Tackley Crossovers status

[ForTheLoveOf]

A freight train has this evening (Friday 13th December, perhaps that has something to do with it!) decided to have a sit down just to the north of Tackley crossovers (between Oxford and Banbury). Causing major disruption to the last trains of the day on the Cherwell Valley Line northwards.

From the location of the train it appears it's clear of the crossovers shown to exist at Tackley by Traksy (and other sites). I have read on Twitter that apparently it is not possible to use the crossovers to run "wrong road" past the failed train:

Hi Daniel, the driver is currently trying to restart the freight at the moment. If this is not successful then further steps will be taken to get this frieght moving to get passenger trains moving. Unfortunately it is not possible to use the crossovers at this time. ^AH

I've tried to find out whether this is to do with the crossovers being out of action or similar and I can find references on various sites online that the crossovers here may have been renewed during the recent Oxford resignalling and redevelopment.

Can anyone in the know elaborate as to what the status of these crossovers is and why they can't be used?

 

[Bald Rick]

I don’t know the status of the crossovers, but it would be ver6 unusual to use them in a situation such as this. There is no bi-directional signalling on the stretch, and the crossovers aren’t signalled. Therefore to use them to divert trains around them would require the institution of Single line working (SLW) between there and Aynho Jn.

SLW would require a suitably qualified person to set it up and commence the operation. It also requires the manning or closure of any level crossing. This could easily take 60-90 minutes to arrange. Then when instituted, all ‘wrong’ direction movements on the open line have to stop at the protecting signal, wait for the line to be clear, receive instructions, then proceed at no more than 50 mph. All the time it is doing this, nothing can come the other way. Realistically on that stretch you would get perhaps 3 trains an hour, total, ie 1.5 trains per hour per direction. Rather less than the total service.

Therefore you would significantly delay trains in both directions, rather than just one. Because the SLW area would encompass Aynho Jn, it would also affect Chiltern services.

Usually in the circumstances of a freight failure, the train is on the move again within the hour (if the driver can fix, which they can more often than not), or under 3 hours if it needs rescue. Instituting SLW would take at least an hour, and realistically it would be 2 hours before any train is past the failure, and it would cause considerable delay to train in the other direction.

By not using the crossovers, delay is restricted to the services on the northbound line, and total delay is likely to be significantly lower.

 

[swt_passenger]

Given all the time taken to set that up, it’s a pity XC couldn’t divert via the Bicester stations with a reversal. Presumably no route clearance for the new section, although I suspect the class is already cleared on the main Chiltern line? Getting a pilot driver on a a Friday night - that would probably be a nightmare anyway...

 

[jimm]

Given all the time taken to set that up, it’s a pity XC couldn’t divert via the Bicester stations with a reversal. Presumably no route clearance for the new section, although I suspect the class is already cleared on the main Chiltern line? Getting a pilot driver on a a Friday night - that would probably be a nightmare anyway...

There's also the matter of just how frequent the various Chiltern services are through the Bicester South junction area for most of the day. It's really not the sort of place you would want trains standing around on the main line while drivers changed ends.

 

[Bald Rick]

And it wouldn’t really help anything past Wolvercote Jn.

 

[O L Leigh]

Nothing had passed Wolvercote Junction anyway. TVSC held the route clear from Wolvercote north.

There were only two XC services trapped; two passenger services that were combined in the platform at Oxford and one empty set on the bidirectional section up by Wolvercote.

It should have been an easy rescue but apparently there were issues associated with sorting it out which meant that it took around 3.5 hours before the obstruction had gone. Regaining the Cherwell Valley route via Bicester would have been a long drawn-out process and probably would have taken even longer to arrange, especially when the rescue should have been a quick job. By the time you realise that it’s going to take longer than normal you’re already in so deep that you might as well sit tight and wait.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Thanks for the replies. My father was stuck in the disruption and I tried to keep him updated from home as he said that on-train announcements were continually saying "we don't know" - but couldn't figure out why the (seemingly) "simple" option of wrong-road running wasn't taken.

With the timetable at that time of night I think you could just about have managed to get away with some SLW. Admittedly it would have been at the cost of the numerous southbound freight services that were passing through, but in a well-coordinated railway the needs of passengers would have been put first!

I was unimpressed but unsurprised that the option of taking a Chiltern service towards Marylebone and then changing at Haddenham or Princes Risborough wasn't suggested. At the point that the initial sit-down was discovered, there was a good, quick connection departing in about 10 minutes. Road transport also wasn't even ordered until 3 hours into the delay, and the stuck trains departed shortly before it eventually arrived!

My father has vowed never to take the train again to visit given the poor experience, so that's at least one potential customer the railways have lost forever (or at least for a long time) due to poor management of an unfortunate situation. At least he'll get back his fare in compensation!

 

[Bald Rick]

Sorry to hear about your father’s journey. Do make sure he claims delay repay, as he will get all his money back and get his journey for free.

Those southbound Freightliners would have been time critical, many of the boxes will have been straight off the trains and on to ships heading all over the world. Of course boxes can’t tweet or vote, so they aren’t seen as important as passengers.

The point about the staff not knowing what was happening - sometimes that happens. In these circumstances with the driver trying to fix the loco he (or she) would have been the only person knowing exactly what was happening, other than ‘a freight train has broken down ‘.

 

[O L Leigh]

I'm sorry too that your father had a bad journey, but I'm a little disappointed by the harshness of his judgement. I trust you are not guilty of having prompted this by giving him unrealistic expectations based on what you consider the railways should or should not have done.

I tried to keep him updated from home as he said that on-train announcements were continually saying "we don't know" - but couldn't figure out why the (seemingly) "simple" option of wrong-road running wasn't taken.

I've been saying for years on this forum that there are times when you have no information to give, and that when this happens you can only be honest and admit that you don't know. You can pester the controller, the signaller or whoever, but if they have no information to give you then you have nothing to pass on. Under such circumstances it would be irresponsible to make stuff up on the fly just to pacify an obstreperous passenger because your lie will ultimately be exposed and they'll just come back to you twice as mad as before. Also, what seems like a "simple" solution is not necessarily the case. (Regarding your earlier suggestion of diverting the trains via Bicester, I can confirm that Voyagers are not cleared for that route.)

With the timetable at that time of night I think you could just about have managed to get away with some SLW. Admittedly it would have been at the cost of the numerous southbound freight services that were passing through, but in a well-coordinated railway the needs of passengers would have been put first!

You cannot simply drop SLW in at short notice, primarily because it takes time to set up in the first place. The scope of the SLW section that would have been required last night has already been explained together with the effect it would have on line capacity, but as trains would be moving without the normal protection of signals there have to be rather a lot of checks made and procedures to follow to ensure that safety is maintained. As such, SLW is normally only implemented for planned engineering works and so on, because it can be timetabled.

The time-sensitivity of intermodal traffic has been outlined by @Bald Rick, but I would just add a further consideration. Where are you going to put all these freight trains? There isn't unlimited capacity to loop them along this route, especially as they can run fairly close together. Another problem is what happens when these trains miss their slots elsewhere on the network or the drivers run out of hours? As a passenger it may not seem fair, but freight trains do also need to make their timetabled paths.​

I was unimpressed but unsurprised that the option of taking a Chiltern service towards Marylebone and then changing at Haddenham or Princes Risborough wasn't suggested. At the point that the initial sit-down was discovered, there was a good, quick connection departing in about 10 minutes. Road transport also wasn't even ordered until 3 hours into the delay, and the stuck trains departed shortly before it eventually arrived!

Ten minutes into a line blockage isn't so very long to be suggesting alternative arrangements. However, the XC services were at the platform in Oxford so there was nothing preventing people from leaving and making their own arrangements. I also think that it's a little unfair to expect the traincrew, who would have been busy trying to ascertain what was happening with the situation, to have been aware of connections at Haddenham & Thame or elsewhere, especially as this would only have been of use to some of the passengers.​

My father has vowed never to take the train again to visit given the poor experience, so that's at least one potential customer the railways have lost forever (or at least for a long time) due to poor management of an unfortunate situation. At least he'll get back his fare in compensation!

I think it's unfair to say that the situation was badly managed, especially as you were unaware of all aspects of the incident. If you were following it on Traksy I would hope that you would have been able to discern at least some aspects of the recovery operation. However, as I hinted above, I fear you may be at least partly responsible for your father reaching this conclusion by giving him unrealistic expectations of what could have been done. I hope that you will be feeding back to him and correcting any misapprehensions you may have given him so that he can make a better judgement for himself.

I'll also be sending you a PM shortly with more information on it.​

 

[Mag_seven]

I do wish this country had full bi-directional signalling on intensively used double track sections like they have in most of Switzerland.

 

[The Planner]

I do wish this country had full bi-directional signalling on intensively used double track sections like they have in most of Switzerland.

And people think HS2 is expensive! We don't even use it on the sections we have got to any significant level.

 

[The Planner]

I do wish this country had full bi-directional signalling on intensively used double track sections like they have in most of Switzerland.

And people think HS2 is expensive! We don't even use it on the sections we have got to any significant level.

 

[Bald Rick]

I do wish this country had full bi-directional signalling on intensively used double track sections like they have in most of Switzerland.

Even if there had been on this stretch, it may not have been used. It is often more disruptive to use the bidi; in this case any southbound trains delayed could have caused reactioonary disruption to the GWML into Paddington, SWML, etc.

 

[II]

I've tried to find out whether this is to do with the crossovers being out of action or similar and I can find references on various sites online that the crossovers here may have been renewed during the recent Oxford resignalling and redevelopment.

Can anyone in the know elaborate as to what the status of these crossovers is and why they can't be used?

They were indeed renewed as 40mph crossovers during the Oxford Phase 1 resignalling works, but not to be brought into proper use until Phase 2 of the scheme is completed - which is currently sat in the pending tray of the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline with a 'decision to develop' status. The original crossovers were controlled by a ground frame and saw very little use since the 90s, prior to which they were used quite often to allow engineering works to take place. I believe the TVSC can release the points of the new crossover for use in an emergency still, but as it is an unsignalled move that takes a lot of setting up as other posters have mentioned.

Bringing them into proper use should be a reasonably easy thing to do as, along with the crossovers themselves, some of the necessary signalling is already installed (a No. 4 Junction Indicator on signal OD2450), but I believe the main sticking point of Phase 2 (from a design perspective) is the AHB level crossings close together at Sandy Lane and Yarnton Lane which are also close to Wolvercote Junction which means it's difficult to get the desired headways in. So, until then the Tackley crossovers were a wasted investment!

With similar crossovers at Aynho (which are in use for bi-directional working to/from Bicester), it should be reasonably easy and cheap to design and install bi-directional signalling all the way from Wolvercote to Banbury, as was done between Didcot and Oxford which has proven to be very useful on several occasions, as it would have been on the night of the incident that prompted this thread.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

They were indeed renewed as 40mph crossovers during the Oxford Phase 1 resignalling works, but not to be brought into proper use until Phase 2 of the scheme is completed - which is currently sat in the pending tray of the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline with a 'decision to develop' status. The original crossovers were controlled by a ground frame and saw very little use since the 90s, prior to which they were used quite often to allow engineering works to take place. I believe the TVSC can release the points of the new crossover for use in an emergency still, but as it is an unsignalled move that takes a lot of setting up as other posters have mentioned.

Bringing them into proper use should be a reasonably easy thing to do as, along with the crossovers themselves, some of the necessary signalling is already installed (a No. 4 Junction Indicator on signal OD2450), but I believe the main sticking point of Phase 2 (from a design perspective) is the AHB level crossings close together at Sandy Lane and Yarnton Lane which are also close to Wolvercote Junction which means it's difficult to get the desired headways in. So, until then the Tackley crossovers were a wasted investment!

With similar crossovers at Aynho (which are in use for bi-directional working to/from Bicester), it should be reasonably easy and cheap to design and install bi-directional signalling all the way from Wolvercote to Banbury, as was done between Didcot and Oxford which has proven to be very useful on several occasions, as it would have been on the night of the incident that prompted this thread.

Interesting - so it sounds like Tackley crossovers are effectively a waste of space for the time being, until such time as they're properly implemented into the signalling system.

Hopefully Network Rail will do the "right" thing and find the requisite cash to make the signalling bidirectional. I don't hold my hopes very high unfortunately!

 

[The Planner]

With similar crossovers at Aynho (which are in use for bi-directional working to/from Bicester), it should be reasonably easy and cheap to design and install bi-directional signalling all the way from Wolvercote to Banbury, as was done between Didcot and Oxford which has proven to be very useful on several occasions, as it would have been on the night of the incident that prompted this thread.

Im pretty sure the early signalling plans had bi di to Aynho and it was binned off due to cost.