GWML Relief Lines

[Class 170101]

Is it Edinburgh where there’s also a Klondike siding?

Klondyke Siding at Clacton CS as well

 

[edwin_m]

On the Midland it was Passenger and Goods lines, passenger trains were not normally allowed on the goods lines as they used a simplified for of permissive block called telegraph block.

Goods has a specific meaning, that passenger-carrying trains were not allowed to use the line except under special arrangements. Empty passenger trains were allowed.

That allowed various relaxations of signaling rules on Goods lines, most notably "permissive block" where a second or subsequent train could run into an occupied section at a speed low enough to stop on seeing the train in front. This resulted sometimes in multiple trains being stacked nose to tail and was also the cause of several serious accidents - though with only goods trains involved there would not have been many fatalities, and traincrew were considered to be "dispensable" in those days.

More recently there have been many fewer goods and many more passenger trains and attitudes to safety have changed. So Goods lines are nearly always upgraded to passenger status when the signaling is renewed, although they still often have lower maximum speeds than the adjacent passenger lines and may only carry passengers when those lines are under maintenance. When that happens they are re-named, usually as Slows.

On the four-track sections of the Midland Main Line many parts of the eastern pair of tracks were previously designated as Goods lines but none now are. There are still a few Goods lines around, such as the tracks on the west side north of Leicester.

 

[DidcotDickie]

Another interesting case is the GEML from Shenfield to Liverpool Street, where the slow lines are still known as the Electric lines despite all four tracks being wired as they were the ones wired first for the suburban services that were planned under LNER and ultimately started under BR(E).

Almost. You're correct in that the LNER plan was to wire the electric (now Metro) lines first (in order to save money as they were broke), but after nationalisation sanity prevailed and BR wired the lot out to Shenfield in 1948/9.

I presume that when BR implemented the LNER resignalling scheme it retained the 'main' and 'electric' designation for fast and slow lines.

 

[jopsuk]

Almost. You're correct in that the LNER plan was to wire the electric (now Metro) lines first (in order to save money as they were broke), but after nationalisation sanity prevailed and BR wired the lot out to Shenfield in 1948/9.

I presume that when BR implemented the LNER resignalling scheme it retained the 'main' and 'electric' designation for fast and slow lines.

The other unusual factor is the way the lines are swapped at the flyover at Ilford, allowing local services to use Ilford depot (to the north of the line) but letting long distance services use the (historically) longer platforms in the middle of Liverpool Street. This is slightly different to the flyovers found on the ECML and SWML, as here on the GEML the lines remained paired by use, not direction. The SWML Wimbledon flyover (taking the Up Slow across the fast lines) changes the lines from paired by direction to paired by use, so that SWML services all use the low number platforms at Waterloo. The Holloway Flyover performs a similar role for the ECML, directing Up Slow services into the high number platforms or the Thameslink tunnels.

 

[Bill EWS]

There is the Up & Down 'Chester Line' at Didcot. Up until the mid 60's there was services directly too and from Chester.

 

[swt_passenger]

Aren’t we getting away from the original question now, which was really about how the different ways of differentiating between pairs of tracks in four track areas came about?

Geographic type line names such as Didcot-Chester based on early routes are fairly common across the country surely. But it’s still just an up and down two track railway.

Having checked the SA, it is the engineer’s line reference (ELR) that remains as DCL, but the individual line names leaving to the north from Didcot are plain and simple up and down Oxford...

 

[Taunton]

A very odd situation is at Oxford, where the loops were extended to form a 4-track to Wolvercote Junction and so it became Main and Relief, with a convention arrangment of DR-DM-UM-UR (although in the appendix they are only labelled as Up/Down Oxford, not 'main', but I've seen other documentation that refer to them as mains), but because of the platforms only being on the Relief lines they raised the RL linespeed and put in high-speed points where needed. Freights are intended to be held on the Main Lines, and passengers to overtake them via the Reliefs. It makes sense when you think about it, but it looks odd on a plan having trains waiting on the 'main' for the 'relief' to overtake.

Similar situation at Taunton, where the 1930 4-tracking from Cogload through to Norton Fitzwarren put the Relief lines outside the Mains in the conventional way. However, with the flyover at Cogload, Bristol line trains, including all expresses, were always run on the Reliefs through to Taunton station, where the principal platforms were likewise on the outside, and after the mid-1960s the central Main Line platforms were closed and services all stopped on the Reliefs. West of the station, a more normal arrangement applied, all expresses crossed to the Main west of the station, and all locals used the Relief. It was like this until knocked down to 2-track in the 1990 Exeter resignalling.

High speed connections were actually installed at Cogload between the lines, but I can never remember them ever being used by passenger services. They were though by Up Bristol line freights coming from the goods loop/depot on the south side, trundling along in the middle with a Bristol express they were to follow overtaking on the outside.

 

[norbitonflyer]

West of the station, a more normal arrangement applied, all expresses crossed to the Main west of the station, and all locals used the Relief.

That was the normal pattern, but could be altered if necessary. This led to a derailment at Norton Fitzwarren one night during the Blitz in 1940 when the driver of an overnight train leaving Taunton believed he had been crossed to the main as usual, only to find as he approached the end of the four track section that he was being overtaken by another train to his right. (This other train was not booked to call at Taunton and had thus been given a clear run through on the Main). Apparently the driver (who not only had to cope with the blackout but had the additional stress of having had his house bombed the previous night) was reading the signals for the Main, which were cleared for the other train, and had, in consequence, cancelled the ATC warnings triggered by his own signals on the Relief Line.
The train was derailed on the trap points at the end of the four track section. The overtaking train had pulled clear just in time, getting away with some cosmetic damage to the rear coaches from flying debris.

 

[Taunton]

That was the normal pattern, but could be altered if necessary. This led to a derailment at Norton Fitzwarren one night during the Blitz in 1940

I'm extremely well aware of this accident. Some of those involved in the rescue were still around when I was growing up there, including our family doctor called out in the middle of the night.

Not in any report is that the down express (via Bristol) was signalled as normal over the crossover to the Down Main while it was standing at the platform, which the driver would have seen. Then the faster newspaper train (via Castle Cary) was advised. Taunton West Station box then put the signal back to danger, reversed the crossover again, and pulled off the starter to the Down Relief instead. Train ready to go, GWR driver on the right of course, asks the fireman on the platform (and signal) side to confirm, fireman says signal off, and there they go, in the blackout, just a few feet to the left of where the driver had previously seen they were signalled.

New procedure in Taunton West Station box from the following day, if there was ever a change of plan like this, signal to be left at danger until the loco whistled for it. And to the end of steam in the 1960s, any main line train departing the Down Relief platform would have the driver just cross the footplate to look and double-check.

The ATC cancellation was alas a wartime issue. ATC depended on trackside batteries, and the maintenance of these, like much else, fell into arrears, with replacements often in short supply. It was nothing unusual to get several false warnings on a run.

In passing, none of these points made it into the official report, and thus not into Red for Danger and people's understanding of the accident.

 

[6Gman]

One of a couple of dozen around the country, I think. I don’t think there’s much originality about it.

"Mush's Garden" is a favourite of mine. (Or was. The nest of sidings on the Up Side of the Manchester line immediately north of Crewe Station.)

 

[TEW]

The Euston - Queens Park -Harrow - Watford lines were know as the "new line" , as well as the "DC". New in 1915 and 1917.

Of course , Surbiton - Oxshot - Guildford also had the same designation.

Surbiton-Guildford via Cobham is still very much referred to as the New Line.

 

[rower40]

Part of the answer to the original question is GWR pride. "We don't have slow trains on the Great Western", and so, by implication, we don't need slow lines for them to run on.