On 19 Dec, 08:43, Mwmbwls wrote:

He also described freight operator EWS as "barrow boys" and cited the
company as an example of where the committee had not been able to
clarify funding needs. "It became quite obvious when many committee
members visited its operations - I could not go - that attempts were
being made to pull the wool over our eyes. That is a glaring example
of a case where the funding was not understood. We could not get to
the bottom of what it was trying to do, or of what it wanted. The new
clause, if it is accepted, will push such organisations into a
position where they have to say precisely what their contribution to
the costs will be."

Just what financial contributions are the committee expecting from a
freight operator towards a new passenger railway whose aim seems to be
to eliminate "pesky" freight from existing joint use lines.

George

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

Point taken, though, Twyford is a far more important station than i'd
realised.

It taps into a lot of traffic from the Wokingham area which would
otherwise have to take the slow service to Waterloo.

Ah, i see.

Hmm. It looks like a train from Wokingham to Waterloo takes 68
minutes; a
train from Twyford to Paddington which stops at Maidenhead only takes
32,
and one which stops at eight stations on the way takes 50 minutes.
Crossrail would presumably be more like 50 minutes.

I would hope an electrified service would do better than that.

How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's
always puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much preferred
to diesels? Do they accelerate faster? I assume it's not a question of
top speed.

Asside from the comments made so far, electric equipment is generally
more reliable because they have fewer moving parts to wear out, and
don't vibrate as much to shake things loose.

Robin