MML electrification "paused"

[DnAuK]

It doesn't really matter - the money comes from us, the customers / tax payers. The Midland Mainline directly serves far more people than HS2 will going from Sheffield - London.

 

Another spot on comment

[Funky_Gibbon]

No doubt it'll be unpaused around February 2020 and reannounced to great fanfare.

[ricoblade]

No doubt it'll be unpaused around February 2020 and reannounced to great fanfare.

 

Don't hold your breath, from Wikipedia:

 

In 1977 the Parliamentary Select Committee on Nationalised Industries recommended considering electrification of more of Britain's rail network, and by 1979 BR presented a range of options that included electrifying the Midland Main Line from London to Yorkshire by 2000. By 1983 the line had been electrified from Moorgate to Bedford, but proposals to continue electrification to Nottingham and Sheffield have not been implemented.

[dutch]

I reckon that within a century a new battery with superpowers will be invented that makes all these expensive overhead electrical lines unnecessary anyway.

[smiggs]

No doubt it'll be unpaused around February 2020 and reannounced to great fanfare.

 

If they wait until 2020 to announce it, I would say it's more likely they will announce that the line will be closed once hs2 is completed.

[dutch]

Get all the unemployed to operate a

.

Cameron will be very happy with that.

[AndrewC]

If they wait until 2020 to announce it, I would say it's more likely they will announce that the line will be closed once hs2 is completed.

 

HS2 is for extra capacity, I don't think it's replacing the existing normal lines...

 

---------- Post added 26-06-2015 at 13:04 ----------

 

I reckon that within a century a new battery with superpowers will be invented that makes all these expensive overhead electrical lines unnecessary anyway.

 

But the North will have to wait two centuries for those.

[taxman]

Meanwhile a suppressed HS2 report reveals serious cost concerns

[Hesther]

Have no fear. It's all part of Westminster's plan to create a Northern *****house.

[darylslinn]

Before the water is muddied by misleading posts:

 

Definite:

HS2 has nothing to do with Network Rail and the funding is totally separate.

Network Rail is now 'nationalized' and its £37 billion debt appears on the Governments books.

Austerity.

NR cannot complete tasks on time*.

The announcement "pauses" TransPennine North and MML electrification and awaits report from the new boss of NR.

Signalling, re-modelling etc goes ahead.

 

Implications:

*Best advert for HS2- every time NR and their predecessors try and upgrade a Victorian Railway they understimate the difficulties- every major project has failed. Every new project has succeded or bettered its targets.

Journeys times to Lancashire and West Yorkshire will be faster than to Sheffield.

Meridian 222s to continue in service and will fail emission targets.

Current rolling stock between Sheffield and Lancashire will be downgraded.

ECML HSTs will transfer to MML -slowing services north of Bedford.

Increased capacity/speed of track will be negated by use of HST.

Current EMT HSTs will be non-compliant in four years.

 

The implication is Sheffield becomes an even less attractive backwater as far as investment goes.

 

Spot on.

Looking at the quality of services into and out of Sheffield over the last 20 years or so show that we are a backwater compared to the towns and cities that are on the East and West Coast Main Lines. Which again brings to the fore the shortsightedness of the closing of the original High Speed 2 line, namely the Great Central all those years ago. And don't get me started on the Woodhead route.