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Track renewal machine(s)

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superkev

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A few years ago network rail purchase at huge cost at least 1 track renual trains as used by most other railways including many in the third world.
Never hear of them mentioned. Do they still use them or another white elephant?
K
 
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Highlandspring

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Or if you mean the two Balfour Beatty NTCs, one is in use this weekend between Keith and Huntly on the Aberdeen - Inverness line.
 

Ships

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NR have 2 TRS (track laying) machines and 5 BCS (ballast cleaning) machines.

I believe one of the TRS machines is being mothballed cp6 but the BCS machines have plenty of work. NTC are a different beast all together.
 

Ships

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Elsewhere in the world there is great engineering access, in Germany and Austria through the vast amount of bidirectional running and cross overs allowing the machines to crack on an renew large sections in one go, hence the costs come right down.

In the U.K. we're extremely limited with weeknight access and weekend access has been severely eroded which means the economics of the TRS machines isn't what it used to be.
 

Warwick

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On the naughty step again.
Elsewhere in the world there is great engineering access, in Germany and Austria through the vast amount of bidirectional running and cross overs allowing the machines to crack on an renew large sections in one go, hence the costs come right down.

In the U.K. we're extremely limited with weeknight access and weekend access has been severely eroded which means the economics of the TRS machines isn't what it used to be.

So why can't we follow the German and Austrian model which has been mentioned?
 

DarloRich

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You'd need to do a fair amount of re-signalling too......

agreed - however the TOC's need to agree to the access to change the signals ;)

The High Out Put machines are designed to work with the adjacent line open ( at a reduced speed) so shutting the whole line is not, in theory, required.
 

jyte

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agreed - however the TOC's need to agree to the access to change the signals ;)

Imo every re-signalling scheme should now include full bi-di if there's only two running lines (as well as full AC immunisation). I know when they re-did oxford they put in a fairly limited bi-di scheme between Didcot and Oxford, but when they re-signalled leamington and Banbury they should have put bi-di in there as well.

Oh well. Back on topic it seems a bit of a shame that NR is planning to mothball one of the TRS machines, but I guess if it just isn't getting the usage it should be maybe that's the right idea.
 

takno

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Imo every re-signalling scheme should now include full bi-di if there's only two running lines (as well as full AC immunisation). I know when they re-did oxford they put in a fairly limited bi-di scheme between Didcot and Oxford, but when they re-signalled leamington and Banbury they should have put bi-di in there as well.
In a perfect world you might do that, but practically-speaking you are likely doubling the cost both of the installation and ongoing maintenance to do full bi-di working, all of which itself needs possessions to maintain. You can't then actually make that much use of it, because most possessions will require low-speed operation of the running line, and using it for trains in both directions means that you will barely be running any semblance of the normal timetable anyway.

Far better in general to put in a simplified system which can get trains around stoppages and potentially help out around the edges of possessions, and spend the savings on getting more of the country on up-to-date reliable signalling technology. A combination of growing traffic and heavily track rationalisation in the 60s-80s means that almost any service in Britain that can be run on a single line railway actually is being run on one already.
 

mcmad

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In a perfect world you might do that, but practically-speaking you are likely doubling the cost both of the installation and ongoing maintenance to do full bi-di working, all of which itself needs possessions to maintain. You can't then actually make that much use of it, because most possessions will require low-speed operation of the running line, and using it for trains in both directions means that you will barely be running any semblance of the normal timetable anyway.

Far better in general to put in a simplified system which can get trains around stoppages and potentially help out around the edges of possessions, and spend the savings on getting more of the country on up-to-date reliable signalling technology. A combination of growing traffic and heavily track rationalisation in the 60s-80s means that almost any service in Britain that can be run on a single line railway actually is being run on one already.

If installed as part of a resignalling or recontrol scheme adding bi directional signalling will add very little to the overall project cost as the hardware is relatively cheap, even adding additional crossovers is likely to add less than 5% to the costs.

Modern LED signals require very little maintenance and that which is required can easily be done in the standard possessions overnight.

Not sure what simplified system you think exists and how it enables "trains around stoppages" or "around the edges of possessions" but bi directional signalling would allow the high output kit to start work earlier and stop later by running the last/first few services on the unaffected line before the service builds up to a level needing a 2 track railway.
 

jyte

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If installed as part of a resignalling or recontrol scheme adding bi directional signalling will add very little to the overall project cost as the hardware is relatively cheap, even adding additional crossovers is likely to add less than 5% to the costs.

Modern LED signals require very little maintenance and that which is required can easily be done in the standard possessions overnight.

Not sure what simplified system you think exists and how it enables "trains around stoppages" or "around the edges of possessions" but bi directional signalling would allow the high output kit to start work earlier and stop later by running the last/first few services on the unaffected line before the service builds up to a level needing a 2 track railway.
I mean, I presume tanko is referring to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-line_working
 

Bald Rick

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A few years ago network rail purchase at huge cost at least 1 track renual trains as used by most other railways including many in the third world.
Never hear of them mentioned. Do they still use them or another white elephant?
K

2 are out tonight. I’m not saying where. They are out almost every night somewhere. You don’t hear fo them mentioned, as no news is good news. Similarly, I don’t suppose you hear much about the three new grinding trains either (although you would if you were stood next to one).


If installed as part of a resignalling or recontrol scheme adding bi directional signalling will add very little to the overall project cost as the hardware is relatively cheap, even adding additional crossovers is likely to add less than 5% to the costs.

Modern LED signals require very little maintenance and that which is required can easily be done in the standard possessions overnight.

Not sure what simplified system you think exists and how it enables "trains around stoppages" or "around the edges of possessions" but bi directional signalling would allow the high output kit to start work earlier and stop later by running the last/first few services on the unaffected line before the service builds up to a level needing a 2 track railway.

I’m not sure what recent experience you have in estimating railway resignalling projects, but take it from me that if full bi-Di is installed on a full resignalling it increases costs by around 50-70% depending on scale. And that’s just the signalling. If you are adding new crossovers... well these start at around £2m each. For example a £70m simple resignalling being specified as full bi di with four new sets of crossovers can easily become a £125m resignalling.

A recontrol project rarely alters anything out on the ground or in the interlocking, so trying to install new bi di then is effectively turning it into a full resignalling at many multiples the cost.

Incidentally, when commissioning bi-di it usually more than doubles the amount of testing that has to be done (as it is not only twice the number of routes, but every route now has a potential conflicting move, and these need extra tests). This more than doubles the testing time. On most routes, the extra possession time required for the installation, testing and commissioning of the extra kit is more than would ever be saved over 30 years of slighly different overnight access. Hence why bi-di is only usually installed on the busiest and highest value routes.
 
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