Stoke Gifford rail depot

[jules]

At the end of the Day are Network rail just being polite in asking the neighbours as isnt there a clause that they dont actually have to get permission to build on what has always been railway land?

That's certainly my understanding of it. It's all just lip service - they're going to build it right where they want it come what may ....

[Robin Summerhill]

At the end of the Day are Network rail just being polite in asking the neighbours as isnt there a clause that they dont actually have to get permission to build on what has always been railway land?

That's certainly my understanding of it. It's all just lip service - they're going to build it right where they want it come what may ....

And I've "heard" this as well and, as I said earlier on this thread about believing nothing you hear until you can verify it, I did a bit of digging. It appears that all this is covered under section 90 (2A) of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 and section 10 of the Transport & Works (Applications and Objections Procedure) Rules 2006.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/8/section/90
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006 ... le/10/made

Here are some examples of it in use:

http://www.croxleyraillink.com/download ... ission.pdf

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/ ... evised.pdf

There might be some people around here more legally trained than me, but it looks as though the standard procedure is to apply for "deemed planning permission" which possibly suggests a presumption in favour, but it also means that the relevant local authority still get to put in their four-pennorth about it.

Anybody like to explain a little further?

[jules]

it looks as though the standard procedure is to apply for "deemed planning permission" which possibly suggests a presumption in favour, but it also means that the relevant local authority still get to put in their four-pennorth about it.

That's my understanding of it too. For a big and essential public project such as a rail depot, the proposers request from the Secretary of State that permission is deemed granted regardless of the local authority view, but that it is subject to such rules and restrictions that the Local Authority wishes to propose and the Secretary of State agrees with.

So it appears it is a given that the depot will be built exactly where they want it and no amount of nimby campaigning is going to do anything to stop it.

Good!

[Robin Summerhill]

Finally, at the moment there are two individuals arguing the toss in the comments section, and I repeat them here for illustrative purposes:


nickthompson - ôHere we go again NIMBYISM in full flow.ö

Stokeygee - "not a NIMBY.... just not prepared to be kept awake all night. Come up with some facts instead of the same old NIMBY rubbish.ö"

I would respectfully suggest that Stokeygee comes up with some facts that would stand a bit of scrutiny. Until he/she does, my sentiments are with nickthompson

Logging into the site late tonight before I turned in, I happened to notice that we have a new member. As those of us who have been around here for a bit know, there are a lot of new members who only last a couple of days, and Pete has explained on here before why they get deleted.

However, this new member is called "Stokeygee"

If this is the one and the same, we might shortly be getting the "opposing view" on here about the proposed new depot

This thread might have a few pages to run yet

[madhattie]

I would have deleted stokygee as he/she hasn't filled in the necessary sections that show me they're not a spammer. So, on your head be it if we now get a porn deluge...!

[stokeygee]

Right Guys/Girls,
Just a note to say that I have come in peace !
No Spam ..... No Trolls.
I have joined this forum as source of knowledge. I have always been interested in Railway Infrastructure and have on many occasion browsed this site.
If possible I will pose sensible questions, and hope you will try and answer them in layman's terms.

Rest assured I respect other peoples views and I am willing to be proven wrong.

Thanks (I am know going to get some questions together, to try and gain some facts)

[jules]

Just a note to say that I have come in peace !

Well, we've never been known to bite here and we do love a good debate

Welcome along!

[Robin Summerhill]

Just a note to say that I have come in peace !

Well, we've never been known to bite here and we do love a good debate

Welcome along!

Same sentiments here

[Robin Summerhill]

Well, we've never been known to bite here

Well, hardly ever .....

There was that bloke a couple of years ago, something to do with Lostock Hall MPD if I remember correctly, who seemed to be picking a fight with carpetcone within his first few posts.

We haven't seen him around in a while

[jules]

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Controve ... story.html

So, S Glos are recommending it for approval. Now who wouldn't, knowing it is going to be approved anyhow?

Some interesting comments following this article on Saturday's EP, including these observations, reproduced verbatim from the Evening Post story comments (The only thing I'd disagree with the commentator on is that St Philips Marsh is suitable - it isn't - it's in the WRONG place - can you imagine all these new trains trying to make their way to SPM for maintenance?)

Here goes then:

ô1. Hitachi and their agents, Agility Trains have told the train operating companies and the Department of Transport, that money will be saved by not having to electrify the depot lines because the trains would be moved around on them using the diesel engines.
2. Freight trains use diesel locomotive with engines contained in large sound absorbing bodyshells. The engines being larger and slower revving are much quieter than the higher revving engines mounted under the coaches of the IEP. Fatboy I can work right next to a 3000 hp plus locomotive without wearing ear protection, even on maximum revs because the engine is inside the loco body. But a QSK19 (the proposed engine for IEP) at idle is too noisy for workers to work adjacent to without modern ear protection. At the revs required to test engine and air systems on depot even with ear protection there are severe time limitations placed on exposure. These trains are not electric, they are diesels with an electric capability.
3. To say they will only need to test the diesels when they are replaced is a blatant lie. The engines need to be able to operate all the ancillary systems as well as the train will when using electric power. It is a lawful safety requirement that these trains are tested thoroughly on all exams. That means the engines will be run, on depots at night. Yes electric trains do only hum, that is why Hitachi took that ignorant councillor Allinson to a depot that maintains electric trains. Incidentally the level of his ignorance has made the national industry press. The professional railway and engineering journals have his comments spread through their pages with a high degree of amazement at his gullibility.
4. Some of these trains will have diesel engines? More fluff and bluster from Hitachi/Agility Trains. Here are the facts. The MAJORITY of these trains will have diesel engines.
The IEP train order is as follows;
There will be 11 eight car pure electric units. They are for services between Paddington and Oxford and Paddington to Newbury. Very unlikely to reach this depot.
There will be 26 five car Electro Diesel units. Three cars out of every five unit will have a diesel engine mounted underneath. These are to be allocated to the Bristol Depot for maintenance.
There will be 12 eight car Electro Diesel units which will have four, possibly five cars out of every eight powered by a diesel engine. These are to be allocated to the Bristol Depot for maintenance.
These trains are being built on a PFI basis. They will cost around ú20,000 more per month, per coach, to operate than proper electric trains. So who is going to pay for that? You are, taxpayers and fare payers alike.
The existing depot at St. Philips Marsh was surveyed for electrification and is perfectly capable of maintaining electric and diesel trains safeguarding jobs and apprenticeships at that location which is situated well away from housing.ö

[stokeygee]

Evening All.

Right, I realise that I have probably come across as a Nimby.
I did realise that when I moved to Stoke Gifford that I was in close proximety to a railway track, station etc. I have no problem at all with the large freight trains that pass my house every night, and on the rare occasion I often see steam trains passing through. The HST'S that use the track are no problem either. Often trains will wait on the track for the signal and then pull away, again no problem. Late night maintainence can be noisy, but I realise this is needed.
We as residents have always been informed of any major works by Network Rail, stating working hours and dates.

The reason why I am often vocal on the issue of The proposed Rail Depot is probably the fact that we have been given inconsistent information. If Hitachi had gone about the consultation process in a more pro active way, ensuring that residents were made of the facts and maybe offering some local improvements then I think most people would have seen this proposal as positive.

If I am totally honest, I feel uncomfortable oposing what has been proposed, I am not a retired person with nothing else to do but moan, I realise the importance of an up to date railway infrastructure and all the associated systems that go with it.

In the past few weeks I have taken time to try and read forums like this one, where I can try and gain some knowledge of the benefits of this proposal.

I have said (BEP) that other sites should be considered, people quite rightly have said, name them. Right here goes,

1/ Ex Rolls Royce Land ?
2/ St Phillips Marsh ?
3/ Severn Beach/ Avonmouth Area?

Now I realise that SPM has been mentioned, but what about 1 and 3 ?

Also why are Hitachi using Ashford Depot trains as an example, am I right in saying that all of Ashford's trains are Electric.

I hope you guys can try and see my point when I say that people are kept in the dark about facts then they become anti and suspicious. If we had people telling us the facts , instead of Local Councillors telling us lies, then this proposal would be more welcome.

Thankyou in advance for any info/views you may have.

[Robin Summerhill]

Evening All.

Right, I realise that I have probably come across as a Nimby.
I did realise that when I moved to Stoke Gifford that I was in close proximety to a railway track, station etc. I have no problem at all with the large freight trains that pass my house every night, and on the rare occasion I often see steam trains passing through. The HST'S that use the track are no problem either. Often trains will wait on the track for the signal and then pull away, again no problem. Late night maintainence can be noisy, but I realise this is needed.
We as residents have always been informed of any major works by Network Rail, stating working hours and dates.

The reason why I am often vocal on the issue of The proposed Rail Depot is probably the fact that we have been given inconsistent information. If Hitachi had gone about the consultation process in a more pro active way, ensuring that residents were made of the facts and maybe offering some local improvements then I think most people would have seen this proposal as positive.

If I am totally honest, I feel uncomfortable oposing what has been proposed, I am not a retired person with nothing else to do but moan, I realise the importance of an up to date railway infrastructure and all the associated systems that go with it.

In the past few weeks I have taken time to try and read forums like this one, where I can try and gain some knowledge of the benefits of this proposal.

I have said (BEP) that other sites should be considered, people quite rightly have said, name them. Right here goes,

1/ Ex Rolls Royce Land ?
2/ St Phillips Marsh ?
3/ Severn Beach/ Avonmouth Area?

Now I realise that SPM has been mentioned, but what about 1 and 3 ?

Also why are Hitachi using Ashford Depot trains as an example, am I right in saying that all of Ashford's trains are Electric.

I hope you guys can try and see my point when I say that people are kept in the dark about facts then they become anti and suspicious. If we had people telling us the facts , instead of Local Councillors telling us lies, then this proposal would be more welcome.

Thankyou in advance for any info/views you may have.

Jules will probably have more detailed knowledge of the proposals than me, and I dare say he'll be along shortly to add his bit. Here's my four pennorth to be going on with, as an ex-railwayman from quite some years ago now with a lifelong interest in railways :

Noise
I honestly don't think that this will be a significant issue - trains passing by are likely to create many more decibels than the depot. Although its 35+ years ago now, I don't remember any significant noise issue with Bath Road depot when I worked there (and, I might add, for part of the time I worked there I lived in Totterdown, virtually on top of the place, and never noticed it at all).

If I were a resident in the area and I was concerned about noise, I would be doing two things: a) get some noise measuring equipment and see what the noise levels are now and b) be pushing for some soundproofing fencing (such as they have along much of the M25, which creates a good deal more overnight racket than any railway maintenance depot will).

If there are some older residents still in the area, try to get their views on the noise levels that used to emanate from Stoke Gifford Yard (Parkway station was built on the site of it). All that wagon-bashing would have also been much worse than the rail maitenence depot ever will

Information and disinformation
Sticking my neck out here I know, but in my experience local councillors don't often tell lies. They'll spin and massage the truth if you let them, they'll score party point off their opposition, but they're not usually in the business of telling absolute porkies.

They can sometimes appear to be though. I was recently involved in a protest against putting traffic lights on the A4 at Corsham/ Pickwick at the Hare & Hounds pub. We "won," long story, completely off topic so I shan't bother you with it, but the reason I mention it is that a website was set up within Wordpress and the locals were given their opportunity to comment.

One comment that came over loud and clear was a number of variations on "the Council said that Corsham railway station would reopen. It didn't. They lied"

Well in fact no they didn't. They were expecting Corsham station to reopn from what they'd been told. Then FGW scuppered the idea because they wanted the Bristol-Oxford direct service taken off so the paths could be used for HSTs. With no Bristol - Oxford service there were no trains that would be stopping at Corsham. That didn't stop people blaming the Council though

I'll hazard a guess that the information you got from the Council reasonably accurately reflected what they'd been told. Which may or may not have been accurate itself of course.

I don't know what Hitachi told you so I can't comment on that, only to say that in common with any other company planning expansion, they are going to put as much positive spin on their proposals as possible.

Alternative sites
Here we get into practicalities. There are two major considerations: a) who pesently owns the land because, if you have to buy land for your project, it makes it much more expensive than if you already own it. Especially when we're talking the amount of land needed to build a new maintenance depot. Item b) is the costs the Network Rail charge for movements - why spend good money sending empty stock on long trips from the maintenance depot to the start of their revenue-earning run if you can build it somewhere more convenient?

Ex-Rolls Royce land fails on count (a). The railway doesn't currently own the land so they'd have to buy it, then run rail connections into it, and the price of the finished depot would have increased substantially. In addition, I think the local Council have their own plans already for this land, which may not fit in very neatly with the idea of a railay depot on it.

Severn Beach/ Avonmouth area fails on both counts. BR Property Board got rid of as much railway land as anybody else would buy in the 1970s, and most former railway land in the area is railway land no more (Severn Beach especially so - all that's left is the single track up from St Andrews Road and an apology for a station at the terminus). A lot of land in Avonmouth that looks like railway land is owned by the Port.

But even if sufficient land could be found, you would still have the problem of all these ECS movements up and down, for which Network Rail would be pocketing the movement fees and the TOCs would be coughing up for the power for the trains and the costs of staffing them. Nobody else would benefit financially. A "lose-lose" situation if you're trying to run an efficient business operation.

St Phillips Marsh. I shall have to leave it to others to explain why this idea has been rejected, because my initial thoughts when the depot was proposed were exactly the same as yours! However, even after the GW line is electrified there will still be diesels to maintain (the Midland Line for example) so I can only imagine that there is a logistics issue with expanding the site. Reference to Google Earth will show that most of the former railway land has been sold off and there are no acres of railway land down there sitting idle waiting to be developed.

Other points
Finally, as you say Ashford is all electric, but Kent is a little different in that the majority of the former Southern Railway lines have been electrified for over 50 years, so diesel maintenance is not a major issue.

What is proposed for us on the "electrified" GW lines is hybrid motive power so that they can run on the non-electrified sections such as Cardiff to Swansea. There has been much chattering in the railway press about this for some time because the rational for the idea is, shall we be polite and say, open to question

The original "official" reason given was the length of time it would take to attach and detach diesel engines at the changeover point (ie Cardiff). The time estimates being given were such that it seemed they were including running the engine light from Newport first, and they were proven as nonsense. The new "official" reason is that the units than then run over non-electrified diversionary routes without delay. This "new reason" seems to ignore the fact that using diversionary routes causes delay anyway, and another two or three minutes to bung a diesel unit on the business end is not going to make any significant difference to the overall timekeeping of a diverted train one way or the other.

There is also the experience of the Southern post-1967 to take into account, where diesel engines were attached to electric trains at Bournemouth for forward travel to Weymouth, that worked quite satisfactorily for over 20 years.

There is a view in the railway press that these hybrid trains are simply the brainchild of an idiot civil servant who knows sod all about railways and, whilst I can understand why people might take that view, I couldn't possibly comment

[jules]

If we had people telling us the facts , instead of Local Councillors telling us lies, then this proposal would be more welcome.

Well, that's sadly mostly what politicians do ...

I think it needs to be taken into consideration that there is very little that S Glos council can actually do, as the decision is going to be taken at far higher level anyhow (see "deemed planning approval" earlier in thread). Therefore, there is no way S Glos council is going to vote against something that will just get deemed approval anyhow. But they are too weak willed to admit it to their constituents. Remember that when it comes to election time ...

The problem I think is not that other locations haven't been considered (no doubt they have) but that operationally, Stoke Gifford is just such a perfect site for the depot. We've discussed the reasons here earlier, but to recap briefly: the land is already railway owned; it is a big enough site; a lot of the problems it might present *can* be easily mitigated; and finally, it is in the V of the two main lines the trains are intended to serve. You really can't get better than that from the operations point of view.

So, let's look at your other locations:

Ex Rolls Royce land: Biggest issues are that a. it's not already railway land so would have to be bought at huge additional expense. b. It would have to be accessed by the Stoke Gifford - Avonmouth line. East to west, that's not too bad, but the South - West and North - West Filton chords are very low speed single lines and would be serious bottlenecks - not much chance of improving them either - the sites are too restricted. Also, what about all the houses that are no doubt about to be built on Filton Airport.

SPM - The Marsh is a very constrained site barely big enough for servicing HSTs, let alone all the units FGW moved over there from Cardiff Canton. Rail access is relatively poor and it only really works for trains starting/terminating from Temple Meads. To service Cardiff line trains as well, they would all have to travel via Filton Bank (see elsewhere on this site re: quadrupling Filton Bank) - it is already at full capacity.

Avonmouth / Severn Beach - Once again, all trains would have to access any facility in these areas by the Stoke Gifford - Avonmouth line. Running them via Clifton would not be an option as with the 40 minute local service, the single line is already at full capacity. Anywhere towards Severn Beach is a no, no - as it would involve a reversal at Holesmouth, and probablky another to get into any depot that was built. Apart from which Severn Beach is a long, single line section and the infrastructure is pretty poor.

Elsewhere in Avonmouth might have worked, but most railway land is already taken up by the freight operators, plus when you head anywhere East from Avonmouth, you are back on the fully occupied Clifton line.

So, as the Stoke Gifford site is (and for many, many years always has been) railway land at the confluence of all major routes - I am afraid the location for a new depot there really is a no-brainer.

As to how "honest" Hitachi have been, well - they showed off another depot they operate. What more could they do? True, that's an all electric depot and Stoke Gifford will be hybrid trains, so there will be some different considerations, but I'd give them the benefit of the doubt in just how well noise and other such issues are managed nowadays. As Robin mentions, the noise from the two yards at Stoke Gifford up until the 1970s was immense - but hardly anybody lived nearby in those days.

Also, don't forget diesel and hybrid trains, unlike electrics, need fuel - lots of it and regularly - to be delivered by rail, hopefully. You should probably ask about fueling arrangements.

[jules]

Well, just saw on Twitter:

Hitachi rail depot at #Filton voted through by councillors subject to conditions

There's a surprise then Now we're going to have a nice new depot to go look over the (noise abating) fence at ...

[the green mile]

Common sense has prevailed. The most significant drawback of using the Marsh which we all overlooked is where would the existing workload go while the site was being redeveloped? Adapting it for dmu's was fraught with problems. On the first night, we were using bits of track that had only been laid that same day and only one of the two roads into the shed at Marsh Junction had been completed.