Fast and relief lines in Sonning cutting

[The Johnster]

And no doubt why they were commonly referred to as 'Skully clips' (sorry for getting the C and H in the wrong order).

 

 

Alas it can get far more confusing as the Relief Lines on the Western Valley and Cardiff Valleys were all worked under Permissive Block Regulations.

 

 

As I should have well known, and had forgotten!

[Grovenor]

 Up Down Down Up or Down Up Up Down on the LMS quite often,

Do you have any examples of these two variants?

Regards

[Ed Winterbury]

The LMS's Down Up Up Down was used quite extensively on MML and other MR line loops. The prolonged loops had this where there was heavy utilisation of the Up loop and limited use of the Down loop, so the Down loop became the unofficial Up third running line. This was also used in reverse.

[w124bob]

But the relief lines are slower 100mph on the bit that I've driven over and they didn't give me any relief. Just (G)WR trying to be different again, they rebuild Reading and resignal in a manner almost deliberatley awkward for a driver.

[The Johnster]

But the relief lines are slower 100mph on the bit that I've driven over and they didn't give me any relief. Just (G)WR trying to be different again, they rebuild Reading and resignal in a manner almost deliberatley awkward for a driver.

 

 

Or, as the GWR would have put it, better.  Other railways were described as being 'different', with the correct overtone of contempt...

[The Stationmaster]

The LMS's Down Up Up Down was used quite extensively on MML and other MR line loops. The prolonged loops had this where there was heavy utilisation of the Up loop and limited use of the Down loop, so the Down loop became the unofficial Up third running line. This was also used in reverse.

 

That sounds a bit odd.  The quadruple track at the southern end of the MML was (and is) almost entirely arranged with pairing by use with a little bit of largely pairing by direction south of Cambridge Street in semaphore days although there were several places in the past where additional lines (almost entirely goods loops) were added and in some cases these were between the normal pairings.  Similarly the quadruple track pairing through the Leicester area to Trent Jcn was pairing by use so, again, in the normal pattern of Down Up Down Up.

 

Plenty of signalbox diagrams available on the 'net to confirm all this (no evidence of bi-directional signalling on any of the principal running lines in the past except at certain large stations where passenger train reversals took place ) -

 

http://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/lmsdiagrams.htm

[The Stationmaster]

Or, as the GWR would have put it, better.  Other railways were described as being 'different', with the correct overtone of contempt...

The GWR very deliberately decided on using the term 'Relief Lines' when quadrupling was first underway in the 1890s and one contemporaneous source claims it did so in order to set itself apart from the term 'Slow Lines' used at that time by the LNWR.

 

The term 'Relief' is of course absolutely correct because these lines were added in order to relieve the overcrowding - due to increasing traffic levels  - on the Main Lines and of course the lines aren't as such 'slow' (in fact the Relief Lines between Tilehurst and Moreton Cutting are actually 'high speed lines' (by the standard UK definition) as the Line Speed is 100mph.

[Trog]

The GWR very deliberately decided on using the term 'Relief Lines' when quadrupling was first underway in the 1890s and one contemporaneous source claims it did so in order to set itself apart from the term 'Slow Lines' used at that time by the LNWR.

 

The term 'Relief' is of course absolutely correct because these lines were added in order to relieve the overcrowding - due to increasing traffic levels  - on the Main Lines and of course the lines aren't as such 'slow' (in fact the Relief Lines between Tilehurst and Moreton Cutting are actually 'high speed lines' (by the standard UK definition) as the Line Speed is 100mph.

 

As opposed to the WCML slow lines which have line speeds up to 125MPH.

 

Must admit that working on the London to Bristol branch made me feel uneasy after thirty odd years of working on the south end of the WCML. Not enough trains I kept wondering what had gone wrong.