Doncaster ECML Level Crossings

[Kirk Sandall]

Any update on the closure of them?

thanks.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

I never even heard about this. What's going to happen?

 

[Kirk Sandall]

There due to 'upgrade' some of the Gates to Automatic Barriers. Like fenwick, Barcroft, Heyworth etc.

 

[brampton]

Crossing closures start with heyworth and barcroft on 11th april 2015. Fenwick, balne, balne lowgate and moss follow in a few weeks.

thanks.[/QUOTE]

 

[55z]

They are NOT NOT crossing closures all crossings will remain open to pedestrians and road traffic.
The details of the conversions are as follows -----
Barcroft LC – 2250 hours Saturday 11 April 2015
Heyworth LC – 2250 hours Saturday 11 April 2015
Moss LC – 0600 hours Saturday 18 April 2015
Fenwick LC – 0600 hours Saturday 18 April 2015
Balne Low Gate LC – 0600 hours Saturday 25 April 2015
Balne LC – 0600 hours Saturday 25 April 2015
All crossings will become MCB-OD
(MCB Manned Level Crossing (barriers) operated locally by a signaller or crossing keeper OD-obstacle detectors)
NR 05.04.15

 

[brampton]

They will all be automatic unmanned crossings. Crossing keepers will be moved or made redundant.

 

[mac]

They are NOT NOT crossing closures all crossings will remain open to pedestrians and road traffic.
The details of the conversions are as follows -----
Barcroft LC – 2250 hours Saturday 11 April 2015
Heyworth LC – 2250 hours Saturday 11 April 2015
Moss LC – 0600 hours Saturday 18 April 2015
Fenwick LC – 0600 hours Saturday 18 April 2015
Balne Low Gate LC – 0600 hours Saturday 25 April 2015
Balne LC – 0600 hours Saturday 25 April 2015
All crossings will become MCB-OD
(MCB Manned Level Crossing (barriers) operated locally by a signaller or crossing keeper OD-obstacle detectors)
NR 05.04.15

where did you see that?

 

[bramling]

Crossing closures start with heyworth and barcroft on 11th april 2015. Fenwick, balne, balne lowgate and moss follow in a few weeks.

thanks.

[/QUOTE]

Site compound and portacabins now in situ at Moss, so looks like this is going ahead.

According to a local source, Dormer Green and Noblethorpe (shared keeper) are being retained at this stage, pending a permanent solution to the site constraints at these crossings. It would appear these two have been deemed unsuitable for OD crossings, at least for the time being.

 

[railnerd]

Hi.

I see some of them crossings are going to be replaced with MCB-OD's.

You know, I still see trains on our recently upgraded GN/GE Joint line frequently having to come to stop at red signals due to the new crossing equipment failing!

Still, I'm sure the bosses of VTEC and such companies wont mind their trains being delayed!

 

[High Dyke]

I'm not comfortable with an OD crossing on a route with a line speed of 125mph. Even more so when NR can't get them to work correctly on lines where the speed is 75mph maximum.

Still while the TOCs & FOCs are beiing payed their delay payments...

 

[mac]

I'm not comfortable with an OD crossing on a route with a line speed of 125mph. Even more so when NR can't get them to work correctly on lines where the speed is 75mph maximum.

Still while the TOCs & FOCs are beiing payed their delay payments...

Six crossings over about 2 miles with speeds between 40 and 125 and sometimes 20 trains per hour.

Could be some big payments due

 

[Kirk Sandall]

Anybody know when they are due to open.... Barcroft and Heyworth are closed, also to add to it, Moss and Fenwick have closed.

 

[snowball]

Details of the Moss and Fenwick closures here:

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.c...lane-level-crossings-will-close-for-nine-days

 

[brampton]

Anybody know when they are due to open.... Barcroft and Heyworth are closed, also to add to it, Moss and Fenwick have closed.

barcroft has already over ran. it was supposed to open over the weekend, but is still closed.

 

[mac]

They did have a lot to do at Barcoft because hardly any work was done before 12 April due to the house and cabin being in the way.

 

[brampton]

They did have a lot to do at Barcoft because hardly any work was done before 12 April due to the house and cabin being in the way.

there will be plenty of time to complete the works, as signalling staff may shortly be on strike.

 

[Kirk Sandall]

Barcroft and Heyworth as of today have re-opened.

 

[mac]

Barcroft and Heyworth as of today have re-opened.

But are they working as they should or is it like Selby

 

[class 9]

The box at Moss must have been demolished more or less straight away after it shut!

 

[bramling]

The box at Moss must have been demolished more or less straight away after it shut!

Shame, an attractive little box, even if on a road which can be annoyingly busy at times. Quite old too.

 

[snowball]

There's an item in the June Modern Railways, page 32, about the unfortunate consequences of installing Obstacle Detection at these LCs.

 

[Kirk Sandall]

last time i went down there recently, there was still people controlling them manually!

 

[mac]

There's an item in the June Modern Railways, page 32, about the unfortunate consequences of installing Obstacle Detection at these LCs.

Don't leave it there what it saying?

 

[Haydn1971]

Interesting, having recently challenged the use of Lidar in a Road Safety Audit, specifically on the matter of the scanned height was at 600mm - thus someone laid out cold in the path of a train may not be detected - I'm now interested to read that this stuff is being deployed on mainlines - It's only a matter of time before a trip leads to a fatality. Interesting too re mud splashes - something I'd not considered.

 

[66Yorks]

Interesting, having recently challenged the use of Lidar in a Road Safety Audit, specifically on the matter of the scanned height was at 600mm - thus someone laid out cold in the path of a train may not be detected - I'm now interested to read that this stuff is being deployed on mainlines - It's only a matter of time before a trip leads to a fatality. Interesting too re mud splashes - something I'd not considered.

I thought Lidar was installed on all Obstacle Detection crossings?

 

[Bald Rick]

Interesting, having recently challenged the use of Lidar in a Road Safety Audit, specifically on the matter of the scanned height was at 600mm - thus someone laid out cold in the path of a train may not be detected - I'm now interested to read that this stuff is being deployed on mainlines - It's only a matter of time before a trip leads to a fatality. Interesting too re mud splashes - something I'd not considered.

And in the 54 years since the first automatic crossing was commissioned in this country, how many people have tripped, been laid out cold, and then met an unfortunate end on one?

Or for that matter, on the 4000+ footpath / user worked crossings where the risk of tripping is probably higher?

 

[snowball]

Don't leave it there what it saying?

You could always buy a copy of the magazine now I've alerted you.

I may post a summary later if I get time but I'm not promising.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It was in Roger Ford's "Informed Sources" column. It turns out that most of what he said in the magazine was already in his email preview, so I can just cut and paste from that:

MCB-OD – limitations exposed

Just as the British Rail Research Railbus, designed for lightly-used rural lines, became the Pacer handling busy commuter services, so the Manually Controlled Barrier with Obstacle Detection (MCB-OD) has been promoted from lightly-used lines like Ely to Norwich to the East Coast Main Line.

While the MCB-OD has had its problems, largely centred on the uniquely British addition of a low level laser obstacle detector to the radar detector which seemed to be good enough elsewhere in Europe, feedback from readers on the two Modular Signalling pilot schemes tailed off some time ago. The crossings on the GN-GE Joint Line Strategic Freight Route upgrade appear to have been relatively painless.

My ‘Pacer’ parallel emerged when it was decided to replace six manned crossings on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) north of Doncaster with the new technology.

Skipping lightly over the installation issues, which saw the first pair commissioned a week late, all six have been open since early May. But, ‘open’ only because an attendant pushes a ‘crossing clear’ control button after the gates have auto lowered.

That’s not the real problem either. Heading south, about a mile before the first of the six crossings, is the Heck Ground frame serving the siding for the Plasmor concrete block factory. To get into the siding a freight train runs along the up line, then reverses in.

However, according to Informed Sources, the strike-in point for the crossings, where an approaching train is detected, is before the ground frame. In effect, the crossing gets the message that a train is approaching and starts the automatic closing sequence, only for the train to disappear, leaving motorists wondering where the train has got to.

Talking to chums with MCB-OD experience at Railtex, they couldn’t understand why this was a problem. There are sidings near MCB-OD crossings on the Mod-Sig schemes where the procedure is for the signaller to revert to manual.

But the same chums were also agreed that MCB-OD is not really suitable for a high speed, intensively worked route like the ECML. Nor for safety reasons, I should add, but because of the EBF (Enhanced Buggeration Factor).

Of course the solution is to put in some bridges and close the crossings. Actually, NR is doing a great job in getting rid of crossings and you have to hope that the ‘Doncaster six’ are high on the national priority list. But why, in the meantime, put in a relatively dumb automated crossing on a main line which is the antithesis of the type of route for which MCB-OD was designed.

 

[carriageline]

We have issues with our strike in points, and more importantly how the interlocking handles stopping and non stopping trains. But on the overall our OD crossings are behaving

 

[NSEFAN]

But the same chums were also agreed that MCB-OD is not really suitable for a high speed, intensively worked route like the ECML. Nor for safety reasons, I should add, but because of the EBF (Enhanced Buggeration Factor).

Now that's a good railway acronym if I ever saw one

 

[brampton]

We have issues with our strike in points, and more importantly how the interlocking handles stopping and non stopping trains. But on the overall our OD crossings are behaving

do you believe what you are typing