There is a PM's petition @

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/greatcentralrlwy/

If this is soemthing that you believe in, please sign it.

On 27 Jun, 19:18, 1506  wrote:
> There is a PM's petition @
>
> http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/greatcentralrlwy/
>
> If this is soemthing that you believe in, please sign it.

Quote:

¨We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reinstate the
former great central railway main line to london.¨

Maybe they should have given some indication of to London from
*where*.

Quote:

¨Most of the track bed through rural england remains intact although
some ,not all,structures viaducts bridges embankments have been
dismantled ,however,essentially it is intact. Through the cities of
the midlands however the line has been built over.This should not
discourage us though because the route is essentially still there and
can still be traced from aylesbury to leicester ¨

Does this mean that they only want to re-instate the section between
London and Leicester?  That doesn't sound terribly useful.  They could
re-build the line through ¨Rural England¨ as they put it. Rural areas
tend to not attract many passengers. If they want to gp as far as
Leicester or North of there what do they propose to do about the
sections which they acknoledge have been built over?  Build a railway
with several large gaps in it?  Divert the railway via an alternative
route?  What alternative route?  If you divert the line away from two
of the biggest cities on the original route you're going to loose a
lot of passengers.  Maybe they're thinking of freight, but then why
would they want a high speed line?  What do they mean by ¨High speed¨
anyway?

If viaducts bridges and embankments have been dismantled then
essentially it is not intact.  In Leicester and Nottingham it is
extremely non-intact.

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Stephen
Furley  gently breathed:

>Does this mean that they only want to re-instate the section between
>London and Leicester?  That doesn't sound terribly useful.  They could
>re-build the line through ¨Rural England¨ as they put it. Rural areas
>tend to not attract many passengers. If they want to gp as far as
>Leicester or North of there what do they propose to do about the
>sections which they acknoledge have been built over?

If / when the government decides it wants any given route re-opened,
built-over sections cease to be a problem.  Either they get compulsorily
purchased and whatever is in the way gets demolished, or whatever is
next door gets done instead and the route takes a fairly minor deviation
(though TBH short of a nuclear power station, I can't think of many
things that couldn't be removed if necessary).

Whether re-opening the Great Central is a good idea or not is still open
to debate (I think it is, but as a way of getting a faster service to
the northern end of the line, hence speeding through mainly unpopulated
"rural england" non-stop is an advantage), but there's no harm in
promoting the idea.

-- 
 - DJ Pyromancer, Black Sheep, Leeds.  <http://www.sheepish.net>

Broadband, Dialup, Domains = <http://www.wytches.net> = The UK's Pagan ISP!
<http://www.inkubus-sukkubus.co.uk>    <http://www.revival.stormshadow.com>

"Stephen Furley"  wrote in message 
news:2a3700dd-b5ae-434a-a200-b3cf98baa47a@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
On 27 Jun, 19:18, 1506  wrote:
> There is a PM's petition @
>
> http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/greatcentralrlwy/
>
> If this is soemthing that you believe in, please sign it.

>Quote:

>¨We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reinstate the
>former great central railway main line to london.¨

>Maybe they should have given some indication of to London from
>*where*.

The Secretary of State knows - Birmingham.

Regards

Jonathan

Stephen Furley wrote:
> On 27 Jun, 19:18, 1506  wrote:
>> There is a PM's petition @
>>
>> http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/greatcentralrlwy/
>>
>> If this is soemthing that you believe in, please sign it.
> 
> Quote:
> 
> ¨We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reinstate the
> former great central railway main line to london.¨
> 
> Maybe they should have given some indication of to London from
> *where*.
> 
> Quote:
> 
> ¨Most of the track bed through rural england remains intact although
> some ,not all,structures viaducts bridges embankments have been
> dismantled ,however,essentially it is intact. Through the cities of
> the midlands however the line has been built over.This should not
> discourage us though because the route is essentially still there and
> can still be traced from aylesbury to leicester ¨

This was an interesting railway - they had to take explosives to the 
viaduct in Brackley so they could drive a road through! The big problem 
was that in its layout it was done on the cheap so most of the stations 
had island platforms - not really immediately suitable for high speed 
use. It was notable for the earthworks at Ashenden Junction - most of 
which can still be seen from Chiltern Railways trains.

Commercial companies have taken an interest in this in the past - 
http://www.central-railway.co.uk/ tells you more, but I suspect this 
hasn't been updated in several years.

-- 
John Wright

"What would happen if you eliminated the autism genes from the gene pool?

You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and
socialising and not getting anything done!" - Professor Temple Grandin

John Wright wrote:

> The big problem 
> was that in its layout it was done on the cheap so most of the stations 
> had island platforms - not really immediately suitable for high speed 
> use. It was notable for the earthworks at Ashenden Junction - most of 
> which can still be seen from Chiltern Railways trains.

I have always understood that island platform stations were 
used so that the stations could be quickly adapted to take 
continental stock as part of Watkin's Channel tunnel ambitions.

Have I been labouring under a misapprehension?

"John Wright"  wrote

> The big problem
> was that in its layout it was done on the cheap so most of the stations
> had island platforms - not really immediately suitable for high speed
> use.

That's why the uk station with the highest speeds for non-stopping trains
has island platforms, with the through lines on the outside of the layout
(Ebbsfleet International).

Peter

Peter Masson wrote:
> "John Wright"  wrote
> 
>> The big problem
>> was that in its layout it was done on the cheap so most of the stations
>> had island platforms - not really immediately suitable for high speed
>> use.
> 
> That's why the uk station with the highest speeds for non-stopping trains
> has island platforms, with the through lines on the outside of the layout
> (Ebbsfleet International).

It depends a lot on the radius of turn the train has to make to get 
around the island platform. Without looking at it I would guess that the 
track around Ebbsfleet is a lot more open than it would have been on any 
of the old GC stations. An open layout takes a lot more land than a 
relatively closed one. It also depends on the speed expectation - speeds 
in 1901 were a lot less than today - average speeds on the GC were never 
more than about 60mph even in the days of the 9F.

-- 
John Wright

"What would happen if you eliminated the autism genes from the gene pool?

You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and
socialising and not getting anything done!" - Professor Temple Grandin

On Jun 28, 8:46 am, Pyromancer 
wrote:
> Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Stephen
> Furley  gently breathed:
>
> >Does this mean that they only want to re-instate the section between
> >London and Leicester?  That doesn't sound terribly useful.  They could
> >re-build the line through ¨Rural England¨ as they put it. Rural areas
> >tend to not attract many passengers. If they want to gp as far as
> >Leicester or North of there what do they propose to do about the
> >sections which they acknoledge have been built over?
>
> If / when the government decides it wants any given route re-opened,
> built-over sections cease to be a problem.  Either they get compulsorily
> purchased and whatever is in the way gets demolished, or whatever is
> next door gets done instead and the route takes a fairly minor deviation
> (though TBH short of a nuclear power station, I can't think of many
> things that couldn't be removed if necessary).
>
> Whether re-opening the Great Central is a good idea or not is still open
> to debate (I think it is, but as a way of getting a faster service to
> the northern end of the line, hence speeding through mainly unpopulated
> "rural england" non-stop is an advantage), but there's no harm in
> promoting the idea.
>

Re-opening the GC might or might not be a good idea.

But the fact that Mr Armstrong does not seem to know how to use
capital letters, coupled with his poorly argued case - who says it's a
viable alternative when he does not even estimate costs? -  does not
exactly fill me with confidence that he has even the faintest idea of
what he is talking about.

Presenting a poorly worded case could cause more damage than good.

Kester

On Jun 28, 3:35 am, Kester.E...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 28, 8:46 am, Pyromancer 
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Stephen
> > Furley  gently breathed:
>
> > >Does this mean that they only want to re-instate the section between
> > >London and Leicester?  That doesn't sound terribly useful.  They could
> > >re-build the line through ¨Rural England¨ as they put it. Rural areas
> > >tend to not attract many passengers. If they want to gp as far as
> > >Leicester or North of there what do they propose to do about the
> > >sections which they acknoledge have been built over?
>
> > If / when the government decides it wants any given route re-opened,
> > built-over sections cease to be a problem.  Either they get compulsorily
> > purchased and whatever is in the way gets demolished, or whatever is
> > next door gets done instead and the route takes a fairly minor deviation
> > (though TBH short of a nuclear power station, I can't think of many
> > things that couldn't be removed if necessary).
>
> > Whether re-opening the Great Central is a good idea or not is still open
> > to debate (I think it is, but as a way of getting a faster service to
> > the northern end of the line, hence speeding through mainly unpopulated
> > "rural england" non-stop is an advantage), but there's no harm in
> > promoting the idea.
>
> Re-opening the GC might or might not be a good idea.
>
> But the fact that Mr Armstrong does not seem to know how to use
> capital letters, coupled with his poorly argued case - who says it's a
> viable alternative when he does not even estimate costs? -  does not
> exactly fill me with confidence that he has even the faintest idea of
> what he is talking about.
>
> Presenting a poorly worded case could cause more damage than good.
>
You may be right.  Although I tend to the view that keeping this asset
visible to our politicians is a good thing.  We can always thrash out
the specifics later.

Don't think I've seen the orginal post for this.  However the point of 
opening the GC would seem to be to eliminate congestion South of Leicester. 
North of Leicester  there are four tracks continuously all the way to 
Rotherham Masbrough and there is not much congestion.

Much of the formation north of Nottingham has disappeared though if it was 
really necessary to have a new route the possibility of connecting the 
Mansfield-Worksop line to Woodhouse Junction could be feasible.

South of Leicester I have aloways thought that a re-instatement of the 
Banbury connection would be very useful - access to Southampton docks etc, 
and a good way of avoiding Birmingham.  The matter would\ then be of access 
to London and presumably it would need to be over the High Wycombe joint 
line rather than the Metropolitan, unless another alternative route was 
constructed.

On Jul 11, 5:29 am, "Paul Rigg"  wrote:
> Don't think I've seen the orginal post for this.  However the point of
> opening the GC would seem to be to eliminate congestion South of Leicester.
> North of Leicester  there are four tracks continuously all the way to
> Rotherham Masbrough and there is not much congestion.
>
> Much of the formation north of Nottingham has disappeared though if it was
> really necessary to have a new route the possibility of connecting the
> Mansfield-Worksop line to Woodhouse Junction could be feasible.
>
> South of Leicester I have aloways thought that a re-instatement of the
> Banbury connection would be very useful - access to Southampton docks etc> and a good way of avoiding Birmingham.  The matter would\ then be of access
> to London and presumably it would need to be over the High Wycombe joint
> line rather than the Metropolitan, unless another alternative route was
> constructed.


Those are my thoughts precisely.