I've known some images of Sandhills IECC on the Llangollen Signaller's flickr account for sometime. This luckilly included pictures of the ECR desk, which consists of three images. The first is a general view of the ECO's position with three monitors. The first displays an overview of all substations and conductor rail sections, the middle is a detailed view at that time focused on Shore Road substation, while the last is - most interestingly - a view of the 11kV distribution network underpinning the traction substations. The next image is a close up of the first monitor, while the last image is a close up of the focused view on Shore Road substation.
The important part here is that the photographer just doesn't seem to have thought it worthwhile to take a closer shot of the third and final screen. As far as I can tell, every one of the operator's VDU screens in the signal box is photographed close enough to read the text displayed exept for the final ECO screen.
This meant that I couldn't do much with these set of pictures until I could find some more information on Merseyrail's system. This eventually came in few forms. First was a good PWI seminar about 3rd rail electrification in general, the presentation was delievered by Tony Fella and Robert Hutchinson on 16/01/2024 and recorded here on Youtube. (There are many very insightful presentations totally available up there which may come to fruition in future projects.)
One of the slides included a blurry but just about legible image of a document that showed the entire HV AC distribution network in the southeast of England. Frustratingly, the notes and key section had been covered over by a big powerpoint graphic that reads "Merseyrail has 11kV HV AC network". While this obcures a lot of clarifying information on that page, it does suggest a thing or two about Merseyrail! (Slides are available from the PWI website)
This also gave me a bit of an incentive to think about making some diagrams for the 750V DC network. But to attempt Southern Region immediately might be over-ambitious. If I had some more info on Merseyrail, I could practice drawing such a graphic at a manageable scale.
This finally came in another landmark discovery. On the discord server of Gareth Dennis' Railnatter, I made a throwaway statement about the Erewash Valley lines being originally included in an earlier incarnation of the MML electrification plan. Someone actually followed me up on this and I was burdened to find some actual facts about this matter. While just about every inch of British rails has been at least indirectly recommended for electrification by some kind of report at one time or another, actually persuing a plan to carry this out is much more significant but also somewhat harder to track down, especially early variations and additions that get value engineered out before it reaches public consultation documents.
Anyway, I found myself on old forum posts from 2011 at least reacting to some random lobbyist document about electrifying the MML and all diversions. Someone said it had featured in something called the "Network Rail RUS 2009". For whatever reason, I actually followed this up. I don't know why; there are countless Network Rail reports and documents about electrification or decarbonisation but I am glad I checked this one out. The 2009 RUS (Route Utilisation Stratergy - extremely specifically named of coruse) seems to date from the era of sudden government interest in loads of new electrification in the 2010s that could surely be delivered easily and cheaply from a practically non-existant electrification industry. The document seems like it's from a parallel universe where the threat of batteries or bimodes is non-existant and so with a naive hopefulness recommends so many lines for full wiring. Including all local routes in Norfolk and Suffolk, yet ackowledges the Heart of Wales is not feasible. I wonder what possible critear they had which gave this result. You can find the whole thing on Network Rail's site and the Railway Archive oddly.
Along with all the normal business case stuff you'd expect to see, it also has an illuminating section on what the current (at 2009 at least) system looked like with far more technical detail than expected. There were maps not only on traffic loadings on electric vs diesel trains for passenger and freight services but also of areas where regenerative braking was permitted. But most interesting of all was a map of all electrified lines according to their type (AC, DC, dual, and a seperate colour for the East London Line for some reason) but also colour coded for the kind of AC system (BT/RC, AT, rail return) - and finally the location of every grid connection on both the AC and DC lines colour coded for their available electrical capacity.
I'm a mix of frustrated but also glad that I hadn't found this sooner. So much searching I've done is easily solved by this map and it will surely help fill out a few Wikipedia paragraphs. But if I hadn't gone through the searching and trauling I have of other stuff, I may have been less able to interpret this map had I found it earlier. Or at the very least, less aware of what parts are now different.
But now all the ingredients were available to do something with Merseyrail. With the three grid locations extant of 2009 (Bank Hall, Shore Road, Bromborough), I returned to the blurry and indirect shot of the distrubution screen at Sandhills ECR (helpfully, also photographed in 2009). Now that I was searching for those particular word shapes amongst the indistinct blobs, I could use that to make out the features on that screen that indicate different components, also making regular reference to the close up shot of the detailed view of Shore Road on the middle monitor.
However, I was aware that the system has undergone some significant upgrades since then in relation to the new class 777 stock. There is one RailEngineer article from 29/08/2019 that discusses the topic. Unhelpfully though, it tends to list the number of different interventions made and not exactly where to find them. It says for instance that three new traction substations were to be added, but only indirectly mentions the locations of two of them (Aughton [south] and Long Lane) later on in reference to something else. It seperately mentions one TPH was upgraded to TSS but doesn't mention that there was only ever (apparently) one TPH on the network (at Port Sunlight). My assumption is then that Port Sunlight is the last of three new TSSs. The changes made to the distribution network are not really clarified either. Three new grid supplies are added apparently all 33kV from the DNO. Two of these are coincident with the new TSSs at Aughton and Long Lane. But the third one is said to be "at the DNO building between Bidston adn Birkenhead North". I decided to make the executive and arbitrary descision that it was more likely Birkenehead, but this is not really based on much in all honesty.
What exactly the grid connections are on the DNO side is a bit unknown as well. Someone of railukforums once metioned that Bank Hall is fed from underground cables from the large 275kV transmission substation at Lister Drive, though I presume it's the 132kV SP Manweb presence that is directly relevant to the railway. The blurry diagram seems to suggest the 132/11kV transformers are directly under railway control, so therefore the two circuits between Lister Drive and Bank Hall are 132kV - it still could all be some other higher voltage from there too? It's farely clear that Bank Hall is the main supply site for Merseyrail with the two supplies there being responsible for far more 750V. transformers each than the others. There is this document from SP Manweb but it's almost entirely useless apart from being quite up to date and vaguely suggesting the location of burried 33kV circuits on a blurry images. It's from this that I think the new Aughton South supply is T-eed off from an underground 33kV line between Aintree Grid and somewhere in Ormskirk.
Anyway, this all means there is a certain amount of guesswork when it comes to how the 11kV lines were changed to accomodate these new supplies. The only mention on the RailEngineer article is of how the lines at Aintree TSS where divided and cut into that substation. I've tried to accomodate that but it just makes a wierd duplicate route.
The thing that is totally complete and unfounded guessing is the borders I've given for each grid supply. I set it thus (with A refering to the left of any busbar):
Bank Hall A: 10
Hillside, Barkfield, Hall Road, Seaforth, Bank Hall (A), Liverpool Central (A) and (B), Brunswick, Aighburgh, Garston
Bank Hall B: 6
Southport, Marshall Sidings, Hightown, Waterloo, Bank Hall (B), Liverpool Exchange
Long Lane: 4
Aintree, Walton Junction, Long Lane, Fazakerley
Aughton South: 3
Maghull, Aughton South, Aughton Park
Shore Road A: 4
Wallasey, Bidston, Shore Road (A), Green Lane
Shore Road B: 3
Shore Road (B), James Street (A) and (B)
Birkenhead North: 4
Hoylake, Meols, Moreton, Birkenhead North
Bromborough: 5
Port Sunlight, Bromborough, Hooton, Mollington, Ellesmere Port
Four substations (Bank Hall, Shore Road, James Street, Liverpool Central) have two 750V transformers fitted. Interestingly, there are no TPHs, although Port Sunlight was previously one: apparently the only one.
Finally, here are the diagrams. Both also on my flickr in better quality: (diagram) https://flic.kr/p/2qWCQdX (geographic) https://flic.kr/p/2qX3yyC.
AN UPDATE (04/5/25):
Turns
out there were no GSPs at Long Lane of Aughton South. But there was one
added at Hillside on the Southport branch with 2x 33/11kV transformers.
Also, a second 33/11kV transformer was added at Bromborough. Also a
whole new TSS was added at Capenhurst north of Mollington on the Chester
branch. Further, a second transformer/rectifier was added at Hooton
substation.
(28/5/25): Just remembered to add my updated maps. AC split points are complete guesswork once again
