The disgrace of the Great Western electrification is still with us both in the blight of investment and in the aesthetic offence of so much steel for so little copper. While Great Western will remain ugly for the rest of the century, it could be that cost and visual intrusion will both be cut by this new development from Bonomi, the Omnia twin track cantilever (TTC). We might come to view Great Western as the beam engine of electrification. On reflection, that’s unfair to the beam engine.
This development came from a group of companies which got together with Italian state railways, evidently with a lot more success than the UK’s reinvention of the wire. The Bonomi system is stocked and distributed in the UK by Pace, which interfaces with Network Rail and has been driving the TTC development.
FUNDAMENTAL
From bicycle frames to the Forth Bridge, cantilevers are the way to support more with less. Put a shelf up with no supporting strut and you will need a much chunkier bracket, and indeed a single electrification mast will normally have an arm reaching over the track and a second arm at an angle supporting it.
The Bonomi standard mast is in common use, recognisable by the prominent aluminium horizontal …
