Slight overspend

[bernardgreen]

Budget was about 275 million UK pounds

The project is now on hold as the expenditure so far is 1,300 million UK pounds.

Nutwork Fail is the company that got the budget just a little bit wrong.

London Midland Rail electrification from Bedford to Sheffield.

 

[jockscott]

Just shows you how much overtime costs these days (when they do F All during their allotted shifts) And yes, I do have some friends who work for Network Rail (and tell me things about how to get loads of overtime without actually working)

 

[bernardgreen]

Some of the cost over runs is due to sheer incompetance in the engineering department. One example is the new bridge at Soudrop. Built from precast concrete sections and designed specifically for the location on arrival at site the pieces did not fit together. 8 inch gaps in places between sections that should have met almost seemlessly together. And why have them cast in Ireland and transported to England. Are there no compnaies in England that can precast concrete sections. There are pages of "calculations" about fuel and transport costs and the "carbon equation" involved in bring them to England by lorry and ferry "proves" it was enviromentally the best option ( or if not the best it was at least enviromentally acceptable )

 

[Belboz]

Wow!

People actually want to travel to Sheffield.

 

[bernardgreen]

Trains run in both directions, to and from Sheffield

But on a serious note, a lot of wild life habitat. trees and shrub land has been destroyed. Several old, beautiful and and venerable bridges have been replaced by hideous gey brick coated concrete constructions. Massive disruptions to local residents from prolonged main road closures and diversions lasting more than 5 months ( in one case 8 months ) routing HGVs through small villages. Several of these new bridges still need remedial work before they are completely finished.

 

[bernardgreen]

Several fine mature trees, home to many birds amd their young, destroyed in the past weeks by Network Rail. For a project now cancelled

 

[big-all]

the cutting down off trees will probably be routine maintinance un connected with the electrification work

 

[Belboz]

Still sad though.

 

[big-all]

yes i agree its sad
most trees are removed for safety reason like adhesion problems[wheel slip and slide]
or too allow better sighting at signals and crossing

 

[JBR]

yes i agree its sad
most trees are removed for safety reason like adhesion problems[wheel slip and slide]
or too allow better sighting at signals and crossing

Yes, the famous 'leaves on the line'. They'll have to think up some other plausible excuse for delays and cancellations now.

 

[jockscott]

Yes, the famous 'leaves on the line'. They'll have to think up some other plausible excuse for delays and cancellations now.

They just have,, "The train now standing on platform 2 can't go any further because the overhead wires stop here."

 

[big-all]

yes i agree its sad
most trees are removed for safety reason like adhesion problems[wheel slip and slide]
or too allow better sighting at signals and crossing

Yes, the famous 'leaves on the line'. They'll have to think up some other plausible excuse for delays and cancellations now.

its actual fact leaves grease the metal to metal contact
you get about 8% off the weight as going and stopping power with metal to metal contact so a 100 ton loco can exert around 8 tons off pulling effort more than enough for day to day running
broad leaf trees are particularly bad with the movement off the train stirring up the leaves on the ground and transporting them for a few feet causing often many hundreds off yards with little adhesion

nowadays they have sandite type trains that clean the rails and apply a paste with sand and metal particles in it to maintain track circuits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandite

and before you ask i was on the footplate[drivers cab]man and boy from 1974-1994 17 years as an actual driver 3 as a second man[trainee driver]

 

[JBR]

Bring back steam locomotives. They didn't seem to suffer from leaves!

 

[big-all]

funny you should say that that was part off the problem pre 66 the steam engines would set fire to the banks and little or no trees would grow
any that did where removed by the platelayers[track men] as part off maintaining the permanent way [rails and ground either side]
plus in the 70s more and more welded rails with concrete sleepers reduced the available trackmen to a fraction so trackside pruning and general care went bye the bye
so most off the trees being cut down will be 50 years old or less

 

[Belboz]

My Dad's mate was a fireman on Black 5s. I had an 'N' gauge black 5 when I was young.

Ahh..memories...