Basingstoke-Reading upgrade possibilities

[brad465]

What sort of linespeed increase could be possible at Oxford Road and Southcote Junctions? At the latter it's 60mph on the Westbury route and 45-50mph for the Basingstoke route, which doesn't seem to have much potential for improvement. At Oxford Road the Reading avoiding and dive-under routes are 30mph, which definitely would see huge benefit if improved, so if 50mph was possible through here instead that should allow trains with a clear route to maintain that sort of speed.

 

[coppercapped]

What scope is there though to improve on the actual routes , for example, would a Reading to Salisbury via Basingstoke, or even Paddington to Salisbury through service using 800's changing over to diesel at Reading supplementing the stoppers, be viable? it would replace some of the Waterloo to Salisbury services, and create more paths between Waterloo and Basingstoke, for SWR, as well as introducing direct London Paddington services as well.

Some prolific posters on this forum frequently suggest that Paddington is poorly situated for a central London terminus by being essentially out in the sticks. So why would passengers for Salisbury schlepp out there...? (Giving Crossrail as part of the answer is not valid...!!)

Back in the day, for some years, there used to be a through Reading - Salisbury service operated by the Southern's Hampshire DEMUs ('Thumpers') so it has been done. Increasing traffic on the line west of Basingstoke became an issue as the trains had to use one of the Southern's Down line platforms at Basingstoke and cross all the traffic on the Up lines to reach the Down Salisbury line.

This bottleneck, albeit in a modified form since the resignalling, still exists.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:48 ==

You would have a set of blockades. Overnight closures would be ridiculously inefficient and the only set times Basingstoke to Reading is closed is for 8 hours on a Sunday morning. That is probably 4-5 hours tops working time in reality.

Rebuild the Didcot Newbury and Southampton railway first (with, of course a flyover at Didcot) as a diversionary route and then one can blockade the Reading - Basingstoke line to one's heart's content!

 

[MarkyT]

Here's my Reading West - Southcote concept to remove much of the conflict in this area, incorporating a double-track flyover at Southcote Jn and 4 tracks through Reading West station. This assumes Basingstoke and Newbury stoppers are routed over to the relief side to form services heading for Heathrow via the western connection. With platforms 1 and 2 no longer required, they might be removed and platform 3 at Reading extended over Caversham Road bridge to accommodate a double voyager set.

Train colour code.

Passenger
dark green - GWR express
aqua - GWR Newbury local
red - Cross Country express
light green - GWR Basingstoke local

Freight
yellow - Mendip stone
white - South Coast Ports intermodal.

 

[MogtheDog]

I can see how another track could be fitted on the western platform, but four tracks under the bridges seems a tight fit

 

[MarkyT]

I can see how another track could be fitted on the western platform, but four tracks under the bridges seems a tight fit

The cutting is deep and thus wide at the top, so at the alignment level it might be widened where necessary by cutting back the existing slope and building retaining walls. The width at the top also results in the bridges having 'spare' openings to either side, which could be possible to use for the extra tracks if new abutments to support the structures can be incorporated in the retaining wall construction, so it might be possible to avoid the complete reconstruction of these large bridges.

The boundary is tightest to the south end of Reading West station, where the work might encroach on some back gardens. Behind the west platform today is a car park and McDonald's drive-through loop which may need some adjustments to accommodate a new retaining wall and bridge abutment. Other buildings on Oxford Road in the vicinity of the bridge are well set back from the alignment.

Here are some indicative lines sketched on Google Earth. Aqua is the new flyover.

 

[Helvellyn]

A station at Chineham - Yes Please. I’m not sure however where you could add in a Dynamic Loop as much of the line is built on an embankments (and largely built on ash (a common and cheap GWR solution) which has caused some issues with subsidence in the Grazeley area, however any solution to speeding up Southcote Junction to Oxford Road would be welcome.

Chineham has been mooted for years, and now three units cover the diagrams it should be doable. I can't recall though, was a site ringfenced for the station and if so is it towards Basingtsoke (so on an embankment), or towards Bramley (and in a cutting). The latter makes it suitable for Sherfield on Loddon as well, but is probably a more expensive build. Either way, it wouldn't be a cheap station likely needing lifts for both platforms.

 

[Snow1964]

What scope is there though to improve on the actual routes , for example, would a Reading to Salisbury via Basingstoke, or even Paddington to Salisbury through service using 800's changing over to diesel at Reading supplementing the stoppers, be viable? it would replace some of the Waterloo to Salisbury services, and create more paths between Waterloo and Basingstoke, for SWR, as well as introducing direct London Paddington services as well.

A lot would depend on Heathrow Express using 4 fast line paths each hour to Paddington. If these continue (and track access rights have not been extended beyond next year, yet) then little room.

If these continue Heathrow western line towards Slough is ever built then more of a case for the Express to be merged with a continuation as a semi-fast to beyond Reading.

This is still I feel the most pragmatic and sensible solution for solving the Basingstoke issue, possibly allowing some space for a turn back on the other side of the existing Platform 5 face. There is far more space to the western side of Basingstoke station for a flyover (or if you can squeeze it in between the station and the ring road a dive under) than trying to push a flyover in to the east of the station.

Originally the GWR station was completely separate, but would be relatively easy to extend subway and alter the extra platforms to make these new through platforms. Athough some industrial units have been built on old engine shed site, there used to be a very long reception road to the now disused yard, from Winklebury, and it would be easy to build a flyover in this area. The A340 Ringway West bridge has the extra trackbed of the yard reception line. Being a former 5 track area, it would not be hard to slew the tracks to construct a flyover approach

Since the Bournemouth line was electrified 1966-67, there has been big expansion of Andover area, and logically new turnbacks should be at Andover and the Basingstoke stoppers extended to Andover. Nowadays they do not continue to edge of built up area

 

[brad465]

The cutting is deep and thus wide at the top, so at the alignment level it might be widened where necessary by cutting back the existing slope and building retaining walls. The width at the top also results in the bridges having 'spare' openings to either side, which could be possible to use for the extra tracks if new abutments to support the structures can be incorporated in the retaining wall construction, so it might be possible to avoid the complete reconstruction of these large bridges.

The boundary is tightest to the south end of Reading West station, where the work might encroach on some back gardens. Behind the west platform today is a car park and McDonald's drive-through loop which may need some adjustments to accommodate a new retaining wall and bridge abutment. Other buildings on Oxford Road in the vicinity of the bridge are well set back from the alignment.

Here are some indicative lines sketched on Google Earth. Aqua is the new flyover.
View attachment 213100

As nice as grade-separation there might be, without also grade-separating Oxford Road this won't bring much, and the built-up area makes this expensive. The junction that would most benefit from grade-separation is at Basingstoke, as it involves more tracks and also benefits more services. You could also realign the down lines to have a turnback siding in the middle for London-Basingstoke terminators (or put batteries on the 450s and send them to Andover/Salisbury).

 

[HSTEd]

It seems that the slowest trains on the route are the two-per-hour stoppers, which are several minutes slower than the randomly selected Southampton container train on realtimetrains, at least between Basingstoke and Reading West.

Perhaps, before doing anything with expensive infrastructure, it would be better to obtain a handful of the highest performance multiple units available. The service seems to be just a Reading-Basingstoke stopper, so could be made self contained, so only a handful of vehicles would be required. It seems likely to be far cheaper than doing anything to the infrastructure.


Unfortunately the third rail does not run into the relevant platform at the Basingstoke end, so charging of a BEMU would have to be solely at the Reading end, at least without work to install a suitable charger. A charger could probably be a 750V overhead contact linked to the third rail, but still!

 

[The Ham]

You would have a set of blockades. Overnight closures would be ridiculously inefficient and the only set times Basingstoke to Reading is closed is for 8 hours on a Sunday morning. That is probably 4-5 hours tops working time in reality.

The thing is for each side, there's likely only 4,000m3 of soil to cart away (assuming 1 in 2 slopes and 4m of coriander width needed), as I said a single vehicle going along the corridor to access.

At 10m3 per hour that's 2 years of only Sunday overnight works, but no closures, so no payments to operators. Yes you'd probably want it faster than that, which might require trying to see if you could arrange some other windows, given that it's mostly overnight freight and 1km in length there's a fair chance you could run some single track working (with the out of use line being a safety zone between the works and the active railway)

Do you mean, put a lid above the current tracks and put more tracks on top? I was thinking about that yesterday; it might mean turning the Tilehurst Rd and Bath Rd bridges into level crossings....

I mean building a tunnel with two side by side bores (each with 2 tracks in) and then creating new urban land above.

 

[Snow1964]

It seems that the slowest trains on the route are the two-per-hour stoppers, which are several minutes slower than the randomly selected Southampton container train on realtimetrains, at least between Basingstoke and Reading West.

Perhaps, before doing anything with expensive infrastructure, it would be better to obtain a handful of the highest performance multiple units available.

The turbos can only accelerate at 0.58 m/s and it's often lower if not all diesels are in fine fettle, or air conditioning is drawing lots of power causing an engine cooling restriction.

For comparison the class 345s can accelerate at 1 m/s

If assume about quarter of the time is accelerating (remainder, coasting, braking, at platforms) then probably save 4 minutes on a stopper by using decent EMU or BEMU rather than existing sluggish (by modern standards) diesels.

 

[brad465]

The turbos can only accelerate at 0.58 m/s and it's often lower if not all diesels are in fine fettle, or air conditioning is drawing lots of power causing an engine cooling restriction.

For comparison the class 345s can accelerate at 1 m/s

If assume about quarter of the time is accelerating (remainder, coasting, braking, at platforms) then probably save 4 minutes on a stopper by using decent EMU or BEMU rather than existing sluggish (by modern standards) diesels.

If the route was wired to Basingstoke, even if only into the bay platforms, then you'd have 2tph EMUs doing the stoppers and if 99s or similar get intermodal work from Southampton, those freight services can utilise the wires as well once on the line. Ditto for XC services if bi-modes ever takeover from Voyagers, but the former two would bring the most time-saving potential.