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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: HS2 - Government proposals, alternative routes and general discussion
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on: February 27, 2024, 18:02:21
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If that was the plan, no-one told Florence. Seen in a drone video having emerged by yesterday, minister or no minister. have now said Florence will break through today (heard on BBC» South Today at lunchtime). If you look on the video, the cutterhead is just short of actually emerging from the face of the retaining wall. So I guess the wall broke up prematurely, perhaps because Florence braked too late. So how do they get a video of the breakthrough event? Build a new wall quickly? Fake it using footage from their previous videos (they have lots)? From HS2's video of the event, it is clear that the blue TBM face you can see is not Florence (her face paint was scratched off long ago) but Muriel. The 'gap' ring around that where the cutters show through does, however, seem to have been there beforehand. But this whole breakthrough thing is very stage managed, and appears to have been entirely minister-free. |
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48
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: £140 million plan to address Paddington - Reading shambles
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on: February 27, 2024, 13:03:59
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One thing that the Standard report doesn't include maybe because it is a bit longer term is the replacement of the old overhead wiring into Paddington that was done on the cheap 30 years ago for the Heathrow Express. Paul Clifton's BBC» piece does mention that - maybe.: Network Rail has announced a recovery plan for the Reading-London Paddington route after months of poor performance.
It made national headlines when broken wires left 4,000 passengers stranded on trains for four hours at night, near Ladbroke Grove, on 7 December.
Most passengers had to walk along the tracks to reach safety. There have also been a spate of failures, including broken rails and signalling faults.
The route is now set to be overhauled in three phases over 18 months.
"Our performance hasn't been good enough," admitted Network Rail's new route director Marcus Jones.
"We have been consistently letting down customers. They cannot guarantee a service every day."
Steve Smith, of the Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group, described it was "absolutely appalling".
"Only one in three of our Paddington trains is on time," he continued.
"We have infrastructure failures, train failures, lack of trains and bad weather, causing flooding. Ultimately this is about lack of investment."
For the next four weeks, there will be fewer trains late at night, while engineers carry out remedial work to the tracks, signalling and overhead wires.
For the last couple of hours each evening, only two of the four tracks will be open.
A six month period of work to stabilise performance, will follow, then a year-long programme to put long-term solutions in place.
Beyond that, the overhead wires will be replaced in west London. They are 30 years old and were installed when the Heathrow Express began.
Services on the Great Western Main Line became so bad that in November the Rail Regulator launched an investigation into whether Network Rail was manging its assets appropriately.
Network Rail's regional managing director, Michelle Handforth, resigned in December. A new team is now in place.
Since Elizabeth Line services started running from Reading, track use has increased by 17%.
The total weight of trains on the route has increased by 38%. The infrastructure has not coped well - there is a fault very nearly every day.
Plus the tracks are now so busy that when things go wrong, delays build up more quickly.
'Pre-empting failures'
"The picture includes Covid and industrial action during which we lost work time," Mr Jones said.
"We are bringing forward planned track work. We are fitting monitoring equipment to pre-empt future failures."
Mr Jones said the Elizabeth Line trains were not to blame.
"The trains are longer and heavier," he said.
"But the evidence we have is that it is not the train causing the failures but the phenomenal growth in services,"
Extensive work to build Old Oak Common station in west London for the interchange with HS2▸ is planned, with about 70 days of closures over five years.
Network Rail aims to dovetail its Great Western work with the closures already booked, in a bid to minimise the impact on passengers.
Funding will come from within the existing route budget.
"People are not getting a consistent service," said Mr Jones. "We are determined to put that right." That might just mean replacing the contact wires, of course, though I don't think those can have lasted 30 years unchanged. |
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49
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Network Rail plan to close Tan Hill crossing and replace it with a footbridge
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on: February 27, 2024, 00:46:43
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And then, finally, the main event: the lift. The highest obstruction was the Vodafone mast by the station wall, so when lifted the span went round away from that, also avoiding the public footbridge (by then closed). It was lowered beside the signal box, onto the train of engineers' trailers (p1). For the second lift, onto the piers, two rail cranes operated in tandem (p2). One was on the tongue of land the centre span of the bridge crosses, the other on the track.
For the second span that crane moved to the other end, perhaps in the siding (I missed that - dinner time!). Obviously attaching the second span was much quicker, and in any case overlapped the work at the bridge site. This time the train of trailers didn't move into place until the span was in place (p3).
And by Sunday Morning, there is a new view up the line from the footbridge by the level crossing (p4).
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50
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Network Rail plan to close Tan Hill crossing and replace it with a footbridge
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on: February 27, 2024, 00:42:47
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Act two was assembling the sling. In this case it has a massive beam to spread the strops in length, and two smaller ones to spread again in width. The big one was bolted together in the road (p1), I guess because that is flatter and stronger than the crossing. (p2)
Act three was attaching the sling to a bridge span. This took ages, as the plan was changed for some reason. The steel I-beams fixed under each end crosswise had had small extensions bolted to them on arrival, and the strops attached to the ends. This was tried (p3), but in the end the strops ran round the main tube at each side of the deck instead. This involved a rigger splitting the strop at the top so it could be fed along its new path.
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51
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Network Rail plan to close Tan Hill crossing and replace it with a footbridge
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on: February 27, 2024, 00:40:27
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Act one was setting up the crane for the lift (also in the first video above). This involves building pads for the outriggers, out of a combination of sandbags, planks, expanded polystyrene sheets, and a steel plate on top (better seen in the video at 8:40). This stuff comes on three artics (plus a trailer), together with the sections of the counterweight and the big spreader beam (p1).
This crane stacks its own ballast weights on a fixed platform in the middle of the vehicle body (p2). Two big lumps are slotted onto each side of this - 10t each bit. It picks up this stack, 96t of steel, with jacks on the back of the crane cab that lock into the ballast baseplate (p3). Only then can it fully extend the jib.
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52
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Network Rail plan to close Tan Hill crossing and replace it with a footbridge
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on: February 27, 2024, 00:35:11
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Saturday was quite a spectacle, in the sense that it's not every decade you get a socking great mobile crane working at the corner of the street. It was also frustrating, with long waits with nothing happening except huddles of orange rainsuits debating (presumably) how to proceed. Then with no warning, something happens - often quickly. And as it was by then after dusk it was hard to see upwards, into a barrage of bright lights, or at the installation site, under limited site lighting, from the car park.
But I have a backlog of pictures. I'll start with the dramatis machinae:
A bridge of two halves
A toy train to take it down to where you can see one of the piers by the line
A Big Crane (Liebherr LTM1300 6.2)
... and a couple of these things (AC-55, I think). This one is going on-track, which makes a loud clunk noise.
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57
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Network Rail plan to close Tan Hill crossing and replace it with a footbridge
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on: February 24, 2024, 17:43:59
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Do you know if they're doing the entire length of the bridge span this weekend? I’m assuming from Google satellite view it is far too long overall to be delivered down one track in a pre-assembled length, ie there’ll presumably be two half bridges that will take the two separate routes at the junction? IYSWIM.  Paul It came in two halves, still sitting waiting for the crane crew to sort themselves out. They are not that heavy, at 20t each, but still need a 300t crane because of the reach. Currently the crew are finishing assembling the sling, in the road just by my house! |
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58
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Network Rail plan to close Tan Hill crossing and replace it with a footbridge
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on: February 24, 2024, 14:54:39
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Then yesterday (Thursday) NR» gave me (this time hand delivered) another contribution to my ever-growing collection of "dear neighbour" letters. This says that they are closing the level crossing and the roads up to it again all this weekend, to bring in the bridge span. It will come through the town centre at about midnight Saturday, but when and how it will get to its final position is not clear. Would it need to go that last short move along the railway? We'll see - or maybe not, if it happens in the middle of the night, as usual. That was not 100% true. According to a man who knows (labelled Network rail, and he said "this is my bridge to deliver"), arrival in Wokingham was scheduled for Saturday night, but brought forward two weeks ago, when the possession was retimed, to Friday night. So that letter was partly out of date. But I looked out of the window before midday, towards the crossing, and saw a bridge trundling past (it had been lurking along the road). Since then it's been all go, with a BIG crane's minders setting out the load spreading under its stabilisers. That's just for a lift off the lorries and onto a little train; there are two more cranes hanging about for the lifts onto the piers. |
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59
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Network Rail plan to close Tan Hill crossing and replace it with a footbridge
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on: February 24, 2024, 00:25:00
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NR» did put that fence up early the next morning, with a bit more bracing in the layout. I have not been to see it much since, as you can see very little from there. In fact the best view is from the town car park, but there was not a lot to see from there - by last weekend the foundations had just about been been done.
Then yesterday (Thursday) NR gave me (this time hand delivered) another contribution to my ever-growing collection of "dear neighbour" letters. This says that they are closing the level crossing and the roads up to it again all this weekend, to bring in the bridge span. It will come through the town centre at about midnight Saturday, but when and how it will get to its final position is not clear. Would it need to go that last short move along the railway? We'll see - or maybe not, if it happens in the middle of the night, as usual.
Anyway, the piers - if that's the word for these ones - are all lined up ready. And today temporary traffic lights turned up, from a different supplier from last time. Which is odd, as the full closure NR have announced does not need them. So I guess traffic will be allowed past, though not over, the crossing most of the time. And now, after midnight, work is starting and stuff is arriving on lorries.
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60
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Journey by Journey / South Western services / Re: Wokingham resignalling
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on: February 21, 2024, 20:33:16
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SWR» were showing the delay as at "a level crossing near Wokingham", and there are only two, both rebuilt last week. There were several orange minders at the station one when I was going for a train to Reading at 1 pm, so it was probably that one. Fortunately by that time trains had just started coming through again, in a bunch of those that had been waiting. I got one not visible on the CIS▸ , since it had been told to run non-stop to Reading, though it did call.
And it had all been going so well .... for two days, anyway.
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