Not entirely surprising, since the weekday service didn't require either St Dennis Jn or extra platforms at Newquay, and the summer Saturday traffic was much thinner than 20 years earlier (and could be all-HST too).
Agree - though I'm not sure we'd have got the direct Burngullow to St Dennis line even under Regional management.
In the early/mid 1980s, I was a trainee in the WR signalling drawing office and assigned for a period to the development section. ISTR it was around this time they were working up a scheme for this. I wasn't involved directly and had other things to do, but recall being told the primary driver for the job was the A30 road dualling project which had one option that removed part of the existing rail route where it ran parallel between Victoria and Goss Moor to accomodate the second carriageway, and also abolished some level crossings on side roads and a low rail overbridge (still there on the old road). That option would have seen the road budget paying in large part for the rail diversion via Burngullow. The road scheme was delayed for many years and then a different routing was adopted which didn't require the railway works.
I was told my a mutual friend of ours many years ago that the ill-fated 1991 Newton layout basically saved 50 feet of plain track.
Sounds like a complete waste of time and incredibly short sighted
The line was originally singled in BR days as the retaining wall was in danger of collapse. Supporting buttresses were installed in the trackbed to support the wall. It will take more than "removing a few feet off the end of the car park" to resolve it.
Was it not also singled between Inverness and Culloden viaduct, and redoubled at the same time?
Yes, it's noted in the report that Intercity wanted to lift the line speed to 90 mph.
Ah - so I hadn’t dreamed it. Thanks!
Someone started a separate thread about this section over in “Light Rail”, it includes a photo clearly showing the massive concrete buttresses holding up the land:
This does raise a questtoin - if ETCS with onboard train completeness checking ever becomes common [eliminating the need for axle counters etc]- how long would a section of single track have to be before the cost of the point mechanisms and associated equipment was less than the added cost of gauntlet track?
Any length given now would be out of date as all the costs, long- and short-term, would have changed by the time ETCS L3 comes in. But an important factor would be if standard equipment (e.g. Tampers) could still carry out maintenance or if it would need separate procedures. Given that ETCS with on-board completeness detection would also be accompanied by in-cab (and almost certainly moving-block) signalling, it may be preferable for operational reasons just to have the single track to allow bi-di working crossovers or reversals, etc.
Presumably the area around Armitage
Rugby to Colwich Jn had been a mix of 2, 3, and 4 track prior to the West Coast Modernistation, it is now 4 tracks from Rugby to Brinklow, then 3 tracks until just before Nuneaton and 4 tracks from Nuneaton to Colwich Jn. Somebody else will need to chip in with the historic layouts.
It is also very unlikely that ALL fixed train detection will ever be abolished. Around junctions particularly, some 'deadlocking' axle counter sections are usually retained in moving block systems on metros to double check that a junction is really clear before allowing points to move, a very important consideration! That is the case with the SelTrac system employed on various TfL lines, including DLR, and long sections between junctions have an axle counter overlay which proves all trains in one direction have cleared before the direction can be changed or an out-of-course movement verbally authorised after equipment failure. I doubt there will be moving block under Level 3 technology on main lines. It is not really necessary for capacity except in station platforms where it might be considered a fully protected 'advanced permissive' to allow a second train in behind one still pulling away. Elsewhere, the virtual fixed block concept is most likely, where block markers are retained but employ passive balise and odometry based detection techniques instead of axle counters or track circuits, using on-board knowledge of train length and completeness to determine reliably when the train has moved clear of the block limits.
I think Rugby to Nuneaton was only resignalled for bi-di running but had always been 4 Tracks Rugby-Brinklow and 3 tracks Brinklow-South of Nuneaton. (Am open to correction on that). It was 4 tracks Nuneaton-Tamworth then 2 track Tamworth to Armitage Jn with loops at Lichfield, see: https://www.railwaypeople.com/Page/news-article-trent-valley-traverse-339
Isn't the Hairmyres loop too short to be called a dynamic loop? Or does dynamic loop mean something different from what I thought?
Yes they are transposed, because the overall layout was effectively rearranged through Rugby so that the down fast line runs between the two slow lines that go through platforms 1 and 2. It’s been mentioned a few times in these forums that if Brinklow to Nuneaton was ever to get the missing fourth line installed there’d be a need to untangle the down lines somehow, which might actually need another flyover. The roughly 6 mile stretch of single line effectively acts a flat crossover for the slow line traffic to switch sides.
