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Burneside Lower Level Crossing 5 mph limit

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adamedwards

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Prompted by the other post on the limit at North Berwick, I'm curious to know about the very slow limit at this point. I am assuming a combination of sight lines and a single track road plus an assumption that all trains are all stations which hasn't been true in some recent timetables. I'm also curious to know if there was any plan to remove this limit as part of the aborted electrification. The time penalty must be a substantial percentage of the whole branch journey. Over to the experts.
 
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Freightmaster

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Presumably you mean Burneside level crossing on the Windermere branch??




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hexagon789

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Prompted by the other post on the limit at North Berwick, I'm curious to know about the very slow limit at this point. I am assuming a combination of sight lines and a single track road plus an assumption that all trains are all stations which hasn't been true in some recent timetables. I'm also curious to know if there was any plan to remove this limit as part of the aborted electrification. The time penalty must be a substantial percentage of the whole branch journey. Over to the experts.

Is it because the crossing is ungated?
 

John Webb

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Likely but are all ungated crossings 5 mph? But still leads on to my question about removing or modifying it. Even gates would raise this to line speed.
With the station (at which all trains stop) only a quarter of a mile away, they would be starting to slow down on approach or still be accelerating away, so would it make much difference?
(I assume we're talking about this crossing:
The Lakelander at Burneside north level crossing

© Copyright Nigel Brown and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Speed limits over such open level crossings are considered in the light of local circumstances, I understand, but I've no idea what they may be for this one.)
 
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adamedwards

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My experience is of trains stopping at the station and then a long slow crawl until the cab clears the crossing, so I come back to the time spent which could instead be used for resilance or getting trains back to Oxenholme for better connections. In previous timetables there have been trains not stopping at Staveley or Burneside which would also benefit. Ultimately a passing loop at Burneside and two trains will be needed.
 

DynamicSpirit

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Is it because the crossing is ungated?

If I recall correctly, I think, the issue is that it's ungated, and the house on the corner of the crossing means there is very poor visibility for both trains and road users.

My experience is of trains stopping at the station and then a long slow crawl until the cab clears the crossing, so I come back to the time spent which could instead be used for resilance or getting trains back to Oxenholme for better connections. In previous timetables there have been trains not stopping at Staveley or Burneside which would also benefit. Ultimately a passing loop at Burneside and two trains will be needed.

It feels psychologically bad as a passenger, but I would imagine the delay is a minute at most on services that stop at Burneside. And on the current timetable, almost every train stops at Burneside - there are only a few a day that don't (I know there used to be more but it seems no longer).

The line sees an approximately hourly service, and the end-to-end journey time is about 20 minutes, which already leaves a lot of recovery time. Apart from the small number of trains a day that go beyond Oxenholme, the line works pretty much as an isolated entity with virtually no interaction with the rest of the rail network - hence the risk of substantial delays is relatively small. In my experience, the line is pretty reliable for punctuality - so the minute or so that sorting out the level crossing would give you is unlikely to change much in that regard. I would suspect that's why there doesn't seem to be any official interest in trying to raise the speed limit there. Lots of expense for relatively little benefit.
 
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hexagon789

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If I recall correctly, I think, the issue is that it's ungated, and the house on the corner of the crossing means there is very poor visibility for both trains and road users.

Poor visibility would make sense. I couldn't recall if other ungated crossings were all 5mph or if it varied.
 

Joseph_Locke

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It's an AOCL because the road isn't wide enough for ABCL or AHB. The very low speed is due to the visibility issues and the potential high speed of approach by road traffic (It's Sharps Lane) and no barriers. The low volume of traffic (rail and road) doesn't make it worth improving.
 

Crossover

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This crossing always used to amuse me with the 185's - a bit of notch 1 (presumably) every now and again to keep it coasting
 
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