Cambrian hourly service consultation

[Gareth Marston]

Still no news on rolling stock?

And why only 6am until noon? That doesn't seem logical, surely it takes the same ammount of additional resources which would then be sitting idle in the afternoon?

9 units pass through Newtown heading eastward on the current 0625, 0846, 1046 & 1246 trains an hourly service with 2 car units would only see 7 units between 6&12.

 

[Rhydgaled]

9 units pass through Newtown heading eastward on the current 0625, 0846, 1046 & 1246 trains an hourly service with 2 car units would only see 7 units between 6&12.

So the Cambrian Coast portions bite the dust? If that happens, I doubt it will be long before the increased demand from the more frequent service has passengers standing in the 2-car train from Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury (where presumably another two coaches will be attached for the trip into Birmingham).

I suppose with hourly trains you could reduce the 6-car working to 4-car (at least as far as Shrewsbury), but that only saves one unit.

 

[merlodlliw]

9 units pass through Newtown heading eastward on the current 0625, 0846, 1046 & 1246 trains an hourly service with 2 car units would only see 7 units between 6&12.

Do you think the morning 158 eight cars(2x4) Chester to Manchester will remain?
they are already full & standing on some days.

 

[berneyarms]

So the Cambrian Coast portions bite the dust? If that happens, I doubt it will be long before the increased demand from the more frequent service has passengers standing in the 2-car train from Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury (where presumably another two coaches will be attached for the trip into Birmingham).

I suppose with hourly trains you could reduce the 6-car working to 4-car (at least as far as Shrewsbury), but that only saves one unit.

As discussed MUCH earlier in the thread, due to the service pattern it's more likely that Cambrian connections will be at Dovey Junction during the hourly service period, hence you won't have combined trains anymore during that period.

 

[merlodlliw]

9 units pass through Newtown heading eastward on the current 0625, 0846, 1046 & 1246 trains an hourly service with 2 car units would only see 7 units between 6&12.

I get a bit confused with units & cars, does your number of 9 units mean 3 X 2 car & one x 3 car heading to Shrewsbury

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I get a bit confused with units & cars, does your number of 9 units mean 3 X 2 car & one x 3 car heading to Shrewsbury

There aren't any 3-car units on the Cambrian, as the ETCS-fitted 158s are all 2-car.
One eastbound train is currently 3x2-car 158s east of Mach.
The only 3-car units with ATW are the 16 class 175/1s (there are 11x2-car 175/0).

 

[merlodlliw]

There aren't any 3-car units on the Cambrian, as the ETCS-fitted 158s are all 2-car.
One eastbound train is currently 3x2-car 158s east of Mach.
The only 3-car units with ATW are the 16 class 175/1s (there are 11x2-car 175/0).

Thanks for clearing that up LNW-GW,FGW do of course have three car 158 or is it 159,ill take a refresher course

 

[Rhydgaled]

Thanks for clearing that up LNW-GW,FGW do of course have three car 158 or is it 159,ill take a refresher course

First Great Western's are class 158s (all but one of their 3-car class 158 sets are numbered as 1589xx I believe). To confuse matters, class 159s are essentially 3-car 158s as well. Northern I think have some 3-car 158s as well, while South West Trains is the only operator to use class 159s.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

As discussed MUCH earlier in the thread, due to the service pattern it's more likely that Cambrian connections will be at Dovey Junction during the hourly service period, hence you won't have combined trains anymore during that period.

That doesn't stop overcrowding. If you can't attach the coast portion you'll need to run 4-car from Aberystwyth on some trains or maybe attach a unit off the depot at Machynlleth. Talking of 159s/3-car 158s though, some of those probably would be quite useful on the Cambrian.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Do you think the morning 158 eight cars(2x4) Chester to Manchester will remain?
they are already full & standing on some days.

Is that one 8-car train or two 4-car ones?

 

[merlodlliw]

First Great Western's are class 158s (all but one of their 3-car class 158 sets are numbered as 1589xx I believe). To confuse matters, class 159s are essentially 3-car 158s as well. Northern I think have some 3-car 158s as well, while South West Trains is the only operator to use class 159s.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
That doesn't stop overcrowding. If you can't attach the coast portion you'll need to run 4-car from Aberystwyth on some trains or maybe attach a unit off the depot at Machynlleth. Talking of 159s/3-car 158s though, some of those probably would be quite useful on the Cambrian.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Is that one 8-car train or two 4-car ones?

2 X 4 car 158s, which replaced 2 X 3 car 175s, one of them is the 0600 2 car 158 from Wrexham to Chester,which usually arrives on platform 7 at Chester,then joins up to form a 4 car 158 ex Chester 0712 to Picc

 

[Gareth Marston]

2 X 4 car 158s, which replaced 2 X 3 car 175s, one of them is the 0600 2 car 158 from Wrexham to Chester,which usually arrives on platform 7 at Chester,then joins up to form a 4 car 158 ex Chester 0712 to Picc

ATW have 24 Class158's, two of them are in the n Wales to Manchester circuit in the AM but one of them swoops back to the Birmingham circuit mid morning. Three of them do turns in s wales.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Farmers get excited too

from http://www.mywelshpool.co.uk/newsvi...Farmers-concern-over-hourly-rail-service.aspx

Farmers' concern over hourly rail service - created on 13/03/2014

The introduction of an hourly train service would create a huge economic boost to the Welshpool area, but not everyone is happy.
The First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, has pledged to raise the concerns of local farmers affected by the implementation of an hourly train service on the Cambrian Line with track operator, Network Rail.
The farmers claim that increased rail services will bring more problems for transporting livestock across the track, and they fear that the boundary fence along the length of the track could come under more strain.
The First Minister’s commitment came following a question raised by Montgomeryshire Assembly Member, Russell George, who stated that while the realisation of an hourly train service was vital for the regional economy, there were legitimate concerns among the agricultural community who lived alongside the line.
“I’m pleased that the First Minister has listened to the concerns of affected local farmers,” said Mr George. “While the implementation of an hourly train service on the Cambrian Line is vital for business and tourism, the safety of both people and livestock is paramount.
“Farmers who own parcels of land either side of the mainline have told me that they are concerned that along various sections of the line’s boundary fence, designed to limit access to the line, there are a number of sizeable gaps that is allowing livestock to stray onto the track.
“Also the challenges of getting livestock across the line within a narrow time frame are significant. One farmer told me that it takes him at least half an hour to get his cattle across and that he would need a minimum 40 minute window to allow him to complete the process safely; with a service coming through every hour, this leaves very little room for error.
“I believe Network Rail must work with local farmers to find practical solutions to the movement of farm animals across the track in a safe and timely manner; that could mean building holding pens near track crossings which would fundamentally speed up the movement process.”

Are farmers ever happy?:roll:

Too wet, too dry. Too cold, too hot. Spring too early, too late. MAFF cheque too small, too large. Only one of the preceding is incorrect. :roll:

 

[merlodlliw]

Are farmers ever happy?:roll:

Too wet, too dry. Too cold, too hot. Spring too early, too late. MAFF cheque too small, too large. Only one of the preceding is incorrect. :roll:

The incorrect one is Maff, In England it is DEFRA, in Wales it is Environment & Countryside.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

The incorrect one is Maff, In England it is DEFRA, in Wales it is Environment & Countryside.

Correct, save that I meant only the 'cheque too large' bit, never heard anyone complain about that!

 

[IKBrunel]

from http://www.mywelshpool.co.uk/newsvie...l-service.aspx
One farmer told me that it takes him at least half an hour to get his cattle across and that he would need a minimum 40 minute window to allow him to complete the process safely; with a service coming through every hour, this leaves very little room for error

40 minutes to herd cattle across the line?? how many cattle do they have??
If it takes 30-40 mins, it sounds a bit like they leave the gate open then go round the field rounding them up. With a holding pen it ought to be possible to do it a lot quicker. I reckon to optimise in both directions you'd want a holding pen each side. but only use the pen on the side you're moving the stock from and leave gate open into an open field the side you want them to go into. If there's an open field & plenty of grass the other side, cattle wont need much coercion.

Possibly the farmer(s) is just angling to get a bridge put in (at someone else's expense)

 

[Gareth Marston]

40 minutes to herd cattle across the line?? how many cattle do they have??
If it takes 30-40 mins, it sounds a bit like they leave the gate open then go round the field rounding them up. With a holding pen it ought to be possible to do it a lot quicker. I reckon to optimise in both directions you'd want a holding pen each side. but only use the pen on the side you're moving the stock from and leave gate open into an open field the side you want them to go into. If there's an open field & plenty of grass the other side, cattle wont need much coercion.

Possibly the farmer(s) is just angling to get a bridge put in (at someone else's expense)

Compensation because trains run on a line that's been there more than 150 years yes it sounds like the local agricultural fraternity.

 

[merlodlliw]

Correct, save that I meant only the 'cheque too large' bit, never heard anyone complain about that!

I appreciate what you meant unfortunately the EU awards annual grants for land, that does not distinguish between the best and worst animal husbandry
farms, or whether or not annimals are on the land, in other words outside politics many farmers get paid for doing nothing, up to a few years ago,all annual farmers grants were in the public domain, now they are hidden.
Any change to this will be hit by a French veto,In my book the Common Agricultural Policy should be called "Criminal A P"

As for numbers of cattle crossing lines, some farms have hundreds of Milking Cattle, one farm in Powys wants to extend to thousands. So its not just human effluent dumped by 158s on the line.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I appreciate what you meant unfortunately the EU awards annual grants for land, that does not distinguish between the best and worst animal husbandry
farms, or whether or not annimals are on the land, in other words outside politics many farmers get paid for doing nothing, up to a few years ago,all annual farmers grants were in the public domain, now they are hidden.
Any change to this will be hit by a French veto,In my book the Common Agricultural Policy should be called "Criminal A P"

As for numbers of cattle crossing lines, some farms have hundreds of Milking Cattle, one farm in Powys wants to extend to thousands. So its not just human effluent dumped by 158s on the line.

Possible date for announcement is 26th jungle drums are saying that Minister is going in front of Enterprise and Business Committee that day and would like to give them some positive news.

 

[D1009]

As for numbers of cattle crossing lines, some farms have hundreds of Milking Cattle, one farm in Powys wants to extend to thousands. So its not just human effluent dumped by 158s on the line.

Surely farms like that don't have all of the cattle crossing railway lines before and after every milking?

 

[Jones]

Compensation because trains run on a line that's been there more than 150 years yes it sounds like the local agricultural fraternity.

As NR are trying to close crossings, farm ones are an easy start.

40 minutes my ***

 

[Penmorfa]

As NR are trying to close crossings, farm ones are an easy start.

40 minutes my ***

Wrong sort of cows?

 

[merlodlliw]

Surely farms like that don't have all of the cattle crossing railway lines before and after every milking?

Some do, especially in Spring & Summer when the grass is full of nutriment, depends where the main fields are,100/200 or so milked twice a day, 4 X crossing,beef cattle are not the problem.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

As NR are trying to close crossings, farm ones are an easy start.

Not an easy start at all,if NR close the crossing,some other form of crossing the line will have to be made,bridge for example,this was catered for on the Crewe/Chester line over a century ago. Unless I am mistaken currently one train an hour passes these crossings up or down, so an hourly service could be one train every half hour.Also many are public rights of way,footpath or bridleway.The ramblers will always put in an objection.

 

[Llanigraham]

We get more than 2 trains an hour in my section of line and we can still manage to get farmers and their animals across the line, so I really can't see the problem on the Cambrian. They just have to be prepared to wait sometimes.

 

[Gareth Marston]

We get more than 2 trains an hour in my section of line and we can still manage to get farmers and their animals across the line, so I really can't see the problem on the Cambrian. They just have to be prepared to wait sometimes.

In management speak they will have to adapt to change! Since etcs there's been stuff floating around the cambrian at all sorts of times away from the passenger tt anyway and between Oct 01 and Dec08 the punctuality was so poor that a train could pass by at anytime, funninly the cows were OK.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Continuing the farming theme...I recall that farmers further north adjacent to the rebuilt Welsh Highland Railway did rather well out of it in the end, nice underpasses and bridges to move their stock from one side to the other....and of course, they always keep their fences in good condition so that livestock doesn't stray....

 

[the-gog]

I've just read this thread in its entirety. Most interesting, especially on the reasons for the continued closure of the Welshpool dynamic loop.

On the subject of the blockade earlier this month on the Aberystwyth branch, this was due to track relaying between Llandre (Pen-y-Wern bridge) downhill to Borth. At the same time, Clettwr bridge was dismantled, and was due to be rebuilt in time for the blockade to finish in the early hours of the Thursday morning. However, reportedly due to a c**k up by the contractors, this work over-ran by at least a week, hence the two ballast trains were stranded at Aber.

97304 left Aber a week ago yesterday with its ballast train, back to Bescot, and a week ago today, 97303 and 97301 were due to drag its train back to Crewe. However, shortly before it was due to leave, a local NR bod turned up, and a vigorous exchange of views was reportedly had. He made the point that nothing heavier than a 158 could cross Clettwr bridge as it was unsafe to do so. It seems that eventually a compromise was reached, and 97303 and 97301 just dragged the tamper back to Coleham. 97303 returned the following night and dragged the Seacows back in the early hours.

Photos of the ballast trains to/from Talerddig: http://www.mylordz.com/index.php?/category/61

Photos of these ballast trains, and the work at Clettwr bridge: http://www.mylordz.com/index.php?/category/73

RWJ

 

[Gareth Marston]

I've just read this thread in its entirety. Most interesting, especially on the reasons for the continued closure of the Welshpool dynamic loop.

On the subject of the blockade earlier this month on the Aberystwyth branch, this was due to track relaying between Llandre (Pen-y-Wern bridge) downhill to Borth. At the same time, Clettwr bridge was dismantled, and was due to be rebuilt in time for the blockade to finish in the early hours of the Thursday morning. However, reportedly due to a c**k up by the contractors, this work over-ran by at least a week, hence the two ballast trains were stranded at Aber.

97304 left Aber a week ago yesterday with its ballast train, back to Bescot, and a week ago today, 97303 and 97301 were due to drag its train back to Crewe. However, shortly before it was due to leave, a local NR bod turned up, and a vigorous exchange of views was reportedly had. He made the point that nothing heavier than a 158 could cross Clettwr bridge as it was unsafe to do so. It seems that eventually a compromise was reached, and 97303 and 97301 just dragged the tamper back to Coleham. 97303 returned the following night and dragged the Seacows back in the early hours.

Photos of the ballast trains to/from Talerddig: http://www.mylordz.com/index.php?/category/61

Photos of these ballast trains, and the work at Clettwr bridge: http://www.mylordz.com/index.php?/category/73

RWJ

Remedial work on Welshpool to Fron section going on overnight at moment, ballast machine in siding in Newtown today.

 

[the-gog]

Remedial work on Welshpool to Fron section going on overnight at moment, ballast machine in siding in Newtown today.

There's a tamper drag tonight. 97/3 L/E Coleham to Talerddig to drag the tamper from Talerddig to Aberystwyth.

Oh, about that 3-day ERTMS outage last month, while it was due to power cuts at various GSM-R masts, the problem appears to be worse than that. It seems that it takes only one GSM-R mast anywhere on the Cambrian to go off-line to bring ERTMS down everywhere here. ERTMS was dead for 3 days. I don't recall RETB being dead for that length of time.

RWJ

 

[IKBrunel]

There's a tamper drag tonight. 97/3 L/E Coleham to Talerddig to drag the tamper from Talerddig to Aberystwyth.

Oh, about that 3-day ERTMS outage last month, while it was due to power cuts at various GSM-R masts, the problem appears to be worse than that. It seems that it takes only one GSM-R mast anywhere on the Cambrian to go off-line to bring ERTMS down everywhere here. ERTMS was dead for 3 days. I don't recall RETB being dead for that length of time.

RWJ

Wow, that's a seriously unstable network architecture then. Goes against the general trend towards packet switched / redundant routed data networks.
I wonder if this is because signals are routed point to point from mast to mast along the line, so if one mast fails you lose the ability to know the situation for the whole line. This would assume there is no fibre-optic cable along the length of the line, which I thought most passenger routes had. I've certainly seen a lineside fibre cable on sections of the Cambrian (bright green cable about 20mm outside diameter).
Furthermore I suppose there is conundrum in that if you cant talk to a mast, you don't know what commands it's issued to trains in its area of operation, so safest fallback is to stop everything..?

Either way I wold have thought it would be at least possible to seperate the 3 legs (from Mach) so any 2 legs run as normal in spite of an ERTMS failure on the other one.

 

[the-gog]

Wow, that's a seriously unstable network architecture then. Goes against the general trend towards packet switched / redundant routed data networks.
I wonder if this is because signals are routed point to point from mast to mast along the line, so if one mast fails you lose the ability to know the situation for the whole line. This would assume there is no fibre-optic cable along the length of the line, which I thought most passenger routes had. I've certainly seen a lineside fibre cable on sections of the Cambrian (bright green cable about 20mm outside diameter).
Furthermore I suppose there is conundrum in that if you cant talk to a mast, you don't know what commands it's issued to trains in its area of operation, so safest fallback is to stop everything..?

Either way I wold have thought it would be at least possible to seperate the 3 legs (from Mach) so any 2 legs run as normal in spite of an ERTMS failure on the other one.

Yes, they are linked by fibre. Some time ago, the fibre at one of the GSM-R masts up the coast section was severed by contractors. It brought down ERTMS across the Cambrian, even down to Sutton Bridge Jct, until the break could be repaired. The Cambrian's GSM-R is also controlled from Swindon, so any interruption to the power supply there, the Cambrian goes dark, and all trains on it stop. This has happened in the past. I assume they've since put a "Do not unplug" sticker on the plug to prevent the cleaner from taking it out to plug her vacuum cleaner into it...

 

[IKBrunel]

wow2
having worked with fibre, I know its more vulnerable than copper to impact damage etc.
I don't know if things improved with ertms installation, but in the past I've certainly seen green fibre optic cables laid on the ballast along the cambrian not in concrete ducts. So very vulnerable to damage during any lineside works.
Probably there are spare fibre pairs in the cable so they can be switched if some fibres get damaged, but that only works for minor damage.
hmm, sounds like a bit of a headache for someone..