Grand northern plans to reopen woodhead

[woodenhead]

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

Banned from Woodhead, what to do?  The M62 for free or queue up and pay for the train?

[eastwestdivide]

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

Back of the envelope calcs on page 3 here

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129327-grand-northern-plans-to-reopen-woodhead/?p=2971575

[sn]

I can see there being ‘local’ protests in the Hadfield/Royston vasey area

 

DE4F3606-0910-4DCC-B4E7-1C9C85330310.jpeg

 

TUBBS " We didn't bury the wires in the tunnel!"

[Fat Controller]

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.

Mixed traffic on a double-track tunnel might use up capacity, but that's as nothing to the amount of stock and crew you need to offer anything like a decent service on single track.

[Dava]

Chris Grayling is the guy Julian newton wants people to email with support.

But I have just read chris Grayling is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard at his job

Brian.

You can eat a chocolate fireguard. There are those in the East Midlands who would lynch Grayling for his cack handed decision to cancel MML electrification north of the Corby suburban branch line. Then there are the Crapbillion contracts he is responsible for.

 

Dava

[TheSignalEngineer]

Banned from Woodhead, what to do?  The M62 for free or queue up and pay for the train?

A well-known party put the capability to use road charging, i.e. fixed tolls or mileage based fees, in the Finance Act c2003, but the bottled it.

[TheSignalEngineer]

I can see there being ‘local’ protests in the Hadfield/Royston vasey area

 

DE4F3606-0910-4DCC-B4E7-1C9C85330310.jpeg

I always have a slight chuckle when I see their pictures as they were dead ringers for two inhabitants of the valley I knew when I lived 'Locally'.

 

 

Then there is the man I get my meat from.

 

Edited January 18, 2018 by TheSignalEngineer

[jjb1970]

The only reason this idea can't be described as pie in the sky is because you have more chance of observing a flying pie.

[TheSignalEngineer]

The only reason this idea can't be described as pie in the sky is because you have more chance of observing a flying pie.

Especially if it's filled with 'The Special Stuff'

[Dava]

I favor the Swiss Basistunnel approach which would feature a low level tunnel between, say, Stocksbridge and Mottram for HGVs on rail shuttles. Switzerland has excellent tunneling engineers, for whom this project would be quite modest.

 

Dava

[TheSignalEngineer]

 

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

?

 

 

Looks a bit stiff eastbound to me, especially for the first two miles. 

[TheSignalEngineer]

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 “

 

 

Brian

The Arches (aka Dinting Viaduct) and Broadbottom Viaduct are subject to a 20mph speed restriction for 25t axle load vehicles. They are subject to a 40mph restriction for other stock. Dinting to Hadfield is 40mph at the moment. Given that and the speed of new junctions needed at Godley and Apethorne and remodelling at Dinting and Woodley I think his timings and costings could be a bit optimistic.

[Trog]

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

 

Woodhead section drg.JPG

 

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.

 

Would probably be more straight forward than lowering the track in an inverted tunnel, provided the rock is sound. But you would want to go very carefully a short section at a time underpinning the tunnel walls as you went so as to avoid a Penmanshiel type problem. As if there is pressure on the tunnel walls and you remove the material holding the haunches apart the tunnel could close like a book.

But it would take ages and cost the earth to do.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Would probably be more straight forward than lowering the track in an inverted tunnel, provided the rock is sound. But you would want to go very carefully a short section at a time underpinning the tunnel walls as you went so as to avoid a Penmanshiel type problem. As if there is pressure on the tunnel walls and you remove the material holding the haunches apart the tunnel could close like a book.

But it would take ages and cost the earth to do.

I'm not sure if it is like that all the way through, because there are some layers of Edale Shale through that hill. There is often evidence of movement on the road at the Woodhead end, and i believe that it was one of the problems encountered when they tried to do some work in the original tunnel to get extra clearance. Dig too far in the wrong place and it could end up like the Mam Tor Road.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Further to the previous post, according to the BR Booklet 72 feet of the tunnel at the Woodhead end collapsed on 8th June 1951 while the pilot tunnel was being enlarged. This took six months to clear. There were indications that a similar collapse was about to take place at the Dunford Bridge end but that was successfully stopped by extra strengthening.

 

I think the message is leave well alone.

[woodenhead]

Further to the previous post, according to the BR Booklet 72 feet of the tunnel at the Woodhead end collapsed on 8th June 1951 while the pilot tunnel was being enlarged. This took six months to clear. There were indications that a similar collapse was about to take place at the Dunford Bridge end but that was successfully stopped by extra strengthening.

 

I think the message is leave well alone.

Tunnelers have found a solution to dodgy rock formations whilst tunneling - they inject water and freeze it, tunnel through and get the linings in

[Edwin_m]

Tunnelers have found a solution to dodgy rock formations whilst tunneling - they inject water and freeze it, tunnel through and get the linings in

Even in recent years there have been plenty of problems with tunnels hitting unexpected geology and needing a lot more time and money to resolve, and a few actual collapses during construction (Heathrow anyone?). 

[Joseph_Pestell]

The only reason this idea can't be described as pie in the sky is because you have more chance of observing a flying pie.

Pork pie presumably.

[Joseph_Pestell]

More back of the envelope calculations and stats.

 

Using the data here:

https://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/cp.php?la=Derbyshire#73378

for a manual traffic count on the A628 (Woodhead Pass) from 2016, there were 1572 HGVs a day, plus another 156 on the A57 (Snake Pass).

So rounding up to 1800 a day, or 900 in each direction.

How many on a shuttle train? I counted 18 on a fully-loaded Brenner Pass* one that I videoed.

900/18 = 50 departures a day to take all of the traffic? But realistically not all of the traffic would use the service.

Even assuming all that traffic uses the shuttle, if you spread that over 24 hours, that's a half-hourly service give or take.

 

Their website suggests "Up to 5 trains per hour departing every 10 to 15 minutes during working hours"

 

*Latest figures I could find for the Brenner Pass are 1.8 million trucks in 2004.

Call it 2 million, or about 5500 a day, three times the level of the Woodhead, and it only supports 1 train shuttle an hour.

To be fair, the Brenner motorway is a far better standard than the Woodhead/Snake Pass routes, but it climbs far higher (4500ft versus 1486ft). 

 

Very useful figures there.

 

I doubt that there would be an even spread through the 24-hr period so that does suggest a need for trains at perhaps 15-20 minute intervals. A 20-minute interval should still be possible with a single track through the tunnel.

 

I think that more than 18 trucks per train should be possible, 24???. Not all would be the full 44t semi-artic variety. Perhaps the Brenner has stiffer gradients?

 

25t axle-load sounds high too. Truck plus wagon weight should only be around 75 tonnes, less than 20t per axle. You could probably get it lower than that with some radical wagon design. Talgo?

[woodenhead]

To me if you are going to put lorries on trains then why not at the ports, move them to a location nearer the final destination - that will deliver real benefits to air quality and motorway congestion.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Very useful figures there.

 

I doubt that there would be an even spread through the 24-hr period so that does suggest a need for trains at perhaps 15-20 minute intervals. A 20-minute interval should still be possible with a single track through the tunnel.

 

 

 

The problem with a lot of DafT traffic count statistics is that they only cover daylight hours or are extrapolated from a smaller count into a daily figure, but until you find the explanation document these is no way of knowing what they are actually counting. Also on the 17 years shown on the table only four are derived from manual counts, the rest are a pure guess.

 

The spread across Woodhead is partly dependant on Irish sea boat times from Liverpool and Holyhead. At one time we often used to get 50 virtually nose to tail at 4am.

It also depends what is happening elsewhere, for instance Derbyshire county Council have abandonded any efforts to clear the Snake Pass whenever it snows, so there are no traffic jams in Glossop this week. Earlier in the week I drove from Glossop to Ellesemre Port in an hour, some days it takes that long to do Glossop to Stockport.

If there is an accident on the M62 westbound around Huddersfield you can easily get a queue back from the M67 all the way to Crowden. I have walked down the valley and overtaken lorries by Woodhead Dam and not seen them again by the time I got to Tintwistle over an hour later.

 

I think that more than 18 trucks per train should be possible, 24???. Not all would be the full 44t semi-artic variety. Perhaps the Brenner has stiffer gradients?

 

 

It depends on the permitted length on any NR line used. The maximum length of a Freightliner train is equivalent to 30 of those wagons but those are not permitted universally..

 

 

25t axle-load sounds high too. Truck plus wagon weight should only be around 75 tonnes, less than 20t per axle. You could probably get it lower than that with some radical wagon design. Talgo?

 

The type of wagons he is showing are 45t Tare, so maximum lorry weight would give approx 22.5t axle weight. 

[Fat Controller]

The suggestion seems to be that there is one Brenner train per hour per direction, carrying 5500 lorries per day: this would equate to about 110 lorries per train. This seems a bit high to me, as the accompanying coach for the drivers has about sixty seats.

In comparison, a typical loaded Eurotunnel lorry shuttle carries up to 28 44-tonners, and there are currently up to 7 per hour per direction throughout the week. Daily throughput is on average about 5500 lorries.

[mozzer models]

Even if the tunnel is re-bored to whatever gauge is necessary there are still clearances on the open air sections to contend with.  I think the European ro-ro routes are to standard UIC gauge but they may be larger.  However not only is the UK gauge smaller than UIC, many of our trucks are larger than the normal European height. 

the woodhead route was built to European gauge

[TheSignalEngineer]

the woodhead route was built to European gauge

Woodhead was originally built in the 1840s. The section east of Hyde Junction does not even comply W6A gauge without restrictions. The maximum size HGV on a low deck wagon would only just fit under the wires at their highest point let alone at most of the bridges.

[MarkC]

the woodhead route was built to European gauge

Really? I don't think so. The original tunnels were pretty tight for UK stock, never mind Continental offerings. There's also the story that the GC "London Extension" was built to Berne Gauge - it wasn't. Yes, it's slightly bigger than normal UK loading gauge, but not by much.