European Railroad Discussion > Twyford, UK on the Great Western Main

A few photos from Tuesday in the UK. This was my third business trip to the UK this summer, and I decided to take along a camera and try a few shots to kill some dead time. After landing at Heathrow on Tuesday I drove over to Twyford on the Great Western Main and spent some time before heading to the hotel in Reading.

I had never been to Twyford before, but had seen the bridges there while riding the train in the past and thought they might yield interesting photos.

I guess this line will be electrified in the near future. Too bad, I have enjoyed riding the diesel powered express trains in and out of London Paddington on this line for almost 20 years.

Interestingly, there was a railfan from Yorkshire taking photos when I arrived and later a 65 yr old or so woman showed up with a video camera to shoot a few trains.

2-3. Container train

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Lots of MoW activity getting ready for electrification.

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Not sure why there is a DB motor in the UK.

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A few more.

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When we privatised our railway we offered companies the opportunity to bid for franchises to run passenger trains. However, the freight side was split up into three (I think) companies and then they were offered for sale. They all ended up being owned by EWS (England Wales and Scotish Railways Ltd) who were, in turn, owned by Wisconsin Central. That then got sold to DB and although most of the locomotives are still running around in EWS colours a few have been painted in DB livery and very recent reports suggest more are having DB stickers attached. In the meantime several other companies have started operations and provide effective competion to EWS/DB.

Thanks for the great pictures of a wonderful stretch of our railway.

You asked about the presence of DB locos on our network. There is a huge irony around the privatisation of our railways. At the time, in the mid 1990s, British Rail received a subsidy of about £1.5 billion annually. Since privatisation this is now well over four times greater in spite of a huge growth in passenger business. The infrastructure business has been renationalised because it went broke, most of the freight business has been bought by the German State railways, while many passenger operations are now owned by the German and Dutch state operations with the French making serious bids. The Paris public transport undertaking already owns a good chunk of London buses! Added to this the rolling stock fleets are largely owned by banks, who make a good living out of charging extortionate leasing rates. A former colleague of mine made a personal fortune of $30 million from an initial investment of $150,000 by selling his share in a rolling stock company to a Japanese bank in the 90's.

In short, the whole thing stinks, while any initiatives and enterprise shown could have been achieved within a publicly owned framework provided the right objectives were given.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/14 18:17 by spflow.

Interesting pictures with a wide variety of all kinds of U.K. rolling stock, thank you!

One thing that strikes to me is the almost flat profile of the rail line. Is this a coincidence or is this one of the "old lines" when it was thought that not enough friction on rails was available to go over the hills and down the valleys?

This part of Brunels broad gauge route from London to Bristol which he laid flat (which is at least part of the reason it goes by Swindon) and as straight as reasonably possible.

OK, that explains, thank you!

Hartington Wrote:
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> This part of Brunels broad gauge route from London
> to Bristol which he laid flat (which is at least
> part of the reason it goes by Swindon) and as
> straight as reasonably possible.

McKey Wrote:
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> OK, that explains, thank you!
>
> Hartington Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > This part of Brunels broad gauge route from
> London
> > to Bristol which he laid flat (which is at
> least
> > part of the reason it goes by Swindon) and as
> > straight as reasonably possible.

This is true, but understates the achievement. the line was built in the late 1830s as a broad gauge and high speed route to Bristol, 118 miles away. The greatest gradient between London and Box tunnel, just east of Bath and around 100 miles from London is about 1 in 1000 (ie 0.1%), with a sudden descent through the tunnel, almost 2 miles long, of 1 in 100.

It is said that on Brunel's birthday, April 9th, the risng sun can be seen to shine straight through the tunnel! Can anyone confirm this?

0,1% must have been pure magic in 1830s!

What do you mean by high speed railway at that time? And how broad was the gauge? Looks like there would be room on the trackbed even for a Hitler gauge of 4 meters...

> It is said that on Brunel's birthday, April 9th,
> the risng sun can be seen to shine straight
> through the tunnel! Can anyone confirm this?

I've heard this quite a few times, but it is a theory that is a bit difficult to check--if you wanted to try it next April the sun rises at 06:19, but you might want to watch your back as the 06:00 from Bristol will be going through the tunnel at 100mph around the same time. I think that the actual science of it works out--on a clear day you should be able the see through the tunnel and the sun should be there around that time of year. But trying it out might be tough.

I think I might ask some questions about this.

Twyford will still see some diesel hauled services after electrification as the West of England services are still going to be HSTs. The wires will only be going to Bristol and South Wales, so anything beyond that will be diesel.

qnyla Wrote:
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>
> Interestingly, there was a railfan from Yorkshire
> taking photos when I arrived and later a 65 yr old
> or so woman showed up with a video camera to shoot
> a few trains.
>
> 2-3. Container train


Those bridges and the cutting have been a favourite photo location for at least a century. Some of the pioneers of railway photography took images there.

McKey Wrote:
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> What do you mean by high speed railway at that
> time? And how broad was the gauge? Looks like
> there would be room on the trackbed even for a
> Hitler gauge of 4 meters...

The gauge was 7 feet (2.15 metres), and was only finally abolished in 1892, although a Royal Commission in 1848 suggested that no new exclusively broad gauge line should be built, because the majority of the country had already adopted the standard Stephenson gauge. However several hundred miles of 7 foot network had already been constructed by that time.

As to speed, by the late 1840s the large 4-2-2 locos were routinely achieving 80 mph, and schedules of over 50mph were in operation over distances of up to 195 miles.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/14 15:19 by spflow.

Yes, and all without the refinements of bogie carriages, continuous brakes or any signalling to speak of!

Nice pictures by the way, those 59/2s were the first class to get the DBS cherry red livery en masse, it brighten things up. The intermodal train is the 4L31 from Bristol to Tilbury, among other things it carries wine imported via Portbury/Avonmouth. It's a relatively new service, Freightliner only opened their terminal in Bristol a few years ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/14 23:52 by 86235.

86235 Wrote:
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> Yes, and all without the refinements of bogie
> carriages, continuous brakes or any signalling to
> speak of!
>
> Nice pictures by the way, those 59/2s were the
> first class to get the DBS cherry red livery en
> masse, it brighten things up. The intermodal train
> is the 4L31 from Bristol to Tilbury, among other
> things it carries wine imported via
> Portbury/Avonmouth. It's a relatively new service,
> Freightliner only opened their terminal in Bristol
> a few years ago.

Thank you for the information!

Since this line among others is going to electrified, this lead me to think about what the locomotives might be? Will "the standard European boxes" (TRAXX F140 AC2 and Vectron 64AC, etc.) finally be OK for here, after all of these these are NOT very wide in a loading gauge sense as they need to be able to travel the old lines of continental Europe too, or something purpose built for U.K. again? I suppose the existing electric fleet numbers are far from what will be needed here.

Pictures by Nick, Ilkka and Siemens Mobility.

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McKey Wrote:
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> Since this line among others is going to
> electrified, this lead me to think about what the
> locomotives might be?

I doubt very much that locomotives will be involved, at least not initially. Long distance passenger trains will be Hitachi IEPs, MUs for the rest. Freight will most likely remain diesel powered.

So no common European models here either for a foreseeable future.

86235 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> McKey Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Since this line among others is going to
> > electrified, this lead me to think about what
> the
> > locomotives might be?
>
> I doubt very much that locomotives will be
> involved, at least not initially. Long distance
> passenger trains will be Hitachi IEPs, MUs for the
> rest. Freight will most likely remain diesel
> powered.

I doubt it unless Siemens, Bombardier or A N Other can shoe horn something for our loading gauge. No one's shown any interest so far.