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With Railtrack analysing everything to death, the Watford-Bletchley Alliance missed the boat
Somehow I don't think we will run the Modern Railways annual progress report on the West Coast Route Modernisation this year. We caused considerable angst on the 13 th floor at Railtrack House last year – the board had asked us not to publish the Report after it had been researched and written. And what with Son of Hartwell soon to be signed and massive descoping imminent, I imagine Railtrack (In Administration) is working on the basis of the less said the better.
Certainly, they are not saying much to the customers on the Southern end of the route, where the 2002 Summer Timetable includes 18 blockades during which time the Watford-Bletchley Alliance was expecting to install 60mile/h fast line/slow line crossovers at Bourne End and Ledburn plus track alterations at Tring and Bletchley. All these works required extensive resignalling.
But, in the middle of January Informed Sources in the Alliance had some worrying news. Railtrack had spent so long reviewing the scheme that it was now too late to manufacture the hardware in time, even though the members of the alliance had been awarded early works agreements to fund the design.
When I mentioned this news to Virgin it came as a big surprise, because Railtrack had said nothing about any deferment. It was news to Silverlink too.
Why hadn't Railtrack mentioned this little change of plan? Well you know how it is, if the blockades were in the timetable, you might as well use them to fettle the slow lines. which have turned out to need more work than expected, and the overhead line equipment could do with some fettling.
Over the 18 weekends from 10/11 August to 7/8 December Railtrack was planning to close all four tracks between Hemel Hempstead and Bletchley from 03.00 on Saturdays. For the first five weeks the blockade would last until 05.00 on Monday and for the remainder of the year they would reopen at 16.00 on Sunday.
During the blockades the northern terminal would be Milton Keynes with Silverlink providing a shuttle service between Euston and Hemel Hempstead . A complex bus substitution plan bridged the gap, including serving intermediate stations
A big operation, indeed. To smooth the flows of passengers changing between trains and buses at Hemel Hempstead a temporary staircase and ramp was intended to separate passengers joining trains at platform 4, from passengers alighting from Down trains at platform 3 who would have exclusive use of the existing subway.
What happens now remains to be seen. The obvious move would be to defer the blockades until 2003/04 and install the new signalling and trackwork then. The 2003 timetable conference is scheduled for June. But there have also been suggestions that the work might be deferred to 2005.
With Son of Hartwell (Informed Sources ???) still being negotiated and likely to see Virgin running only 10 fast trains an hour in the peak, the need for the Watford-Bletchley works is probably reduced. But if the work is rescheduled for 2003/04, Virgin is going to be more than miffed because the May 2003 timetable is supposed to see the introduction of tilt and 125mile/h by its West Coast Pendolino fleet.
And six months earlier, the new ‘clock face' Virgin Cross Country timetable will have come into force and the introduction of blocades from August 2003 could wreck the Pendolino introduction and affect connections at Birmingham