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East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line


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4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Sandhill Road I know, but where is the bridge at VJ? Is it the one east of VJ, where the road does a sort of ‘S’ underneath it?

 

I'd say that second one is the single arch bridge at the bottom of the hill coming down from Winslow, slight kink rather than 'S' bend, but not the more viaduct style structure that also spans Claydon Brook immediately east of VJ which is on an 'S' bend.

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Currently Newton road has reopened, as has Little Horwood to Mursley, and LH to Winslow. Whaddon Road is closed until just before Christmas.

Sandhill appears to have reopened, but I can't confirm as I haven't been that way.

The interesting one will be Winslow itself, as going by the scale of work on other bridges, this one too must need attention???

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Apologies for the slightly shonky drawing, but the orange line shows the location (roughly),  i did think it was odd as the approaches to either side have required some serious earthworks! you can stand at Sandhill road, and look down the trace to the new structure.

 

 

 

vj loc.jpg

Edited by kryten65
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10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Aha, yes, I saw the abutments months ago, and wondered what it’s purpose would be. Housing development (sadly, probably), or does it simply replace the occupation crossing at VJ?

 

Just a guess, but I reckon VJ gets bypassed with the road being diverted over the new bridge, turning east to run parallel with the railway and joining back up with the existing road on the northern side of the Claydon Brook bridge. That bridge is only 12'9" clearance, so it takes out a restrictive route, even though it is only a minor road. They can then reinforce the old bridge, and VJ residents end up in a cul-de-sac.

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11 hours ago, kryten65 said:

Apologies for the slightly shonky drawing, but the orange line shows the location (roughly),  i did think it was odd as the approaches to either side have required some serious earthworks! you can stand at Sandhill road, and look down the trace to the new structure.

 

 

 

vj loc.jpg

For anyone confused by this, I think the picture is "south upwards", so that's the old line to Buckingham not the one to Quainton.   

 

Looks to me as if the bridge is to replace the level crossing at the left hand edge of this image, and this may be as close as they can get it without interfering with the hamlet of Verney Junction.  

 

 

Edited by Edwin_m
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On 19/11/2021 at 22:42, Edwin_m said:

For anyone confused by this, I think the picture is "south upwards", so that's the old line to Buckingham not the one to Quainton.   

 

Looks to me as if the bridge is to replace the level crossing at the left hand edge of this image, and this may be as close as they can get it without interfering with the hamlet of Verney Junction.  

 

 

 

If that is just to replace the level crossing, I'll be amazed. It only allows access to the back of the farm, there is another route in adjacent to the bridge over Claydon Brook. The new bridge will be somewhere in this picture from 2018, which still shows the VJ platforms, whose good bricks were reclaimed by GWSR IIRC, taken from the crossing.

 

771629498_Verneyjunctionlookingwest.JPG.216775357dc85257c17552d88f105445.JPG

 

New bridge should be just in front of the mast on the left I think, at the end of the platform, which is a bit further than it seems due to the lens used to take the photo.

Edited by Davexoc
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2 hours ago, Davexoc said:

 

If that is just to replace the level crossing, I'll be amazed. It only allows access to the back of the farm, there is another route in adjacent to the bridge over Claydon Brook. The new bridge will be somewhere in this picture from 2018, which still shows the VJ platforms, whose good bricks were reclaimed by GWSR IIRC, taken from the crossing.

 

1489430037_Verneyjunctionlookingwest.JPG.b4101d3e0c1a3b3adf4f1166ec0f7615.JPG

 

New bridge should be just in front of the mast on the left I think, at the end of the platform, which is a bit further than it seems due to the lens used to take the photo.

Great photo, shame the platforms had to go :(

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I still think there should be a station at VJ, ideally one served by hardly any trains, staffed by a couple who are heavily into ornamental gardening, and serve high-tea to the very few passengers, just for old-times sake. The furthest out London Transport bus route could be extended to it, perhaps calling twice a day and offering very poor connections with the trains, to justify the ‘junction’ title.

 

In fact, I’d apply to be Station Master.

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1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The worry, of course, is that VJ will cease to be the quiet nowhere that it has happily been since it was invented. It really needs a ‘green belt’, at least three or four miles wide, all around it.

 

With Padbury and the largest of The Claydons only 2 miles away, and the already sprawling town of Winslow a mere 1.5 miles away, I fear it is already doomed......

 

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34 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

Put a station there with nice fast electric trains and the next week there will be a plan for a new town with 50,000 population...

A bit different to the 1960s when tbe usual thing was to announce a new development to house 50,000 but not move their jobs from the old areas then close the station just before the first people move in.

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Just found this excellent presentation on youtube about the Bletchley flyover, goes into some detail about the old flyover and the reasons they have rebuilt it the way they have.

 

 

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Whaddon road from Mursley has sort of reopened today, currently single lane for traffic with priority towards Mursley, no traffic lights.

From what I could see in the gloom this evening, the parapets have been worked on, but I reckon they might need to close the road again after the Christmas Break for completion.

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On 16/12/2021 at 22:14, simon b said:

detail about the old flyover and the reasons they have rebuilt it the way they have.

 

Very interesting - thanks for posting that video.

 

It made me ponder about "modern" construction techniques (OK, early 1960s) in comparison with Victorian techniques used when the railways were originally built. Here, we have to replace the 1960s structure after 60 years, while in many cases, original Victorian structures are still very much in place all over the network. OK, I realize that some original structures have had to be replaced, but an amazing number are still in use. I take my hat off to the Victorian engineers - and think about innovative structures like Brunel's Maidenhead bridge over the Thames on the GWML.

 

Yours,  Mike.

 

PS Mention of the ICE crash at Eschede in Germany was a chilling reminder - I lost a work colleague in that accident. A reminder that the task undertaken by the lowly wheeltapper is no trivial one. Since that time, I've seen a presentation at Birmingham University that aims to install real-time sensors on the train bogies that can literally listen for incipient faults like damaged wheels. The technologists demonstrated 9 different faults that had different audio patterns that their system could identify.

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The state of the 1960s structure was shocking! Imagine the disruption to the railway network if the flyover was as heavily used as originally intended before replacement work. And to think that a train might have fallen down too!

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2 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

Very interesting - thanks for posting that video.

 

It made me ponder about "modern" construction techniques (OK, early 1960s) in comparison with Victorian techniques used when the railways were originally built. Here, we have to replace the 1960s structure after 60 years, while in many cases, original Victorian structures are still very much in place all over the network. OK, I realize that some original structures have had to be replaced, but an amazing number are still in use. I take my hat off to the Victorian engineers - and think about innovative structures like Brunel's Maidenhead bridge over the Thames on the GWML.

 

Yours,  Mike.

 

PS Mention of the ICE crash at Eschede in Germany was a chilling reminder - I lost a work colleague in that accident. A reminder that the task undertaken by the lowly wheeltapper is no trivial one. Since that time, I've seen a presentation at Birmingham University that aims to install real-time sensors on the train bogies that can literally listen for incipient faults like damaged wheels. The technologists demonstrated 9 different faults that had different audio patterns that their system could identify.

But a lot of those Victorian structures were over-engineered, whereas the more modern ones were designed to use minimum materials to fulfill a specific function. Two other things to bear in mind are that the flyover is being asked to carry higher axle loadings than originally designed for, and that it has probably spent half it's life out of use and on minimum maintenance.

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45 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

a lot of those Victorian structures were over-engineered

Wisely so, as it turns out.

 

"Plan for success" is the principle - over-engineer for the reason that the usage will well exceed original expectations. Penny-pinching usually leads to tears.

 

This was not done in the 1960s and we paid the price by having to redo major structures within 50 years (sometimes less). I'm thinking of the initial suspension bridges over the Severn Estuary and the Firth of Forth, for example. Traffic was higher than anticipated (surprise, surprise) and there were continual maintenance problems - result, 2 new bridges less than 50 years after the original ones. The expensive widening of the M25 for the 2012 Olympics is another - the original construction was criticised at the time for being too small for the likely traffic. Goodness only knows how much more was eventually paid out to build something closer to what was required.

 

Just as well Bazalgette built the London sewers on this principle - it is only in very recent times that the sheer volumes involved with a hugely expanded city have finally necessitated a major expansion.

 

Ah well, it keeps the construction boys busy!!

 

Yours,  Mike.

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