Trivia: Level crossings that are unlikely to ever be removed

[Swanley 59]

I am not familiar with this location, so had a look on Google Satellite and Street View.
It might be feasible to build a new road on the north side. You start 100-150 meters West of the LC, rise up on a curve to cross the ECML ~100 meters North of the LC. The road would then join the existing road around 200 metres East of the current LC. The existing road and new road would form the shape of a letter 'D' on it's side.

That option might have been feasible until the latest housing development on the west side of the LC got in the way!

I might be wrong, but it seems to me that the LC is closed to road traffic for more than it used to be - certainly before 2018. I was wondering if this is an effect of the increasing number of trains stopping at Morpeth?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Near me, Hale and Navigation Road level crossings are both in heavily built up locations and provide key local links. There isn't the space to build a flyover as was done many years ago at Altrincham.

There is also another level crossing (nearby to Navigation Road) at Deansgate Junction. Could this one ever close, as presumably, it would then make Navigation Road crossing even busier?! (Or vice-versa).

 

[Swanley 59]

Arksey - houses/graveyard/pond/business around the side, being on the the Doncaster-York line it's a bit of a nightmare, I usually drive via Thorpe-in-Balne if going out that way as it has a bridge. There's crossings further out on the same line at Haywood and Moss that appear to have the space and could really do with a bridge.

I couldn't imagine using Arksey without first consulting Real Time Trains to get some idea of when it might be open to road/pedestrian traffic.

 

[bluenoxid]

Cononley.
Not sure about Crosshills (on a far busier road, but would be awkward).

Cononley - not likely now but in the future, I could foresee a closure without road replacement. The 78A could be turned by creating a turning circle on the Leeds bound side

Crosshills would either be a disruptive bridge pushed over the vehicle dealerships or most likely a new road past the Burberry site landing to the east of the “new” industrial estate at a new roundabout.

 

[D6130]

Boroughbridge Road and Romanby Road crossings on the Northallerton avoiding line, which is almost parallel to, very close to, but much lower than, the ECML in that area. The only way to abolish them would be either to build very, long and very high overpasses soaring over the ECML and involving the demolition of some houses on its East side; or equally-expensive underpasses beneath both lines, which would be extremely disruptive to constuct.

 

[adc82140]

Wokingham. Would require demolition of many houses on one side, and the closure of a well used through route on the other, as well as the access to the station.

Any of the crossings between Bourne End and Marlow. You'd have to demolish the houses they are designed to serve, and fill in half the Thames!

 

[SteveyBee131]

Goole, another that lies in the main shopping area of the town and with tricky road layout either side.

 

[RSARNA]

Clayton Bridge Manchester is on a very steep hill and also a sharp bend to stop you going over the edge into the River Medlock vale.

 

[sharpley]

Oakham. Edge of the town centre, crossing is next to the signal box, road junctions directly either side of the crossing as well.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Merton Park on the A238 in Wimbledon. A proposed extension of the A24 Merton Relief Road would have eliminated the level crossing, but the proposal was an issue in a Merton Council by-election in 1989, the result of which cost the Conservative administration its majority. The Council has been Labour or hung ever since, and no-one has dared raise this political hot potato since, even though rail services are six times more frequent since Tramlink took over the line in 1999, and the road traffic queues back to Wimbledon Chase in one direction and South Wimbledon in the other.

 

[Rail Ranger]

BR closed Woodsmoor Crossing and replaced the crossing with a footbridge in I think the 1980s, presumably to eliminate the cost of staffing the signal box..They were forced to reinstate the crossing by pressure from local residents to be able to cross the line in cars.

 

[30907]

Cononley - not likely now but in the future, I could foresee a closure without road replacement. The 78A could be turned by creating a turning circle on the Leeds bound side

Leaving the village without its only decent road access (there waa an occasion while the gates were being replaced when all the other access routes were snowbound....).
I suppose they could do something with Moorfoot Lane bridge

 

[stuu]

No, its down to the geography. The flyover is to take traffic above the east wharf, but traffic accessing the wharf wouldn't be able to deal with the gradient on/off the flyover that would be needed given the space available between the river and the railway.

Not sure about that, if the money had been available I reckon there could have been an off ramp added heading westbound over the flyover towards the port, and something similar heading east. Also when it was built, I'm fairly sure the main road was still the one up the west side of the valley to Lewes, so port traffic wouldn't have used the level crossing at all

One of the reasons why so many of these crossings still exist, and will probably not be removed ever, is that the standards for new roads are so high. About 15 years ago I travelled on the railway line between Pisa and Florence a number of times, at the time FS were clearly in the middle of a programme of removing level crossings. Something like this location would never be allowed in the UK (link to google maps showing single lane, traffic light controlled subway), which seems to have been built with no demolition whatsoever. While that would only be suitable at locations with the lowest traffic, it should still be an option, but our rules are so strict that it wouldn't be. Elsewhere along the line there are underpasses with much steeper gradients and tighter curves than would ever be permitted in the UK, but are they really that unsafe?

 

[Roast Veg]

Perhaps just an example of the silliest crossings, but the twin set across the A259 on the Marshlink line near Rye are more likely to be closed just by moving the whole road onto the other side of the railway.

What about Hampden Park?

 

[Ediswan]

Similar applies to Lincoln Road crossing on the Enfield Town branch, though that's between Bush Hill Park and Enfield Town.

That crossing has been unavailable to motor vehicles for years. Whether it is has been formally been closed is less clear.

I used to live nearby. It was just plain odd. The crossing is on a hump which you can't see across. The gates are single lane. The passing place is on the crossing itself. In practice, it worked. Operation was very traditional. Truly manually operated gates (no power assist) and signals (ground frame). Result, looked dodgy, but I don't recall any incidents.

 

[snowball]

One of the reasons why so many of these crossings still exist, and will probably not be removed ever, is that the standards for new roads are so high. About 15 years ago I travelled on the railway line between Pisa and Florence a number of times, at the time FS were clearly in the middle of a programme of removing level crossings. Something like this location would never be allowed in the UK (link to google maps showing single lane, traffic light controlled subway), which seems to have been built with no demolition whatsoever.

Your link doesn't work for me so I can't comment fully, but here are two UK examples, both built about 15 years ago to replace flat crossings of a road and a railway respectively:

a single-lane, traffic light controlled bridge on a public road over the A1 at Rainton in North Yorkshire:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.co.uk

a single narrow lane, traffic-light controlled, very low headroom underpass on a public road under the Rugby-Birmingham line at Berkswell:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.co.uk

 

[norbitonflyer]

Perhaps just an example of the silliest crossings, but the twin set across the A259 on the Marshlink line near Rye are more likely to be closed just by moving the whole road onto the other side of the railway.

Possibly it has been left as it is because one or both crossings would have to be retained in some form to allow access to the properties fronting that section of road

 

[Bessie]

A30 at Sunningdale. Network Rail are in the process of upgrading the crossing. It’s a 4 lane road right next to the station and a parade of shops. Zero chance of this being closed

 

[341o2]

Wool. Brockenhurst, Lymington town, Totton and at least 3 on the Marchwood branch

 

[chorleyjeff]

It is endeavoured that as many level crossings as possible should be closed permanently to improve safety and reduce congestion. While many have been successfully closed or replaced with a bridge, there are still many where doing so would be problematic or impractical for one of the following reasons:

• The road passes through a built-up area where building a bridge would require extensive demolition.
• The road passes through a National park or AONB, and hence permission for a new bridge is unlikely to be granted.
• The road sees so little traffic that the case for a bridge would be very weak. Same for crossings with only a small handful of train movements per day.

In terms of crossings that are least likely to be removed, I would imagine most of the valid examples would be those in the first two categories. For the third category, the road could alternatively be severed on each side but this would depend on whether there is a suitable alternative route in the vicinity.

I will begin with the level crossing at Brockenhurst. Busy A-road, no suitable alternative route for traffic to divert to and right in the middle of a national park.

Bambeer Bridge. A6 in built up area. No reasonable diversion. Preston to Blackburn line.

 

[Isambard]

Wye, Kent. A station, river bridge, road junction etc make it unlikely that the railway could ever be bridged and the manually operated crossing replaced.
When closed it cuts off the delightful village from the main roads in and out but some feel that gives Wye a degree of extra charm!
There is now a website through which you can forecast when, and for how long, the crossing will be closed to road traffic.

 

[A0wen]

I think Ware would be pretty difficult to replace so would St Margarets (next station down the line) without a fair bit of demolition.

On the North London Line, Acton Central.

 

[mike57]

Bridlington Quay & Filey. Both built up areas but with road junctions very close to the Level Crossing itself. Also the very low speed that trains cross at reduces the risk and the seriousness of any potential 'encounter'.

There are numerous level crossings between Hull and Scarborough, at least 35 by my count, and thats apart from the smaller user worked crossings, but removing even half of them would be a major undertaking, and I cant see how the cost could be justified. Just between Bridlington and Bempton there are 4, Quay Rd, Sewerby, Jewison Lane and the one at Bempton station. To be honest the only crossings on this route that I could see being replaced would be Springbank West near Walton Street in Hull, and the two on the A165 either side of Filey. I think any attempt to force closure/bridging of the rest would result in the line closing.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think Ware would be pretty difficult to replace so would St Margarets (next station down the line) without a fair bit of demolition.

I think this assumes you couldn't just close it (perhaps with a pedestrian footbridge or subway added) and divert traffic to a nearby bridge. I did wonder about some of the Merseyrail ones (which must spend far more time closed than open) but almost all of them seem to have a nearby sensible alternative for road traffic if they were simply closed with pedestrians needing to go via the station footbridge if going around didn't work for them. Ware certainly has such a road but St Margarets (Herts) doesn't so would be hard to get rid of.

For one Merseyrail example you'd get away with just closing Maghull as there's another road over a bridge nearby but would need to add lifts to the footbridge if you did.

If you want to see a contemporary study on this look at the East West Rail consultations discussing the Marston Vale crossings and what is proposed for each of them.

 

[Mikey C]

Sheringham, between the NR station and the North Norfolk Railway is a really useful connection, and used so infrequently that it is of little disruption to the town itself

 

[Western Lord]

Frinton, though some Frintonians might like the idea of being cut off from the rest of the world.

 

[TheSel]

I think this assumes you couldn't just close it (perhaps with a pedestrian footbridge or subway added) and divert traffic to a nearby bridge. I did wonder about some of the Merseyrail ones (which must spend far more time closed than open) but almost all of them seem to have a nearby sensible alternative for road traffic if they were simply closed with pedestrians needing to go via the station footbridge if going around didn't work for them...

But, of course, not all Merseyrail's level crossings are at stations. On leaving Southport, the line passes under Eastbank Street bridge, but you've then got five consecutive level crossings (Portland Street, Duke Street, Upper Aughton Road, Birkdale Station and Crescent Road) before you get to the next bridge at Hillside Station, roughly two miles from Eastbank Street. The first three named all have significant pedestrian traffic. It would be a brave decision to close all those and expect pedestrians to divert via Eastbank Street or the (existing) underpass at Birkdale.

 

[A Challenge]

A30 at Sunningdale. Network Rail are in the process of upgrading the crossing. It’s a 4 lane road right next to the station and a parade of shops. Zero chance of this being closed

From my experience, that appears to only by 4 lanes to reduce the length of the queuing traffic, and so any bridge could probably be 2 lane (though that probably still won't fit)

 

[RailWonderer]

Your link doesn't work for me so I can't comment fully, but here are two UK examples, both built about 15 years ago to replace flat crossings of a road and a railway respectively:

a single-lane, traffic light controlled bridge on a public road over the A1 at Rainton in North Yorkshire:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.co.uk

a single narrow lane, traffic-light controlled, very low headroom underpass on a public road under the Rugby-Birmingham line at Berkswell:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.co.uk

He was referring to this.

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.co.uk

The Berkswell one was part of the WCML route upgrade I think where they needed to reduce the number of level crossing to raise line speeds, but someone is probably more aware of that than I am. The Italian one is a strange one but Italy has entirely different planning and construction regulations.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Grosmont (NYMR)