How do the "Brighton" approaches to London Bridge work?

[Sad Sprinter]

The East Croydon to London Bridge line has its fast line in the middle, but unlike other paired by direction routes like the ECML or SWML, there's no flyover to get the tracks into a paired by use format. How do the London Bridge approaches work for the Brighton main line services? Do they just cross on flat crossings like the Manchester Piccadilly approaches? Been studying signalling diagrams but can't quite figure it out.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Flat junctions. Bermondsey flyover goes over the down line. 1K40 and 9J41 are both about to carry out the moves in the attached screenshots so follow the green lines.

 

[zwk500]

The East Croydon to London Bridge line has its fast line in the middle, but unlike other paired by direction routes like the ECML or SWML, there's no flyover to get the tracks into a paired by use format. How do the London Bridge approaches work for the Brighton main line services? Do they just cross on flat crossings like the Manchester Piccadilly approaches? Been studying signalling diagrams but can't quite figure it out.

There is a flyover, it takes the Fast Lines over the Down Sussex Slow to form the Thameslink Lines. The trains that use the Sussex Fast Lines and terminate at London Bridge (e.g. Uckfield) transition from Up Fast to Up Slow or Down Slow to Down Fast at the junctions north of New Cross Gate.

 

[30907]

There is a flyover, it takes the Fast Lines over the Down Sussex Slow to form the Thameslink Lines. The trains that use the Sussex Fast Lines and terminate at London Bridge (e.g. Uckfield) transition from Up Fast to Up Slow or Down Slow to Down Fast at the junctions north of New Cross Gate.

The three southernmost tracks in the screenshot were historically the Bermondsey Spur and are on a different alignment to the others at that point.
One is now the Up Sussex, the other two allow "Brightons" to use the South London pair. Not living in the area, I don't know how much they are now used (especially Down).

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Thanks, how did it work before the THameslink Programme?

 

[zwk500]

Thanks, how did it work before the THameslink Programme?

There were at-grade junctions. One of the central parts of the Thameslink programme was building the flyover.

 

[Magdalia]

The East Croydon to London Bridge line has its fast line in the middle, but unlike other paired by direction routes like the ECML or SWML, there's no flyover to get the tracks into a paired by use format. How do the London Bridge approaches work for the Brighton main line services?

The change from paired by use to paired by direction is at Gloucester Road Junction/Windmill Bridge Junction, between East Croydon and Norwood Junction. It is grade separated for movements between East Croydon and London Bridge, though the junctions with the lines to/from Victoria are not grade separated.

From New Cross Gate the Thameslink lines run over the Charing Cross lines on the Bermondsey flyover, through platforms 4 and 5 at London Bridge, then into the Thameslink core at Metropolitan Junction. As already explained there is grade separation from the trains going to/from the London Bridge terminal platforms at New Cross Gate.

Thanks, how did it work before the THameslink Programme?

Badly! In addition to lack of grade separation, Thameslink trains had to share platforms at London Bridge and the lines through Borough Market Junction with Charing Cross trains.

I used the old Thameslink quite a bit. Southbound trains often had to wait for a path on the curve between Blackfriars and Metropolitan Junction, northbound trains usually had to wait outside London Bridge for a gap between Charing Cross trains to use the old platform 6. And that was with 4tph off peak and virtually nothing in the peak, when most Thameslink trains had to run via Crystal Palace.

The Thameslink project had 4 major engineering components in the London Bridge area.

• Blackfriars Junction to Metropolitan Junction increased from single line to double line
• Metropolitan Junction to Borough Market Junction increased from 2 tracks to 4 with separate lines for Thameslink and Charing Cross trains
• rebuild of London Bridge station to increase the number of through lines from 7 (one of which did not have a platform) to 9
• the Bermondsey flyover

The engineering side of the Thameslink project has been brilliant, the problems were/are the timetable and traincrew resources.

 

[Cricketer8for9]

The three southernmost tracks in the screenshot were historically the Bermondsey Spur and are on a different alignment to the others at that point.
One is now the Up Sussex, the other two allow "Brightons" to use the South London pair. Not living in the area, I don't know how much they are now used (especially Down).

I’ve used London Bridge (Southern/terminating side) quite a lot as my preferred service is the Caterham and Tattenham Corner one. The Up Sussex is, obviously, used frequently. I can’t recall going from the Up Sussex fast to the South London line via the Spur, but it’s possible it’s used by the stoppers through New Cross Gate. Managed the Spur in the down direction just the once when we left platform 15 at London Bridge (much to my delight).