It's a lot easier than some others, as the A377 could be raised up to meet a bridge over the tracks without impacting property. Expensive though, so unlikelyWas going to say this, whilst sat there last night waiting for 3 trains to cross i was looking around designing an alternative in my head.... and there isn't one, seems impossible to replace.
Would be a hell of a steep climb from the roundabout!It's a lot easier than some others, as the A377 could be raised up to meet a bridge over the tracks without impacting property. Expensive though, so unlikely
Not really, if the junction was moved a little way north so that any bridge was perpendicular to the railway, the A377 could easily climb about 3m+ from north of the last property on the east side (~50m at 1:15), and then the new bridge could climb at a similar gradient to give around 6m height above the tracks. It would mean replacing the bridge over the river and rearranging access to the depot, but it is physically doable.Would be a hell of a steep climb from the roundabout!
Likely to get busier with the improvements to the "Joint" line - not least the Wennington diveunder. But mainly freight, so no direct benefit to the city's travelling public. With hindsight, closure in the 1980s of the "avoiding" line, which crossed the city using a series of bridges, was a mistake, but the formation has now been built on so there seems little likelihood of re-opening.High Street, Lincoln is virtually pedestrianised with very limited vehicle access, plus it has a lift equipped footbridge alongside, so could be closed with relatively little inconvenience. On a recent visit I was surprised how busy the line was. One closure lasted over 10 minutes.
I think that part of the planning for Crossrail 2 was to remove the W Barnes Lane crossings as the increase in services on the line wold mean that the barriers would be down the whole time. Not sure whether they planned to build alternative bridge crossings or just to close them. I often wondered whether it might be possible to sink the railway down into a new "cut & cover" cutting alongside (or even under) West Barnes Lane. It is a moot point with Crossrail 2 now defunct.You can add Vine Road in Barnes just after the Hounslow loop splits from the Richmond line. A double crossing where it's extremely rare to get across both crossings without getting caught by at least one of them. Any bridge would be at least 100M long, and would prevent access to the Vine Road Recreation Ground. As a child I remember it being operated as two manually operated crossings.
Also West Barnes Lane (twice) once in Raynes Park and once again at Motspur Park station. Both due to lack of space.
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.
Eggesford another, surprised there aren't more pile ups when a car is waiting to turn right over the crossing whilst waiting for a train to pass.
At Eggesford the barriers open once a train has passed, so when the Barnstaple bound train stops short, operates the barriers, crosses over them the barriers raise. Once the Exeter bound train is ready then the guard operates the barriers and they go. So they're never down for any extended period of timePaignton. Very similar to Poole.
Topsham.
Pinhoe. All of these so far are immediately adjacent to the station.
Mount Pleasant in Southampton. Doesn't look impossible, but given how much time the barriers spend down per hour, I assume it would have been altered by now if it was feasible.
Probably not helped by the 'old' school' signalling procedures used which means that trains in both directions seem to sit at Eggesford for about 5 minutes. Do the barriers open at any point between the first train arriving and the second departing?
The rural setting gives the station something of an 'Addlestrop' vibe, somewhat unfairly given that the line is thriving as rural railways go.
And Barmouth, Porthmadog, Criccieth.Harlech
A seriously complicated road layout in a built up area sited against a cliff.
And St Stephens east of the stationSt Dunstans in Canterbury adjacent to Canterbury West station.
SWR seem to have plans to mitigate the level crossing problems at those two stations, as the draft specification for the future timetable has only six off-peak trains each way through Richmond (4 fast, 2 stoppers), down from eight (4+4) in the pre Covid timetable. This will be done by terminating the Hounslow loop services at Twickenham. Whether the inhabitants of St Margarets, North Sheen and Mortlake will appreciate their train services being reduced from 4tph to 2tph remains to be seen, but it's unlikely to improve road traffic in the area despite the reduced downtime at the level crossings.North Sheen station, would require property demolition on south side to allow a road ramp (the property on north side, a Homebase store, is about to be demolished so would be easy to realign road)
I would add others on same line like Mortlake, due to too much property
That's a very good question!I wonder how long those level crossings of the 4/5/6-track ECML north of Peterborough will last?
I have a family member who used to drive through that area on a fairly frequent basis (including often actually over the crossing) and they've never mentioned that happening!I remember hearing that woodsmoor level crossing was removed and replaced with a footbridge, but then someone was attacked on the footbridge and it was turned back into a crossing.