Hairy Bear
Member
It' s not a problem. All you do is stop the emt train who's right time, doing somewhere between 105 and 125mph, bring him to a stand, and let the Thameslink trundle across at 40 into the platform. Simples !!.
It' s not a problem. All you do is stop the emt train who's right time, doing somewhere between 105 and 125mph, bring him to a stand, and let the Thameslink trundle across at 40 into the platform. Simples !!.
Yes. In principle the timetable can be set up so that trains in both directions make the crossing move simultaneously, so that conflict does not occur, but this may not be possible due to constraints elsewhere on the route and obviously it breaks down if one of the trains is a couple of minutes late. There has been talk of grade separation for some of these crossovers but it would be quite difficult to do.
Whilst aligning the lines whilst maintaining line speed is probably easier that way around, you would surely need grade separation at each turnback point for SFFS unless...you wanted to cross both fast lines at grade for every turnback, which surely defeats the point somewhat. So you would have to weigh up the cost of the grade separation at Kentish Town, St Albans, Luton and Bedford against the required land purchases to maintain line speed with a FSSF configuration (and the cost that those turnback points effectively become fixed - having a FSSF configuration makes it far easier to add or remove turnback locations if desired as at a minimum all you need is a simple crossover, though obviously a turnback siding between the lines using the projected footprint of the platform is preferable). I suspect your SFFS proposal would still win out given the sheer number of locations around stations where you would have to ease the up slow's curvature, but it's still something that should to be considered.
...and though not numerous, the MML does still have a few branches left that you need to consider: Thameslink (in theory covered by any grade separation at Kentish Town), the link to the Goblin at Gospel Oak, the flyover south of Mill Hill from the Hendon lines, and of course the Marston Vale line at Bedford. I presume you would leave the Bedford to Kettering as FFSS to save needing to build grade separation at Glendon junction as you could just use whatever gets built at Bedford, (i.e. effectively the Corby branch would begin at Bedford).
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1) if the Strateigic Railfreight terminal ever gets built on Radlett Aerodrome (I seriously hope not) there may be some possibility of the projected grade separation of its connection with the mainline being available to return the down slow from the western side of the formation to its current position on the opposite side of the fasts.
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If the freight terminal is built you will have nothing to worry about. According to the "antis" it is a huge white elephant which will be served by road haulage so no freight trains to upset the passengers.
If, however, it does develop into another Daventry much freight will be removed from our roads so we will all win.
If, however, it does develop into another Daventry much freight will be removed from our roads so we will all win.
If the freight terminal is built St Albans has everything to worry about. Part of the plans said that if the freight didn't go to rail, it would expect to operate as a road to road transfer terminal. If I go on it will become very OT for this thread, It's not just about locals but virtually all road users wanting to go north using M25 Junctions 21 to 23 would be adversely affected. Maybe another thread.
If it is successful, the MML has, I think, been upgraded to W10 and trains would need to be integrated into the MML service pattern. The slows are generally OK outside of the peaks. I only mentioned the terminal because there will be budget to provide a grade separated entry from the slow lines. That could be adapted to support the reconfiguration of the lines south of Bedford to the benefit of both freight and passenger traffic.
OT I know, but if that terminal is built, it will cause a very significant increase in road traffic.
Also, the MML south of Bedford is very definitely not W10. It’s W8 between Cricklewood and Bedford (with no funded plans to change that) and W6 on the rest of the route. There are some big tunnels that need rebuilding. Quite how the big containers are going to get anywhere useful is a mystery to me.
Back ON topic... rather than building at least 2 flyovers and having to rebuild nearly 50 miles of the Down Slow (which has lots of difficult speed restrictions) to reconfigure the tracks, surely it would be easier just to keep the tracks as they are, and use the flyovers to get fast trains between slows and fasts at, say, Carlton Road area and somewhere around Harpenden.
I agree with that and it isn't at all an act of NIMBYism to say that. Up at Sandon, they are pleading for it's location there.
OK, I stand corrected.
That would of course mean some of the fast TL workings staying in front of EM trains for longer instead of escapting using the Radlett south junction crossover. Would a grade separation south of Harpenden require an expensive land take as the current junction ladder spans about 400m of which over half is on an embankment. Thye south of the ladder for another 1100m, the line is flanked closely by housing.
Sundon?I agree with that and it isn't at all an act of NIMBYism to say that. Up at Sandon, they are pleading for it's location there.
The flying junction wouldn't necessarily have to be in exactly the same place as the existing ladder. In fact it would be better to put it elsewhere, so the ladder can remain in use while any flying junction is being built. My guess is if this happened it would be a bit further south on the rural section between the southern edge of Harpenden and the northern edge of St Albans. I presume this is green belt but there are few homes nearby and a couple of sections of cutting that might reduce the visual impact. However the land take would be considerable.Would a grade separation south of Harpenden require an expensive land take as the current junction ladder spans about 400m of which over half is on an embankment. Thye south of the ladder for another 1100m, the line is flanked closely by housing.
They need to use fingers to hold the magnet - there you are, digitial railway...(digital railway - don't make me laugh ...!) .....
Excellent news! Leaves one wondering why this wasn't done years ago, as the space was available as soon as the box came down back in the 1980s.At Leicester, the Up Main on platform 3 has had its TSR took away so 40MPH working through platform 3. Impressive to hear a HST scream towards London rather than power off for 15MPH.
All other TSR are in place still as far as I’m aware.
Who let the work experience kid write the press releases again?Lots of work planned for this weekend it seems.
"On Saturday 28th April and Sunday 29th April, Network Rail engineers will be carrying out work along the Midland Mainline, causing significant to train services in the area
The upgrades ongoing include the track to increase the lineside through Market Harborough. Preparation work will also be taking place for the installation of the fourth track between Bedford and Kettering to increase capacity.
Additionally, Ford End Road bridge in Bedford, Cottingham Road bridge in Corby and Bush bridge in Wellingborough reach milestones and are demolished and reconstructed in readiness for the electrification of the line.
All weekend, East Midlands Trains services will be replaced by buses between Luton and Leicester and Thameslink services will be replaced by buses between Luton and Bedford."
I am intrigued by the " track to increase the lineside through Market Harborough"?
That would of course mean some of the fast TL workings staying in front of EM trains for longer instead of escapting using the Radlett south junction crossover. Would a grade separation south of Harpenden require an expensive land take as the current junction ladder spans about 400m of which over half is on an embankment. Thye south of the ladder for another 1100m, the line is flanked closely by housing.
The flying junction wouldn't necessarily have to be in exactly the same place as the existing ladder. In fact it would be better to put it elsewhere, so the ladder can remain in use while any flying junction is being built. My guess is if this happened it would be a bit further south on the rural section between the southern edge of Harpenden and the northern edge of St Albans. I presume this is green belt but there are few homes nearby and a couple of sections of cutting that might reduce the visual impact. However the land take would be considerable.
Yes - arable green belt - so north of Sandridgebury Lane and south of Ayots End , gentle embankments and cuttings. That would certainly work. Good idea.
Most down fast Thameslinks are booked to cross at Harpenden; and the flyers not until Bedford South. Very few go across at Radlett, even in the new TT. A bi di, single track flyover from between the fasts to between the shows (going northbound) would do the trick. It would be faster than Harpenden S Jn too, 70mph would be easy, even 90 might be possible.
Arable Green belt for now... around Sandridgebury Lane is in the mix to be released from the green belt. However beyond that it is basically farmland for about a mile, more than enough to get up and down with 1:100 gradients that are good for freight (for the rare occasions they would use it).
Not going to happen though.
Build a couple of sets of dynamic loops on the slows (or platform loops at a couple of stations if it were possible) and keep Thameslink to the slows. (In late BR times when the Sole User concept was around, weren't the fasts allocated to IC and the slows to TL?)
Thanks for the correction — though didn't it all start life as the "Sole User Infrastructure Survey" (which I seem to remember from one or two very early documents I saw) and then became Prime User in general application? And there were some fascinating real oddities in the application.For accounting purposes, yes (and it was Prime User, not Sole user). But the service was very different then - the off peak service was less than half what it is today. In the peaks many Thameslink services used the fasts.
Any such dynamic loops would have to be long, and take in at least 2 stations. There does, however, seem to be a decent corridor immediately to the east of the line between Hendon and Elstree Tunnel, perhaps the new lines could be built there.
Thanks for the correction — though didn't it all start life as the "Sole User Infrastructure Survey" (which I seem to remember from one or two very early documents I saw) and then became Prime User in general application? And there were some fascinating real oddities in the application.
Hendon to Elstree tunnel was a section I was thinking of. I hadn't looked at the aerial mapping for any station where new platform-loops might allow stoppers to be ovetaken by Thameslink fasts.
The service was indeed very different, both on the main-line route and on Thameslink. Had we been in, say Switzerland, there wouldn't have been a massive increase in services without asking whether the infrastructure could cope properly with it, and then doing something if the answer was no. But the British practice always seems to have been the other way round, to push the infrastructure to its limits and only begin to think of doing anything when reliability of the timetable seems to suffer. Though going back a good few years before there was anything like the present level of service on the MML I remember fast trains routinely coming almost to a stand before Radlett or Harpenden whilst a down local got out of the way in front. And there was a morning up fast from Leicester that was pretty well invariably stopped at Watling Street because of a crossing move for a local.
Noticed today during an unexpected stop just north of Kettering that the piles have custom-made orange plastic "lids", presumably to stop ingress of water or people. Have these been used anywhere else? I hope they don't indicate that there won't be anything else attached to the piles for a long time.
If you were to lay new lines between Hendon and Elstree tunnels, could you not go further, to say the southern edge of St Albans, and have a parkway station there, then operate an all-stations LO service on the (now extended) Hendon lines and run Thameslink semi-fast, serving only the new parkway station, West Hampstead and maybe one other station?
I noticed during when the electrification works was on pause, the pilings near Bedford had yellow “lids” on them. I’m not sure what they were for.
If I remember seeing correctly, these have been replaced with orange “lids” with screws on so possibly an attachment for the structures?
Putting gantries and masts on the piles would be a better ideaSo putting an orange cap on an electrification pile seems a good idea.