Line capacities

[Robin Summerhill]

The Biggest hurdle I feel would be the pathing of more trains into the already busy Bristol-Birminham line, let alone the lack of rolling stock to run it.

I was going to go off tangent on the Thornbury thread but then thought it might be better to start a new one.

We are still suffering from the "rationalisation" programme from the 1960s and 1970s and nobody in power seems to want to do anything about it.

Tony was talking about the possibility or otherwise of pathing trains from the Thornbury branch onto the Bristol-Birmingham main line. In my neck of the woods, the campaign to reopen Corsham station was scuppered by FGW when they withdrew the Bristol-Oxford service, pleading that they needed the paths to run HSTs on the Londons. The proposal to reopen Wootton Bassett went west for the same reason

Some years ago I was at BTM waiting for a train to Chippenham, and there was a cracked rail somewhere around Keynsham. The entire Bristol to Bath line was being run as a single line until the Engineers had finished, because there is not a single crossover these days between Bath and Bristol.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility for capacities to be increased by means of passing loops and, where there is room, with additional running lines. As regards passing loops, we have the possibility of one at Chippenham even using the "spare" platform we have had just sitting there since 1970!

Does anybody know why nobody appears to be even thinking of increasing capacities, instead seeming to waste millions on cosmetic station refurbishments?

[tonyperks]

The other problem with capacity, I think stems from the 100mph signalling system on the hst routes there are just not enough sections to fit in any more trains

Alex on here should be able to tell us more he works at bristol panel.

There was talk of putting in a bay at yate for the use of the weston service to and from yate but again nothing more seems to have happened.

[Robin Summerhill]

There was talk of putting in a bay at yate for the use of the weston service to and from yate but again nothing more seems to have happened.

Wouldn't the current station layout at Yate preclude a bay facing the right way for Weston services? Its been quite some time since I was on the platform there, but I seem to recall that the up platform effectively reuses the pre-1965 one, whilst the down platform is hard up against the bridge on the northern side of the A432.

Is there stil a loop at Yate? If so, terminating tains could at least be put out of the way during their layover.

[jolly47roger]

The track layout is visible on Google Earth. The only crossover is South to North to provide access from the Gloucester direction to the 'branch' to the refuse depot. Terminating trains could be 'parked' on the Thornbury branch and run 'wrong line' (it is signalled for both directions) back to Westerleigh with the existing layout. I guess the pathing problems are more between Westerleigh and Parkway, though.

But Network Rail does seem obsessed with using current capacity rather than expanding it. There's a discussion in the Merseyside RUS about repositioning stop boards at Liverpool Central to reduce overcrowding - when they could have just sent out a guy with a screwdriver. Think of all the quadrupling done in the 30's - the companies just got on with it rather than spending years writing strategies.

[tonyperks]

The cross-over at yate south has been used to allow a train to over take another, I saw just last year a sprinter sent across wrong road, then a few moments later a x-country unit go on down on the down line to get over the junction before the sprinter, I thought the bi- lines were just for frieght.

[g4mby]

Talk amongst the more informed local commuters suggests that trains terminating at Yate will arrive at the northbound platform and then cross to the down line via a new crossover which will take the train beyound the southbound platform. If the train is returning south it will then move into the southbound platform but if not will stable until required using a siding that has yet to be laid on the recently cleared area adjacent to the car park. The need for this new track, crossover and signalling would explain why nothing has been done yet. It's not simply a matter of using existing resources. The laying of new track through the Yate area recently has somewhat put doubt on some of these ideas and many were expecting that some of these new facilities may have been included in that work.

This may all be wrong of course but it is what is being talked about around here.