Edge Hill Upper Level Crossover (WCML) Reinstall?

[lfc2014uk]

Next month Merseytravel will meet to discuss infrastructure projects for 2018/19 for Merseyside. One of these is the reinstatement of an upper level crossover of WCML across from Edge Hill Maintainance Depot.

A Double track, overhead cables and missing bridge would be needed to reinstated this missing section. It was once used for trains travelling down the now disused Wapping Tunnel.

At the moment there is a bottle neck where the track goes from 4 to 2 back to 4 on the bend. By bringing this back into use capacity would increase allowing more services in and out of Lime Street further down the line and also heading down towards Liverpool South Parkway.

 

[Ianno87]

Next month Merseytravel will meet to discuss infrastructure projects for 2018/19 for Merseyside. One of these is the reinstatement of an upper level crossover of WCML across from Edge Hill Maintainance Depot.

A Double track, overhead cables and missing bridge would be needed to reinstated this missing section. It was once used for trains travelling down the now disused Wapping Tunnel.

At the moment there is a bottle neck where the track goes from 4 to 2 back to 4 on the bend. By bringing this back into use capacity would increase allowing more services in and out of Lime Street further down the line and also heading down towards Liverpool South Parkway.

It doesn't go from 4 to 2 to 4. It goes from 6 (2 from Huyton, 4 from South Parkway) to 4 (in the tunnel to Lime St).

Not sure how this would really add capacity for as long as you've only got 4 tracks into Lime St itself (effectively 2 for Huyton, 2 for South Parkway)

 

[8A Rail]

As far as I am aware, that particular section now under trees / bushes use to cross over and connect upto the L&M line back in the 70's before the bridge was taken out. After that it was used as a stabling point for ECS. Not sure how that section would connect with lines to Liverpool South Parkway though as there would need major engineering work for the incline to go right and connect to the (WCML) lines and not straight / left to the L&M line.

Have you got a link to the possible proposals by Merseytravel assuming there are any?

 

[urbophile]

Wouldn't the best way of increasing capacity at Lime Street be to reopen the Wapping tunnel and divert all local services onto the Northern line? Especially if Central station is upgraded, but even if not the signalling could be made able to cope with 20 tph - that's less than LU.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Isn't this all a bit late now that NR has firmed up its route upgrade plans (remodelling Lime St and resignalling to Weaver Jn)?
Nothing is going to change in the short term (ie before CP6), unless a shed-load of new money is forthcoming, involving new routes/services.

 

[Camden]

It was once used for trains travelling down the now disused Wapping Tunnel.

Wonder if the reasons for this are less to do with a bottleneck and more to do with new services? Isn't the Wapping Tunnel the one that was planned to be modified to reach Liverpool Central?

And isn't it also the tunnel upon which a new station to service the science district's expansion is proposed?

 

[rebmcr]

It doesn't go from 4 to 2 to 4. It goes from 6 (2 from Huyton, 4 from South Parkway) to 4 (in the tunnel to Lime St).

Not sure how this would really add capacity for as long as you've only got 4 tracks into Lime St itself (effectively 2 for Huyton, 2 for South Parkway)

As the tracks in the Lime Street cutting are paired by direction, not by use, this could eliminate some flat crossings — it would be very timetable-dependent whether this would help though, as there remain flat crossings in the station throat anyway. I guess it would help to be able to leave the cutting more quickly if there was much less chance of being checked down by a red?

 

[IrishDave]

As the tracks in the Lime Street cutting are paired by direction, not by use, this could eliminate some flat crossings — it would be very timetable-dependent whether this would help though, as there remain flat crossings in the station throat anyway. I guess it would help to be able to leave the cutting more quickly if there was much less chance of being checked down by a red?

No, the tracks between Lime Street and Edge Hill are paired by use - from north to south you have Up Slow, Down Slow, Up Fast and Down Fast. Traffic to/from South Parkway uses the Fasts, traffic to/from Huyton uses the Slows. What flat crossings were you suggesting would be eliminated? Other than those in the throat I can't see any reason for there to be flat crossings.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

As the tracks in the Lime Street cutting are paired by direction, not by use, this could eliminate some flat crossings — it would be very timetable-dependent whether this would help though, as there remain flat crossings in the station throat anyway. I guess it would help to be able to leave the cutting more quickly if there was much less chance of being checked down by a red?

I'm not sure where you got this from because it's not true. In practice Lime Street is the terminus of two separate two-track routes from the Huyton direction (serving platforms 1-6) and the South Parkway direction (serving platforms 7-9). There are only two separate pairs of crossovers between the two routes, one immediately outside the station just before the disused "Neck" (loco holding siding), the other to the east of Edge Hill station. I would hope that the forthcoming re-modelling project will see the installation of additional crossovers in the genuine four-track sections that exist within the approach cutting (note that there are some sections where each route has its own two-track tunnel) thus providing some additional flexibility.

 

[rebmcr]

Yes of course, I misremembered! There does indeed seem to be no practical use for a grade-separated crossover there.

 

[MichaelAMW]

I'm not sure where you got this from because it's not true. In practice Lime Street is the terminus of two separate two-track routes from the Huyton direction (serving platforms 1-6) and the South Parkway direction (serving platforms 7-9). There are only two separate pairs of crossovers between the two routes, one immediately outside the station just before the disused "Neck" (loco holding siding), the other to the east of Edge Hill station. I would hope that the forthcoming re-modelling project will see the installation of additional crossovers in the genuine four-track sections that exist within the approach cutting (note that there are some sections where each route has its own two-track tunnel) thus providing some additional flexibility.

In practice, some trains from South Parkway also use the lower-numbered platforms, which involves crossing over, but going to 5 or 6 doesn't create any further conflict as the tracks have already separated by that point.

 

[notlob.divad]

The purpose of reusing this particular flyover has always been as part of introducing a connection from the Huyton lines into the south side of Liverpool Central. There is an argument that Wavetree Technology park both the stations and the business park prevent this occuring.

An alternative use potentially is to stop freight having to cross the 4 tracks from the Bootle Branch to the Wapping sidings to access the slow lines down to speke and ditton. Although I find this a little more far fetched myself.

There has certainly been a recent interest in relooking at the link into central in order to increase the through put of trains there by balancing out the north and south destinations.

 

[8A Rail]

The purpose of reusing this particular flyover has always been as part of introducing a connection from the Huyton lines into the south side of Liverpool Central. There is an argument that Wavetree Technology park both the stations and the business park prevent this occuring.

An alternative use potentially is to stop freight having to cross the 4 tracks from the Bootle Branch to the Wapping sidings to access the slow lines down to speke and ditton. Although I find this a little more far fetched myself.

There has certainly been a recent interest in relooking at the link into central in order to increase the through put of trains there by balancing out the north and south destinations.

As regards to Bootle Bch to Wapping as an alternative is actually impossible due to numerous physical things and was not even possible when everything was even if place many moons ago. The link could be put back in but only to serve L&M line from Olive Mount Junction to serve the lines on south side side of Edge Hill Station to Wapping (and beyond). Otherwise see no point to be honest.

 

[6Gman]

Is this yet another "solution looking for a problem"?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Is this yet another "solution looking for a problem"?

Well it is intriguing to look at the remaining west side of the flyover, fully wired and signalled despite decades of rust and undergrowth all around.

 

[AndrewE]

Is this yet another "solution looking for a problem"?

or alternatively "What infrastructure have we got sitting round doing nothing that (for not a lot of investment) could relieve some timetabling / pathing capacity issues?" (N.b. I'm not saying this is at the front of the queue...)

 

[Bevan Price]

The track layout here was very complicated, and there was more than one flyover.
See:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Liverpool_RJD_42.jpg

Personally, I can see no possible use for the flyover that would justify the cost of reinstating it. Diverting Huyton line services to Liverpool Central would inconvenience more people than it would benefit, because it would lose main line connectivity at Lime Street.

 

[AndrewE]

The track layout here was very complicated, and there was more than one flyover.
See:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Liverpool_RJD_42.jpg

Personally, I can see no possible use for the flyover that would justify the cost of reinstating it. Diverting Huyton line services to Liverpool Central would inconvenience more people than it would benefit, because it would lose main line connectivity at Lime Street.

I must admit that I thought that the flyovers were more about freight access to the various docks branches (including Bootle) than resolving passenger conflicts on the way in to Lime St, but the approach to Liverpool from the WCML does seem to be inordinately slow and devious.

I would like to see a study of where time could be shaved off schedules versus costs, both here and at other places on the network. I'm sure it will have been done, but sadly/probably only on a route-by-route basis. I remember that BR improved the ECML incrementally in this way with resounding success...

 

[Bevan Price]

I must admit that I thought that the flyovers were more about freight access to the various docks branches (including Bootle) than resolving passenger conflicts on the way in to Lime St, but the approach to Liverpool from the WCML does seem to be inordinately slow and devious.

I would like to see a study of where time could be shaved off schedules versus costs, both here and at other places on the network. I'm sure it will have been done, but sadly/probably only on a route-by-route basis. I remember that BR improved the ECML incrementally in this way with resounding success...

The current layout is a consequence of rail history. The L&MR came first, with London traffic originally going via Warrington & Earlestown curve . The later line from Weaver Jn via Runcorn joined an existing line from Warrington / Widnes to Garston at Ditton Jn, and left that line at Speke Jn. A line from Speke Jn to Edge Hill was probably the easiest / cheapest way for the new line to reach Lime St.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The current layout is a consequence of rail history. The L&MR came first, with London traffic originally going via Warrington & Earlestown curve . The later line from Weaver Jn via Runcorn joined an existing line from Warrington / Widnes to Garston at Ditton Jn, and left that line at Speke Jn. A line from Speke Jn to Edge Hill was probably the easiest / cheapest way for the new line to reach Lime St.

An earlier LNWR plan was to leave the WCML after Preston Brook and cross the Mersey near Fiddler's Ferry.
That would have brought it up to the L&M somewhere near Huyton and saved the dog leg via Speke-Edge Hill.
But the Timperley-Garston line was there and saved a lot of cost.
The Mersey crossing would have been difficult too, being wide and marshy between Runcorn and Warrington.

 

[Dixie]

Sadly that viaduct is neither use nor ornament. The east end just stops dead where the new business park has been built, curving slightly to the right away from the Huyton line. It really couldn't be used for anything unless a couple of the office units were demolished.

The Birds Eye view on Bing maps of the area is very interesting and worth a look.