edwin_m
Veteran Member
Thanks for clarification - I'm clearly getting confused by this particular part of the discussion. The quote in question is this:Indeed there is. I was working that way last night. However the question that suggested using Allington chord made no acknowledgment that services arriving from the Grantham side would need to run round the train / change ends to continue via the Sleaford North West line towards Lincoln. There is no direct route.
I'm confused by this. The Barkston curve no longer exists and any train using it would have had to use Peascliff tunnel too. Going via Allington curve avoids Peascliff but does indeed land up going in the wrong direction at Sleaford. A north to west curve at Barkston (which has never existed as far as I'm aware) would avoid Peascliff, at the cost of two slow crossings of the ECML for Up freights. And any of these routes still passes through Stoke Tunnel. As an aside I remember service disruptions for Stoke and Peascliff tunnels to be enlarged for a previous generation of larger containers (8'6" I think) back in around 1980 - along with Penmanshiel which collapsed during the work.Can't pretend I know the first thing about both those tunnels and their specific clearances - all I know is that "there's an issue", which a friend working for an FOC forwarded on to me. Obviously Werrington will divert pretty much all the East Anglia/London - Yorkshire freight away from said tunnels, but the problem of the tunnels arises if the GN/GE Joint Line is blocked along that route for any reason.
Peascliff could be circumvented if the trains use the Barkston/Allington Curve, that much is certain.