Third-Rail EMU Photos

[John M Upton]

Horsham was done earlier than the valley, although the new signalling was installed but then left uncomissioned for a couple of years because of some problem.

[Siberian Snooper]

Thanks All, it was about 3 years ago that I was last through there. Is Horsham box still in use, or was it swept away with the resignalling?

[John M Upton]

Still there (the Powers That Be wanted to demolish it but were told no, they even had to reinstate the name lettering on the front!) I think it is used as engineers accommodation now.

[Gwiwer]

Are not some of those 1930s boxes (possibly including Horsham) listed?  They are a very distinctive architectural style and while not that many were ever built most currently survive.  Typically in use by engineers of some sort as at Richmond.

[grahame]

377 and 378 at New Cross Gate a little over 7 years ago:

 

 

G.

 

 

[grahame]

And a few others - same place, same date . . . .

 

 

 

 

G.

[grahame]

Here's some buffer stops themed shots:

 

London Bridge:

 

 

and Waterloo:

 

 

 

 

G

 

 

[eastwestdivide]

The busy traffic mostly disappeared at exactly the right moment for this Javelin at Rochester today:

 

The cranes on the right are working on new houses being built on the former Rochester goods yard, on the river side (far side) of the railway.

[jonny777]

A couple which were taken with too slow shutter speed on dull days; plus a non-moving one at Poole. 

 

 

 

4-VEP approaching Ashford 25th November 1981. 

 

 

 

4-CIG at Clapham Junction 5th September 1992.

 

 

 

421222 at Poole on 26th August 1992. 

 

 

 

Edited to remove duplicates. 

Edited October 19, 2018 by jonny777

[Northmoor]

Found some scanned B&W negs from 1991, a busy Clapham Junction yard.  Wonder why the 465s were there?

 

[phil-b259]

You're right - silly typo on my part. Definitely not the 377/2s (they only went up to 377215)

 

Certainly the Arun valley was resignalled - there is a thread about this somewhere on here - but I am not 100% sure if Horsham itself was done at the same time.

 

 

Horsham was done earlier than the valley, although the new signalling was installed but then left uncomissioned for a couple of years because of some problem.

 

 

Thanks All, it was about 3 years ago that I was last through there. Is Horsham box still in use, or was it swept away with the resignalling?

 

 

Still there (the Powers That Be wanted to demolish it but were told no, they even had to reinstate the name lettering on the front!) I think it is used as engineers accommodation now.

 

 

Are not some of those 1930s boxes (possibly including Horsham) listed?  They are a very distinctive architectural style and while not that many were ever built most currently survive.  Typically in use by engineers of some sort as at Richmond.

 

 

To clarify:-

 

The situation in the year 2000 was the Three Bridges to Faygate section was already controlled from Three Bridges ASC (Panel 4) and the Faygate to Horsham section had been converted to track circuit block and added to Horsham box - both these occurred in the mid 1980s. Littlehaven remained as a gate box (complete with gate wheel) as BR had been refused permission to convert it to an AHB crossing when resignalling the Faygate to Horsham section but BR refused to amend their plans to put in full barriers with CCTV. Ockley box (between Holmwood and Warnham) was abolished back in the late 1970s / early 80s as not required.

 

Christs Hospital signal box between Horsham and Billingshurst was destroyed by Arson in the late 1990s and not rebuilt (it simply became permanently 'closed out' - with Horsham working absolute block to Billingshurst. Holmwood box was also abolished before the first phase of the Horsham resignalling started (for a number of years it had only been opened one day a year - a 'parliamentary' box if you like until the Area Signal Engineer was finally able to convince senior managers to put it out of its misery). Dorking worked absolute block to Warnham with Warnham working Absolute Block to Horsham.

 

The Holmwood / Faygate to Christs Hospital area was initially planned to be resignalled by Railtrack by 2004 using a totally new signalling system (to the UK) marketed by Bombardier called 'EbiLock' that had recently been fitted to some relatively lightly used lines in Scandinavia. Control of the area would migrate to a brand new NX panel (Panel 7) in Three Bridges ASC while the new interlocking would also be accommodated inside the existing ASC. At Billingshurst mechanical signalling was retained and it would work track circuit block with the new installation. Similarly Dorking saw no major changes other than it would now work track circuit block with Three Bridges under the new setup. No changes were made to the signalling arrangements at Pulborough, Amberley or Arundel under the scheme.

 

Along with the Asaldo (Italian) system at Manchester South and a Siemens (Note this was before they bought the Westinghouse signalling group) system at Bournemouth, Railtrack believed by picking these cheaper installations over the more expensive Westinghouse and Alstom products (which were all based on the tried and tested BR SSI - and were thus well suited to UK needs) they would 'free up' the market for signalling equipment and make such schemes much cheaper. As with much else after privatisation Railtrack fully embraced the 'anything BR did is rubbish' message from the DfT, and much as was to occur later with the RoScos, the 'traditional' suppliers were seen as profiteering from a closed market.

 

However even Railtrack had to admit by mid / late 2002 all three schemes were in deep trouble - and for EBILock the technical difficulties of making the product work were too great for even Railtrack to put up with (the Manchester and Bournemouth schemes eventually went ahead but with some significant de-scoping to try and make them work - which is why Stockport still has two signal boxes which work absolute block in the station area!).

 

In the case of EBILock the basic problem was it simply took far too long to set routes and couldn't cope with the complexity of the Horsham area (which s actually pretty mild by usual BR(S) standards) but the condition of the wiring at Horsham box (plus other issues) meant any similar de-scoping wasn't feasible.

 

Consequently Railtrack was forced to give up on EBILock and install Alstom supplied bog standard SSI (and junk quite a lot of already installed kit in the process) - which meant the redesigned scheme went live over a year and a half later than planned in the summer if 2005.

 

This saw Horsham & Warnham boxes abolished. Littlehaven complete with gates and gate wheel was amazingly retained for the time being.

 

Fast forward a couple of years and Alstom were looking for a site to trial their new 2nd generation interlocking - and the picked the Horsham area to do so. For around a year the new  we had the Smartlock system running things with the traditional SSI still there as a backup and special instructions how to transfer control to it should the need arise. The trial was a success and the SSI interlocking was removed (outside, nothing changed as Smartlock is specifically designed to be backwards compatible with the traditional SSI trackside kit - as is 'Weslock' from Westinghouse / Siemens).

 

A few years after that Network Rail finally decided to bite the bullet and do something about Littlehaven - whose mechanical parts were incredibly worn with the gate linkages needing to be welded back together and increasingly frequent intervals! In a foretaste of what was to come at Plumpton, the locals and councillors did all they could to frustrate the scheme - which meant NR were forced to include a promise that they would retain local control of the barriers for at least 12 months after it was commissioned. As such Littlehaven box had to be retained complete with a new mini panel and CCTV monitors. 

 

Things then stayed stable until around 2010 when Network Rail started work on extending the area controlled by Pannel 7 at Three Bridges ASC southwards to remove the mechanical signalling between Billingshurst and Amberley. This also included the installation of an Obstacle Detection system at Billingshurst (rather than use CCTV to operate the crossing). Arundel box was to be retained - in the late 1970s it had seen its lever frame replaced by a panel controlling the coastway line in the vicinity of Ford plus junctions to Littlehampton and under the resignalling scheme it would work track circuit block to Three Bridges rather than absolute block to Amberley. Again trackside infrastructure was to be the tried and tested SSI but the existing Smartlock interlocking at Three Bridges was merely modified and reused (each single Smartlock interlocking can replace 4 BR SSI installations thanks to technical advances in computing)

 

The current state of the former Arun Valley signal boxes are:-

 

Littlehaven:- Initial plans to move control to Three Bridges got dropped by Network Rail as not cost effective (even though we still have the remains of the partially installed transmission system at Three Bridges relay room) so it looks likely to stay for many years. Realistically it is only likely to disappear if Panel 7 is removed from Three Bridges ASC or if someone changes it to an OD crossing.

 

Horsham:- Listed at the 11th hour (the lettering was specificity mentioned and had to be put back after it was removed pending demolition). Currently not used for anything but providing access for the public is problematic given its close proximity to the railway / sidings. It also lies outside the station adjacent to a large industrial area so not attractive for use as a cafe etc.

 

Warnham:- Demolished (in later years the box had to have a massive supporting structure built to brace its back wall as it started tilting backwards).

 

Billingshurst:- Dismantled and re-erected at Amberley Heritage Museum. http://www.amberleymuseum.co.uk/news/grand-opening-of-billingshurst-signal-box-sunday-25th-march-2018

 

Pulborough:- In situ but not used for anything. Although separate from the railway lines, public access could only be provided from the up station platform limiting its usefulness

 

Amberley - In situ but not used, although given this was a Southern Railway economy measure of a lever frame on the platform so one man could do everything (similar installations appeared at Sheffield Park and Martin Hill amongst others), its difficult to ee that it has any future use other than being absorbed by other businesses using the station building during a future refurbishment of the building.

 

Dorking & Arundel remain in use - as does Littlehaven

Edited October 20, 2018 by phil-b259

[jonny777]

Found some scanned B&W negs from 1991, a busy Clapham Junction yard.  Wonder why the 465s were there?

 

DSC00034.JPG

 

 

They would be brand new in that photo, and had recently been delivered to BR. I suspect they were being stored there (in a relatively secure area) while the first units of the class were undertaking driver training. 

 

Maybe there was not much room on the SE network and they wouldn't want shiny new units to be the target of vandals in random sidings elsewhere. 

[Northmoor]

The loco in the picture is 73006 which in the mid 90s was sent up here to wirral along with 73001/002/004 & 005.

 

Out of these I only recall seeing 73001 after it was renumbered as 73901 and marshalled in the middle of a 2 car ex class 501 to give extra umpff when going under the  river mersey.

I was a student in Liverpool in the early 90s and remember at least one 73 parked at Hall Road before the depot closed.  Can't remember if I ever saw them at Kirkdale but I know more than one was based there for a while.

[Welly]

Found some scanned B&W negs from 1991, a busy Clapham Junction yard.  Wonder why the 465s were there?

 

DSC00034.JPG

Great picture but what is that brick built structure between the tracks? 

[John M Upton]

The building between the tracks in the foreground looks a bit like a breeze block version of a SR concrete fogmans hut.

 

The 465's were there in storage prior to introduction on the South Eastern division, they were running out of space to park them all so some wound up in rather unexpected places!

Edited October 20, 2018 by John M Upton

[talisman56]

The building between the tracks in the foreground looks a bit like a breeze block version of a SR concrete fogmans hut.

 

The 465's were there in storage prior to introduction on the South Eastern division, they were running out of space to park them all so some wound up in rather unexpected places!

 

They couldn't use the down line between Ardingly and Horsted Keynes any more, as they did with the 4CEP/BEP units when they were delivered...

Edited October 20, 2018 by talisman56

[Claude_Dreyfus]

 

 

Billingshurst:- Dismantled and re-erected at Amberley Heritage Museum. http://www.amberleymuseum.co.uk/news/grand-opening-of-billingshurst-signal-box-sunday-25th-march-2018

 

Pulborough:- In situ but not used for anything. Although separate from the railway lines, public access could only be provided from the up station platform limiting its usefulness

 

 

 

Billingshurst needed to be removed to widen the level crossing - apparently there was some planning constraint on new development until this was done. Pity this particular level crossing seems to be a bit of a challenge for various delivery drivers, it is frequently being hit by drivers who seem to think the red lights don't apply to them...

 

Pulborough is sadly slowly deteriorating. There is a local campaign to restore it, but I am not 100% sure what they want to do with it. I believe it could be listed. Access is likely to be improved as there are plans to convert the area of the old Midhurst lines into another car park (although lack of capacity isn't a real problem a Pulborough...the main issue being the £800 a year to use it) which would allow for access. I hope something can be done with it.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

They would be brand new in that photo, and had recently been delivered to BR. I suspect they were being stored there (in a relatively secure area) while the first units of the class were undertaking driver training. 

 

Maybe there was not much room on the SE network and they wouldn't want shiny new units to be the target of vandals in random sidings elsewhere. 

 

Correct. There were a number in storage in the sidings at that time in preparation for introduction. It was certainly a novelty.

 

By coincidence 73006 was at Clapham (along with the Networkers) during one of my visits; was it really as long ago as 1991? Sadly the photos didn't come out. I did revisit, a little more successfully; although the photo has suffered a little in the intervening 25+ years.

 

 

Edit: there were some 159s lurking in the background of another shot taken on the same day, so I reckon this was was taken late 92/early 93. 

Edited October 20, 2018 by Claude_Dreyfus

[Andy Louch]

An hour or so at Eastleigh this lunchtime saw a 'blast from the past' as unbranded 'Plastic Pig; 442404 head back towards Bournemouth after leaving repainted 442408 at Eastleigh works.

Haven't sen a 'Pig' in Hampshire for a long time!

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

It arrived back at Bournemouth 110 mins early. Will post a picture of 2408 in new SWR later; the pictures are still in my camera.

[lmsforever]

Grey suits them makes them look younger

[talisman56]

Is it no longer a requirement to have yellow paint over the entire/as much as possible of the front/rear of a unit?

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Here are a few from today at Branksome.

 

 

 

 

[lmsforever]

A striking livery suits the unit good to see these units running again and they are comfortable to travel on.

[Mike Storey]

Is it no longer a requirement to have yellow paint over the entire/as much as possible of the front/rear of a unit?

 

Not any more, but only if the front lamp array meets the standards introduced a while back. There was a separate thread on this some months ago - sorry I can't find the link.