REACH FOR THE WIRE

 

Heavy duty OLE: hired-in Gatwick Express unit No 387201 trails GWR’s No 387160 at Twyford with the 14.08 Didcot Parkway to Paddington on 12 August 2021.
Ken Brunt

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.

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