Vivarail's 'D Train' - 'D' stock reborn

There was talk at one time of de-electrifying north of Newcastle, as most services had to be diesel anyway as they either ran north of Edinburgh or, south of York ran to Leeds or Sheffield and beyond, so the cost of maintaining the infrastructure was hard to justify.

St Pancras, electrified in 1982, lost all its electric services in 1988 when they went down the hole. Apart from brief periods when the Thameslink core was shut, scheduled electric services only returned to St Pancras in 2007

The ex LNER lines around Newcastle -Upon-Tyne had their 3rd rail removed in the early 70s and became worked by DMUs till they were electrified again as part of the Metro.

The North London Line falls into all those categories: the Camden Road - North Woolwich section has been converted from top-contact 3rd rail to OHL from Camden to just north of Stratford, converted to DLR (bottom-contact 3rd rail) between there and Canning Town, is in the process of being rebuilt with OHLE for Crossrail from Canning Town to just short of North Woolwich and closed completely beyond there.

The East London Line core and New Cross branch were converted from 4th to 3rd rail electrification.

I'm not sure OTTOMH whether any of the changes for the East London Line extension in the Highbury & Islington-Canonbury area resulted in any trackbed being converted from OHLE to 3rd rail electrification or not, however the short stretch of line between Highbury & Islington platform 2 and the present North London Line has had it's electrification removed - although as no services regularly use it, it could be counted as closed and it certainly within the spirit of North End's "odd spur or siding".

Various sections of the formerly-dc-electrified Woodhead route are still in use. The central section under the Pennines lost its passenger service in 1971 and was closed completely in 1981. The dc electrification was shut down over the entire route at the same time.
From Manchester as far as Hadfield, together with the Glossop branch, was converted to ac.
On the other side of the Pennines, trains continued to run as far as Penistone, on the route to Huddersfield (I am not aware of service patterns prior to 1971, it is probable that Penistone-Huddersfield was run as a diesel service connecting with the electric Sheffield-Manchester trains). Although at the time this was a conscious decision to run a diesel service over an electrified line (from 1971-1981), and over a de-electrified line (from 1981), funding was approved in 1983 to divert the service via Barnsley, so of the former electrified route only a short section in the Penistone area now sees passenger trains. (This diversion also avoided the awkward reversal at Nunnery Junction necessitated by trains on the GCR route via Deepcar using Midland rather than the closed Victoria station in Sheffield.

The Woodhead main line remains open for (diesel) freight from Deepcar into Sheffield. The electrification extended east of Sheffield as far as Tinsley marshalling yard, on the line to Retford, but the passenger services on that stretch were never electric, so de-electrification did not affect them.

Both ends of the Newport (Middlesborough) - Shildon line in Co Durham, de-electrified in the 1930s, are still in use for passenger traffic, but electric traction was only used for freight trains on the route.

Although the Midland Railway's electrification of Lancaster-Morecambe-Heysham was never expanded, I don't think it can be written off as purely experimental. The use of German technology may have inhibited expansion for the same reason as it did the Brighton's similar and contemporary system, but it operated for 43 years, essentially until the trains wore out. In the 1950s some of the infrastructure was used as a test bed for the higher-voltage systems to be introduced on the WCML, using converted units from the Earls Court-Willesden shuttle which had been redundant since that route closed in 1940. It operated in this form for another ten years but in 1966 the Beeching cuts were at their height and two lines from Lancaster to Morecambe were deemed one more than necessary. Operational convenience (in particular the need to keep the LNWR station on the WCML route open and the difficulty of accessing the MR branch route from it) won out over electrical infrastructure that was not only sixty years old but sixty miles remote from the nearest ac electrified route (in Manchester), so it was the LNWR route to Morecambe which remained open. Things might have been different if the extension of WCML electrification through Lancaster had been authorised sooner than the actual date of 1970.

Other closed electrified routes include Elmers End to Sanderstead and the North Woolwich branch, parts of which have been reused for light rail systems (Tramlink and DLR) but parts of which are quietly rusting, and the LNWR Croxley Green and Rickmansworth branches. Parts of the Goblin are already wired but carry no electric trains, but lines which used to have electric passenger services and now have only diesel services are rare indeed. (Until you look away from guided services - London's once extensive trolleybus network is now entirely diesel-worked)

The excuse for abandoning the Tyneside electrification was the usual 'worn-out infrastructure'. Nobody anticipated anything but further contraction of the system at the time.

Quite. Whilst fascinating, lets stick to the D Trains. A passing staff member with more time may choose to split things off though.... ;-)

Vivarail (and/or their backers) would be out of pocket.

Or sell them to heritage railways to operate commuter services (if viable)

I have been looking at the vivarail website and it would seem that the "D-Trains" are intended to replace Pacers and derivatives but someone else is refurb'ing Pacers.

It would be nice to see D-stock back on London tracks e.g. on LO but they seem underpowered.

In normal service, no. I would though say that I can think of unlikelier charters than a D Train on the North London Line.

Yes a D stock and D train side-by-side at say Richmond would be an incredible photo for the future history books!

Well,for the doubters who said "it'll never work"....here is,courtesy of "Rail" ,some excellent cab pics and video of a 3 car unit prior to main line test.....you can hear the D-stock motors clearly at the end on deceleration. www.railmagazine.com/news/network/2016/05/27/video/pictures-vivarail-class-230-prototype/image/13956

Nice to hear that classic D-stock sound will exist for a few more years yet!

One video shows a driving motor car on its own, I wonder how they managed to fit the compressors on board, given that the diesel engines take up a lot of space underfloor?? On the Tube, the D stock had its compressors mounted under the trailer car on the 3 car unit.