Good point, but I am not sure where that leaves you since you would still be left with three incompatible traffic types on two railways.  Also there is nowhere to divert it to. the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) and the MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) are both full - space is being made on the line up through Spalding. So the option would be to kick the freight off onto the roads.  I suppose my option 3 involved kicking the local services onto the roads.  However there is little road capacity so at least with option 4 we are saying build another Motorway to the North. Now I wonder how much that would cost?

So

Option 4) Divert all freight off the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) onto the roads, cancel the electric spine and invest in a massive programme of road improvements.

So as a first stage how do we improve capacity from London & Southampton to the Midlands.  Ah yes widening the M3 from Southampton to Winchester (shouldn't be any opposition to widening that cutting through Twyford Down - no one objected the first time), a new M34 from Winchester to Oxford and a widening programme on the M40 to 5 lanes (through the Chilterns of course should be no problem).  Since it is for freight perhaps we should ban cars. 

I have some new alternative money saving scheme to avoid building HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)). They all stem from the problem that we are using two pairs of tracks to run four railways (fast, semi-fast, local passengers and freight).

a) Option 1 - Keep the fast lines for Intercity express services - cease all semi-fast services. Milton Keynes, Rugby, Coventry, Wolverhampton Stafford etc. would only be served by local services which, together with freight would use the slow lines. Capacity would be optimised by running all trains at the same speed.

b) Option 2 - Abolish the express services.  semi fast services (or fast services as they would become) would stop at all medium sized stations and would use the fast lines along with express freight.  Local services would use the slow lines along with slower freight services.

c) Option 3 - Close all the small stations and run no local services - after all this is a main line not a commuter railway. The only stations on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) would be Euston, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Crewe, Stoke, Stockport, Manchester, Warrington, Preston, Lancaster, Carlisle, Glasgow.  Any other stations on the WCML north of Watford (which would continue to be served by the DC^▸ (Direct Current) lines) would be closed to allow capacity for Fast, semi fast and freight services. 

Which one would you choose?

Unless HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) swallows all the money, which is possibly another minus against it, less electrification elsewhere.


 

I would rather see a 2 track railway going through the landscape than a 6 lane motorway!  Many of our railways blend in beautifully into the landscape.  How does HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) look ten years or so after it was built? I do not hear about any complaints of the noise from it either.

You could provide the capacity on the current alignments, but you would have to tear great swathes through most of the towns on the route.  I think you might find that is less popular than than going through the countryside. 

What all our economic models seem to miss is that high house prices in the South and South East are crippling this country. If we did not have to pay so much for housing then wages would be less and living standards higher. As a result the country would be more competitive.  Either we find some way of moving our economy North and West and take the heat out of the London bubble, or the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) (as opposed to London) will never be economically strong.  It is no coincidence that most of the opposition is coming from the South East.

Trying to fossilise some past idyll gives everyone a warm feeling (me included), but my children do not want to live in a museum, they want jobs and affordable housing.

Oh and the cost? How does it compare to the amount on money we put in the bail out the banks?

OTC you made mention on "rigid bar cantenery" there which is a phrase I've not come across before.

It ay seem a stupid question but does this mean what is implied ? That (put simply ) the cable which feeds the power cars is not sprung?

Is this a recent acceptance ? Woud this had removed the requirement to alter bridges on (for example) the Westbury line through newbury?

You could say that the electric railway is actually (largely) steam-electric; it's just that unlike unlike the diesel-electric system, the locos don't carry the generators round with them. It's the same principal as Brunel's atmospheric railway - put the heavy plant beside the tracks, and transmit power to the locos as they need it.

It is true BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) did have electrification construction trains, they were not "factory trains" as the HOOP is portrayed to be.

BR's foundation train, basically a train of cement mixers that were loaded from a batching plant in the construction depot, the train in latter years had a excavator although many foundations were hand dug during the week next to the open railway (rules were different in those days).  The foundation train would run out on a weekend night or mid week and drop the re-bar in an pour the concrete around a polystyrene former, in later years holding down bolts were cast in for bolted base masts.

BR then had a train with a crane, an adapted 12 Tonne PW^▸ (Permanent Way) crane that lifted the masts in place where they used a polystyrene former this was melted out with acetone and the mast grouted in.  For large portals the 75 Tonne breakdown cranes were used, it was all Mechanical & Electrical Engineers Dept in those days

BR's wiring these were indeed converted rolling stock the roofs were flatten off, so the linesmen could walk along as the train moved along, the problem with these trains is they did not have any guard rails there was a risk of falling off, which did happen, needless to say elf n safety did not like these.  During the construction of North Pole the use of wiring trains was not allowed by the depot construction contractors caused a panic for the BR construction engineer at the time.

So yes BR did have construction trains, long gone now they would have evolved I guess if we as a nation had not just stopped electrifying railways 30 years ago