Recent content by HSTEd

Oops! But yes, the ORR.

Ultimately the person who pays the piper calls the tune, and TfL does not pay the piper. In the end, Westminster does. If Westminster wants this, and it would save them a lot of money in comparison to the alternatives, the Mayor would ultimately have to make a deal. Alstom is still building...

Well it doesn't help that HS2 has nothing to offer but vague promises that they will benefit. And the public has learned, through long and bitter experience, that vague promises from politicians are essentially meaningless.

A ~360m rake of TGV-M trailers probably isn't going to be much heavier than the rake of trailers on a first-generation Eurostar set. Its probably possible to get the performance necessary to path things on LGV Nord with modern power cars.

But are we really talking about the Chiltern Line? We are talking about a branch line that happens to operate into Marylebone, it's arguably less a part of the Chiltern Main Line than the Watford DCs are a part of the WCML. At least the Watford DCs end up next to the WCML rather than several...

Eurostar did order 400m units last time though, even though they could have ordered 200m units if they had wanted to. So I think there is probably some sort of commercial driver in that direction.

.... I wasn't referring to any sort of safety requirement? I was merely suggesting that they might want 400m units to continue the Eurostar thing of having 400m units? 1715810123 TGV-M are likely capable of being made compliant with the requirement given they are built to include internal...

I'd guess the major determinant of TGV M or not is whether or not they are capable of building a 400m set with no intermediate power cars. I imagine they probably can given they only have to do 300km/h, but they might need to beef up the power cars to do it.

This project isn't really of national importance in any meaningful sense.

A GP60 weighs ~273,000lb, which is 124 tonnes. It's the weight of a UK Co-Co locomotive!

I don't see why this solution is preferable to simply extending the Met. It just forces an additional change at Harrow or wherever to little advantage. Why is a train to Marylebone with a change at Harrow to reach most destinations superior to a train to Baker Street/beyond? The absolute worst...

If any serious attempt was to be made on reviving locomotive hauled stock, we would first have to define a cast iron compatibility specification for all features we want a modern train to have. It would have to have room for growth in capability in a backwards compatible manner. Ofcourse, if we...

JR East was always far more bullish on double deckers than the rest of JR and they've been suffering from declining passenger numbers for a while. Both due to declining population effects but also post coronavirus commuting changes, which finally finished off the last double deckers. The only...

Not a chance. The project has acquired such a toxic reputation with the public that it would probably be as crushing a result as the AV referendum. 1715734386 There are also people who believe the scheme is a black hole that will swallow up ever increasing supplies of money, and just want the...

If the Mayor of London wants to continue receiving billions from Westminster, he will, as they say, have to play ball. If the deal that pays TfL to take over this service gives service parameters then the Mayor will not be able to do anything.