Unrealistic expectations

I read Open Access in RAIL 887 with some interest. While I hope that the HSTs go on to enjoy further use, as indeed they are with both Great Western Railway and ScotRail, it’s unrealistic to expect them to add any real benefit on lines such as the East Coast and West Coast Main Lines.

They are trains of their era. They may have more comfortable interiors, but they are not going to be able to match sectional running times on such busy railways, and will thus chew up valuable capacity due to slower acceleration.

Certainly, on much of the WCML they would be limited to 110mph due to no tilt. Even if restricted to slow lines they would struggle to fit into such intensively used lines.

The letter on railway safety regarding single-line working is also interesting, as it refers to a steam age railway with lowfrequency services signalled by closely spaced manual boxes, so single-line working over such short stretches is likely to cause little disruption.

Try it on a modern highfrequency high-speed railway such as the WCML, and it’s a whole other story. It’s a bit like comparing some temporary traffic lights on a 100-yard section of country road with trying to do the same on the M1 over many miles.

It would be nice to see more bi-directional signalling in place as standard, as I recently witnessed on the line through Kitzbühel in Austria, but let’s remember that signalling is expensive.

Phil Entwistle, Northamptonshire