Deepgreen
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Yes, I meant not every working between 1200 and 1700.
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SWR Portsmouth services diverted via Oxshott on 3/4 August
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DelW
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At Woking, it might be difficult to find room, as there are a lot of tracks through and around the junction. I think the two locations ringed in yellow are the relevant diamonds, up Portsmouth crossing firstly down slow then down fast (if I've managed to follow the tracks correctly!).
That is a good point about "sun shades" - perhaps that is something to be considered, at least they would stop the direct heat onto the rails. In relation to the lack of space, perhaps they would have to be much larger than actually needed, ie: over the whole railway from side to side. There may well be objections to "unsightlyness" or perhaps even local planning problems, but in view of the fact that these current tempratures are going to continue into the future and indeed, even raise, something needs to be done and radical thinking applied !
Snow sheds have been a fact of railway operations almost since the start of railways, so is it now time to consider "sun sheds" ?
My first recognition of this occurring was on 10 July.
I got to Guildford station and noticed a train I wanted to catch was skipping Woking. I then found all trains but one an hour were skipping Woking at that time of the day.
There was no disruption notice. So I put a post on X to SW_Help staff to ask how bad disruption needs to be in order for there to be a disruption notice.
They never answered this question. I was also interested in the reason for the disruption. That wasn't answered either.
I personally felt the disruption was enough to deserve a disruption notice. A conspiracy theory might be that they were embarrassed as to the reason why and so didn't want to publicise the disruption.
It certainly caught me out that day as I didn't check the service stops to see if any had been removed.
It seems some disruption notices still don't give reasons why.
Incident: SW weather | National Rail
Alterations to South Western Railway services between Portsmouth Harbour and London Waterloo . Find details of all current incidents on National Rail Enquiries.
National Rail (@nationalrailenq) on X
⚠️NEW - Alterations to South Western Railway services between Portsmouth Harbour and London Waterloo expected until 17:00 #SWweather The Met Office are advising that temperatures are forecast to be above average across England and Wales early this week. Until 17:00, services
However, a solution may be coming in the future.
SWR Help (@SW_Help) on X
⚠️ We will be making a small number of changes to services from Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo via Guildford to provide a more reliable and resilient service during the period of hot weather. Between the hours of 10:00 and 17:00 on Tuesday 4 August some Portsmouth
Given they are working towards a full renewal of the points, it baffles me why they wouldn't want to make this more widely known. It is a positive thing.
Not saying anything, like they were doing on 10 July and maybe other days around then and with many of the disruption notices now just saying resilience, doesn't help their cause.
With OLE equipped track, the structures would need to be about 6m high.
The problem with 3rd rail areas, and particularly SWML throats and junctions, is that there often aren't any 'ten foots' meaning that as you say, several tracks would need to be covered, - look at the old signal box gantries near Clapham Junction.
My understanding is that it's the rightmost one of those crossovers - it's a switch diamond so has moving blades, whereas the other is I believe just a standard crossover with no moving parts.
I don't know however why this one is so vulnerable, given others in the area (including one at Addlestone Jn nearby) don't seem to be nearly as affected. (Although tbf that one only moves a couple of times a day, rather than 3-4 times an hour)
Deepgreen
Established Member
I happened to be passing Clandon today and stopped off for a quick look, based on what Traksy was saying about diversions. A couple of up diversions, but the wonderful irony was that...it rained! Only briefly, but enough to make the heat-related diversions seem slightly humorous (it was much less hot today than yesterday anyway)!
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Not trying to be pedantic, but a crossover is two points/turnouts, allowing trains to cross from one line to another, whereas this is a crossing, where two tracks intersect without, as you say, any point blades, etc.
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DelW
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Yes, it would make sense for just the fast line to be a switch diamond, pretty much all trains on the up Pompey and the down main slow will be calling at Woking so taking the crossing at low speed.
slicedbread
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Perhaps they will dust off the plans for a flyover again?
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Deepgreen
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Apart from the general service smoothing potential, that's a lot to pay to replace one temperamental crossing, especially when the alternative routeing seem to be acceptable even with DR!Perhaps they will dust off the plans for a flyover again?
I assume that you are basing you assertion that the current heatwaves are exceptional, - or at least future summer extremes will be no worse. That would be a way of kicking the problem into the yellow grass.
slicedbread
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I was not being entirely serious about a flyover being the solution.
It must be 100 years since the idea of grade separation at that junction was first mooted so I doubt it will be anytime soon.
I am sure there will be cheaper solutions if hot weather is the only problem.
It must be 100 years since the idea of grade separation at that junction was first mooted so I doubt it will be anytime soon.
I am sure there will be cheaper solutions if hot weather is the only problem.
DelW
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Made massively less likely by BR's decision to sell off the land west of the up Pompey line which the Southern had bought to accommodate the flyover line. That's now covered in housing, making it difficult to make space for the flyover while keeping existing services running.
and unlike at Hitchin no expanse of agricultural land to put a great big loop in.
Deepgreen
Established Member
No, sadly, I think we are entering a Mediterranean climate regime. It's worth bearing mind, though, that the sun's actual strength (i.e. solar energy output) on a cloudless day won't increase, even if more cloudless summers make the air temperature a few degrees higher than now. Rail temperatures now can reach about 70-75C in mid-summer direct sun, I think (happy to be corrected) and those heights won't increase much if air temperatures are, say, 40C rather than 37C.
The sensible solution in this particular case would obviously be to install a crossing that is fit for purpose, but the grade-separation idea at Woking is not new, of course. I do wonder if a significant increase in infrastructure reliabilty (and therefore service reliability) could be achieved there which would obviate the need for major construction - i.e. putting it crudely, spending above the going rate for track and signalling at the junction that has very high reliability. If moveable crossings are hard to make reliable then surely a revised junction layout using only points must be considered.
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rmHawk765
Member
Would not be surprising but this is a factor GBR needs to remove from consideration. There should be no such thing as being embarrassed about using a Key Route Strategy which has not just been pulled out of thin air. At the same time I cannot blame passengers for being annoyed at constant heat-related issues when the communication is so poor most of the time. It's absurd how the fundamental principle of communication between all involved parties seems to not exist on the railway nowadays.
Deepgreen
Established Member
Agreed, but of course any possible embarrasment would lie at NR's door, rather than the TOC's. GBR, being only an amalgam of TOCs (even when it has any influence), won't have a significantly different interface with the already publicly-owned NR. There will still not be anything like a joined-up railway.
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Noted that at the moment the Guildford 'new' line is blocked because the Oxshott level crossing is blocked by a road vehicle. I don't know what has happened but the timing is slightly fortunate in that no diversions are planned today!
Except that it's highly unfortunate given a large fire has shut the mainline at West Byfleet and the issues on the Cobham line means it's unavailable for diversions!
swt_passenger
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But on the other hand, a fairly recent NR Route Strategy or Study did include a proposed track layout for a flyover, so perhaps it’s not so impossible for space reasons. Isn’t there about 500m of sidings on the down side?
DelW
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Yes, the reception line and/or headshunt for the aggregates yard extends about 30 chains (from Quail) south of the junction, alongside the down Pompey. There might be scope to reconfigure the down yard and aggregates yard to make enough extra space, but not as easily as if the land alongside the up line had still been railway owned.
swt_passenger
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Up on the transpennine upgrade they’ve been changing the embankment slopes in some of the cuttings for four tracking, using soil nails and sprayed concrete, so I’d assume they could widen the formation by at least another track on the up side.
DelW
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From memory, the line's level is not far off the surrounding ground level. A 25" OS map (but pre-dating the new housing) suggests it's in a slight cutting (hard to quantify) on the approach from the south. So there may be scope to gain some width with steeper earthworks or a cantilever sheet pile wall, but my assumption is that a flyover would be a trestle structure similar to the up slow flyover at Wimbledon. I don't expect ever to see it built though, so I'll probably never know if I'm right ...
slicedbread
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Unsurprisingly the diversion is back for 13/14 Aug.
But a bit more news from SWR on the plan your journey website about planned renewal of the points.
But a bit more news from SWR on the plan your journey website about planned renewal of the points.
Edit: Actually I think they did mention the renewal in the previous messages at the start of the month.
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It may be there but earlier this week I posted, formerly known as tweeted, on X, formerly known as Twitter, National Rail Enquiries and SWR to say the main heat related disruption notice said there was no weather related disruption on South Western Railway and I asked if it could be corrected as I was aware of two issues.
I didn't check if it was corrected, and this is the reply I got:
National Rail (@nationalrailenq) on X
@infobleep @SW_Help Hi Tim, this information is available on the South Western Website which can be found here https://t.co/74lhrBDHff
They linked to a South Western Railway page.
It might be avilable there but elsewhere they were saying no issues, so why would someone then think I must check elsewhere, unless they don't trust NRE. They would be right not to.