Third rail a viable alternative to overhead electrification
I have fresh proposals emboldening an alternative to overhead line electrification schemes up and down the UK rail network, most of which have been frozen.
I do not hold a degree either in Mathematics or Accountancy, but I think I can see a vast difference between third rail electrification and AC overhead infrastructure. The third rail systems that currently exist here seem to be acknowledged yet ignored in one and the same breath.
I did some casual browsing recently and amassed some costing of altering/replacing/ raising existing bridges to accommodate the wires. I doubt that high-speed running is going to be a high priority between Preston and Manchester. Third rail speeds will be quite adequate. 90mph?
And purchasing new rolling stock with hybrid diesel engines on board is hardly the solution.
We hear accounts of poor soil, sand stratas, mine workings and other areas of subsidence. My understanding is that installing the humble third rail does not require anything remotely approaching associated civil engineering figures/money.
The hybrid steel-aluminum juice rail is still on the agenda. The bridges stay as they are and the sheer speed at which/with which a route can be third railed is astonishingly swift compared with OLE. No holes need digging alongside the track… no need to build dual-system traction units.
High winds do not appear to do much damage to third rail infrastructure. The design is quite rugged. I lived with it for 16 years on the ex-LSW route to Portsmouth.
It seems that costs have gone through the roof on many fronts, which in turn would explain why the Midland Main Line scheme has been indefinitely postponed.
And check out progress on the Great Western. I happened to be in the Didcot area last summer, making a return journey by train to Newport.
To say that the electrification programme west of Didcot is in the doldrums is a major understatement. All I saw was bases for masts, holes dug for future bases, but actually very little else.
It resembled a sort of freeze or enchantment on all activity, like that castle and its inhabitants cast into sleep through enchantment for 100 years in a children’s fairy story.
Had they chosen the third rail process, everything could have been completed in six months. Alistair Kewish, East Midlands (ex-rail industry worker 1990-2005, rail volunteer 1971-2004.