The first quadruple track main line in the UK?

[LMS2968]

10 hours ago, adb968008 said:

In 1830 Parkside is described as...

 

There were five tracks at Parkside, but three of them were sidings and not running lines. Parkside has always been only double track.

[The Johnster]

I would define a quadruple running line as being four running roads on the same formation, so would not include the Midland example as it splits into different formations at Sharnbrook.  Similarly the South Wales main line is not really quadruple from Severn Tunnel Jc to Leckwith, as there are separate formations at Bishton and the Gaer Tunnels.  I would also stipulate that the 4 running roads on the same formation need to include at least one block section between signal boxes to count, but obviously MAS signalling trips this concept up a bit!

 

If you apply my rules, all sorts of other contenders come into play.  The Midland probably takes the prize, despite the split at Sharnbrook, though; St Pancras-Sharnbrook and Sharnbrook-Clay Cross are considerable distances.  This of course does not affect the first quadruple track section, only the longest, and is thus OT...

[Compound2632]

On the other hand, I don't think you can argue against the statement that there were four continuous running lines over the 75 route miles from St Pancras to Glendon South Junction. North thereof, there were two separate double track routes (that were each quadruple for considerable distances further north, of course).

 

Does the goods line deviation at Sharnbrook constitute a different route?

[PenrithBeacon]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

...

 

Does the goods line deviation at Sharnbrook constitute a different route?

I don't think it does, not at all. Just how far apart do tracks have to be ? Beyond 6 foot that is.

 

Cheers

[Rugd1022]

28 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I don't think it does, not at all. Just how far apart do tracks have to be ? Beyond 6 foot that is.

 

Cheers

 

Perhaps I'm biased as I drove on the route regularly, but to me the deviation through Wymington Tunnel (aka Sharnbrook Tunnel) is just that,  a slight deviation - the slows (goods in those days) were only built on that formation rather than alongside the existing fasts to ease the gradients for goods trains. Trundling along them at 60mph the fasts soon come back into view once you're out of the cuttings at either end of the tunnel.

 

Off topic slightly, I had to walk the full length of it on a recent ballast job, I thought it would never end..! 

[caradoc]

1 hour ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I don't think it does, not at all. Just how far apart do tracks have to be ? Beyond 6 foot that is.

 

Cheers

 

Good point. Between Oxford and Wolvercote Jc, the Down Goods (lifted in the 70s) was recently restored, but for part of the route is separated from the other three lines by a stream. Does that still count as a quadruple track line ? For me it certainly does, as does the Midland Main Line at Sharnbrook.

 

[Nearholmer]

The two Watford tunnels, so far apart to get either side of a load of springs and liquid sand I think, but clearly still part of a quadruple track route.

[caradoc]

Musing further on what constitutes a quadruple track railway, my view (for what it's worth) is that it is a line where additional tracks have been provided for the sole purpose of providing extra capacity on the existing route; Therefore Sharnbrook, and Nearholmer's Watford example count, but the LNWR's Northampton Loop does not. 

[Nearholmer]

Except that Northampton wasn't on a loop until the quadrupling of the 1880s, of which the loop was an integral part. The LNWR believed that they had a quadruple line to Rugby, and the way that operations work even today is based on that thinking, although the road names aren't.

[Compound2632]

Yes but... the Northampton loop provided that town with a new route. One might as well argue that the Midland's Nottingham loop line between Glendon South Junction and Trowell via Oakham and Melton was simply a quadrupling of sections of the Leicester & Hitchin, Midland Counties, and Erewash Valley lines. It provided for different services via different routes - to the north via Leicester or via Nottingham. Yes it increased capacity but not just capacity.

[Nearholmer]

This could be debated forever ........ all I'm doing is reporting how the LNWR saw it, and why they built  it. 

 

If they'd quadrupled in close parallel, they would have had to dig a second Kilsby tunnel, but that would have been madness given the advances in locomotive power, so they opted for a more steeply graded route, that allowed Northampton to be better-served in the process. If they hadn't needed to relieve the main line of traffic, they would have continued to serve Northampton as they had hitherto, via Blisworth.

[Zomboid]

The MML has the ELR "SPC", whilst the Sharnbrook route is "WYM". So as far as network rail is concerned they're two separate routes.

 

Personally I'd say that they're just a slow line deviation in a 4 track route from London to Kettering, as functionally that's what they are. 

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

The MML has the ELR "SPC", whilst the Sharnbrook route is "WYM". So as far as network rail is concerned they're two separate routes.

 

 Please decode! MML I understand but...

[Zomboid]

ELR is engineers line reference, which is a TLA to describe every section of route on the network. The MML is SPC which I assume comes from St Pancras Carlisle, the ECML is ECM  which is obvious, the GWML is MLN which I can't fathom. Minor curves and things have an individual ELR - so a triangle like at Syston will have one for the main route, one for the secondary route, and a third for the curve that completes the set. I don't know examples of all sides of any off the top of my head though.

[Compound2632]

Aha! So WYM is Wymington.

[Edwin_m]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I would define a quadruple running line as being four running roads on the same formation, so would not include the Midland example as it splits into different formations at Sharnbrook.  Similarly the South Wales main line is not really quadruple from Severn Tunnel Jc to Leckwith, as there are separate formations at Bishton and the Gaer Tunnels.  I would also stipulate that the 4 running roads on the same formation need to include at least one block section between signal boxes to count, but obviously MAS signalling trips this concept up a bit!

 

If you apply my rules, all sorts of other contenders come into play.  The Midland probably takes the prize, despite the split at Sharnbrook, though; St Pancras-Sharnbrook and Sharnbrook-Clay Cross are considerable distances.  This of course does not affect the first quadruple track section, only the longest, and is thus OT...

I don't think Sharnbrook to Clay Cross would ever have qualified by most people's rules.  There have never been more than two tracks between north of Kettering and the southern approaches to Leicester, except for various short loops, and the alternative via Corby is certainly a separate route.  Leicester area to Clay Cross (and a bit further to north of Chesterfield) was four-track throughout up until sometime in the 1980s, provided you allow the short separation around Trent, but now has three or two south of Syston and from around Trowell to Clay Cross.  

 

I'd be inclined to set a rule that a route should be regarded as four-track if the land between the tracks remains within the operational railway boundary, plus parallel viaducts and tunnels where this is true at both ends.  For the MML this would allow the divergence at Bedford but not Sharnbrook or the one at Trent, where there are houses between the high level lines and the other tracks.  

 

19 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

ELR is engineers line reference, which is a TLA to describe every section of route on the network. The MML is SPC which I assume comes from St Pancras Carlisle, the ECML is ECM  which is obvious, the GWML is MLN which I can't fathom. Minor curves and things have an individual ELR - so a triangle like at Syston will have one for the main route, one for the secondary route, and a third for the curve that completes the set. I don't know examples of all sides of any off the top of my head though.

I think SPC is St Pancras to Chesterfield as it ends just north of there.  I believe the GWR or Western Region originated the ELR system so they got all the plum abbreviations such as MLN for their main line.  ELRs are allowed to continue through junctions so usually only one curve of a triangle will have its own ELR.  The main restriction is that posted mileage must not repeat within the same ELR (so ELR plus mileage uniquely identifies a location on the network) and many ELRs have a digit after the three letters to ensure this.  

[Zomboid]

A better explanation than I managed...

To complete the Syston example, the MML past the area is SPC, the South to East curve is GSM which continues towards Kettering North Jn via Melton Mowbray, and the East to North curve is SEN.

 

Unlike the Sharnbrook example, the differing alignments around Saunderton on the Chiltern line are both NAJ, for what that's worth.

 

Anyway, that's probably enough of that.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Zomboid

[Compound2632]

Apologies - it was my Midland-biased insistence on the primacy in terms of length of St Pancras-Glendon South Junction, which was customarily described as the longest quadruple-tracked section of line in Britain, that led to this indulgence in semantics - but it has finally borne fruit in an explanation of ELRs, of which I was previously in ignorance. 

[Rugd1022]

Just for reference - even today, a lot of us on the job refer to the Northampton loop as the 'new line' or 'slow line' and the old London & Birmingham route via Kilsby as the 'old line'. Very rarely is it ever referred to as the Northampton loop, and there are stil la few old hand bobbies around who refer to it as going ''via Castle''! The problem with working mostly class 6 60mph freights is that we're nearly always booked via N'pton but still need to keep up our route knowledge via Kilsby, so it's always gratifying when Rugby panel call us on the GSM-R and say ''we've got a margin for you to run old line, d'you still sign it chap...?'' 

 

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Rugd1022

[caradoc]

3 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

Just for reference - even today, a lot of us on the job refer to the Northampton loop as the 'new line' or 'slow line' and the old London & Birmingham route via Kilsby as the 'old line'. Very rarely is it ever referred to as the Northampton loop, and there are stil la few old hand bobbies around who refer to it as going ''via Castle''! The problem with working mostly class 6 60mph freights is that we're nearly always booked via N'pton but still need to keep up our route knowledge via Kilsby, so it's always gratifying when Rugby panel call us on the GSM-R and say ''we've got a margin for you to run old line, d'you still sign it chap...?'' 

 

Which, in addition to the factors regarding qualifying as a quadruple track route, ie physical proximity, land ownership, ELR, etc, throws up another one; Traincrew route cards ! Do Traincrew working north of Bedford automatically sign for both Fast and Slow Lines, for example ?

[Compound2632]

@Rugd1022, maybe you don't sign for north of Derby but from my reading, in Midland days the original North Midland Railway route was also known as the 'old line' or 'old road' in distinction to the route via Sheffield.

[The Stationmaster]

Going back a good few years some folk might have heard of the McKinsey (NOT Kinsey) Report into the management structure of BR, which sort of led to the introduction of two-tier management below Board level.  McKinsey were a US firm of consultants and one of the things BR did to prepare for them interviewing managers at various levels in the industry was draw up what might best be described as a thesaurus of the terminology that might come across.  Among the terms listed were 'new line/'new road' and, obviously 'old line'/'old road'. - there were dozens in both categories.

 

And of course some lines were known by more than one term for example on the Western the Paddington - West Midlands cut-off route via High Wycombe and Bicester was known by most people (slightly inaccurately) as 'the joint line', to some it was more accurately, 'the Bicester cut-off', while to some it was 'the new road', and a few even referred to it as 'the northern road'.

[Rugd1022]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

Which, in addition to the factors regarding qualifying as a quadruple track route, ie physical proximity, land ownership, ELR, etc, throws up another one; Traincrew route cards ! Do Traincrew working north of Bedford automatically sign for both Fast and Slow Lines, for example ?

 

Yes you'd learn all roads on a particular route unless told otherwise by whichever manager gives you the route briefing before hand. Although, having said that one of our drivers at Rugby never managed to sign Hillmorton to Hanslope Junction via Kilsby for some odd reason! This route is an absolute godsend if you're running late and there's a sufficient margin for the 'box to send you that way rather than via N'pton. Most of us at Rugby sign the Midland from Toton down to West Hampstead but not all of us sign the road via Manton Junction and Corby (I do and rather like it's old fashioned quaintness in parts).

 

Edited to add - next week I'm due to learn the stone terminal siding (actually a continuous circular loop) at Radlett, twelve and a half years after signing the mainline that runs right past it!

Edited February 24, 2020 by Rugd1022

[Trog]

23 hours ago, Zomboid said:

ELR is engineers line reference, which is a TLA to describe every section of route on the network. The MML is SPC which I assume comes from St Pancras Carlisle, the ECML is ECM  which is obvious, the GWML is MLN which I can't fathom. Minor curves and things have an individual ELR - so a triangle like at Syston will have one for the main route, one for the secondary route, and a third for the curve that completes the set. I don't know examples of all sides of any off the top of my head though.

 

An ELR is a section of line with no duplicate mileages or bridge numbers,  Which is why the WCML north from Euston while on a single mileage run is divided into LEC1, LEC2, LEC3 and LEC4 (London Euston Crewe). The L&B bridge number sequence running from Euston to TV junction just north of Rugby LEC1. Then the TV line from TV junction Rugby to TV junction Stafford has its own bridge numbers starting again from 1 LEC2. Then from there to just north of Stafford Station is LEC3. The bridge number sequence then starts again for the run from Stafford north to Crewe as LEC4.

 

I can also confirm that MLN is short for mainline.

[Compound2632]

That short section at Stafford is odd - as far as bridge numbering sequences go, I'd have assume that there would have been one for the Trent Valley line and one for the Grand Junction line, with the latter being continuous at Stafford?

Edited February 24, 2020 by Compound2632