Lord Sugar’s Tweet On Andy Murray’s Win
You’re Knighted
Come on your majesty @andy_murray for a knighthood. World number one.
I can’t imagine someone else connected with the US version of the show, tweeting that!
Crossrail Lined Up For A Skyscraper
This article from Building Design On Line, is entitled Shedkm’s Crossrail tower in for planning.
This is the first paragraph.
Shedkm-designed plans for a 29-storey residential tower block next to Abbey Wood Station in south-east London have been lodged for approval with the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
So Crossrail will go up and down, as well as East and West.
This scheme will comprise 208 homes and a ninety-bed hotel.
I think we’ll see more of schemes like this, especially to build much needed housing.
Is This The Worst Bottleneck On The UK Rail Network?
This Google Map shows Norwich station and the various rail lines that serve it.
Norwich Station And Approach Lines
All the lines come into the station from the East and they split soon after leaving the station, with lines to Cromer, Lowestoft, Sheringham and Yarmouth taking the Eastern line, with trains to Ipswich and Cambridge taking the Southern line.
Between the two lines, lies Crown Point Traction and Rolling Stock Depot, which looks after much of Greater Anglia‘s rolling stock.
This Google Map shows the bridge at the South West corner of the depot, where the rail line to Ipswich and Cambridge, crosses the River Wensum.
Trowse Bridge
Trowse Bridge is no ordinary bridge.
- It is a single track swing bridge.
- It was built in the 1980s, probably to a low cost design.
- It is electrified by overhead conductor rail, rather than overhead wire.
- It is mandated by an Act of Parliament to open for traffic on the river on demand.
- It is rather unreliable.
It must be a nightmare for both Greater Anglia and Network Rail.
I wonder if this bridge has had effects on projects that are happening in East Anglia.
The New Depot At Brantham
A new depot is being built by Greater Anglia at Brantham, just North of Manningtree station. There are obviously, good reasons for this, but could the access over the Trowse Bridge to Crown Point be a factor.
It would certainly be easier for bi-mode Flirts working Lowestoft-Ipswich and Colchester-Peterborough to be based at Brantham rather than Crown Point. Wikipedia says this.
Scheduled to open in 2018, it will be the home depot for Greater Anglia’s new fleet of Class 745 and Class 755 Stadler Flirts.
Greater Anglia would be a very unusual company, if they didn’t have an efficient plan for the stabling and maintenance of their new trains.
Direct Yarmouth To Lowestoft Trains Via A Reinstated Reedham Chord
There used to be a direct Yarmouth to Lowestoft Line, but now it is possible to use the Wherry Lines, with a reverse at Reedham station.
Network Rail are talking about reinstating the Reedham Chord to create a more direct route between East Anglia’s largest North-Eastern towns. This is said about the Reedham Chord in Direct Yarmouth Services in the Wikipedia entry for Lowestoft station.
In January 2015, a Network Rail study proposed the reintroduction of direct services between Lowestoft and Yarmouth by reinstating a spur at Reedham. Services could once again travel between two East Coast towns, with an estimated journey time of 33 minutes, via a reconstructed 34-chain (680 m) north-to-south arm of the former triangular junction at Reedham, which had been removed in c. 1880. The plans also involve relocating Reedham station nearer the junction, an idea which attracted criticism.
Could one of the reasons for looking at the the reinstatement of the Reedham Chord, be that it would allow diagrams for the trains working the branch lines to the East of Norwich and Ipswich to avoid the Trowse Bridge?
The Design Of The London To Norwich Trains
The current rakes of eight Mark 3 coaches hauled by Class 90 locomotives, that run the service between London to Norwich, only have one pantograph.
So does this mean there are operational problems with the train on the Trowse Bridge, as it does seem that the bridge owes a lot to Mr. Heath Robinson.
A long modern electric multiple unit, like say the Class 345 trains for Crossrail, often has two pantographs. This should be more reliable, if one should fail.
Consider.
- The Class 745 trains, which have been ordered to replace current trains, will be somewhere around two hundred metres long.
- These trains are Stadler Flirts, which in some cases have two pantographs.
- Trowse bridge is less than thirty metres long.
- The other passenger trains that will use bridge, will be bi-mode like the Class 755 trains or diesel.
- On modern trains, pantograph control is automatic and fast.
- Electrification gaps are common on third-rail systems.
Would two pantographs, allow the Class 745 trains to bridge an electrification gap on the bridge.
Suppose, the electrification was removed from the Trowse Bridge!
Would this and other improvements make it possible to simplify the bridge and improve reliability?
|Electric trains could use the following procedure to cross the bridge.
- Trains could approach the bridge with the front pantograph lowered., drawing power from the rear one.
- The train would cross the bridge and when the front pantograph was under the overhead wire on the other side, it would automatically raise and connect, lowering the rear pantograph appropriately.
Bi-mode trains would just use their diesel engines, swapping between modes automatically.
The Replacement Of The Bridge
Eventually, the bridge will have to be replaced, but surely a bridge without electrification would be easier to design and build. It could even be double-track to improve capacity into and out of Norwich.
I suspect that the long-term solution would be a double-track lifting bridge, similar to the Kingsferry Bridge in Kent. This was built in 1960 at a cost of £1.2million, which is £19.3million in today’s money.
When it is completed the Western Gateway Infrastructure Scheme, will incorporate a similar lifting bridge which will carry a road and the Manchester Metrolink over the Manchester Ship Canal.
Both these schemes also incorporate roads, so the Trowse Bridge will be simpler.
I think there could be scope for an engineer or architect to design something special for this crossing.
The Affordable Alternative
It has to be said, that perhaps the most affordable solution would be to build a stylish fixed link, probably with a double-track railway and foot and cycle bridges.
As to the boat users, all boats that need to go under the bridge regularly would be modified so their masts could be lowered at no cost to their owners.
Other bribes could be given to occassional users.
The Power Of Three!
I went to Ipswich for the football yesterday with a friend.
We travelled both ways in one of Greater Anglia’s refurbished rakes of Mark 3 coaches.
My friend doesn’t travel by long distance train that often and remarked both ways, that the ride was exceptionally smooth!
The design of Terry Miller and his team has worn well in the forty years they have been in service.
We might think of railway coaches as rather mundane everyday objects, but this design will outlive us all!
Keep Taking The Medicine
On Sunday, I usually fill up my daily pill-boxes.
I use my old Coaguchek strip containers, which each box having the pills for one day.
Eleven White Boxes
If I find that I can’t get seven sets of pills, like last Sunday, I know it is time to get my boots out and go to Boots for some more.
The great advantage of individual boxes, is that when I go away, I just take an appropriate number of boxes – two more than the nights I’m away.
Counting out the pills has been a lot easier, since my doctor decided that one pill wasn’t needed any more.
So now, I just put 4 mg. of Warfarin (one blue and one brown), a statin, two other drugs and two vitamin pills in for each day.
I check my own INR and have used 4 mg. a day, for a couple of years now and it tends to hover around the 2.5 level, that I need.
I test myself bi-weekly and only if it is below 2.2 or above 2.8, do I take any action.
Usually, I just stick to the 4 mg. and retest the next day. Very often, it has bounced back, as it was probably something I ate or drunk. Or it could be the weather, as the INR can rise in sun or fall, when you get back to miserable weather.
Some doctors may not like that I choose my own level of drug, but setting the level, is just the sort of problem for which I have a B. Eng degree in |Control Engineering from Liverpool University.
Some of the regimes, I’ve had from doctors and their systems, are pretty complicated and I suspect quite a few patients get confused.
Would I Go Back To Las Palmas?
It’s over a week now, since I returned from Las Palmas and I ask myself the inevitable question.
Yes! I certainly would, at this time of year, as the sun has done me good.
Although, I probably wouldn’t go back for a year or so, as there are lots of other islands out there in the Atlantic with sun.
The Anonymous Widower 