Derby Resignalling - 22 July - 7 October 2018

[LTJ87]

A dedicated microsite has now been launched for the Derby resignalling project which takes place between 22 July and 7 October this year:

https://www.derby2018.co.uk

Between 22 July and 7 October, Network Rail will be working in partnership with East Midlands Trains and CrossCountry to rebuild the track and signalling in and around Derby railway station.

While Derby Station remains open throughout the work, customers travelling to and through Derby will experience significant disruption.

This involves:

• Replacing 17 kilometres of track
• Installing 79 sets of points (which allow trains to switch between different tracks)
• Installing 55 new signals (the railway's version of traffic lights)Installing nine new gantries (large overhead structures to hold signals and cables)
• Laying 150,000 tonnes of ballast (the loose stone which the tracks sit on)

 

[GRALISTAIR]

exciting - it needed doing before electrification anyway - and I still have hopes of it being electrified by 2030 !

 

[38Cto15E]

I notice that during the Derby closure, some East Midlands Trains, St Pancras-Sheffield services take just 1 hour 53 minutes for the journey via The Erewash. Having said that, 1C20 the up Master Cutler is over 20 minutes slower than the down times.

 

[MarkyT]

A video has just appeared on the NR YouTube channel, which explains the Derby project in some detail including showing some of the layout changes, and it summarises the service changes planned during the work.

I feel one of my diagrams may be necessary in the near future.

 

[BantamMenace]

Which way will XC be routed from Chesterfield to Birmingham? It doesn't explicitly say they won't be calling at Burton but I presume they're running direct from Chesterfield via the Erewash to Leicester and then via Nuneaton?

 

[Minilad]

Which way will XC be routed from Chesterfield to Birmingham? It doesn't explicitly say they won't be calling at Burton but I presume they're running direct from Chesterfield via the Erewash to Leicester and then via Nuneaton?

Erewash. Trent. Then Castle Donnington branch. So can call at Burton.

 

[Freightmaster]

Which way will XC be routed from Chesterfield to Birmingham? It doesn't explicitly say they won't be calling at Burton but I presume they're running direct from Chesterfield via the Erewash to Leicester and then via Nuneaton?

I'm pretty sure they will use the Sheet Stores line to Stenson Junction rather than going
all the way down to Leicester.


MARK

 

[38Cto15E]

I am pretty sure the Cross Country trains will use the Castle Donington branch and the Erewash, with the southerly trains waiting 10/15 mins at Burton and the northerly trains waiting 10/15 minutes at Chesterfield.

 

[Mollman]

A video has just appeared on the NR YouTube channel, which explains the Derby project in some detail including showing some of the layout changes, and it summarises the service changes planned during the work.

I feel one of my diagrams may be necessary in the near future.

Just to rub it in all services seem to be operated by class 350s!

 

[mallard]

As a slight aside, East Midlands Trains have started issuing publicity for the Derby closure (they were giving out special ticket wallets at East Midlands Parkway last week). However, the publicity features the URL "dby2018.co.uk", which doesn't work. "www.dby2018.co.uk" works fine, but that's not what they've printed. The domain is registered to Stagecoach Group plc and therefore the fault is entirely with them. Not that I'd expect any better from East Midlands Trains, despite this forum's general rose-tinted opinion of the company.

I'm sure I don't need to explain that the majority of websites (including this one) are accessible with or without the "www." prefix and not setting up the necessary redirect is considered a rather amateurish mistake and pretty fundamental when you're printing publicity materials that omit it. Somebody had to have noticed this before I did...

 

[Domh245]

I take it you've contacted EMT to bring this to their attention in addition to posting here?

 

[mallard]

I take it you've contacted EMT to bring this to their attention in addition to posting here?

Yes, tweeted them. In fairness, starting publicity efforts this early is a definite point in their favour, it just seems that their IT resources aren't quite ready yet...

 

[Domh245]

Yes, tweeted them.

Good, hopefully they'll be able to get it fixed soon then. Makes a change from the people who just rant on here and expect that to magically change things!

 

[Timrud]

EMT are handling the advanced warnings in an excellent manner, I wouldn't expect anything less - other TOC's could learn a lot from them in so many ways.

 

[edwin_m]

EMT handled the Nottingham remodelling and the recent fire there pretty well, and I would expect the same for Derby.

 

[duffield]

Which way will XC be routed from Chesterfield to Birmingham? It doesn't explicitly say they won't be calling at Burton but I presume they're running direct from Chesterfield via the Erewash to Leicester and then via Nuneaton?

Already in realtime trains, here's a random example confirming what the previous posters have said:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C76174/2018/07/23/advanced

Looking forward to this, I'll be using this diversion a number of times while the works are in progress.

 

[ashworth]

ue

Already in realtime trains, here's a random example confirming what the previous posters have said:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C76174/2018/07/23/advanced

I see from this example that XC are not stopping at Alfreton. I would have that thought that Alfreton would have been far more convenient for bus connections to/from Derby than Chesterfield if travelling from the north. Alfreton is very convenient for the A38 to Derby and there’s also plenty of space for buses to park at Alfreton. EMT used Alfreton for bus connections during the Nottingham blockade. Perhaps the lack of disabled access to/from the south bound platform is a problem. Disabled access at Alfreton is something that really needs sorting.

 

[mallard]

Update: The website issue has now been fixed (no reply to my Tweet, so presumably they were already aware of it).

EMT handled the [...] recent fire there pretty well

Not sure about that. While I've heard nothing but good things about the staff actually at Nottingham, there appears to have been very little sharing of information to staff and commuters at other stations that morning and TOC management were typically worse than useless.

At around 0730 (after the fire had been buring for around an hour) the Nottingham Post reported that an EMT representative told them that the station would be opening "in around 30 minutes" (it didn't open until the next day) and staff at other stations seemed to be completely unaware of the situation for most of the morning peak. I'm sure that report lead to many commuters starting journeys they couldn't complete. I very much doubt that the Post made that up.

As late as 0830, the only relevant annoucements at Leicester were the automated reports of delays/cancellations of individual trains. They used the "a fire at a station" (without stating which station) and "emergency services attending an incident near Nottingham" phrases more-or-less interchangably (presumably depending on th whim of the person responsible for entering the reasons into the system), resulting in many commuters believing there were two seperate incidents. Staff clearly knew less about the issue than the BBC website by that time. I think I got a very non-commital response of "probably" when I asked a member of staff at Leicester if the reports about a fire at Nottingham station were correct.

The statements on EMT's website were contained very little information relevant to people not travelling to/from London; nothing whatsoever of help for people approaching Nottingham from the East. The same statements claimed that certain tickets could not be refunded due to their terms and conditions; NRCoT section 31.1 clearly states that refunds should be provided for "all Tickets, including Tickets [...] that are otherwise non-refundable" when passengers abandon their travel plans due to disruption. Of course, as we all know, TOCs like EMT will zelously pursue passengers who violate those conditions, but consider them little more than "advisory guidlines" for their own conduct.

Then towards the end of the day, we had media statements from Network Rail recommending people don't travel to/around Nottingham the next day, while a Stagecoach representitive was gushing about how they were "optimistic" about running a near-normal service. Nothing like industry consensus...

Anyway, rant over...

 

[thenorthern]

Using Uttoxeter as an interchange will be interesting, its easier to get to the A50 from Uttoxeter than Tutbury and Hatton and it has more parking but at the same time with the A50 rebuilding happening and a car park that is not the easiest to get to it could be interesting.

 

[edwin_m]

ue

I see from this example that XC are not stopping at Alfreton. I would have that thought that Alfreton would have been far more convenient for bus connections to/from Derby than Chesterfield if travelling from the north. Alfreton is very convenient for the A38 to Derby and there’s also plenty of space for buses to park at Alfreton. EMT used Alfreton for bus connections during the Nottingham blockade. Perhaps the lack of disabled access to/from the south bound platform is a problem. Disabled access at Alfreton is something that really needs sorting.

EMT did use Alfreton but the Liverpool-Norwich trains continued via East Midlands Parkway and that was promoted as the primary interchange for Nottingham. This was probably in part because of the footbridge issue you mention but also because the forecourt isn't really big enough for more than a couple of buses at a time (they were using the smaller car park south of the building but the bigger northern one was still for cars). There is (or was) also a service bus terminating there every hour.

 

[thenorthern]

During the re-signaling it seems that every CrossCountry train bar two will call at Burton-on-Trent as at the present moment its all the Nottingham - Birmingham / Cardiff trains, about half the Plymouth to Edinburgh trains and a very limited number of Reading to Newcastle trains.

I would assume more trains stopping at Burton-on-Trent during the disruption is so that people can get road transport to Derby?

 

[tommy2215]

Looking at Open Train Times and Realtime Trains all XC trains from the North East will stop at Chesterfield and Burton-on-trent rather than just some of them (presumably because of the buses that go to Derby) , and the termini of the routes are getting mixed up. http://www.opentraintimes.com/locat...on&show_stp=on&show_var=on&show_wtt=on&utf8=✓ It shows routes like Glasgow Central - Southampton Central.

 

[edwin_m]

During the re-signaling it seems that every CrossCountry train bar two will call at Burton-on-Trent as at the present moment its all the Nottingham - Birmingham / Cardiff trains, about half the Plymouth to Edinburgh trains and a very limited number of Reading to Newcastle trains.

I would assume more trains stopping at Burton-on-Trent during the disruption is so that people can get road transport to Derby?

Probably so, but also because they will need to hang around somewhere so they can drop into the onward path of what would normally be the train behind.

 

[Class 170101]

Using Uttoxeter as an interchange will be interesting, its easier to get to the A50 from Uttoxeter than Tutbury and Hatton and it has more parking but at the same time with the A50 rebuilding happening and a car park that is not the easiest to get to it could be interesting.

I'm suprised that this service wasn't extended to Nottingham rather than forcing everyone via Derby on a bus. (Mind you these seem to be missing in RTT currently.)

 

[MichaelAMW]

I'm suprised that this service wasn't extended to Nottingham rather than forcing everyone via Derby on a bus. (Mind you these seem to be missing in RTT currently.)

My thought was to combine the Matlock - Newark with the Derby - Crewe, to give Crewe - Nottingham, although I've not checked timings carefully and I would wonder about pathing.

 

[Mugby]

I'm not looking forward to this at all. 79 days is an awfully long time for us unfortunate people in Derby to be without trains!

 

[OxtedL]

Here's a headline summary, from the passenger leaflet

Sun 22nd July to Sun 29th July (1 week)
No Crosscountry trains call at Derby (continues to Sun 2nd Sept)
No trains between Uttoxeter and Derby (continues to Sun 2nd Sept)

Mon 30th July to Sun 2nd Sept (5 weeks)
No Crosscountry trains call at Derby
No trains between Uttoxeter and Derby
No trains Derby to Chesterfield/Sheffield
No trains Derby to Nottingham
1tph to Leicester/London (continues to Sun 7th October)
Sun 13th to Sun 19th August: no trains to Leicester/London
from Sat 25th August: No trains to Matlock (continues to Sun 7th October)

Mon 3rd Sept to Sun 7th October (5 weeks)
No trains to Matlock
No East Midlands trains to Chesterfield
Crosscountry trains call at Derby and continue to/from Chesterfield with slightly extended journey times
1tph to Leicester/London

 

[IrishDave]

I'm suprised that this service wasn't extended to Nottingham rather than forcing everyone via Derby on a bus. (Mind you these seem to be missing in RTT currently.)

Probably issues with route knowledge trying to run Crewe–Nottingham avoiding Derby — while plenty of XC crews sign the route via Castle Donington (i.e. Burton/Uttoxeter to Nottingham avoiding Derby), I can't imagine that many EMT crews do. _Some_ EMT crews certainly do (since occasionally they divert Derby–London via a reversal at Stenson Jn), but I have a feeling that the (high-speed) EMT crews who sign via Castle Donington don't sign Sprinters, and the (local) EMT crews who sign Sprinters don't sign via Castle Donington.

 

[Class 170101]

Probably issues with route knowledge trying to run Crewe–Nottingham avoiding Derby — while plenty of XC crews sign the route via Castle Donington (i.e. Burton/Uttoxeter to Nottingham avoiding Derby), I can't imagine that many EMT crews do. _Some_ EMT crews certainly do (since occasionally they divert Derby–London via a reversal at Stenson Jn), but I have a feeling that the (high-speed) EMT crews who sign via Castle Donington don't sign Sprinters, and the (local) EMT crews who sign Sprinters don't sign via Castle Donington.

Would have thought NR would pay for such training of drivers for such a long block.

 

[The Planner]

We will, and do, if there is a requirement for divert traffic off the normal routes.