In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 01:27:07 -0600,
wrote:

Not a promising scenario for Great Northern, something of a distant
cousin anyway, is it?

Well I rarely use TSGN services so am not directly affected. My sense
of things is that TSGN is simply too big to run well. The wider
question is Thameslink will mean a permanent tie in to South London's
services and what on earth would you do with the rump of GN services
if you were to restructure?

I share your sense of foreboding. the current staffing shambles could be an
early symptom.

I can see the residual inner suburban services going to TfL if Herts
were satisfied with their representation in terms of service levels
etc. However what do you do with the longer distance services? The
ECML already has a plethora of operators which brings its own issues.
Do you add another one alongside Thameslink, TfL, Virgin EC, Hull
Trains and whoever else gets long distance paths? It can't make
timetable planning and path allocation easy nor determining investment
needs. Remember the old idea of GN being lumped in wholly with the
East Coast inter city franchise? That didn't last long.

I don't think there are any easy answers as to what you do especially
after Thameslink services do reach the GN route in 2018.

As Roland says, the Cambridge and King's Lynn fast services will remain
separate from Thameslink of course.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 19:07:42
on Sat, 19 Dec 2015, remarked:
Will we all have to get two ITSO cards to allow for the different tickets to
London we can buy? Will Liverpool St only accept Abellio cards and King's
Cross only GTR's, even for "any permitted" tickets to London Terminals? I've
already got an ITSO card (my bus pass). Why on earth can't I use that
instead of having to get separate ones from each operator (including, if I
was still paying to use buses, a Stagecoach bus smartcard)?

It's worse than that - I bet there's still no interoperation between any
of the Stagecoach ITSO card and the two different ITSO cards for the SWT
and EMT franchises operated by Stagecoach.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 19:07:44
on Sat, 19 Dec 2015, remarked:

The GN being lumped in wholly with the East Coast inter city franchise idea
included 5-car IEPs to Lynn, IIRC. That idea lasted well.

IEPs was a bit of a silly idea, although given the combination of power
restrictions north of Cambridge and the wires coming down in the fens,
bi-modes might have just made sense.

As a branding exercise, and to concentrate passengers' minds, it was a
good idea to differentiate the Lynn trains from the outer suburbans. In
the next round of re-franchising we might well have trains branded
"Thameslink" which never get as far as the Thames.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 16:26:18
on Sat, 19 Dec 2015, remarked:
So it's like this:

Ely ------------------------------------ Peterborough
\
Ely ---------a-------------------------- Peterborough
\
*
\
b------c--------------- Kings Lynn
\ \
\ -------------- Kings Lynn
\
d------------------ Norwich
\
----------------- Norwich

As is fairly obvious, places like "*" are a monster bottleneck.

That looks a bit cheap and nasty, even to a non-trainspotter. Whose
clever idea was that design then?

British Rail (the nationalised outfit which people still insist
could have done no wrong) in the 70's/80's simplifying lots of
junctions to have fewer moving parts, on the grounds that rail
transport was in managed decline.

At the time there was probably only 1tph in either the Kings Lynn or
Norwich directions.

... but now there's routinely 2.5tph each way to Peterborough, 2tph
each way to Norwich, and 1tph to Kings Lynn proposed to increase to
2tph, plus freights, they can't get the necessary 11.5tph+freight
past the "a".

As Rupert would tell us were he here, the biggest problem is the level
crossings over all three routes north of the junction at Queen Adelaide. The
planned extra trains make them an even bigger headache, hence ideas like for
an Ely North station there.

The level crossings are where the arrows are in the 40th column of my
diagram. It's still not clear to me how they are a bottleneck for the
trains, even if they might be for the very lightly trafficed roads.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 16:26:18
on Sat, 19 Dec 2015, remarked:

When Ely North Junction was rationalised there was no direct
Cambridge-Norwich service (introduced in 2002) and the idea of half-hourly
trains to and from King's Lynn was in the land of the fairies. There was no
Ipswich-Peterborough service either.

I used to get that from Peterborough to Ely, to change onto a train for
Cambridge. Operated by a dogbox, but rammed full and
standing-everywhere. A lot of people got off at Whittlesea though.

Before then, was the Soham branch freight-only, or did they run
something as far north as Ely?

People forget how much rail traffic has grown since privatisation.

And especially in the Cambridge vicinity. When I was travelling between
Royston and London in around 2002 the 7.45 from Cambridge was just 4
cars, coupling to an additional 4 cars at Royston.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
16:26:18 on Sat, 19 Dec 2015, remarked:

When Ely North Junction was rationalised there was no direct Cambridge-
Norwich service (introduced in 2002) and the idea of half-hourly trains
to and from King's Lynn was in the land of the fairies. There was no
Ipswich-Peterborough service either.

I used to get that from Peterborough to Ely, to change onto a train
for Cambridge. Operated by a dogbox, but rammed full and
standing-everywhere. A lot of people got off at Whittlesea though.

Before then, was the Soham branch freight-only, or did they run
something as far north as Ely?

No. I wasn't right either it seems. Looking at the summer 1991 BR Passenger
Timetable I've just dug out of my cellar, it seems there were but 6 trains a
day each way Peterborough-Ipswich with just 4 from Cambridge to Ipswich plus
4 Cambridge Bury-St-Edmunds and back services connecting into 4 of the
Peterborough-Ipswichs. Now it's hourly from Cambridge to Ipswich and 8
two-hourly trains between Peterborough and Ipswich.

People forget how much rail traffic has grown since privatisation.

And especially in the Cambridge vicinity. When I was travelling
between Royston and London in around 2002 the 7.45 from Cambridge was
just 4 cars, coupling to an additional 4 cars at Royston.

When my daughter (now 29) was born, the progress of my wife's labour was
marked by the passing of the next Cambridge-Royston two-car class 101
shuttle DMU. They ran hourly and you can't see the railway from the Rosie
any more. They built the ATC in the way.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 12:00:05
on Sun, 20 Dec 2015, remarked:


When Ely North Junction was rationalised there was no direct Cambridge-
Norwich service (introduced in 2002) and the idea of half-hourly trains
to and from King's Lynn was in the land of the fairies. There was no
Ipswich-Peterborough service either.

I used to get that from Peterborough to Ely, to change onto a train
for Cambridge. Operated by a dogbox, but rammed full and
standing-everywhere. A lot of people got off at Whittlesea though.

Before then, was the Soham branch freight-only, or did they run
something as far north as Ely?

No. I wasn't right either it seems.

Go sit on the naughty step!!

Looking at the summer 1991 BR Passenger
Timetable I've just dug out of my cellar, it seems there were but 6 trains a
day each way Peterborough-Ipswich with just 4 from Cambridge to Ipswich plus
4 Cambridge Bury-St-Edmunds and back services connecting into 4 of the
Peterborough-Ipswichs. Now it's hourly from Cambridge to Ipswich and 8
two-hourly trains between Peterborough and Ipswich.

I've looked at my 1975 timetable (the first Big Red one) Table 18 and
there are 4 trains a day on the Ipswich-Peterborough route. One is in
the small hours so is presumably primarily a mail-train, and another is
a boat-train from Harwich to Manchester.

--
Roland Perry

On 19/12/2015 08:39, Roland Perry wrote:
And while not GN's fault Northstowe Parkway station is a year (or more,
depending on which broken promise you count) late, and perhaps something
to do with co-operation from Abellio the franchise commitment to roll
out "Franchise wide" smart ticketing has been re-jigged as "Royston and
further south".

That's nothing. The Thameslink-2000 project is at least 18 years late.


--
Clive Page

In message , Roland Perry
wrote:
It currently has four "single lead" junctions (a, b and c).

Only the Peterborough direction has a full two-track junction.

https://goo.gl/maps/3JziEjRARYF2

So it's like this:

Ely ------------------------------------ Peterborough
\
Ely ---------a-------------------------- Peterborough
\
*
\
b------c--------------- Kings Lynn
\ \
\ -------------- Kings Lynn
\
d------------------ Norwich
\
----------------- Norwich

Actually, a+c is a single lead junction, as is a+d. b is just a single
track junction.

A "single lead" junction consists of a crossover between the two main
tracks, a turnout from one track to the branch, and points merging the
two tracks of the branch.

As is fairly obvious, places like "*" are a monster bottleneck.

Actually, even worse is when the points just to the left of "a" fail in
the diagonal, rather than the straight position. (I've not seen it
happen in real life, but I have in simulation.)

If anyone wants to experiment with how this layout works, let me put in
a plug for SimSig Cambridge (http://www.simsig.co.uk).

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Mobile: +44 7973 377646 | Web: http://www.davros.org
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

In message ,
wrote:
Single lead junctions saved a lot of
money so were a frequent value engineering element. Indeed there are still
junction arrangements using them which save money compared to conventional
double junctions but don't have the bottlenecks. Shepreth Branch Junction is
an example with no conflicting moves using only 4 simple points:

Shepreth Branch Junction isn't a single lead junction, it's a double
lead junction. Completely different thing.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Mobile: +44 7973 377646 | Web: http://www.davros.org
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is: