I stand corrected should have checked my Cobb. Didn't realise Manchester Central closed as early as 1969.

Forgot it was probably around 64 when I last used it, there was an overnight train from Manchester Central to Marylebone via Fallowfield and the GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line). Not sue if it went via the joint or Ayesbury as I was usually asleep.

It took a long time for BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) get round to putting the chord in after clsoing . Now of course the Hope valley route is heavily used and overcrowded at peak times. Bring back Woodhead. Now if BR had built an East to South chord in Sheffield to allow Woodhead trains to serve Midland station you would probaly have 30 minute electric expresses between Manchester and Sheffield.

It's also probably one of the most boring rail drives in the world straight across the desert.Get the train up to speed. The only thing you have to do is make sure you stop at the end of the line and presumably keep pressing the vigilance device to make sure you stay awake.

The  reason I was given by Crossrail for it currently terminating at Maidenhead is that's where the money ran out for the overhead (i.e. we can plan to spend X where do the wires run out?) because as wiilc says going to Reading would have made X too large.  

Unfortunately this stupid decision has now become an obstacle to the main argument that what's needed is the complete electrification of GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) to at least Plymouth (all routes including Melksahm) Swansea (Tunnel and Gloucester) and Birmingham (via Worcester and Banbury) then Crossrail can terminate anywhere. Basingstoke Reading also has to be electrified to go with the Banbury route. 11 coach Pendolinos on Cross Country?

Fortunately many people in the rail industry now support wholesale electrification and are pressing DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) for a plan. The danger is that is that in asking  for  Crossrail to be extended to Reading it gives the DfT an easy way of saying "look we're not against electrifcation" and give the go ahead then forget about electrifying the rest of the line.

We mustn't let extending Crossrail to Reading become a distraction from the major push for wholesale electrification of much of Britain's Railways. Remember Crossrail is really only the tunnel from Paddington to Whitchapel. Where it terminates either side only depends on where the wires go so in teh East it could just as easily terminate in Norwich, Harwich, or Kings Lynn. The problem  at Paddington is that are only wires as far as Hayes.

So what we ought to be pleased about in the Reading plan is that provision is being made for the maintenace of suburban EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) as replacements for the Turbos, for use on Thames Valley local services. This makes sense.

Looking at the web site the criteria for station relocation ones are copied below:

a) The facilities at the new station are of a modern-day equivalent to, or higher specification   than those of the old station, including accessibility measures;
b) There will be an improved quantum of services from the new location;

The distance to travel to gain access to the new station for pedestrians is not significantly increased for the majority of people living within a radius of 800 metres of the old station;
The distance to travel to gain access to the new station for road users is not significantly increased for the majority of people living within a radius of 2 kilometres from the old station.
The old station will not be closed before the new station is ready to come into operational use.  For the avoidance of doubt, it would be acceptable that an overnight changeover between locations occurs.
The new station serves an area where housing has developed and would better serve that community without disbenefit to the community that the old station initially served.

These seem reasonable in general terms. However the first  provision that the facilites at the new staion are  "modern-day equivalent to, or higher specification   than those of the old station, including accessibility measures;" "Modern day equivalent to" could be a cop out for just a ticket machine and bus shelter.

The accessability criteria seem OK in principle but would depend on the individual geography of each site.

I think the idea to make the reduction of track through a station " a minor change" should be resisted in total whatever the criteria. Many of the current problems raised on this board concern places and lines where track has been removed thus reducing the capacity of the line. As the current trend seems to be to increase capacity then any provision which would make it easier to reduce capacity should be resisted.

An interesting point re station relocation concerns Chilterns proposed new station for Bicester shopping village on the Oxford Cambridge line for their proposed Oxford Marylebone service. It will be within 200 hundred yards of Bicester Townso they have three options build a new staion and keep both open so the train stops twice in 200 yards, build the new staion and close Bicester Town or build a new staion linked to Bicester Town so that the train stops once.

An excellent answer, so just a little extra to add.

A chord is usually of later construction than the lines it links. Thus the loop through Weston could be considered a chord as it was built after the B&E^‡(resolve) mainline and replaced the original terminal branch from the mainline.

There are a several classic wartime ones in your area Grahame, Tingley West curve and Westbury East chord plus Yeovil Pen Mill - Yeovil Jn all put in during the war. Reading New junction was also a wartime addition.

A classic GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), in 1933, was at Little Somerford on the Badminton line where a link to the Malmesbury branch was put in and the part of the line from Dautsey on the Bristol ML  closed. You can still see the earth works if you are quick enough. Thus to travel from Calne to Malmesbury by train involved changes at Chippenham, Swindon and possibly Little Somerford. Legend has it that the connections weren't good so it could take several hours for a relatively short journey by road so the buses won.
 
BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) did build several including the Avonmouth to Severn tunnel link at Filton in 1979. Thus making a cross with all four arms linked, I think it's unique in UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

Other BR notables are the Hazel Grove chord facilitating the shutting of Manchester Central by allowing Hope Valley trains to use Picadilly and the Salford Crescent link to enable trains from Manchester Picadilly to join the L&Y to Wigan and Bolton. The Sussex Scot used to use the Salford chord. Thus it was 47 hauled from Brighton to  Preston before the electric came on.

One of my bigesst critisims of Beeching was that he didn't really investigate where new chords could be built to enable a train service to be run between towns but allowing the closure of duplicate parts of the network.

Will check with my source and let you know.

Apparently there are going to be trains run by two TOCS.

They are on the old Thameslink they will start South of the river as Southeastern and then become FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect) North of Blackfriars.

This poses an interesting conumdrum as FCC have evening peak restrictions on off peak tickets going North, Southeastern don't. So will you be able to travel from say London Bridge to North of zone 6 in teh peak on a Southeastern off peak ticket?

I was going to put this in the Lighter Side but then thought Smoke and Mirrors seemed more appropriate.

It is not really surprisng Australian railways are experiencing a boom particualrly in freight.

With Standard Gauge now running to all the principle cities and the opening of the Ghan from Darwin to South Australia, Perth and Darwin have witnesssed an explosion in ship bourne containers being off loaded in their ports. These are taken by rail, often  double stacked on the wagons on very long trains with several diesel locos in mnultiple, to the major cities in the South East.

It saves days (money) with the ships not having to travel all round the coast to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. I read somewhere the dockers in Adelaide and Melbourne are very upset at the drop of in trade since the Ghan opened.

Still you probaly need to pay ^52K to drive 300 plus miles dead straight across a treeless desert.

Passenger traffic is largely confined to suburban services round the major cities. Chritian Wolmar in one of his columns didn't rate the Sydney suburban service very highly.

Just showing off the first computer I programmed was an English Electric LEO 326.

paper tape input and mag tape (reels) storage.

It was the last machine for which one person could understand the operating system. Hence it was very rare for there to be a software systems error.

It also had incredible hardware self checking facilities on processor and data transfers and writing to tape.

It was an incredibly easy machine  to programme and more importantly debug.

A wonderful machine.



 

Have obtained some more info on this from a reliable source.

Oxford Risborough via Thame Chiltern has looked at this but it would be too expensive even with their 20 year franchise. Just one of the stupidities of the way the railways were privatised but that's another issue.

However, Chiltern has to put positive proposals to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) for investment.

Hence Oxford to link at Bicester.

The whole package is too large to explain here but it starts with a desire to get London Birmingham (with stops) down to 90 mins. Involves re-engining whole fleet, increased line speeds, and several bi-directional fast lines to allow fasts to overtake stoppers between London and Banbury.

Oxford Bicester requires a link down from the mainline (land available) to the Oxford Cambridge line just East of Bicestrer Town. Most  of the route will be double track with 100 mph running with new stations at Bicester Village (apparently one of the most popular tourist destinations outside London).

A parkway station by existing North Oxford Park and Ride. With a 58 minute running time to Marylebone with it's good road connections this station is expected to attract a large number of users from a wide area of North Oxfordshire.

A totally new line parallel with Mainline from Oxford North Junction, to the old parcel docks on NE side Oxford station so no interferance with other services. Existing junction to Bicester line to allow through workings South of Oxford to remain. Also only gives one interface with Oxford panel.

Other points are:

Could be quite quick to implement 2 years?.
Would releive Reading rebuild.
Could serve new eco town proposed in the area the line is on Southern boundary, a possible station has been identified.
Designed to be compatible with East - West route proposal. In fact it would save them money having a virtually new line  with new staions between Bicester and Oxford.
Allegedly only 3 miles longer  to Marylebone than  Padd - Oxford
About 10th price of doing Oxford Thame and probably quicker running time. Oxford Bicester is virtually straight and level.

It seems a really well thought out scheme, so very likely DfT will reject it.








 

Roger Ford in his excellent analysis of the 1300 new coaches promised by the DfT in Septembers Modern Railways, confirms the cascade of 17 3 car 323 or 51 vehilces, from Northern to London Midland for Birmingham area.

However, his analysis of "new"  stock for suggests Northern is down for 25 * 3 car brand new Seimens units making 75 vehicles in all. They are also down for "new" DMUS amounting to 158 vehicles. Although net Northern will get only 182 "new" vehicles, (75+158-51=182). Although apparently 182 will depend on the exact  150 cascade.


Some of the 158 extra DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) vehicles are suppose to be the first of a new generation DMUs, powered it is sugegsted by Captain Deltic "bionic duckweed", rather than 170 derivatives (172) curently on order
.
So as per the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) cascade to Bristol area of "new" stock comprising 52 150 vehicles (2 & 3 car units) from London Overground and London Midland, Northern won't be getting 182 "new" vehicles.

The whole article is well worth reading to see how DafT have got themselves in a complete muddle over the provision of new units and resulting cascades of still servicable units. Throughout Roger Ford refers to vehicles as being coaches rather than units.

Also as far as I can see there appears to be no sign of any replacements for the 14X units, as the cascades are counted as "new" vehicles for the receiving TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company).






 

Basically because FGW has missed the boat and all the decent loco hauled stock has been grabbed by other TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company). I'm not sure regular users would like some of the Mark1 charter stock which may be availble, even though there is table for every set of seats in standard. One problem is that it has door locking but not CDL^▸ (Central Door Locking), each door has a garden shed type bolt!

Very sad day should have been HS0 with Eurostars to the north. Watkin laid it out to be a high speed line to the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the North East.

It was killed due to rivalry between the Midland and GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) which spilled over into BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days, once the expresses were withdrawn in 1959 and the line was handed over to the LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) Region it was doomed. Also the drop off in domestic and industrial coal to London and South East. plus less iron ore trraffic from the East Midlands via  Woodford Halse and the SMJ to Stratford and the new racecourse curve to South Wales hastened the end.

Apparently  it was considered for a high speed diesel service (sort of pre blue Pullman) to Leicester, Nottingham. Sheffield and  Derby (via GN link at Bullwell). I once met someone who had worked on the project at BR HQ^▸ (Headquarters), but the LM closed it before it could be implemented . 

Thanks similar to Taplow, so probably not enough.

Thanks John R and Chris will feed back your comments. Do you know roughly how many passengers you get at Nailsea duirng that period?