Shrewsbury(excl)-Nantwich has been resignalled recently and is largely a 90mph route.The true elephant in the room is the terrible infrastructure, both signalling and track on the Salop. Vanity and heritage aside it's time the lot got ripped out and resignalled, and the line made more resilient against the forces of nature.Modernisationoh that's a dodgy word.
Should certainly be some effort made Wrexham-Shrewsbury Crewe Jn, that bit's straightforward enough (although service level struggles to justify investment ahead of other lines). But AIUI Shrewsbury station itself loses a hell of a lot of capacity when modern overlaps begin to be applied, whereas tinkering with the existing stuff at Severn Jn end preserves the Grandfather rights. Similar thing to Worcester. ETCS would eliminate the problem, a new colour-light scheme might be possible but it'd be a much simpler (i.e. less flexible) design.The true elephant in the room is the terrible infrastructure, both signalling and track on the Salop. Vanity and heritage aside it's time the lot got ripped out and resignalled, and the line made more resilient against the forces of nature.Modernisationoh that's a dodgy word.
Resignalled, yes, but on an extremely tight budget. Most of the signal sections are very long and just mirror the previous AB layout. So the "new" signalling has essentially no capacity benefit over what came before.
Again, another case where the budget ran out and so the job was only half done.
Wrexham Saltney was a political thing, NR strategically wouldnt have looked at it. As for Shrewsbury Crewe, less said about that one the better.
Correct yes Woofferton. I think it's the 158s that have that issue due to the ERTMS.
It depends on what shunt moves are available. From what I can see on the signal diagrams (https://tillyweb.biz/gallery/aa/abergavenny.htm) It is possible to shunt from one platform to another but it is not possible to shunt from the platforms to the goods sidings/loops directly so the moves will be complicated - arrive Up platform, reverse out to Down Section Signal, reverse back across in to Up sidings, Wait for northbound train, then shunt into platform, wait for southbound train, then shunt into southbound platform via crossover. Overall 4 reversals. Hence the times allowed below:
If you were able to juggle the times such that the southbound train called earlier, you could add a southbound starting signal and upgrade the crossover with FPLs to allow a direct departure and you'd have a much simpler operation at Abergavenny. However the issue with that is trying to identify different paths at Crewe - it would probably require the much-discussed Independent line platforms.
Is a resignalling of Abergavenny alone out of the question?
Technically no, financially yes.
What kind of amount are we talking about - if it enable the stopper to finally run it would be worth a bit wouldn't it?
Doubt the revenue from the stopper would touch the surface of the capital cost of resignalling, even with the reduction in headcount and opex. Bet you wouldnt get a lot of change from £25 million.
Oh, I didn't expect a cash profit - I meant a result to the WG as opposed to waiting for ECTS (tomorrow, its always a day away....). But then the valleys project is their HS2 except they can't descope it to free up capital for anything else...
Depends on the scope (See below)
Depends how many people catch the stopper.
The range of interventions possible goes from fitting point motors and a main aspect turnback signal to a full-blown transfer to the ROC. As the line is currently AB doing anything that involves abolishing a box would involve fitting Track Circuits or Axle counters for continuous detection, which massively increases the costs as it has to be done from scratch. I'd hazard a guess that converting Abergavenny station to Colour Light and remodelling the layout to provide Goods loops for both directions with a cross-platform shunt facility (which is probably the minimum spec that's worth doing) would easily be £50m or more. And you'd still need the bobby in the box to do the AB belling to the adjacent boxes (otherwise you need to fit Train Describer equipment).
The Welsh Government is already using the European Credits and Transfer and accumulation System for universities
. ETCS is a slightly awkward matter because AIUI the system as fitted to the Cambrian line isn't compatible with the system being rolled out nationally, and you have the issue of the track not currently being fitted with continuous detection so it needs Axle counters along the length of any intervention. However a modern design could be ETCS-Ready or even L2 with overlay, but that would be a major project, especially as at some point you're going to need to fit the train acceptance equipment between an AB box and the ROC.Does it need goods loops in both directions - it doesn't currently. If you are doing it I would have thought you may as well create the island platform for flexibility and prevent disruption spreading.
Need, possibly not, but it would be silly to get rid of the northbound one. Extend that over the sidings and you have a loop with 650m standage, which is very handy indeed. On the southbound side you would want to use the existing siding as a turnback/layover siding which requires a north end connection, may as well keep the other end connection for a 250m-long loop so you can get a failed train out of the way.
Whoever controls Newport/Cwmbran will be doing train acceptance with Little Mill, but it's not like there is a block instrument on the ROC Workstation desk. Train acceptance is managed through the VDU at the ROC, not sure but I think it's a separate switch at the AB box (it might be linked into the Block instrument but somebody else will need to confirm). You need different equipment and interlocking to manage the transition from continuously detected track to AB, and the VDU display will need updating and the background interlocking redoing to manage it. You don't just unplug a lead and plug it into the next box.
The Marches hasn't justified conversion to TCB for the almost 100 years or so that the system's been about. It can wait a few more. AB signalled lines are the most sensible ones to wait for ETCS L3 with on-train integrity detection and position reporting, because of the absence of existing train detection.