In July, the UK Department for Transport published "Britain's Transport Infrastructure: rail electrification". It said that an immediate start would be made on electrifying the Great Western Main Line (GWML) between Airport Junction (where the Heathrow Express route diverges) and Oxford, Newbury, Bristol and Swansea; and one of the lines between Liverpool and Manchester would also be electrified.

This is all good news. One incidental benefit of electrifying that particular Manchester - Liverpool line is that trains between Manchester Airport and Glasgow/Edinburgh, currently running "under the wires" for over 80% of their journey, will be able to use electric rather than diesel traction throughout.

An interesting couple of paragraphs (52/3) discuss direct rail access from the west to Heathrow Airport - from places like Slough, Maidenhead and Reading.

This would also be a good idea - it's a prime airport catchment area!

Reading, of course, would be served directly from Heathrow by the Airtrack project - something for which BAA and Heathrow Airport are currently seeking permission (see www.airtrack.org).

Slough and Maidenhead are much more difficult. There is a line from Reading to Staines which would connect into Airtrack to Heathrow - but this bypasses Slough and Maidenhead to the south. The line from Reading through Maidenhead and Slough goes about 4 km north of Heathrow - and running trains from this line into the airport would be tricky.

One solution is to reverse trains at Hayes. That's possible - but it takes up track capacity (because a train crossing from the westbound line to the eastbound line blocks both of them for a while). With Crossrail coming, will there be enough capacity - both at Hayes and at Airport Junction?

So passengers could just change trains at Hayes. As they could now, of course - except that air passengers don't like changing trains, for all sorts of understandable reasons.

Is it possible to hook Slough and Maidenhead into Airtrack?

Well, that's tricky.

There is a line from the GWML at West Drayton to Colnbrook, close to the airport. This was very heavily used for building materials (steel, sand and cement in particular) when Terminal 5 was being built - and this saved the M25 from being gridlocked. One problem is that the junction with the main line at West Drayton faces London and not Slough: major surgery would be needed to create a west-facing connection. Another is that the line at Colnbrook is on the wrong side of the M25 - a non-trivial obstacle. It's not obvious how that could be overcome easily.

Another alternative is a new west-facing junction off the GWML west of the airport and a new line into Terminal 5. Feasible, but not cheap. This was something discussed in the context of serving Heathrow by the new high speed line, HS2, in a report issued recently by IARO (see the Publications page of our main web-site). And is Airtrack being built in a way which would accommodate this?

Paragraph 53 of the report concludes, "The commitment now being made to electrification will have a positive impact on the case for Western rail access to Heathrow, and we look forward to the local authorities and BAA taking this into account in their further assessments of airport surface access requirements". So do I - it's an interesting challenge!

Network Rail has arranged exhibitions of plans for the tram-rail interchange at Gyle, west of Edinburgh.

The two-level interchange will allow rail passengers to transfer to tram to access the airport.

Two exhibitions have already been held, and another is planned for Waverley Station. Details can be found on the Network Rail website

Original plans were for a heavy rail line direct to the airport, which lies between two main line railways - those between Edinburgh and Glasgow and Edinburgh and Fife. A series of junctions would have connected a new station under the airport with almost everywhere in Scotland. Sadly, these planes were abandoned by the incoming SNP Government on cost grounds: rail passengers will now have to travel to the new Gogar station (close to the Gyle shopping centre) and change to the tram.

This, of course, will not be nearly as popular among air passengers: adding an additional interchange adds additional uncertainty and potential unreliability.

The tram line is to open in July 2011.

Oakland International Airport is just over 3 km from Coliseum Station, on the BART subway system. There have been plans to put in some kind of rail connection for 12-15 years, and debate still continues.

The current connection is by shuttle bus, AirBART, which runs every 10 minutes.

The bus service could be improved, or some kind of guided system could be installed - and most of the feasible options have been evaluated in the last 15 years!

I believe that a rail shuttle, ideally with through trains to downtown San Francisco rather than just running back and forth between the airport and Coliseum, is the best solution. Especially since Coliseum is more than just a subway station - it is on the very successful San Jose - Sacramento Capital Corridor regional rail line.

What evidence is there that patronage is better (or worse!) if rail or bus is used for this kind of shuttle service?

Now is a good time to get the right answer - there is expertise within IARO, but there are also experts out there with hard evidence! Let me know, please.

Opponents of high speed rail in the United States sometimes express the view that while it works in Europe and Asia, it won't in the US because there are very few cities with dense urban transit networks to act as feeders.

I have never accepted this argument.

Supposing, today, you wish to travel from your home in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to a meeting in Irving, Texas. You'll drive your own car to Chicago O'Hare airport and park it there. You'll fly to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. And you'll hire a car there to drive to Irving.

Tomorrow (or maybe the day after) you'll do much the same. You'll drive your car to the high-speed rail station - which might be in downtown Chicago or at O'Hare airport - and park it there. You'll take the high-speed train to whichever station in the Metroplex is closest to your destination. And you'll hire a car to drive to Irving.

Is there a difference? Does the absence of urban transit cause a problem? Does it make high-speed rail impossible? I think not.

This note was prompted by reading a recent issue of "Destination: Freedom", the electronic newsletter of the National Corridors Initiative (NCI). The editor had been on vacation in Europe and had noticed that some TGV stations (like Avignon and Valence TGV) were
(1) a long way from the cities they served and
(2) surrounded by very full car parks.

This shows that the system works! High speed rail works and satisfies a need despite the fact that some stations occupy a central position in the middle of nowhere.

And you might like to look at the NCI web-site for yourself - visit the National Corridors Initiative web-site.

On a recent flight back from Stockholm Arlanda, I noticed a slightly different boarding procedure.

At the gate, check-in staff collected boarding passes or read the 2D bar-codes on print-at-home ones. A printer nearby printed off a bus-ticket-sized piece of paper with key details - flight number, name, seat, and presumably date.

Interesting.

Is this done to make the life of the cabin crew easier - after all, they have to scan anything from stubs of conventional boarding passes to print-at-home boarding passes to SMS messages on mobile phones. Presumably it's easier if all passengers have the same size piece of paper!

Does anyone know? Is this really the reason, or have I missed something?

I was on a walking holiday in Southern Sweden recently, staying in the pleasant little town of Nykoping. There are no big hills there, just forest, rocky inlets and arable land - very pleasant, very low-key.

One downside of where we stayed - about a kilometre from the harbour - was that, by the harbour, there was a cafe which broadcast very loud live music every night except Sunday. Sometimes it started at 21:00: sometimes at 22:00. By 2:30 mercifully all was quiet.

And I wondered why.

Presumably the cafe wants to increase its patronage - in which case, why amplify the music so much that a quarter of the town could hear it? If there was no amplification, people wanting to listen would have to go to the cafe and listen, rather than just sit there with their windows open!

Presumably the performers like a big audience. I have news for them. Hearing their over-loud performance from a kilometre away sounded terrible - but I'm told that, close up, it was really not bad.

Presumably some of the population liked hearing it, and looked forward to a free night's entertainment. But my guess is that they were outnumbered by that part of the population which didn't like that style of music, needed to get up early in the morning, had small children to try to pacify or just fancied a good night's sleep!

Presumably no-one dislikes it so much that they are driven to call the police or go down to the cafe with a pickaxe! Or they all leave it to each other and no-one does anything!

But certainly my abiding memory of this pretty town will be, sadly, that it's not a place to go to again unless I stay somewhere well away from the harbour.

Why do they do that?

One of the worst railway bottlenecks in the United States is just west of Fort Worth, Texas, where major east-west and north-south lines cross on the level at a location known as Tower 55.

Given the American passion for long, slow, double-stack container trains and the like, the potential for delays is considerable.

The obvious solution is grade separation. The local highway geography does not favour a rail-over-rail bridge, so a 3 kilometre long rail-under-rail trench is proposed.

The trench would be 10 metres deep and 18 metres wide, and would run east-west. Construction would necessitate reconstruction of some local streets: local people oppose this.

Building it north-south rather than east-west would achieve the same objective, and would have the advantage that it would be less disruptive to the community and could be built on railway owned land. However, it would dislocate rail traffic in the short term while it was being built, and would be more expensive operationally in the long term because of the gradient which would face northbound trains.

Maybe a solution is to deck over the trench - for parkland, for commercial development, for community facilites, for car parking. Sure, it would need good ventilation because of the use of diesel traction, but that is manageable.

Certainly it would be good to see a solution to the problem: it is currently very disruptive to the two main freight railways, BNSF and Union Pacific, as well as to Amtrak.

Are ticket barriers worth having?

If you MUST have them, what considerations do you need to take into account? I think there are two main areas - physical and ticketing.

Physical

The kind of full-height interlocking meshing turnstile which you see on the New York Subway (and which I associate with sports grounds) are unfriendly, unwelcoming and very difficult for passengers with luggage.

The old Eurostar barriers (now replaced) where you inserted your ticket, watched in bemusement as it shot in and out two or three times and then retrieved it from the same slot, are slow and confusing.

It's much more intuitive to insert a ticket in one slot and retrieve it from another one a step onwards in the direction of travel: this speeds up passenger flow as well.

The systems which have two retracting gates provide them in different forms.
Eurostar in Brussels has 2-metre high glass ones. These are confusing until used by someone who knows how they work - then herd instinct takes over and everyone follows the crowd.
London Underground has two flap-style opening gates: these seem to work well. The extra wide ones, for wheelchairs and buggies, are valuable but of course can allow more than one person through at the same time (although frequent users of the Paris Metro will tell you that no barrier system is proof against this!).

The three-legged milkstool arrangement is also good, especially since passengers with wheeled cases can drag them after them underneath the closed gates.

Ticketing

A major defect of barriers is that they do not allow ticket sales on board - something which is popular, even if such tickets are sold at a premium.

I remember the Gatwick Express posters showing a train seat labelled, "Our latest ticket office". The clear message was that you'd queued at check-in, you'd queued at security, you'd queued for a coffee, you'd queued for duty free, you'd queued to get on and off the plane and you'd queued for Immigration - but you didn't need to queue for a train ticket! Wonderful!

I know of no way round this.

Maybe promoting bulk advance purchases (pre-pay, pre-purchase, carnets) is an answer. It would be one way of reducing the amount of queueing passengers have to do. Maybe doing so in conjunction with some kind of Fast Track package would help sell the idea.

If you must have barriers, ensure that they are compatible with 2D barcodes on mobile phones or paper printed-at-home tickets. Ensure that they are compatible with encrypted numeric codes (for people whose mobile phones don't support pictures).
One brand, on trial in Sweden, claims a processing time of 50 milliseconds. This might lead to an always-open barrier - one which is open as long as people are presenting ticekts to a reader: if someone doesn't, the barrier closes until they do.

Barriers need to be staffed. Staff need to be aware of potential problems - prams, buggies, luggage - and need to be pro-active in handling them. Training - ideally by giving the staff the problems themselves to surmount - is vital.

Are barriers really a good idea on airport railways?

I'm planning to put a dedicated page on one of IARO's web-sites to guide people to the 17 Airport Expresses in the world.

The plan is that the page will have links to the ticketing pages of each of those railways - to on-line ticket purchase, if that's available, or to the most relevant page if not.

I believe that people using an Airport Express at the start of their journey are likely to be interested in using one at the end, if it's available, and this page will help. After all, an Airport Express will typically cost half as much and take half as long as a taxi!

Another post on this blog has discussed the definition of an Airport Express: feedback on that is welcome.

You might argue that IARO ought to be publicising more than just Airport Expresses - some international, national, regional and suburban railways serve airports and some of them are members of IARO.

The answer, of course, is the web-site www.airportrailwaysoftheworld.com. This lists all airports with a rail connection and tells you what kind of connection they have (express, regional, light rail). It also gives (where known) the web-site, email address and phone number of airport and rail operators.

I'll let you know through this blog how the Airport Express page idea progresses!

Bahrain International Airport intends to provide a high speed rail link into its planned "Cargo Oasis" - its greatly expanded cargo area.

The airport is already a hub for DHL, and wishes to attract more cargo traffic.

DHL is already involved in a potential high speed rail link for cargo at its European hub, Leipzig-Halle Airport.

More information about both projects would be appreciated.

The UK Government's recently announced electrification strategy brings an interesting opportunity.

Electrification of one of the lines connecting Manchester and Liverpool means that it will be possible to run electric trains between Manchester Airport and Scotland. The present services between the airport and Glasgow/Edinburgh use diesel multiple units.

Just over 80% of the route is electrified: that's not enough!

Electric traction is cleaner, more reliable and faster, so this should be a further boost for Manchester Airport and its popular and valuable regional rail connections.

The relevant bit of the strategy document can be found on the DfT web-site.

Look at the strategy on the DfT web-site