martinr1
Member
- Joined
- 3 Nov 2010
- Messages
- 148
I was good to see the new arrangements yesterday and congratulations are due to everyone involved in handing back the station on schedule.
I think it will be completed in the next 4 - 6 weeks and the car park by December in the plan.Your first picture suggests it won’t take too long to do the platform. I’d expect that will be in use long before the expanded carpark.
Didn't Market Harborough have a siding at the station? Can't see it in the pics.
Depends on when the next available block for the follow up tamps is I expect.How long will it be before the 50mph TSR can be removed?
I don't think it did
Interestingly I looked back in the MML Electrification thread and there was a Network Rail presentation dated March 2016 (Post #869 P29) which outlines the project and on P20 shows the old station linespeed as 60 ....
There were short sidings on the up side, accessed from south of the station; early photos in this thread (eg post 41) record them being lifted prior to the main works starting.Didn't Market Harborough have a siding at the station? Can't see it in the pics.
There were short sidings on the up side, accessed from south of the station; early photos in this thread (eg post 41) record them being lifted prior to the main works starting.
There were sidings on the upside where the new car park is, this included cattle pens. The pick up to Wellingborough used to drop off cattle at Harborough, sometimes the pick up could not leave Leicester on time as the cattle were late arriving on 7F26 from Stoke/Crewe/North Wales/ Ireland?
It was 40 in Midland Railway days, but by Peak days it had already become 50 — indeed, it was 50 by the time the first full set of BR Appendixes were issued in 1960. I suspect that change actually came in LMS days. The rise to 60 was in the 1980s and I think came at the same time as Wigston from 70 to 80, Great Bowden from 70 to 85 and so on when the enhanced curving rules were applied to the Midland line.I don't know how it'd been 'rationalised' in the past 25 years, but it had much more than 'a siding' originally. Well into the 70s the LNWR side was still largely extant, with a water tower which used to double as a small engine shed, for example.
It's difficult to judge from the videos, but it looks to me as if the new alignment runs over where the shed and sidings (and links to the Midland side) used to be.
I'm sure this is a 'recent' PSR, that is to say, post- introduction of HSTs. In steam-Peak days, I'm pretty sure it was 50 or 55 mph. Mr Senex...where are you when needed?
I seem to recall, probably from someone on here, that the two sidings recently put in at Knighton were for engineering vehicles, as a replacement for those at Market Harborough.AFAIK, there was an engineer's siding where the car park now is, which is why the bridge to the south is wide enough for three tracks - and there were still three until recently. Do hope the car park developments don't preclude any hope of an additional platform or two in the future...
AFAIK, there was an engineer's siding where the car park now is, which is why the bridge to the south is wide enough for three tracks - and there were still three until recently. Do hope the car park developments don't preclude any hope of an additional platform or two in the future...
Indeed. No need at all. The service would need to at least double before platform capacity at Harboro became an issue, and there would be plenty of other constraints on the line to solve before that.No trains are scheduled to terminate, and the crossovers allow them to do so if there is ever a need, so there's no real reaon for more platforms.
Re: platforms I'm talking in the long-term, not any time soon. It's been discussed to death before why loops probably wouldn't be worth it, but if any eventual 3 or 4 tracking between Leicester and Kettering were to happen it'd be nice not to have to worry about a shiny new bottleneck, that's all.
There are 4 tracks already....it's just that 2 of them happen to go via Corby.
But via Corby is a huge detour, so not really that usable
It wouldn't necessarily be passenger services diverted that way. Really I can't see the need for quadrupling Kettering to Wigston North Jn, reinstating the 4th line between Kettering and Sharnbrook and improving headways via Corby and Manton Jn would be of much greater use.
The fourth line is being reinstated.
Most of the recent photos of the current four tracking work are in the MML electrification thread. That should reassure you that it is happening:I thought I'd seen that, but with the changes of plan re electrification, let alone all the rumours and speculation knocking about, I couldn't be sure.
... and indeed Derby and Nottingham too!There are of course 2 new fast lines due to open in 2033 by passing Market Harborough and indeed Leicester.
Indeed, so the MML will still need the same mix of fast and semi-fast trains to provide service to Leicester (and arguably to Derby/Nottingham) that don't benefit from HS2. However with most of the Sheffield and some of the Derby/Nottingham passengers off the MML there shouldn't be any need to increase service significantly (even if constraints south of Bedford allowed it) and therefore no real reason to consider four-tracking.... and indeed Derby and Nottingham too!
I remember being told that the abutments just north of the station were for a bridge that used to take cattle over the line.