Together in electric dreams
England, birthplace of the railway, has its fair share of railway anomalies, and the south east’s third rail DC electric network is certainly one of them. Nowhere else on the planet has such a dense proliferation of third rail electrified tracks for both suburban and long distance services, in contrast to most other countries, where third rails are most commonly employed on metro networks, rather than the main line. Hard to believe that when the Channel Tunnel opened in 1994 Eurostars streaked across northern France and dashed through the Chunnel itself under 25kV overhead wires before rapidly slowing to deploy conductor shoes to allow them to crawl (or so it felt), along the third rail to Waterloo. Incredibly, this situation persisted, albeit with a partial cut-off when the first part of HS1 opened, until 2007 when Eurostar moved to St Pancras. Nevertheless, Class 700s and 717s regularly drop their pantos at Farringdon and Drayton Park, respectively, before continuing into tunnel sections using third rail. In fact, had Crossrail, which is due to finally open in weeks (see First Looks, p5), been opened at an earlier time, there is no doubt that it, too, would have been electrified with a third rail.
ALTERNATIVE PROPULSION
The reasons for the preponderance of third rail electrification in the south east are many and varied, but despite suggestions that the network should be further expanded, we think it is unlikely. Although alternative propulsion systems are now under serious consideration (see p8) overhead electrification at 25kV AC is likely to be the only realistic proposition for main line running in dense urban areas like the south east. It may well be that the third rail eventually gives way to overhead wires. But for now, we celebrate DC third rail electrics in this special issue.