GWML Electification

[jonny777]

Yes, bullying people is  great way to get what you want. (CJL)

 

 

It seems to work for the vocal minority, who badger the local press, media and council in order to try and get their own way. 

 

And the fact that a few people in a small village, by-passed by the A34 and who cannot put up with some inconvenience, are forcing the rest of the travelling public to either pay ridiculous amounts of money to preserve a bog standard three arch bridge (one of thousands around the UK), or force all trains to slow down is not counted as bullying, speaks volumes for why this country is going down the pan. 

Edited September 10, 2018 by jonny777

[locoholic]

Quite a big chunk of the September Modern Railways makes for depressing reading, one way or another.

 

As for the bridge at Steventon, it's astonishing that the views of a few people can adversely affect a major rail improvement project, when Heathrow Airport have got government support for their proposal to flatten whole villages to build a new runway.

 

Judging by the picture in MR, it's not even an attractive bridge, especially now that the parapets now have height extensions, and is surrounded by the most hideous OHL equipment known to man.

[Budgie]

Thanks for these. In the Oxford Mail article, locals seem to have made much of the bi-mode capability of the IEP's, as a reason for not demolishing.

Do the locals expect all future trains on this line to be bi-mode as well? If not, when are they going to allow the bridge situation to be rectified?

[locoholic]

Do the locals expect all future trains on this line to be bi-mode as well? If not, when are they going to allow the bridge situation to be rectified?

I suspect they think it's not their problem, so not their job to come up with a solution. GWR and Network Rail should send the local council the bill for all the extra expense that the current situation causes - that might concentrate their minds!

[lmsforever]

I suspect they think it's not their problem, so not their job to come up with a solution. GWR and Network Rail should send the local council the bill for all the extra expense that the current situation causes - that might concentrate their minds!

 

Oh the poor cash strapped council they might have to close down!

[SouthernMafia]

Not to mention the additional delays caused to IET services when they have 'power changeover issues', a seemingly daily performance at Didcot with one service or another.

[corneliuslundie]

"I believe that jacking has been discounted due to the fragile nature of the bridge as well as the gradient of the approach roads."

The cynic says that NR should pursue the jacking option and ensure take the rusk that that the bridge collapses in the process.

One thing I cannot understand is how the local council has been allowed to take so long to reach a decision without the matter being taken out of its hands by the Government. There are legal time limits for planning decisions.

And a practical issue: if the trains have to slow to 60 mph it will increase the times for which the adjacent level crossings are closed to road traffic. in fact will they ever be open?

Jonathan

[The Stationmaster]

The only way of allowing electric trains to run through the area without imposing a speed restriction is to either close Causeway crossing (if I remember, the one closest to the bridge anyway) or demolish the Bridge.

 

I had a look in Modern Railways, nothing different to what I know, particularly as I know the NR spokesperson!

 

Simon

 

Stocks Lane Crossing is the closest crossing to the bridge - Causeway Level Crossing is one on The Causeway at the western end of the village.  The crossings are correctly shown in the new edition of the Western Quail, no doubt a copy will be on a desk near you      

Simple answer to it all is for NR to find 'major structural problems' in the bridge and demolish it on safety grounds because it is at risk of collapse, after all it is a very old bridge and one arch has already had to be strengthened with some very non-Brunelian reinforced concrete

Oh the poor cash strapped council they might have to close down!

 

I'm not so keen on that idea as that District Council shares many resources and costs with our District Council which means the clowns of Steventon could have an adverse impact on my Council Tax.  Interesting to see that, as already mentioned above, we yet again have a vocal minority becoming the tail that wags the dog, especially as the Council's officers recommended in favour of NR's proposals.  Just the same thing has happened with the vocal minority in Goring where their objections to a local hydro-electric scheme proposed for the River Thames have cost the local council (not the District fortunately) over £80,000 in legal fees.

 

With cases like this you can quite see why there is strong pressure for planning procedures for major projects to drive a coach and horses (or an IEP) through local objections.

[37114]

Simple answer, leave the bridge and make up the lost time by not stopping at Didcot. I guess the residents of Steventon no doubt use Didcot Parkway to commute to London and would very quickly change their tune about the bridge....

 

On a more serious point, why does it take 10months to rebuild the Steventon bridge? NR rebuilt the stone bridge near my house in under a month with one weekend occupation. Ironically it is unlikely to have wires under it anytime soon as it is the Bath side of Thingley Junction

[Jonboy]

The thing to bear in mind with the Steventon bridge is that it carries nose to tail traffic 07:30 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 18:00. With traffic heading from/ to Hanney for Wantage, grove, Faringdon and many other villages, Steventon, Drayton etc. To Milton park/Didcot and the A34 North

 

The a417 looks like an alternative on paper but is also pretty much at capacity with traffic for Harwell, Towards Reading and A34 southbound for Newbury and M4.

 

The surrounding road network is at capacity and any minor disturbance such as a single broken down car on the A417 or hanney cow road can add 1 hour delays to journeys home, an A34 closure can already add 3 hour delays and this is the shortest alternative. The surrounding road network is unlikely to cope with the bridge closure and the locals know it...

[Arun Sharma]

The thing to bear in mind with the Steventon bridge is that it carries nose to tail traffic 07:30 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 18:00. With traffic heading from/ to Hanney for Wantage, grove, Faringdon and many other villages, Steventon, Drayton etc. To Milton park/Didcot and the A34 North

 

The a417 looks like an alternative on paper but is also pretty much at capacity with traffic for Harwell, Towards Reading and A34 southbound for Newbury and M4.

 

The surrounding road network is at capacity and any minor disturbance such as a single broken down car on the A417 or hanney cow road can add 1 hour delays to journeys home, an A34 closure can already add 3 hour delays and this is the shortest alternative. The surrounding road network is unlikely to cope with the bridge closure and the locals know it...

As a local resident and regular user of this accursed bridge, I have to ask, "What would IKB have done?" - if he was still around. Does anyone seriously  think that this bridge would still be standing?

[Mike Storey]

On a more serious point, why does it take 10months to rebuild the Steventon bridge? NR rebuilt the stone bridge near my house in under a month with one weekend occupation. Ironically it is unlikely to have wires under it anytime soon as it is the Bath side of Thingley Junction

 

The Rail Technology article, as supplied by Ronx3 above, gives you that answer. In summary, utilities run through it and have to be diverted and then re-instated, by the respective owning utilities. I had very similar problems when peripherally involved in planning bridge replacements on the GOB, which is why we abandoned any idea of electrifying it prior to the 2012 Games.

[St. Simon]

Not to mention the additional delays caused to IET services when they have 'power changeover issues', a seemingly daily performance at Didcot with one service or another.

Hi,

 

As far as we are aware, there has never been a problem with the actual change-over on any train, and we've been monitoring both NR and GWR reports (any change-over failure being reported straight to us as it feeds into risk assessments)

 

The problems relating to the change-over, such as the axle counter problems, have been resolved (apart from the odd train that has to change-over at Reading or is Diesel restricted).

 

Simon

[St. Simon]

Stocks Lane Crossing is the closest crossing to the bridge - Causeway Level Crossing is one on The Causeway at the western end of the village.  The crossings are correctly shown in the new edition of the Western Quail, no doubt a copy will be on a desk near you      

 

Thanks Mike, I'm on leave and haven't got access to the scheme plan, so I was relying on my memory!

 

Simon

[lmsforever]

The entire project seems to be one cock uo after another and NR have not got control as they should have ,why is this? 

[Zomboid]

I don't think NR can bear much responsibility for local Oxfordshire politics.

[jamie92208]

I don't think NR can bear much responsibility for local Oxfordshire politics.

 

As an observer from afar, it does seem strange that Steventon has taken so long to sort.   I know that an awful lot of good work has been done by a lot of people but is there any sense that this one was always going to be a difficult problem to solve and was allowed to slip as being too difficult to solve early on. I think that there are similar problems at Bath in Sydney gardens IIRC and that a final design has still not been agreed.   There were even proposals for a stretch of third rail from one group at one point.

 

Jamie

Edited September 11, 2018 by jamie92208

[corneliuslundie]

The comment about road congestion highlights a failure of national and local planning in that Oxfordshire seems to be going for massive growth without any thought of the impact on the local road infrastructure. And more important, our whole development strategy is based on private road transport, at the very time when we should be reducing dependency on private transport for school/work/shopping journeys by "going local". But this has now gone so far that I cannot see any government trying to change direction. Until the oil really does become unaffordable and we do not have enough electricity generation to replace it for heating (now more favoured compared with gas - see the latest CIBSE Journal), transport etc. Instead we are still closing local schools, hospitals etc in favour of centralised facilities involving massive increases in transport requirements. To say nothing of destroying local town centres by allowing more and more out of town shopping centres.

Back on "The bridge", would there be room to erect a Bailey bridge beside the existing bridge? Then utilities could transfer their routes to the new bridge without affecting things too much, the bridge could be raised/rebuilt/razed (your choice), and traffic and the utilities could be transferred to the new/modified structure. It might take longer but it would avoid the major problem of lack of local road capacity.

I do have sympathy for the locals who are caught up in this planning mess.

Jonathan

[lmsforever]

I meant the whole of the electrification project it seems to stumble from one problem to another and all that happens is enquiries that have no result ,I think NR must despair of local councils and there activities.Did not activists in the Goring Gap also want no wires as well ,cant understand the protests about the river project as it is a green power one  and is unobtrusive .

[Oakydoke]

.......cant understand the protests about the river project as it is a green power one  and is unobtrusive .

Once the local opponents get into a mindset against a proposal, no amount of reasoning and logic will sway them.

It's as if it becomes a deep seated belief, like a gut feeling, that is hard to break away from, even if reasoning starts to bring them round towards changing their minds.

At Steventon, very few local people are able to view the bridge from anywhere other than by crossing it, but worries about aesthetics is one of the points of objection.

[Ron Ron Ron]

The thing to bear in mind with the Steventon bridge is that it carries nose to tail traffic 07:30 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 18:00. With traffic heading from/ to Hanney for Wantage, grove, Faringdon and many other villages, Steventon, Drayton etc. To Milton park/Didcot and the A34 North

 

The a417 looks like an alternative on paper but is also pretty much at capacity with traffic for Harwell, Towards Reading and A34 southbound for Newbury and M4.

 

The surrounding road network is at capacity and any minor disturbance such as a single broken down car on the A417 or hanney cow road can add 1 hour delays to journeys home, an A34 closure can already add 3 hour delays and this is the shortest alternative. The surrounding road network is unlikely to cope with the bridge closure and the locals know it...

 

 

Jonathan sums this up very well.....

 

The comment about road congestion highlights a failure of national and local planning in that Oxfordshire seems to be going for massive growth without any thought of the impact on the local road infrastructure. .........

 

 

 

That whole area does appear to have been subject to continuous and relentless development of housing and commerce over the last decade or more.

Take a look at housing developments in and around Steventon itself ......on Google Maps (satellite view).

The number of new houses built in the last 10 years must now constitute something like a third of the number of homes in the village?

In addition, hundreds of new houses are being built, have been approved or are being planned in the the surrounding areas.

Replacing the bridge is going to be the least of the village's problems in the coming years.

 

 

 

.

[SouthernMafia]

Hi,

 

As far as we are aware, there has never been a problem with the actual change-over on any train, and we've been monitoring both NR and GWR reports (any change-over failure being reported straight to us as it feeds into risk assessments)

 

The problems relating to the change-over, such as the axle counter problems, have been resolved (apart from the odd train that has to change-over at Reading or is Diesel restricted).

 

Simon

 

Hi Simon,

 

Whilst the issues relating to infrastructure may well have been resolved, there are problems sometimes on the units themselves that have created delay, eg TMS getting in a bit of a mess, GUs not actually starting. Granted, as these things have become more embedded and Hitachi able to resolve their faults, the problems have reduced, however a few months ago it seemed to be happening a lot.

[St. Simon]

Hi Simon,

 

Whilst the issues relating to infrastructure may well have been resolved, there are problems sometimes on the units themselves that have created delay, eg TMS getting in a bit of a mess, GUs not actually starting. Granted, as these things have become more embedded and Hitachi able to resolve their faults, the problems have reduced, however a few months ago it seemed to be happening a lot.

Hmmmm, that's interesting, I'll ask about that tomorrow....

 

Simon

[The Stationmaster]

Jonathan sums this up very well.....

 

 

 

 

That whole area does appear to have been subject to continuous and relentless development of housing and commerce over the last decade or more.

Take a look at housing developments in and around Steventon itself ......on Google Maps (satellite view).

The number of new houses built in the last 10 years must now constitute something like a third of the number of homes in the village?

In addition, hundreds of new houses are being built, have been approved or are being planned in the the surrounding areas.

Replacing the bridge is going to be the least of the village's problems in the coming years.

 

 

 

.

 

The latter is a problem of the wider Didcot area and despite what is now more than a decade of housing development there has been very little improvement in road capacity in the area.  In fact the most significant change was the Steventon bypass to take the A34 away from the village (and the bridge in question) and that happened a long time ago plus the later addition of the A4130 feeder road from the A34 into Didcot.  There is of course even more housing development planned for Didcot and some will no doubt spread into the wider area - already much of the open country between Didcot and Harwell village is being built over although at least there is a new road link from the B4493 to the A417 thus bypassing Harwell village.

 

But overall I have to say that as a result of the Steventon bypass the traffic at Rowstock Crossroads (where the old A34 met and crossed the A417) is massively reduced than was the case before the bypass was built.  The A417 has got busier because of various housing developments in the are but it is still - in my experience of it at various times of day - not an exceptionally busy road to drive along and it was of course much improved between West Hendred and Wantage many years ago while traffic to and from Harwell has also declined compared with the past.

 

As ever with bridge rebuildings people will find a way round it.  The closure of the bridge at Challow station (site) meant long diversions but the traffic appears to have adjusted itself to the changed situation while work was in hand.

[D1059]

The thing to bear in mind with the Steventon bridge is that it carries nose to tail traffic 07:30 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 18:00. With traffic heading from/ to Hanney for Wantage, grove, Faringdon and many other villages, Steventon, Drayton etc. To Milton park/Didcot and the A34 North

 

The a417 looks like an alternative on paper but is also pretty much at capacity with traffic for Harwell, Towards Reading and A34 southbound for Newbury and M4.

 

The surrounding road network is at capacity and any minor disturbance such as a single broken down car on the A417 or hanney cow road can add 1 hour delays to journeys home, an A34 closure can already add 3 hour delays and this is the shortest alternative. The surrounding road network is unlikely to cope with the bridge closure and the locals know it...

 

 

Exactly - preserving the bridge has never been an issue, that's just been a tool to use in the argument. It's all been about the impact of an extended closure on the local road network (especially when the A34 is congested due to an accident or roadworks - pretty much all the time) and businesses in Steventon