twice the number of shoes so much reduced current going through each shoe and more shoes to do the cleaning overall so less of problem.
The first shoe can still be isolated – just remove the (very large) fuse. [Future new units may have a large MCB to replace the fuse].
3rd rail wear and alignment /height issues are now monitored by on train diagnostics fitted to a couple of units (377401?) on extra dummy shoe beams which might help reduce 3rd rail issues in general and some arcing issues.
SFD
It also helps if each unit has 8 pick-up shoes, rather than a networker’s 4 … ( see also ngh on this )
Graham H
on the insistence of the regulator, TOCs are not allowed to give them passenger useage figures*,
That really is stupid to the point of ridiculous.
Can nothing be done about it?
Get rid of the regulator?
That still doesn’t force the TOCs to supply the figures though. Its a bit silly in cases where the TOC is actually run under a management contract contracted by the DfT.
One wonders what Sir Peter Hendy thinks about this. After all TfL loves collecting figures and publishing them on a regular basis. So “we run a railway network but we don’t really know how many passengers use it”. How many other business would be happy not being allowed to know how many customers they have? (Yes, I do know that the actual passengers who use the thing are neither customers nor stakeholders as far as Network Rail is concerned in the current model we use to run a railway.)
Anonyminibus,
I was a bit surprised too that no-one mentioned it. Trouble is that it is so unbelievably rural. It closed – a long time ago – for a reason. It makes the Uckfield line look cosmopolitan. Passenger numbers throughout its pre-Bluebell history were extremely low. Kingscote in particular is in the middle of nowhere and was only built as a condition demanded by the landowner. If I recall correctly, the line was basically built in a wave of overoptimism to get agricultural products to markets.
It seems a general problem is that if routes are still available they are in very rural areas. Those that are more promising in terms of catchment areas and development since the railway closed are generally the ones that have been built over.
Partly for the reason above it probably makes more sense to focus on improving what you have got – at least initially. The line to East Grinstead seems to have gained the critical mass necessary to really take-off to the extent it will have a limited Thameslink service by 2018. For those wishing that there could be developments on the line to Uckfield it would seem that something similar would be necessary but currently there is simply not the necessary numbers of inhabitants in the nearby area to achieve this.
@Anonyminibus: Small problem there, the A275 at Sheffield Park and the A272 just a little beyond that….
On the other hand the Ardingly route is in their sights, but they want to recover from East Grinstead first and Project Undercover currently has higher priority…
I have also heard (completely unsubstantiated) rumours about third rail on the Ardingly branch…
@Anonyminibus:
The Bluebell Railway would need to be bought out; they can’t be “evicted” as the land doesn’t belong to Network Rail, but to the heritage railway itself.
Also, the route of the Bluebell Railway was re-laid to Light Railway standards, so it’s a single-track route with a top speed of just 25 mph. Any takeover would effectively require a complete relaying of the track, along with passing loops, new signalling, etc. Basically, all you’d save is a bit of civil engineering, but at a cost of many millions given the money the Bluebell Railway have sunk into their assets. (Their extension to East Grinstead cost a whopping £11m.)
Finally, the Lewes-East Grinstead route was closed (twice) in the 1950s, some years before Dr. Beeching’s infamous report. The original line was not a success, and some of the disused southern route is now lost to redevelopments, roads, etc. It’s not a simple matter of just re-laying the track.
@Southern Heights:
Having just visited their website – and discovered that Microsoft’s Edge browser has a nasty bug that randomly truncates paragraphs; something I’ve noticed happening here too – it appears that while the Bluebell Railway do have an “aspiration” to reach Lewes, it’s very much a long-term goal. And by “long-term”, they mean “50 years”.
Given the condition of the disused track-bed, and the obstacles you mentioned, I can’t see it happening at all unless Lewes itself agrees to back the project with some substantial money and assistance to help improve local tourism. The short extension from Kingscote to East Grinstead cost a whopping £11 million, so extending the much longer distance to Lewes is going to be truly eye-watering.
@Anonymous Nothing lasts forever. OHLE wire needs maintaining and eventually replacing. But of course so does conductor rail.
Imm,
I believe conductor rail has around a 50 year life so roughly the same as overhead. Normally when track is replaced in DC areas they just put the conductor rail back – or at least they used to.
Brockley Mike. There’s the answer, your ‘doubling’ starts the clock two years earlier than the report. The trouble with the Uckfield Line statistics (ignoring whether you trust them or not, they are / were the best available in the public domain) is that there is an explosion in growth in a 4 year spell following the introduction of all day London services and the new trains. It would be a brave person who suggested that this growth over and above the general trend (both on the line historically, and for similar lines elsewhere) was not driven by the new trains and improved service.
However, this extra growth clearly tailed off in 2007/8, coincidentally when the report was written, and has returned to something relatively close to growth on the rest of the network. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that this trend will continue, and that appears to be what the report authors did. And who can blame them, particularly when they seem to have been correct.
What is certain is that by reopening the line south and providing through services to the coast (assuming the same frequency) would not increase patronage for services from the existing stations to London. How could it?
Slightly amused regarding how much comment this has generated, particularly when the whole line generates fewer than half the passengers of the metropolis of Gospel Oak.
Feeling it appropriate to suggest now it’s been raised, (and being brief), I suggested the northern Bluebell as an alternative for relieving the BML by taking the Lewes services back in part 7.
[Snipped for brevity by Mods.]
SFD – “Slightly amused regarding how much comment this has generated, particularly when the whole line generates fewer than half the passengers of the metropolis of Gospel Oak.” It’s probably that it is a small size that makes it seem attractive to armchair pundits – “easy to get your hands round” as one friend who moved from running the District to the New Zealand system a few years ago, remarked. I suspect it’s the same lure that draws the pundits to the W&C, GNC and Aldwych branches…
I suspect it is also partly psychological – the dead end at Uckfield just looks so stupid on the network map, a “so near and yet so far” situation where people who don’t understand the complexities of these matters say “surely it would be so easy to link it back up again”. Alton is a bit the same.
Close down one of the oldest and most well loved steam railway preservation outfits in the UK? That’s just plain crazy! The opposition would be enormous and what could you offer in compensation realistically short of a brand new railway somewhere else? Volunteers could hardly be expected to spend another 20 years reestablishing themselves so you’d have to build much of a new railway for them quickly at full commercial prices. An alternative is a NYMR-style shared use plan at the north end into independent station facilities at East Grinstead, just as now, with the route south thereof electrified via Horsted Keynes then extended to Haywards Heath. Whoever owned the infrastructure in that case could then host a regular Southern service, extending some of the East Grinstead terminators south with occasional heritage EMUs interrunning as well as the steam trains from Sheffield Park (perhaps only some of the latter, as at Whitby). I’d expect the track to be able to handle 40 or 50MPH in many places on the shared section with modern passenger rolling stock as opposed to heavy steam locomotives, so differential speed restrictions could be used. Some of the new track especially at the far north end is weighty flat bottom rail on concrete sleepers, heavily ballasted. The Bluebell is centralising signal control for the extension, including the NR interface, at Kingscote using a miniature electomechanical lever frame. The same box might then also be able to remotely control an independent bypass route through Horsted Keynes that could be used when the main Horsted Keynes station signal box was switched out, so only one box need be staffed to keep the entire East Grinstead- Haywards Heath electric route open including at times when the steam railway was not running. There’s only just over two miles of track missing and the alignment seems clear, lacking even the usual leisure trail, although the Ardingly siding and the interface at Haywards Heath would probably need a lot of work to make them suitable for passenger use.
None of this would be a BML2 or even a BML1.1, with only a modest local and heritage service possible, but rather than a major capacity benefit it could still provide some emergency or engineering diversionary relief, just as could a Lewes -Uckfield line if built as a local single track railway.
Re PoP,
That still appears to be the usual practice however there has been lots of upgrade before (and on) life expiry in recent years to the larger section 150lb/yard rail to reduce resistive losses (40% reduction in resistivity leading to even greater reduction in resistive losses and voltage drop).
TfL have been replacing their underground conductor rails with Aluminium clad with a stainless steel top surface to cut resistive losses by another 2.5 fold below that. [See Fridays discussion about the limitation of getting power to the train using conductor rails and not with OHLE.]
@Mark Townend
[Snipped for brevity. LBM] They would obviously have to be suitably compensated for the assets north of Horsted Keynes the same as any other landowner, but those funds would go a long way to a southern extension from Sheffield Park, and they only managed East Grinstead very recently. Arguably, and depending on the capacity required, it’s conceivable to have a pair of single tracks (one NR, one Bluebell, as proposed for the Lavender Line) if the capacity required was low enough, perhaps with a passing loop or two on greenfield sites if needed.
One track each would be very challenging. The filled-in rubbish cutting was only excavated sufficiently to produce one track whereas originally it was two track. So basically it would be a case of lift up the track for quite a distance, dig out clay capping, excavate further, replace clay capping and then relay the track. It wouldn’t surprise me of that was as almost as big a job as digging out what they have already have done.
Also at one location they only managed to acquire sufficient land to get one track width of the formation. The other owner wouldn’t sell so that looks like a compulsory purchase order – probably doable but not trivial.
@Mark Townend – “None of this would be a BML2 or even a BML1.1, with only a modest local and heritage service possible, but rather than a major capacity benefit it could still provide some emergency or engineering diversionary relief, just as could a Lewes -Uckfield line if built as a local single track railway.” As I explained a bit earlier in this thread,the business value of a diversionary route is close to zero, even for BML1, even more so for a mere twig, I’m afraid.
Quite. In the relative context of reopening U-L though, those hurdles don’t seem quite so insurmountable as the distances are comparable (9 vs 10 miles, IIRC). Uckfield has minor encroachment on the formation, Isfield and Barcombe Mills stations would need to be bought, let alone the formation itself, not to mention the road-related bridging and re-routing required in multiple locations. On that note, one advantage over U-L is that I believe the sole road-related work needed would be the replacement of the Sheriff Mill viaduct as EG-HH has/had no road level crossings.
@Anonyminibus
It seems strange that there has been absolutely no mention of the alternative of evicting the Bluebell railway and reinstating that to Lewes.
If only it were practical, as others have explained.
The link via Ardingly to Copyhold Junction is practical, but no use other than as a diversionary route other than for East Grinstead to Haywards Heath/South Coast. Indeed if it did open as part of the Bluebell it would be likely to cause issues, as it is hard to see where it would terminate.
@mr_jrt – You are seriously under-estimating the amount of opposition you would get from the preservation movement, the tourist industry, the local councils and the local population to any proposal to close the Bluebell railway. There is no way any government would support it – you might as well suggest driving a new motorway through the area.
The link via Ardingly to Copyhold Junction is practical, but no use other than as a diversionary route other than for East Grinstead to Haywards Heath/South Coast.
Is that the case though?
If you combined the East Grinstead and East/West Coastway services then you’re getting more from your paths. Oxted constraints permitting, East Grinstead could go up in frequency and you would still be using the same number of BML paths through East Croydon.
There has been no mention of it because most of us do recognise when something is not worth the trouble or effort.
As others have pointed out, the route has been built over south of Sheffield Park. Therefore, the only part that could be realistically reopened is East Grinstead to Haywards Heath, to serve as a diversionary route. And as Graham H pointed out, the business case for that is close to zero (although I am intrigued as to whether the same applies for bypassing the line through Dawlish). So expect nothing to happen here unless something catastrophic occurs on the BML (e.g. a collapse of the Ouse Valley Viaduct).
Incidentally, prior to closure, Horsted Keynes was the terminus for electric trains via Haywards Heath to…..Seaford! Strange but true.
Though the site of the original Newick and Chailey station has been built on, there’s enough adjacent open land that it should be possible to get a railway through without extensive demolition.
@Jim Cobb
I’m not suggesting closing the railway [Inaccurate statement snipped. LBM]. What I’m proposing is the Bluebell terminating at Horsted Keynes, as it originally did all those years ago.
Pop I suspect East Grinstead has “critical mass” because it remained double track and got electrified (incidentally according to Chris Green only on the basis that they had to sweat the stock to make it viable, and there was insufficient EMU stock at the time to do the same for the Uckfield line, otherwise that would have been included in the same scheme), allowing an immediate doubling of service frequency. And it surely doesn’t qualify for Thameslink services in 2018 because of this; almost everything that currently uses the fast lines into London Bridge is joining Thameslink. The Uckfield line has been deliberately run down if anything, maybe with a similar frequency to East Grinstead we might be having a different discussion now. And of course its continued diesel traction excludes it from the Thameslink project!
I remember hearing at the time of the East Grinstead electrification that there was an intention to run Thameslink trains on the line, but the plans were abandoned because there weren’t the necessary clearances to run 319s through Oxted Tunnel. No idea if there’s any truth in it.
@SFD 14.53 – you are right with regard to the growth in the period I covered being a lot higher up to 2008. I get 24% growth since then up to 13/14. However that is for peak and off peak and for flows against the peak direction, whereas the figures in the 2008 report were for growth just in the two-hour morning peak towards London, which one might expect to be the timeslot showing the most growth. So the average overall usage being about on the trend predicted for just the peak period suggests usage higher than expected?
‘What is certain is that by reopening the line south and providing through services to the coast (assuming the same frequency) would not increase patronage for services from the existing stations to London. How could it?’
Well I agree there, but it would open up southbound journey opportunities that do not exist now and I am sure some of the comments here noted that southbound journeys were quite busy pre-closure, suggesting there is suppressed demand.
‘Slightly amused regarding how much comment this has generated, particularly when the whole line generates fewer than half the passengers of the metropolis of Gospel Oak’.
Nevertheless the 13/14 figures for the six Uckfield line stations I looked at are about the same as the usage on the Hastings lines intermediate stations between the coast and Tunbridge Wells, so not insignificant for the region (and the Hastings line benefits from lots of viable southbound journey opportunities already, of course).
Overall I do think the Uckfield-Lewes extension would still fail a BCR exercise, but a lot less decisively than most others here think, especially given Graham H’s comments about how unreliable the input data was up to just a few years ago. So if I was uncertain before, now I am not so sure….
GTRD – yes, I just about remember my own sense of underwhelmement at the dawn of East Grinstead’s and Network SouthEast’s new electric age with… VEPs.
I am intrigued by the article’s reference to loco hauled (/propelled?) services lasting into the NSE era. I was rather young (and a North Londoner to boot) at the time but I feel as if I should have noted that fact. What were the working atrangements?
Caspar Lucas: I think at first it wasn’t even VEPs, but EPBs. There’s certainly a doggerel about the East Grinstead electrification in issue 100 of Live Rail, where one of the numerous verses ends ‘All they’ll get is EPBs / The CIGs were just for show.’
@Anonymously
Almost the BCRs for the Dawlish avoiding lines ranged from a lowly 0.29 to an even lower 0.08. There’s no BCR is building lines for diversionary purposes.
Even if they hadn’t been treated differently in terms of electrification etc, East Grinstead would have been bound to justify a better train service than Uckfield. It has a population of about 23 thousand, and is about 30 miles from central London. Uckfield is about 13 thousand and 50 miles.
@Brockley Mike – it’s the scale of the thing that is the clue. Let us say that the cost of re-opening is between £150m and £300m (the higher figure because of doubling and electrification ( a loop at Lewes could add another £200m easily given the cramped site of the town and railway). Just to recover the cost in economic benefits needs to equate to that figure therefore. Lewes and Uckfield between them are quite small – about 75000 pop. How many new journeys would that generate – not many because both towns already have rail connexions to London which will be the bulk of any rail traffic, that leaves only people making local journeys – how many do we think those might be? The entire local population making an EXTRA journey a week ( ie extra or diverted from the highly frequent bus service) – most unlikely. Once a month is more likely – that’s about 15000 journeys a month (say 500 a day) = 180-200 000 journeys a year. If – and its a big if – each of those journeys saves about 20 minutes by comparison with the bus, that’s going to be about 70 000 hrs/pa or about 2-2.5m hours over the appraisal lifetime of the scheme. So, each hour saved (setting aside discounting issues for the moment) would have to be worth something in excess of £100 for each passenger. Add in a Lewes loop and we are probably asking for time savings worth twice that for each punter. So much for the economic case.
I suspect that Anonyminbus will be as amazed as I am that his ironic remark “It seems strange that there has been absolutely no mention of the alternative of evicting the Bluebell railway and reinstating that to Lewes” has been taken seriously by so many commentators. It just goes to show! (Exactly what it goes to show is less clear to me).
Sorry, I should have added that much of the local population is unlikely to use the train even if frequent and cheap – nationally, the bulk of the population makes <10 journeys pa by rail. Commuting and IC traffic accounts for the great bulk of journeys per head. Many, make no rail trips at all. I have therefore assumed that the propensity to use rail is confined to about 1/4 of the population. If all the population of the settlements in question make monthly trips, lured by the the prospect of using each others' fleshpots, then the numbers of benefits required to be generated per trip would fall accordingly to the range of £25-50 – still about an order of magnitude greater than the conventional valuation of time. Put another way, for the benefits to stack up, Lewes and Uckfield would probably need to be the size of Leeds…
I don’t think EPBs were regulars on the Grinstead line – I think a completely toilet-free train would not have gone down well after the 205s and 207s.
Loco haulage lasted quite a long time – here is a class 33 sporting a “77” headcode at London Bridge as late as 1984. There were three peak hour workings, supplementing the demus working from Victoria
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36034969@N08/8319018215
In earlier times redundant EMU stock was used – a demotored 2BIL sandwiching five 4SUB trailers formed a “7TC” (although in fact it could not work push-pull) and later a 6TC.
http://www.semgonline.com/coach/900.html
https://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/6351961532
http://www.bloodandcustard.com/6tc.html
@timbeau – certainly the stock for the opening was either a VEP or CIG. The inaugural run was amusing because Channon, the then SoS, travelled down with Howe (the Chancellor and a local MP). Howe spent his time winding up Channon, who was a nervous man who disliked public events. The day or two before, there had been an embarrassingly publicised ship launch (QE2?) at which the champagne bottle had failed to crack. Howe chivvied Channon saying that would happen here, too. Channon was most relieved when it went off to plan. Somewhere I still have the engraved glass with which we are all issued.
Caspar Lucas @ 21:13
When NSE had it’s first Network Day I remember there were Class 50s hauling coaches at Salisbury. The Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth route had services provided by 4-REP, 4-TC and Class 33/1 as described here.
@Graham H
With respect I think you are missing the point. The Oxted line can take Eastbourne and Eastbourne district passengers freeing up more capacity on BML for Brighton etc passengers. That’s capacity which will be needed for Brighton, Preston Park, Three Bridges, Gatwick etc. It’s the passenger growth at those stations which needs to be considered, not just growth on the Oxted Line itself.
Take Gatwick, for example, if it expands (which might just mean more large planes replacing small planes rather than a new runway) extra capacity can be created either by running more trains from London to Gatwick, but that is problematic because the fast lines between South Croydon and Gatwick are practically at capacity without major work; alternatively existing through passengers are routed away from Gatwick to allow more airport passengers to board. The Oxted Line is the best way of doing that.
That is, the BCR should be based largely on growth in Brighton, Gatwick etc passenger numbers with any growth around Lewes and Uckfield is an added benefit.
On the Bluebell Line … the best option might be to lob them some Lottery money for a link to Haywards Heath and “encourage” them to run a scheduled service over the whole route.
@Grahm H
QE2 was launched twenty years before the Grinstead electrification!
@Graham H
£200m for a Lewes loop? I’m sorry but how could a single track connection on an alignment something like this: http://www.townend.me/files/lewesloop.jpg with no major structures or demolition alongside the bypass for under 2km with a new junction at either end possibly add up to that sort of figure? A major new tunnel route through the hills maybe, but the more modest options. . .
@Kate that sounds like a good idea.
@Kate. I not sure whether Graham H minds whether you give him respect or not. But it appears that you are missing the point, and have done several times, notwithstanding the efforts of the author and several commenters.
The lines between South Croydon and Gatwick *are not* ‘practically at capacity’. They have plenty of space for additional traffic, at least another 6 peaks paths per hour. Even running everything at 12 car length in the peak would be a start.
The problem is, however, East Croydon and Windmill Bridge Jn which both *are* at capacity. Sort that, and most if not all the spare capacity between South Croydon and Gatwick can be used.
Even if every Eastbourne – Lewes to London passenger was diverted via Uckfield, at the expense of a longer journey (and several hundred million quid), it would, at best, free up 2 not quite full trainloads of capacity per hour for Brighton line passengers north of Haywards Heath.
@Kate
The Oxted line can take Eastbourne and Eastbourne district passengers freeing up more capacity on BML
Only if you accept a reduction in direct Eastbourne and Lewes to Haywards Heath and East Croydon services.
On the Bluebell Line … the best option might be to lob them some Lottery money for a link to Haywards Heath and “encourage” them to run a scheduled service over the whole route.
But where do you put the terminating platforms? In the car park?
@Jim Cobb
You are seriously under-estimating the amount of opposition you would get…to any proposal to close the Bluebell railway. There is no way any government would support it – you might as well suggest driving a new motorway through the area.
There is no benefit from doing this, so the argument is academic. What about the Lavender Line though? When push comes to shove, should we send them to play with steam trains elsewhere (with the same compensation as a householder) if there should be a sufficient BCR to proceed?
The Lavender line is a much much smaller operation than the Bluebell with a tiny rolling stock collection by comparison. With a single line for national rail through Isfield using the former down platform line, the heritage trains could continue to use the other platform and an extra siding could be provided in the yard behind the station buildings to compensate for lost storage space. Access to the shed and other facilities would remain available and the former double track alignment could allow a mile of parallel running to be retained alongside the reinstated single track route, broadly replicating the Lavender Line’s existing facilities.
But where do you put the terminating platforms? In the car park?
The question has been considered. Though I recall hearing that there’s only enough space for one platform and no run-round, so all trains would have to be multiple units or push-pull.
Timbeau – your first link implies that loco haulage on the Oxted lines ended in 1985, so it seems my hunch that it didn’t last into NSE days may have been correct. (As an aside, I still remember my shock at seeing the first picture of the new livery in an NSE launch brochure which wiki tells me was in 1986 – clearly the near-uniform blue and grey during my formative years had limited my imagination.)
I note your reference to /completely/ toilet-free trains; in the last years the Thumpers came in a few different configurations but I assume you are referring to the non-gangway ones that only had toilet provision in the driving trailer (the one with the first class accommodation well away from the above-floor diesel engine at the opposite end of the unit).
Edgepedia – those I remembered (and expwrienced); it was reference to specifically Oxted locos that surprised me.
@Malcom
What it goes to show is that, if we swap our crayons for sepia-tints and our virtual TBMs for i-navvys, then we can examine the re-opening of ever more esoteric closed twig lines.
That way lies the primrose-strewn permanent way that leads straight to Brill.
@Mark Townend – the Hitchin flyover cost £47m at the time, and that on a pretty unconstrained site..
@Kate – SFD makes my point. And the Gatwick Express trains could be made longer if the airport useage increases dramatically, without taking extra paths. [I don’t mind being treated with respect or not – as a very minor elected parish councillor, I am quite used to complete strangers coming up to me and abusing me without so much as a word of introduction*].
*Who would have thought that war memorials could arouse such passion. Hey Ho!
Graham H,
the Hitchin flyover cost £47m at the time, and that on a pretty unconstrained site..
I think that is a totally inappropriate comparison. The Hitchin Flyover, as its name suggests, was a flyover almost entirely built out of concrete and on stilts. I think we are talking about a pretty basic embankment for the Lewes loop. Due to the nature of its use the trains will be travelling at low speed – unlike Hitchin – so it can be pretty basic.
I have not seen any suggestion as to the cost but, like Mark Townend, I can hardly believe it would be around £200 million. You could almost join the disused Croxley Branch to the Metropolitan line for that!
@PoP – fair enough; I wasn’t at all clear what was in mind – a tunnel had been mentioned several times. [This is, of course, a common problem with BML2 costings – no one can say what it is…].
@PoP – even if a simple loop costing a few millions is what is needed, it doesn’t distract from the general point that the BCR for re-opening is likely to be of the order of 0.1-2. (One cost I did not mention is the financing and operating cost – likely to be of the order of £15m+£5m, say, at the cheap end of reconstruction. Over 30 years, that would amount to £600m to add to the capex. Even discounted at today’s TDR, it would likely be c£150m NPV, making a total of £300m NPV – or £450m if reconstruction costs around £300m). That’s a big ask for a probable revenue base of 420 months ( the appraisal horizon) x 15000 extra journeys a month = 7m extra journeys over 30 years. With a reasonable stab at £5 extra revenue per journey + £2-3 in economic benefits, that’s just £56m on the benefit side (nearer 28m after discounting – hence my suggested BCR of 0.1).
@Graham H:
“Put another way, for the benefits to stack up, Lewes and Uckfield would probably need to be the size of Leeds…”
And that’s the crux of the matter, I think. If the only way to justify this project is by pointing fingers at everywhere but Lewes, Uckfield, and points between, then the case is already lost.
Were the government to announce construction a major New Town or similar in the vicinity, the business case for reinstating the railway would be much stronger, so perhaps it would be better if those who really, really want to see a reinstated Lewes-Uckfield rail link within their lifetime supported such a project.
In the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with improving the local and regional road network, and better bus links for those who don’t own a car.
There is considerable local political support for doing something. There are probably serval, if not dozens, of similar projects around the country.
The thing though is this. Each time there is a sense that regional projects are not given proper consideration or are met with a lack of apparent enthusiasm from NR and DfT then opinion hardens against approving projects which serve London or the big cities alone.
Just as with broadband, there is a rural lobby and it feels it is being ignored on a number of issues. Rural broadband costs more; transport projects outside major urban areas may have a lower BCR than urban projects. If that means rural schemes are ignored then resentment can only grow.
Approving schemes like Lewes to Uckfield, electrifying lines like the Oxted line etc is, if not necesarilly these specific schemes, probably part of the political price to get investment for things like CR2 approved.
There is another snag with the Bluebell, just outside Sheffield Park the train slows to 10mph. This is due to some unstable ground, that no amount of work seems to have been able to fix. As far as I’m aware this has been the case since the line was built….
If the Bluebell were to re-instate the Ardingly link, it would only be to draw more patronage from the coast direction… Preferably arriving by train. From speaking to staff on the Railway, it would take a single small bridge to be replaced before they could lay tracks all the way back to the track on the other side of the tunnel.
Kate,
A sort of valid, or at least arguable, point although I don’t think the south coast in general is particularly one of those areas you describe.
Even so, I suspect the reality is that for a reasonable sum of money there are “interventions” that could improve the lot of the south coast in a more effective way and hopefully the WSP report will look at these. For example, a lot of the Sussex coast is bedevilled by level crossings and elimination of these could do much more to assist the area than a much more expensive scheme such as reopening Uckfield-Lewes which logically should be less of a priority. And just adding carriages to the Brighton-Ashford service (via Lewes) would a cheap way of improving the railway service – and one with a proven demand.
I suspect part of the problem with Uckfield-Lewes is that it seems such an obvious thing to do.
By the way, I am hearing a lot about Brighton economy overheating. Maybe more time and effort should be directed there and in the surrounding area for cost-effectiveness but of course for people in other parts of the country this would be perceived as just another example of more investment in London and the already prosperous parts of the South East.
Another problem is that improving the situation at East Croydon or London Bridge isn’t perceived as helping the people of Lewes whereas probably it is actually the best way to help them. Crossrail 2 are well aware of this perception issue and will tackle it head on from the start.
@Kate
One of the cold hard facts of geography is that living in the countryside means you are not as well connected as if you live in the city (both for transport and broadband). Creating new connections that benefit a small number of people in any rural area will always cost more, and benefit a smaller number of people than an equivalent spend in a built-up urban area. Even in a political environment less focused on austerity , new rural connections are going to be a very hard sell.
@Kate – none of which makes the business case into a silk purse, and all of which opens the floodgates to corruption and pork barrel politics. I am disappointed that such arguments still find traction but then – politics aren’t about being sensible or rational, they’re about greed and power, envy and (these days) bad behaviour.
@Kate
Even if there is a general upsurge in feeling that rural areas as a whole are being ignored, or the South Coast as a whole, for that matter, I doubt if investment in L-U would be sufficient to assuage that feeling or even contribute much.
Graham (and others)
Rail schemes are (largely) funded nationally as are subsidies for running costs (although I think there are some exceptions).
Buses are subsidised by councils.
It’s not a good deal for rural communities – they are paying taxes to support rail services they don’t get and council tax to support buses (which often don’t serve rural,communities at any reasonable level of service). Rural communities wanting a rail service since they are paying taxes for one hardly seems to be “pork barrel politics”.
A pre-occupation with BCR inevitably means that urban schemes will be more likely to be built than rural schemes. It’s an inherent bias. A far better (IMO) approach would be to have performance measures that nobody would be more than x miles / x minutes travel from a railway station with direct services to their nearest city. I’d contend that would neither be irrational nor not sensible but would instead ensure at least the lowest common denominator is met in terms of service provision.
I’m sure such arguments apply to some rural schemes even more than U-L but I don’t buy into the idea that BCR should be the basis of decisions rather than providing a basic level of service to all communities. You might disagree – many prefer the accounting led approach – but there are alternative and equally credible criteria.
Kate,
I can see your argument. It is very similar to the (almost) “everyone in London should have a bus stop within 400m of their home” sort of policy. However buses are relatively cheap and work relatively well when there is a small demand. In any case subsidising a bus route is not hugely expensive.
Railways on the other hand are extremely expensive but come into their own when either transporting large numbers of people or large amounts of goods or when the alternative isn’t really practical.
There is nothing wrong with wanting society to work on a different basis. However the reality is that we are currently in one that working on the basis of the of getting the best value for money and also a society (or the civil servants or politicians) who generally require strong evidence that the money is going to be well spent and will have the beneficial effect the promoters are claiming. At present it is on that basis that implementing railway schemes will succeed or fail and it is on that basis that each side must make its case.
@Kate – I disagree entirely. There is absolutely no way of defining a “Right to Transport”. What sort of transport? When should it run? At what price? And what quality? What if no one used it? The country is not homogeneous – not even rural areas – would the inhabitants of Wester Ross have the same right as the inhabitants of Kent? I demand a right to be conveyed from my house to my club in a first class train at any time of the day or night for a trifling fare, that train to include a restaurant car, loos and an onboard hairdressing salon; the train should be non-stop. No, I jest…
Even in the palmiest days of the railway system, not every settlement by any means had a train service, and many that did never used them. A former colleague if mine was part of the team clearing up after the Borders route via Tweedmouth closed; he said the station log for Tweedmouth showed total receipts over the previous century of £286. Why should taxpayers pay anything at all to build that sort of railway? Even a tax funded bus wouldn’t be used (recommend a careful study of the bus timetables in the deeper rural areas. Try going anywhere in Lincolnshire by bus outside the major towns. )
The point is, the question is “Why should taxpayers pay anything at all towards any form of transport? If there is no “Right to Transport, let alone a right to rail transport”, then some sort of vfm test is inevitable. The alternative is for the taxpayer to build a vast network of tracks that have no use. Not even Gosplan did that (well, not very often).
BTW even if there was a right to rail travel, you still wouldn’t re-open L-U – the towns at both ends already have quite good rail services and for the likes of the inhabitants of Hurst Green or whatever, these places are a short bike /bus ride away.
BBTW most counties do in fact apply a CBA test for their bus services when deciding to subsidise them or not. Accessibility tests arise only in places like Greater London where the demographic distribution is fairly uniform.
I rest my case.
@Kate I don’t think there’s any inherent right to live in the countryside. It’s a choice people make, with advantages and disadvantages, and worse public transport provision is one of them. If we’re spending public money on transport then the goal is to improve people’s lives, or the economy, or to reduce pollution… whichever one you pick, you can get much more of it per pound spent in the cities. If that results in city life improving faster than rural life, it’s much more possible to move people to places they can have a better life than to provide everything everywhere.
@Kate – 2 December 2015 at 16:55
A far better (IMO) approach would be to have performance measures that nobody would be more than x miles / x minutes travel from a railway station with direct services to their nearest city.
There was a time, I believe, when nowhere in England was more than 10 miles from a railway station.
But closures, mainly post-war but some pre-war, before Beeching and as a result of Beeching, put an end to that. And closing the tributaries meant that people learnt to drive. But all that is past history.
There are however glimmers of hope, in that certainly in Greater London, car-ownership is going down.
I expect that in 50 years time (long after I’m pushing up daisies) the car v. train picture will be very different.
But on present knowledge, the most important step to aid future rail development is probably safeguarding old or possible future routes, rather than building on them.
@lmm – Indeed, I recently returned from Iceland where there are in effect only four towns outside Reykjavik and none of those of any size by UK standards , plus some isolated farms. Servicing even these towns with schools and hospitals and police,let alone public transport is wildly expensive to the point where the Icelandic government seriously closing down all settlements outside the capital.
In the UK, there was a study of Millom in the sixties after the major local employer shut – the conclusion was that the town and its inhabitants would be better off relocated elsewhere. There were also the famous /notorious Durham D villages, in the same vein.
Graham,
And taking your argument to the extreme there is the case of St Kilda in the Hebrides although in that case it was the islanders themselves who requested evacuation leaving the island uninhabited – by humans at any rate.
@Kate – your argument highlights the primary issue here. You may be paying taxes to support public transport, but there are not enough people in your area paying enough taxes to pay for a better service. Why should other people in other areas fund better transport for you ? They want their “taxes” spent on better transport in their area.
If you want better public transport, either you have to pay more for it, or you have to get more people into your area, or you have to move to a location with better public transport.
John U.K. mentions safeguarding “old or possible future routes”. Safeguarding future routes is of course a wonderful thing to do, the only snag is that it requires predictive skills beyond the power of Mystic Meg.
Safeguarding old routes – just in case they might come in handy – would have deprived us of many useful cycle trails, footpaths, roads, and indeed the southern section of the M25 – after all someone might want to “re-open” the Westerham branch. And (grin) just look how much trouble safeguarding (some of) the route between Uckfield and Lewes has got us into!
So HS2 shouldn’t be built because the citizens of London and Birmingham don’t pay enough tax between them to cover the cost? Cross-subsidy is an inherent part of transport projects and that is fine if it evens out over time.
@Kate – precisely so. Either that or HS2 should demonstrate that it generates enough of those wider economic benefits you despise. Just for the record, those schemes with BCR less than 1.0 actually destroy wealth – the people are better off if the same sum in banknotes is burned in public; those that have a positive BCR should increase the national wealth (and thereby, of course, the tax base to be shared au choix). [BTW I agree with you about cross-subsidy – once you have more than one seat and two stops, you have cross-subsidy].
Can you now explain what this right to transport would look like?
Musings
Trusting my observations are of interest…
I travelled to Cowden today on the 12.22 from East Croydon just to observe what was going on – first time for several years. Train arrived at Oxted 8 minutes late as we caught up with the stopping service running 11 minutes late.
Observed a speed limit sign on the Up side at Woldingham denoting 85 mph – so parts of the line, which is well engineered – built by contractor Firbank (from memory) although started by Waring and left abandoned for over 10 years half complete by Waring in the 1860s.
Cowden, which as POP has stated, is truly in the `middle-of-nowhere`..had a busy ambience. The Booking Hall had been re-plastered and 2 painters were busy adding the first coat. There were actually 3 people waiting for the London train, and the platform (only one as Cowden is on a single line now- although old Up one still extant) has been lengthened and there were about 5 workmen on site.
The train to London was late due to late running of the Down service. The units are nothing like the underpowered `Thumpers` of old. They really move. We did Oxted to East Croydon – in just over 11 minutes. He was obviously trying to make up lost time, and he was going over 80 approaching Upper Warlingham, although I think the speed limit must have been slightly lower for the rest of the journey, although I do not know the actual figure.
I counted 22 passengers on the train approaching Hurst Green, so the service is reasonable busy, with the caveat it is an hourly service.
And at risk of wandering off at a tangent – going all `hippy`, I must say the countryside is truly beautiful, with the odd Oast House visible.
Graham says “schemes with BCR less than 1.0 .. destroy wealth … better off if the same sum in banknotes is burned in public”
A nice turn of phrase, though subject to complications about the money supply etc, and since a banknote is a promise to pay the bearer a certain sum in gold, arguably the promise still subsists if its paper expression is destroyed – certainly partly-burned banknotes can be replaced in full (at least for a private individual, not sure what happens if a corporate body tries this).
But actually if a scheme costing £4m has a BCR of 0.75, then implementing the scheme would only be the equivalent of burning £1m. So it’s not “the same sum”.
We also need to remember that a BCR is usually a ratio of estimated numbers, and estimates can turn out to have been wrong.
@ Graham H
Surely a negative BCR just means there is a cost to the taxpayer of doing something rather than a gain, as there are for all manner of things paid for by tax? The welfare state is fundamentally a transfer payment of this nature, as is a great deal paid for by the taxpayer. So while building e.g, 8 miles of railway may or may not be the best way to spend money, there are plenty of things which happen which effectively destroy value in the way you describe
@Anomnibus 11.52 – ‘And that’s the crux of the matter, I think. If the only way to justify this project is by pointing fingers at everywhere but Lewes, Uckfield, and points between, then the case is already lost’.
I don’t agree on that point, or on the focus being solely on the rural benefits, which I would certainly not dismiss of course. The L-U extension (ideally together with an Eridge – Tunbridge Wells re-opening) reconnects the Uckfield line into an overall south east network (emphasis on ‘network’), thereby also generating new journey opportunities for people in urban settlements like Brighton, Newhaven and Eastbourne (and Tunbridge Wells potentially). The benefits are far greater than just to the residents of Lewes or Uckfield as implied by Anomnibus.
@ Graham H – the Hamsey loop is definitely not part of the BML2 mega-plan and is not being promoted by them as an option (I have an email from the main BML2 protagonist confirming that). The BML2 scheme is just focused on the Lewes-avoiding tunnel, misguidedly even to my ‘armchair pundit’ view (crayons on my Christmas list btw!).
Also as I noted previously, the 2008 report did conclude that several options (including running Newhaven-Uckfield-London services, for example) would cover their running costs, so the BCR failing relates to the initial capital cost only, as I would understand that conclusion (which is probably wrongly of course!).
If the BCR is so bad and always will be, which seems to be the view here, why not promote selling the safeguarded land and using the money on another scheme. Most people here should support that given the tone of the comments generally…
@Kate:
Yes, taxpayers pay for transport services. The problem many people forget is that the road network itself is part of that too. Buses need roads. While individual bus services are subsidised by local councils, major trunk roads like the A27 are funded by the Department for Transport. (Contrary to popular belief, “T” in “DfT” does not stand for “Trains”.)
So you’re paying for the roads that are used by those buses. You’re also paying for the roads that get you from your home to said buses, including any lighting, pavements, etc.
The same roads are also used by cars and other vehicles. Until the 1940s, most roads were still unpaved, which is why even rural heavy rail services survived as long as they did, but the railways no longer have a monopoly, nor a captive market.
Railways excel at bulk flows over long distances. The railways through Kent, Surrey, and the Sussexes cannot provide those as they’re coastal counties and the sea, rather irritatingly, gets in the way. This part of Britain’s rail network is highly unusual because of this: it was laid out to provide the best possible coverage instead. Unfortunately, that’s precisely the kind of thing road-going vehicles (including trams) can do much more efficiently than trains.
Governments do not have any money of their own: it’s our money they’re spending, hence their duty to ensure they get the best value from their investments, because the more subsidies we pay each year, the less money there is in the pot for other projects. Hence the use of metrics like BCR.
Here’s another “pre-Christmas” question….(I don’t know the answer btw,but others might)…Which was the last,or indeed,was there ever a railway which entirely washed its face finncially,covering capital costs,debt servicing,running costs etc?
Supplementary question: Is it reasonable to expect every new rail scheme to aspire to this?
You may start writing….
Re BCRs lower than 1.0 and burning of banknotes thereof. Politicians in the Borders of Scotland please note.
Can anyone confirm if the Lewes – Uckfield route is actually, formally, safeguarded? As in with a safeguarding direction by the SoS? I’m not so sure it is, but happy to be corrected.
@slugabed – plenty, but only on the basis of C19 accounting standards (eg you could pay dividends out of capital – ! – you didn’t have to make full, inflation proof provision to replace worn out assets, and so on). The Taff Vale was always reckoned as a good 5% line, so was the Met, so, too were many of the mainline companies until they had to start bankrolling (on topic alert) country branch lines. Some Swiss railways appear to make a profit, but if you investigate further, you find they often had massive capital write-offs at various stages, thus doing in the savings of private shareholders. I suspect some S American mineral lines (especially in Chile) may also have been quite profitable for a time. Are there any now? Probably not, although the Matterhorn- Gotthard Bahn might be worth a punt (not that the Swiss will let the likes of you you and me buy their shares).
Graham H
Yes,I remember your talking of lacklustre lines being snapped up by larger companies for as little as 1/- in the £…the sort of trick that makes profitbility” easier to achieve…isn’t this,in some sense,the “moral equivalent” of approving a line with a BCR of less than one by dint of subsidising capital costs (tho’ the loser is the taxpayer rather than the widows’ and orphans’ fund)….
Brockley Mike: says “If the BCR is so bad and always will be, which seems to be the view here, why not promote selling the safeguarded land and using the money on another scheme“.
Nobody said it always will be.
Less significantly, perhaps, any safeguarded land (which we are not sure about the existence of anyway) is not necessarily owned by Network Rail. Any that is will be sold off, or not, according to someone’s best estimate of whether it might be needed in the future. Which is quite a different question from whether a new line should be built now. (And right now, selling might be a touch tactless, what with the BML2 people having such a high profile. Which they have, whether we approve of this or not.)
@JohnUK
“There was a time, I believe, when nowhere in England was more than 10 miles from a railway station.”
Even if you exclude offshore islands like Lundy, Farne, and the Scillies that is not quite true. Hartland, in Devon, is about 11 miles from Abbotsham Road on the Bideford, Westward Ho! & Appledore railway and slightly further from Bude. Hartland Hartland Point is about twelve miles from both. (It does have a heliport though!)
Bude itself is now 25 miles from the nearest main line* station – and that is Okehampton, which only has a service on summer Sundays. the next nearest are Barnstaple and Liskeard.
*Unless you count the isolated narrow-gauge line at Launceston, and even that is 15 miles away
Slugabed; there’s plenty of profitable railways in this country too, depending on the scale you choose. The entire SWT network covers all its costs on current accounting methods for full replacement of assets, as does Thameslink from Blackfriars to Bedford. The ECML is there or thereabouts, although I suspect a soupçon of cross subsidy from south of Peterboro’ (profitable) to north of Newcastle (less so). The GEML inwards of Colchester must be close too.
To answer your other question: Is it reasonable to expect all new railways to cover all their financial costs? Of course not, at least not if we are in a progressive society.
Is it reasonable to expect all new railways to be of benefit to society as a whole including financial and non-financial impacts? Absolutely.
Our measure of benefit to society is the BCR. BCRs lower than one make society worse off. At risk of repeating an earlier comment, politicians of the Scottish Borders please note.
@Malcolm – you are right to chide me for loose writing – the loss to the economy is the same as the difference between a sum earning a BCR of 1 and the same same sum earning a lower BCR. Sloppy drafting.Is it a loss – I take a simplistic view that just as things with a positive BCR expand the economic benefits in the economy (cf HS2 apparently) so,symmetrically ,less than a BCR of 1.0 causes it to contract. Preventing the money being spent by incinerating it therefore prevents the economy contracting; not setting fire to it leaves it available to be spent on something else that,hopefully, may have a better economic effect. That is all. [Note, I am sure that the relationship is non-linear and, to pick up Herned’s point, there are plenty of other welfare economic projects in different areas such as defence or social security, in the latter case we enter the minefield of Keynsian multipliers-not my special subject….]
@Slugabed – or even “immoral” if you believe that a company’s first duty is to its owners. The problem with the shilling in the pound ploy is that although you are reducing the capital to a level which hopefully can be supported by the income, you are now setting the bar for full asset replacement impossibly low. Not that that was something that troubled C19 businesses but nowadays, we’d say you were planning to go bust. For example, and on topic (really!), as I understand it from Turner’s history of the LBSC, the company’s policy was to protect its core investment in BML1 by constructing secondary lines to every conceivable place that might otherwise provide a foothold for that naughty LSWR and that equally vicious SER. These lines – such as L-U – were not built because they were as profitable as BML1 or indeed not necessarily profitable at all, but the capital to build them still had to be raised and serviced even though the company’s revenue base hadn’t advanced proportionately. Taking over an impoverished country branch line had much the same effect, alas.
Another supplementary (and slightly facetious) question:
Is it at all conceivable in the future that innovative ideas and methods might be developed to reduce the capital costs in particular of building or reinstating rural or other marginal railways, or is the cost of their construction, perhaps just like other transport infrastructure such as busways and general purpose highways, now forever locked into an inexorable spiral of inflation and risk until proposing anything at all apart from yet another Crossrail becomes unrealistic?
For comparison with Uckfield, Devon County Council is working on the basis of £26m capital cost (October 2014 prices, so probably inflated beyond the stratosphere by now!) for the 9km single track reinstatement of Bere Alston – Tavistock including one new station. Pro rata , a single track 12km from Uckfield to Lewes should be £35m, although there’s additional complexity with junctions at either end and the option of a simple connecting loop at Lewes. Perhaps with one intermediate station (funded by a major housing developer like Tavistock) it could all be done for around £50m?
http://www.devon.gov.uk/tavistock-rail-oar.pdf
@Malcolm I’d say safeguarding includes cyclepaths, footpaths, minor roads and heritage railways (and even supermarket carparks in Tunbridge Wells). Its only housing and major roads that really make the economic costs of restoring a line uneconomic.
While there may not be a case for ousting the Bluebell Railway from their section of track, in general I think there is a good argument for stopping people ‘playing trains’ if society would benefit from a real railway rather than a tourist attraction.
@Slugabed – 2 December 2015 at 21:18
Which was the last,or indeed,was there ever a railway which entirely washed its face finncially,covering capital costs,debt servicing,running costs etc?
I seem to remember that the GWR was still paying a dividend at nationalisation, but as Graham H points out, this may not be the same as ‘washing its face’.
————-
@timbeau – 2 December 2015 at 22:08
that is not quite true.
Its sounds as if what I heard from my father as a child was not an urban myth, perhaps just a generalisation. I suspect it [never being more than 10 miles from a station] was also not true for parts of Cumberland and Northumberland.
————
@Malcolm – 2 December 2015 at 19:19
John U.K. mentions safeguarding “old or possible future routes”. Safeguarding future routes is of course a wonderful thing to do, the only snag is that it requires predictive skills beyond the power of Mystic Meg.
🙂 Up to a point, Lord Cropper! The last two or three decades seem to be littered with examples of redundant lines that, at the time, possible future re-use would have been thought if not insanity, the worst possible cases of crayonism. Some were sold off at the time, others have, phoenix-like, re-emerged.
Even in the last two years, the possibility of safeguarding space for an additional two tracks between W.Brompton & Kensington Olympia to create additional capacity on the WLL has been lost.
My main point is that, lacking the powers of Mystic Meg, we do not know what decisions we are taking now that will cause the generation of 2065 to say of us “If only . . .”, rather than give something on a map for crayonistas to drool over.
Though I will confess that as a schoolboy in the ’60s when Snow Hill was threatened with closure, I indulged in some crayonning, and produced a diagram for Birmingham suburban lines which I still have: it bears an uncanny resemblance to the present Birmingham Metro.
I’d be curious to see how any proposal to reinstate national rail between Tunbridge Wells – Ashurst Junction planned to handle the Spa Valley Railway. Thanks to the construction of a housing estate on the site of Groombridge station and a road-over-rail bridge immediately to the west, there’s only a single-track formation left at that point, which would seem to rule out the Lavender Line option of cheaply running the two side by side. As far as I can see the options would be expensive engineering works to widen the road bridge and cutting, compulsory purchase and demolition of several houses, or building a substitute heritage line (perhaps on the disused trackbeds at Withyham or Rotherfield) for the SVR to relocate to.
@GrahamH Go and visit Millom and you’d wish that recommendation had been carried out. But that rail line would still have to remain because of the strategic importance – it carries nuclear traffic to Sellafield. Putting that cargo on the roads is always a step too far for politicians…..
@Mark Townend – interesting figure there -the trouble is that we have had so few “brownfield” re-openings that it is difficult to put together a robust sample. The Borders case may be just another instance of “they print their own cash up there”, but the S Ives busway and Watford cases suggest otherwise. (And mention of the busway seems to confirm your point about infrastructure-based projects pricing themselves out of the market). Talking to the engineers in my previous employers, my impression has been that it isn’t so much fettling up the earthworks that takes the cash, but various ancillary matters, especially drainage (which was a particular killer in the St Ives busway) .
@IslandDweller – so I took your advice and took the virtual tour of Millom courtesy of Streetview; I see what you mean…
Part of the Cheviots around Blindburn is about twelve miles from the closed stations at Wooler, Rothbury, Keilder and Jedburgh. Can’t find anywhere else in Northumberland or Cumbria that qualified. (And no, I didn’t need to resort to the Ravenglass & Eskdale railway!)
Thanks to PoP for an interesting article about a line I know very little about and I don’t think I’ve ever used it. I am still ploughing, despite hours of reading, through all the comments. I can’t make any sensible contribution to the rights and wrongs of extensions or anything else.
I am slightly intrigued as to how TfL managed to get third rail on the East London line and extensions and on its network given the presumption against third rail. I assume it is considered “not reasonably practicable” for LU or Overground to use anything else given physical constraints. If LU were to build an entirely new tube line with no through running to the existing network would ORR force LU to adopt overhead power supplies for the rolling stock?
On the Brighton to Tunbridge Wells route let’s say Brighton and Hove buses seem to do a decent job in pulling in the punters on route 29. It runs via Lewes, Ringmer and Uckfield.
@timbeau – real Hewett country,in fact…
John B thinks “there is a good argument for stopping people ‘playing trains’ if society would benefit from a real railway rather than a tourist attraction.”
Suppose there was a real need to have a real railway line linking East Grinstead to Sheffield Park. In order to obtain a CPO to turf out the Bluebell, it would be necessary to show that the new real railway line could not reasonably take any other route to get between those two points. Given the amount of farmland surrounding the Bluebell, showing this would be a tall order.
Playing trains is no different from any other activity which might occur on land which someone owns. They can, quite rightly, only be turfed out under strictly limited conditions.
But the notion of ousting the Bluebell was only mentioned as a joke anyway, though many people missed it.
@Walthamstow Writer
“I am slightly intrigued as to how TfL managed to get third rail on the East London line and extensions and on its network given the presumption against third rail.”
All of that network was originally 3 or 4 rail, except possibly the connection across to the South London Line which may have been physically removed completely before electrification in the area, and the relatively short entirely new construction through Shoreditch. It is also all securely fenced highly segregated infrastructure rather like the ‘tube’, much of it in tunnel, retained cutting or on viaduct, with a relatively high frequency of service, so those factors all deter trespassers. Being a new power system I would expect it incorporates a lot more isolation switchability than many older areas of the Southern for example which together with a policy of no trackside working without isolation would provide suitable protection for workers. These observations and measures are are less applicable to more rural railways with level crossings, miles of relatively ‘porous’ line-side fencing and relatively infrequent service.
@ SFD and Malcolm on safeguarding the line – the 2008 report states that ‘The route between Lewes and Uckfield was protected during the mid-1970s from development in various local and structure plans, aiming to ensure that nothing further would be built which could prevent the line from re-opening in the future. This planning policy protection still remains’.
So not safeguarded by the SoS I assume, but pretty robust nevertheless if embodied within local / County plans.
“I take a simplistic view that just as things with a positive BCR expand the economic benefits in the economy (cf HS2 apparently) so,symmetrically ,less than a BCR of 1.0 causes it to contract. ” – Graham H
Possibly.
But suppose a scheme was £100m with an [estimated] BCR of 0.8. It is doubtful that the nation as a whole will in any material way be affected by the “loss” as you see it as £20m. On the other hand, the local economy of the region where the project is located will have £100m pumped into it with £80m benefit. To the local economy that will be of material and long-term benefit.
So even with a BCR < 1 the loss to the nation is trivially small but the gain to the local economy is material.
BCR might be a reasonable way of deciding between competing projects in London, or possibly in the case of U-L restoration determine the “best” choice of route from a range of options for the chord outside Lewes. Even in economic terms, however, it is not a meaningful basis to determine whether U-L should proceed, nor even to compare it to projects such as Dawlish avoidance routes. The question is whether a) U-L benefits the local economy or b) provides useful new routes and/or c) frees valuable capacity on BML.
I think that politicians get this far more than their officials do. So for instance I think the approved Manchester – Preston – Windermere electrification had a BCR of just 0.7 (before any cost overruns) – see http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=97952. A negative BCR might give some civil servants the heebie jeebies but I think politicians might still see the benefit of U-L re-opening. (And I think many here may share my scepticism of whether BCR estimates are reliable enough to bother with.)
The question is whether a) U-L benefits the local economy or b) provides useful new routes and/or c) frees valuable capacity on BML.
That might just be arguable if the available supply of investment funding were unlimited. But of course it isn’t, so the question can’t be just Would we like to do this thing?, but Would we like to do this thing more than all the other things we might spend our limited money on?
And as soon as we are faced with the second question, we have to find a way of answering it. Conventional business case methodologies aren’t perfect, for reasons many earlier comments have touched on, but they are currently the least worst way of supporting these choices. And even if you choose to bring different factors – some wider view of social benefit – into the assessment, there’s no getting away from the need to find a way of making those choices.
I am willing to accept that there would be some benefits from reopening L-U. The problem is not that they don’t exist, but that they are small and that more benefits could be had from spending the same money elsewhere. And if that is the case, why would we not prefer the more beneficial projects?
@Island Dweller
Not true I’m afraid
@er, Everyone…..My understanding of the situation is that pretty much *all* modes of transport require some form of government support (e.g. highways maintenance, border and customs control) or financial subsidy. If one were to take a purely monetarist approach to these things, and ask each mode of transport to support itself from user fares/fees etc., I predict that only the most profitable routes and modes (not just rail, but road, air and sea as well) would survive, and many others might cease to exist.
Might this be economically beneficial overall? I’m have no idea. The government wouldn’t have to fund as much, and we would probably pay less in taxes. But I can definitely tell you that the social (and political) consequences would be immense.
For example, there are probably rural roads out there that see less than a handful of vehicles per day using them……should they be continued to be maintained by the local council, or paid for only by those small number of people who only use it? If it was the latter, I doubt sufficient funding could be raised from tolls to maintain the road, and as a result it would ‘return to nature’. ISTR from history lessons that most roads prior to the 19th century were in an absolutely dire state- worse perhaps than even in the Middle Ages- and that only privately maintained (and tolled) roads run by the turnpike trusts were in any way usable.
In his (in-)famous reports, wasn’t Beeching attempting to do something similar with the railways…..i.e. to make them pay their own way? Of course he failed, since a lot of what he recommended (not just closures, but also certain beneficial investment projects) was never implemented. But suppose it had? I have read on Wikipedia (and this might be inaccurate, so please correct me if so) that if the second part of his report had been fully implemented, everything outside of the core network he recommended for development (the major trunk routes and urban commuter networks) would have been run down and eventually closed. Leaving large parts of the country (including Cambridge!!!) entirely devoid of rail service.
The remaining system would have been profitable, sure, but any money saved by the government would probably have been swallowed up on other measures required to take up the traffic displaced from rail (most likely by hugely expanding the road network, both within as well as between major settlements).
I shudder to think what life might have been like in this scenario….
@Graham H
the BCR for re-opening is likely to be of the order of 0.1-2
Are you suggesting that Mott McDonald over-estimated the benefits, under-estimated the costs, or both? The figures given for a Lewes only service in 2008 are 0.78 and 0.79 dependent on whether there is an intermediate stop. I’ve maintained consistently that the demand may have been under-estimated there, but I accept that the figures are unlikely to give a BCR sufficiently high to justify reopening.
How you spend public money depends on how you ring-fence the pots. Should there be a transport budget, and areas compete for funding, or a regional budget, and projects within an area compete. Politics is full of pork, as of course the use of public money that gives by far the greatest good to the greatest number is medical interventions in the Third World.
If I were NR transferring substantial assets for a peppercorn to a heritage railway, I’d make sure I had a cause allowing me to reacquire those assets in the future at nominal cost. I’d certainly not expect to have to build new lines for them.
@Kate On the other hand, the local economy of the region where the project is located will have £100m pumped into it with £80m benefit.
Blatant pork-barrel decision-making. Surely, whilst recognising it happens, we shouldn’t be positively advocating it ?? Look at what its untrammelled application has wrought across the pond. And on-topic, Wimbledon Thameslinks.
And briefly touching on rural broadband – “solving” this the way we have is a case study in the wrong way of doing it. But I won’t rant here on that. Wrong place.
@JohnB Nitpicking, not so much medical interventions as public health interventions (insecticide-treated mosquito nets, water sanitation), which would greatly reduce the need for more expensive medical interventions.
But of course I know what you meant.
@Kate On the other hand, the local economy of the region where the project is located will have £100m pumped into it with £80m benefit.
Surely the real beneficiaries of the bulk of the £100m are the muck digging contractors, technical suppliers, steel rail manufactures etc. etc.
None of these are likely to be local especially in a rural area.
It then becomes something like a 30 year £100m mortgage payable by the locals.
@Kate – would the money spent on re-opening benefit the local economy? A little would, but much wouldn’t: it would go in wages to itinerant navvies and the suppliers of kit made elsewhere (quite possibly abroad). The main gain from construction itself would be what the said navvies spent on fags and booze (or sandwiches and visits to the gym, or whatever) whilst in the area- just like the C19, in fact. Hence my remarks about Keynsian multipliers.
If you don’t apply the same metrics (whether BCR, cash flow, or something else) to different schemes (eg Dawlish and L-U, in your example) how on earth do you avoid apples and pears? Why would L-U be in some sense “better” than Dawlish ? How would you choose? And please don’t tell me that the prize should go to whomsoever shouts the loudest, because when loud shouting doesn’t work, the nastier politicians turn to violence. The sticks get bigger.
Yes, politicians can always see benefits that rational people can’t – their own fame and status for example. These things are quite difficult to measure.
@Ian Sergeant – I know that Motts team well and whilst I wouldn’t claim my figures were 100% accurate (and merely produced to indicate the scale of the thing, as I said at the beginning), I wouldn’t trust any number they produced further than I could use the covers of their reports as a scribbling pad. I have spent a fair amount of the last decade or so making a successful business from reworking their figures for dissatisfied customers… Specifically, I do find it difficult to see where all the extra traffic is coming from.. These are not large settlements; they offer very similar services and employment opportunities and most people who wish to be employed in the “other” settlement will already drive or go by bus. Schoolchildren will already have travel arrangements in place. Most shoppers will travel to the “other” only for comparison shopping – Uckfield doesn’t offer different major furniture, white goods, and electrical retail compared with Lewes – how often do people go shopping for a new dining room table?. And for any who do want to visit the other end of the line, as it were, there is a frequent bus service.
What does a pork barrel look like? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one, so don’t fully understand when the term is used.
Isn’t there an appropriate British metaphor
@Anonymous the First – Corrupt perhaps?
Anonymous The first: Wikipedia (among other sites) defines the term, and also stipulates that it is rarely used in British English. Keen though I am to avoid Britain being linguistically steam-rollered by Americanisms, there does not seem much harm in this one. It has a clear and distinct meaning, and it is not displacing, grey-squirrel-like, any indigenous Britishism. (Sadly, this does not lead to the conclusion that “such things never happen here”, the lack of a special name probably indicates, instead, that when such things do happen here, nobody notices).
Three points:
@Herned – a negative BCR will destroy national wealth and almost but not quite certainly destroy Treasury receipts. It is possible to imagine a project that boosted government net income while destroying value. In fact, I remember that the downsizing of the coinage some years ago was supposed to save government funds but that these savings were much more than offset by the cost to companies of changing coin-operated machines etc.
The opposite situation is more evident: a project with a BCR > 1 that reduces government net income but produces a net benefit to society. Government funded rail construction that produces a large welfare gain in terms of time saved, where the welfare gain is not sufficiently captured by the tax system, would be an example.
@Graham H
The argument that shilling in the pound purchasing of branch lines means planning on going broke rests on two (realistic) assumptions:
1. That the railway planned on continuing branch line services after the point that marginal costs were no longer covered; and
2. That the shilling paid did not cover replacement cost (ie that technology did not greatly change), assuming receipts covered marginal costs.
The regional BCR argument.
The argument that a project of BCR smaller than 1 should be supported because it delivers regional benefits is tantamount to demanding a permanent subsidy for that region. Such an argument is feasible if there is a social purpose, for example if regional per capita incomes were much below national (or multinational Union) incomes. In this case, we could talk about using a weighted BCR, where the weights could be the reciprocal of the relative regional per capita incomes.
In practice, it is not so hard to find projects that have a BCR greater than one in relatively depressed regions. I present Northern Hub as evidence. And I don’t think that the Sussex / Kent border area would so qualify, notwithstanding social issues elsewhere in Kent.
@answer=42 – and history bore out those two assumptions. (Given the Victorians “informal” understanding of the need to replace assets to keep the business going – let alone the concept of
MCAMEA – it’s perhaps not surprising that they didn’t know or didn’t care what the consequences of an undercapitalised business were).@Malcolm
US pork barrel politics is so pervasive because of the absence of explicit regionally redistributive politics. The ends justify the means (but might have low BCRs).
Nevertheless, I can give some examples of UK rail pork: the distribution of locomotive orders in the 1955 Modernisation Plan; and the current Control Period 5 network development plan, notably the ‘electric spine’, constructed, so it seems, by identifying marginal constituencies and joining the dots.
Pork-barrel politics, as I understand it, is politicians doing something to make them popular rather than for sound economic reasons. (or if you like, spending government money for political advantage)
An example would be the keeping open of a railway line running through marginal constituencies. The BCR to UK plc of closing the line would have been overwhelmingly positive, but the BCR for the local area would be negative. So it stays open, because the local politicians want to keep their seats.
The biggest pork barrel in UK history was probably the Humber Bridge.
Re answer=42,
Electric spine is far cheaper than the alternative of widening circa 100miles of A34, M40 (Jn 9 to 10) A43 etc take the (Increasing) container traffic from Southampton to the Midlands. (Also the reason for EWR being electrified) so I wouldn’t include that.
UK transport pork – surely the best example being the Humber Bridge to win a key by-election?
I’m sorry – I see I mistyped MCA for MEA (LBM – that’s “Modern Equivalent Asset”).
@Answer=42 – one can in fact see what would have happened to the shilling in the pound lines had they not been taken over by looking at that splendid collection of enterprises managed by Col Stephens (or indeed most UK narrow gauge lines). They struggled on covering their running costs – sometimes) but in the end running out of reliable assets. The railway industry is quite good at managing with less and covering up the underlying problems for many years. That is one of the reasons why HMT was so angry with the Winsor settlement and also a reason why the UK industry now costs so much.
I agree that one can and should distinguish between the benefits generated at national level and those generated locally and there is no reason why technically this shouldn’t be attempted. (As with HS2) There is however a threshold below which the analysis becomes too difficult or too full of heroic assumptions, or local effects are masked by much larger regional or national effects. Kate’s small villages between Lewes and Uckfield probably fall into that category.
@timbeau – transport has had more than its fair share of these white elephants – one might add the Pacer programme and quite possibly the IEP and (nearer to the thread) HS1 as other examples.
[Graham, thanks for the acronym explanation! Duly noted. LBM]
Thank you PoP for another well though out and written article, there are two points I would like to raise about services towards the south of the line and also Sanderstead.
Whilst I agree that the BML2 is a solution looking for a problem and that the Lewes-Uckfield link will not survive on the idea of it’s strategic benefit, I don’t think enough serious analysis has been made on local southbound traffic. I have family that live in the Uckfield area and getting to other parts of Sussex can be a real pain, the roads are heavily congested and this impacts on the bus services. So much that it’s sometimes easier to get to Oxted or even Croydon then it is to get to Brighton (especially as the only rail link is to go up to Croydon and then all the way back down!). I think there would be a significant uplift in passengers on the southern section of the line commuting south rather then north who currently have no option but to use road transport. All studies I have seen so far seem to have missed this untapped demand.
Where I do disagree with this article is with it’s analysis of Sanderstead. This is currently the third most popular station on the line with 1.1 million passengers last year (including me!). Nearly twice as much as Purley Oaks which is only a five minuet walk away on the Caterham/Tattenham Corner line. Whilst Sanderstead gets only half the offpeak services to London the Purley Oaks does (2 to 4) the train is fast beyond East Croydon so offers a time saving of 15 to 20 minuets depending on the stopping pattern of the Purley Oaks train. The suggestion that more trains should run fast from Oxted to East Croydon is frankly ridiculous in the context of Sanderstead. The station sees a steady stream of passengers all day, including off peak, and regularly trains that come in only moderately loaded leave full to bursting. Whilst I understand that stopping Uckfield trains is not the solution due to the already long journey times on that branch (however irritating it is to see a half full 171 sail through when the platform is congested), the idea that East Grinstead branch trains should skip the station is misguided.
I also worry about the advocacy of using 8 car trains on the line again for Thameslink. We have only just gotten 12 car services and they are already heaving, so much so that if an 8 car turns up in the peak people can get left behind. This can also be clearly seen at weekends where for a while we got downgraded to paired 377/3s ending up at 6 cars long, these were so full that on a Saturday you had no chance of getting a seat at all. Luckily Southern seem to have seen the error of their ways on this one and we now see minimum 8 and the odd 10 at weekends. Whilst the extra connectivity of Thameslink will be a bonus the idea it can replace 12 cars with 8 and somehow keep capacity using it’s connections is a fallacy.
Re timbeau,
Didn’t see your comment before typing my Humber comment. The economics of the Humber bridge are covered in very good detail as the finances were sorted out a few years ago.
Keeping open a railway line – Either the Heart of Wales or Cambrian (can’t remember which) was saved from Beaching closure by passing through 7 marginals!
Talking of Freight / Humberside – NR & HA are spending circa £100m this Christmas and NY (the biggest NR Christmas Project) on Rail and Road access improvement to Immingham to encourage as much Bulk and Container traffic to use it rather than ports down south e.g. Felixstowe / Soton / Thames Gateway etc. that affects rail and road users in London and SE. The Passenger service level on the line is similar to Uckfield branch except there are currently 80 freight trains in each direction a day which change the economics a bit. Needless to say it is very unlikely to get much press coverage.
Sunny SNR,
I think in fact there is little on which we disagree.
I have never thought the Uckfield – Lewes re-opening proposal daft or ridiculous. I just want to emphasise that that it won’t make a difference to the number of users to East Croydon and north thereof (which is what people in London instinctively think it is about) and that that the economics don’t yet stack up. On the latter point I think it is a case of never say never but without something major happening (e.g. a lot of house building in Crowborough and Uckfield combined with an explosion of jobs on the south coast near to railway stations) I just can’t see a case being made.
I hardly think is a case of studies not having recognised this untapped demand. On the contrary, if you put aside the more fanciful ones, it is exactly what they are saying only no-one can yet produce plausible figures to make this untapped demand so great that it is worth re-opening Uckfield – Lewes.
On the subject of Sanderstead, I have long thought this inadequately served. But that doesn’t mean it is a good idea to stop trains originating at Uckfield (many miles away) to satisfy the demand. That means running longer trains doing a hundred mile round trip for the benefit of a better service of those doing a ten mile trip. And, if it is a good idea for Sanderstead, on the same basis why not do the job properly and stop at South Croydon as well? And Riddlesdown (without an easy alternative station) and Upper Warlingham?
I too share concerns about 8-car Thameslink trains. If there were more train paths north of East Croydon this would not be a problem – simply run more trains. Yes, the line does seem quite busy on a Saturday.
Interesting that on Saturday (and possibly off-peak during the week) they run 8-car trains on a half-hourly service and the trains have a driver and a guard. So presumably for little more cost you could run 4-car DOO trains on a quarter-hour service and lengthen the trains as necessary. You could even terminate every other one at Oxted or Hurst Green which may make the economics better but may not. The above would fit in well with TfL’s aspirations for at least 4tph off-peak for most services within the GLA boundary. Although Upper Warlingham is outside the GLA boundary it is within zone 6 so maybe it ought to qualify too.
@ngh
“Either the Heart of Wales or Cambrian (can’t remember which) was saved from Beaching closure by passing through 7 marginals!”
Heart of Wales. Pwllheli holiday camp was a factor in saving the Cambrian (as with the lines to Skegness and Filey)
” Immingham ……… the Passenger service level on the line is similar to Uckfield branch”
Immingham itself has had no passenger service since 1969, the nearest stations being Habrough and Stallingborough on the Doncaster- Grimsby former MSLR main line. The only part of the branch to Immingham that sees passengers is a quarter mile stretch through Ulceby station, shared with the Barton-on-Humber branch.
@Sunny SNR – yes, but Uckfield is only a small town; its inhabitants already make numerous trips to work, school and shopping. How many of them will find extra time to make an extra once or twice weekly trip to Brighton as well (and it would take something like all of them doing that to turn the BCR around)? [The good burg(h)ers of Lewes can do that already, of course, if they wish and so their propensity to travel is irrelevant – unless you think they’ll all want to visit the fleshpots of Uckfield a lot].
If you don’t apply the same metrics (whether BCR, cash flow, or something else) to different schemes (eg Dawlish and L-U, in your example) how on earth do you avoid apples and pears? Why would L-U be in some sense “better” than Dawlish ? How would you choose? And please don’t tell me that the prize should go to whomsoever shouts the loudest, because when loud shouting doesn’t work, the nastier politicians turn to violence. The sticks get bigger. – Graham H
“How do you choose?” is not just a reasonable question, but a fundamental one. Whatever the metric chosen, there has to be a metric.
My feeling however is that BCR is such a blunt instrument that alone it is inadequate. We know there are other metrics used though – such as goals to reduce level crossings and a desire for overhead electrics rather than third rail. I suggest a balanced scorecard would be far superior to BCR. BCR could be the financial quadrant, safety a second, resilience and technical evolution the third and service criteria the fourth.
Service criteria could be things like no town (or village of a certain size) during the day is no more than an hour by public transport, with services at least hourly, from the hospital (s) serving the residents of that town.
If such a balanced scorecard was adopted then the case for U-L would be much more clearly made or dismissed.
Such an approach does NOT promote pork barrel but helps to resist pork.
@answer=42…..I think the electric spine (which I would define as Southampton to Bedford via Bletchley, and to Nuneaton via Banbury and Coventry) passes through very few (if any) marginal constituencies. And besides, thanks to NR recent woes I think it has ended up at the back of the electrification queue.
Perhaps you were thinking of the MML? ISTR the BCR for that was good enough for it to survive on its own merits without resorting to the pork barrel…..
@Graham H
I think you seem to be fixated on connectivity between Lewes and Uckfield *alone*. Taking such a narrow view will inevitably lead to a diminished BCR, since as you say, there are already plenty of ways of travelling between the two towns by car or bus.
Perhaps if one took a slightly wider, regional view (but not to the crazy extent that BML2 does!), including the TW West branch and Seaford branch (ISTR that Newhaven is one of the most depressed towns in SE England), perhaps one might come to a different conclusion? There might be significant economic and social benefits from improving connectivity between more distant parts of Kent, East Sussex and the South Coast.
(BTW, I’m not taking sides here…just trying to look at the issue from all possible angles).
@kate – you are right absolutely – facts are our only weapon against pork (?!).
One can in fact incorporate most of the things you mention into a CBA, which I think might be a unified way of comparing very different circumstances. Having worked with balanced scorecards in the past, there are very tricky arguments about the weighting to be given to different factors. {I’m not so sure about the hospital accessibility criterion you mention – although I realise that it’s only meant as an example – when I went for specialist heart surgery a while back, it was to S George’s, not the Royal Surrey that I was sent, despite being a two hour and very awkward journey each way for visitors. S George’s catchment went as far as the remoter corners of Hampshire and no doubt with the next reorganisation of the NHS, we shall a good deal more of this kind of specialism. In the same vein, the Royal Surrey and St Peter’s Chertsey are to be amalgamated with each taking on specialisms. St Peter’s is a real pain to get to from anywhere but, err, Chertsey. I can’t see the implied massive rail construction programme being initiated to remedy this. In so many cases, these days, hospitals have been relocated to the outskirts of major cities and a good half an hour or more is spent travelling from the centre to get there; this drastically reduces the catchment area for an hour’s trip, unless you happen to live on that side of town. Think Addenbrookes)
The point is that accessibility is very much horses for courses and one size emphatically wouldn’t fit all; flexibility in assessment and evaluation is unavoidable, otherwise we’ll be building those lines in the Highlands just to bring Ullapool within an hour of a hospital in Oban which probably would send its more complex patients to Glasgow anyway.
None of this will make the case for L-U, of course.
@Kate “But suppose a scheme was £100m with an [estimated] BCR of 0.8. It is doubtful that the nation as a whole will in any material way be affected by the “loss” as you see it as £20m. On the other hand, the local economy of the region where the project is located will have £100m pumped into it with £80m benefit. To the local economy that will be of material and long-term benefit.”
This reminds me of the old scam suggestion that you could tax everyone in the country an extra penny which they wouldn’t notice, and then pay one lucky person the £600,000 thus collected. The idea thoroughly collapses as soon as everyone wants to do it.
@Kate Things like level crossing closures are expressed in BCR terms. Any consistent criteria can be expressed that way. A threshold is a blunt instrument – if you’re measuring the number of people within 60 minutes of London, say, then that’s just calculating a BCR where you’re saying the benefit of being within 60 minutes of London is 1 and anything else is 0. Indeed a balanced scorecard is ultimately just a crude form of BCR.
BCR is related to other criteria such as cost per lives saved. The criterion is not used to determine the value of a life, but to prioritise schemes when there is not an infinite source of money – given two safety measures, the one which saves more lives per £million is the one to go for.
The electric spine is a primarily a freight scheme. BCR may be positive, but it is unlikely to endear itself to any marginal constituencies along the line. Ask the good people of Lincoln about the effects of the “Joint Line” freight upgrade on traffic conditions in the city centre – not to mention the lack of capacity for more passenger trains.
@Pedantic of Purley, many thanks for taking the time to so fully respond to my post. I apologies if I misinterpreted your analysis of Uckfield in the article, based on your reply I entirely agree with you. I must admit most of what I know of the local studies on the link is second hand from family in the area so it may well be that the southbound flow is taken into consideration in the more sensible schemes but that does not make good gossip!
I also must have worded my sentence badly regarding the 171s through Sanderstead, I agree that it would not be right to stop them. The route from Uckfield is already significantly longer then from East Grinstead and to make those trains an all stopping service would not be fair or practicable. My main concern the suggestion of running East Grinstead service fast from Oxted as I believe this would be a waste of capacity on the north part of the line.
You are right about South Croydon as well, the East Grinstead trains really should stop there, it’s poor services are part of the reason for it’s low usage. East Grinstead trains that are for all intents and purposes fasts after South Croydon would give the station a good mix of fasts and stoppers. Though the NIMBY (is that the right term?) in me doesn’t want to add the 2 minuet dwell between Sanderstead and Croydon!
@lmm/timbeau – very much my point, and I would add that TfL (and LT before them) have worked hard and impressively to come with methodologies for translating a whole range of changes into economic benefits. And very flexible – for example, elimination of some LXs produces better results than others, depending on useage and risk.
@lmm – I am reminded of a scam in the City a few years ago in which the employee arranged for any rounding to be paid into his personal account. The sums involved on each transaction were a fraction of a penny in individual cases but collectively amounted to a very large sum spread over a few million transactions – very difficult to discover and a somewhat anguished debate afterwards as to who had actual lost out.
Graham H
Wasn’t it a similar scam that led to the imprisonment of Superman’s nemesis,Lex Luthor…?
Let no-one say we are not well-read on this site…
@Slugabed – You have the advantage of me there! Much better read than I am!
@Sunny SNR – “2 minuet dwell” – I can’t help thinking….* **
* I shouldn’t laugh: my own typing is far from error free.
** I did once take a ride on the Inlandsbahn in remotest Sweden where. at the especially remote station Wilhelmina, we were treated to a display of Swedish country dancing during our 20 minute stop. Is Sanderstead really like that? [ 2minuets would take a bit of time – 10 minutes dwell perhaps?]
Sunny SNR and PoP, I struggle with the idea of 4tph East Croydon to Oxted. Outside the peaks I am not familiar with these hordes; working the Grinstead line is a quiet affair, carrying a lot of fresh air from the likes of Riddlesdown, and then only in the coach that the guard operates his panel from. Certainly Vic-East Croydon is busy, and Oxted and Grinstead itself are popular, but it is a familiar joke amongst train crew that the 11.53 train was formed of 12 coaches and the passengers had one each after East Croydon. I suspect you have answered your own question as to why Sanderstead gets twice as many passengers as Purley Oaks; it’s three stops to town with a charge up the fast line whereas most from Purley Oaks are, see a station, stop at it.
As for 8 cars post Thameslink 2018, I could be wrong but I can see the reasoning. The 12 car peak services from London Bridge help to service the London Bridge-Croydon demand rather than the demand for Grinstead stations specifically. Once the full service is underway there should be a higher frequency of fixed formation 8 and 12 car trains from London Bridge to East Croydon which in theory soaks up some of the capacity lost on 8 versus 12 to Grinstead or even relocates it ie for City workers who may jump on at City Thameslink or Blackfriars rather than have to travel to London Bridge to start their journey.
And I think stopping Grinsteads at South Croydon would do nothing for the resilience of the service on the main line. Progress from Purley to East Croydon on the slow side can already be sluggish for the reasons outlined in this article of which quite sparsely populated 12 car trains clanking through at 20 play a part. If they had to stop too…only too often a peak Grinstead picks up its first delay by stopping at South Croydon additionally and it seems nigh on impossible to recover it. And is 4tph so terrible for a zone 5 station? There are many stations closer to town in more densely populated areas with a similar service, and on the Catford Loop there are still only 2tph.
Kate – it’s becoming quite widely recognised that BCRs are a bit of a blunt instrument, hence the rise of MCA (multi-criteria analysis). Much of its rising popularity does seem (understandably) to be with supporters/justifiers of low-BCR projects, but it does recognise that not everything can be reduced to filthy lucre.
@POP Re the section ~Uckfield service~
Quote Much of the line from Ashurst to Uckfield has been singled.Unquote
This should read ..from Hever to Uckfield has been singled. Mark Beech tunnel and Cowden are all single – hence the tragic head on collision in 1994 a few hundred metres east of the station.
[I must be going senile. I meant Hever and even had a look at the diagram on Open Train Times which is here. Corrected. Thanks. PoP]
@Mike 20.33 – I may have missed it in the comments but is the new Uckfield – Lewes study commissioned by the government using this new-fangled MCA methodology or the old BCR method, does anyone know?
@POP 20:50
I know too well how easy it is to make `mistakes`. My current Clapham Junction article in London Railway record was checked by historian Peter Kay, and there were a few `howlers` that I had missed.
@anonymously 15:46
Here is a map of pre-election marginal constituencies. Maybe I exaggerated a bit but not wholly wrong. Nothing like checking the facts, preferably before I post next time.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/03/uk-general-election-2015-map-britain
Agree with you about the MML. In fact, I thought that was the political master stroke behind Adonis pushing the GWR before the MML. If anything went wrong with MML electrification, then GWR would never get electrified, whereas if GWR went first, the high BCR of the MML (and its location) would get it electrified anyhow. Not that anything could go wrong with electrification …
Steven Taylor
I would be very interested in reading your article on Clapham Junction,for my wider local history researches…has it been published yet? Which edition of LRR will it/has it appear(ed)?
Many thanks.
@answer=42 – Sir Humphrey would be pleased with your analysis of Adonis’ tactics.
Re GH@19:04
Contrary to popular belief, we don´t speak german in Sweden. So I guess the ride was on the “Inlandsbanan” and the folkloristic performance was in Vilhelmina.
(I have covered most of the Swedish rail network at least once, travelling for for work or for pleasure. Inlandsbanan I have only done once in my youth – never felt the need to make the trip again. It has always been beyond my imagination that the line now is marketed as a tourist attraction. But of course there were no artistic perfomances in the seventies when I made my so far only journey!)
@Graham H
So what really motivated Adonis’ decision? I would have thought that Sir Humphrey would have called it ‘courageous’ or some other insult. It seems he (AA) got away with choosing the project with lower BCR without anyone noticing.
@TKO -you are right and my Swedish leaves something to be desired. [Off topic, I thought that the trip was one of the most interesting I had made for a long time – the sight of a pair of cranes amongst the sedges, the reindeed and elk, and the crystal clear lakes and rivers were outstanding. That’s enough tourist marketing board puff]
@answer=42 – it depends on what Adonis was hoping to achieve; it is his tactic that would draw the admiration. Sir H would have called it courageous if he had wanted an alternative outcome. BTW Kate might like to consider whether the decision should have been to reverse the priorities in the light of the BCR results or whether some other metric should have been used to justify Adonis’ preference.
@Graham H….You’re not suggesting that Yes Minister / Prime Minister was a docu-drama, are you? ?
Reading the LR article that was written shortly after Adonis’ announcement as well as the accompanying comments, one commenter suggested that one of the reasons so little electrification has been carried out in the last 20 years (along with privitisation and the collapse of Railtrack, obviously) is that there was a senior civil servant at the DfT who was implacably opposed to this, and blocked any consideration of the issue. Only when that person left his job did railway electrification finally come back onto the agenda. In the meantime, the gap of nearly two decades meant that a large amount of railway engineering expertise in this area was lost, which might go some way to explaining NR’s current difficulties.
Methinks that civil servant might have been the inspiration for Sir Humphrey……
@PoP…..Looking at that map, I didn’t realise there were so many passing loops south of Hever!
If redoubling were ever seriously considered, would this make it easier or harder to do?
I remember Modern Railways quoting Chris Green as saying that the GWR would never be electrified. Maybe I’m giving Adonis too much credit but I thought that this was his aim during his 10 minutes in the spotlight.
@answer=42….That map is slightly difficult to interpret without the ability to zoom onto individual constituencies, but it appears with regards to the electric spine that all of the marginals you refer to are in the Southampton and mid-Hampshire areas. Which have had electric passenger services (courtesy of that despised third rail) for nearly 50 years!
As others have said, the electric spine proposals are mainly for the benefit of freight (although I would be interested to know if the freight operators really want this….), rather than passenger services (only the CrossCountry services would benefit, allowing them to run on electric traction). If anything, I would have thought that the inevitable disruption involved in converting the line between Basingstoke and Southampton would lead to opposition from affected passengers!
Why did Chris Green say that????
@Anonymously – there have certainly been one or two not so senior civil servants who have consistently advised ministers that electrification was unnecessary, noteably in relation to bimode IEP. As far as I can tell,those individuals have not been properly managed by their senior colleagues. It is in fact fairly rare for senior staff to have strong views on technical matters – views on self-preservation like Sir Humphrey certainly but not about the detail. (That said, there was one wellknownTreasury Perm Sec who had a specific crusade against CR1 but that was unusual.)
@GTR Driver I’m sorry but I couldn’t disagree more the line you describe is the East Grinstead line of ten years ago. I’ve used the line every day for the last 20 years for business and pleasure, on and off peak and the growth in passengers over the last 5 has been staggering. I’m not saying there are no quiet services but a significant proportion of the off peak are becoming crowded up to close to peak levels. It certainty used to be true that off peak everyone could have been accommodated in a 2 car train but considering particularly on Saturday morning that trains are full and standing even before they hit the mainline to say it is one car per passenger off peak is rather inaccurate.
I also did not question why Sanderstead gets more passengers then Purely Oaks. It’s clear its due to the speed of the service I even give this explanation in my post!
I do agree that 4tph at South Croydon is not a bad service for zone 5. It’s just the lack of fasts that really hamper the attractiveness of using the station.
@Sunny SNR – “I do agree that 4tph at South Croydon is not a bad service for zone 5. It’s just the lack of fasts that really hamper the attractiveness of using the station.”
The idea is that, if a fast is required, one catches a train at South Croydon, travels a minute or so up the line to East Croydon and catches a fast train to one of lots of places from there. Works in opposite direction, too.
@Graham H….Well, well, well. So sometimes civil servants *do* get things wrong, then? Jokes about similarities to Sir Humphrey aside, I do sometimes worry about the influence that civil servants can have, and whether through their advice they can significantly change what politicians might otherwise choose to do (most of whom have no expertise in the area they are responsible for). Why am I concerned? Because unlike a politician, I cannot directly hold to account what a civil servant does. As you say, I have to rely on them being well managed by wiser heads such as yours.
Back on topic, I can only hope what you said about junior civil servants giving what might be called ‘biased’ advice to ministers regarding important transport topics such as rail electrification is an uncommon occurrence….
Anonymously
3 December 2015 at 23:09
@Graham H….You’re not suggesting that Yes Minister / Prime Minister was a docu-drama, are you? ?
The books were actually on the reading list for the Constitutional Law course at one respectable university when I passed through it!
My civil service experience was less elevated than that of Graham H but I remember wondering when I joined MAFF whether I had wandered onto the set of Yes Minister or Monty Python … when I left Defra 8 years later, I had still not worked out which!
@Slugabed 22:12 03DEC
Thanks for enquiring. The first part of my Clapham Junction article (25 pages) is in the October 2015 London Railway Record.
Graham H
at the especially remote station Wilhelmina, we were treated to a display of Swedish country dancing during our 20 minute stop.
Been there, done that.
Every year, at present, Chingford Morris go to Tenterden for the village folk-festival & ride the K&ESLR.
Where the trains cross over @ Wittersham Rd, we usually quickly hop out & dance on the platform. ( We dance @ Tenterden & Bodiam as well ….. )
Usually on the first Sunday in October – all welcome!
@Anonymously – we certainly had the odd rogue member of senior staff; I had the misfortune to work for one when I had the Railways desk. Fortunately/unfortunately for me, this was recognised by ministers and the Perm Sec alike to the point that they would wait till he was out of the office before consulting further down the line (ie me in this case). My reward was aggressive threats of violence from the gentleman in question when he returned. On a daily basis, we all found this very wearing.
The key safeguard is that civil service advice is supposed to be and is organised to be a collective thing with drafts being widely circulated in advance and usually copied to all relevant people when advice is tendered to Ministers. However, if a single senior individual is prepared to buck the system (as was the case with Railways policy in the later ’80s), there isn’t much anyone can do unless the Perm Sec is prepared to sack them; in this case, we had a succession of weak men at the top who had other priorities. Now you know why I preferred to leave and work in a slightly saner organisation, as did the entirety of the rest of the Railways team of the day in due course.
@RonnieB – well certainly when I was in charge of graduate recruitment and training in the department, trainees were invited to watch the programme; ministers also watched the programme avidly. [I recall saying to one very pleasant but preternaturally silly minister: “If I may make a Sir Humphreyish point,Minister…” The minister giggled not realising the role he had been given…] The similarity between Art and Life is not surprising really as the adviser to the series’ adviser (Peter Jay) was my predecessor in the Railways desk, Genie Flanagan, who had gone off to run Machinery of Government 2 Division in the Cabinet Office – the leading characters appeared to be identifiably based on her pet dislikes.
Graham H
Yes, but does any one know why Sir N McP (As I shall abbreviate him) was (is?) so opposed to CR1 & presumably railways in general?
It does seem perverse.
[Discussing abstract questions like this would be fine if the topic were something like “The history of Civil Service control of the Railway in the Twentieth Century”. But as this is not the case, perhaps we should leave this matter on one side, and return to the Oxted area. Malcolm]
@Anonymously 23:13 03DEC
R your interesting observation about passing loops. The 2 loops in question (either side of Ashurst, and southwards from Crowborough) are quite long at about 2 kilometres each, so would facilitate re-instatment, to a degree.
I doubt that I will ever see re-instatement during my lifetime..but hey…seeing the over 200 metre long platform(s) at Edenbridge Town and Cowden on my recent trip is a sight I would not expected to see.
I look forward to Graham H’s article “The history of Civil Service control of the Railway in the Twentieth Century (London & SE)” on LR shortly.
Sunny SNR,
Surely the attractiveness of Sanderstead station is that it is easy to get to, easy to drop off passengers if using a car, has a decent car park, is a relatively pleasant station to wait at and is the most convenient station for a large area of suburban London including Selsdon and Sanderstead itself – a place that the station is not particularly close to. Purley Oaks cannot really claim any of these qualities.
The station was originally called Sanderstead Road which was far more truthful as to where it was.
Re answer =42 and Graham H,
MML vs GWML electrification.
Approving GWML electrification ahead of the queue at the time probably made sense because of a once in generation opportunity / alignment of the stars:
a) signalling needing renewal anyway
b) rolling stock needing renewal and increase in quantity
c) Crossrail paying to electrify to Maidenhead
d) some existing EMUs coming off lease for the stopping services
(See also IEP on ECML and signalling renewal to ETCS)
The cost of a) and b) could be put down to non electrification budgets due to this timing opportunity hence making it look cheaper. The MML scheme significantly reduced running costs and was and is less dependant on a generational alignment of the stars and it being easier to electrify the MML in stages (Corby / Nottingham & Derby / Sheffield) with existing stock, the staging also resulting in lower cost overall?
ngh,
So what you are saying is the BCR of GML then MML is better than the BCR of MML then GWR? In which case Adonis was driven by BCR and nothing more sinister/devious.
PoP
I think that ngh is comparing the present BCR value of the GML with its past and expected future values, a legitimate exercise.
anonymously
I guess Chris Green throught that GWR would not be electrified because the BCR of west of Exeter did and does not stand up, therefore half the Berks & Hants, nor north-west of Oxford. And once you have so many diesels around, the benefits of electrifying Lahdahn – Brissle are limited. Things change.
Anonymously 23.31 and others
I never quite understood why Electric Spine always seemed to be presented solely as a freight scheme when every one of its constituent parts either (a) enabled the replacement of through diesel passenger trains, (b) eliminated oases of diesel passenger trains and/or (c) prevented the creation of new oases of diesel passenger trains.
And since this comment is both several hours late and off topic I guess I won’t be finding out now either…
Re PoP,
Yes maximisation of overall BCR if you assume doing both schemes required doing GWML at a certain point in time, MML being less critical timing wise.
Highly relevant as to BML (on topic) as the signalling renewal in CP6 also produces a better BCR for upgrades to ECR and Windmill Bridge etc. another “magic moment” due to cost / renewal timing.
BCRs of schemes involving upgrades will change over time especially if you align the work to life expiry of existing assets that will need renewal anyway (and pin those costs else where in renewals rather than upgrade budget).
In the MML case the BCR is less reliant on other asset renewal opportunities. For example electrifying to Corby would release some 222 and hence allow some HSTs to be retired from the longer distance services (already surplus HSTs subleased to Virgin East Coast) avoiding upgrade costs on doors etc.
Re Answer =42,
“PoP
I think that ngh is comparing the present BCR value of the GML with its past and expected future values, a legitimate exercise. ”
Yes that too!
@Caspar Lewes…..I think you’re thinking of the parts of the electric spine that are north and north west of Oxford and Basingstoke (none of which are currently electrified). Whereas I was referring specifically to the part between Basingstoke and Southampton. Only one passenger service using that part of the line (CrossCountry) is diesel-powered, and I see no reason why that can’t be operated using dual-voltage rolling stock once the wires are in place between Basingstoke and Coventry.
Which means that this part of the spine (leaving aside the whole DC-AC conversion testbed idea) is really only for freight, so they can be hauled using AC electric traction throughout. Although why these can’t be hauled using the dual-voltage Class 92 loco or a variant thereof is beyond me….
Thanks to POP for an article that quite clearly sets out the realities of the Uckfield branch in particular. In all the dross I have read over the years in many magazine articles related to it, I don’t think I have seen anything that comes close to explaining the challenge as clearly as this article does. Well done to LR again!
@answer=42…..Well, the wires won’t be reaching Exeter any time soon, so I guess he is partly correct (interesting he says that though, since I believe NSE did seriously consider electrifying Basingstoke to Exeter via Salisbury using third-rail (!) before deciding on using the Class 159s). The ‘so-much diesel it’s not worth it’ argument does not stack up though, considering that all of the rolling stock used to operate services within the NSE area along the GWML were newly built during his tenure (i.e. the Networker Turbos). So if he had had the money, I’m sure he would have liked to electrify the parts of the Thames Valley and Chiltern lines under his control if he could.
Re Anonymously (and Caspar)
Agree on most of it the main benefit to electrifying EWR is for freight rather than passengers, it does make further add on passenger electrification schemes easier to justify later.
a) 92s can’t haul as much on DC as they can on AC which doesn’t work when you want to haul full length 775m container trains which normally use 2x Cl86s at the moment when running on AC.
b) The DC supply down there isn’t up to it – EMUs even have their performance limited because of the DC supply (see comments from last Friday).
@Malcolm…..But the whole issue of civil service influence is relevant to the Uckfield line, especially with this upcoming new feasibility study. An influential, sceptical civil servant (i.e. someone like Graham H!) might get the whole idea binned; whereas an influential, over-enthusiastic (and perhaps financially illiterate!) civil servant might succeed in pushing through the whole BML2 proposal with all its associated madnesses in the London area.
I accept however that this whole issue impacts *all* transport topics, not just L-U, so please can it be added to the LR future article wishlist?
@Graham H……If only your good self and other similar wise heads had stayed within the DfT (perhaps reaching the level of Perm Sec in your case? ?), I strongly suspect that our railways would be in a much better state than they are today ?.
And that behaviour you describe from your colleague sounds like bullying, pure and simple, and should not be tolerated in today’s (or even yesterday’s) workplace.
@ngh….But suppose NR decided to abandon the DC-AC conversion idea and just renewed the electrical infrastructure between Basingstoke and Southampton, couldn’t they upgrade the power supply at the same time to allow more powerful freight haulage using dual-voltage locos?
This is all rather academic though, as I rather suspect the freight operators would prefer to stick with diesel haulage throughout, unless forced otherwise…..
@Anonymously – flattery will get you everywhere. Chris Green certainly wished to eliminate as much diesel traction as possible. The planning assumption was that CR1.0 would eliminate it on the Chiltern route and in most of the Thames valley, and that the North Downs and L-U could be done as infill. Those were progressed to the point where the need for further substations became the deciding cost factor. We had no solution to Ashford-Hastings or Bedford-Bletchley (although the engineers did ponder an ultra-cheap “Braintree” approach. There was a tacit assumption that GOBLIN would eventually have to be electrified but – as happened in the privatised era – there would have been some serious fights between the Freight and the NSE businesses…
Exeter was also worked up : the case for going as far as Salisbury was strong but the cost savings were then diluted by the poor financial results to the west. NSE was reluctant to split the service as there was a fair amount of cross-Salisbury traffic and Regional railways reluctant to take on the Exeter-Salisbury stub. These days,I guess one could look at coupling a diesel set to an electric one at Salisbury but 25 years ago, that was not to be contemplated in the UK – interestingly, when I was advisig the Danish State Railways on bid opportunities and we fell to discussing the then Wessex franchise, mixed electric/diesel traction was to have been one of their USPs. Quite possibly (back on topic) , that would have worked for Uckfield also, although the mixed solution doesn’t entirely eliminate the need for a diesel depot, alas.
Re Anonymously,
Covered in other discussions last Friday on this article – there are limits to how much power you can draw through 3rd rail DC.
They have already upgraded the southern SWML power supplies in the last 10-15 years (all of this upgrade equipment is easily relocatable elsewhere if AC electrified)
The 3rd rail on the SWML is engineered for high speed EMU running so large effective gaps due to shallow ramp angles and the beginning and end of 3rd rails so a 92 could easily get stuck in the “gap”. Drawing the full 4MW on DC requires 3 of the 4 shoe per side in contact with the rail else you start vapourising the rail and shoe(s). [73s have managed to weld themselves to the track before.] There are limits to 3rd rail many of them are very close to the laws of physics…
A 92 could take 100% of the available power in each 3.5 mile power section which potentially means no other trains in that section including in the other direction. Installing additional new 4+MW DC power supplies every 3.5 miles is a tad expensive.
@caspar Lucas
“I never quite understood why Electric Spine always seemed to be presented solely as a freight scheme when every one of its constituent parts either (a) enabled the replacement of through diesel passenger trains, (b) eliminated oases of diesel passenger trains and/or (c) prevented the creation of new oases of diesel passenger trains”
Indeed they would, but so would many other possible projects which might be a higher priority (e.g Uckfield!) if passenger traffic were the only consideration. Taking, say electrificatoin of Oxford – Bletchley (or even Oxford 0 Bedford) as a standalone would not be such a high priority, particularly as Chiltern is currently diesel only and the potential market for through running to the electrified systems at each end would be limited (there are faster routes to London*, and the reversal at Bedford would be awkward).
* other destinations are available, but are not electrified, and ex hypothesi would not be if this was a standalone project..
Thanks ngh. Class 92s not covering themselves in glory on the Callie sleeper @25Kv either I hear. *Highly* unlikely loco hauled on Uckfield is the answer, either.
@ngh….Understood. So until NR makes its mind up about what to do re. DC-AC, diesel-hauled freight it is then!
@Graham H…..Those are fascinating insights. You really ought to write a book (starting off perhaps as a series of LR articles) one of these days!
Other difficulties with electric freight will remain, even if/when something like the electric spine happens. These include the “last mile” into or out of freight yards, and flexibility for handling diversions (freight customers cannot be fobbed off with bustitution or “wait until after the blockade”).
Someone said earlier that freight operators “prefer” diesel. I think that is not quite accurate, they prefer a power supply that works everywhere they might need to go, preferably without changing locos en route. They will accept electric haulage if either forced to use it, or if it becomes entirely satisfactory and cheaper.
Graham H,
the need for further substations became the deciding cost factor
And the lack of the need for substations every few miles becomes the beauty of AC.
Providing you don’t have nasty small tunnels or low road overbridges it can be very cheap (by railway standards) and cost effective to extend AC once it is installed on the main line. If the line to East Grinstead ever got converted to AC then it is not implausible that it could be justified to Uckfield. It doesn’t matter much that not many people use the trains, it is the number and length of the trains themselves which is the critical factor (+ eliminating diesel depots etc).
With DC these cheap extensions don’t work unless you are very lucky and the existing substations are in the right place and have extra capacity – and if that was the case it would probably have been done already.
@PoP – absolutely,although back in NSE days, having ac islands would have required dualvoltage stock which would then have formed an awkward subfleet in otherwise overwhelmingly dc country, thus vitiating some of the savings from shutting down diesel depots and their stock of spares. Nowadays it would be easier. I don’t remember where Uckfield was supposed to have its transformer (North Downs would have needed two – one near Chilworth/Shere and the other somewhere between Ash and Farnborough – and Exeter needed a large number,ofcourse, which was one of the killer features of going beyond Salisbury)
Purley Oaks actually has a decent sized car park as well. However the surrounding streets have free parking and even better for those desiring free parking there are a couple of streets (Brantwood Road and Braemar Avenue) which only have houses on one side. So Purley Oaks has a car park that is at best a third full.
The key off peak point for Purley Oaks is that the up service has fairly awful connections at East Croydon. One half hourly group has a 14 minute connection at East Croydon, the other has a seven minute connection. And then he Southern services from further south are horribly bad timekeepers, so 14 minute connections turn into 20 minute ones and one might have stayed on the stopper to Victoria.
Purley Oaks is well used in the peak because there is a half hourly service to both Victoria and London Bridge that is fast from East Croydon/London Bridge.
London air quality is a growing issue and at some point the suitability of diesel hauled services using either London Bridge or Victoria is going to be questioned (and likewise Chiltern servucs if they are diesel). It’s probably not a short term issue but I suspect the clock is running on diesel,services into London terminals.
@PoP:
‘Providing you don’t have nasty small tunnels or low road overbridges it can be very cheap (by railway standards) and cost effective to extend AC once it is installed on the main line.’
And therein lies the heart of the problem with DC-AC conversion.
Are long-suffering passengers (not to mention affected road users and lineside residents) going to put up with the inevitable huge disruption associated with bridge/tunnel clearance work and gantry erection etc. in order to swap one perfectly good electrification system (in their eyes, not the engineers’!) for another?
It is justifiable when newly electrifying a line, since it can always be sold to passengers as ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ (newer, more reliable trains; faster journey times; environmental benefits etc.) once the disruption is over. But in this instance, you’re forcing them to turn round and re-enter a tunnel for the sake of technical, safety and engineering benefits they are unlikely to ever fully understand or see the need for. Never underestimate the innate scepticism and conservatism (for better or worse) of the Great British Public.
Politicians have taken fright from implementing far less controversial decisions in similar circumstances (e.g. road sign metrification), so unless something drastic changes (such as an EU directive…..imagine the fun the Daily Mail / Express would have with that), I really don’t see DC-AC conversion happening in the near future, if at all.
On a different tack, why are DC substations so expensive? Haven’t there been any technical developments over the last few decades that has made them cheaper to install?
@Graham H…..Yes, I always strongly suspected that DC electrification from Basingstoke to Exeter via Salisbury was a non-starter. Did NSE look at AC electrification over that route at all using dual-voltage rolling stock, or did that have a poor BCR as well?
@Kate….Except that for the foreseeable future, there is always going to be ‘some’ passenger service (express or local) within the London area that will remain diesel-powered.
Until someone works out what to do with the shared Met/Chiltern line services north of Harrow, I don’t see any decision being made about Chiltern line electrification any time soon. And unless a giant pot of money suddenly appears to enable electrification down to Exeter and further west, those ancient HSTs will continue to blacken the roof of Paddington train shed for a good while longer (there is probably little point running bi-mode IEP trains down to the West Country when they can only use electric traction for the first 50 miles of a 200+ mile journey).
Completely agree that eliminating diesel traction from the London terminals is a desirable aim, but realism suggests it will be a long time before it is finally achieved….
Oops…..evidently I was mistaken!
http://www.hitachirail-eu.com/at300-for-the-west-of-england_156.html
@Anonymously -no,I don’t recall ac as an option for Salisbury -Exeter at the time, although presumably it would be now. Back in the day, people had fewer qualms about third rail then they do now.
@Kate – I strongly support you in wishing to see the end of diesel traction (and not just from rail). Many people still don’t realise the damage to people and buildings from NOx and particulate emissions.
Craving the moderators’ indulgence for an off-topic diversion,it would appear to me that the Chiltern/Met situation is,by accident or design,in the process of being solved.The Met’s “new” all-stopper timetable has led to the virtual abandonment to Chiltern,of the fast lines N of Harrow.South of Harrow,Chiltern is,in any case,segregated…this leaves just the portion North of Watford S Junction to worry about.
The upcoming (!) SSR re-signalling would seem to be the ideal point at which to install the necessary kit to enable dual-voltage running,and hey-presto,the wires can go up (subject to bridge and tunnel clearance,of course)…
Why would anyone think of electrification Basingstoke to Exeter as a higher priority than Newbury or Bristol to Exeter?
@Anonymously
“why are DC substations so expensive?”
Because you need a lot more of them. It’s not the DC per se, it’s the low transmission voltage required because you cannot step down dc on board the train.
Resistive losses in the transmission cable result in a drop in voltage along the length of the cable. This is more significant with a lower initial supply voltage. (Put another way, low voltage means large current, and the resistive losses are proportional to the square of the current) . In rough numbers, at 750V a cable carries a current 33 times larger than the same cable carrying 25kV, and loses more than 1000 times as much power per metre in heating the cable. Low voltage cable runs therefore have to be short. And therefore you need the substations to be closer together. Not a problem in a metro operation where there are lots of trains within a small radius. More so where there is one long straggly line with trains often several miles apart.
@Alan Griffiths
“Why would anyone think of electrification Basingstoke to Exeter as a higher priority than Newbury or Bristol to Exeter?”
Because, at the relevant time (in the Network South east era), the line from Waterloo to Basingstoke was already electrified and the lines out of Paddington were not.
For the same reason, Staines to Reading was electrified in 1939 but the main line from Paddington to Reading is only now being electrified.
.
Slugabed,
I think the electrical engineers don’t even like ac on one pair of lines and dc on an adjacent pair of lines. Plus of course the fact that the Met fast lines are still used in the peak and this will be even more true with SSR resignalling (which apparently is now called Four Lines Modernisation).
Anonymously,
To put timbeau’s answer another way, high voltage power losses are very low. That is why coal burning power stations disappeared from London in the 1960s. It was cheaper to burn the coal near the power station and use the National Grid to transmit the generated electricity. It also means the Canadians can sell electricity generated near Niagra Falls to the southern states in the USA. On the other hand, low voltage dc is hopeless. Try installing a bell in a garden shed that can be rung from the house and you will be lucky if you get a tinkle.
Also DC needs chunky cables or rails to minimise power loss. This also applies to the 33kV cables that take the power to the sub-stations. By contrast the cross section of 25kV wire is tiny.
I take you point about public resistance to ac conversion but think this is overstated. Outside London, bridges can usually be raised without too much disruption. In the case of tunnels (Farnworth Tunnel excepted) there are usually solutions to getting the extra height in tunnels that don’t involve long term disruption. Besides a lot of them that were built in steam days have quite generous height clearance. Within London it largely accepted that you stick to dc and only change to ac once you reach a point at which it is worth doing so.
Perhaps what is needed is an information campaign. Taking up Sad Fad Dad’s point that 3rd rail electrification extends routine engineering works I think it would be a relatively easy sell if it were explained that, once done, line closures would either be fewer or that they would be for a shorter duration.
@Anonymously:
The London, Brighton & South Coast Railway was the first of the south London railways to be electrified. They opted for overhead wires and their electrification reached as far as Sutton (and covered the entire South London Line) before it was decided to switch to 3rd rail.
This means a fair chunk of London along those routes is already cleared for overhead AC wiring. It gets trickier beyond Greater London, but so does the density of the rail network.
This is the kind of project you’d want to do alongside a major re-signalling and/or track renewal project, so you’d get more bang for your buck and would have to do some heavy engineering regardless.
@PoP : or routine closures were the same length but more efficient. Although that doesn’t sell well to passengers, just the Treasury.
Also, the electrical engineers don’t even like ac on one pair of lines and dc on an adjacent pair… unless that dc pair is a fully bonded insulated system separate from the running rails, which is exactly what the 4th rail system is.
@Kate, 5 December 2015 at 02:02
“It’s probably not a short term issue but I suspect the clock is running on diesel,services into London terminals.”
IPEMU (independently powered electric multiple unit) technology is progressing fast. There is already a large fleet of new Intercity electric trains from Hitachi on order, many of which will be equipped with large modular diesel alternator rafts to allow through service to continue beyond the electrified trunk of the GWML for example. The Vivarail D-Train uses a similar idea to convert former electric District Line trains to diesel with a slimline underfloor module employing multiple small van-sized engines to power the existing traction motors. In third rail territory it should be fairly straightforward for those units to also retain a third rail pickup capability to become a flexible bi-mode. A Bombardier EMU was also fitted with a battery bank for a trial in Anglia recently, apparently very successful, although personally I have deep reservations about the ongoing costs of battery replacement when such units are facing multiple deep discharges and recharges daily. Of course battery technology is one of the most innovative and fast changing areas of industrial research for all kinds of applications today, so new and improved designs are emerging frequently to challenge that assumption. The diesel bi-mode approach to the independently powered problem seems to me the lowest risk and cost solution and could be a practical approach for many of the third rail unelectrified islands in the south. The slimline Vivarail modular power raft concept, if able to be successful applied in the limited underfloor space of a D78, might also be able to be slung under other EMU designs to produce a very flexible bi-mode unit, a limited subfleet of which could remain fully compatible with other unmodified EMUs of the same service group. As a service concept an IPEMU portion from Uckfield could couple up with a regular EMU portion at Oxted, switch off its engines and proceed as a full 12 car electric unit to either London Bridge or Victoria. A diesel bi-mode approach wouldn’t eliminate the nasty emissions entirely, but does remove them from the busiest urban areas where they’re of most concern, and allows the trains to more closely match other pure electric units’ performance on the main line. Obviously there is added dead weight from the power modules and their fuel, but the alternative of batteries also adds weight. A notional interchangeable standard power module architecture could help future proof the paradigm so diesel power rafts could be exchanged for battery storage modules when the technology improves. A unit could also be configured with a diesel raft where the unelectrified mileage was higher as a proportion of the scheduled cycle, or a battery raft for when the scheduled unelectrified work was lower. The notion of a standard interface power raft could incorporate other technologies too such as a hydrogen fuel cell or a multifuel Cyclone steam engine: http://www.cyclonepower.com/.
@PoP
“I think the electrical engineers don’t even like ac on one pair of lines and dc on an adjacent pair of lines. ”
I understand the main reason for that is it makes track circuits (the things that detect whether a train is there) more complicated.
To distinguish between the track circuit signal (which should be absent if there is a train in the track) and the earth return current (generated when electric trains are present, as (except on LU) they use the running rails as part of the electric circuit), the track circuits use ac in dc-electrified territory and vice versa. But what do you use for track circuits when both systems are in use for power supply?
The problem arises not only where the same track is electrified on both systems but where they are close together, as earth return currents can find their way from one track to another. I recall reading that electrification from Dalston to North Woolwich led to problems in Hackney where the newly-electrified DC line passed over what is now known as the West Anglia route.
@Mark Townend
“Obviously there is added dead weight from the power modules and their fuel,”
A solution to that was used successfully for twenty years between Bournemouth and Weymouth – leave the dead weight behind at the limit of electrification.
If it hadn’t been for a botched loco change at Crewe one day when the Secretary of State for Transport happened to be travelling to North Wales this might have been the future, rather than the “hybrid” IEP.
Hit send too soon – two further advantages:
1. you need fewer power units
2. they don’t spend a lot of their time trundling round either switched off – what if you can’t switch it on again? – or idling (not good for them: look what happened to the HST power cars when they were used just to power the aircon (and act as DVTs) on mark 3 sets when they were being powered by class 91s – a temporary measure whilst awaiting delivery of the mark 4 carriages the electric locos were actually designed to work with).
timbeau, you don’t always have to use track circuits for train detection…
@timbeau
I’ve slowly changed my mind on the bi-mode approach for the Hitachi trains. At first I was dead against it, but came round to the idea that the additional dead weight under the wires is not actually a great problem as plenty of power is available at 25kV and with an intercity style operation and a fairly gentle gradient profile the trains maintain a lot of momentum once up to speed. The assumption of lengthy loco attachment was exaggerated beyond reason though I fully agree and was a mistake that alienated many rail professionals towards the project. A loco with modern auto-couplers and integral pneumatic and electrical connections should be able to couple and detach as quickly as two modern units joining and splitting, something that is envisaged frequently in normal operation with the Hitachis anyway. I think bi-mode still beats a loco solution however because a changeover stop need be no longer than a normal stop, with the engines pre-heated and started automatically beforehand whilst on the move. Theoretically, changeover on the move will also be possible. An incremental approach to electrification is thus possible, allowing use of the the OHLE as much as possible without having to setup a loco change facilty at each temporary ‘wire-head’, even potentially allowing isolated infill electrification to overcome the severe gradients of the Devon banks for instance. Another factor with a locomotive is that if you are dragging standard EMUs around then you are also dragging their ‘dead’ power and traction equipment about as well as the duplicate weight of the loco’s own traction motors in the more power limited diesel mode. A bi-mode uses the same traction motors under diesel as when under the wires, so bi-mode locomotives could be used throughout the journey with unpowered trailers to save that weight away from the 3rd rail on Southern, although that moves away from the distributed power axle weight and resilience advantages of multiple units and still means the diesel engines are being carried around all the time anyway. With locos in particular though the ‘dead weight’ argument is not really relevant as an electric only loco usually has to be heavily ballasted to obtain sufficient rail adhesion; modern electrical power equipment is simply not heavy enough alone it seems!
Mark Townend 13.23:
I believe the modified Class 379 battery IPEMU had to lose one of three traction packages and the function of the associated motor bogie (and hence one third of its tractive effort and power) in order to find room for its batteries. Clearly diesel modules also take up space. So, remember to check that after conversion (with potentially increased weight) your putative IPEMU will still have the performance needed, particularly if it’s expected to operate on a capacity constrained electrified section of route! Which isn’t to say suitable types of train don’t or can’t exist, of course.
Mark Townend 14.50:
Presumably, as a logical deduction from the comments above about the effect on health of pollution from diesel engines, changeover on the move between stations wpuld be preferable. Must check the IEP spec on that point…
@ timbeau + others.
It’s quite simple to have track circuits in places where AC and DC traction is in place or adjacent, otherwise Thameslink, the NCL, the WCML, WLL, South Acton, Ashford, Ebbsfleet, etc wouldn’t work. The track circuits are set to a specific frequency, with a transmitter at one end of the track circuit and a receiver at the other. The track circuit detects the absence of the specific frequency only. Trains are then designed not to put out return current at that frequency range, at least not for any significant length of time.
These days, the track circuits are usually digital, giving a ‘clean’ signal. Many years ago the frequency was generated by a reed, and these were relatively unreliable and particularly susceptible to AC three phase return currents. The presence of reed track circuits between East Croydon and Purley is why you don’t see Class 92s on intermodal trains to the tunnel when they are sent that way. (And not, as commonly understood, a lack of juice between Redhill and Tonbridge).
Re the Class 91 / HST power combination – not sure if this is what you were looking for timbeau – but what happened was that the HSTs gave traction power. It proved too difficult to arrange the control systems such that the Valenta diesel engine provided hotel power only whilst the cab it was attached too gave out instructions of ‘full ahead both’.
@ Caspar Lucas. Re the Battery 379 losing a traction package, possibly so. However DC only electrostars have a couple of tons of concrete ballast under the sole bar in one coach to compensate for an absence of a main transformer; this is so that all the other load bearing parts of the unit can be to a common design (and it stays in gauge). Removing that concrete and popping in a couple of tons of battery would seem to be the way forward.
@Sad Fat dad
Class 91/HST
My recollection was that they initially tried using the power car as a mobile generator for hotel power but they had problems (of some kind) and so were adapted to boost the power taken by the Class 91 at the other end. A true super-powered hybrid!
Track circuits – indeed there are workarounds, like tuning to specific frequencies or using axle counters, but they all add complexity. And an axle counter won’t detect a broken rail, or an emergency track-circuiting clip
@Mark T
“Another factor with a locomotive is that if you are dragging standard EMUs around then you are also dragging their ‘dead’ power and traction equipment about as well ”
Not necessarily – you can design the units to take power from the diesel loco – which only needs a small traction motor to move itself around when not attached to a train. Or you can use the Southern’s approach – detach the electric “loco” (actually a 4REP unit) from the rear as you attach the diesel at the front (and vice versa on the way back. The only vehicles making the through journey were unpowered TC units.
Changeover at the “wirehead” needs very few facilities if the same platform can be used for both directions of travel, provided trains alternate in direction.
Sad Fat Dad, 5 December 2015 at 17:16
“Removing that concrete and popping in a couple of tons of battery would seem to be the way forward.”
Or perhaps a modular diesel alternator raft and fuel tank!
@timbeau – it was indeed super power, over 8,000hp on 8 coaches. Captain Deltic was particularly excited.
Track circuits only detect about 10% of broken rails, as most breaks aren’t clean, and those that are need to be in the rail with the power in the circuit. And TC operating clips are now almost irrelevant, every train has secure radio and a big red button…
@SFD
This blog suggests that the extended idling lead to accelerated wear & carbon deposition. The author however certainly enjoyed the ‘pressed into the seat’ acceleration.
@Sad Fat Dad, 5 December 2015 at 18:03
Track circuits through junctions in electrified areas are usually ‘single rail’. That means only one of the rails is ‘series bonded’. That ensures a wheelset will be detected on any part of the layout covered by that TC, and should a bond (cable) becomes detached or a serious enough rail break occur in that leg (which could otherwise isolate a spur and compromise ability to detect a wheelset) the TC will fail ‘right side’ as occupied. The other rail is designated the traction rail and is ‘parallel bonded’ instead to ensure reliability of a traction return current path. Breaks in rails and bonds in the traction leg will not be detected usually no matter how ‘clean’ because the parallelism ensures there’s another path for both the traction and track circuit current.
On plain line away from junctions, track circuits are often (but not always) ‘double rail’ so a break in either rail may be be detected, but only if a ‘clean break’ as you say. Jointless track circuits are used widely on plain line. These do not require insulated rail joints to delineate the individual logical sections and are considered double rail, with traction current return bonds connected to substations via impedance bonds, as are periodic ‘cross bonds’ between tracks.
Axle counters are the modern preference for train detection for almost all applications today. However, there is a right-side failure mode known as ‘wheel rock’ that can leave an axle counter section occupied falsely if a wheelset stops directly over a sensor. Where multiple sections were required for permissive working in the recent Nottingham area resignalling, multiple short track circuits were retained through the long platforms at the station alone to avoid this problem, despite the rest of the scheme being equipped with axle counters throughout. I have read recently that the forthcoming Birmingham New Street resignalling intends to employ axle counters for multi-section platform tracks, using a new technique of additional overlay or supervisory counter sections covering the whole platform which will be able to reset any the intermediate sections left falsely occupied automatically. That technique, on trial at Coventry currently, has been used previously for German installations ( the er. . ‘fatherland’ of axle counters) , but is a new initiative for the UK.
http://www.railengineer.uk/2015/11/24/west-midlands-resignalling/
Thameslink, with it’s very short sections under ETCS, faced a similar risk of ‘wheel rock’ at mid platform sensors and elsewhere. The project, like Nottingham, has decided to use track circuits throughout the core. The new block sections are extraordinarily short so corresponding track circuits, mostly well sheltered from the elements in tunnels and cuttings, should be fairly easy to keep reliably in adjustment, and in this case they were thought to be a less complex and more reliable solution than axle counters overall.
Reference to track circuits, axle counters and wheel rock calls up the latent inventor in me. Others may feel the same.
Actually I have gone sufficiently far past my teenage years to realise that perhaps I do not have the answer to a puzzle which has doubtless exercised many finer and better-trained minds. But I still can’t help thinking that some time in the next 20 years, a piece of technology is going to surface, which can reliably (and I mean very very reliably) determine whether or not a given section of track is occupied by a train or part thereof.
Like Mark Townend, I too gradually came round to thinking better of bi-mode. If it’s seen as a substitute for diesel, rather than an inferior electric, then it makes sense. Superior acceleration on the electrified lines will allow former diesel services to fit in better with their electric companions, while saving on big infrastructure costs on the outer reaches where the CBR is very unattractive. There seems to be rising enthusiasm for bi-mode among our near neighbours, and even one GB freight company is investing in ‘last mile’ capability in newly ordered electric locos.
@Malcolm, 5 December 2015 at 21:31
Expect more balise-based detection in the future as with Seltrac, but note that, even with that system and the typically fixed length trains of Metro style operations, axle counters are retained through junction areas as a second vital check to confirm that all vehicles are clear before points are allowed to move. With variable length trains on the main line network I doubt it will ever be safe enough to rely entirely on data entry by the driver or even automated on board length determination systems and an offset from the front balise reader alone to determine that a train is clear of a junction.
Perhaps in the future every vehicle allowed on the network will have to carry a passive identity beacon. That could encode characteristics such as length so variable length trains of such vehicles, each with a known length, could be counted in and out of block sections by trackside readers in lieu of axles.
Thanks Mark
I think you have shown that U-L would not need electrification.
Bi-mode trains are a good idea, but I do remember people expressing concerns about them in comments elsewhere on this website, mainly to do with the fact this concept had never been tried before, where the train can operate at high speed on diesel as well as electric traction using the same locomotives (compared with, say, the diesel locos used by Amtrak into New York Penn Station, which run at low speed using third-rail electric power into the tunnels since diesel traction is banned down there). If there’s anyone who can get it to work, it’s the Japanese, so it’ll be interesting to see if they manage to do so…..
If the Uckfield line remains un-electrified, and bi-mode traction is used instead, I think a battery-operated EMU might suit the line better, so that no diesel-related infrastructure (mainly at the depot) is required in what is an overwhelmingly electrified area. However, I’m not sure how successful those recent trials were (does anyone have a link to a report?), or if sufficiently light batteries with enough power capacity are now available for this purpose. Batteries have lagged far behind other technological developments in recent years; otherwise, we would all be driving electric cars and using smartphones that had power for weeks, not hours!
@PoP….If only it were so easy to convince people who are not technically minded or have any relevant knowledge about the issue (including the people who ultimately make the big decisions i.e. the politicians!). For example, speaking from my own area of expertise, there is now a lot of good evidence that people with major trauma, strokes and other serious health emergencies do better in major specialised hospitals with all the required expertise on site. However, implementing this in practice is difficult, since the inevitable downgrading of A+E departments in smaller hospitals this entails results in huge local public opposition, which frightens politicians into backtracking from this. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar were to happen if Network Rail proposed large-scale DC-AC conversion in the southern home counties.
@Anomnibus….But the former LBSCR AC electrified area was, relatively speaking, quite small, and would only facilitate conversion on those mainline routes within the London area only (the BML to Victoria and London Bridge +/- its associated branches). Significant clearance work might still be required outside that zone. And that’s nothing compared with the potential clearance issues on my local patch (the ex-SER/LCDR lines….have you seen some of the bridges and tunnels along there?), let alone the ex-LSWR lines.
IMHO, within my lifetime, it’s probably more likely that I’ll see metric road signs in the UK than I’ll see the third-rail disappear from most of southern England…..
Anonymously,
Regarding Battery operation,
Off-peak running time is 43 minutes to Hurst Green and a further 37 minutes to London Bridge. So that is approximately 86 minutes plus terminating time at Uckfield without mains power. That seems an awfully long time off-juice and distance-wise it is about the same as London-Brighton.
You could add the third rail (or overhead!) on the single track between Buxted and Uckfield and get about 20 minutes charging time in the middle although I am not sure a third rail island is a good idea. I am sure Redhill – Reading would be a much better line on which to experiment with this.
You would have to change the Sunday timetable. A shuttle between Oxted and Uckfield would be doomed.
@timbeau…That’s why I recognise that long-distance DC electrification (as in hundreds of miles to reach Exeter, for example) will never happen.
Whether one considers the Uckfield line (or for that matter, Ashford-Ore and parts of the North Downs lines) to be too ‘long’ as well for DC infill could perhaps still be debated, but I fear I might be losing the argument….
I cannot help thinking that the use of bi-mode stock on an unelectrified Uckfield line perpetuates the “island” status of the line,necessitating the use of a specific stock for that line.
My thought is that,once other “easy win” electrifications are done,Uckfield will find its way to the head of the queue and will,in turn,simply be electrified.
@anonymously
“hundreds of miles to reach Exeter”
124 miles from Basingstoke, to be exact – the same distance as Woking to Weymouth which was done (in stages) between 1967 and 1988 – but the point is made.
“And that’s nothing compared with the potential clearance issues on …………the ex-LSWR lines.”
Clearances are in general quite good – in particular there are very few tunnels on the SWML. Double-decker “peak busters” have been considered for the main line to Southampton without the need for very much improvements to clearances – although it is probably an either/or situation: OHLE and double deckers might be a bit of a stretch for the existing clearances!
http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/rail-industry-plans.aspx
SFD
And, as an exercise for the reader, the number of different electric traction systems in place at one station (Stratford-atte-Bow) is, how many?
PoP
Err .. “Charging points” ( a short section of 3rd rail or OHLE “rail” at the ends, might be a solution t the problem you mention, 69-bus-style.
timbeau, that links to the draft route study. This has now been published (available here) and says (p.10)
“Double-deck trains. Whilst the full analysis of this option has not
been concluded, initial results would suggest that this is very
unlikely to offer value-for-money.” There’s more details on pp. 111-112
Suggested for AC electrification in CP6 (2019-2024) are Basingstoke to Southampton and Salisbury, and Salisbury to Redbridge and Eastleigh.
Longer term (2024+) Woking to Basingstoke (giving speed increases), west of Southampton, Salisbury to Exeter and the North Downs Line are listed for AC electrification.
Greg Tingey,
Charging points,
But that involves additional cost in developing it and getting it approved if using 3rd rail or overhead and another method of charging the batteries (e.g. lower voltage). If you mean ordinary 750v rail then you need the substation anyway so you might as well provide the conductor rail for a decent length of track. It is not the conductor rail that is expensive (especially when it is single track with no points) and you could always use second-hand stuff if doing it on a really cheapskate basis.
@edgepaedia -given the chaos surrounding the GWML, MML andTPE electrification programmes, it’s difficult to see any priority being given to doing any conversions in CP6. My spies tell me that Electric Spine,if not dead,is fading fast…
Graham H,
And yet I suspect not. The equipment is life expired and needs replacing anyway. By the time they get around to it they should have worked out how to install OHLE relatively cheaply and efficiently and they should have the kit and expertise to do it. The alternative is effectively the same as installing DC from Basingstoke to Southampton for the first time. And timbeau keeps telling us the clearance is not that bad on that route.
Its a bit like looking at the disaster on the Jubilee line with ATO installation and deciding that ATO installation on the Northern line, if not dead, is fading fast …
Reading the Sussex route study reminded me that the Electrification Route Study will be about “2015/16” (i.e. next year). Regarding the diesel islands in the South East, it gives priority to the North Downs Line as there’s a desire to increase the service over this route.
@PoP -I guess it depends how badly they want it. The Stagecoach franchise team had effectively been told to ignore it for the purposes of rebidding the SWT franchise, which pushes it back to c2026 at the earliest. As you will have seen from the trade press, NR’s problem is not just their factory trains aren’t a quick fix and are not delivering the rate of progress claimed initially, but the engineering fraternity is casting doubt on the availability of skilled workers. The other thing about 2026+ is that that is the time when HS2 is likely to be coming on stream and eating resources.
Whether there any temporary or less demanding fixes for the SWML power supply is beyond what has been said at the moment, although there are persistent rumours about sending freight the pretty way round via Salisbury,which may be related.
[Blood and custard moment: NR – or more precisely RT – have only themselves to blame if the story being told about unknown buried cable is true; this is merely one Special Case of the General Theory that much inherited asset knowledge took the wonderful early retirement offer in 1996 and is now busy firing on the Talyllyn or whatever. ]
@Greg
“And, as an exercise for the reader, the number of different electric traction systems in place at one station (Stratford-atte-Bow) is, how many”
Currently three I think – (also at West Ham) but three others have been used at Stratford in the past
Four rail
Three rail top contact
Three rail bottom contact
1500Vdc ohle
6.25kV ac ohle
25kV ohle
@Greg Tingey I’d guess there were 5 at one point (25 kV AC and 1.5 kV OHLE on the main lines, 3rd rail on the NLL, 4-rail LUL and whatever it is the DLR uses). But these days probably down to 3, with all the national rail lines using 25 kV OHLE?
Re Battery trains and DC charging points.
All electrification (AC and DC) has redundancy built in such that the system has sufficient power in it at all times if any substation or feeder station goes off line. This is so that the timetable can operate without restriction in such an outage event (short or long term, planned or unplanned) and means trains don’t get stranded in the event of an unplanned outage. This redundancy means you build at least 50% more substations / feeder stations than you actually need for a given amount of power under normal operation.
Now in a battery train scenario, trains won’t get stranded if they are set to have a ‘get home / next station’ power reserve that is to be used only in an emergency (similar principle to minimum fuel reserve for airliners). So arguably a DC island doesn’t need the redundancy which therefore can make it cheaper.
Also, a battery train (indeed any electric train) is only drawing full power for a proportion of its trip – around 30% of the time for a service with regular stops. It is also regenerating during braking. A battery train that needs some recharging would draw full power whenever it is on the juice, including when coasting, braking and stationary.
A 3 mile long DC stretch from Uckfield to Greenhurst Junction, just past Buxted, with one substation, could be done for a few million. This would enable 15 mins recharging at full power (the 21 mins minimum time for the trip and turnaround, less the starts from Buxted (twice) and Uckfield).
AIUI the trial battery electrostar has 50miles juice in the battery, albeit with some limitations on max speed. This would be (just) enough to get from Hurst Green and back again; with a DC island at Uckfield it becomes very feasible.
All that would be left to work out is some new contingency plans for various new failure scenarios, including a graph of how far from the juice and how low can the battery get before you dim the lights and switch the air con off on a sultry summer night.
Re Stratford; reasonably sure it never had 6.25kV and 25kV at the same time.
Of course there are 2 different AC systems there, the conventional 25kV system on the main line, and the 25kV-0-25kV autotransformer system on HS1 with a level contact wire.
@Sad Fat Dad: How different are these two flavours of 25kV ? Can trains designed for one run satisfactorily on the other?
@ Malcolm. The electrons are the same. All that needs to be different on the train from an electrification point of view is maximum power settings and pantograph type (or in some cases, pantograph settings for uplift force and maximum height).
@SFD
Very interesting idea for a DC island at Uckfield – effectively an extended static charging point. Power would have to be derived from a local utility supply, otherwise a long and expensive trackside extension of the usual 33kV railway distribution network would be required. It could probably be done however with the limited maximum load involved (two trains: one moving at at full traction load, one stationary charging at maximum rate, say 5MW total), Duplicated utility supplies and/or a back-up diesel generator might be provided at the feed point for resilience.
I wonder how the economics of batteries would stack up against a diesel bi-mode solution. Although the battery management systems on board would no doubt be very reliable and low maintenance, the big questions remaining would be how long the modern traction batteries would last with daily deep discharge/recharge cycles and how much would they cost to replace. How would that stack up against the costs of servicing and maintaining diesel engine modules? Batteries are a very fast developing area. Hardly a week goes by without some new product or research announcement, but you’d want a very reliable, proven solution for a rail application rather than any experimental new type of battery, no matter how promising.
@Malcolm I believe I read that the HS1 trains can run on conventional electrified tracks in incident cases but doing it in regular service would cause excessive wear from the pantographs. No idea about the other way around.
Class 92 locomotives run on HS1 and WCML as well as Eurotunnel infrastructure under OHLE. They were originally built for running through the Channel Tunnel so I assume they had TVM430 signalling from the beginning as well but I was confused by a Wikipedia article that stated that was only fitted in 2010 to allow freight running on HS1. Perhaps it was more of a recommissioning after a long period of UK classic only running for the locos concerned. I remember that NoL cl.373 sets had different ‘mode’ settings for running on continental vs UK OHLE and I think 92s may have that also. The mode settings switched signalling and power configuration so may also have affected pantograph height limit and pressure settings.
Two class 319 units were modified at Selhust in 1993 to be able to run into the Channel Tunnel for a number of excursions at the time of opening. The pantographa had to be adjusted to be able to reach the tunnel system’s overhead line which is even higher than on HS1 or anywhere on the European mainland in order to clear the supersized road vehicle shuttles.
As I recall from the battery powered trials in Essex you need about twice as much time on power compared to on battery. I think that means you need about 20mins of power added somewhere.
What is wrong with 25kV overhead wire on the branch(es), with a suitable change-over point.
@MT
“the big questions remaining would be how long the modern traction batteries would last with daily deep discharge/recharge cycles”
Isn’t it the case for most battery technologies that deep discharge then full recharge is the best for battery longevity?
@LBM/Mark Townend…..Not any more, I think. Charging technology has developed to the point that the amount of power supplied to the battery can be precisely regulated to reduce stress on the battery and maximise its capacity and lifespan, even if they haven’t been completely discharged.However, it is still the case that rechargeable batteries have a finite lifespan, and over time will lose their capacity with each charge/discharge cycle.
Yes, there are new developments in battery technology that are continually being announced…..but how many of these have made it into commercially viable products? As I said before, batteries have fallen behind in their development compared with other technologies, since few if any of these new ideas have made it to market. We are only now able to use smartphones and other battery-powered computing devices because the components they use have become much more energy-efficient. For motive power applications, batteries still have their limitations (as with electric cars, for example).
I’m not trying to rubbish the idea…..just highlighting that battery development still has some way to go before it can satisfactorily fulfill our wishes (especially when it comes to motive power).
Battery technology has moved on in the last decade, helped by the energy recovery systems in F1. Tesla make a range of pure electric cars; weighing approx 2 tonnes with around 500kg of batteries; 300 mile range, 8 year / unlimited miles guarantee for the top spec. Someone can do the maths about how this might scale to a railway application ie heavier, slower, shorter range.
The Tesla also does 0-60 in under 3 seconds, which might do something for Uckfield line journey times.
@SFD: The other bit of maths involved on scaling a Tesla might be working on the purchase price, which you didn’t happen to mention. Although a glance at their website suggest numbers far less stratospheric than I expected. Any new luxury car is expensive by my standards, but without digging into the small print, these look quite unludicrous.
Graham H
but the engineering fraternity is casting doubt on the availability of skilled workers.
Lecture at the IMechE on that very subject last Monday
Fascinating
Q at end: “How do we know that HS2 will be built & that guvmint won’t turn off the tap, as they have in the past?”
Ans:” Politics & the fact that Geo Osborne wants to be PM 2019- 2025. And he can only do that if he delivers prosperity & jobs, which means long-term capital investment”
[Subsequent comment(s) of a more political nature by anyone that strays too far over the political side of things have been/will be deleted PoP]
Everybody
I’m quite aware of the Stratford complexity of electrification systems, as [excessive grumpiness snipped; you asked the question, and people offered answers. Malcolm]
Thank you everybody, for explaining to others just how involved, & also that these problems are solvable, in spite of the naysayers.
Tesla are well on the way with a massive Li-Ion manufacturing plant, which they expect by 2020 to match, on its own, the entire worldwide production of such batteries in 2013.
They expect to drive down the per kilowatt hour (kWh) cost of their battery pack by more than 30 percent. That’s with current, proven, battery technology.
https://www.teslamotors.com/gigafactory
Well well well…..I can’t wait to see the Tesla Train come 2020!
It’s true that the Tesla car is the first I’ve seen that isn’t hobbled by the usual weaknesses of electric cars (i.e. power and range). But as Malcolm pointed out, it doesn’t come cheap….
… on a cost per seat basis, they are about the same as a Class 387. Which one do you reckon is most comfortable?
… and on a cost per seat per expected-lifetime-km basis?
@Anonymously:
The total distance of the original LB&SCR AC electrification might not have been that far relatively speaking, but their rail network becomes much denser the closer you get to central London. I therefore don’t think DC-AC conversion would be too onerous. Not without its challenges, granted. [Snipped for brevity. LBM]
Re. Double-decker trains:
One of the biggest problems with such trains is that current off-the-shelf models are designed for the continental European networks, with the lower deck hanging down close to the track and below the top of the bogies. (Example from Paris’ RER network, here.)
Such trains require either straight high-level platforms, (which Paris’ RER network generally has), or low(er)-level platforms. If one of these trains were to try and serve Clapham Junction, it is extremely unlikely to end well. The only part of the UK’s rail network these could run on today is HS1. HS2 would also cope just fine as it’d be built to the same standards.
Finally, although they can increase capacity, they’re the equivalent to extending a 10-coach conventional train to a 15-coach one as the stairwells / ramps and vestibules take up a lot of space. It’s a lot cheaper (in the UK) to just extend platforms and trains instead.
In short: double-deckers may appear on the UK’s HS network(s) at some point, but are unlikely to do so on the ‘classic’ lines unless the route was built / upgraded in recent years to continental standards.
Re Double deckers……. not disagreeing with anything Anomnibus said but I would add that traction packages also take space and station dwell times are terrible compared with single deckers due to the increased numbers of passengers using each door. The net result can be neutral in overall capacity of a line.
Double deckers:
Japan has some double deckers on it’s narrow gauge network, within a loading gauge that is remarkably close to the UK standard, including a high platform with similar clearances. See:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BB%8A%E4%B8%A1%E9%99%90%E7%95%8C#/media/File:Rolling-Stock-Gauge-in-Japan.svg
(note blue: Older NG, grey: newer NG, Green: Shinkansen (SG)).
Many Japanese bodyshells have the familar British ‘tumblehome’ of the sides just above platform level. It was this similarity that gave Hitachi an advantage over mainland European manufacturers in easily adapting their AT300 series for UK use (395s, 800s etc). Anyway back to double deckers, many are used on suburban lines on the NG, but only for green (1st equivalent) class cars on limited stop express trains where increased loading time is less of a concern.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JR_East_E531_Green_Car.JPG
There are also some longer distance luxury and sleeper trains with two levels where again loading time is less of an issue, but many of these are being phased out as the high speed Shinkensen network expands. There is also a series of DD Shinkansen trains, but this feature is not being replicated on the latest models. It’s worth noting that Japanese people are typically shorter than Europeans so perhaps they can get away with lower ceilings!
I’ve heard the dwell time issue repeated numerous times, but from my discussions with (Italian) railway workers, this is only really a problem on routes where passenger flows at each station are always high. This is why, even in Paris, it’s only the RER that has double-decker trains as it’s a regional metro. Their urban metro network relies on single-deck trains.
On most routes where double-deckers are used here in Italy, there are only a small number of stations where lots of passengers are trying to either get on, or get off. At all the other stations, the passenger numbers boarding or disembarking are much smaller, so dwell times are unaffected.
The consensus seems to be that you’d have longer dwell times at busy stations regardless of the train type. The key is to design them so that people can get in and out as quickly as possible, but the trade-offs to achieve that are bigger / more doors, and larger vestibule areas. Accessibility is also an issue with older designs; newer ones use ramps rather than stairs to access the lower deck.
All this obviously reduces the space available in the rest of each carriage for passenger accommodation, so double-deckers will always be an inherently compromised solution.
[I’ll let this comment through but we really don’t want yet another digression into double deck trains. Further comments on the subject are liable to be deleted. PoP]
@PoP – now, about the use of double deck trains to Oxted… 🙁
@LBM Depends entirely on the battery chemistry of which there are several. Some are best being fully charged and fully discharged. Some are best being kept as close to full charge as much of the time as possible. None like getting hot. AIUI the most popular at the moment is lithium ion which last I knew tended to lose about 20% capacity a year whatever the discharge cycle. Maybe it’s got better.
@slugabed: Which was the last,or indeed,was there ever a railway which entirely washed its face finncially,covering capital costs,debt servicing,running costs etc?
Hong Kong’s MTR? Sure, they make a lot of money from property development and were handed land free by the government, but they also make something like 175% of operating costs in fare revenue. SNCF used to require something like a 7% return on capital for TGV lines albeit with some free in-kind contributions, and the first Shinkansen was very profitable (JNR later accumulated an enormous debt that was written off, but I think that was due to losses on other services), though it benefited from cheap loans from the World Bank I think. Union Pacific requires a 15% return internally on all its investments and has a profit margin as high as Apple – and is aiming to increase its average train speeds from 24 to an amazing 26 mph…
@Answer=42 It seems he (AA) got away with choosing the project with lower BCR without anyone noticing
They needed somewhere to put the Class 319s being replaced for Thameslink – the MML wouldn’t have worked as that is where they already were, but GWML suburban services were perfect. So electrification to Oxford and Newbury was approved. Then once you had justified that, Bristol had a good business case as an add-on because the wires were halfway there already. Then the Welsh started complaining so had to be included…
There is a lesson here about how you get different results from slicing schemes into component parts, and also from deciding what comes into the scope of the scheme, as ngh has mentioned – eg. Reading station’s rebuild managed to avoid counting as a cost for either GWML electrification or Crossrail, even though both will benefit from it.
With electrification and HS2, Adonis must be the single person with the greatest influence over the future of the railway network since Beeching.
@Graham H: These days,I guess one could look at coupling a diesel set to an electric one at Salisbury but 25 years ago, that was not to be contemplated in the UK
Except at Bournemouth, of course, where it happened daily. And weren’t the Class 210 meant to be capable of coupling to an EMU?
@Graham H, PoP: Fortunately the complete Tunbridge Wells – Uckfield – Lewes – Brighton route already has a double deck transport system.
@Ian J -you are right: I’d forgotten about the Bournemouth-Weymouth interlude.
The Brighton-TW bus seems both frequent and well-used on the numerous occasions I’ve encountered it; proponents of the L-U re-opening need to explain why (a) it’s inadequate, (b) what the benefits are from replacing it with a train service, and(c) whether it will actually go away after the train service appears.
And (d) how it could be justified to use public money to put a private concern out of business.
Graham says “proponents of the L-U re-opening need to explain …”.
I would add not necessarily here. This is not about shutting down discussion of such a re-opening, just issuing a reminder that such discussion, on this site, should really not continue for ever. New points are welcome – restatements of points already made are rather less so.
@Sad Fat Dad
“how it could be justified to use public money to put a private concern out of business.”
Happens all the time – the Aust ferry was privately owned for example, as were the Firth of Forth ferries (how many Fifers are wishing they were still available now…….?)
timbeau,
Indeed. There are numerous examples and it used to happen all the time in other ways too by such as simple things as governments or local authorities being slow in their payments for services provided. Indeed it was reckoned that the former GLC put more companies out of business and was responsible for more job losses by slow payment of bills than they ever created by their various expensive schemes designed to increase employment in London.
There is a big legal and moral difference between a scheme that that has the intention of putting a private company out of business and it being a mere consequence. One could argue that railway construction and even repeatedly closing lines due to weekend engineering works sometimes can have the consequence of putting a private company such as a shops, restaurants or hotels out of business but I doubt that Sad Fat Dad has any qualms about that.
Where will it end? No improvement in evening services because it could put taxi firms out of business? Supposing conversion from DC to AC put people in the private sector out of a job? Is that a good reason for not doing it?
I can understand the unease at public money being used that will make life more difficult for a private operator that pays their way but such a doctrine would pretty much condemn us forever not to open new railway lines from HS2 downwards.
Re timbeau and PoP,
And closer to home look at the future impact of Crossrail on Black Cabs and the lucrative Heathrow trade or the future night tube (if it ever happens) on night buses, taxis and minicabs.
Maintaining the track on AC sections is significantly cheaper with more automation (no 3rd rail getting in the way and fewer people needed so expect job reductions post conversion.
12 days late to the party here. I have tried to read all the comments but that is something of an intractable task so I may have missed some that are relevant to the below.
Some Oxted line related points:
The bay platform at Oxted is also used for 2 evening peak services to Uckfield. (Although maybe you were aiming to keep it simple, PoP.)
May I enquire as to your source for 8-car East Grinstead Thameslinks, PoP? I can believe you, as so much has changed since e.g. the London and South East RUS of 2011 said they would be 12-cars. I have not been able to track down a potential source for this that isn’t Wikipedia though, and that does not contain the lengths in its source. The other 8-car routes involve areas that can’t accept 12-cars, and the current East Grinsteads are popular enough it would seem a strange decision to make.
The length of off peak East Grinsteads mainly reflects the need for lots of capacity East Croydon to Victoria. It is also very sensible as growth on the route means people can be standing from Riddlesdown at certain points of the off peak (at least in the popular carriages – but if the train were shorter this would be all of them). Like you would expect though, some particular trains are very quiet by East Grinstead.
I did not see the full discussion above but I have to agree with people who argued that fast trains from Sanderstead are the big draw for Sanderstead over Purley Oaks. South Croydon is disproportionately busy in the peaks because it has fast trains then – and I specifically mean busy with people exiting the station (there are people changing too), there are plenty on peak East Grinsteads. Travellers are very shrewd when there is an option not to change trains.
I did not see an overt reference in the article to the peak overcrowding on the Uckfield line, the principle reason people assert it is busy. This affects multiple trains, especially in the morning peak, with standing from (to) before (after) Edenbridge Town and even further south. Many who would have once used them from Hurst Green or Oxted would now use East Grinsteads. In the evening peak direction, the 1708 from London Bridge is particularly bad. The justification for train lengthening is perhaps based on the impact this has on capacity between London and Croydon, but this will inevitably be absorbed by suppressed demand on these trains in the not too distant future.
This is not to say that the line isn’t comparatively quiet – we are talking about overcrowding on 2tph that are mainly 2 to 6 cars long, with one extremely bad 8-car each way. It was a surprising decision to lengthen all the platforms considering how few trains are currently 8-car, a very long term view must have been at play. Off peak loadings are not terrible but again we are talking short trains by London standards.
Trains are currently timetabled to pass at Ashurst all day, using Crowborough only for the peak timetable. The worst single line section for delays is thus between Hever and Ashurst, if people were wondering. You can see it already today with 3 minute delays being passed back and forth – it can get much worse.
Anon EGr,
Thank you very much for you insight.
I was unaware of the two evening peaks that started in the bay platform at Oxted. I overlooked them. I will amend the article.
I am ashamed to say the 8-car Thameslink did come from Wikipedia though I am pretty sure I had previously read that. However, I now notice, as you had done, that the document Wikipedia cites is a diagram that doesn’t actually specify the number of carriages. I am starting to wonder if I am wrong on this. Alternatively, given that the DfT ordered the mix of 8-car and 12-car trains without having a final timetable in place, it could just be there aren’t enough 12-car trains and some service has to have 8-car trains even though 12-cars are possible.
Re Anon EGr & PoP,
I think the East Grinsteads may be 12 car as there should be 12 tph 12 car through LBG and 4 tph 8car (during the peaks).
[All 8tph peak services through Elephant and Castle being 8 car]
As for what the 4tph 8car services through LBG are:
As Cambridge to Tattenham Corner (all day) & Welwyn Garden City to Caterham (peak only) have to be 8 car that surely leaves all the others including the Peak only Bedford to East Grinstead as 12car (total 8tph to / from Bedford which I though were all 12 car and Peterborough to Horsham + Cambridge to Brighton which I also think are 12 car).
Else they might have ordered more 12 car than required…
The total off peak mix is 8tph 8car and 8tph 12 car (though could be run with 8 car off peak). The 8cars stopping services are quite slow so this balances out the longer distances the 12car services run (some 12 car serices also run fast for part of the contra peak direction).
Anon EGr, ngh
12-car would make more sense I admit. I have thrown an element of doubt into the article but I will see if I can get confirmation.
I think the issue of longer trains and longer platforms is partly down to the fact that I believe you can only currently run an 8-car train if it doesn’t stop at Ashurst, Cowden or Hever which is hardly ideal. So really you need much of the platform extensions or SDO just to go from 6 to 8 cars. On a line like this I suspect it might actually be cheaper to build the longer platforms than implement SDO and in any case you have the problem that the trains aren’t fully walk through.
Touched a nerve there with an offhand comment. Quite right, I don’t have (m)any qualms if it were to happen in this case* but I do think that there would be a duty to justify the reasoning.
* but it won’t happen, so it’s academic.
Re PoP,
One of the issues with SDO at lots of stations on a route (even if quiet stations) is that it will tend to fill the train even more at the front end than other wise might happen. It is probably a lot better to have a slightly more even distribution of passengers when the calling at East Croydon or increased dwell times due to a more crowded front will become more important.
ngh 12.56:
Would SDO necessarily be at the front end though? I thought I’d read somewhere that the 8-car Thameslinks will serve some 4-car platforms in Cambridgeshire with level crossings up against the platform ramp at one end, meaning doors opening in the rear half of the train in one direction (and justifying the central location of the universal access toilet with a wheechair passageway through the gangway and adjacent saloon to the first set of doors in the adjoining vehicle).
Re Caspar,
Indeed but usually it is the back end is where the door won’t open
SFD 09.18:
And potentially interesting if the bus route in question is itself subsidised. I have no idea if this applies in Sussex/Kent, but I seem to recall this issue arising in an earlier life in relation to a proposed reopening to passenger rail traffic in another part of the country – needless to say the bus route, while probably slower, did serve residential, commercial and retail locations somewhat better than the railway.
(It was all rather academic though; amusingly the promoters involved responded to an early inability to produce a positive BCR on the line concerned by concluding that they had to increase the average population density, with the result that a neat and compact single-line reopening for local transport, which looked like it could have possibly been justified, metamorphosed into a full regional metro which was to be all things to all men – there, I think I’m almost back on topic!)
Caspar presumably realises that SDO is normally used in such a way that the first (so-many) carriages are the ones where the doors open. He referred to level crossings near the platform making it desirable to vary this. Doing this would quite possibly cause some confusion, and there may be technical difficulties with the SDO mechanisms. (Plus of course, if there is no guard and no platform staff, dispatching the train with the driver way beyond the platform is tricky, maybe impossible).
Whatever the reason, here in Kent, blocking a level crossing while the front part of a long train does its platform work happens a lot, even on an A road crossing.
A few years ago I alighted from the Night Riviera at Lostwithiel around dawn. The 9-car train in a 4-car platform, loco spread across the level crossing in front, made quite a sight.
Imm,
That is a different situation from the one where the rear of the train hasn’t cleared the crossing. The level crossing would need to be closed anyway both in case the train didn’t fully stop in the station and in order for the train to depart. But it “looks wrong” nevertheless.
@Anon EGr
“The worst single line section for delays is thus between Hever and Ashurst, if people were wondering. You can see it already today with 3 minute delays being passed back and forth – it can get much worse.”
It seems the tightest crossing margins are at the Ashurst end of the single line where the loop ends just under 1km from the platform. Perhaps the loop could be extended a further 2.5km towards London to make it a little more ‘dynamic’ with a new turnout just short of Cowden to avoid any work at that station. A further 3.5km could eliminate the single line section entirely but that would need an expensive second platform at Cowden and perhaps some challenging work reinstating double track through the tunnel beyond. The Crowborough loop seems less critical. Even though the London end turnout is even closer to the platform the crossing margins are more generous with today’s timings.
Regarding 12-car trains on Thameslink to East Grinstead…
It has been suggested by someone who was associated with this project that it may be that 12-car trains operate to/from East Grinstead in the high peak but only 8-car in the shoulder peak. This would make a lot of sense as the trains would probably only get one productive journey in service in one direction in the morning peak and the same in the evening peak so really needs to be cut down to the minimum necessary.
I wonder how much Siemens would charge to extend an 8-car train to 12-car should that become necessary?
Re PoP,
“I wonder how much Siemens would charge to extend an 8-car train to 12-car should that become necessary?”
The option is in the contract…
I can see some 12 car Littlehamptons being 8 car too in the non peak hour. Some really clever timetabling might cut the 12 car route services running as 8 car to just a handful overall.
ngh: I think Thameslink services to Littlehampton are only planned to be peak time and peak direction only.
@Malcolm, trains at stations blocking Level Crossings might happen in Kent but:
a) doing something somewhere (presumably since time immemorial) does not mean you can use the principle in a new instance elsewhere, and,
b) I bet it’s not an automatic half barrier like at Shepreth.
@SFD: the crossings I have in mind are indeed not automatic half barrier ones, I suppose if they were there would be added danger of pedestrians going for the Russian method of passing the train (i.e. underneath).
I agree that there is no indication whether a train stopping across a road would be allowed in a new instance. I was really only citing the Kent experience as a proof that stopping like that is currently fairly widespread, and it seemed mistaken to assume that a train stopping at a platform immediately after a level crossing has to stop clear of the crossing (though doing so would obviously be desirable from the road point of view).
I do not remember recently experiencing a train stopping at any short platform other than with the front in the platform; I am led to wonder whether it is technically and operationally feasible these days.
Malcolm,
Well it certainly is on London Underground. I can’t see any fundamental reason why it should be different on National Rail.
Re South Coast Ed & PoP,
Probably 50% of the 12 car units on Bedford- East Grinstead could do 2 peak journeys arriving in central London during the 3 hr peak.
Re South Coast Ed,
A little more complicated than that! There is a contra peak element of the service that only goes as far as West Hampstead and Three Bridges outside the core, i.e. In the morning Littlehampton – West Hampstead and Bedford to Three Bridges while in passenger service, what happens beyond that is unclear and could have quite an effect on unit utilisation…
AM Northbound: Running ECS on the MML Fasts to Bedford would save 15 minutes vs stopping and the unit would probably go back out on different TL route from Bedford reducing the number of units overall.
AM Southbound: Running ECS on from 3 Bridges to Littlehampton would save 30 minutes vs stopping or the unit could go back out on a 3 Bridges (peak) or Gatwick ( off peak) to Bedford service.
What is “peak” I suspect departing before 7am in Littlehampton’s case…
Littlehampton is the longest TL journey from the Core by a long way (50% more than the next longest time wise) so the unit requirement is potentially large.
Isn’t the idea that Littlehampton only has a one-way Thameslink service? So the morning departures will come from local stabling sidings, and the evening arrivals will do the opposite?
The recent (September 2015) Sussex Route Study (here) figure A1 (p. 114) gives the a recent expectation for peak hour fast line service through London Bridge in 2018 – i.e. all 12-car except for the Cat/Tat 8-car and Uckfield 10-car.
The main driving force behind the lengthening of then Uckfield trains seems to have been the number passengers from East Croydon and was considered as options 2.2 and 2.3 in the 2010 Sussex RUS (here).
Re Paul,
Yes but the train continues beyond the core in the contra peak so it does 2/3 journey rather than full end to end one in service. I.e. on the matching journey in the other direction the train is in service till 3 Bridges a good 40 minutes from central London it just doesn’t stay in service southwest of 3 Bridges (What it does after getting to Three Bridges is an unknown with many possibilities…
The local TL sidings are Horsham or Three Bridges so still a bit of journey in the morning or evening to/from the depot.
Graham
Part of the resistance to buses is this. It is relatively easy for a bus service to be cut back or even withdrawn at short notice; it is much harder (politically as well as contractually and legally) to cut back train services and distinctly hard to close a line. Possible …. but hard.
So many communities are sceptical of an here-today-potentially-gone-tomorrow bus service. It could be addressed by making it much harder to reduce bus services but that isn’t going to happen.
Another problem is that my sense of the time a journey takes is not linearly correlated with the actual journey time. A larger number of stops, and particularly stops at minor places, greatly inflates my sense of the time a journey takes. I don’t know if I am alone, but I doubt it. So a one hour bus journey to me (and others?) seems subjectively much longer than a one hour train journey.
@Malcolm. I can tell you there is very clear guidance that new instances of trains stopped at stations blocking level crossings is not permitted.
@PoP. Re forward stopping of SDO. Where trains are equipped with on board monitors and ASDO, I too can’t see what the problem is. Dwell time might be a little longer whilst the driver ensures the right part of the train is correctly platformed before releasing the doors. But there is evidently much resistance from the train operator and driver community. Expect platform extensions in Cambridgeshire soon.
@SFD: Thanks for the information about new instances.
To sum up on “forward stopping” (or to be corrected if I have misunderstood):
a) We know of no current instances outside LU (but there may be some).
b) Subject to ASDO* and suitable monitors, it is feasible, but resisted by drivers and/or operators.
*ASDO I take to mean automatic selective door operation.
*ASDO: Anti-Social Door Order.
New style of announcements from the does on closure using rather coarse abuse to encourage passengers to stand clear.
@Kate – I entirely agree with you and your post is an almost exact summary of a conversation I had with Nick Ridley when he was SoS at the time of the bus substitution legislation. His suggestion that, in that case, we should leave the track in place after closure, was attacked by the closure lobby as a waste of money, which it was. (Besides which I doubt if the public would have been fooled). They need not have worried, since the statutory replacement bus services were, themselves, subject to the closure process, ministers shied away from the idea of two rounds of closure obloquy and only a couple of cases actually appeared. [I have previously recounted a fascinating discussion I had with the junior minster about a long list of substitution/ closures – with a map!).
Minsters couldn’t see/ were reluctant to see that their policy of bus deregulation had effectively undermined the stability of the bus network so removing the corner stone of the policy.
Your point can be made perhaps by referring to estate agents’ puffs – did you ever see one which mentioned the availability of a bus service?
It does remain the case, however, that in a rational world, a very frequent bus service which gets close to the major traffic objectives should be more attractive than a low frequency train service calling at stations not necessarily well sited. One factor which you don’t mention – a personal thing of mine perhaps – is the very poor ride quality in a bus – partly a reflexion of the need to drive like a Jehu to keep up with the timetable, partly the poor quality of roads in the UK, and partly the tinkering with fuel additives to squeeze the last penny of cost out, which leads to a much rougher engine performance. (Compare the ride in a Mercedes articulated bus in, say, Switzerland, with the same in the UK, for example; the difference is not down to the vehicle design).
However, having said all this, I don’t believe that the taxpayer is under any obligation to provide a high quality form of transport. As I remarked before, it’s difficult to see what a “Right to Transport” might be, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include anything to do with quality – I’m still waiting for that first class train service on demand replete with onboard catering and a hair dressing salon. Parliamentary and 4th Class trains, perhaps .
@Graham: Discomfort of bus riding. This may well be attributable to many of the reasons you give, including economy of bus purchase. I would exclude fuel additives, as far as I know they cannot contribute to extra noise or jerky acceleration. A luxury coach is certainly more comfortable (and I think costs more to buy), but the major difference in both comfort and running costs is, I think, because it is much heavier than the typical bus.
Yes, drivers do have to drive at the maximum possible legal speed to keep to the timetable, and that may add marginally to the discomfort. But if timetables had a bit more slack in them, then costs – and hence fares – would be higher and passengers would also get even longer journey times compared to using a car, so I doubt if they would be any happier.
@Malcolm, yes, correct re ASDO, my acronym generator slipped a gear.
I should say that the resistance to new forward stopping SDO is no doubt for good reasons. I just can’t think of any.
Having a train call at a platform to which no staff whatsoever were able to get access would surely not be acceptable to elfin safety
I would be surprised if forward stopping with SDO were permitted unless the train had a guard and/or there was a dispatcher on the platform.
Was ANY of the Three Bridges – East Grinstead route ever safeguarded??
@ GH. I am certain that somewhere, I have seen a photo of an evening peak hour, steam hauled London Bridge to Guilford via Redhill service at Betchworth (c. 1960?).
@timbeau: It would obviously require a risk assessment. Typically there would be no dispatcher, because it would be a remote and little-used station. If a guardless driver became aware, during the station stop, of something on the platform which required their intervention (such as a collapsed passenger), then they could get there by passing through the train (or even by walking alongside the track). Not ideal, but it’s similar to the situation of something untoward happening within the body of the train.
@ Graham H 20:02
The Fastway bus service in Crawley is regarded as a positive attribute by estate agents, as is Fastrack in Gravesend/Dartford. It even applies in Uckfield…. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-34543155.html
“I don’t believe that the taxpayer is under any obligation to provide a high quality form of transport.” If this is the sort of view prevalent at the DfT, it explains an awful lot.
Rather a pity then that two 12-car peaks couldn’t then return as three 8-car offpeaks.
Buses are good for short to medium distance journeys within or between urban conurbations. Anything longer (even as a limited stop service) that isn’t a coach route becomes hobbled by the need to share road space with other users (which guided bus routes, for all their faults, at least partially solve), and their relatively low speed.
A journey time of nearly two hours between Tun Wells and Brighton sounds horrendous, and I would be surprised if there are many people who use it for end-to-end journeys along its entire length. Pre-closure, I’m willing to take a punt that the equivalent train service (assuming there was a direct one) was quicker when it was diesel-powered? If it still existed today, would there be a market or even a need for a parallel bus route along the entire distance that was slower and less comfortable?
There was a reason why most of the ‘bustitution’ services post-Beeching didn’t survive, which is similar to why rail replacement buses are unpopular…..travellers just don’t find them as quick, direct, reliable or useful compared with the railway services they replace.
Tunbridge Wells to Brighton by rail now takes about 2 hours. It makes little dfference whether you go via Redhill or via Hastings: London Bridge would be a bit quicker (about 1h40) , but is not currently practical as trains from Tunbridge Wells don’t call there during the rebuilding.
The direct service, being on secondary routes and probably all stations, might not have been much quicker
@ Timbeau. There are 2 trains / hour Tunbridge Wells to London Bridge throughout the rebuilding.
@Anonymous – and in this case I think it can safely be said that the DfT is reflecting the view of the vast majority of taxpayers. Indeed, I’d venture to suggest that a significant minority of taxpayers outside of London would question an obligation to provide any form of transport. Especially for London.
Except, of course, the provision of high quality infrastructure for road vehicles.
@Anonymous – No, there is no right to transport of any description. As I have pointed out before, it would be impossible to define even if it could be afforded – exactly like that other absence of right in the matter of health care (there is no obligation on the state to keep you alive and in perfect health), or housing, or … The quality of transport is merely one of many variables for which there is no “right” – others include price, frequency, speed, timing, access, and so on. [Hence my suggested right to a demand responsive high speed railway between my house and my club. You cannot draw any sort of logical line between that and saying that people have a right to a train service because it’s of a higher quality than a bus service.]
@MikeP – you are right: the question of a “right” to road expenditure has been bedevilled by the absurdity of the “Road Fund Licence”. It doesn’t exist now as a separate fund, but lobbyists like to pretend that it does and that therefore taxation raised through VED (and by extension, fuel duty) shold be spent on roads. Perhaps, the New Car Tax should be spent on giving those who pay it new cars…?
A situation complicated by George Osborne’s announcement in the July 2015 budget that VED would be hypothecated to a new Roads Fund “from the end of this decade.”
Anonymously
From 1961
Tun Wells C dep: 11.25
Brighton arr: 12.41
So – timbeau, not so, even along a secondary route,
@Wax Lyrical – 🙂
@Sad Fat Dad
So there are – although it is quicker to bale out at Tonbridge and go via Redhill which is why I missed them. (and in my haste I said via Hastings for the other route when in fact you change at St Leonards)
Trainline Europe claims a best time of 1h41, which a bit of research identifies as the 1706, with tight 5 minute changes at Tonbridge, Redhill and Gatwick. may be sleeper services. Extrapolating from speeds Brighton to Lewes and Uckfield to Eridge, a direct train Brighton to TW via Buxted would probably take a little under an hour. the circuitous route between Eridge and Tunbridge Wells via Groombridge doesn’t help of course.
Transport Subsidy:
Looking at DfT’s award of the new Transpennine and Northern Franchise this morning the message is clear – operating subsidies will be eliminated or dramatically reduced. This continues the theme of the recent Autumn Statement for TfL and eliminating the operating grant.
Taking the TPE example:
Subsidy last FY: £43m
2018/9: No subsidy
2019-2023: £303m paid to DfT – So it will effectively be coving the majority of the Network Grant too.
The next SE and LM franchises will presumably have to follow the TPE example and require a lot less subsidy as they currently have similar overall subsidy metrics to the current TPE, though they have less room and options to add capacity to increase revenue as the new TPE franchise is planning to do.
Ngh – precisely. There is plenty of room for growth on TPE with their 3/4 coach trains, and more frequency to more destinations. Less so on Southeastern.
Re SFD,
They do run some 6/8 car services too!
The only option* for SE and the London end of LM (LM tender process just starting at the moment) is increasing train lengths but the potential gains are much smaller as the low hanging fruit is lengthening existing short formed then lengthening suburban platforms and services.
*SE could always gate more stations and collect more revenue!
And as TPE and Northern are opting for new stock there are an awful lot of 319s available for LM and SE to run longer services
(No real detail yet but it looks like the new Northern may not take any more 2nd hand 319s, though I suspect very careful reading of Dft material is need to tell the difference between “brand new” aka new and “new” aka additional second hand stock new to the franchise.)
This and other previous announcements leave a huge amount of non life expired EMU stock (317s 319s, 321s, 322s, 323s, 350s, 377s) potentially available for the next Anglia, East Midlands, LM and SE franchises so potentially some good deals to be had from the ROSCOs for refurb’d units? (DfT engineered to create surplus stock for other franchises to bring the cost down???)
@Graham H presumably it factors into the BCR though? I understand the case for HS2 worsened once the calculations incorporated that time on a train, with a smooth ride and working space, can be productive, whereas time on a bus is pretty much zero productivity. More generally, if passengers are willing to pay £x/minute more (or take a y minute longer journey) for a smoother ride in cases where they have the choice, surely that tells us how much the benefit is worth and it should factor into the BCR as such?
@lmm -yes, that’s basically the case, although it’s important to distinguish between the speed/time benfits and the quality benefits, which is not always straightforward to measure, and one needs to tease out the different strands of quality (eg availability of seats, availability of loos, smoothness of ride, and so on). Current research, however, as embodied in the PDFH, suggests that the willingness to pay for quality is a lot less than the willingness to pay for speed. I’m not wholly sure I agree with this – I suspect that in reality (a) the valuation of different aspects of quality is non-linear, otherwise, the likes of Orient Express wouldn’t be able to charge what they do, and (b) there are some cross-elasticities which haven’t been properly modelled/analysed (eg a trade off not just between speed and quality but also between, for example, seat comfort and interior ambience). Some of these cross-relationships will be weak, but, cumulatively, they could shift customers’ willingness to pay quite a lot.
I suspect that what the average commuter would pay for VSOE quality is vastly less than what the VSOE charges – they serve a very small customer base with what I imagine are relatively unusual preferences/tastes. (But agreed on the general point).
@lmm – I suspect the metrics of these sorts of trade-offs are tricky to say the least. One thinks of some of the close analogies in other sectors, such as the hotel trade, where attempts to quantify quality range from the ridiculous (eg the AA star grading – does it have a trouser press? Give it another star!) to the downright impressionistic – eg Trip Advisor – and the relationship to price seems sometimes negative.
VED – Vehicle Excise Duty, the primary purpose of which is to raise tax revenue. Currently its rates are set on vehicle emissions as an incentive to purchase electric and hybrid powered vehicles.
VSOE – Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, a private luxury train service from London to Venice and other European cities.
I would argue that “an incentive to purchase electric and hybrid powered vehicles” is not part of the definition of VED. That incentive happens to be in place at present, but any future government could alter this to incentivise something else (ashtrays?), or to a flat rate to incentivise nothing in particular. The primary purpose of VED is to raise tax revenue.
[Thanks for clarifying. I’ve amended my explanation. LBM]
@ngh
“Looking at DfT’s award of the new Transpennine and Northern Franchise ”
Two separate franchises
Transpennine stays with First.
Northern moves from Serco-Abellio (who are left with just Merseyrail) to be added to Arriva’s extensive portfolio
Re Timbeau,
typed in haste hence few typos including the “S” on franchiseS.
The new Northern will reduce annual subsidy by a fifth overall so still the worst but the other subsidy metrics such as subsidy / passenger km will see much bigger improvements.
@Graham H/Wax Lyrical
No doubt alcohol duty will now be ring fenced for keeping country pubs in business!
Graham H, I wasn’t referring to a “right to transport” so much as the expectation of who will fund it. I don’t drive but I am happy to fund roads via my taxes in order to receive deliveries to shops and public services, for buses to travel on, for emergency vehicles etc. I expect motorists who don’t use public transport to keep their side of the implicit social pact by acknowledging that their contribution to it keeps the roads they use less congested (especially as the one person in a tank like car practice that they are allowed to follow is incredibly inefficient) and the air they breathe cleaner etc etc. In other words if we want transport at all in society I expect society to fund it. I don’t expect the DfT to consistently reduce the cost of private motoring while doing the opposite for public transport whilst expecting one to consistently meet efficiency goals while the other is more or less a free for all.
@Anonymous – I’m not sure I follow your argument: motorists do contribute much more in tax than they receive back in terms of investment in roads and motorists do bear the cost of their choice of gasguzzler or whatever, public transport users don’t. At the level of “society”, there is a marked transfer of resources between the two groups. Not that that is wrong – there are good reasons to subsidise public transport, just as there are good reasons for motorists to pay more than they get back (which is the position with much taxation, of course). But it would be wrong to think just in terms of motorists versus bus users; all tax does (just about) go into a single pool to fund everything and out of that pool comes hospitals and agricultural subsidies and everything else. That is the point of the Consolidated Fund and the reason why the multitude of Consolidated Funds was abolished in the early C18. You will also recall Hampden’s Ship Money case on the point in the reign of Charles 1.
I don’t recall seeing this social pact you mention.
@Graham H
” motorists do contribute much more in tax than they receive back in terms of investment in roads ”
I have never seen actual figures quoted to support either this assertion or the equally oft-quoted contrary one. What is the government income from VED (and fuel duty, new car tax, driving licences, etc) and how does it compare with total roads-related expenditure – not just investment in new roads but maintenance of existing ones, – not forgetting that DfT spending on roads is the tip of the iceberg and much of the expenditure on roads is at local authority level – and there are ancillary costs as well such as the road research laboratory, traffic police, cost to the NHS of road accidents, damage to under-road services, and anything else you care to throw into the mix .
@timbeau – there’s a nice research project for you. (It is in any case irrelevant as to whether, (however defined) an area of tax matches the corresponding expenditure. As explained, there is no formal linkage nor any “social compact” or other reason for making it so. (if it were so, then everyone would receive back in public expenditure exactly what they paid in tax).
Timbeau – not forgetting that the full cost of an asset includes depreciation, and the value of the land that it occupies.
@Mike
…..and what is the value of the land occupied by a road? Very difficult to come up with a sensible answer to that – you can’t go by the value of the land adjacent to the road, because that is affected by the presence of that road.
Timbeau – I’m no valuer, so I haven’t got an answer to that question. But answers have been produced to equally complex questions, and if the land is treated as “free” the economics of providing the road facility are going to be heavily distorted, since most every other user does have to pay for the land occupied (the same thing also applies to other linear infrastructure like railways and canals).
Every piece of land has an opportunity cost – why should transport receive a hidden subsidy by being immune from such considerations and from the financial discipline of having its use of land priced?
@Graham H
I’m afraid the UN and WHO (amongst others) might beg to differ with you regarding the right to health care….I would tread carefully before equating it to a right to transport of any means of one’s own choosing, as you seem to imply:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_health
On the other hand, I completely agree with what you say about willingness to pay for quality vs willingness to pay for speed. If the latter really was greater, then Concorde (or a modern successor) would still be in the skies!
(Continuation from previous comment)
Back on topic though, I’m unsure whether this would necessarily apply when judging the case for a L-U reopening, since you would be comparing different modes of transport (train vs bus vs car vs cycling vs, er. walking) between any two destinations, instead of different variations of the same mode of transport (e.g. London to Birmingham by HS2 vs WCML InterCity vs Chiltern Trains express services vs London Midland stopping services).
@Anonymously – getting hung up on the mode as to the journey purpose opens up many cans of worms – just ask those of us old enough to have bus passes why they can use them on one form of local transport -buses – but the moment it takes to the rails – trams – for the same journey at the same price for ordinary “unpassed” folk, the passes are no longer valid. [BTW, the UN is illogical in so many matters that its views are hardly worth debating – and we shall get snipped for a diversion into whether doctors, as opposed to international lawyers would agree what a right to good health might look like in practice].
@Mike -you are getting perilously close to the Treasury’s favourite argument that any failure to tax is a subsidy (and the logical consequences of that (a) everything belongs in the first place to the state, and (b) everything and every activity has some element of subsidy.) I don’t think there is a good/reliable *theoretical* position to take on whether one mode is artificially subsidised and another not. Take sea travel for example: the sea has no opportunity cost; where does that fit? In fact, the whole disposition of human activity about the surface of the planet is, in some sense, an opportunity cost, but unravelling the opportunity cost of China orLondon is hardly worth doing. We are where we are, and a more practical approach is to look at the monetary flows of taxation and personal wealth.
I think it get it now.
Having read hundreds of comments there is a potentially string case for re-opening Lewes to Uckfield plus possibly Eridge to Tunbridge Wells and running trains from Hastings, Eastbourne, Seaford and Newhaven to Croydon via Oxted. There is no need for electrification. There is possibly even no need initially for re-duplication. With correct timetabling, the route can offer faster services to Eastbourne than the present route via Wivelsfield. Buses don’t offer a suitable alternative even for Brighton to Tunbridge Wells. The cost is probably less than generally supposed and the benefits have probably been understated to there is – at least possibly – a reasonable BCR.
Yet some people are implacably opposed to it.
@Kate: “Some people are opposed to it”. That seems to be your honestly held view. But I detect no opposition whatever to such a re-opening.
What many people are opposed to is spending public money on any more reports, surveys and studies which they feel are certain to come up with yet another “no” decision, when there are so many better uses elsewhere to which such reports, surveys and studies could be put.
And no, judging by the content of your “summary”, I don’t think you do “get it”.
@Kate – alas, there is no factual evidence to support any of your assertions. They are matters of belief. The strong case doesn’t exist (at the very least, no one,has bothered to post it on this site – or anywhere else in the public domain); re-opening as a diesel service would be the most expensive (and polluting) option of all to operate; no one has shown publicly yet that trains to Eastbourne would be faster this way; apart from speed, Brighton Bus 29 seems to be doing a good job, and journey time isn’t everything; the costs have not been overstated, if anything, the opposite (and no one has produced info to the contrary; the BCR is likely to be ruinously small – even the line’s most avid proponents have been unable to pay a consultant to come up with anything approaching 1 – so where is this better information.? Where is the evidence that ALL the people of Uckfield, every last man, woman, and child, will travel to Brighton every fortnight?
Seriously, things aren’t different just because you wish them to be. Re-opening would be lovely but no one has yet produced any facts or evidence to suggest it would work. I think we would all like to see them. So – simply a matter of faith. I know Humpty Dumpty remarked that what I tell you three times is true, but look what happened to him…
I have friends in Lewes who regularly visit Tunbridge Wells, (never Uckfield, – they use the by-pass). So I asked them both (I accept this is not a representative sample of the population of Lewes), “If the railway were to be re-instated, would you ever go to T.W. by train?”
“No”
“Why?”
“This town is so hilly, we would need to be taking a taxi home to get back from the station”. So even a regular direct train service wouldn’t get used by all the locals, even “once a fortnight”
@Kate:
I can only assume you’re reading a different set of comments to the ones I’ve read here. I see no evidence to support any of your assertions — especially the “strong case” part.
A bus will make multiple stops in each town; a train rarely makes more than one unless the town is particularly large. Replacing the bus with the train therefore means many will be faced with a longer journey, not a shorter one, as they’ll have to do the bus->train->bus dance. The whole journey matters; changing mode often involves a waiting period at the interchange, and these all add up.
If the problem with the bus service is that the road network needs upgrading, the best solution is likely to be an upgrade of said road network. The worst solution would be to replace it with a completely different mode that costs a fortune to build, a lot more to run, would serve fewer people, and has already proven itself a failure at precisely what you’re asking of it.
Most of the post-war railway closures were a predictable result of what we now refer to as “disruptive technology”: namely, the rise of the automobile and paved roads. There are some things that this upstart combination of technologies does far better and more efficiently than trains, including serving small towns and villages in rural areas. Conventional railways really are rubbish at this. They only worked in the Victorian era because they were still better at it than pack animals or the horse and cart.
For the vast majority making the full Lewes – T. Wells bus journey off-peak, it is free because of their “Freedom Passes”. If the railway line were to be re-instated, these people are still likely to travel free on the bus, even if it takes half an hour longer. Why use the railway, pay, and still need a bus/taxi home from the station. My friends in Lewes will travel by bus, not car, next year when they have both qualified for their passes. Any re-instated railway would also have to be “free” for them to use it.
I just about remember the Lewes/Uckfield section closing. I’ve always understood the reason for closure was to facilitate the construction of a by-pass in Lewes and/or an unsafe viaduct. But it just occurred to me to ask what was the line’s future at the time of closure – was it slated to close anyway, even from Hurst Green?
Dr Richards Beeching: As a sample of one retired bus-pass holder (not Freedom, incidentally, that is a London-only variation, which also includes train travel), I can report that, for journeys where bus or train would be feasible, I opt to pay for the train about half the time: always for a reason, like needing to take a bike, being in a hurry, or needing to travel in the morning peak. Of course it also depends on one’s disposable income – over the range of pensioner incomes, train fares can be anything between out-of-the-question and whats-the-problem.
But your main point stands. (That some of the potential users of a Lewes-TW train link would still use the bus).
Dare I suggest Richard Beeching’s friends are not necessarily the target group then, now or in 1969!
@Malcolm – and just to reinforce your point (and RB’s about access), although I have a staff pass for free rail travel as well as the usual bus pass for the over-60s, when going to Guildford, I usually use the bus rather than the train – the bus stops outside my door and runs half hourly, the train is a 15 minute walk away and runs hourly. Relating that to L-U, it seems most unlikely that it could ever justify a halfhourly train service (and that would bring on the costs of doubling) and the present bus service is that frequent anyway,besides getting closer in to the settlements. Of course,some people would use the train, but pensioners wouldn’t much, nor people with prams and heavy shopping, nor schoolchildren and people travelling on various forms of welfare passes*. Bang goes half your potential demand before you start.
*I am puzzled by these – I see a fair number in use by people who are clearly not at all well-off and wonder what the qualification for a pass might be
@ Anonymous
Free bus travel did not exist in 1969 for those “of a certain age”. IF the Lewes – Uckfield line was still open, half its customer base would now travel by bus for the simple reason: “it’s free”
Why is anyone suggesting re-opening a railway where there is a competing bus service that will be free to use for a high proportion of those who might use it? I might consider re-opening some cross country services, but Lewes – Uckfield would never be one of them because of the regular, directly competing buses giving free travel to many.
And why are people complaining about the A26? It’s perfectly good (except for the bit through Tunbridge Wells, Southborough and Tonbridge and that can partially be sorted by a deviation to the A21. Extending Bunny Lane to the A264 will do the trick…
I think I can hear the Burghers of T-W forming the Nimby squads already…
As a former long time resident of Crowborough, and still use the A26 on a regular basis to visit the family, then, a few years ago, I’d have said that the A26 leaves a lot to be desired. But, other than just south of Crowborough, it can be a fast road. Brighton to Crowborough can easily be done in under 45 minutes (and even quicker when coming out of the Amex, at Falmer, on a return ‘football’ coach!
Whilst I’d love to see the line between Lewes and Uckfield re-opened, would I use it?
Probably not as it involves a long walk up the hill at Crowborough to get to my family residence.
If anyone is wondering why East Grinstead branch survived the Beeching axe or why the axe fell south of East Grinstead the answer possibly lies in Beeching’s title he received after he parted from British rail by “mutual consent”:
Baron Beeching of East Grinstead (where he still lived till is death 2 decades later).
Obviously he couldn’t close his local station!
Yet “they” closed the very useful suburban/commuting branch into Aberdeen from the W – which then becomes the rural branch to Ballater.
[Left as a Christmas concession: commenters should please keep nearer to London than this. Malcolm]
Beeching’s residence is often remarked upon. However, East Grinstead’s population (24000), number of London commuters, and position would probably have protected it even if the man had lived elsewhere – there seems to be no comparable place which did lose out: Winslow has a population of 4000. (Other comparitors may exist, and obviously a hypothetical question can have no firm answer).
Much as I don’t like to defend Beeching, East Grinstead was rationalised somewhat, possibly regretted now. What is now the Bluebell line serves pretty much empty countryside en route but as a diversionary route would have been useful this week.
Not sure why Winslow has been singled out, but it is not really comparable with East Grinstead as the latter is six times bigger and (now) at the end of a branch line rather than an intermediate stop on a line connecting rather bigger places.
In SE England Sudbury (pop 13000) or Hailsham (20,500) might be a better comparison.
On the Southern, the Beeching cuts tended to concentrate on the non-electrified lines: the East Sussex group being a conspicuous exception.
I only mentioned Winslow because it was the biggest free-standing town in the SE I could think of which was rendered totally rail-free by cuts about the time of the Beeching ones (not sure if it was actually in the famous report anyway). Granted it is much smaller, and less commuty, than East Grinstead, from which I concluded that EG would probably have been saved even if Beeching had not lived there. My logic may be a bit suspect, and I agree that Hailsham is a better example to compare with, though it does give a different answer. Being further from London, I would expect that Hailsham would have had many fewer commuters than EG, but one cannot be sure.
@Malcolm – Yes, Winslow was listed in the 1963 “The Reshaping of British Railways” (Beeching Report).
A better comparison might have been the E-W line from 3 Bridges across to Tunbridge Wells or the Dorking-Horsham line.
As noted before, that’s where population growth has been biggest & road congestion got ‘orrible.
Dare I mention Haverhill?
Winslow presumably NOT to be confused with Winsford or Wilmslow – both in Cheshire?
I meant Haverhill (pop 27,000). Sudbury somehow managed to keep its rail connection.
“Winslow because it was the biggest free-standing town in the SE I could think of which was rendered totally rail-free”
Hailsham, Winslow and Haverhill are all about 100km from London. Winslow is by far the smallest of the three.
Sorry to have started this hare about places which did or didn’t lose out under Beeching. I was trying to answer the question of whether or not East Grinstead got special treatment though the man himself living there. Trying to address such a hypothetical question would have been hopeless enough, but I committed the further error of trying to show that it did not (and failing). All these train-free 100 km from London places do is confuse the issue!
A much simpler answer would be found by returning on topic, and noting that Uckfield retained (part of) its train service, despite being in all respects less deserving than East Grinstead. So presumably a hypothetical Beeching-free East Grinstead would also have done so.
Malcolm,
And at the risk of continuing the digression but at least being geographically on topic, I believe the Serpell report, years later and billed as a second Beeching but was quickly ditched, proposed lots of closures but also proposed retaining the line to Uckfield. Suspicions were around when it was realised one of the report’s authors lived in Uckfield.
Actually, Sir David lived in Lamberhurst. The Serpell report was targetted at the Regional network, and to a lesser extent at the then loss-making parts of InterCity, not the commuter services. (As one fellow Permanent Secretary remarked after reading it “At least I can still get to all our regional offices…”)
@Graham H
” Sir David lived in Lamberhurst”
PoP did say “one of the authors” – Jim Butler lived in Uckfield, according to a New Scientist article from 1983.
@timbeau – thank you – I’d forgotten Jim Butler (easily done). BTW, various consultancies (C&L perhaps?) continued to punt him at the Department as an “expert” for various studies subsequently, but he was seen as damaged goods…
[Beeching axe locations and misses are now straying too far off-topic so will be snipped henceforth. LBM]
re
“the cost of re-opening it for its diversionary value is close to zero”
and
“even if it hadn’t been closed, it would have required subsidy to keep it going”
plus many other comments on subsidy of this line.
Looking at map of this part of Sussex I noticed that many towns – Halisham, Uckfield, East Grinstead, and even smaller places (Mayfield) now have bypasses. That made me think this:
1. A study should be done into the false economics of Beeching. Yes, as someone says in these comments, this (the Uckfield line) was a little used line – at the time. What seems to have been ruled out was population growth and the need in the future (i.e. now) for these towns to have decent rail links.
2. Before people mention costs and subsidy etc consider this – who much have it cost the taxpayer to build, and maintain over 40 years all those bypasses for towns which lost rail links and have them severely cut back – just in this area of Sussex? Lets say building bypasses for Halisham, Uckfield, East Grinstead et al cost (at todays prices) £200 million each to build and maintain over 40 years – thats a sizeable sum vs keeping the line (Uckfield-Lewes and others open)
3. And what about the increased subsidies for more more local buses – I’ll admit this is guesswork on my part – but many communities here left cut-off and thus would have required more buses – how much has that cost the local taxpayers – over 40 years? Only a study will find this out.
4. Added to this to cost of rail replacement buses and the hidden costs of losing diversionary routes – I remember being in Brighton when there was a landslip not too long ago – no trains to London – whats the impact of all this been.
Pu it all together – in my opinion – the Beeching closures – notably in this area of Sussex have may not have saved money or made any difference as closing these links led to increased local car ownership and use, more subsidies for local buses (to notably run more local buses to compensate for no trains); the huge cost of building and maintaining the bypasses built to cope with increased local car journeys, directly linked to local rail closures and of course the cost of losing diversionary routes.
I contend Beeching was a false economy – it saved little money compared with sheer cost of buidling and maintaining the road network that was need needed to replace the closed rail lines.
Anonymous
It is very difficult to argue that growth in car ownership or traffic in towns like East Grinstead, Hailsham or Uckfield was a direct consequence of railway closures or that bypasses were only needed because of railway closures, or, indeed, that the benefits from bypasses were limited to the consequences of railway closures. Nor are the levels of bus subsidy a consequence of railway closures – indeed, they might have been higher if the railways had not closed. Thus you are not comparing like with like.
I strongly suspect that even if the railways had remained open there would still have been a need for bypasses and bus subsidies.
The town centre bypass in East Grinstead is actually called “Beeching Way”
re Quinlet
I would humbly suggest your views are very difficult to argue as well. I stressed the need for a study to look at the impact of rail closures in areas like this and the possibility that increased car use has placed a similar or addtional burden on taxpayers to subsidise car usage in many hidden ways over 40 years. We will never be able to say for sure until someone has looked into this in detail, and the resources need to do are substantial. Best placed outside government for a local person with links to what has been happining in Sussex and with a deep knowledge of local transport and the impact of the Beeching cuts.
My hypothesis would cite Halisham – a town now completely cut off from the rail network. With poor local bus links – that run say every hour and don’t connect with local trains very well (or late at night) – which in the past didn;t run late (think of the cuts under Thatcher et al to BR to the Uckfield line – reducing services, singling the line, cutting back services late at night or at the weekend) . . . I would be very surprised if this didn’t encourage more car ownership. Governments encouraged it, used our money to support it (building all those bypasses as increased cars and lorries usage blocked the local high street).
By definition, a bypass is used by people that do not have any business in the town it is bypassing. A station is used by people who do. So there is little correlation between the need for a bypass and the need for a station.
examples – Falmouth, a large town at the end of a peninsula, needs a station, but has no need of a bypass. Conversely, Tuxford was one of the first places on the Great North Road to get a bypass, and one of the first on the East Coast Main Line to lose its station.
Anonymous.
There are plenty of bypasses around towns and villages of various sizes in that part of the world that have retained their railway: Robertsbridge, Burgess Hill, Billingshurst, Horsham, Tonbridge and so on.
In any event, what would be the point of doing a study into Beeching’s work? It is completely irrelevant. The decision on whether to construct a new line will be taken on the relative merits of the scheme here and now. Not on what decisions were taken more than half a century ago, regardless of whether they were right or wrong.
Anonymous
we also know that the number of car journeys made in that part of the world are an order of magnitude greater than the number of rail journeys ever were and can see the direct transport implications quite clearly.
Where there is much more room for debate is about some of the social implications of losing a railway service. As Hillman & Whalley pointed out these have a disproportionate impact on the poor/old/very young – in rural areas particularly the poor and old. The impact spreads into issues such as the cost of social care for those no longer mobile. But these figures are very hard to calculate or attribute specifically to the loss of the rail service.
To me, the mention in the same sentence of a review of the Beeching axe and numerous road bypasses prompts the opposite thought. If a conclusion that Beeching was perhaps partly wrong all those years ago is possible, then so is a conclusion that the bypass-builders were perhaps also wrong. Sadly, if we now decide to reverse the bypass-building, we will not get our money back, let alone 40 years accumulated interest on it. Whereas reversing some of Beeching’s cuts is still possible, indeed has sometimes happened, though as SFD says, we should really build any new railways today in places where they are needed today, rather than where they happened to exist in the past.
It occurs to me that given the situation we had this Christmas, where the BML is closed at Purley and trains to Gatwick are diverted to East Grinstead, it might be useful to add a mirror image of the former Crowhurst spur (North to West rather than North to East) allowing trains from Oxted to reach Gatwick via Redhill. But perhaps the need to reverse at Redhill (or build an East-to-South chord at Earlswood to bypass Redhill) would render the idea impractical.
What nobody has mentioned is the Balcombe tunnel is in major need of refurbishment! and if a second route to Brighton is not in place, there will not be way to get further south than Balcombe!!
@ Anonymous. Except via Horsham and Barnham, like is done during numerous other times when the main line is closed.
As it stands the Arun Valley is not a realistic diversionary route for a lengthy closure. It is slow and relatively low capacity as a route. It might be sufficient for an odd Sunday or bank holiday diversion but it is not up to becoming the main line for months if major work were needed on Balcombe Tunnel (and I don’t know about the tunnel’s condition).
There is no suggestion that trains require diversion away from Balcombe Tunnel for months.
@Anonymous, Kate, et al:
The only recent tunnel refurbishment project on a mainline that I can think of is the Strood & Higham refurbishment [PDF, but has some interesting images]. That took 12 months to complete, with no rail services via Gravesend from the Medway Towns (Strood, Rochester, Chatham, etc.)
There are, however, at least two alternative routes from the Medway Towns district into London, and at least two of them are quicker than the old North Kent route.
Balcombe Tunnel is on a mainline with no faster alternatives, so an equivalent closure would be far more disruptive. However, the work required at Balcombe is nowhere near as extensive, being mostly related to the old access and ventilation shafts, where structural issues and water ingress are causing problems.
Short possessions were used to provide an interim fix, and it’s these temporary structures that are now causing problems. I see no reason why the same thing couldn’t be done again for a few iterations while a permanent long-term solution is decided upon, developed, and funding sought to pay for it.
Anonmibus. Indeed, the work at Higham and Strood tunnels was more of a reconstruction than a refurbishment; new concrete linings over significant lengths of both. A great job to be involved in.
Trust you will find the following of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mTSy04R0sI
This recently posted cab ride video, (by the copyright owner) from May 2016 nicely shows all the recent platform extensions on the Uckfield branch.
The platform symmetry at Eridge no longer exists!!
There are two other videos from that railtour also relevant to this article:
Norwood Turnback Siding to East Grinstead
East Grinstead to Sheffield Park
Rather than creating a very expensive BML2 Central Croydon station/route to alleviate the East Croydon bottleneck, why not use the old Selsdon Road to Elmers End branch – https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Croydon%2C_Norwood_%26_Woodside_RJD_53.jpg
From Coombe Road to Elmers End you would need to have an elevated track above the Tramlink and 28 and 29 Larcombe Close CR0 5SR would need to be demolished.
But this would create a less expensive capacity increase from Uckfield or Tonbridge (if you reinstate the Caterfield Lane connection) through to London Bridge via Oxted and Beckenham Junction without touching the Brighton mainline