Pinch point locations for congestion on the GB rail network?

_toommm_ · 4 Mar 2019

Killingworth said:
South of the station the original 2 Sheaf Valley tracks to Dore and Totley were found to be inadequate after the Hope Valley line opened in 1893. By 1903 2 further tracks were laid into Sheffield.

In the aftermath of the Beeching era the stopping services were withdrawn and all the stations closed in 1969. By 1985 two tracks were lifted and subsequently the remaining two have been slewed to improve speeds. A Tesco superstore has been built on the trackbed and other obstructions now exist that will make even providing a third continuous track very difficult. That is the suggestion when HS2 adds further pressure on the route.

The bottleneck through Dore Station and the Junction to the North should be relieved when (if) the Hope Valley Capacity Improvement Scheme is finally completed in 2022. That is known to have been in the planning stages since before 2005. The chord between Dore West and Dore South Junctions is being extended at the same time, as is the Heeley loop and another loop is to be built at Bamford.

These improvements should reduce delays on trains using the south end of Sheffield Station. Destinations to which delayed trains are heading range around the nation, like Southampton, Reading, Plymouth, Penzance, London, Liverpool, Norwich, Cleethorpes, Manchester Airport, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and places in between.

Northbound travellers are frequently held between Dronfield and Sheffield, often at the signal where the mainline platform used to be at Dore and Totley. All these trains will be passing their delays on to other services in giant ripples across the system.

The problem has been officially recognised for at least 15 years, and probably longer. In the meantime passenger numbers and train services have multiplied .

At the North end leading away to the North and East there are two tracks through a rock cutting and tunnel between buildings, a major road sytem and close to the River Sheaf and Sheffield canal. Before HS2 can go further north that needs widening - it needs it now. HS2 has no budget for that. It's down to Northern Powerhouse Rail.

So, with potential choke points at both ends of Sheffield Midland Station, operating to a timetable is rather a lottery for crews and passengers alike. If the one to the south has been recognised for so long, why has it not been resolved? Why is there not even a plan for the North end?, Why are so many more across the country being delayed or ignored?

The railway network needs more than a few pinch points being resolved, but recognising them, and planning their elimination more quickly, would be a start

Could not agree more with the final sentiment. Another one that, I'd be surprised if not mentioned, is the Castlefield Corridor at Manchester Picc.

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Killingworth · 4 Mar 2019

_toommm_ said:
Could not agree more with the final sentiment. Another one that, I'd be surprised if not mentioned, is the Castlefield Corridor at Manchester Picc.

Platforms 15 and 16 were part of the Northern Hub range of improvements including the Ordsall Chord and the Hope Valley scheme. For maximum benefit they were intended to go together. The Castlefield scheme went to a public inquiry that reported in 2016. It should have been decided, for or against, in 6 months. Er, is it really approaching 3 years? OK, it's assumed that it won't now go ahead. If it were agreed there'd be a year's work needed to update it ready for the next Grip hurdle. If then approved it would take at least 4 years to get built. In the meantime peak hour chaos, then followed by even more congestion for the construction work if it is ever to be completed.

Dren Ahmeti · 5 Mar 2019

Didcot East Junction has very weird pathings over it, where conflicts are timetabled at points in the peak(!)

Southcote Junction (just south of Reading) becomes a pain when needing to route an up ex-Basingstoke towards Oxford Road Jct and a down West Country gets put in front.
It just so happens that the train stopped is a class 6/7 freight most of the time, which snarls everything up!

With the old Reading layout, you had to give the stone trains priority over Oxford Road and Reading West Junctions, otherwise you’d never get them started again on the incline!

The Ham · 5 Mar 2019

With the gradual spread of shorter delay repay thresholds, I have a suspicion that pinch points for start to receive more pressure to be undertaken.

For instance, even though it wouldn't allow any extra trains until other schemes were built (such as the Southern Approach to Heathrow or Crossrail 2) fixing the junction at Woking would reduce the risk (and therefore cost) of delays.

Even if during recovery from an incident it allowed trains to pass through the area more smoothly, gaining some precious time back, it could get several services back to below the payment threshold for passengers. Given that each train could be carrying 1,000 passengers the payment amounts soon start to mount up very quickly, especially as very few of the refunds will be for <£10.

As such £15,000 per train in repay amounts with say 150 trains a year benefiting by not having to pay this over a 60 year period would be £135 million. That on its own is getting to the point where it is worth doing.

However given that dozens of trains can be impacted by a delay 150 trains a year may even be too low as those who would benefit.

However it would, as I understand it, also simplify the track layout which would reduce the risk of the being a problem at the junction and the maintenance liability.

It could also allow the paths for the Heathrow trains to start to operate services before the full service could start. Probably with the turn back being at Addlestone or Chertsey. Which would increase frequencies and significantly improve journey times from that line (even if it involves a change at one of those stations from further afield, like Stains) to Woking and therefore elsewhere on the network.

tbtc · 5 Mar 2019

EM2 said:
Taking Leeds as an example, you have a number of platforms that are divided into sections. Therefore you can have have four trains (as an example) that serve different destinations using the same platform face. If you 'run at the maximum length permitted by the infrastructure', then you have one train that serves one destination and that fills the platform.

When I talk about running at the maximum length permitted by the infrastructure, I mean the maximum length that all of the platforms on a service can accommodate - in the case of a Leeds - Calder Valley - Manchester service that might be 4x23m (or 5x20m) - in which case the Calder Valley services could be four 4x23m services per hour, rather than trying to cram half a dozen two/three coach DMUs along the line.

No point in having a two hundred metre train at Leeds if it can't stop at any of the intermediate stations though.

This is only one example, but the network in northern England is full of "bottlenecks" that could be solved by running trains of sensible length (rather than running several fun-sized DMUs per hour and then spending tens of millions of pounds on infrastructure required to permit the silly timetables).

Bottlenecks on the Southern Region are a whole other issue though (services already ten/twelve coaches long, timetables already optimised around simple routes to central London).

kevin_roche · 2 May 2019

The Ham said:
One thing that would help Basingstoke would be to electrify the line towards Salisbury, so that you could turn the Basingstoke Stoppers around to the West of Basingstoke.

There's due to be a lot of new houses at Manydown (3,250, so about 8,000 people) which is between Basingstoke and Oakley, build a station there and turn the stoppers around there (as they are just after the Salisbury services) and it could be done with no extra trains (due to the circa 25 minute turn around at Basingstoke) but would free up significant platform time at Basingstoke and 2 flat junction moments per hour.

It would probably cost a fairly small amount (say £15 million), which although would be partly made obsolete by the grade separation of Basingstoke should help whilst those works are carried out.

Even if it only added 100,000 to the network per year paying £3 it would more than pay for itself over a 60 year period (the extra ongoing costs would be small). (Being in mind that Hook with a population of 8,000 adds 800,000 to the network that's not beyond the realms of possiblity. Likewise at least some of the upfront costs could be from developer contributions, in that £1,000 would be enough to pay for the station costs of about £3 million).

That seems like a great idea. How do we get it built?

SideshowBob · 2 May 2019

· P3/4 interface at York
· Micklefield junction
· the whole line between Micklefield and Leeds
· Leeds eastern throat

They're all doozies!

(Sorry if any/all of those have been mentioned already.)

cactustwirly · 2 May 2019

Um, Paddington to Reading should definately be up there, especially at Peak times!

Haywain · 2 May 2019

The Ham said:
One thing that would help Basingstoke would be to electrify the line towards Salisbury, so that you could turn the Basingstoke Stoppers around to the West of Basingstoke.

There's due to be a lot of new houses at Manydown (3,250, so about 8,000 people) which is between Basingstoke and Oakley, build a station there and turn the stoppers around there (as they are just after the Salisbury services) and it could be done with no extra trains (due to the circa 25 minute turn around at Basingstoke) but would free up significant platform time at Basingstoke and 2 flat junction moments per hour.

Wouldn't that still leave a flat junction, but in a different place?

The Ham · 2 May 2019

Haywain said:
Wouldn't that still leave a flat junction, but in a different place?

Yes it would but one where it was crossing from one line to another rather than from one across 2&3 to 4. It would also be where there was less traffic, even allowing for two freight trains each way that's a total of 8 other services to avoid rather than more than this as would be the case at Basingstoke.

DimTim · 2 May 2019

Killingworth said:
South of the station the original 2 Sheaf Valley tracks to Dore and Totley were found to be inadequate after the Hope Valley line opened in 1893. By 1903 2 further tracks were laid into Sheffield.

In the aftermath of the Beeching era the stopping services were withdrawn and all the stations closed in 1969. By 1985 two tracks were lifted and subsequently the remaining two have been slewed to improve speeds. A Tesco superstore has been built on the trackbed and other obstructions now exist that will make even providing a third continuous track very difficult. That is the suggestion when HS2 adds further pressure on the route.

The bottleneck through Dore Station and the Junction to the North should be relieved when (if) the Hope Valley Capacity Improvement Scheme is finally completed in 2022. That is known to have been in the planning stages since before 2005. The chord between Dore West and Dore South Junctions is being extended at the same time, as is the Heeley loop and another loop is to be built at Bamford.

These improvements should reduce delays on trains using the south end of Sheffield Station. Destinations to which delayed trains are heading range around the nation, like Southampton, Reading, Plymouth, Penzance, London, Liverpool, Norwich, Cleethorpes, Manchester Airport, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and places in between.

Northbound travellers are frequently held between Dronfield and Sheffield, often at the signal where the mainline platform used to be at Dore and Totley. All these trains will be passing their delays on to other services in giant ripples across the system.

The problem has been officially recognised for at least 15 years, and probably longer. In the meantime passenger numbers and train services have multiplied .

At the North end leading away to the North and East there are two tracks through a rock cutting and tunnel between buildings, a major road sytem and close to the River Sheaf and Sheffield canal. Before HS2 can go further north that needs widening - it needs it now. HS2 has no budget for that. It's down to Northern Powerhouse Rail.

So, with potential choke points at both ends of Sheffield Midland Station, operating to a timetable is rather a lottery for crews and passengers alike. If the one to the south has been recognised for so long, why has it not been resolved? Why is there not even a plan for the North

The railway network needs more than a few pinch points being resolved, but recognising them, and planning their elimination more quickly, would be a start

At the north end of Sheffield it is not only the twin track tunnel - through the former Attercliffe Road station the 2 tracks run on a viaduct for a long distance. Adding additional tracks will be very expensive.

deltic08 · 3 May 2019

A combination of Skelton and Skelton Bridge Junctions north of York station.

RichJF · 3 May 2019

Ianno87 said:
BML2/Thameslink 2 is a very good project at missing where demand actually originates from (Gatwick/Haywards Heath/Brighton etc).

The ideal solution would be to quadruple the track from Brighton to T Bridges, but that would be prohibitively expensive. I live in East Grinstead and the BML2/Wealden keep popping up round here.

Your ideal solution (to ruin heritage fans) would be to reopen Ardingly spur & divert some TL/Southerns up the Oxted line taking the Brighton/Haywards Heath commuters off the mainline. That's fantasy land though.

Ianno87 · 3 May 2019

RichJF said:
Your ideal solution (to ruin heritage fans) would be to reopen Ardingly spur & divert some TL/Southerns up the Oxted line taking the Brighton/Haywards Heath commuters off the mainline. That's fantasy land though.

That's great for providing trains that nobody will get on because of the longer journey time.

hwl · 3 May 2019

Ianno87 said:
That's great for providing trains that nobody will get on because of the longer journey time.

And does nothing for the capacity at the actual pinch point at East Croydon /Selhurst /Norwood Junction

Nick Nation · 3 May 2019

I'd nominate Falcon Junction, trying to get a service from the Up Slow to Platform 16 at Clap Jn. Also coming off the GOBLIN at Gospel Oak heading west onto the NLL.

On the Underground, the triangle of flat junctions between Tower Hill/Aldgate/Aldgate East, and between Praed St Junction and Edgware Road - minimum headway 1.5 mins.

HSTEd · 3 May 2019

Proper Fantasy to solve bottlenecks on the Southern Region is a new line from London to Brighton and then take over the west coastway.... 140+mph dash with 400m doubledecks to Brighton, then run to Southampton.

Pinch point locations for congestion on the GB rail network?

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