Great Western Coffee Shop

Ever had to wait for ages at the Birkdale level crossing for a train to cross? Network Rail explains why ...

http://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/news/southport-west-lancs/ever-wait-ages-birkdale-level-10790162?


Odd explanation ... it's a regular electric service and no freight to my knowledge.  Timing may be different north and southbound, but surely not ALL different

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​MetroWest project held up by level crossing and delays with mainline re-signalling work

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/8203-MetroWest-project-held-level-crossing-delays/story-28636537-detail/story.html

Can anyone explain

It's probably just more of the high quality journalism that we all have come to know and love from our dear old Evening Post .

I wonder whether someone has used the length of time that a slow freight train, (possibly having to stop to pick up/set down a token?) takes, and multiplied by 4. I would expect the barriers to be down for much less time with a multiple unit and higher speeds.

I wonder why they picked that one crossing - it's in the middle of a sequence of five in a mile of track. One of those (450 m from Aughton Road) is at Birkdale station, so I guess a train can't be signalled to start from there unless the next crossing or three are down. So a delay at the station would lead to an extended down time.

Looking at that Ashton Gate crossing, it and the road junction it's part of do look rather a mess. Are the lights and the crossing linked now, or do they get away with not doing so with only a few goods trains a day? One the evidence of my local one (as reported in this post (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=11448.msg190441#msg190441)) it ought to cope well enough with the lights linked.

Running services cross-city / on to Bath with stops at Keynsham and Oldfield Park and you're potentially going to effect the paths of the Bristol to Waterloo services. Mind you, if the Portishead timetable caused some changes to the CrossCountry services heading north and south, it could be said to effect changes all the way from Aberdeen to Penzance.


Station delay is probably an issue.  But that's not "different trains speed" as claimed by Network Rail.   Whatever type of train it is, when it's stopped in the station it's moving at 0 m.p.h.   

I have a degree of sympathy with the NR guy quoted in that the press don't always get what they're told correctly ... not a universal problem, but talking (more often than I used to) to the press, I know who will look for a sensational story when there isn't one, and who will process what he's told to such an extent it comes out completely different.

I believe, and S&T Engineer will correct me, level crossing lights and barriers are timed for the maximum line speed on the approach to the level crossing, therefore if there is a slow moving train the barriers will be down for a longer time because the timing is measured by the distance from the level crossing and not the speed of the train hence a slow moving train will take longer to cover the distance than a train travelling a full line speed

I'm curious as to why Southports local paper is called The Visiter. Is it an unusual spelling of Visitor?

It does have literary precedents: Edgar Allan Poe and, especially, Daisy Ashford (unless you are such an ageist meany as to deny her writing the status of literature).

From my local knowledge of driving in that area: yes, the road traffic lights and railway level crossing are linked - and yes, it is still rather a mess.  ::)

As a matter of interest, there used to be a signal box there, many years ago: in my sixth form, a group of us visited it as part of our 'industrial archaeology' course, and were allowed to pull a few levers (under instruction, obviously!)  ;D

Gosh... that must have been back in the old broad gauge/atmospheric railway days .... :o

This certainly seems to be the case at Thatcham.

I believe linespeed through the Station is 100mph. If the barriers go down and an HST running at linespeed is coming, it's normally through in a couple of minutes. Trains stopping at the Station take a bit longer. The worst of all are the freights (lots of aggregate trains on the B&H, as we know), which can take up to 5 minutes to appear.

I was taking the pooch for a walk earlier when I was extremely surprised to be caught by the level crossing barriers at Pinhoe station being lowered at 15:25 (all timings and other rail related information courtesy of the CIS on Pinhoe station), knowing that the next scheduled service was the 15:38 to Gillingham (Dorset).

Nothing happened until the above service pulled into the station at 15:32 - so the barriers had been down for 7 minutes by that stage. The train departed 2 minutes early at 15:36 (subsequently confirmed by RTT); so the barriers were down for a total of 11 minutes!

I really felt for a young couple who arrived in a taxi from the south side of the station just as the barriers lowered. They and their luggage decamped from the taxi, but they had no chance of getting to the platform for their train because of the barriers. Under normal circumstances, I would have no sympathy for anybody arriving at the station at the last minute being caught by the barriers, but in this case, they arrived a good 13 minutes before the scheduled departure. To say they were annoyed is an understatement. I made the suggestion that they put in a strong letter of complaint, but I guess SWT will blame the signalling centre (Exmouth Junction???)

I thought NR were looking into installing predictors to overcome this problem.

Predictors allow for different speeds of approaching trains to give a consistent barrier down time before the trains arrival.

The Wayguard WESTex GCP3000 ^ level crossing predictor is such a system and there are many others in use around the world.

I thought NR had installed some but cannot remember where.

Cheeky so-and-so!  :o ::) :D