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bobm
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« on: August 21, 2013, 10:59:03 » |
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Just discovered this website http://www.swindonpanel.org.uk/index.phpLooks like an exciting project to preserve Swindon panel after it is taken out of service next year and I will be following it with interest. They have a meeting at 11am on Saturday 14th September followed by a visit to Swindon panel. I think it is great that some of the more modern infrastructure is being preserved and the plan to make it "work" with a computer simulator running behind it is something I'd love to see happen. |
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bobm
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« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2013, 19:23:06 » |
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The group held a meeting today to outline their plans and allow people a chance to see the panel in action. The group have "bought" the panel from Network Rail for a nominal ^1 and will take possession as soon as it is taken out of use (expected to be during 2014). Negotiations with an unnamed heritage site to install and run the panel are at an advanced stage. It was a fascinating three hours both hearing their plans and seeing the work of the signallers. Two men controlling all movements between Uffington and Thingley Junction, Kemble and Hullavington assisted by a clerk. No doubt more pictures will be appearing on the preservation group's website. However here are a handful of ones I took.  Looking along the length of the panel - Chippenham in the foreground looking towards the London end Swindon Station area Just for grahame, a diverted West of England service (top) coming off the Melksham line at Thingley, just after a Bristol bound train has passed on the main line A view of the relay room which makes it all work!Even though it was lunchtime on a Saturday it was pretty busy with freight trains and engineers' trains on the move and technicians working on the line at Hullavington needing to contact the panel to carry out routine work. However all dealt with calmly and without fuss. |
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Trowres
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« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2013, 19:11:23 » |
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Glad to see you left me out of the photographs, Bobm. I must have been standing behind you at the Melksham end of the panel!  |
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bobm
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« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2013, 20:15:11 » |
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I probably have you in "unpublished" photos then. I tried, where possible, to keep faces out of it!
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Chris from Nailsea
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« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2013, 21:32:48 » |
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Hmm.  Having met both of you, I can only comment that if you were standing behind bobm, Trowres, you probably wouldn't have been able to see much of the panel.   |
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William Huskisson MP▸ was the first person to be killed by a train while crossing the tracks, in 1830. Many more have died in the same way since then. Don't take a chance: stop, look, listen.
"Level crossings are safe, unless they are used in an unsafe manner." Discuss.
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bobm
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« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2013, 21:41:41 » |
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You cheeky so and so. |
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Phil
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« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2013, 13:06:43 » |
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No personal attacks, please gentlemen.
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bobm
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« Reply #8 on: May 24, 2014, 07:08:42 » |
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Network Rail has announced a delay in the closure of Swindon Panel and the transfer of control to Didcot. It was originally going to be the August Bank Holiday weekend but will now be Christmas this year or Easter 2015.
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Chris from Nailsea
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« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2014, 18:19:03 » |
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Blimey! That's a fair bit of slippage in the dates - four months, or possibly eight months? |
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William Huskisson MP▸ was the first person to be killed by a train while crossing the tracks, in 1830. Many more have died in the same way since then. Don't take a chance: stop, look, listen.
"Level crossings are safe, unless they are used in an unsafe manner." Discuss.
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bobm
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« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2014, 20:04:07 » |
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At face value it does seem a long delay but I guess you need more than an ordinary weekend to do it and after August the next bank holidays are not until Christmas or Easter.
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Railfriend
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« Reply #11 on: May 25, 2014, 15:34:41 » |
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bobm, where did you read about the delay in closing Swindon Panel? I can't find any references to it on Network Rail sites. Was it something that someone at NR» mentioned to you and isn't yet announced?
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bobm
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« Reply #12 on: May 25, 2014, 21:05:06 » |
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It was an announcement given to members of the Swindon Panel Preservation Society last week.
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ellendune
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« Reply #13 on: May 26, 2014, 16:25:13 » |
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Swindon Advertiser now has the story:August closure of signal system is derailed
NETWORK Rail announced this week that the closure date for the Swindon Panel, the outgoing signalling system at Swindon train station, has been postponed.
It was originally due to be removed during the August bank holiday but has been postponed for either three months to Christmas 2014 or seven months to Easter 2015.
The panel was due to go on display in Didcot after the signalling system for the South West is centralised later this year, but that time-frame has now been extended.
Danny Scraggins, of the Swindon Panel Society, said: ^While it is disappointing that we won^t gain possession of our panel asset as soon as we would have liked, this does actually work fairly favourably for the Society.
^The building at Didcot will be a lot further progressed, if not completed, by the time the panel closes. The extra time allows us further breathing space in fundraising for the move.
^It^s possible that it could even give us the time to raise enough to secure the ^whole lift^ option, which would bring great benefit to the speed and ease of the move and the reinstatement.
^It would almost certainly be true to say that securing a ^whole lift^ operation in December 2014 or Easter 2015 will see the panel working at Didcot earlier than if it was a ^dismantle^ job in August 2014.^
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