Least used double track line?

[kieron]

Borderlands Line, from Bidston to Wrexham, is double track with an hourly service. Just two trains provide the service, which always pass at Shotton, and the whole thing could be run as single track with one passing loop, because they don't pass anywhere else.

Passenger trains are supposed to always pass somewhere between Shotton and Hawarden, and it would take money to change this. Freight is more variable, but could in theory be retimed not to pass any other trains on the line (I don't know how reasonable that is, but I don't know how it was that this train was intended to take 4 hours to travel from Padeswood works to Chester station, around 10 miles by road).

Things don't work like that if there's disruption (with effects such as this train passing this one not far north of Pen-y-ffordd). They'd work less well if any of the signal sections were singled.

 

[Taunton]

Going downhill from Miles Platting with a fully loaded coal train might have been a braking problem.

Going FROM the power station TO the docks is somewhat unlikely to be loaded ...

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Dorking - Horsham ? - less than 1 tph an hour.

How can you have less than 1tph other than 1tpd?

It's ½ hourly in peaks, hourly off peak and the last is 2016 ex Dorking, 1920 ex Vic.

It's got to be one the most under utilised electric passenger lines in the SE.

 

[chorleyjeff]

Going downhill from Miles Platting with a fully loaded coal train might have been a braking problem.

Wouldn't it be empties down the bank?
Loaded stone trains down from Buxton manage OK

 

[Whistler40145]

Must've been for lack of a path through Manchester Victoria.

 

[najaB]

How can you have less than 1tph other than 1tpd?

1tp2h?

 

[PHILIPE]

Don't have any more singling. Remember what happened in the 80s, now fast forward 30 or so years and we want some of the double track back.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Don't have any more singling. Remember what happened in the 80s, now fast forward 30 or so years and we want some of the double track back.

Backtracking eh?

 

[HowardGWR]

Ho ho. Just going back to my earlier suggestion Cogload to Castle Cary, the extra critique could be that how many other examples are laid out for speeds above 100 mph and see mostly only one train in each direction per hour?

 

[Welshman]

Don't have any more singling. Remember what happened in the 80s, now fast forward 30 or so years and we want some of the double track back.

How I agree!

Consider the on-going problems between Chester and Wrecsam.

There was even a plan in the 80s to single the Milner-Royd-Bradford Interchange section. How relieved we must now be that that plan was not adapted.

 

[muddythefish]

Very few. A couple of booked Sunday passenger services (though not for a few weeks as they are bustituted) - http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sea...15/12/13/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Other than that, there are currently a few RHTT passes and a number of booked freight paths (most not used)

Thanks for the reply.

Hard to believe now but the Clitheroe - Hellifield section saw more than 40 freights a day in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This dwindled to about 15 a day by the early 1980s and then virtually disappeared with the demise of wagonload traffic on the S & C in the mid 1980s.

 

[Taunton]

Hard to believe now but the Clitheroe - Hellifield section saw more than 40 freights a day in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This dwindled to about 15 a day by the early 1980s and then virtually disappeared with the demise of wagonload traffic on the S & C in the mid 1980s.

This was principally to get slower freight off the WCML between Preston and Carlisle, especially in 1970-74 when the electrification project was under way. Similarly a lot of freight north of Carlisle was sent via the G&SW, another lengthy double track route today with a sparse service.

 

[30907]

This was principally to get slower freight off the WCML between Preston and Carlisle, especially in 1970-74 when the electrification project was under way. Similarly a lot of freight north of Carlisle was sent via the G&SW, another lengthy double track route today with a sparse service.

And IIRC non-continuous-brake stuff in particular, so they could eliminate all the catch points over Shap (or do I mean trap points? - I used to know!).

 

[atillathehunn]

Okay.

I wonder how much traffic uses the Mid Cheshire line?

There is quite a significant amount of traffic on the line now, and is constrained by the single line section after Mouldsworth and after Navigation Road.

There is a passenger service every hour between Manchester Piccadilly and Chester with that increasing to every 30 minutes in the peak. There were talks of a half hourly service between Manchester and Northwich but that appeared to die.

For freight there are now regular trains of binliners to Runcorn CHP plant, the aforementioned coal train and now regular Biomass trains out of Liverpool. This is in addition to the irregular trains that come up the Middlewich line (perhaps an average of 1 per day) and the Arpley - Folly Lane train which runs round in Northwich a few days a week.

There is also I believe occasional stone trains to Lostock.

Today for example there were 16 non passenger services on the line through Northwich. Most were freight with 1 test train and 2 runs of the sandite train.

 

[RichardN]

How can you have less than 1tph other than 1tpd?

It's ½ hourly in peaks, hourly off peak and the last is 2016 ex Dorking, 1920 ex Vic.

It's got to be one the most under utilised electric passenger lines in the SE.

There is a much later train from Victoria that goes that way.. 23:26

 

[Nippy]

Park Royal to Greenford. Two ECS and two passenger a day. 1-2 freight services a week. No booked service at weekends.

 

[JN114]

Least used, double track line? Nine Elms to Linford Street Jns - no booked traffic.

 

[Photohunter71]

Least used double track. The section of track between Edinburgh sub line and the Haymarket triangle. I think I have only seen a train use that line twice in the past 20 odd years!

 

[najaB]

Least used double track. The section of track between Edinburgh sub line and the Haymarket triangle. I think I have only seen a train use that line twice in the past 20 odd years!

Where exactly are you meaning?

 

[greaterwest]

The section of track between Llangennech and Briton Ferry is double I believe, and very few trains use it.

 

[lewisf]

Sheepcote curve near Clapham Junction. Closed for all intents and purposes.

 

[Justin Smith]

In both cases, the cost of resignalling has to be balanced against the cost of maintaining the second track.

I`ve often wondered about this. Just how much money is saved by singling anyway ? OK you may not have to maintain the second track, but how expensive is that, particularly when you realise all the drainage works and stuff like that has to be done anyway ? And if all the traffic is put on just one track doesn`t that then need more maintenance ? ! ?

 

[furnessvale]

I`ve often wondered about this. Just how much money is saved by singling anyway ? OK you may not have to maintain the second track, but how expensive is that, particularly when you realise all the drainage works and stuff like that has to be done anyway ? And if all the traffic is put on just one track doesn`t that then need more maintenance ? ! ?

A lot of truth in what you say.

In the bad old days when singling was on the agenda, it was often considered when one of the two lines became due for relaying so lifting it saved money (in the short term).

A variation on that was where the second line was good and it could be lifted and used elsewhere.

Either way it was false economy as history has shown.

 

[Whistler40145]

How about the Lifford Curve and the Sutton Park line?

 

[Taunton]

In the bad old days when singling was on the agenda, it was often considered when one of the two lines became due for relaying so lifting it saved money (in the short term)....false economy as history has shown.

Maybe so, but if you don't have the money to replace the full infrastructure now, this may be all you can afford. Concepts such as "in the long term" are a fine economist's theory, but if you have not got the cash now then you can't do it.

OK you may not have to maintain the second track, but how expensive is that, particularly when you realise all the drainage works and stuff like that has to be done anyway ?

One thing I find surprising, with several recent schemes to reinstate double track, is the eye-watering cost and timescale of doing so. This includes things like very expensive and time-consuming moving the single line back to the side of the formation where it has been slewed to the centre, because it always seems to have been so slewed at some time in the past with minimal trouble, but then becomes a major trouble to reverse that.

 

[HowardGWR]

One thing I find surprising, with several recent schemes to reinstate double track, is the eye-watering cost and timescale of doing so. This includes things like very expensive and time-consuming moving the single line back to the side of the formation where it has been slewed to the centre, because it always seems to have been so slewed at some time in the past with minimal trouble, but then becomes a major trouble to reverse that.

Is this not because they usually used the vacated space to lay trough routes to replace pole routes and also re-sited signals and other infrastructure, as though redoubling would never, ever take place?

At Axminster, they of course had to rebuild the second platform and install lifts under new accessibility rules, and that would probably be the same for all wayside stations in a redoubling scheme.

 

[Photohunter71]

Where exactly are you meaning?

The stretch between Slateford and Murrayfield, line runs parallel to Wheatfield Road.

 

[najaB]

The stretch between Slateford and Murrayfield, line runs parallel to Wheatfield Road.

I'm pretty sure that is used for movements to/from the west to Edinburgh/Millerhill via the Sub (e.g. this one).

 

[yorksrob]

Maybe so, but if you don't have the money to replace the full infrastructure now, this may be all you can afford. Concepts such as "in the long term" are a fine economist's theory, but if you have not got the cash now then you can't do it.

Yes, this is all about the context. Singling might have been unfortunate in the long term, but it was infinitely preferable to closure (which, probably not coincidentally, became a lot less common during the 80's when a lot of these singlings took place).

One thing I find surprising, with several recent schemes to reinstate double track, is the eye-watering cost and timescale of doing so. This includes things like very expensive and time-consuming moving the single line back to the side of the formation where it has been slewed to the centre, because it always seems to have been so slewed at some time in the past with minimal trouble, but then becomes a major trouble to reverse that.

Often to reduce bends and increase line speeds, so I understand.

 

[The Planner]

How about the Lifford Curve and the Sutton Park line?

Sutton Park gets plenty.