And there is this in the covering letter - apparently put there specifically so we can read too much into it:

Berkeley and their copywriting weasels have taken care to not say that - not quite:

I find their weasels' prose rather funny - I mean, what style to you associate with Uber? Would you like to live in (rather than just near) a "vibrant destination"? Some of the internal descriptions are even better ... I guess it is just possible I'm not in their target demographic.

The only access will be via the interchange, and there will be no direct access to the Up platform apart from over the footbridge - not even for properly authorised newts. I presume the present works access in from Kirtons Farm Road will be reopened as part of Cycle Route 23 (currently diverted down Longwater Road), for pedestrians and bikes but not cars.

Here's something that explains how the magic is done - from electrive.com:

So this may - perhaps - be the near future of 4 km crossings, but longer may take a bit longer.

Thanks for the information, bradbrka - and welcome to the forum as contributor.


There are two things that might be called an "access road". The road layout for the interchange, to the east of the railway, is the one thing that could start right after the planners' "bang". It's an extension of the housing site, and parts of it have been used as construction compound and parking. The other is the "haul road" in from the west (Cottage Lane). That has to be built before anything much else on the Up side stationwise.

There are also a few underground preliminaries that may not show a lot - slightly shifting a 33kV cable to the east of the line and an S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph) route to the west. The big overhead cables (132kV) are staying, as are the buried 33kV ones and watercourses just outside the northern end of the station site - they are the reason it was extended to the south and so invaded Wokingham.

edit: recount volts

Thanks FenMan - that's rather what I expected. But for BAW-BSK^▸ (Brake Standard Corridor (carriage)) the Routeing Guide doesn't come into it, as there are two fares for Via Reading and Via Farnborough North. From further up or down the line the fare difference disappears and it becomes an Any Permitted (I think either via Reading or via Woking), and walking is an optional alternative.

What triggered my puzzlement about this was wanting to go from Wokingham to Brookwood. That's short but topologically challenged - a bit like trying to cross a complicated road junction on foot, and seeing the other side but being unable to see any route there. The only journeys I was offered by the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) OJP^▸ (Online Journey Planner) involved walking, unless I looked early or late in the day. So, if someone was not inclined to walk (not unlikely if you are visiting a cemetery!), what are the permitted alternatives? The routeing guide is not a sensible answer to the question, but does as a formality tell you.

The NRG gives: via Ascot and Ash Vale (including doubling back at Woking*), via Virginia Water and Weybridge, and via Reading and Baskingstoke(!). The OJP too gives via Ascot and via Virginia Water at odd times, but also via Guildford and Woking which costs extra - apart from that it's all walkies. I didn't see via Basingstoke offered, except overnight and followed by an error message, but when forced to it's quite happy with it (at the same £12.20/£12.10 day return fare, but more if doubling back at Woking). 

So to my mind there is still an academic question as to where in the Routeing Guide it says you can break your journey on one line and join it on another - or come to that what are we meant to do with an "Interchange" (one of those orange blobs on the maps).

*I think this is a pointless relic of a time when some trains stopped at Ash Vale but not Brookwood.

If you read those letters, it's hard to understand the argument - they don't seem to be talking about the same ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender). But I think it's something like this:

• TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) have always had to bear their share of any extra funding of their bit of the rail pension scheme (RPS), when a deficit needed repair.
• The RPS is an unusual scheme, in that all funding - including deficit repair - and any excess to be repaid is split 60/40 with the employees (via their unions). In most sponsored schemes the company bears the whole liability for adequate funding, which is why the pension deficit/surplus appears in their balance sheet.
• In a "normal" scheme, the deficit repair payments can be much larger than the contributions based on salaries paid. There isn't any way for such one-off payments to happen in the RPS. I imagine that the employees' side could never come up with a large "bung" to the RPS, and TOCs have come to rely on their maximum contribution being effectively capped by that.
• What's changed is that the pensions regulator (TPR^▸ (The Pensions Regulator)) is now telling schemes and sponsors to repair deficits faster - in the past this was often done one a 20-year or longer timescale. They want this done to the RPS too, though note that the size of its deficit is not public information.
• There are discussions still going on involving TPR, RPS trustees, unions, TOCs (via RDG^‡(resolve)), and maybe DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), about faster deficit repair than the current rules of RPS allow for. That might imply new rules (though that's a separate argument).
• So I can only infer that TOCs are being asked to commit to paying whatever comes out of this negotiation, which is (as Stagecoach are saying) not within their control. It wouldn't be a real negotiation if it was, would it? (Though sponsoring companies do, in the end, generally get their way whatever a scheme's trustees say.)

The relevant bit of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s "Planned engineering" page says this:

So on that basis you could perhaps travel via Westbury - though the wait for a replacement bus there is rather long, so it's not a lot quicker (2h 28m).

You're right of course - it is a tiny detail. But, being French, it ought to be milliards.

Some this may be familiar ...

I still see comments about Crossrail being the biggest infrastructure project in Europe, but it lost that crown years ago to Le Grand Paris Express (to talk only about the railway element). This is meant to bring more city-centre transport to the banlieu (i.e. outside the périphérique), not just as a metro but an express one to cope with the greater distances. The lines are more tangential than radial -  the only extra link to the centre extends metro line 14 - so it will rely on the RER for that (which looks odd).

It really is big. 200 km of new lines, mostly tunneled, and 68 stations - all architect-designed! - and two big viaducts. And some parts have a deadline of 2024 for the Olympics, though fewer than at the start due to slippage. Given that work started in 2016, and tunneling only in 2018, getting any of it open by 2024, and the rest (bar one line not yet finalised) by 2030, is "challenging" (as they say).

The déjà vu is in the official reports that the cost (rising) was pushed up by that scary deadline. No doubt there will be more such reports later - unless the French way of managing grands projets really is much better than ours. And the cost? €19Md in 2008 prices at the start, but by 2017 it was €35Md (2012 prices) ... if it keeps rising like that then frogs may start jumping ship!  Now, what else could go wrong ... how about Siemens CBTC^▸ (Communications-based train control) on Alstom trains supporting headways of 85s?

The official Grand Paris Express site has a map plus some English words (don't try to understand the line numbering!), and Metro Report International has the news.

From the NRG instructions:

So this does appear to be a direct train that is on a permitted route but only with a ticket that is not available to buy. I don't recall seeing that dealt with in the NRG...

Go on, be bold. We've got loads of boat lifts on canals; so why not a train lift?

From the Marine Operations Procedures of BPC:

The maximum dimensions of any vessel transiting the river Avon are as follows:-

• Max Length 70 m
  
• Max Draught 4.5 m
• Beam 14 m
• Or any other vessels as may be determined by the SHA.

The M5 Bridge height is charted (Admiralty Chart 1859) as 29m at HAT
Notes:
SHA should I think be CHA, the Competent Harbour Authority (BPC).
HAT is Highest Astronomical Tide.

I was wondering if there is any way to "spoil" the appearance of a locomotive while running - metaphorically putting a bag over her head. It would need to be quick to apply and remove at stopping and other approved viewing places, but aerodynamically viable and structurally sound for safety reasons. One approach would be a bit like the infra-red jammers used on aircraft against missiles - not just a light show but designed to upset cameras. I'm sure there are other possibilities as well.

Of course it wouldn't work if it became a sight worth (for some people) going to photograph in itself.

The Avon is part of the Port of Bristol, and large ships have a right of navigation as far as the harbour entrance. The current "air draught" under Avonmouth bridge is about 30 m at high tide, so any new bridge would need to be as high, movable, or its lower height agreed by the port company.