Vastly more helpfully, the Government has also confirmed that electrification of the Great Western Mainline will now go ahead (not just the commuter routes to Oxford, Newbury, etc, announced last Autumn), to Bristol and Cardiff. Swansea wasn't mentioned so I suspect DfT is playing a game of stare with the Welsh Assembly "Government" to challenge them to fund that part of the route (the Welsh, no doubt, will be pleading poverty).
That old map (click to enlarge) shows the GWM scheme extending to Swansea, as was originally intended (and, I suspect, still is).
This is fantastically good news and, hopefully, is the start of the last heave-ho to electrify all of Britain's remaining InterCity routes (the Midland Mainline can surely only be a matter of a couple of years behind?).
The first new SETs will be in service by, allegedly, 2016.
Interstingly, the DfT's announcement also mentioned en passant that they now have the option of extending the western terminus of the massive Crossrail (the brand new West-East cross-London railway) to Reading which is, of course, where it should have been all along.
1 comment:
Sounds about right to me;
Go for the most expensive, most complicated, lowest performing, least refined option, and pay a foreign manufacturer handsomely for the privilege.
I'm not knocking Hitachi, but why are we incapable of making anything for ourselves anymore? So many BREL built trains are still going strong today...I'd be very surprised if these preposterous machines have anything like as long service lives.
The electrification map is interesting.
I can't understand why it has taken us until now to think about electrifying the MML. And its still not confirmed! What is wrong with these people!?
Back in the 60's they missed a trick by not liking the wires between Manchester and Liverpool. Seems sensible to finally sort it.
But why not go a step further and wire up Manchester - Sheffield - ECML? We need a good Trans-Penine electrified route. But oh yeah, we had that didn't we, until they decided to shut down Woodhead. I doubt it would have taken too much work to re energise it at 25Kv AC and update the signalling...oh well.
Still think the SETs are very DAFT.
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