Someone was asking how these would show up on our disruption map ... yep, they do ...



Very odd in effecting trains in both directions - shunt movement at Royal Wootton Bassett?

 
RAIB have published their report on this accident, with the main conclusions on the summary page. This says:

The main recommendations are about Network rail's management processes, with some learning points for signallers and other staff too.

 
I just got back from a shopping trip, and I found another missive from NR in the door. It's essentially the same as the first, but with a different background/frame and header "metadata". Both are from Basingstoke Campus, and both sign off as from Community Relations. The second adds Wessex Route to that, and in the heading it says "Ref: ELR: RDG2 62, 02ch / MW/OCT-Wokingham Signal Box". The first is vaguer about it origin, and it is headed "Ref No: RDG_62.0002_STN_WSX_22412 / 20/5/2026 1:00:00 am". Both in the footer invite you to sign up for information about future works, but for services with different names and URLs!

Doesn't that look like a case of the left hand not knowing what the next finger on the same hand is doing? And maybe it's a reminder that just being part of the same legal entity does not guarantee good communications within an organisation. I wonder if we will see more or less of this kind of thing as GBR coagulates.

 
Ah, and several more stills showing the crossing (as well as many more featuring suburban street scenes from the early 1960s) here:

https://www.reelstreets.com/films/wrong-arm-of-the-law-the/

Mark

 
A still from the film, showing the crossing, here:

https://railwaymoviedatabase.com/the-wrong-arm-of-the-law/

Mark

 
Yes - the site of the crossing actually in nearby Bushy Park Road, how it's been misnamed is lost in the mists etc etc.

Mark

 

Famously, the signalbox and level crossing that features in the 1963 Ealing film "The Wrong Arm of the Law" was at Fairfax Road, Teddington.  Is that the one you mean?  Closed in 1973

 
Sounds like good news

Maybe 9-cars will more reliably get to Hereford than 5-cars

The down service seems often to suffer a long wait at Moreton Cutting, held for an up fast or two to pass by, before crossing to the Down Relief and on towards Oxford.  Hit for four of five minutes there, and then loses time along the way.  Sometimes I think ARS (Automatic Route Setting) has a lot to answer for!

 
That put me in mind of what might have been a previous Feltham resignalling programme. I never noticed the box at Teddington, but, crossing the footbridge on the Kingston end of the station, the sight and sound of the pair, home and distant signal arms, fairly close to the bridge, implied its existence, and there was also the signalbox for the keeper who operated the crossing gates for Bushy Park Road some way towards Hampton Hill - for good measure, there were gasholders close at hand there too. Think it was 1973 that all the signalling in the area was replaced with the colour light variety, the crossing replaced by a footbridge, and later the gasholders went, the site eventually used for a care home and slightly gasholder-shaped blocks of flats.

Mark

 

If you have Train 1 on the Down Main, Train 2 on the Up Main, and Train 3 on the Down:

Barriers dropped, say two minutes before Train 1 arrives at the crossing, so the driver gets greens on the approach.  The first signal that could give a yellow could be 1,800m or so in rear of the crossing, and you don't want the driver to see that as yellow as the train approaches, you want the driver to see a green. At a line speed of 80mph, say, you really do need to start those barriers dropping two minutes before the train gets there.  There will probably be an annunciator in the signalbox, to give awareness that the train is approaching, at a certain distance in rear of the crossing - a track circuit or a treadle

Say it's 2 minutes 20 seconds before Train 1 has cleared the crossing.  By which time, Train 2 could be within three minutes of arrival.  You wont lift the barriers to drop them again in less than a minute.  So they stay down.

Train 2 clears the crossing 5 minutes 40 seconds after the barriers were dropped.  And now Train 3 is about, following  maybe four minutes behind Train 1 on the Down, and not much more than three minutes from the crossing.  Again, you don't want to lift the barriers.  Train 3 arrives at the crossing 8 minutes or more after the barriers were first dropped

This is a general explanation, not specific to Stoke Canon Crossing. It works for two-aspect signals.   But it does give you an idea of why you'd have to wait there for a while, sometimes.  With three aspect signals, when you wouldn't want to show the driver a double yellow even further in rear of the crossing, the barriers may need to be dropped earlier.  Just admire the Saxby and Farmer built signalbox.  A listed building, I believe, and disused for around 40 years now

 
Welcome news in the new timetable that 1W01, 09:52 PAD-HFD and its return working  1P28, the 13:18 HFD-PAD are now booked for a 9-car unit instead of the previous 5-car set.

Not so much of an issue in the Cotswold Line, but between Paddington and Oxford both ways these trains had become very crowded as 5-car services.

 
I've just had a "dear neighbour" letter from Network Rail pushed through the door, about work at the level crossing at the end of May. It promises somewhat noisy work "which forms part of the close-out works for the Feltham Resignalling Programme". The activities listed include "machinery to demolish building" and "machinery to remove debris", which sounds like the removal of the signal box.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the poor little thing, sitting there doing no-one any harm. But if you make NR responsible for it, costing them money, and it has no identifiable value to them or anyone else, I guess this is the inevitable result.

 
A related question.

On my cycle wanderings I regularly use the Stoke Canon Level Crossing. The crossing is CCTV-equipped and has split full width barriers.

On a number of occasions the barriers have been closed for up to 8 minutes - yes, I have timed it - for the passing of 3 services.

This is not, I think, what you would call an intensively worked section of line. Is this entirely down to the local signalling configuration (long track sections) or decisions made by the signallers (who I believe are based at the Exeter Box)?

 

For the record this was eventually cancelled due to the problems at Westbury North junction.

 
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?