Acton Dive-Under – 4th July 2015
-I took these pictures as I passed the Acton Dive Under.
On this page on the Crossrail site, this is said.
The start of excavation follows nearly two years of work to re-configure the freight yard. The work on the dive-under is being managed by Network Rail and is expected to last until 2016.
Progress would appear to be in line with that statement.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see this work finished earlier than expected, as surely when the Acton Dive Under is complete, this must make the operation of the railway easier, as freight trains crossing from the sidings at Acton will cause less disruption.
West Ealing Station – 4th July 2015
Work has started on the creation of the bay platform for the Greenford Branch at West Ealing station.
Some of these pictures were taken from a train that stopped at the station. The window intrudes on the right.
Ealing Council has also given planning permission for the new station and also for Southall station as is reported in this article on rail.co.uk.
It certainly appears that the builders have got of the marks quickly!
Could this be because it would make planning Crossrail and the station works easier, with the Greenford Branch just working a four times-per-hour shuttle to a bay platform well out of the way?
Why Are Some Rails Painted White And What Is Saggy Wire Syndrome?
After reading this article on the Rail Engineer web site, I did think about calling this article something like – Who’d Be A Rail Engineer?
But I just had to include Saggy Wire Syndrome.
The article is a technical article about how using steel wheels on steel rails can be a nightmare for the railways and their engineers in hot weather.
When I was a child, the rails had a length of sixty feet and they were separated by a small expansion gap and connected by fishplates. This gave the clickety-clack. Now rails are continuous for several kilometres to give a smooth ride, so occasionally they buckle. To mitigate the problem rails are made pre-stressed to their length at 27°C, so the problems kick in, when the temperature of the track gets above that temperature.
As switches (points) and crossings are particularly vulnerable in hot weather, they are often painted white in the UK, to reflect the heat.
It’s funny, but after having come across Europe through Poland, Germany and Belgium, I can’t actually remember seeing any rails painted white on my journey. Although, there was no clickety-clack indicating jointed rails. Next time, I go to Germany or Poland I must look.
So what is saggy wire syndrome?
This is where the overhead electric wire stretches in the heat and sags, because the tensioning mechanism can’t cope.
The article finishes with this paragraph.
Summer is a real problem. Roll on winter, when the rails shrink as they get cold and eventually break, earthworks get soggy causing uneven track surfaces, and S&C gets flooded and won’t work.
Who’d be a rail engineer?
All passengers should read the article!
A Tree-Lined Section Of Cycle Superhighway Route 1
I took this picture, as I walked along Culford Road to go to my house.
A Tree-Lined Section Of Cycle Superhighway Route 1
Like most of the roads round here, it is lined by numerous mature trees. I haven’t looked at the species in detail, but if it’s anything like my road, they’ll be a mixture, with generally two of each randomly planted to no particular pattern.
Do cyclists bother about leaves on the road?
It Looks Like The Hackney Downs/Central Link Is Ready To Open
I took these pictures at Hackney Downs and Hackney Central stations today,
I don’t think it will be long before when I come back from Walthamstow, I can arrive at Downs station, walk through the link to go out on the street at Central station station to get a 38 bus home. The advantage of this route, as opposed to getting a 56 bus by Downs station, will be that I can do some food shopping if necessary in the Hackney Marks and Spencer.
I can’t help feeling that passengers will press for links between the other platforms and lifts to the platforms from the subway at Hackney Downs station.
The reopening of Lea Bridge station and the possible reopening of the Hall Farm Curve are both developments that could affect any future work at Downs and Central stations. This Google Map shows the layout of the two stations.
Hackney Downs/Central Link
Downs station is at the top and Central station is at the right.
You can actually see some sections of the new link in place, so the image must have been taken recently. The large oval object at the left (west) of the image is the ventilation and evacuation shaft for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, which is easily seen from trains on the North London Line. It is connected by a concrete roadway to Graham Road.
Note how it is possible to walk inside the railway land to Graham Road. I believe it would be possible to create a southern entrance for the two stations, by the two bridges, that would give access to the westbound platform at Central station and possibly perhaps using a lift to Platform 4 at Downs station. These pictures show the area of Graham Road, where the two bridges cross.
This is an enlarged Google Map of Graham Road, the two bridges and the two access roads.
An Enlarged Map
In order from the west, the features are.
- The Ventilation and Evacuation Shaft for the CTRL
- The Access Road to the CTRL shaft
- The two-track Curve that connects the Lea Valley Line to the North London Line.
- The four-track Lea Valley Line
- The Network Rail Access Road
The footbridge at Central station is shown at the far right.
As the pictures and the map show there is an embankment, so to get to a possible southern entrance, there might need to be some serious engineering.
On the other hand their is already a light-controlled crossing on Graham Road by the bridges.
The only problem of putting a second link on the southern side of the tracks, is that signalling cables and equipment may get in the way. This necessitated a big redesign of the link, that is now being created. This page on the contractor’s web site, which describes the current link, says this.
An earlier proposal had to be abandoned because it would interfere with Network Rail signalling equipment. The latest plan avoids this problem by building the interchange on the northern side of the track.
So this probably partly explains, why the new walkway is not a small structure.
I also heard in the evening that the link will open next week, possibly on Tuesday.
In the nearly five years, I’ve lived in Hackney, the development of the area around the two Hackney stations has been extensive and it is showing no sign of slowing down.
The London Borough of Hackney is now one of the more desireble boroughs in which to live.
Will Crossrail 2 Get Development Finance In The Budget?
This report in The Independent is entitled Crossrail 2 proposal receives £100m Budget boost from Chancellor. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
If it’s true, it’s short term bad news for me, as more and more Estate Agents will be pouring leaflets through my door, in the hope, they can make a quick killing.
But seriously though Crossrail 2 is needed to connect Tottenham and Wimbledon. With the new double-ended station at Dalston, I will have better connections to the West End, Euston and Victoria.
The Next Phase Of The Overground
An article in City AM talks about the choosing the new operator of the London Overground.
Quite frankly, I don’t care who runs the Overground, provided they do a good job. I also know that if they don’t perform, they’ll feel the fullforce of the Mayor’s boot or stilettos.
But what is interesting is these paragraphs, which detail changes to the system in the next few years.
And Liverpool Street revellers will be pleased to hear the contract will include “options” to introduce all-night services at weekends from 2017.
TfL said frequency on the northern section of the line will be increased by 25 per cent next year, from eight to 10 trains.
For me, late night services on the Overground are to be welcomed, as for example, it will make getting home after a late evening arrival into London easier. An increase in frequency on trains through Dalston Kingsland and West Hampstead will benefit everybody.
Long may the Overground spread its orange tentacles through the city, to enrich and ease the lives of Londoners and visitors alike.
Racing Trains To Scotland
As a child, I was never a great reader of books, except for encyclopaedias and other factual books. In an effort to get me to read more, my mother got me a book from the library about how the various train companies in the late 1800s tried to outperform each other to Edinburgh in 1888 and Aberdeen in 1895.
All of this has come back to me, as this month’s edition of Modern Railways is talking about developments in the services to Scotland, that could happen over the next few years.
The Press of the time, dubbed this Victorian rivalry as the Race To The North and in the section in the Wikipedia entry about the rivalry to Aberdeen in 1895, this is said.
In his 1958 book about the series of races, Oswald Nock wrote of the 22/23 August journey, “And at that astonishing average speed of 63.3 mph made sixty-three years ago the London–Aberdeen record still stands today”
The time was even more astounding, when you consider it wasn’t beaten until the 1970s by an InterCity125, which still work the route today.
The time on the night of the 22nd/23rd of August 1895 was eight hours forty-two minutes with Victorian steam locomotives and today the 200 kph diesel train takes just a few minutes over seven hours. But the modern train takes the shorter East Coast route!
The East and West Coast routes obviously don’t race each other these days, but according to Modern Railways, it looks like travel between London and Edinburgh is going to get faster and more interesting, as Virgin are aiming for quite a few four-hour trains throughout the day and two new companies are applying to run direct services between the two capitals.
If I understand the article correctly, by 2020 Virgin will be running three trains an hour between London and Edinburgh. The train from London on the hour will stop at Newcastle with York in alternate hours. The one stoppers will do the journey in four hours with the others just a few minutes slower.. Hopefully by 2020, the new Class 800 and Class 801 trains will be running the semi-fast services in four hours twenty-three minutes. The fastest trains now take four hours and twenty minutes.
Two new operators are applying to run trains on the route.
GNER which is ultimately a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn is planning to use 12×9-car Pendelinos to provide an hourly ‘fast’ service in three hours forty-three minutes from December 2018. They have said, that they are aiming to tempt passengers to switch from plane to train.
The article quotes that rail has a 30% share of the London-Edinburgh market, where there are 42 flights a day. They want to push rail’s share up to 50%.
In Edinburgh – Train or Plane? I compared a journey up by easyJet from Stansted with a return in First on East Coast. Both journeys cost and took about the same time from Hackney to the centre of Edinburgh.
FirstGroup is aiming to run five trains each way between London and Edinburgh in four hours from December 2018, using new Hitachi AT300 electric trains with three stops en route at Morpeth, Newcastle and Stevenage. First has said it will be targeting passengers from the low-cost airlines.
I’ve only talked about Edinburgh in this piece, but a lot of the analysis will also apply to the West Coast Main Line, which has already hsad a dose of a competing service, in the share of First TransPennine to Manchester.
If these plans come to fruition, it would look like the slowest trains on the Edinburgh route will be the Virgin semi-fasts, which will take just a few minutes longer than the fastest trains today.
Out of curiosity, I looked at trains and flights for tomorrow (today is a Monday). I could get the 08:00 out of Kings Cross, which gets me into Edinburgh at 12:20, just in time for lunch, for a Second Class cost of £33.95 and a First Class cost of £65.95 (both costs third-off with Railcard), whereas the easyJet flight from Gatwick or Stansted costs around £60, but would probably mean leaving home well before five in the morning.
This leads me to think, that if all these train services to Edinburgh come to fruition, that the only losers will be the airlines, especially if the large increase in capacity on the route brings down train fares.
A Two Hundred Million Pound Railway Project Of Which You’ve Probably Not Heard
The West Coast Main Line doesn’t have the capacity it needs to speed passengers between London and Liverpool, Manchester, Lancaster and Glasgow.
A few miles north of Stafford is Norton Bridge Junction, which has been likened in the July issue of Modern Railways as a set of traffic lights on the M6.
So a £200 million pound project has been commenced to remodel the junction. This map from Network Rail shows the lines through the area.
Norton Bridge Junction
Note the proposed new lines shown in orange. This Google Map shows the junction in detail.
Norton Bridge Junction
It would appear that construction has started, which the images in Modern Railways confirm. There is also a Youtube video, which shows a simulation of the junction.
One of the most interesting things about this project is that it is being implemented by the Staffordshire Alliance, which is an alliance of four major consultancies and construction companies. The structure has been borrowed from Australia, where it is called the Pure Alliance Model. This page on the Laing O’Rourke web site gives more details on how it works.
A detailed explanation is given in this article in Rail Engineer.
Let’s hope it works, as Network Rail needs all the good news it can get.
The outcome, when the project is finished in 2017 are stated in Modern Railways as being.
- Two additional fast services per hour between London and the North West; one to Liverpool and one to Lancaster and Glasgow.
- An additional Birmingham to Manchester service.
- An additional freight service.
These unpublicised projects are opening up new paths on Britain’s railways.
For me, it will mean that there will be more train services from London to Liverpool, Preston and Glasgow.
The Anonymous Widower 