Bicester Sidings

[Southernrover]

Had a trip along the new, sorry revamped Oxford Parkway line today.
There seem to be a few sidings on the down side of Bicester Village station that
are signalled with a main aspect and position 1JRI from the down platform.
Are these sidings for Chiltern stabling purposes or some other use?

 

[swt_passenger]

MoD Central Ordnance Depot Bicester, new exchange/reception sidings due to remodelling or repositioning of the original access junction.

 

[150219]

Had a trip along the new, sorry revamped Oxford Parkway line today.
There seem to be a few sidings on the down side of Bicester Village station that
are signalled with a main aspect and position 1JRI from the down platform.
Are these sidings for Chiltern stabling purposes or some other use?

The down side of the station is the platform that would take you into London (unless trains were being signalled bi-directionally). The up side of the station is the platform that would take you into Oxford Parkway.

There are two sidings parrallel with the Up Bletchley line that are used for trains using Bicester Depot.

The line out from the Down Bletchley platform at Bicester Village carries onto Claydon L&NE Junction.

 

[swt_passenger]

Geoff Plumb's smugmug photo site has a few shots of the sidings in use, with both a through freight train, and Chiltern units reversing there during their route learning phase, but I doubt Chiltern will make much use of the sidings normally:

https://plumbloco.smugmug.com/Trains/October-2015/i-v2Dbmmn/A

 

[RPM]

As others have correctly said, these are the MOD exchange sidings. There are two parallel loops, one of which is the actual exchange siding and the other is a run round loop. Chiltern drivers do sign the sidings, so they are available for Chiltern empty stock workings, stabling of failed units etc.

 

[The Planner]

Also form part of the wider E-W freight loop locations.

 

[swt_passenger]

Also form part of the wider E-W freight loop locations.

Hard to tell what the available length is from the photos, do you know if it is future proofed for the strategic freight network?

Of course being for the MoD, 'strategic' probably didn't feature...

 

[The Planner]

The loop is full 775m capable, runround just over 600m IIRC.

 

[swt_passenger]

The loop is full 775m capable, runround just over 600m IIRC.

That's reassuring then. But I'm confused, wouldn't the run round need to be longer than the loop as well?

 

[RPM]

That's reassuring then. But I'm confused, wouldn't the run round need to be longer than the loop as well?

Physically yes, but not the distance between signals.

 

[The Planner]

The run round loop is purely for the MoD and just limits their train length, though I doubt they will ever get close to running a 600m train in there.

 

[Andyjs247]

The run round loop is purely for the MoD and just limits their train length, though I doubt they will ever get close to running a 600m train in there.

Not that it's likely to happen but since it's bidi signalled could you not use the running lines to run round - if there was something bigger than 600m that is?

 

[The Planner]

Should do, will need to check the plans, but if that was the general idea the run round loop wouldnt have been put in. Wouldnt be the easiest with the full E W timetable.

 

[Southernrover]

I noticed today that the mileages have not been put into Railmiles for the direct route from Haddenham to Bicester Village.
RM is showing the route as 33 miles via Prices Risborough & Claydon.
Does anyone have the mileages for the branch?

 

[pdeaves]

Does anyone have the mileages for the branch?

The route uses engineers' line references NAJ3 (to Bicester South Jn), BSG (new curve) and OXD (Gavray Jn-Oxford).

Detail of all can be found here: NAJ3, BSG, OXD (scroll down to the correct code).