Suggestions for where new flyovers/diveunders should be built to replace 'flat' junctions

[muddythefish]

I wonder whether a flyover North of Northallerton might provide increased capacity on the ECML, given the number of services heading towards Thornaby - or if trains would just catch up to the next bottleneck quicker.

You mean the same that happens with every single road "improvement" scheme ?

 

[yorksrob]

You mean the same that happens with every single road "improvement" scheme ?

Well yes, you could say that !

 

[Ianno87]

When the junction was renewed some years ago - there was an ideal opportunity to redouble it - however certain now retired NR Managers (despite requirements from all operators) - refused...

It is now up for redoubling. That should do it...

Grade separation does seem lavish for only 2-3tph heading towards Norwich.

 

[gazthomas]

Heathrow. Bad joke about the third runway, sorry

 

[B&I]

Allerton, if space somehow allowed.

 

[Bald Rick]

You mean the same that happens with every single road "improvement" scheme ?

That’s a bold statement. Evidence?

 

[muddythefish]

That’s a bold statement. Evidence?

My own eyes

 

[Bald Rick]

My own eyes.

My apologies. I didn’t realise you had seen every road improvement scheme.

What’s your view of the A832 Achnasheen - Glen Docherty improvement, and the implications on the junction with the A835 at Gorstan? I must say that last time I was there, it didn’t seem much of a bottleneck.

 

[muddythefish]

My apologies. I didn’t realise you had seen every road improvement scheme.

What’s your view of the A832 Achnasheen - Glen Docherty improvement, and the implications on the junction with the A835 at Gorstan? I must say that last time I was there, it didn’t seem much of a bottleneck.

It did to me when I was there last week.

 

[mugam4]

Is there more that could be done along this stretch? It is a rather laboured journey from Southampton /Portsmouth to (Arundel) Horsham and likewise to (Angmering) Brighton with many conflicting junctions.

It's laboured because of the lack of overtaking opportunities that are balanced in each direction. The only other junction here that could possibly benefit is Littlehampton and I really don't think there's a need currently - or at least, before those additional platforms appear.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Carnforth. Would possibly allow an increased line speed from 110 to 125 EPS, and removes the slow crossover reducing WCML paths.

 

[Ianno87]

My own eyes

As a local, I can tell you that the widening of the A14 between Junction 31 and 32 from 2 to 3 lanes each way, completed 3 years ago, has genuinely removed a local bottle neck with no discernible impact on congestion elsewhere.

 

[The Ham]

As a local, I can tell you that the widening of the A14 between Junction 31 and 32 from 2 to 3 lanes each way, completed 3 years ago, has genuinely removed a local bottle neck with no discernible impact on congestion elsewhere.

Most road projects do work and overall make things better, however:
- given time it does tend to highlight other problems (for instance on the A3 Hindhead is no longer a problem but Guildford is now the problem) which then means that money needs to be spent there
- we should be driving less and so spending government money on road schemes which makes driving more attractive does seem a bit counter productive (note that developers making improvements to mitigate against their traffic is a bit different), rather we should be investing in improving our railways and bus provision
- of we are going to spend money on the roads we should bring in road tolls, but not everywhere just at places where with a few tolls we could limit all add the would be limited or very long alternatives. As an example, on the Hindhead tunnel or on the M3 and A30 between junctions 5 & 6 on the M3. The toll wouldn't need to be much, say £1 for any motor vehicle. However if it then funded/subsidies public transport in the area it could reduce road travel. If done well just a few hundred points around the country could just ease traffic volumes by a few percent which would ease congestion. Whilst not making the cost of driving go up a significant amount for many and for those it does impact they are most likely to benefit from the better local public transport. For instance those traveling between Hook/Winchfield/Fleet/their surrounding villages and Basingstoke could probably use a bus at a reasonable price but those from further afield would either be spending quite a bit on fuel and so the extra cost would be fairly small or would look again at their travel patterns.

 

[AM9]

Not strictly a simple flying junction but there are a few stretches of four track lines where conversion from SSFF tracks to SFFS would be beneficial if flying transitions could be accommodated at one end at least, (usually the town end):
The MML from Kentish Town to Bedford for one. It would of course involve some station and crossover ladder reconfiguration as well as some fast up track straightening.
The GEML could have benefitted from that as well out to Shenfield, but now TfL has taken the 'Electric' lines for Crossrail, there is less switching than in the past.
There may be other stretches of four track SSFF alignments where there are few junctions off but many slow to fast line swaps both in the peaks and even off-peak to get around freight.

 

[ViscountFan]

The short answer is yes, sort of.

The longer answer is yes, but there's plans for 4tph to Heathrow (2 to Guildford and 2 to Basingstoke) and you'd also be able to potentially run the Woking Stoppers to Guildford.

Then there's the advantage that you remove points of conflict which makes recovering from problems easier.

You could even look at providing a new Guildford to Basingstoke service (doubling back at Woking), although to be fair that's very unlikely.

My vote may appear to be a bit of a curve ball suggestion, but it would be to build a new junction to allow trains to run Basingstoke to Ascot via Farnborough. Why? It allows you to divert trains past Woking while you build the new junction there (there are other benefits too, such as better connections to/from Frimley and Camberley, including to Waterloo even though the junction would be facing the wrong way for direct services as well as potentially allowing more stations to be built and served without showing down existing services and increasing frequencies on local services).

Ah, the reinstatement of Sturt Lane Junction! A quick look at Google Earth suggests the land required to achieve this has not been built upon, but sadly I suspect it will never happen.

 

[7ftBroad]

Oxford to didcot. North of Didcot come off onto flyover which leads to GWML down.

 

[The Ham]

Ah, the reinstatement of Sturt Lane Junction! A quick look at Google Earth suggests the land required to achieve this has not been built upon, but sadly I suspect it will never happen.

It would only be the west facing chord of the Sturt Lane Junction on the North side of the SWML. There would then be a new chord on the south side which would allow trains from Frimley to loop, from just under the bridge, around and up to the westbound SWML (probably over party of the lake there).


Any services on the SWML could run in the shadow paths of Woking, Alton or Portsmouth services. As I said it would allow a better connection to trains to, and towards, Waterloo from Frimley and Camberley (by changing at Farnborough, where the are lifts between the platforms). It would also provide connections between stations on the SWML and the Camberley line with a single change at Farnborough or Basingstoke rather than at Woking and Guildford or Basingstoke and Reading (which no one would do because of the time penalties in doing so).


There would also be opportunities to build new stations on each line without showing down existing services (Fleet West, Southwood, Frimley Green and Watchmoor Park to name a few where there could be significant new passengers added to the railway.


Yes it would probably cost several 10's of millions of pounds to build, but it's in an area where there's significant rail usage and the buses are mostly quite expensive (it's often cheaper to go by train between two towns than use the buses), there's significant amounts of traffic and there's likely to only be more going forwards.


Taking the example of Watchmoor Park, this would serve an area which has some houses, but the main use would be to get to the business park there. There's significant numbers of people who travel by bus and train to Blackwater who then walk (until recently without the aid of a footway alongside a duel carriageway) to there.


Likewise Southwood is an area where there's been a lot of houses built and a business park, it had a fairly poor bus service and by providing a train service would significantly reduce parking demand at Farnborough Main.


The new service would connect between towns and villages with over 250,000 residents between them (and most of those would be within walking or cycle distance of the stations) in little under an hour. In terms of extra maintenance costs there would be a marginal increase in the frequency of services on the track which would make up over 95% of the route, which would likely have not much cost implications, even if the service ran twice an hour. Whilst there would be a more significant cost implication due to the maintenance of the new chords they would be relatively short and so the extra costs wouldn't be much more.


If you assume that Farnborough Main is the hub and by providing this service that the total extra passengers were 10% of its current usage (you would get a similar answer if you added up all the station usages asking the lines other than Ascot, Basingstoke and Farnborough Main and assumed they all increased passenger numbers by 10% when they would be seeing a 30-50% increase in numbers of services for an hourly service, which would attract more people traveling between the existing stations) and they all (for the length that they are on the new service for) added £4 of income to the network that would be £1,200,000 (which wouldn't include the extra income from those using the service when they were using other services, which could also be significant). Assuming £400,000 in lease costs for a 4 coach unit, double it given that you'd need two for the service (£800,000) and then add a further £400,000 in other costs (normally lease costs are circa 50% of a TOC's costs but most of these other costs, such as station costs and back office costs wouldn't be being changed, which is why I've assumed 1/3 costs for this) and by this very crude method is likely that the service could cover its costs.

If someone were to do a proper study I wouldn't be surprised if it was significantly better than this.

 

[59CosG95]

Possibly Kings Norton or Barnt Green, reducing the conflicts between cross city and crosscountry/ birmingham-hereford services. Network Rail's latest WM and Chiltern Route study refers to these.

Indeed - Kings Norton's been a conflict headache for years now. Reroute Cross-City services through P2 (giving P3 & P4 to the Camp Hill Line when it reopens), with a flyover towards Northfield taking the line through P2 over the ones into P3 & P4, and the problem is alleviated.

Longbridge Jct should sort itself out once the electric Bromsgrove services start running. The problem with Barnt Green is that you'd have to take up a lot of land realigning the "branch line" tracks to squeeze in the flyover/diveunder, if one was to be built.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Operators are loathe to run services across mainlines as this causes serious pathing difficulties.

The most obvious example is at Nuneaton where Leicester - Coventry services are no longer able to operate since it was "improved".

Likewise there are no through services between Chester and Stoke-on-Trent although this move is possible.

But the most obvious case for a flyover would have been at Manchester Piccadilly if they hadn't built the Ordsall chord.

 

[DarloRich]

Colwich & Werrington

 

[Senex]

Colwich & Werrington

Colwich was proposed (with a major re-alignement to give a really fast route to the NS—actually the route first surveyed in the 1840s) if HS2 hadn't come on the scene. The whole of the Stafford area schemes were then cut back to just Norton Bridge. And Werrington is due to be done, always assuming no further cut-backs, of course.

 

[59CosG95]

Colwich was proposed (with a major re-alignement to give a really fast route to the NS—actually the route first surveyed in the 1840s) if HS2 hadn't come on the scene. The whole of the Stafford area schemes were then cut back to just Norton Bridge. And Werrington is due to be done, always assuming no further cut-backs, of course.

Even with HS2 on the scene, re-aligning Colwich to increase speeds through it wouldn't be a bad shout, given that HS2 services enter the WCML at Handsacre, about 2 miles or so to the south.

 

[swt_passenger]

It would only be the west facing chord of the Sturt Lane Junction on the North side of the SWML.

Sturt Lane is not an 'existing flat junction' that can be improved by grade separation though. It's a junction that nobody is interested in building except fantasist local pressure groups.

It gets pretty short shrift in the Wessex Route Study:

"Similarly a number of people in and around Camberley suggested that the Sturt Lane Chord (which used to connect the Ascot to Aldershot line with the South West Main Line to the east of Farnborough) should be reinstated as a means of improving journey times to Waterloo from the Frimley and Camberley areas.

A more cost-effective solution, however, may be to improve connection times with Waterloo-bound trains at Ash Vale."

On a hypothetical national priority list for new relatively expensive infrastructure, where would this be found?

 

[II]

I am sure there are plenty of contenders, but Didcot East is certainly way up there, especially given there will be 2-3tph more per hour in each direction when the full IET timetable is introduced. It's bad enough now, and the length of time it takes to get a freight into or out of Didcot Yard makes it even worse.

There was a good discussion on the Coffee Shop forum a year or so ago which discussed the issue and a member drew up a potential new layout at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18093.0

 

[The Ham]

Sturt Lane is not an 'existing flat junction' that can be improved by grade separation though. It's a junction that nobody is interested in building except fantasist local pressure groups.

It gets pretty short shrift in the Wessex Route Study:

"Similarly a number of people in and around Camberley suggested that the Sturt Lane Chord (which used to connect the Ascot to Aldershot line with the South West Main Line to the east of Farnborough) should be reinstated as a means of improving journey times to Waterloo from the Frimley and Camberley areas.

A more cost-effective solution, however, may be to improve connection times with Waterloo-bound trains at Ash Vale."

On a hypothetical national priority list for new relatively expensive infrastructure, where would this be found?

I think you are miss understanding, there's a difference between what the Wessex Route Strategy is taking about (East facing chord to provide direct rail travel to Waterloo, which I agree wouldn't be viable as it would require more paths into Waterloo, which just won't happen) and the junction which I've suggested which would be West facing. I agree it's fairy unlikely but significant more likely than a few stations with relatively free passengers gain a new direct service to Waterloo.

 

[Ianno87]

Operators are loathe to run services across mainlines as this causes serious pathing difficulties.

The most obvious example is at Nuneaton where Leicester - Coventry services are no longer able to operate since it was "improved".

Likewise there are no through services between Chester and Stoke-on-Trent although this move is possible.

But the most obvious case for a flyover would have been at Manchester Piccadilly if they hadn't built the Ordsall chord.

Ordsall Chord had a better BCR than the alternative Ardwick flyover (similar benefits, lower cost, basically); hence why Ordsall Chord was progressed.

 

[MarkyT]

I think you are miss understanding, there's a difference between what the Wessex Route Strategy is taking about (East facing chord to provide direct rail travel to Waterloo, which I agree wouldn't be viable as it would require more paths into Waterloo, which just won't happen) and the junction which I've suggested which would be West facing. I agree it's fairy unlikely but significant more likely than a few stations with relatively free passengers gain a new direct service to Waterloo.

Crossrail 2 and future resignalling using ETCS could release some more paths into Waterloo, and the station is being expanded to incorporate the old international platforms.
The following is my suggestion for a grade separated junction to Frimley from the main line, also incorporating a rerouted Ash Vale line with both routes serving new platforms at Farnborough North just east of the A331, for interchange with the North Downs Line. Perhaps a peoplemover shuttle could be constructed linking these lines to Farnborough Main as well, and the Gatwick fast calls at Blackwater and North Camp abandoned in favour of a single call at this interchange.

 

[HowardGWR]

Crossrail 2 and future resignalling using ETCS could release some more paths into Waterloo, and the station is being expanded to incorporate the old international platforms.
The following is my suggestion for a grade separated junction to Frimley from the main line, also incorporating a rerouted Ash Vale line with both routes serving new platforms at Farnborough North just east of the A331, for interchange with the North Downs Line. Perhaps a peoplemover shuttle could be constructed linking these lines to Farnborough Main as well, and the Gatwick fast calls at Blackwater and North Camp abandoned in favour of a single call at this interchange.

View attachment 45414

Where would this people mover shuttle go Mark? It's not clear from your map.

 

[MarkyT]

Where would this people mover shuttle go Mark? It's not clear from your map.

Sorry it was missing from that map.

Here it is:

 

[The Ham]

Crossrail 2 and future resignalling using ETCS could release some more paths into Waterloo, and the station is being expanded to incorporate the old international platforms.
The following is my suggestion for a grade separated junction to Frimley from the main line, also incorporating a rerouted Ash Vale line with both routes serving new platforms at Farnborough North just east of the A331, for interchange with the North Downs Line. Perhaps a peoplemover shuttle could be constructed linking these lines to Farnborough Main as well, and the Gatwick fast calls at Blackwater and North Camp abandoned in favour of a single call at this interchange.

View attachment 45414

The problem is that a East facing junction would really only benefit the circa 600,000 people who use Frimley and Camberley stations. Even allowing a doubling of passenger numbers that 1.2 million from two stations.

As such it's unlikely that a fast service would be a good use of such a valuable path. Which then means that the service would have to call at other stations, by which point (depending on the number of stops) it may well be quicker to get to get to Waterloo by changing at Farnborough to a fast service of the junction faced the other way.

Then there's the question of what connectivity, going east wouldn't gain much in terms of places you for get to easily the big advantage of the east bound junction would be to connect to the Portsmouth services, yet you can do that already from the existing services.

Chances are most people, other than heading to Waterloo such I've covered above, would likely be wanting to head to Fleet, Farnborough, Basingstoke or Woking. The first three would benefit most from the West bound junction whilst the last wouldn't be too inconvenienced.

Finally the West bound junction would also have capacity for more services if it was justified whilst an east bound service would, at most, only have 1tph (unless something very significant happened)