Mansion House siding

[VauxhallandI]

I used Mansion House station yesterday for the first time in a long time.

I was surprised to the see the tracks lifted on Platform 2; am I mistaken but weren't they there in the recent past?

I like looking at the prehistoric buffer at the end of the platform.

 

[bb21]

S stock do not fit in the bay so it has been decommissioned.

 

[VauxhallandI]

Ah!
At least I'm going potty...
Still operationally a loss?

 

[Dstock7080]

Decommissioned after last train 7 October 2016.
Scheduled to be T125 06.30 out (which I drove) but in the event another D Stock (T24) and an S Stock (T42 21405/06) visited the bay on that last day!

 

[VauxhallandI]

ahhh very close but alas no cigar

 

[Ladder23]

I noticed this today and had to take another look!

 

[VauxhallandI]

I noticed this today and had to take another look!

It does look weird doesn't it. Are there any lifted tracks elsewhere on the network?

 

[Ladder23]

Very, I just assumed it was part of a renewal project!

 

[Dstock7080]

other threads/posts on the subject:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/mansion-house.144309/

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...k-final-withdrawal.129622/page-5#post-2721581

 

[Ianno87]

Ah!
At least I'm going potty...
Still operationally a loss?

Not necessarily. Removing the siding could have the effect of removing some constraints on signal positions, meaning a signal spacing better optimised for the service headway.

That and:
-Moving to a standard S8 District fleet (from a mix of C and D stock) gives more control options to switch between routes to recover the service
-With growing passenger numbers, doing short workings starts to become more of a pain in the ar*e as the following 'through' service just gets delayed by bunching of passengers instead. Better running through to somewhere where passenger numbers are thinner and sort out the service there instead.

 

[VauxhallandI]

I see, ta

 

[bluegoblin7]

-Moving to a standard S8 District fleet (from a mix of C and D stock) gives more control options to switch between routes to recover the service

S7s on the District (and C&H), not S8s. Whilst it does improve overall fleet flexibility between the three lines, there remain crewing constraints so it's still rare for Edgware Road-Wimbledon trains to be diverted elsewhere.

 

[Mojo]

Not necessarily. Removing the siding could have the effect of removing some constraints on signal positions, meaning a signal spacing better optimised for the service headway.

It wasn’t a siding, it was a bay platform for terminating trains.

When the new signalling is launched there won’t be lineside signals and the system will support moving block, so it is nothing to do with signal spacing.

It’s more to do with wanting to rationalise costs of the layout especially given the less than ideal size of the bay for S Stocks.

 

[sharpley]

Isn't there a new-ish set of points at Tower Hill so that the middle platform can now be accessed from the east? I guess its not yet commissioned yet as the buffer stop lights have been left in place over these points so the platform can at the moment be only used from the west.... or am I going mad and just imagined this?

 

[Busaholic]

I could swear there was a period when both Mansion House and Tower Hill were used as regular turns from the west, in the late 1960s/early 1970s. I was working at 55 Broadway, but not on the Underground side, and remember going down to the platforms below to get a train to East London somewhere, and having to wait for the fourth train because the first three were MH, TH and Circle respectively. I suppose if two trains were separated by four minutes, say, and the first was going to MH there'd be no room to turn the second one there without considerable delay to following services.

 

[Ianno87]

It wasn’t a siding, it was a bay platform for terminating trains.

When the new signalling is launched there won’t be lineside signals and the system will support moving block, so it is nothing to do with signal spacing.

It’s more to do with wanting to rationalise costs of the layout especially given the less than ideal size of the bay for S Stocks.

Could the platforms have a slightly higher entry/exit speed of not constrained by a turnout? All contributes to the headway.

 

[Dstock7080]

I could swear there was a period when both Mansion House and Tower Hill were used as regular turns from the west

Certainly when I started on the District the off-peak pattern was every 20min Ealing-Mansion House; every 20min Wimbledon-Tower Hill.