Great Western Coffee Shop

From the Network Rail press office - https://www.networkrail.co.uk/how-fast-can-we-build-a-railway-station/

It would have been better news to hear that stations could be built quicker by shortening/simplifying the red tape in this glacial process rather than essentially making an appeal for others to contribute funds.  Still, if it gets some stations built earlier, it has to be welcomed.

Maghull North is very much an exception to the rule.  Most station reopenings have cost more and taken longer to build than originally anticipated.  Though that’s often countered by them becoming an important part of the community they serve, often easily exceeding expected usage.

" Construction of Penda's Way station began at 10 am on Saturday 3rd June and was completed by 6 pm on Sunday. The station opened to traffic on Monday 5th June 1939 and was served by 12 trains per weekday in each direction and 13 trains on Saturdays. There was no Sunday service."

http://www.barwickinelmethistoricalsociety.com/11312.html

(They used prefabrication and site preparation first, no doubt.)

As Mr Punch would say, "That's the way to do it!"

OTC

From (several different pages) on Wikipedia, concerning Workington North


12 days from the events happening which required the station until it opened.

Have just finished reading "Eleven Minutes Late" by Matthew Engel; there is a lovely story therein about the problems of this sort in the UK, told by Sir Malcolm Rifkind. A British Minister was complaining to his French counterpart about the never ending delays to any engineering project in the UK. The Frenchman replied "In France, when we want to drain the swamp, we don't ask the frogs". His grasp of colloquial English may not have been perfect - but perhaps he had the right idea !

They will have to get their skates on to complete Reading Green Park by May, which was the last date I heard.

I don't have too much of a problem with the ecological considerations of any modern development, far from it but the GRIP process (for example) seems to stifle rail progress. You could almost be forgiven for thinking it was penned by the road transport interest lobbies!

My suggestion is that, rather than asking for funding from other sources to build more stations, why not just make the cost of opening new stations less by reviewing the merits of some of the expensive and maybe unneccessary red tape required.

After all, there is an economic, environmental and social cost of inaction when worthy rail projects are made too expensive and slow to implement for not neccessarily valid reasons.

I don't follow. GRIP is pretty much a standard project management process:

You might complain that the work undertaken in some of the steps is excessive, but that's just saying construction projects cost too much. I would ask why the attempt to "minimise and mitigate the risks" is so often a failure.

But if the complaint is that funding is withheld, does that really have anything to do with the internal project management methodology?

Would you interpret the swamp and frogs as referring to ecological considerations? To me it implies that if the project is justified, you take the decision yourself rather than asking those affected to object.

These ides we have about countries - call them stereotypes if you like - often relate to genuine cultural differences, but not always the ones we think. Hence processes and procedures do evolve, and I can't see a lot of difference between the current methodology for approving rail projects in France and the DCO process here. Well, on paper at least, as there are still different traditions that affect how these things happen in reality.

Coincidentally, a month-long public enquiry has just closed into a proposal to "rehumidify" a bit of land underneath a viaduct as compensation for habitat loss (sound familiar?). This is part of the Rhone-Rhine LGV project, planned to be an interregional link for France and also (if less so) for Germany and Switzerland. Only its central bit has been built, which just happens to be useful for TGVs from Paris to get to Mulhouse, Zurich, etc., by turning left at Dijon. The rest is held up awaiting money.

It's not for frogs, as far as I can see without wading through a swamp of enquiry documents (Enquête publique ... restauration de zones humides ... "Corne Jaquin" (https://www.enquetes-publiques.com/Enquetes_WEB/FR/DOSSIER-L.awp?P1=EP18538)). The main proposal is to cut down the trees so as to allow bats to hunt. Now, could you have made that up?

At the Railfuture Conference last year Tony Page said it would definitely be ready by the end of this year........ won't be holding my breath though

This seems like as good a thread as any to mention the Kron Prinz, which ran aground in the Avon sometime in the late 19th century. The shipwreck became a celebrity and the salvage operation was such a popular tourist attraction that a temporary station was built, somewhere between Sea Mills and the tunnel under the Downs, to act as a viewing platform (and sell more tickets!). The salvage operation took about six months so clearly the station was built in a couple of months at most.

Still not as impressive as the 2009 Workington North case though – especially considering that was possible less than ten years ago.

At the other end of the spectrum - does anyone know why it is taking so long to complete the extension of the platforms between Tilehurst and Cholsey to accommodate 8 coach trains? Nothing seems to have happened for ages, but most seem nearly finished.

Perhaps no-one has worked out how to switch off the announcements on Electrostars that only doors in coaches 1-7 will open at these stations?                                                         

Just wondering, because I'm never sure, how do you say this?

The "o" is long - like the "o" in "old"

Thanks! I was wrong about that and it wasn't even the bit I was wondering about. Is the Ch soft like church or hard like chemistry?

..soft like "church"!

But named after an island (ey, eye, eyot, øy, å) belonging to Old King Cole (Ceol), who was - as we all know - a merry old soul ...

... but not, I think, a Greek one (soul or island).

Are there any names, or words, of English origin that have a hard ch? Apart from a few from other languages, pronounced as found on arrival, they do all seem to be from Greek. Even chemistry, which arrived from Arabic, was Greek before it had "al-" agglutinated to it.

Thank you, that's very interesting.

And the non-Greek hard ch is worth a think too.

A couple of my friends have been caught out by doors on coach 8 not opening. One had her earphones on and didn't hear the announcements but managed to scoot up into Coach 7 and get off. Another failed to emerge from the train and when I phoned her I got a certain amount of invective: there were no warnings she claimed (which I doubt), "no one on the train" to ask, and she didn't know where it was going. For once in my life I was masterful: "Don't worry, dear. In two minutes' time the train will stop at Pangbourne and there'll be one back to Tilehurst in 20 minutes. Or I'll even come and collect you from Pangbourne" - which I did.

The platform extensions remain unfinished.

Marlburian