Freight and passengers at odds over space on UK’s East Coast line
ECML Class 88 - C James Pilbeam copy
Fitting fast freight and passengers on the East Coast Main Line in the UK is proving a challenge. The main long distance operator on the line – the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) – has drawn a storm of criticism for its timetable proposals. Local groups, media and politicians have all cried foul at recast stopping patterns and reduced through services.
Do you want to read the full article?
Thank you for visiting RailFreight.com. Become a member of RailFreight Premium and get full access to all our premium content.
Are you already a member?
Having problems logging in? Call +31(0)10 280 1000 or send an email to customerdesk@promedia.nl.
Maybe if the rail freight sector invested more in bi modes, it wouldn’t be as bad as electric locos are faster. The insistance from rail freight operators to stick with diesel locos is slowing down the potential for that industry but also causing issues with passenger trains as seen here.
That combined with the Govts lack of investment into the rail freight sector.
Everyone wants the benefits of rail freight (including the operators), no one wants to put money into it though!
Utter and compete rubbish.
I’ve been analysing timetables and pathing for decades.There’s plenty of spare capacity on the ecml,Especially north of Newcastle.The only bottlenecks are south of Peterborough.
Take a look at the timetables on realtimetrains and hardly anything moves north of Newcastle where there’s no more than 6 trains an hour on the line going north. There’s a decent amount of passing loops That leaves plenty of headway for slower freight trains.
The ecml has capacity to spare.
Perhaps freight and passenger rail should be two seperate lines then.
Like it should already be.
The Grand Union proposal for a Stirling London train service includes some dedicated carriages for express parcels. Surely that’s something that should be considered ?
Stirling – London is a West Coast Service
This is misplaced criticism at best, citing freight when the DfT actually resents Open Access firms like First and Grand Central, far,far more than freight operators.
And in today’s building scene, constructing third and fourth lines for freight (or any traffic!) is, sadly, ludicrously expensive and unworthy of consideration.
To suggest that freight traffic is impeding passenger growth on the ECML is a complete nonsense.
If you should like to know more, please message me and I will be pleased to explain more fully.
To suggest that freight traffic is impeding passenger growth on the ECML is a complete nonsense.
If you should like to know more, please message me and I will be happy to explain further.
This is nonsense, there is no way that freight traffic is impeding passenger growth on the ECML.
If you should like to know more, please message me and I will be happy to explain further.
The bottleneck that is the Welwyn viaduct has not been addressed. It’s a twin track [not four track] layout with local commuter trains stopping at stations before and after, consuming a disproportionate amount of available time every hour for their paths over it.
Rectifying that would be better value for money than HS2 . . .