In addition to the earlier PAD:WOF and return cancellation, we now have:


Hanborough in particular suffers because the Oxford bound service preceding the two cancellations, the 17:26 WOF:PAD, misses out the station.

 

 

 

I am completely confident that additional capacity could have been built without a project that will take far too long to be completed and has dug very deeply into taxpayers pockets (£100bn is a huge amount of wonga)  and would have provided a lot more "connectivity" than a shuttle route between the capital and our second city

I don't argue that the capacity is needed.  But the project is a farce, and, beyond the capacity that it might produce, has very little benefit (unless you're a consultant or civil engineering contractor.  In which case you're right royally coining it)

 
From yesterday (19 May):

1W25 1252 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street cancelled between Worcester Shrub Hill and Worcester Foregate Street due to a problem with train communications (J0). It ran non-stop from Oxford arriving at Shrub Hill 19 minutes late.

The 15:23 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street and return run were also both cancelled.

And today:

 

 
Reply no. 1937 on a thread that originates back in 2009 ...


The naming is certainly something that has given rise to a false narrative, but may I suggest that the implication from that naming is an even bigger fault - the heavy engineering and extra expense of a brand new line on an alignment fit for a speed that will save a few minutes.

Here are two images I have grabbed this morning - that on the left if the DfT's crowing about progress - none of which will actually be in use for, what, another decade, and on the right is a railway map showing North West London.



Now - it's too late to look at the parallel universe through retrospective glasses - but I find myself musing that had a decision been taken to restore / retain the old Great Central route north of Aylesbury, various other routes that are not at WCML capacity would have opened up. The old GC route crossed the West Coast main line at Rugby, and from the right hand side map here you'll see how close the various lines come to each other in the lead into London.

The parallel universe offered some really interesting prospects, such as express trains from the North West and Midlands (and beyond there from North Wales, the North East and Scotland) routing onto the Midland line and rather than turning right at Kentish Town carrying on along the chord across onto HS1.  With the UK joining Schengen ...
* Manchester - Stoke-on-Trent - Nuneaton - London Kentish Town - Ashford - Calais - Lille - Brussels - Koln - Frankfurt
* Leeds - Sheffield - Nottingham - Leicester - Rugby - London Kentish Town - Stratford International - Paris
* Holyhead - Bangor - Crewe - Rugby - London Kentish Town - Brussels - Hannover - Berlin - Warsaw
and they would be up and running already!  The engineering needed being only a fraction of that which the DfT boasts of being proudly completed on social media this morning.

 

How many times does it need repeating that the WCML is full & no more paths exist. That was the original plan for HS" to provide additional paths for both passenger & freight. One might argue that their biggest fault was in naming the project Hi-Speed 2.

 
Barriers (well, certainly most of them) that are locally or CCTV supervised in track-circuited areas are default-set to auto raise as soon as the circuit over the level crossing goes clear.  Obviously that doesn't happen if the barriers are down for a train passing over the crossing on another line

Some crossing keepers/signalmen used to switch off this setting so that their action would initiate the raising of the barriers.  They were either bloody minded antagonistic people, or they had too much time on their hands

 

In that case I got the wrong day - if anything the trains were running too regularly. There are 12 tph, and if they arrive spaced close to 5 minutes apart there are none of the longer gaps. On that Saturday there were several trains a minute or two early or late and that's all it takes. The other factor is the personal style of the operator - some are more inclined to whip the barriers up whenever possible, others more cautious.

I'm not sure where the operators sit for that one, and whether they are crossings-only operators or signallers. It was quite noticeable when Wokingham went over from local operation by the signaller to specialsed operators at Basingstoke ROC that the barriers were raised much sooner after a train had passed.

 
Considering the money spent on it  it should be a lot better. Ive seen liveries done by enthusiasts which look far better

 

Both were on Saturday afternoon, probably about 2.30pm and then about 4.30pm.

 
Yesterday I had the opportunity to sit down with the BR timetable book from 1983, and it reminded me that at that date, Milford Haven was the terminus for the sleeper service serving South Wales from Paddington.

That said, to this day, Milford Haven has four through services a day to... Manchester Piccadilly - not implying that that's a bad thing: inter-regional services are a positive.

It's amusing given previous ambitions that led to construction in mid-Wales, giving us the empty trackbed pursuing its arrow-straight course across Tregaron Bog - and then its ghost in the form of the unbuilt Cwmystwyth viaduct and the subsequent tunnel beneath the high ground, which exists only as an isolated pair of brief approach cuttings. The signs of construction near Llangurig, followed by the remains of a once useable railway leading away from the village, even that, at one point, horribly eroded by the accompanying stream as it makes its way in the hope of delivering those rail services to, yes, Manchester.

The houses** in Llangurig - the two photos below show that they've seen the arrival of those ambitions and also their departure, unfulfilled - and yet, today, a traveller can board a train in Milford Haven and step off it in Manchester, without needing to worry about unbuilt viaducts in remote valleys along the way.

Mark

**Though looking again at the house in the second photo: it's not the same building as the one shown in the first photo, is it?

 
I guess it was no great surprise that so much had been spent, presumably on consultants, agents, civil engineering designers/engineers/architects, and land purchase before even a spade had been turned in the ground.

The project was cursed from the start.  I have no doubt that this is because it was all set up by politicians with their huge-scale egos and no one to say "no", and no one with any kind of useful experience being asked about the practicalities of the vision.  Couple that with so many involved seeing the rape of the taxpayer as some kind of god-given right or opportunity to just take whatever they wanted.

And all to get from Birmingham to the outskirts of London quarter of an hour or so quicker.  If you didn't laugh, you'd cry

 

Oh. Please do!

 
Thanks for this, that explains a lot. I think one of the things that had alarmed me was that drivers tend to be nose to tail through contraflows and weren't modifying this as they crossed the railway - and the northbound end of the contraflow was close to the crossing itself and there's often a tendency for people to slow down there too - and then there's the road junction as well. I was looking ahead and seeing apparent safety margins evaporate - but with signalling staff on site, the gates raised and interlocked with the railway control systems that's reassuring. (It does show how easy it is for many drivers of vehicles to disregard the basic principle of 'Do not enter a railway crossing until your exit is clear' though. It can be useful for people who may otherwise be distracted, when they need to cross a railway, to think of each individual railway line as one blade of a pair of scissors - so, double track railway = two entirely separate pairs of scissors - and before stepping over the one blade you need to be sure that the other one isn't due to descend.)

Mark

 

I am of two minds on this element.   I tend to feel (falsely) guilty when I encounter blocks of "the law" anywhere.  Partly, I suppose, out of the UK where I don't know the local laws, customs, rules and may accidentally transgress. And partly because of past encounters with US law and gun enforcement - three separate cases that spring to mind where being armed has given individuals what they feel is a right to throw their weight around in a way that felt like I was being bullied.

Having said which, I watch the efficiency with which rail based security / enforcement staff deal with situations outside the UK, and it comes across as far more effective than in the UK.   I suspect that's partly because the rules are much clearer over there - not the same labarintine fare systems that the automatic gates can't cope with so they require manning when in operation, and not the same ability to argue "I didn't realise" that works so well even if people did realise in the UK.

Three challenges, though, on my trip just completed.   

Our Interrail passes were checked on a train in Denmark, and then we were politely asked to move from 1st to 2nd class - however, our passes were 1st class.  I pointed this out politely and our TM fell over herself in apologies having taken another look at my ticket.  I rather suspect, having seen other train staff carefully check the ticket, that the automated bleep "yeah, that ticket's OK" says no more than that - no differentiation on class and, let's face it, I'm a scruffy traveller.

The ticket gates in The Netherlands usual work very well with the pass. However, at both Delft and Rotterdam Blaak they came back with "not valid at this station".   At Rotterdam, I pressed the "information" button and explained and the lady released the gate remotely for me.  At Delft, I walked over to the information point and asked the ladies there. One of them came over to the gate to let me through, jokingly suggesting I might like to stay with her.  And the joke came across well too.  Happy day.    I suspect that the gates are shared in Delft and Rotterdam with the metro on which the pass is not valid; a pattern in the rejection.

 

Makes sense to do the work all at once, and also not provide road transport;  still quicker by train, and no intermediate stations at all since June 1968, so buses would be pointless.

Noting that though that the reason given for reducing the frequency of trains from London to South Wales was due to "longer journey times" which makes it a double hit - less trains and on top of that slower travel.  Could part of the reason also be that the remaining trains are diverted via the old diesel railway with no electric railway alternative route?   Another bonus of the incomplete electrification.

 
You can't polish a turd: Voyagers are crap.

That's only my personal opinion, based on experience, by the way: not an official view from the Coffee Shop forum.  CfN. 

 

That reminded me of a train journey our family took into Paris, about 25 years ago. Several tall, crop-headed and determined-looking men in uniform overalls strode very purposefully up the gangway towards the front of the train, clearly intent on dealing with some issue.

I wouldn't have argued with them - and neither, apparently, would the itinerant accordion player, who had been rather annoying us in the carriage until then: he scampered off the train at the next station stop. 

 
According to HUAC UK*, in their "Safety at Street Works and Road Works - A Code of Practice" (which has statutory status" :


The Onibury crossing is manually controlled from a box next to the crossing, which is about the safest type available. It was recently reassessed under ALCRM~ and its score changed from G3 to J4, on a scale from A1 (very dangerous - do something now) to M13 (zero risk, e.g. closed).

As the operator knows what is going on all the time, I wonder what more could be done. Perhaps to provide the crossing operator with a connection to the contraflow lights controller, to monitor what it's doing and going to do next, or even to adjust its timing. Was there signage on the approach side at the crossing saying don't block the railway crossing, or similar?

* The Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee (HAUC(UK)) is the representative body that works with the UK and devolved governments to help make improvements to the management of works and the street and road network.
~ All level crossing risk model, Network rail's standard method. The letter is for the risk to road users per crossing, and the number for the collective risk to all users.

 
Saw my first 175 in GWR territory today at Totnes station just as I arrived at about 13.30.  It was Exeter bound and running about 8 minutes late.  20 mins later boarded my first refurbed XC Voyager... reasonable enough but they still seem not to have sorted out that unpleasant air in the carriages containing the WCs.

 

I think it's actually translated as "the true north".  Echte (true/genuine) sounds very similar to ecke (corner). 
I too have fond memories of one of the Schleswig-Holstein lines, the ANB (Alsternordbahn), which ran from the northern fringe of Hamburg right behind my Aunt and Uncles house with the local station -more a halt really- just a couple of hundred metres down the line.  That part of the line is now incorporated into an extended U1 line, part of HVV Hamburg, more frequent and efficient but without the charm of the somewhat antiquated original.

 
Onibury's the level crossing where the A49 crosses the line that runs up the Welsh Marches on the skew. Line speed I don't know but it may be 90mph. Driving the A49 northbound on Friday, the A49 has a traffic lights controlled contraflow, the southbound carriageway being out of use for some hundreds of metres. The contraflow extends across the crossing. Especially because the level crossing has a road junction immediately north of it, the arrangement felt a bit perilous, with the risk of traffic queues forming across the level crossing itself. Concentrating on driving, I didn't note what it was that made me feel uneasy - and by now, the entire contraflow may be history.

I've noooooh idea of the precautions that need to be taken when road works / contraflows are combined with level crossings, but presumably Network Rail gets involved and is involved in signing things off?

Mark