Knaresborough?

I nominate Galashiels "Transport Interchange". Brand new, bus and railway stations combined, interesting architecture and nice facilities. Unfortunately you have to cross a road to get to the railway platform, but otherwise it's a model of how to do it, I'd say.

I notice that Topsham is listed as being a Penalty Fare station after 1 April.

This may cause a problem for southbound passengers unless a ticket machine is to be provided on the southbound platform. (There is indeed a ticket machine on the northbound platform, but when the level crossing barriers come down there is no way to cross the tracks. Thus, a southbound passenger coming to the station from Topsham town centre has to get to the southbound platform early enough not to get caught on the wrong side of the barriers, and has no reasonable opportunity to purchase a ticket before boarding.) Under current conditions it is unreasoable to treat Topsham (southbound) as a Penalty Fare station. I have argued this very point with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

More generally, I fear the mix of Penalty Fare / non-Penalty Fare stations on the Exmouth line will cause unnecessary problems for honest passengers who have been *unable* to purchase tickets. I am, of course, all in favour of penatlty fares for those who are *evading* fares.

Fascinating to see that Exeter Central has overtaken Exeter St David's for the first time (ever?)

2,607,502 versus 2,605,166

The new layout now appears on traksy:

https://traksy.uk/live/M+25+PATCHWY+11

9. Bodmin General

I've been thinking about this idea as I trundle past twice a day.....

I think the problem with having the turn-back / loop *between Digby & Sowton and Newcourt* is that it doesn't help to solve the capacity constraint on the single line between Topsham and Exmouth Junction. The problem with having the loop _at_ Digby is that there is no room - the platform takes up the space of the lifted 2nd track. The problem with having the loop _south_ of Digby is that it is too close to the existing loop at Topsham and so doesn't help with capacity.

The current service is 2 trains per hour (tph) in each direction on the single line. This makes full use of the exisiting capacity because it takes trains ~ 13 minutes to go from Topsham to Exmouth Junction (and it will take slightly longer if the proposed station at Monkerton between Digby and Polsloe Bridge gets built).

The only way to run more trains on this section is to have a loop, but to maintain regular services it must, by symmetry, be somewhere that is  ~7 minutes north of Topsham. so the new loop really has to be north of Digby, between Digby and the proposed station site at Monkerton. Of course it would be even better for timetable resilience to re-double all the way to Exmouth Junction, but this would cost more, not least because Polsloe Bridge and Monkerton would then need two platforms rather than one.

So perhaps a plan could be:

(1) Install a loop between Digby and the proposed station site at Monkerton, and upgrade the signalling so that the line in one of the platforms at Topsham is reversible. This allows a 4 tph service to Tophsam. Alternate southbound trains would continue to Exmouth as currently, while the others would turn-back at Topsham. Thus Digby could have 4tph to Exeter, 4tph to Topsham and 2tph to Exmouth. This requires upgraded signalling, some pointwork and a short section of new loop line.

(1a) (optional) beef up timetable resilience by re-doubling all the way from the new loop in (1) to Exmouth Junction. Amongst other things, this has the advantage of preventing southbound trains at Exmouth Junction from blocking the Up Waterloo line while they await access to the branch. It would, however, require station upgrades as well as new track and an upgrade of Exmouth Junction.

(2) (possibly later) Install a loop at Lympstone Village so that all 4 tph to Topsham from stage (1) can run to Exmouth.

3. Exeter Central?

Well I did say in a past life!  Can't remember now what the state of the bridges were at that time.  Possibly talking of at least 40 years ago
[/quote]

Ha ha - fair enough, S&TE! Interesting that increasing capacity for the Exmouth branch was on anyone's radar ~40 years ago. My memory (which goes back about that far) is of first generation DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) grinding up and down the branch much less full than today and little (or no?) Sunday service.

Until the 1960s (AIUI^▸ (as I understand it)) the branch was double from Exmouth Junction to Topsham and then single from Topsham to Exmouth (with a goods loop at Lympstone [Village]) although there was clearly enough land in railway ownership to double-track Topsham to Exmouth (never implemented) at the cost of widening some underbridges. Since then, Exmouth Junction to Topsham has been singled (with the new platforms at Digby and Newcourt taking up half of the old double track formation), and most of the line from Topsham to Exmouth now has the Exe Estuary trail alongside it on the previously "spare" land.

Consequently options for increasing trains-per-hour are limited, and would presumably need a passing loop at Lympstone Village and a passing loop (or even full redoubling) between Digby and Exmouth Junction. There is room for a second track on the viaduct at Lympstone Village station but squeezing in a second platform might be the (expensive) challenge.

That's how I see it, anyway. What do others think?

 

How interesting. Did it really work out cheaper? I appreciate that the current Exe Estuary trail is mostly built (I think) on what was railway land acquired for a possible second track, but I'm thinking of having to add another track over the River Clyst bridge between Topsham and Exton, as well as several underbridges where the railway crosses lanes and streams.

curses! beaten by fourteen seconds!    (during which I checked google street view - wondered why it showed as single track - and decided streetview must predate the redoubling....)

#2:    Collins Lane level crossing (Purton nr Swindon)?

No idea where number 6 is, I'm afraid, but I am fascinated that somebody went to all the effort of putting that footbridge there in _that_ orientation!

22. The Forth Bridge

I wonder if a key point here is the suggested use of a large 'battery bank' at each charging location, rather than charging the trains 'directly from the mains'? This would cut down on the need for an expensively beefy electrical supply to charging points.

(the idea of a 'battery bank' is mentioned towards the end of Geoff Marshall's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnNaMPR-e1I )

Presumably this means an array of [stationary] batteries at the charging locations which are "trickle" charged continuously (or perhaps charged at night when electricity is cheaper). The battery bank would then discharge (into the train batteries) at a much higher rate, during the relatively short periods when trains are stationary at the terminus and connected via 3rd rail / OHLE.

A domestic supply can (I think) provide around 25kW in total so accumulating 400kWhr in a battery bank over the course of a day would be quite feasible with just a standard domestic supply.

How quickly could the battery bank charge the train's batteries? I don't know if the limiting factor here is the batteries or the 3rd rail / OHLE, but given that power ratings for trains are in the several MW ball park, charging the train at up to 1 - 2 MW sounds reasonable (if the batteries can take it). This would suggest that a *full* recharge (of 400kWhr batteries at a rate of over 1MW) in under 15 minutes is not unreasonable.

The key ratio would be the fraction of each day in which the battery bank was discharging into a train - i.e. the proportion of the time that a train was present in the terminus. For 2tph with a 3 minute layover this would be 6 minutes per hour or 1/10. This would mean the battery bank could be recharged using 10% of the current at which it is discharged.

No idea if this argument is correct but it seems plausible to me!