East Coast Main Line

Edinburgh – London
Route length:	632 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	25 kV 50 Hz  ~
Legend 0 m 00 ch Edinburgh Waverley Calton tunnel by Powderhall from Leith Docks to Millerhill Yard and Edinburgh Crossrail / Waverley Line 5m 13ch Musselburgh 6m 11ch from Millerhill Yard 7m 54ch Wallyford 9m 40ch Prestonpans Blindwells 13m 18ch Longniddry 17m 60ch Drem 22m 22ch North Berwick 29m 05ch Dunbar 31m 20ch Oxwellmains Torness 54m 50ch 69m 67ch Scotland / England 67m 00ch Berwick-upon-Tweed 51m 45ch Belford 46m 01ch Chathill 34m 69ch Alnmouth 28m 43ch Acklington 23m 20ch Widdrington Station and Stobswood 20m 63ch from Butterwell 18m 44ch Pegswood 16m 56ch from Newsham 16m 50ch Morpeth Tyne and Wear Metro 9m 74ch Cramlington Heaton 0m 46ch Manors 0m 14ch to the High Level Bridge 0m 00ch 80m 16ch Newcastle Central 79m 57ch Newcastle South Bypass Tyne Valley Line Tyne Valley Line 71m 72ch Chester-le-Street 66m 13ch Durham 58m 71ch to Ferryhill Yard 56m 17ch from Ferryhill Yard 44m 36ch from Eastgate 44m 10ch Darlington 43m 50ch after Eaglescliffe 30m 63ch according to Redmire Northallerton-Redmire Railway 29m 76ch Northallerton 22m 16ch Thirsk 1m 50ch from Leeds York freight yard York – Scarborough railway York Railway Museum 0m00ch 188m 40ch York after Church Fenton to Saltend Leeds – Saltend railway line from Leeds by Selby Knottingley – Gilberdyke railway line from Knottingley Adwick – Stainforth & Hatfield railway line Doncaster West Bypass by Stainforth & Hatfield 155m 77ch Doncaster Hexthorpe Yard Balby Bridge Tunnel Belmont Yard Decoy yard Shiredaks – Kirk Sandall railway line Doncaster – Gainsborough Railway 143m 79ch Ranskill 138m 49ch Retford Sheffield – Gainsborough railway line Shirebrook – High Marnham railway line 126m 27ch Carlton 120m 51ch Newark Crossing (same level) with Nottingham-Lincoln railway line 120m 08ch Newark North Gate 115m 27ch Claypole Nottingham – Sleaford railway line Peascliffe Tunnel of Nottingham 105m 38ch Grantham Stoke tunnel Stoke Summit 84m 64ch Tallington 76m 29ch Peterborough Ely − Peterborough railway line Conington South 58m 70ch Huntingdon 55m 76ch Offord 51m 58ch St Neots Little Barford 44m 10ch Sandy 41m 13ch Biggleswade 37m 03ch Arlesey Hitchin-Cambridge railway line 31m 74ch Hitchin 27m 45ch Stevenage to Hertford 25m 03ch Knebworth Welwyn North Tunnel Welwyn South Tunnel 22m 00ch Welwyn North 20m 25ch Welwyn Garden City 17m 54ch Hatfield 15m 50ch Welham Green 14m 37ch Brookmans Park 12m 57ch Potter's Bar Potter's Bar Tunnel Hadley Wood North Tunnel 10m 46ch Hadley Wood Hadley Wood South Tunnel 9m 12ch New Barnet 8m 30ch Oakleigh Park Barnet tunnel 6m 35ch New Southgate Wood Green Tunnel Alexandra Palce – Stevenage railway line 4m 78ch Alexandra Palace 4m 04ch Hornsey 3m 32ch Harringay London outer ring 2m 41ch Finsbury Park Northern City Line Copenhagen tunnel North London Line High Speed ​​One Canal tunnels to the widened lines Gasworks tunnel 0m 00ch London King's Cross

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is one of the UK's major rail lines . In its course from south to north near the east coast, it connects London with Yorkshire , north-east England and Edinburgh in Scotland .

Infrastructure

The network infrastructure company Network Rail calculates the following routes to the ECML:

• the main line between King's Cross in London and Waverley in Edinburgh, via Stevenage , Peterborough , Grantham , Doncaster , York , Darlington , Durham , Newcastle upon Tyne , Berwick-upon-Tweed and Dunbar
• the Doncaster to Leeds route via Wakefield
• the branch line to North Berwick east of Edinburgh
• the branch line from London Moorgate to Finsbury Park in London ( Northern City Line )
• the Hertford Loop Line to Stevenage

Concourse of London's Kings Cross station with three GNER trains

Deviating from the definition of Network Rail, the route beyond Edinburgh to Aberdeen is also included, as it mostly runs along the east coast. The route from Edinburgh to Glasgow via Carstairs and Motherwell is officially part of the West Coast Main Line , but is often considered part of the ECML as many ECML trains also operate on this section.

Today, speeds of up to 125 mph (201 km / h) are reached on the route. If the signaling system were improved, the stretched lines would often allow even higher speeds; the electrically powered IC225 trains were designed for 140 mph (225 km / h). During test drives, speeds of up to 160 mph (257 km / h) were occasionally achieved. These relatively high speeds are possible because the ECML runs in a straight line for long stretches through flat eastern England .

North of Newark-on-Trent there is a level junction with the Nottingham-Lincoln railroad , which operates at 125 mph.

The line is to be equipped with ETCS . A framework agreement is to be put out to tender in June 2018. In addition, the procurement of a traffic management system (TMS) is planned.

history

The ECML was built in sections by numerous small railway companies. Mergers and acquisitions resulted in three companies ultimately controlling the route. From north to south these were the North British Railway (NBR), the North Eastern Railway (NER) and the Great Northern Railway (GNR). In 1860 they agreed to use standardized rolling stock (East Coast Joint Stock) in order to be able to offer continuous connections. In the 1920s, the NER planned to electrify the Newcastle upon Tyne – York section with 1500 V direct current and commissioned the NER No. 13 electric express locomotive . The project was discontinued when the three companies in the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) went up in 1923 .

Numerous famous steam locomotives were used on the ECML such as B. the LNER class A3 “Flying Scotsman” and the LNER class A4 “Mallard” . The latter was traveling on the Grantham – Peterborough route at 201.2 km / h on July 3, 1938, and thus holds the speed record for steam locomotives to this day. These were replaced by diesel locomotives at the beginning of the 1960s , above all by the twin-engine BR Class 55 , the most powerful diesel locomotives ever built in Great Britain. Between 1976 and 1991 the InterCity125 trains (also HST = High Speed ​​Train) were the show horses on the route.

After the southern section of the ECML to Hitchin had already been electrified for suburban traffic in London in the mid / late 1970s , further parts of the ECML were also electrified for long-distance traffic in the 1980s. Work began in 1985. In 1988, electric locomotives ran for the first time on the section between London King's Cross and Leeds . The conversion was completed at the end of 1990 and the new InterCity 225 rolling stock was used. Nevertheless, some diesel trains, including HST trains, still run on the ECML today. They serve connections that also include branching branch lines without overhead lines or operate north of Edinburgh on the non-electrified sections in the direction of Inverness and Aberdeen .

business

The ECML is one of the busiest routes in the country and has reached its capacity limits on some sections. Although the section south of Peterborough has been expanded to four tracks, the double-track Welvyn Viaduct north of London is a bottleneck. There are other bottlenecks south of Newcastle.

Railtrack proposed an extensive modernization program in the late 1990s. This included, among other things, the four-lane expansion of the Welvyn Viaduct, the renewal of the overhead line, the increase in speed to 140 mph (225 km / h), the removal of the level crossing in Newark-on-Trent, the conversion of the Peterborough station and the Reopening of diversion routes for freight traffic. Since the costs of modernizing the West Coast Main Line were massively exceeded, the Strategic Rail Authority was forced to make drastic cuts to the original program.

See also

• List of railway lines in Great Britain
• Rail transport in Great Britain

literature

• MG Ball: European Railway Atlas. British Isles . 2nd ed. Shepperton 1996.

Web links

Commons : East Coast Main Line  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Intelligence Market . In: Railway Gazette International . tape 172 , no. 1 , 2016, ISSN  0373-5346 , p. 16 f . (among other titles online ).
2. ^ Germany-Stuttgart: Catenary construction work. Document 2018 / S 075-166100. In: Supplement to the Electronic Official Journal of the European Union . April 18, 2018, accessed on April 19, 2018 (German). 
3. ^ The United Kingdom-London: software package for railway control systems. In: ted.europa.eu. June 15, 2018, accessed June 15, 2018 . 
4. ^ York - Newcastle Electrification. In: spellerweb.net. Retrieved May 1, 2016 . 
5. ^ The Throat: a record of rationalization at Kings Cross . In: Modern Railways . October 1977, p. 397-401 .