Blackpool - Manchester Electrification

[a_c_skinner]

Lostock Wigan would be a good start

fingers crossed for the Transpennine Route Upgrade

Well either would keep them current with dubious geology, old infrastructure and shallow mining. To be honest Britain's geology is well surveyed and understood and I'm astonished that these can be unanticipated. Actually it all seems like ECML revenue. The most optimistic plan is the preferred one even if not that wise.

 

[59CosG95]

Well either would keep them current with dubious geology, old infrastructure and shallow mining. To be honest Britain's geology is well surveyed and understood and I'm astonished that these can be unanticipated. Actually it all seems like ECML revenue. The most optimistic plan is the preferred one even if not that wise.

The surveying done of the geology in the areas tends to be fairly cursory; what electrification schemes need is a thorough site investigation along the entire route being electrified. Checking the ground conditions 3 times over, measuring the groundwater levels, designing any structures to cope with pore water pressure etc.

I don't quite understand the point about "The most optimistic plan" - I'm not even aware what that plan is, as most wiring schemes have been Graylinged last I heard!

 

[a_c_skinner]

Sorry I meant that the plan most attractive to the powers and therefore used to yield time frames is always the most optimistic plan, so we are living in a system forever biased towards over optimism followed by disappointment.

UK geology is well understood before the need for any site work, as are soils.

 

[Pyreneenguy]

Passed through Blackpool last Thursday and took the opportunity to see how work was progressing at Blackpool North (Good view from Sainsbury's café and cheap and decent cream afternoon tea).
I know appearences can be deceptive but there still is a long way to go before the station is operational. Perhaps the plan is to re-open well before the work is completed ? I didn't have a decent camera with me so no photos.

I took a route from Liverpool that I last used over 40 years ago with a Merseyrover : Liverpool / Ormskirk / Preston and finally Blackpool South. I was pleasantly surprised to see a semaphore signal at Midge Hall !
I alighted at Pleasure Beach ( to enjoy a long walk along the prom to Blackpool North). Again surprised by a new signal just to the north of the platform at Pleasure Beach. The line is basically a long siding from Kirkham so why has new signalling been installed ? The train was very busy, surely this line would benefit from a passing-loop enabling a half-hourly service ?

 

[Halish Railway]

The train was very busy, surely this line would benefit from a passing-loop enabling a half-hourly service ?

Bare in mind a lot of that traffic would have been diverted from Blackpool North where people would rather take a train than a replacement bus, hence why longer than usual trains would have been used, terminating at Preston to save units. Trains to Blackpool are busy as they stand, diverting them on to an hourly train will create quite a busy service.

 

[WatcherZero]

The surveys were thorough, the ground conditions were just so variable with piles encountering totally different ground conditions only cm from test cores. The geology is well understood yes, but the places have been extensivley mined for over three centuries and decent mine records only go back half that time, most of the hundreds of small operations where people were digging open cast pits in their back gardens to extract the shallow coal seams for personal use were never recorded either.

Look at the national coal field maps of the area and you will see hundreds of known shafts recorded but vast swathes of land where there could be more unrecorded shafts following the seams.

 

[a_c_skinner]

Exactly, the difficulties could have been foreseen, or at least the probability foreseen. All that was well known before anyone went on site.

 

[59CosG95]

The surveys were thorough, the ground conditions were just so variable with piles encountering totally different ground conditions only cm from test cores. The geology is well understood yes, but the places have been extensivley mined for over three centuries and decent mine records only go back half that time, most of the hundreds of small operations where people were digging open cast pits in their back gardens to extract the shallow coal seams for personal use were never recorded either.

Look at the national coal field maps of the area and you will see hundreds of known shafts recorded but vast swathes of land where there could be more unrecorded shafts following the seams.

Exactly, the difficulties could have been foreseen, or at least the probability foreseen. All that was well known before anyone went on site.

Ah, my apologies. While I did know the geology posed a problem, I had forgotten just how much of the problems were caused by factors out of NR's control.

 

[B&I]

Local authorities are now performing CT scans before doing pavement repairs. Woild something like this be possible pre-electrification, perhaps by driving a 4x4 carrying the equipment along the trackside? Or what about ground radar?

 

[InOban]

Not sure if it's CT, actually, but I agree, the technology used by archaeologists could surely have produced a continuous picture of subsurface structures, allowing the best placement of piles.

 

[edwin_m]

Techniques such as ground penetrating radar are used in railway work, although I'm not sure how often.

 

[CdBrux]

would not the best cost estimate be to assume the same level of difficulty encountered on the current scheme and thus assume the cost and time needed will be based on current experience, maybe with some improvements based on learnings taken. If that turns out to be too expensive then it shouldn't be done and we should hope other, less risky schemes are also sufficiently well developed to keep a rolling programme going.

 

[jyte]

The issue of a lack of site surveys was discussed in quite great detail in the GWEP thread if I remember it correctly. Surveying hundreds of miles of track with GPR is a) expensive and b) very time consuming but it needs to be done.

 

[InOban]

It may be expensive but it is cheaper than the not doing it, especially in any area with a history of mining.

 

[edwin_m]

would not the best cost estimate be to assume the same level of difficulty encountered on the current scheme and thus assume the cost and time needed will be based on current experience, maybe with some improvements based on learnings taken. If that turns out to be too expensive then it shouldn't be done and we should hope other, less risky schemes are also sufficiently well developed to keep a rolling programme going.

I'd suggest something a bit similar but with the emphasis put rather differently.

Someone needs to take a very thorough look at recent schemes (GW in particular) and compare expenditure with previous schemes under BR. Every difference (once inflation is allowed for) should be categorised as one of:
(a) scheme specific, investigation needed when costing future schemes to determine if this will happen again
(b) unavoidable due to revised H&S rules, industry structure etc (anything in this category should reviewed again by someone else to be sure it really is)
(c) avoidable, in which case recommendations should be made to ensure it is avoided next time

This should result in some robust costings, which don't just take the last overspend, add a bit more because it will overspend again, and then wonder why the scheme is rejected on cost grounds.

 

[Ianno87]

Local authorities are now performing CT scans before doing pavement repairs. Woild something like this be possible pre-electrification, perhaps by driving a 4x4 carrying the equipment along the trackside? Or what about ground radar?

Well, would have to be a road-rail vehicle in many cases. Equals possessions to undertake. Taking Bolton-Manchester for example, very few places you can actually drive alongside!

 

[snowball]

Are there any published figures on outturn costs for recent electrification schemes other than GW?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It may be expensive but it is cheaper than the not doing it, especially in any area with a history of mining.

There comes a point when the project will be rejected on cost grounds.
Neither GW or Manchester-Preston schemes might have progressed if the ground conditions were known in 2009 when the go-ahead was given.
Other projects are now paying the price of the cost/time overruns.
The TP scheme is also caught in the cost-benefit loop as NR cannot confirm the electrification cost.

 

[B&I]

Techniques such as ground penetrating radar are used in railway work, although I'm not sure how often.

Would they be capable of picking up the sorts of things which have caused problems with electrification? Or is the problem less with identifying the problems, and more with having to rectify the problems identified?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

https://twitter.com/TheGNRP

I see the Twitter feed is showing the cut back canopies at Poulton-le-Fylde station

 

[Joseph_Locke]

Would they be capable of picking up the sorts of things which have caused problems with electrification? Or is the problem less with identifying the problems, and more with having to rectify the problems identified?

Phase 4 had mining records, regular but infrequent boreholes and trial pits plus drift geology. The main issue (and those who have seen what Farnworth Tunnel found, in 240 yards) is that no matter how many cores you take, how boreholes you make and how ofter you dig a trial hole, the very nature of the way the railways were built means that you will ALWAYS find a difficulty somewhere in over 1600 OLE structures. Not all of the Phase 4 issues are geological, and ground penetrating radar (GPR) is notoriously hard to interpret accurately, particularly over a small area.

As to mining records, you can basically forget them as a means of accurately finding anything; the work at Orlando Street didn't find what it was expecting, but the OLE bases at Bullfield have had to be redesigned to deal with shallow mining. LNW-GW Joint makes a sound point - if the NW electrification programme had done all the ground investigation (GI) it would have had to have done to avoid every foundation issue then a) we might not have built anything, b) it might have only just started if we had and c) we would have used 1000s of possessions and millions of your tax pounds doing it; there has to be a balance, and the attempted acceleration of the programme to meet nebulous regulatory outputs caused the projects to run before they had donned appropriate footwear.

 

[a_c_skinner]

That wasn't my point, which I conveyed (or not) badly. There must be a means of sampling the geology and mining activity to estimate better what proportion of the route will be difficult accepting you won't know which bits of course until you've dug all of them. In other words to do enough sampling in the statistical as well as geological sense to arrive at an estimate of what proportion of the route will be difficult. With what has been known for ages about shallow mining and the superficial geology along the route it should have been practical to be less taken by surprise and to reach a better estimate of slippage.

Edit or we could use our current estimating techniques and add on two years. That would have made Blackpool into a triumph!

 

[B&I]

Phase 4 had mining records, regular but infrequent boreholes and trial pits plus drift geology. The main issue (and those who have seen what Farnworth Tunnel found, in 240 yards) is that no matter how many cores you take, how boreholes you make and how ofter you dig a trial hole, the very nature of the way the railways were built means that you will ALWAYS find a difficulty somewhere in over 1600 OLE structures. Not all of the Phase 4 issues are geological, and ground penetrating radar (GPR) is notoriously hard to interpret accurately, particularly over a small area.

As to mining records, you can basically forget them as a means of accurately finding anything; the work at Orlando Street didn't find what it was expecting, but the OLE bases at Bullfield have had to be redesigned to deal with shallow mining. LNW-GW Joint makes a sound point - if the NW electrification programme had done all the ground investigation (GI) it would have had to have done to avoid every foundation issue then a) we might not have built anything, b) it might have only just started if we had and c) we would have used 1000s of possessions and millions of your tax pounds doing it; there has to be a balance, and the attempted acceleration of the programme to meet nebulous regulatory outputs caused the projects to run before they had donned appropriate footwear.

I understand that conditions can change metre by metre. What I was wondering was whether using some sort of vehicle-mounted scanning device could build up a sufficiently continuous picture to eliminate most of the nasty surprises

 

[59CosG95]

I understand that conditions can change metre by metre. What I was wondering was whether using some sort of vehicle-mounted scanning device could build up a sufficiently continuous picture to eliminate most of the nasty surprises

That would of course depend on the nature of said scanner i.e. what would it be specifically scanning for.
If, for example, mining records suggest that there are unmapped shafts in close proximity to the borehole, and the soil in the surrounding area (near the railway and borehole) was one that was almost saturated, and the construction was taking place after/during a period of prolonged rainfall, the contractor should take appropriate action to minimise the probability of a landslip.

Then again, this might have been taken into account and the fact that the surprises were in fact surprises is almost self-explanatory!

 

[reg]

Bolton-new masts and bases in place on the Blackburn line from the station as far as Bradshawgate tunnel.Pics to follow.

 

[LDECRexile]

Reg's photos have arrived as promised. I've added them to his album here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127646831@N03/albums/72157671732263863

I went by train from Southport to Salford Crescent and back today, stopping off at Bolton.

Action on the overlap onto the Wigan line. All bar two bases are now driven into the ground, several have masts.
Orangemen and yellow kit in action on the ziggurat at Lostock.
Masts towards Blackburn, as Reg says, but this exposes a suspected base gap opposite Bolton Platform 1, northern end, please see photo captions.
The unclear work underway a week ago near the Bolton Platform 2 bufferstop was installing foundations for fenceposts, please see photo captions.
No progress on the base gap(s) opposite Bolton Platform 5.
Seats installed between Platforms 2 and 3, towards Bolton southern end.
Witnessed Platform tracks 4 and 5 in use with a tamper leaving 5 whilst 4 was in use for all passenger trains whilst I was there. Alas the tamper fled my camera before I could get off my train.
Steelwork being unloaded at Burnden worksite.
Burnden area looks mastier and danglier.
5 TTCs in place between the station footbridge and Rawson St, Farnworth, making that section look fully masted. Rawson St to Balustraded bridge baseless as far as I could see.
Work in hand on the new footpath under M60 bridge, foundations clearly under way on southbound side of footbridge-to-be, couldn't see any on northbound side.
Couldn't see anything new in the base gap north of Agecroft Rd bridge.
The solution to the problem of the Pendleton Old area is now clearer, please see photo captions.
Couldn't see anything happening opposite Salford Crescent Platform 2.

I've added both Reg's and my shots to the Combined Volume here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127646831@N03/albums/72157661069863633

Thank you Reg.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

I've added both Reg's and my shots to the Combined Volume here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127646831@N03/albums/72157661069863633

Thank you Reg.

Re P1 gap (9680k Bolton) there is a sign on the right that gives you the answer: there will be no wires beyond the signal. The masts round towards Darwen only support an over-run wire from P3, as at Lostock towards Westhoughton and at Agecroft (GMWDA) Sidings.

 

[LDECRexile]

Re P1 gap (9680k Bolton) there is a sign on the right that gives you the answer: there will be no wires beyond the signal. The masts round towards Darwen only support an over-run wire from P3, as at Lostock towards Westhoughton and at Agecroft (GMWDA) Sidings.

Until I saw the mast just beyond the signal in these shots:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127646831@N03/39780904915/in/album-72157661069863633/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127646831@N03/40634074562/in/album-72157661069863633/

I thought exactly what you say, but that mast has me baffled. What job will it do in that position?

 

[LDECRexile]

I have heard from an authoritative Orange contact on the Preston to Blackpool project who is happy for me to give the following quotes:

1. "All bases should be in, as the last one was a bespoke foundation where we had to remove the car park wall at Mecca bingo in Blackpool to install it."
2. "There is no base at Poulton box as this option was designed out."
3. "Not a great deal of steelwork to erect but I don't have exact numbers."
4. "Everything currently on target for re-opening, although the usual pressures and risks remain."
5. "We have a week of wheels free testing (no machines or trains on track) starting on Monday morning to allow Siemens the access to complete the new signalling."

6. "It's non-stop at the moment!"

Good luck to them all!

 

[Geeves]

I suppose in a similar fashion for years the wires went under the bridge at Victoria east end but they were strung up in such a way (and ended in an obscure location) that if an electric had carried on it would have become stuck anyway. You can imagine a similar set up here at platform one Bolton though why it goes around the corner I dont know. I guess there is no easy way to terminate the high voltage wires on the platform its self.