Grand northern plans to reopen woodhead

[Fat Controller]

Can of worms there too - it's not a 'fill in' of surrounding 3rd rail installations, so it's unlikely to be approved.

 

It's all fantasy anyway...

The Amperage being drawn would be pretty amazing;it's high enough under 25kV when this sort of weight is being hauled (you'd be looking at about 2500 > 3000t per train)

[MarkC]

Every question i pose to him (Julian ) he sort of skirts around them

I asked what would it take structurally to reinstate the woodhead line (not including the tunnel) and he said he’d had a survey or done a survey and since he’s looking for private investment doesn’t need to show the findings

One question asked was ,would broadbottoms structural loading gauge need to be changed for the RORO trains ,his reply “don’t sweat the small stuff “

Last thing ,he’s looking for a sovereign guarantee for the project

Is that where the government plays guarantor so if it goes tits up the tax payer pays?

 

Brian

Relative of Walter Mitty?

[melmerby]

This is my thinking,I just don’t see it as a viable option .I think the price for using the service is around £120 a trip,so why like you say when there’s alternative routes would you pay that much

 

 

 

Brian

Considering most lorry firms wont pay the (much lower) toll on the M6 toll to save the 30-60mins extra journey time through Birmingham, why would they pay for a trip through the the Pennines?

 

Keith

Edited January 17, 2018 by melmerby

[Vanders]

Can of worms there too - it's not a 'fill in' of surrounding 3rd rail installations, so it's unlikely to be approved.

To be fair (I can't believe I just wrote that...) it doesn't have to be top-contact 3rd rail. Bottom or side contact could get approval.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I asked what would it take structurally to reinstate the woodhead line (not including the tunnel) and he said he’d had a survey or done a survey and since he’s looking for private investment doesn’t need to show the findings

Sharing the findings would give those investors a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside before they stump up their cash (or, more likely, our pension cash). 

[Sheffield]

Although we lament the closure of the Woodhead route, and many people complain of that closure because it was a "modern electrified railway", I have long thought the fact that it was modernised was, eventually, the kiss of death. It was electified on a system that was quickly outdated, and it became an outmoded oddity. Had modernisation come a few years later when 25KV was the choice we may still be able to ride through Woodhead.

[Joseph_Pestell]

A lot on TV yesterday about improved transport links in the North, in particular the possibility of a road tunnel to link Manchester and Sheffield.

 

John Prescott got a lot of self-publicity for stomping out of a news conference and calling the whole project "a b****y fraud". I like John but thought that a bit rich from the man who promised electrification to Hull 20 years ago.

 

For a lorry shuttle operation through the tunnel, traction is not really the big issue. Any system could be used on what would effectively be a standalone operation. But perhaps it would just be easier to run the lorries up a road built on the old trackbed and then send them through the tunnel in convoys.

[D1059]

Had modernisation come a few years later when 25KV was the choice we may still be able to ride through Woodhead.

 

Possibly, but if that was the case, the line through Edale most likely would have closed. By the late 70s there wasn't the traffic to keep all the Trans Pennine routes open.

Had it hung on as a diesel worked line into the late 80s, then maybe it would still be with us

[009 micro modeller]

I did think the third rail might relate to the tunnel restrictions à la Drayton Park to Moorgate. I think there have definitely been changes with the electric cables as the equipment used on the narrow gauge railway through the tunnel to maintain the cables moved fairly recently to preservation at Apedale. Incidentally I could never understand why Woodhead didn't just go over to diesel working if funds for AC re-electrification were not available. Does it relate to ventilation in the new tunnel?

[The Stationmaster]

Relative of Walter Mitty?

 

Sounds to me more like a reincarnation.  But no doubt some village somewhere is glad to be without him.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I’ve the impression he’d share with them but not general public but yet he’s asking joe public to send emails to relevant govement person (sorry can’t remember who ) to say what a great idea and how much it would benefit us all

 

If so, then it's a very odd attitude. If you have information backing your scheme then you want to share it as widely as possible.

 

But then the investors in these reopening 'schemes' are themselves always a bit elusive. 

[GordonC]

I did think the third rail might relate to the tunnel restrictions à la Drayton Park to Moorgate. I think there have definitely been changes with the electric cables as the equipment used on the narrow gauge railway through the tunnel to maintain the cables moved fairly recently to preservation at Apedale. Incidentally I could never understand why Woodhead didn't just go over to diesel working if funds for AC re-electrification were not available. Does it relate to ventilation in the new tunnel?

 

would the ventilation through Woodhead Tunnel be any different to through the Severn Tunnel?

[pete_mcfarlane]

I'm pretty certain that diesel hailed passenger trains used the line in the 1970s as a diversionary route, so they didn't have an issue with ventilation (although what was allowed with an existing route back then might not be allowed with a 'new' build now). 

[MarkC]

I'm pretty certain that diesel hailed passenger trains used the line in the 1970s as a diversionary route, so they didn't have an issue with ventilation (although what was allowed with an existing route back then might not be allowed with a 'new' build now). 

One an hour, wasn't it? There was no forced ventilation, or ventilation risers, so it could get quite whiffy in there for a while after one of those infernal combustion beasties went through...

[Zomboid]

The Amperage being drawn would be pretty amazing;it's high enough under 25kV when this sort of weight is being hauled (you'd be looking at about 2500 > 3000t per train)

Let's imagine for one second that this isn't a ridiculous fantasy... A 3rd rail used in this context wouldn't have to be 750V top contact, with no interface with merseyrail or the southern systems. Conceivably it could use a higher voltage, bottom contact fully shrouded conductor rail, which would mitigate most of the hazards of a 3rd rail system. Edited January 17, 2018 by Zomboid

[black and decker boy]

Let's imagine for one second that this isn't a ridiculous fantasy... A 3rd rail used in this context wouldn't have to be 750V top contact, with no interface with merseyrail or the southern systems. Conceivably it could use a higher voltage, bottom contact fully shrouded conductor rail, which would mitigate most of the hazards of a 3rd rail system.

If they just strip the sheathing off those 432kv cables laid in the tunnel floor when laying the new track, the locos should romp through...... ;-)

[locoholic]

If they just strip the sheathing off those 432kv cables laid in the tunnel floor when laying the new track, the locos should romp through...... ;-)

Isn't that the voltage that Trix Twin operated at?

[TheSignalEngineer]

Sounds to me more like a reincarnation.  But no doubt some village somewhere is glad to be without him.

He was born just down the road from Royston Vasey, the place not the person.

[Pandora]

One an hour, wasn't it? There was no forced ventilation, or ventilation risers, so it could get quite whiffy in there for a while after one of those infernal combustion beasties went through...

I rode the Woodhead line when diversions were in place due to Hope Valley line under possession.  The trains were DMU's leaving Sheffield Midland to ascend  Nunnery Junction  to gain the Woodhead line where the driver changed ends  to proceed to Sheffield Victoria and Manchester.

The Woodhead Tunnel  track is near level and the gradients are either side of the Tunnel, a DMU could   probably coast  through the bores at 60 mph at light  power due to the  level track, I do not recall any issues with  exhaust fumes on the trips

[TheSignalEngineer]

Bit of info I’ve seen on a faceache post

 

To deal with height resrictions using the 1954 tunnel

He wants to lower the track bed by 700mm

And use 3 rail in the tunnel

 

Brian

 

 

I wonder if he knows what a tunnel invert is?

 

Think he may be in trouble there. This is a typical cross section which was included in the publicity stuff at the time.

 

 

Don't think I would fancy trying lowering the trackbed by 700mm based on that. There was only about 300mm of ballast on top of the rock in places.

[Fat Controller]

It would work as a single-track 'Mousehole', a bit like the 1970s proposal for the Channel Tunnel, but what would be saved on tunnel works would be spent on extra staff and rolling stock.

[TheSignalEngineer]

It would work as a single-track 'Mousehole', a bit like the 1970s proposal for the Channel Tunnel, but what would be saved on tunnel works would be spent on extra staff and rolling stock.

My conclusion when it was first proposed was that you would probably just about get enough room for 16' 6" (as in the height where you don't need warning signs on a bridge) using the minimum floor height wagon then available. 

 

The type of wagons he is proposing for 1 lorry are 25m long, 45t tare weight and 25t axle load. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

It would work as a single-track 'Mousehole', a bit like the 1970s proposal for the Channel Tunnel, but what would be saved on tunnel works would be spent on extra staff and rolling stock.

 

I have not experimented with a timetable. But given the distance of route proposed, it would probably only need one extra rake of lorry-carrying wagons if the tunnel was single track (or interlaced) rather than double.

 

Does anyone here have data on the lorry numbers on the Manchester - Sheffield road?

[Glorious NSE]

With a single track tunnel you would also lose the capability to do anything else useful with it, like connecting in to HS2 (fitting in with HS3). Renting out extra capacity in your expensive infrastructure for high(er) speed trans-pennine passenger trains you'd have thought would be a more solid business proposition than assuming road hauliers will change their habits?

Course, on a day like today (heavy snow) you'd likely have queues of trucks wanting to pay extra to go under rather than over the Pennines, not sure that will apply on most days of the year though.

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

With a single track tunnel you would also lose the capability to do anything else useful with it, like connecting in to HS2 (fitting in with HS3). Renting out extra capacity in your expensive infrastructure for high(er) speed trans-pennine passenger trains you'd have thought would be a more solid business proposition than assuming road hauliers will change their habits?

 

Course, on a day like today (heavy snow) you'd likely have queues of trucks wanting to pay extra to go under rather than over the Pennines, not sure that will apply on most days of the year though.

 

 

 

You could probably make out a business case for either. But, as the Chunnel timetablers know all too well, running trains at different speeds soaks up capacity. So a single-track lorry shuttle only might well have a better cost-benefit analysis than a mixed use.

 

The trucks might not want to pay but we could adopt the French attitude and simply ban through trips over that road.