Nuneham Viaduct shut - Didcot- Oxford

[webweasel]

I've no idea what ""stuff on Twitter" might be or how reliable it is, but installing temporary works should never be a "bodge". It's a specialist discipline in its own right, and is subject to just as much scrutiny of design and installation as permanent works, since lives depend on its adequacy. It just has to be done a lot quicker.

I think bodge refers more to the temporary works being somewhat rudimentary in appearance since by definition it is not permanent. Presumably a permanent fix will involve planning permission and the like.

The ground conditions are almost certainly poor since the 1850 bridge kept sinking and there are gravel pits nearby.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've no idea what ""stuff on Twitter" might be or how reliable it is, but installing temporary works should never be a "bodge". It's a specialist discipline in its own right, and is subject to just as much scrutiny of design and installation as permanent works, since lives depend on its adequacy. It just has to be done a lot quicker.

I didn't mean that it would be poor quality, for clarity, just speaking colloquially for it being a temporary fix for low speed use only.

 

[gravey]

Paul Clifton of the BBC tweeted some photos of the damage to the structure.

https://twitter.com/paulcliftonbbc/status/1643961993517301760

 

[BrianW]

Stonehaven, which is a proper name and so needs no quotes, was the result of defective drainage from off-railway land causing a landslip onto the tracks. The bridge being there was co-incidental, as was the fact that it happened to be receiving attention at the time.


No more or less than any other hydrological consultants??


Seriously?

Unless NR is really holding back on information, everything we've seen so far says that the inspection regime worked. The problem was identified in time and it looks very much like the wheels were already turning on getting things sorted. Yes, it would have been preferable to get it sorted before this sort of disruption occurred, but the current situation is still preferable to the alternatives that you have so kindly already described.

<XAM2175> I would like to thank you for your observations.

IIRC the 'Stonehaven' derailment was at Carmont, near Stonehaven (rather as the 'Paddington' crash was at Ladbroke Grove), hence my use of '...'.

Re HRWallingford- I agree with you- I guess I was only trying, and clearly failing, to 'show off' in that I knew they existed and were in Oxfordshire.

And regarding Hatfield etc- I agree with you on this too! 'The accident exposed major stewardship shortcomings of the privatised national railway infrastructure company Railtrack. Reports found there was a lack of communication and some staff were not aware of maintenance procedures.'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_rail_crash.

I have long expounded the value of inspection and appropriate expenditure on maintenance, which IIRC was said to have been insufficient, and lead to significant reassessment of priorities. Sadly, maintenance is not nearly as 'sexy' as new-build projects. A forward programme of planned maintenance might be thought to save money (which is in short supply) and inconvenience. 'The railway' needs reliabilty and resilience if it is to return and retain regular business- perhaps we might agree on that too.

 

[Welly]

Paul Clifton of the BBC tweeted some photos of the damage to the structure.

https://twitter.com/paulcliftonbbc/status/1643961993517301760

The graffiti probably stopped the bridge from collapsing completely.

 

[ThickMike]

It's still early days yet and trains are using vSTP schedules or simply running 'off route', but so far...


- Freightliner and GBRf intermodal services from Southampton: diverted from Reading via Slough and London

- DB intermodal services from Southampton: all cancelled

- car trains from Oxford and Halewood to Southampton: all cancelled

- departmental trains from Mountsorrel/Scunthorpe/Oxford to Eastleigh yard: all cancelled

- containerised flyash from Drax to Appleford: all cancelled

- oddballs such as 6M50 Westbury to Bescot and 6M40 Westbury to Stud Farm: via Cheltenham if required to run

- MoD traffic to/from Marchwood: via Cheltenham if required to run



I've spent most of today updating the dozens of affected Freightmaster Online timetables - one of my busiest days for years!




MARK

Hi, my first post and apologies if it's in the wrong thread - mods please move if so.

Great that you've managed to reroute most of the intermodal services to/from Southampton. Is there a viable plan for the "all cancelled" items above especially as the closure is now looking like 2 to 3 months? If not, what does that mean for this traffic - potentially lost to road??

Many thanks,

Mike

 

[The Planner]

Hi, my first post and apologies if it's in the wrong thread - mods please move if so.

Great that you've managed to reroute most of the intermodal services to/from Southampton. Is there a viable plan for the "all cancelled" items above especially as the closure is now looking like 2 to 3 months? If not, what does that mean for this traffic - potentially lost to road??

Many thanks,

Mike

Depends on what sort of call they want to make on it. A decision could be made to just take a large performance hit and run them if required with NR paying even more. Its going to be paying anyway. There will likely be a halfway house with some sort of emergency timetable that squeezes as many in without completely destroying whats around it. Acton and Willesden will be the really nasty areas.

 

[Oxfordblues]

The Oxford-Didcot RRBs currently travel via Botley Road to the A34. From Tuesday this route will be closed but the alternative via Abingdon Road will be hopelessly congested with hugely-extended journey times (an hour at least). There is now a suggestion that the RRBs might run from the west side of the station, but there is no provision at the new bus-turning facility for passengers to board there. It's a long walk over the river bridge to the Osney Island stop but this might be preferable to spending a long time crawling along Abingdon Road.

 

[TRXsouth]

Today’s Daily Telegraph has a page 15 quarter page advert, depicting The Famous Five children plus dog on a river punt by a twin arch bridge. The wording:
”Crikey! London to Oxford one way from £6 …..GWR - Adventures start here.”

GWR’s marketing department must have forgotten to cancel this route promotion amid its current circumstances!

 

[12LDA28C]

”Crikey! London to Oxford one way from £6 …..GWR - Adventures start here.”

It would certainly be an adventure attempting to travel from London to Oxford on GWR currently.

 

[zwk500]

It would certainly be an adventure attempting to travel from London to Oxford on GWR currently.

Maybe the ticket is valid on Chiltern?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

It would certainly be an adventure attempting to travel from London to Oxford on GWR currently.

Really? Train to Didcot and RRB to Oxford. Not all that adventurous!

 

[12LDA28C]

Maybe the ticket is valid on Chiltern?

I would assume a walk-on ticket bought at Oxford would be valid via either route, also would have thought Chiltern have agreed ticket acceptance given the current circumstances

Really? Train to Didcot and RRB to Oxford. Not all that adventurous!

Plenty of excitement for Timmy the dog.

 

[zwk500]

I would assume a walk-on ticket bought at Oxford would be valid via either route, also would have thought Chiltern have agreed ticket acceptance given the curent circumstances

Yes, but whether Chiltern will honour a £6 advance is different to on-the-day tickets and so on.

 

[jimm]

Yes, but whether Chiltern will honour a £6 advance is different to on-the-day tickets and so on.

Ticket acceptance is ticket acceptance in these sorts of circumstances, without strings - and it appears from a look at the GWR and Chiltern websites that all London-Oxford advance fares (and on GWR beyond Oxford along the Cotswold Line) have been pulled off the booking systems anyway.

 

[Nicholas43]

It would certainly be an adventure attempting to travel from London to Oxford on GWR currently.

Train to Didcot, bus to Abingdon, punt to Oxford, wear hard hat under Nuneham viaduct. Simples!

 

[Snow1964]

I would assume a walk-on ticket bought at Oxford would be valid via either route, also would have thought Chiltern have agreed ticket acceptance given the current circumstances

There is full ticket acceptance via Chiltern to Marylebone. So any ticket type

 

[fgwrich]

Really? Train to Didcot and RRB to Oxford. Not all that adventurous!

Maybe the adventure is the Rail Replacement bus service. If it’s anything like GWRs in the past, it could be a mystery scenic route, or you could have audience participation when the bus breaks down and you all have to get out to push it!

 

[Welly]

Today’s Daily Telegraph has a page 15 quarter page advert, depicting The Famous Five children plus dog on a river punt by a twin arch bridge. The wording:
”Crikey! London to Oxford one way from £6 …..GWR - Adventures start here.”

GWR’s marketing department must have forgotten to cancel this route promotion amid its current circumstances!

I have a later printed edition of today's Daily Telegraph and that advert must have been pulled as it is a DT advert.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Train to Didcot, bus to Abingdon, punt to Oxford, wear hard hat under Nuneham viaduct. Simples!

This is why here in Oxford we call customers "punters"!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Paul Clifton of the BBC tweeted some photos of the damage to the structure.

https://twitter.com/paulcliftonbbc/status/1643961993517301760

Welcome to the forum- your first post I see.

 

[A0]

Today’s Daily Telegraph has a page 15 quarter page advert, depicting The Famous Five children plus dog on a river punt by a twin arch bridge. The wording:
”Crikey! London to Oxford one way from £6 …..GWR - Adventures start here.”

GWR’s marketing department must have forgotten to cancel this route promotion amid its current circumstances!

It was probably too late to cancel it. Adverts always used to be booked a few days out, so I suspect at the time this kicked off, the advert had already been produced and signed off.

 

[zwk500]

It was probably too late to cancel it. Adverts always used to be booked a few days out, so I suspect at the time this kicked off, the advert had already been produced and signed off.

Although post #379 suggests they can be pulled quite quickly. I suspect it's more just that advertising was so far from anybody's mind because the immediate problems of dealing with stuck passengers and trying to run any sort of service were still being resolved.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Hi, my first post and apologies if it's in the wrong thread - mods please move if so.

Great that you've managed to reroute most of the intermodal services to/from Southampton. Is there a viable plan for the "all cancelled" items above especially as the closure is now looking like 2 to 3 months? If not, what does that mean for this traffic - potentially lost to road??

Many thanks, Mike

Welcome. Really looking forward to your contributions.

 

[crablab]

Some photos from today. It's hard to get a photo (with a phone anyway) that shows the issue, but in real life you can see that the wall that abuts the embankment has collapsed "into" the embankment, so the span has pivoted on the central pier and dropped at the embankment end. It's quite a significant drop.

They've removed the track and are sucking out the ballast at the moment.

 

[alf]

It would be interesting to know what changed recently to make a bridge that has been stable since its build 94 years ago destabilise from OK to collapse in a few months.

Heavy rail traffic, Budlea, Drainage wall points blocked & not cleared, inspectors not inspecting until too late, badgers, rabbits, changes off the railway - local stream or ditches blocked?
Any thoughts that could applied to other critical network rail structure now!

 

[edwin_m]

Some photos from today. It's hard to get a photo (with a phone anyway) that shows the issue, but in real life you can see that the wall that abuts the embankment has collapsed "into" the embankment, so the span has pivoted on the central pier and dropped at the embankment end. It's quite a significant drop.

They've removed the track and are sucking out the ballast at the moment.

Thanks for these. Your third photo illustrates the issue very well.

This suggests that the ground that's sinking is actually under the embankment, so part of that may have to be dug out and reinforced somehow, unless they've determined that it won't sink any further and they can just put more material on top.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

----- unless they've determined that it won't sink any further and they can just put more material on top.

Yikes, that would be a brave decision especially in the risk averse world we live in.

 

[Jimini]

I have a later printed edition of today's Daily Telegraph and that advert must have been pulled as it is a DT advert.

All three editions today have got a house ad on P15 for their puzzles app from what I can see here -- can't see a GWR ad anywhere? Yesterday's edition had a GWR one on P15 for London <> Cardiff offer.

 

[crablab]

Thanks for these. Your third photo illustrates the issue very well

No problem. I had to cycle down a very muddy and significantly flooded path to get them!

The land around is extremely waterlogged and flooded, even a week after the big rainstorm. The Thames is still over the top of its banks in some areas along here (including the path!) and is fast flowing.