Rules Affecting Appearance of Heritage Line at 40 or 50 mph

[Ian J.]

Hi all,

 

In thinking through my ideas for the Sayersbridge and Penmouth, I'm attracted to the idea that the heritage version of the line would like to run above 25mph for its commercial operations.

 

Can anyone with knowledge of rules and regulations in the privatisation era inform me of how such regulations might affect the appearance of the line?

I'm thinking that the faster a railway runs, the more safety has to be tightened up or changed accordingly. So things like level crossings might need to have barriers rather than be open; distances between signals might have to be greater; etc.

 

Also, with a commercial aspect in play, how would laws like those relating to disability provision affect things? I'm thinking that platform edges would have to have marker panels for the partially sighted, etc.

 

I could, of course, just treat it as if the line worked to Network Rail standards, but then I imagine that would 'destroy' quite a lot of the historial appearance of railway items in favour of modern requirements. I'm trying to find where the 'happy medium' would be with a maximum speed set such that history isn't obliterated by modern needs but is still faster than 25mph. 40 or 50 mph would be where I'd like the speed to be.

 

The reason for asking is that when modelling the heritage S&P, I want it to reflect some kind of reality with the speed increase.

 

TIA

[colin penfold]

Ian I don't know where you are based but perhaps a visit to one of the lines with a higher permitted speed would be instructive. I believe the GCR and Mid-Norfolk both have higher speeds and having visited both I can't think of any visible differences. I am sure chatting with the volunteers would elicit some pointers. HTH.

[johnofwessex]

No lines are approved for running at over 25mph with passengers, running at over 25mph is only permitted when no public services are operating 

[seraphim]

To directly answer the question, TPWS/AWS would be mandated at signals for a start.  

 

[jim.snowdon]

9 hours ago, seraphim said:

To directly answer the question, TPWS/AWS would be mandated at signals for a start.  

 

On what legal basis, given that these railways are not part of the national network?

 

Jim

[Il Grifone]

AFAIK they are limited to 25mph to count as a light railway, but I am not a lawyer.

 

Rule 1 always applies....

Edited January 12, 2020 by Il Grifone

[jim.snowdon]

17 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

AFAIK they are limited to 25mph to count as a light railway, but I am not a lawyer.

 

Rule 1 always applies....

With the odd exception (the Great Central Railway, I think), that was because the use of Light Railway Orders allowed these railways to be re-opened without recourse to private Acts of Parliament (a very expensive and often protracted process). As far as I can recall, LROs were superseded by the Transport & Works Act, T&W Orders aren't restricted in the way that LROs were and cover everything from restored railways to modern tramways and railways.

 

Jim

[Hilux5972]

This from Wikipedia, so it may not be the most accurate but does seem to be since they mention the Rail Inspectorate. 
 

“Her Majesty's Rail Inspectorate has granted powers to run private test trains at up to 60 mph. Other special trains at public events run at up to 45 miles per hour (72.4 km/h). Typically, UK heritage railways are limited to a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour (40.2 km/h).“

[Edwin_m]

The railways that can run non-passenger trains above 25mph don't have AWS/TPWS.  That would become necessary (along with a whole set of other requirements) only if they ran passenger-carrying trains at the higher speed, or probably if they ran faster non-passenger trains at the same time as passenger-carrying trains so there was a risk of the two colliding.  

[The Stationmaster]

We need to think in 21st century terms rather than 20th century.  Thus railways have a legal obligation through ROGS to provide the necessary infrastructure to operate trains and they are required to risk assess any changes to the way in which that infrastructure is used.  So if the maximum permitted speed is increased  the effects have to be risk assessed and any additional provision made to ensure that levels of safety are not reduced in consequence.  This would inevitably be an area where any proposal to make such a change would be subject to consideration by HMRI and the Inspector's reaction/agreement (or refusal) would be influenced by a wide range of items.

 

In general the vast majority of heritage/leisure railways operating in Britain are massively over-signalled compared with what were once the Requirements in respect of light railways.  However the provision of signals alone would of necessity be only a fairly minor part of any risk assessment and in reality probably the least complicated of the lot provided that braking distances are ample for any proposed higher speed although SPAD risk would also need to be assessed as well.  But it would go far beyond that extending to such as areas as medical standards, including eyesight standards, for safety critical staff including procedures for recording, maintaining, and enforcing those standards.  Frequency at which staff undertake safety critical work - particularly on the footplate - and including maintenance of records and supervision/monitoring of the competence of those undertaking such work.  Procedures to be used to end sure that staff undertaking safety critical work get reasonable rest beforehand - which can be a very wide question when it comes to volunteers who may well have other jobs.   All of that is the sort of area most people simply f don't consider although far more obvious will be the standards,  and examination and maintenance procedures for traction, rolling stock, and the infrastructure in its widest sense. 

 

Then consider that plenty of such railways have had more than a few 'difficulties' in getting all that sort of stuff right for what they are already doing, or are supposed to be doing, and you will realise that that there would be a massive amount of work in sorting out the wider ramifications of getting authority to operate at higher speeds than the traditional 25mph.  Of course virtually none of this would ever be obvious to a casual observer and definitely wouldn't appear on a model railway.  But the need to get all of that sort of stuff done, and approved, would mean that very few heritage/leisure railways would even be likely to go for a higher speed unless - like the GCR - they have a specific reason for doing it for a specific purpose.  

 

For the everyday leisure (and enthusiast) market the effort involved - even if you can find the necessary competent people to do all that stuff - simply wouldn't be worth and I doubt if most (any?) railways could actually afford the time and effort it involves.  I've been involved in getting several railways up to scratch to where they should have been for their existing type of operation including writing new Rule Books  and various procedures for them as well as carrying out operational safety audits (including auditing various of the procedures I've mentioned above) - it would be a whole lot bigger task doing that for any line carrying passengers at higher speeds than 25 mph.

[Pandora]

I would have thought commercial reason favours  not raising a heritage railway  linespeed,  costs accrued in track maintenance and rail wear must surely increase .   Raise the linespeed and the curves have to be reballasted  and  tamped with increased superelevation ( the "lean-in" of the train in a curve).  Also they are preserved lines,  historically  low speed lines, operation an higher speeds,  might that annoy the purists?

[Denbridge]

14 hours ago, colin penfold said:

Ian I don't know where you are based but perhaps a visit to one of the lines with a higher permitted speed would be instructive. I believe the GCR and Mid-Norfolk both have higher speeds and having visited both I can't think of any visible differences. I am sure chatting with the volunteers would elicit some pointers. HTH.

Those higher speeds are only allowed when the railways are closed to the public, for testing etc. Passenger services remain within LEO regulations. Usually 25mph.

[kernowtim]

I seem to remember that the Present  Great Central Railway could run their TPO train at a higher speed as the collection and drop off process didn't work at 25mph, although presumably it wasnt carrying fare paying passengers!

[ColinK]

Higher speeds result in shorter journey times. So for the paying public you would  get less of a journey for your money.

[Ian J.]

While I accept that in the real world it probably wouldn't be worth any heritage line running above 25mph, please remember this is a 'what if' scenario for an imagined line that is longer than any current heritage line (my current estimate is around 29 miles); is built to a sort of 'secondary line' standard for earthworks for its main line (the branch has tighter curves); and is carrying commercial freight already. The extension of the initial S&P idea is to also have some commercial passenger services as well as heritage services, and as commercial services the passengers would 'want' to get from A to B faster than a sedantry trip for leisure, hence the idea for allowing for 40+ mph. In modelling sections of the line, I am wanting to ensure that the features are suitable for that higher speed.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Ian J.

[sir douglas]

the short answer to the above posts is that all heritage railways are legally not allowed to carry passengers over 25mph and would be in a lot of trouble if they did (would it be fines or criminal charges?). mainly because they don't have AWS, since there isn't a system that can stop a driver going through a red signal and possibly causing an accident. Even if all locos, stock and track are perfectly maintained, they don't legally have the same level of maintenance as the mainline such as all the paperwork to say they are good enough to go at higher speed. as many have already said heritage railways are all about the experience, most people wouldn't want to travel from one end to the other as fast as possible, even if you did, you just can't

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

On what legal basis, given that these railways are not part of the national network?

 

Jim

 

Such systems are not mandated as such - even on the national network. Instead, under the ROGS legislation what the ORR is looking for is risk mitigation - and the busier / faster a railway is, the more protection against risk there needs to be. The exact systems used are left up to the infrastructure operator to install.

 

So, for example, when it comes to mitigating the risks of SPADs on the national network, TPWS has been adopted by Network Rail as a fairly cheap retrofit-able system to cover that risk. With lines like HS1 TPWS is not enough so the TVM430 in cab system addresses that risk while ECTS is now the preferred method going forward.

 

Thus on a heritage railway seeking to upgrade its routine operations to 40mph although TPWS is not mandated - it would no doubt be seen by the ORR as addressing the SPAD risk, however they could install tripcocks or even some other non UK based system if they wanted provided it mitigated the risk of SPADs to the degree the ORR judge suitable.

[JimC]

One approach would be to start with current Network rail standards, and then see if there are any with modelling implications that your fictional bureaucrats might be prepared to discard. 
Given your scenarios the baseline is what is acceptable for a NR freight only line. It certainly wouldn't be less than that. In addition a 25mph or even lower speed limit in all stations would be an obvious requirement - no through freight trains hammering through the platforms at 50mph... 
As above an awful lot of the issues would be organisational rather than anything that needs modelling. 

[The Stationmaster]

37 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

While I accept that in the real world it probably wouldn't be worth any heritage line running above 25mph, please remember this is a 'what if' scenario for an imagined line that is longer than any current heritage line (my current estimate is around 29 miles); is built to a sort of 'secondary line' standard for earthworks for its main line (the branch has tighter curves); and is carrying commercial freight already. The extension of the initial S&P idea is to also have some commercial passenger services as well as heritage services, and as commercial services the passengers would 'want' to get from A to B faster than a sedantry trip for leisure, hence the idea for allowing for 40+ mph. In modelling sections of the line, I am wanting to ensure that the features are suitable for that higher speed.

So effectively you don't really want a heritage railway but a small version of a national network railway which also runs heritage trains at times in addition to freight and 'commercial passenger services'.  

 

Which gives you a simple answer - it will look like version of the national network.  As a heritage railway of 29 miles you can really forget it - the economics simply do not work, look at the thread about the West Somerset Railway (which isn't that long).  The last time I did any assessment work on the proposed reopening of a branch line to run 'commercial passenger services' the promoters had very sensibly decided on a line speed of 90 or 100mph because they fully understood such speeds would be necessary to make it a commercial proposition in attracting passengers.  If you want a 'commercial' passenger service over a 29 mile railway I suspect you'd be looking for line speeds closer to 75mph than to 60mph in order to get competitive journey times.  Look at the infrastructure on the reopened Borders Railway route to Tweedbank - that's what you need to get a 1 hour journey time over a similar sort of distance.

[phil-b259]

16 hours ago, Ian J. said:

Hi all,

 

In thinking through my ideas for the Sayersbridge and Penmouth, I'm attracted to the idea that the heritage version of the line would like to run above 25mph for its commercial operations.

 

Can anyone with knowledge of rules and regulations in the privatisation era inform me of how such regulations might affect the appearance of the line?

I'm thinking that the faster a railway runs, the more safety has to be tightened up or changed accordingly. So things like level crossings might need to have barriers rather than be open; distances between signals might have to be greater; etc.

 

Also, with a commercial aspect in play, how would laws like those relating to disability provision affect things? I'm thinking that platform edges would have to have marker panels for the partially sighted, etc.

 

I could, of course, just treat it as if the line worked to Network Rail standards, but then I imagine that would 'destroy' quite a lot of the historial appearance of railway items in favour of modern requirements. I'm trying to find where the 'happy medium' would be with a maximum speed set such that history isn't obliterated by modern needs but is still faster than 25mph. 40 or 50 mph would be where I'd like the speed to be.

 

The reason for asking is that when modelling the heritage S&P, I want it to reflect some kind of reality with the speed increase.

 

TIA

 

The best guide is to look at what the North York Moors Railway have to do to run at 40mph between Grosmont and Whitby over NR metals.

 

In this situation the locomotives must be fitted with TPWS + AWS and some form of secondary door locking installed. There is no requirement for the OTMDR logger equipment however.

 

Were any heritage railway planning to operate regular services at 40mph then the ORR would probably suggest this model of operation as the template for others to follow.

[Ian J.]

@The Stationmaster I get the feeling you're taking the binary position, that a railway is either heritage or commercial, but not anything inbetween?

 

Unfortunately for my scenario, the railway is coming from a heritage starting point and is looking for added revenue, hence the freight trains, while not destroying the heritage that brings visitors to the line. Accordingly the running of commercial passenger services would have to fit in to the heritage appearance as much as possible, so any changes that would obliterate the heritage elements (such as turning it into a pseudo-Network Rail line outright) would be unwanted. In your post, it seems you're making it an all or nothing change such that, while heritage services could run, the line itself (which includes the stations and their appearance, the types of signals used, etc) would pretty much have to be wiped out in order to meet the requirements for a much faster line (not that the S&P would ever have been a 90mph line or could 'realistically' ever be), and to meet modern regulations on provision of facilities (which may have to happen to some degree anyway, as already does with most heritage lines).

 

I disagree (with an uneducated mind) on the idea that running at around 90mph would be needed to keep passengers using a commercial service, by the way. There must be quite a few lines on the national network where that already doesn't happen and average speeds of 40 or less are common due to maximum speeds not being at 90 or more (suburban lines in London are what I'm thinking of, the Overground lines particularly).

 

I'm not saying that's a wrong position to take, by the way, but it is, in my eyes, a disappointing one.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Ian J.

[Ian J.]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The best guide is to look at what the North York Moors Railway have to do to run at 40mph between Grosmont and Whitby over NR metals.

 

In this situation the locomotives must be fitted with TPWS + AWS and some form of secondary door locking installed. There is no requirement for the OTMDR logger equipment however.

 

Were any heritage railway planning to operate regular services at 40mph then the ORR would probably suggest this model of operation as the template for others to follow.

 

This is helpful, thank you. I can imagine I could 'hide' door locking on older stock by having lights on a panel in a guard's compartment and an internally visible indicator for the public, then I wouldn't have to put door locking lights on the outside of otherwise normal 1950s or 60s carriages.

 

I don't think the TPWS or AWS equipment on locomotives would be particularly visible to viewers, so that's OK. The inclusion of such equipment on the line would not be to my mind a problem, and it's exactly the kind of thing I'd want to model to be in keeping with the idea.

 

Would mechanical signalling be a no-no, these days? My impression is it might have to go

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Ian J.

[phil-b259]

14 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

 

This is helpful, thank you. I can imagine I could 'hide' door locking on older stock by having lights on a panel in a guard's compartment and an internally visible indicator for the public, then I wouldn't have to put door locking lights on the outside of otherwise normal 1950s or 60s carriages.

 

I don't think the TPWS or AWS equipment on locomotives would be particularly visible to viewers, so that's OK. The inclusion of such equipment on the line would not be to my mind a problem, and it's exactly the kind of thing I'd want to model to be in keeping with the idea.

 

Would mechanical signalling be a no-no, these days? My impression is it might have to go

 

 

Please note I said Secondary door locking system - NOT central door locking system (which is where all doors on the train are lock / unlocked by the Guard / driver from one set of controls).

 

IIRC the secondary door locking system on the Whitby runs are merely a garden gate style bolt added to the inside of the doors high up. There is a requirement for on train stewards to make sure these are in the closed position while the train is in motion.

 

There is no reason why mechanical signalling cannot be used on such a setup - again I refer to my earlier post which stated that the ORR are interested in risk management - NOT specifying the exact equipment to be used.

 

For example upgrading the lamps used in semaphore signals to bright LED versions would help allay concerns about the ability of drivers to easily see the signals at night while the likes of AWS* and TPWS are fully compatible with mechanical signalling and would stop SPADs. Naturally an increase in speed will probably require things like overlaps and signal positioning to be revisited accordingly.

 

 

* AWS was designed specifically to help steam drivers correctly identify the state of mechanical DISTANT signals! It was never intended to be used with multi-aspect signalling - indeed in later years there was more than one crash caused by drivers cancelling the 'caution' cab indication and not stopping red signals precisely because the same 'caution' was used for the preceding single and double yellow aspects.

[The Johnster]

My personal opinion is that 25mph is fine for most 'heritage' operations.  Higher speeds not only have safety implications, which can be overcome and are for main line operations, but cost and manpower implications which may not be easy for them to deal with as well.  They must perforce rely on volunteers to maintain track and rolling stock to the necessary standard, and the loco dept gets the best of these resources.  I've certainly ridden on 'heritage' stock that I would not be happy in at 40 mph, never mind 60mph, but which is fine at 25mph.  Track is different; if you have a rough stretch you can always impose a TROS.  

 

GWR ATC could 'legitimately' be used on semaphore signalled ex GW heritage lines, but would only ever need to show the caution 'sunflower' and sound the horn.  AFAIK there is nowhere that a distant signal can be cleared, which would only be required for 40mph+ running anyway, unless you can route a train through between Bewdley South and Bewdley North, a move for which there is no operational requirement, and AFAIK cannot be done at 40mph.  Line speed on the SVR is 70mph, but nobody should have been running at that rate since BR days...

 

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by The Johnster

[woodenhead]

4 hours ago, Ian J. said:

While I accept that in the real world it probably wouldn't be worth any heritage line running above 25mph, please remember this is a 'what if' scenario for an imagined line that is longer than any current heritage line (my current estimate is around 29 miles); is built to a sort of 'secondary line' standard for earthworks for its main line (the branch has tighter curves); and is carrying commercial freight already. The extension of the initial S&P idea is to also have some commercial passenger services as well as heritage services, and as commercial services the passengers would 'want' to get from A to B faster than a sedantry trip for leisure, hence the idea for allowing for 40+ mph. In modelling sections of the line, I am wanting to ensure that the features are suitable for that higher speed.

Sounds to me like you would be better modelling something akin to the Grosmont to Whitby line - Network Rail with Heritage services in season.

 

Plus Fort William to Mallaig is a similar offering.

Edited January 12, 2020 by woodenhead