Firstly, an interesting link from the Daily Telegraph, about future driverless trains for London Underground.
Images of the new tube, which will feature air cooling, walk-through carriages and wider doors, were unveiled by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, on Thursday.
The air cooling will be most welcome. The new stock on the District has it, and it is good even for the surface lines. It is also very noticeable on the new District stock how the slab sides have gone and the is a classic tumblehome – it allows the stock to be a little wider and have more standing room inside. Contrary to rumours, the new deep tube stock won’t look like this…
Secondly, I’d totally missed that there is a new railway being built from Edinburgh to Carlisle through the Border country. (Bet they’re all glad they don’t have to have immigration checks on the train). The BBC has this excellent article on the track laying machines, and some of the other links are interesting, too.
“The process is quite technical, but simple in the same way.
“It just pulls the track – 100-metre sections – off in front of it and they clip it to the new sleepers.”
However, that is quite a logistical operation when it has to stretch all the way from Edinburgh to the heart of the Scottish Borders.
The machine will “chase” the sleeper laying team all the way to Tweedbank in the Borders“There are 97,000 railway sleepers currently being laid out down the 30-mile route and this machine will be chasing the sleeper team all the way down to Tweedbank,” said Mr MacKay
esngblog 