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Many old railway bridges under threat from demolition under new scheme


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On 12/01/2021 at 09:51, Zomboid said:

They weren't idiots when they built the routes to start with, so chances are they weren't far away from the optimal route.

 

Not necessarily.

 

Modern diesel and especially electric traction can romp up gradients that would have been a tough slog in the days of steam while line speeds have also generally been increased where possible to make rail travel more competitive with the private car.

 

As such it does not follow that the alignments chosen by the original builders were in any way 'optimal' - the twisty nature of our busiest InterCity main line (the WCML) being a prime example!

 

 

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Quite apart from the fact that railways often had sometimes quite convoluted detours due to landowners refusing to allow the railway to cross their property.

e.g. having to go 'around' instead of across and/or involving the complication of tunnels/viaducts etc

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1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

As such it does not follow that the alignments chosen by the original builders were in any way 'optimal' - the twisty nature of our busiest InterCity main line (the WCML) being a prime example

True, though the optimal alignment through many of the twisty bits would resemble the Sanyo Shinkansen, which seems to be mostly tunnel.

 

For many routes though, such as Penrith - Keswick which we were discussing at the time, the railway follows a river valley, and a new railway (planned without reference to the old line) between the same places would be quite likely to follow the same river, so the alignment won't be totally unlike the original.

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36 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

True, though the optimal alignment through many of the twisty bits would resemble the Sanyo Shinkansen, which seems to be mostly tunnel.

 

For many routes though, such as Penrith - Keswick which we were discussing at the time, the railway follows a river valley, and a new railway (planned without reference to the old line) between the same places would be quite likely to follow the same river, so the alignment won't be totally unlike the original.

On another thread maybe a year ago - sorry, can't remember which one - someone who had been involved in a drafting a business case into the Keswick re-opening, wrote some interesting detail.

 

If I remember rightly, the original line could not be used in its original form, as the line speed would have been too low.  This seriously impacted the point-to-point timings, so much so that a Carlisle to Keswick shuttle (hourly or whatever was considered necessary to be attractive) could only be achieved with three units instead of two.  It killed the business case, so significant realignment would have been required to allow up to perhaps 90mph.  I believe that further detailed design work wasn't done, but there is an assumption that building a brand new alignment isn't substantially more expensive, than restoring a formation that hasn't been maintained for nearly fifty years. 

As others have said, a modern DMU with over 1000hp available for 3 coaches will laugh at some of the gradients that an Ivatt Class 2 (or 1st Gen DMU) would have struggled to climb at 20mph.

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On 12/01/2021 at 15:20, 96701 said:

When working for BR we were given the job of infilling a road over rail bridge which led to a sawmill at Kings Cliffe, and the weight restriction on the bridge was giving the company some delivery difficulties. The only way to remove the weight limit was to earth up either side of the bridge, drill holes through the bridge deck and fill the void with concrete.

 

If anybody wishes to extend the Nene Valley Railway much further west , there will be a heck of a breakthrough to organise

I doubt it'll ever be a problem they'll have to overcome, the intended extension for the NVR is to head towards Oundle from Yarwell Jct. In any case, if they did head beyond Kings Cliffe, that would be the least of their worries, some kind soul's built a brewery in the middle of the trackbed west of the former Kings Cliffe station, that might be a bigger concern!

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3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Not necessarily.

 

Modern diesel and especially electric traction can romp up gradients that would have been a tough slog in the days of steam while line speeds have also generally been increased where possible to make rail travel more competitive with the private car.

 

As such it does not follow that the alignments chosen by the original builders were in any way 'optimal' - the twisty nature of our busiest InterCity main line (the WCML) being a prime example!

 

 

The East Gloucestershire Railway was notorious for being sub-optimal in alignment - in a flat landscape it avoided the towns it was supposed to serve by several miles.  There was no geographical reason for this, just it was chronically underfunded and could not afford the more expensive land near the towns!

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1 hour ago, RANGERS said:

I doubt it'll ever be a problem they'll have to overcome, the intended extension for the NVR is to head towards Oundle from Yarwell Jct. In any case, if they did head beyond Kings Cliffe, that would be the least of their worries, some kind soul's built a brewery in the middle of the trackbed west of the former Kings Cliffe station, that might be a bigger concern!

Too right! Can't have railways disturbing breweries. Heavens!

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I've had a look at another place I had some dealings with years ago. On the line to Rugby just outside Leamington the line went under the Southam road. The whole of the trackbed westwards towards Leamington has been olbliterated by a housing estate and factories to the site of the GWR loco shed, several road bridges and the canal bridge have already gone. To the east the line of route is almost intact almost to Rugby, a section being used as part of the National Cycle Network.

Edited by TheSignalEngineer
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6 hours ago, Wheatley said:

The River Eden might prove more of an obstacle. It's a nasty bend. 

Agreed; a very nice looking bridge but the local authority is not going to pay to maintain it because it might impact the Eden Valley Railway.  A railway that cannot afford to build anything to cover its rolling stock is not going to be paying to bridge the River Eden any time in the next 200 years. 

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2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Agreed; a very nice looking bridge but the local authority is not going to pay to maintain it because it might impact the Eden Valley Railway.  A railway that cannot afford to build anything to cover its rolling stock is not going to be paying to bridge the River Eden any time in the next 200 years. 

 

I think it's got a shed now. Well, depends which group we're talking about, there's one at Kirkby Stephen, Warcop doesn't have anything though.

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Eden Valley Railway is Warcop, Kirkby Stephen is the Stainemore Railway.

 

Seems odd that there are two seemingly independent heritage railways at adjacent stations. Are the groups linked? Is it a classic case of politics and ego resulting in 2 endeavours which would probably result in a better overall outcome if they worked together on one project?

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Just now, Zomboid said:

Eden Valley Railway is Warcop, Kirkby Stephen is the Stainemore Railway.

 

Seems odd that there are two seemingly independent heritage railways at adjacent stations. Are the groups linked? Is it a classic case of politics and ego resulting in 2 endeavours which would probably result in a better overall outcome if they worked together on one project?

Good point, I'll make the excuse that I was thinking of the Eden Valley Railway as in the railway as opposed to the group :)

 

I think there was that arguing and split at some point, I've a vague impression that they're on more cordial terms these days but I've not really heard anything much about either for years.

 

I keep thinking I'd love to try to model Kirkby Stephen East, out to the junction, it would need a lot of space though.

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56 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Eden Valley Railway is Warcop, Kirkby Stephen is the Stainmore Railway.

 

Seems odd that there are two seemingly independent heritage railways at adjacent stations. Are the groups linked? Is it a classic case of politics and ego resulting in 2 endeavours which would probably result in a better overall outcome if they worked together on one project?

That is exactly what happened, the EVR seemingly fell out with quite a number of other people and organisations. Their website once devoted a lot of attention to ranting (including some quite personal attacks) about Sustrans, hardly likely to endear them to anyone they would have to work with, like other landowners.

 

The idea of a preserved railway from Appleby to Kirkby Stephen and onto Belah (but NOT rebuilding the viaduct!) is very appealing.  It would be one of the most scenic in the country, but I fear it joined the preservation party about 20 years too late.  To repeat what I wrote earlier, they are NEVER going to afford to build a bridge over the River Eden (which must only have been demolished in the mid-late 1970s?).

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12 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

The idea of a preserved railway from Appleby to Kirkby Stephen and onto Belah (but NOT rebuilding the viaduct!) is very appealing.  It would be one of the most scenic in the country, but I fear it joined the preservation party about 20 years too late.  To repeat what I wrote earlier, they are NEVER going to afford to build a bridge over the River Eden (which must only have been demolished in the mid-late 1970s?).

Must've been some time around then, wasn't the line still intact to the other side of Kirkby Stephen for access to Hartley Quarry until some point in the 70s, before being cut back to Warcop?

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Eden Valley Railway is Warcop, Kirkby Stephen is the Stainemore Railway.

 

Seems odd that there are two seemingly independent heritage railways at adjacent stations. Are the groups linked? Is it a classic case of politics and ego resulting in 2 endeavours which would probably result in a better overall outcome if they worked together on one project?

 

I used to work up there in the 1990s. At the time, there were a few very active, very committed local railway enthusiasts. Most of their energies were either channeled into supporting FoSCL which is where I crossed paths with them, or into making British Steel keep its limestone traffic from Redmire on the rails by objecting to any suggestion to switch to road. 

 

I have absolutely no idea who is involved with which bit of the former NER route, but knowing the personality of at least one of the above mentioned quite well (i.e. having once been hairdryered by them), it doesn't surprise me at all that there are two groups.  

 

 

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38 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I've no idea what they're planning at Kirkby Stephen, but the route towards Newbiggin on Lune doesn't appear to have any obstacles like the river Eden to deal with.

 

Running over Smardale Gill Viaduct would be something pretty special.

 

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3 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

Running over Smardale Gill Viaduct would be something pretty special.

 

Indeed. There may be other insurmountable issues before there, but I'd be heading that way if I were them.

 

Kirkby Stephen East station itself looks pretty nice.

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I remember travelling from Penrith to Keswick in the front of a DMU when it was possible to have a driver's eye view. It twisted and turned so much it almost followed field boundaries but what a brilliant railway.

 

The word optimal is hugely misused like many other words such as unique (e.g. almost unique). For something to be "optimal" would require a definition. Optimal with regard to what - cost, environmental impact, length etc, etc. There is no way that Victorian engineers could ever have achieved anything like an optimal route to any criterion. The maths didn't exist and you need a computer to do the number crunching.

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48 minutes ago, John-Miles said:

I remember travelling from Penrith to Keswick in the front of a DMU when it was possible to have a driver's eye view. It twisted and turned so much it almost followed field boundaries but what a brilliant railway.

 

The word optimal is hugely misused like many other words such as unique (e.g. almost unique). For something to be "optimal" would require a definition. Optimal with regard to what - cost, environmental impact, length etc, etc. There is no way that Victorian engineers could ever have achieved anything like an optimal route to any criterion. The maths didn't exist and you need a computer to do the number crunching.

You're right that you need to define optimal, for what; in terms of gradients, it was probably optimal for the motive power available at the time. Actually the maths WAS available at that time, that to calculate gradients through curved routes, volumes of spoil generated/required is still the same.  Modern computing power has just speeded up the process and allows multiple options to be calculated, but the calcs haven't really changed in 200 years.

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4 hours ago, Northmoor said:

You're right that you need to define optimal, for what; in terms of gradients, it was probably optimal for the motive power available at the time. Actually the maths WAS available at that time, that to calculate gradients through curved routes, volumes of spoil generated/required is still the same.  Modern computing power has just speeded up the process and allows multiple options to be calculated, but the calcs haven't really changed in 200 years.

 

Definitely - the criteria have changed rather than the maths. To take the Keswick line anything other than the Greta route in to Keswick is probably impractical anyway, even for a modern railway (look how much the A66 drops to manage it). The biggest loop, around Flusco, is to gain height - it has 1:70 gradients as it is, so quite possibly was the optimal choice considering the traction of the time and the expense of the very significant tunneling that would've been required for anything less. Nowadays the criteria count against curves more than hills, but it's the same maths with different weightings. And land purchase issues are the same regardless.

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Sorry but most of the maths on optimsation dates from WW2 onwards when Operations Research was started for managing things like convoys. It really took off from the 60s onwards when we had computers and more recently there have been advances such as Stochastic Search Algorithms (not to be confused with algorithms used for School grades which didn't deserve the bad press they got - blame the user not the algorithm).

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