GWML Electification

[St. Simon]

12 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Clearly not. The present situation is ludicrous enough that every possible solution to avoid it will surely have been investigated, and the resulting situation is the least worst option within the fixed parameters.

 

I feel sorry for whoever had to sign off on electric trains being unable to use an electrified siding, but there it is. No viable alternatives existed.

Hi,

 

I can assure everyone that every possibility was explored and non of us are truly happy with outcome, but we did succeed in making it a lot better than it was going to be.

 

There isn’t one person is the responsible part for ‘signing off’ of such a situation, it’s more of an agreement between lots of parties.

 

Simon

Edited October 30, 2021 by St. Simon

[Zomboid]

Design processes that I've been part of need several people to sign the decisions off. Everyone who had to put their name to what's been done has my sympathy. I have had to do similar things, where everyone involved is saying "this is rubbish, but the alternatives are worse", but you just know that in 20 years time someone without the background knowledge it's going to look at it and say "what the flippin eck were they thinking?". And by then better solutions will probably be available.

 

Maybe sense will prevail and the line to Swansea will be wired so this offending balise can be consigned to the dustbin of history before that happens here!

[ess1uk]

20 hours ago, St. Simon said:

 

Hi,

 

Lot of that is false, it wasn't the DFT that insisted that Balises (not Beacons) were installed at Cardiff Central, it was a joint decision between Great Western and Network Rail. 

 

Line A is not wired for turnback moves, only Brickyard Sidings are wired. the ideal situation would be to allow Class 80x units to turnback in Electric in Brickyard Sidings, however, the reason for not doing it was that we (trained and licensed Signaller Designers) couldn't protect the end of the OLE without putting the Balises before the point of divergence (i.e, right at the end of the Platforms), and there is no technical way, without installing ETCS and linking the PCO information with the Movement Authority received by the train, of telling the trains TMS (the system that manages the PCO process) the route that it is actually taking (and no, you can't use the headcode changes etc). This decision wasn't anything to do with ORR, nor was the running of the 387s (other than the general authorisation for the units to enter service).

 

 The reason for providing the Automated Back Up via ETCS Packet 44 Data was NOT because of a 'lack of trust' of signallers or drivers, it is because  the risk of a significant de-wirement event, should the driver get it wrong and a pantograph still be raised when the wires ran out, was too great, and frankly, it turns out it is needed at Cardiff. There are other ends of OLE on the Great Western that don't have Balises installed as has been assessed to be low risk if the driver gets it wrong.

 

There is a fair risk of a Driver forgetting to do the change-over at Cardiff, considering that the driver has to perform station duties as well as set the train up (changing headcodes etc) for the ECS movement.

 

Simon

So when will full ETCS reach Cardiff?

[96701]

5 hours ago, ess1uk said:

So when will full ETCS reach Cardiff?

Depends on how long your measuring string is.

[St. Simon]

1 hour ago, 96701 said:

Depends on how long your measuring string is.

What he said  

 

Simon

[ess1uk]

On 31/10/2021 at 15:13, St. Simon said:

What he said  

 

Simon

wouldn't want to rush these things

 

[Jonboy]

And our favourite bridge is back in the news… 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-59825606 

 

https://www.heraldseries.co.uk/news/19814345.traffic-restrictions-place-steventon-railway-bridge-brickwork-weakens/

[corneliuslundie]

The comments on the newspaper article are quite amusing.

Jonathan

[jamie92208]

The comments do make interesting reading.  I sincerely  hope that no photos emerge of NR engineers chipping away at the mortsr in the early hours.   Not that they would of course.

 

Jamie

[Grovenor]

I note it says that the County Council own and maintain the bridge, that seems very unusual if true.

[The Stationmaster]

On 30/10/2021 at 15:14, St. Simon said:

 

Hi,

 

Not to Brickyard Sidings, no, that's not the issue.

 

The issue is that if it started off to Swansea or the Valley (? Sorry, can't remember from the scheme plan) with it's pan up then it would do very significant damage to the OLE. 

 

However, there was no technical way of ensuring that a Class 80x would lower it's pan if route towards the non-electrified lines whilst allowing an electric shunt move towards the Brickyard due to the layout OLE.

 

Simon

Sorry to be  very late to ths party but something seems very amiss here and I wonder if it is the trains or the OLE?  In most designs of overhead electric train I have ever come across - including Class 373 Eurostars - run off OLE with the pan raised the pan will go overheight and auto lower.  No external controls of any sort are used - the pan will do that all on its own and controlled by whatever is built into the traction unit if it is not lowered by the Driver.    OLE design is (or rather in BR days was) planned to take account of this and a pan going overheight would not damage the OLE because the rise of the contact wire would be sufficient to make a pan safely go overheight without damaging the OLE.  A balise could no doubt do the same in a simpe, situation but that is not an excuse, nor should it be used as one, for the OLE to be planned and constructed without proper run off arrangements.

 

If we consider the various incidents involving Class 373s I know of three where the pan was raised at the wrong time and only one of them involved a unit 'running off the end of OLE - it occurred on the West London Line when an HST left North Pole depot running on 25kv power instead of the 3rd railand the OLE wasn't damaged but the pan was sufficiently high still to come in to contact with an overbridge which didn't do it any good.   The incident at Saltwood Tunnel was not a pan running off OLE but a pan being erroneously raised after the train had converted to 3rd rail pickup and the tunnel didn't damage the pan because most of it was wrapped round a signal gantry sited a little way in rear of the tunnel mouth because the overheight control hadn't taken effect due to the pan only just being raised.  The other incident occurred at Sandling where - again - the pan on a London bound train was erroneously raised approaching the station and it came into collision with the station footbridge at Sandling - again before it went overheight.

 

Interestingly the frequency of pan/infrastructure collisions on Eurostar passenger carrying trains matched precisely the results of the risk assessment which had been carried out before the trains entered service and which was included in the Eurostar safety case.  The Eurostar situation was of course considerably more complicated that simply running on or off OLE because control of the pan and retractable 3rd rail shoes was part of thh system changeover procedure which  also altered the cab signalling to the relevant system the train was running onto and changed the radio to a different frequency to match that needed for the system now being entered.   Judgiong by Simon's comments and UK advances in digital controls and balise design still wouldn't allow something that complex to be done automatically and in any case the Class 373 followed the standard UIC arrangement of the time in making the change under the control of the Driver.

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, Grovenor said:

I note it says that the County Council own and maintain the bridge, that seems very unusual if true.

The County Council are no doubt responsible for the maintenance of the highway which passes over the bridge because it was de-trunked a long while back but I would presume that NR are probably responsible for maintaining the bridge.  BR carried out all the previous work on the bridge including strenghtening of at least one of the wing arches and repair/replacement of a lot of the brickwork on the Up side  sometime in the past although I presume all that work was done before 'someone' had the bridge listed.  In view of the years of damage to the bridge resulting from its use by heavy traffic I wonder if BR sought any money from elsewhere for repairs and strengthening - but I bet they didn't get any

 

Its only connection with Brunel appears to be that he signed the drawing - whether or not he actually designed it is not known and I would be surprised if he personally supervised its construction although it is clear that he inspected or at least monitored the works on the various contracts during the extension of the railway from Reading to Steventon (and elsewhere of course).

 

As far as I'm concerned the sooner it is replaced the better because with noticeable deterioration of the road surface at both ends of the bride and some minor subsidence at the southern end (I think possibly just clear of the bridge structure?)  I am going to get rather fed up with a portion of my Council Tax being spent on a lost cause which in many places is no more original than Trigger's broom.

[Titan]

This is indeed an issue, I worked on the Stockley-Maidenhead part of the electrification as this was funded by Crossrail and managed separately, and there were several listed bridges that we had to jump through hoops if we wanted to attach any OLE to.  In many cases since the original bridge was built, the road above had been widened, and the line had been quadrupled, meaning that the only bit of the bridge that was original was the middle section of the centre span that was only visible if you were standing under the bridge. This would account for only a small portion of the entire structure, but because Brunel had signed the original drawing...

 

However,  it will be interesting to see how attitudes  towards this bridge change now that the council might have to foot a large bill that would have been unnecessary if the bridge had been replaced, and the villagers are inconvenienced as a result of their campaign...

Edited December 31, 2021 by Titan

[Arun Sharma]

Commenting on both Stationmaster's and Titan's notes, IKB lived in Steventon during the period the GWML was being built so the locals do have considerable propriety feelings towards him. As a resident of Abingdon, I regularly use the road through Steventon and over the bridge [in fact it is the original A34]. It is a convenient bypass of the present Abingdon Bypass [the present dual carriageway A34] which is subject to regular rush hour traffic jams between Oxford and Didcot. Thus closing the Steventon bridge is likely to inconvenience rather more folk than just those who live in Steventon.

[Jonboy]

Not to mention the other Didcot to Abingdon route via Culham (again avoiding A34) has traffic lights on the Nags Head bridge, restricting to one direction at a time and with delays of up to 30 minutes in a bad day, due to structural damage awaiting repair…and is a listed structure that needs English heritage approval on repair methods and then appropriate contractors booked once process agreed…

[St. Simon]

On 30/12/2021 at 22:26, jamie92208 said:

The comments do make interesting reading.  I sincerely  hope that no photos emerge of NR engineers chipping away at the mortsr in the early hours.   Not that they would of course.

 

Jamie

Quite frankly, I would be first in the queue, I still get a nervous tick whenever the ‘S’ word is mentioned…..

 

Simon

Edited January 1, 2022 by St. Simon

[corneliuslundie]

If the bridge is really by Brunel we need to treat it properly.

So only broad gauge steam trains on baulk road track underneath and only horse drawn vehicles over it, so it is an approriate setting.

And Simon, can you please draw up a design to integrate disc and crossbar signals with ECTS?

Jonathan

PS I live in an early 19th century terraced house in a street where all of the housing is at least 150 years old. The whole street is listed. So if I want to replace the UPVc windows with timber I need listed building consent (they were there when the street was listed).

[Arun Sharma]

Added to my previous missive above, there is now considerable infill housing building [several hundred houses] taking place between the North of Abingdon and the A34 bypass surrounding it. At present there is no access to the southbound A34 from the North end of Abingdon but I suspect there will be demands to improve the limited access A34 junction there soon [presently only northbound access is possible]. The immediate effect of that housing build up will be to increase the amount of southbound traffic trying to leave Abingdon and thus almost certainly increase the amount of traffic that uses the Steventon route in a hope of avoiding the A34 log jam.

It may of course be this new build that has stimulated the Vale of White Horse DC to actually do something about the Steventon Bridge.......

As Jonboy says, the even older route via the Culham bridge over the Thames is hardly practical unless on two wheels rather than four.

 

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Arun Sharma said:

Added to my previous missive above, there is now considerable infill housing building [several hundred houses] taking place between the North of Abingdon and the A34 bypass surrounding it. At present there is no access to the southbound A34 from the North end of Abingdon but I suspect there will be demands to improve the limited access A34 junction there soon [presently only northbound access is possible]. The immediate effect of that housing build up will be to increase the amount of southbound traffic trying to leave Abingdon and thus almost certainly increase the amount of traffic that uses the Steventon route in a hope of avoiding the A34 log jam.

It may of course be this new build that has stimulated the Vale of White Horse DC to actually do something about the Steventon Bridge.......

As Jonboy says, the even older route via the Culham bridge over the Thames is hardly practical unless on two wheels rather than four.

 

There is in reality no need at all to go via Steventon.  if you are coming south on the B4017 towards Steventon from Abingdon you can turn off at Drayton and go via Suttton Courtenay - slightly (by 1 minute) slower in average traffoc conditionsbut exactly the same distance,  And if you're heading for Milton Park it's an even shorter route.  Steventon is the shortest if you coming from the Hanney direction or parts of Grove and wish to avoid Wantage,  And of course depending on where you start from in Abingdon and where you're heading in Dicot the route via Culham and Clifton Hampden is perfectly viable (as long as the river isn't flooded ), and apart from Clifton Hampden itself is relatively fast road as I know from driving over all of it, albeit as parts of different journeys,  over many years.

 

The big problem with route route via Culham is the traffic lights over the bridges (as already noted) but being on two wheels won't make any difference there - you still have to obey the lights unless you get off and walk.  With delays like 30 minutes you'd be better off in any case going via Clifton Hampden and Whittenham.

[St. Simon]

8 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

And Simon, can you please draw up a design to integrate disc and crossbar signals with ECTS?

Jonathan.

Hi Jonathon,

 

Of course, however it might need some electricity, but we can get Mr Faraday on that problem I’m sure.

 

Simon

[Zomboid]

What are the odds that the bridge ends up single carriageway with lights? Worst of all worlds for everyone, and only a couple of years after an opportunity to get central government (via NR) to install a nice new one.

[Arun Sharma]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

There is in reality no need at all to go via Steventon.  if you are coming south on the B4017 towards Steventon from Abingdon you can turn off at Drayton and go via Suttton Courtenay - slightly (by 1 minute) slower in average traffoc conditionsbut exactly the same distance,  And if you're heading for Milton Park it's an even shorter route.  Steventon is the shortest if you coming from the Hanney direction or parts of Grove and wish to avoid Wantage,  And of course depending on where you start from in Abingdon and where you're heading in Dicot the route via Culham and Clifton Hampden is perfectly viable (as long as the river isn't flooded ), and apart from Clifton Hampden itself is relatively fast road as I know from driving over all of it, albeit as parts of different journeys,  over many years.

 

The big problem with route route via Culham is the traffic lights over the bridges (as already noted) but being on two wheels won't make any difference there - you still have to obey the lights unless you get off and walk.  With delays like 30 minutes you'd be better off in any case going via Clifton Hampden and Whittenham.

I suppose I was really thinking about a right turn at the top of Steventon Hill towards the Harwell campus. In that case the journey is very much a choice of the old or the new A34.

However, I take your point regarding travelling to Didcot via Drayton and Appleford.

[The Stationmaster]

16 hours ago, Arun Sharma said:

I suppose I was really thinking about a right turn at the top of Steventon Hill towards the Harwell campus. In that case the journey is very much a choice of the old or the new A34.

However, I take your point regarding travelling to Didcot via Drayton and Appleford.

If you're heading towards Harwell do take care at Rowstock cross roads - nowadays a roundabout of course - at this time of year/. Many years ago one Boxing Day when approaching the junction from the Harwell village direction the lights were green for me but my journey was impeded by a car coming down the hill on the then A34 from my left which jumped the lights and shot across the junction at speed - on its roof.

[lmsforever]

On 06/02/2019 at 23:26, Arun Sharma said:

Earlier in its life, I believe the shop was the HQ of the Oxford Publishing Company and then later taken over by Motor Books who were based just behind St Martins Lane in London  [+ a couple of subsid. branches in Swindon and Bournmouth]. It was a seriously impressive bookshop with knowledgeable staff - I always got the impression that they were 0gauge modellers rather than RTR suppliers. But a great loss to Oxford though Howes still had a shop in Broad Street in central Oxford at that time.

This shop was my favourite shop the range of models was great plus the books made it unique a bonus was the staff they were friends ,the Howes store in Broad St Oxford another mecca for modelers .Not a fan of current shop mostly an online operation  miss the old shops.

[ess1uk]

I was at Radley the other day, that ATS looks sorry sat there with no OLE!