Great Western Coffee Shop

The line was singled from Swindon to Kemble in the 1960s (that's being reversed today) at the time the current Swindon Panel was being put in, and a document on that has been put on the panel web site:

http://www.swindonpanel.org.uk/documents/17/Staff%20Handout.pdf

Interestingly, it looks to me as if they were going to single beyond Kemble to Sapperton tunnel in the plans, with a loop at Kemble.   And that they were planning to save 120 staff ...

Also singled at the same time - TransWilts from Thingley to Bradford Junction, and the centre bay at Chippenham removed.  I wonder if those changes too will be reversed at a future date.

I personally would like to think the TransWilts line will be double tracked in the future.  Even now I think there is reasons to justify it when you seen the problems with freights using the line sometimes causing disruption to the passenger service.

With further dirsuption likley  because of the GW upgrade I think it is regretable that the line through Melksham hasnt been double tracked now especially with the equipment and personel already in place doing the Swindon - Kemble re-doubling.

I often wondered where the economy was to be found in singling the Kemble line. I can see exactly what a big thing it was, and thank you grahame, for posting this document. Scales have now fallen from my eyes!

One notable aspect is that semaphore held sway for 120 years or so. Multiple Aspect Signalling lasted for less than the possible lifetime of a LED bulb. It follows that the next advance in signalling, whatever it may be, will not be long in coming!

When you think of the battle over several years to get the Kemble line redoubled, which was ultimately justified due to its strategic role as a diversionary route for South Wales (you would be surprised at how many politicians and councils in Wales were calling for it), then to think that a route which even after the much anticipated improvements will see less than 10 passenger trains each way could just be added on as an encore is somewhat wishful thinking.  Never say never, but I suspect delay minutes due to single track will be fairly low compared with Worle to Weston or the two remaining sections of the North Cotswold Line.

Remember the decision to single track sections of railway was made in the era when lines and stations were being closed the Government pushed BR to improve efficiency, efficiency in those days was achieved by cutting costs.  By reducing the amount of track and signalling to be maintained, platforms that no longer required upkeep, reducing the number bridges to be renewed all these savings were shown as efficiencies.   Track in the 1960 & 70's was a very labour intensive in terms of maintenance.  Longer journey times or delays caused due to the singling were not important to the Government at that time.

Now of course the railways are being driven to reduce delays, speed up journeys which are the efficiency of today to achieve this redoubling and re-openings are being done, the cost of track maintenance etc in real terms is cheaper to day.

I can personally see the decision being made to further re-double the remaining sections of the Cotswold line in order to reduce any delays and increase capacity especially if the Stratford to Honeybourne line is re-opened.

Also with freight increasing from Southampton etc and the requirement for additional passenger services I think the line through Melkshams will be redoubled or a dynamic loop installed somewhere along the route.

That single line section between Worle and Weston super mare is certainly a right pain. A good project for the bidders of the GW franchise to put in their bids since it will deliver a lot of rewards in terms of reducing delays and providing extra capacity

Agreed. A serious bottleneck affecting, preferably, more than one busy line is now needed before the beginning of the process to add to capacity. That could yet change. Until grahame posted that document, I had known that the railways were reduced in size to cut labour costs, but I had not realised just how hugely labour-intensive the operation of the railways was. Of course, Multiple Aspect Signalling was less labour-intensive than semaphore, both in use and maintenance, and the aging steam trains of the Beeching report needed replacement by something more modern. I now realise that not only was railway use dwindling, but the expectation was that passenger numbers and freight tonnage would continue to decline. I do not attribute blame for any of the decisions then made, because when they were made, they were justifiable.

This brings us to the prospect of excitement of a high order, demanding of both hard heart and occasionally soft head.

In our more modern times of congestion and high fuel prices, some of the former assumptions on rail can be turned on their heads. We see, for example, that very modest expenditure on the Severn Beach line has raised that line's use from marginal to a million passengers this year. The frequency has been raised from an unlearnable "about every 73 minutes on average, but don't ask when" to three trains every two hours. Capacity has been increased at peak hours by adding a car to the 2-car unit, but with a single line from Stapleton Road with passing loops at Clifton Down and Avonmouth, it is pretty full.

Re-doubling the line to SVB would be as big an undertaking as the Kemble job, albeit wit less overall impact on passengers in the shorter term.  But I reckon that with Four Track, Now! to Filton Bank, plus extending the passing loop to Montpelier, requiring the relocation of one set of points and two signals, the scrubbing up of the unused platforms at Redland and Montpelier, and one extra unit, would allow 4 tph to AVM, including 2 tph to SVB.

I reckon it could be done for around ^10 million, or about 15% of what WEP paid to increase bus usage in Bristol by less than 5%. As SVB was only a farm when the station opened and now has 2500 residents with a ^3 return journey to BRI as the only real alternative to driving, it could easily boost house-building in this quasi-rural setting, and relieve pressure on the city. It's a shame that there is no linkage between housing in S Glos, employment in Bristol, and transport in the geographical area formerly known as Avon.

One might almost be forgiven for thinking that policies on transport, housing, employment, and others, were not co-ordinated between the three authorities involved, and that there is wasteful triplication (I don't include BANES in this awful waste of scant resources) of amateurish effort when decent targetted integration of effort might produce massive turnaround  in how people see public transport.

The same is true of the TransWilts line, except that the areas of population are less clearly defined, are less densely packed,  and don't have the same opportunity of connection to major centres of employment as does the (emerging) SVB line.
 
Not sure what to think, More soon.

I'm having trouble thinking this one through too.  You've written a great deal and it's not clear to me which "same" you're suggesting is true of the TransWilts.  Areas of population are very clearly defined (at the moment), with a handful of miles of countryside between each of the towns - quite the opposite of "less clearly defined" to me anyway ... but then I live here, and know the area and flows.  We are indeed missing some opportunities of connection at present; business wise and personally it means lots of picking people up at Chippenham station, more generally (the macro look to my micro) it restricts things south of the M4 / London to Bristol corridor, acting as a brake at Westbury, Trowbridge, Melksham, Warminster and Frome - all of which are doing remarkably well, considering.   There's a strong chance that we'll find a real ease of energy like from a coiled spring over the next year or two and - on that timescale trigger - "what now" may need to be considered.

I suppose this kind of thing is why we have the GRIP process. Montpelier is not very accessible to people with disabilities, expecially from the north side. Would it be permissible (or desirable) to put in a set of non-accessible steps to access the currently-unused platform from the footbridge? Or would it be better to replace Montpelier with a new, fully-accessible station built off the embankment to the east of Cheltenham Road, potentailly closing Redland as part of the deal?

I can see the redoubling of the Eastern end of the North Cotswolds, Anthony215 - but I think the cost/benefit ratio for the western end will never get high enough to do it, without other, yet unforeseen, events happening first that will finally lift it high enough.

Indeed, just redoubling the eastern end drops further the case at the western end - as it won't be needed to reduce substantially further any delays caused by single track working

The main problem with the western end is the double whammy of the single section and the terribly inflexible layout in and around the Worcester area.  I agree with Chris that the western end redoubling will be a long time coming and the eastern end is much more likely to happen within, say, 10 years, but at the western end I can see the upcoming resignalling at Worcester (by upcoming I mean probably within 10 years!) being a good opportunity to sort Worcester out (and indeed the line as far as Malvern) which will be a great help in reducing delays/increasing capacity.

Also, looking beyond Malvern to Hereford, that's another pinch-point, and I would hope to see track improvements when that's resignalled.  Whilst I wouldn't expect the line from Malvern Wells to Shelwick Junction (at some 18 miles with one passing point at Ledbury) to ever be redoubled (indeed, parts of it could never be redoubled due to the tunnels), I would hope that either the Ledbury passing loop could be extended towards Hereford a few miles, or another dynamic passing point somewhere near Stoke Edith could be installed.

Those two sets of improvements would have more benefit that redoubling Norton Junction to Evesham West Junction in my opinion.

Quite.

The Eastern end *might* get done with the Oxford resignalling - depends how tight the settlement of the ORR is with Network Rail's CP6 spend....