Making tracks
Birmingham and the West Midlands are to get a second fast service to London. In September Chiltern Railways launches its new ‘Mainline’ offering, with some journey times dropping to just 90 minutes. Peter Plisner has been looking what’s happened to make it possible
t’s claimed to be the largest domestic rail infrastructure project that’s been built without help from the UK taxpayer since World War Two. And in these times of hardship for UK plc, it’s
being seen as something of the model for the future. Evergreen 3, which in total is estimated to be costing around £250m, has seen major upgrades to infrastructure and, later, will see even more new trains entering service on the line. The latest batch of improvements
promises to deliver super-fast journeys on several parts of the Chiltern network including from Birmingham to London. It’s more good news for passengers of the route, which until rail privatisation back in the 1990s, was seen as something of a Cinderella line, with little or no investment. Even where work had been carried out, little thought was given to what might happen if passenger numbers increased in the future. The Evergreen 3 project is being
delivered in stages. First has come improvements on the line, delivering the faster journey times from September. Phase 2 will see the opening of a new line to Oxford, including a parkway station at Water Eaton. That’s expected to open by 2013, subject to Transport and Works Act approval.
Chiltern’s business development
director, Graham Cross says: ‘Evergreen 3 is the biggest project in the history of Chiltern Railways and will see a huge improvement for our customers with most of the route upgraded to a line speed of
PAGE 14 AUGUST 2011
100mph – a phenomenal achievement.’ The infrastructure upgrade comes in
addition to new trains designed for faster acceleration and low emissions on the London suburban services. There’s also the introduction, next month, of special carriages on the Birmingham route. In advance of the launch, new platforms have been opened at Birmingham Moor Street station. There’s also new ticketing technology in the form of a smartphone app which, according to Chiltern Railways, has already been downloaded by more than 30,000 people. Phase 1 of the Evergreen 3 roll-out
comes on 5 September, 2011, when Chiltern launches its much publicised ‘Mainline’ service. Initially expected to launch earlier this year, problems with delivery of some aspects of the project meant that it had to be delayed until the next timetable change. Graham Cross says: ‘We were obviously disappointed to postpone the launch of the Chiltern Mainline, but do believe it was the right decision for our passengers. We are undertaking this project to offer a better service and we are keen for customers to see the benefits of our investment as soon as possible. However, we were not comfortable with a risk of our passengers experiencing unplanned disruption and would rather spread the work over a slightly longer period and enable our passengers to plan their journeys with confidence.’ According to Chiltern it means the
entire route will be brought closer to London, with commuting times from Banbury and Bicester reducing to less than
an hour. The West Midlands effectively gets a new mainline connection to London to rival the West Coast route to Euston, with the average journey times from Birmingham Moor Street to London Marylebone dropping to just 100 minutes, against the current 128 minutes. Some peak journeys will drop to just 90 minutes. The dramatic reductions in journey
times are being delivered through a series of upgrades in several key areas. Cross says: ‘We identified a number of targeted areas of the line that we could remodel to give us a higher line speed. In addition, we identified other areas that we could adapt to give us more operational flexibility, for instance the opening of the two new platforms at Birmingham Moor Street enabling us to terminate and start trains from there.’ Work completed already includes
a new crossover in the Gerrards Cross area. It allows additional flexibility during engineering work and means that terminating trains that are returning to London can do so directly from the Birmingham-bound platform. Some of the biggest improvements have taken place at Bicester North where, for historical reasons, the London-bound track curved sharply either side of the station. It’s always meant that non-stop trains have had to slow down to 25mph. Now the track has been realigned and a new widened platform has been construction. Further north at Aynho Junction, where the London to Birmingham line meets the Oxford to Banbury line, the existing track layout again meant speed restrictions. The junction has now been remodelled
so that trains can run at much faster speeds. Meanwhile, this month sees more work taking place in the Neasden area, where a junction is being reconstructed at the point where the Birmingham and Aylesbury lines diverge. Once complete, it should allow trains on the Birmingham lines to pass over the junction at 75mph, instead of at 40mph at present. Between Northolt Park and South Ruislip, the line used by trains
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