Saturday 21 August 2010

Channel Tunnel trains for Liverpool


Please find below a submission regarding the proposed intercity Express Programme or its successors. I believe that it important the in order to take advantage of any HS2 and the current channel tunnel and additional requirements for this program is that it should be capable of running on High-Speed lines at a significant fraction of the lines top speed as well as being compatible with Channel Tunnel Regulations. Such a train would be useful for providing services from London to European cities not connected via High-Speed lines and also from European cities to UK regional cities. Such a train will be essential to exploit HS2 should it be built.

The current date for the first running of HS2 is 2025 for the London to Birmingham section. It is proposed that this new line is built to the same GC loading gauge as HS1. There is no assurance that HS1 and HS2 will be connected.

Given the notorious delays in this kind of project, this projection optimistic at best and will still not provide a High-Speed Connection to Liverpool. There is some talk of extending beyond Birmingham with a line that branched with one branch going to Leeds and then another to Manchester. There is also a slight hint of a Branch to Liverpool. However, no date has been given for either of these branches.

If the connection to Birmingham is made then a connection to the WCML at Rugeley is proposed.
For through trains this means using the smaller W10 gauge, that the WCML uses beyond Rugeley. This allows 2.9 m (9 ft 6 in) high Hi-Cube shipping containers to be carried on standard wagons and also allows 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) wide Euro shipping containers. It is larger than UIC A which itself is slightly larger than PPI(Berne) gauge, and has a maximum dimension of 3.15 m by 4.32 m. This means that the WCML is better suited to European trains than most of the rest of the UK network.

The development of a W6a or W10 train that can run on the GC gauge is far easier and cheaper than building HS2, in fact, the Eurostars may already have done that as they operated before HS1 was complete. Whilst it is true that they do not tilt they could run of the WCML if they are or were fitted for the signalling. Whilst this would not be optimal it would provide a Paris-Liverpool service and would be good PR even if only done occasionally.

In fact, regional services where planned using shortened trains know as North of London, while these have never operated as planned they have operated been operated by GNER on the east coast mainline and are at the time of writing available for use. Regional services were planned to use the ECML to Glasgow via Edinburgh and as far as Manchester on the WCML.

At least this can be seen as forward-looking and proactive.

What Liverpool and Merseyside councils plus other organisations need to be doing is:

Campaign for a High-Speed W6a or W10 train that is Channel Tunnel Compatible, perhaps as part of the ongoing Intercity Express Programme.

Urge Network Rail to upgrade Lime Street to take trains of a length that can currently use the tunnel and have the required facilities for international travellers.

Lobby for HS1 and HS2 to be directly connected.

Lobby for new franchises to offered for Liverpool-Paris and any other EU capital, so that Network rail is compelled to allow anyone who meets technical requirements to run a service.

That steps should be taken to allow charter services between Liverpool and points on continental Europe with only limited notice time, again subject to meeting technical requirements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_373
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity_Express_Programme

Sunday 15 August 2010

ETCS etc

ERTMS European Rail Transport Management System Regional [online]. (2010) [Accessed 15 August 2010]. Available from:

Yet more ERTMS challenges ahead [online]. (2010) [Accessed 15 August 2010]. Available from: .