-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Platform lengthening at Shepreth and Foxton
- Thread starter MikePJ
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
As I understand the plan is for the 387 to be on the fast Cambridge services from may. So this would require that all the stoppers would be class 700 from December. they are only lengthening the platforms in the down direction so up trains require SDO
There are engineering works closing the line for the next couple of weekends - it is buses replacing trains between Letchworth and Cambridge all day Saturday and Sunday this weekend and I think the following Sunday. so there should be some activity this weekend.
More details about the works here: http://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.u...er-trains-three-south-cambridgeshire-stations
Interestingly it explains that Meldreth station platform is being lengthened by 20m to provide better access for the disabled. Given that the London-bound platform is inaccessible except via steps (either over the footbridge or up from the path across the field), I guess any disabled users wanting to go south must go all the way to Cambridge and back again. The local rail user group has been campaigning for a ramp from the London platform for years.
Interestingly it explains that Meldreth station platform is being lengthened by 20m to provide better access for the disabled. Given that the London-bound platform is inaccessible except via steps (either over the footbridge or up from the path across the field), I guess any disabled users wanting to go south must go all the way to Cambridge and back again. The local rail user group has been campaigning for a ramp from the London platform for years.
You could go to Shepreth or Foxton and cross via the Level Crossing at either. Still not ideal of course.
Going to Meldreth from Cambridge would be a faff - you'd have to head to Royston then cross via the road bridge and car parks to head back.
a good off
Member
Duplicate post
Last edited:
Appears to be confirmed by the official page, which has been edited to no longer mention Meldreth: http://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.uk/villageplatforms
The concrete was being poured for the platform bases at Foxton today - I saw the cement mixer filling the formwork as I passed on my way to work.
At Shepreth things are further advanced - the concrete bases have been cast, and there's blockwork going in for ducts or drains.
At Shepreth things are further advanced - the concrete bases have been cast, and there's blockwork going in for ducts or drains.
adamedwards
Member
- Joined
- 4 Apr 2016
- Messages
- 796
Very pleased to see this. The sooner GN is all 8 car on anything Kings Cross the better. Making people stand on Sats and Suns does not make the trains look good T optional travellers.
bramling
Veteran Member
Not overly feasible to stop 365s because of Meldreth not being done.
The mirror is the existing one for 4 cars, not a new one.
I do love how they've just buried the mirror in the Tarmac
If Network Rail isn't fitting any more platform monitors/cameras, I assume there's another mirror to go in at the far end of the platform? Otherwise what happens when a 365 turns up and there might not be a dispatcher in the daytime?
bramling
Veteran Member
One presumes the idea is an 8-car 365 simply won't turn up there. The whole thing strikes me as a little half-hearted, although I can understand someone is attempting to achieve value for money. The work is evidently more about avoiding issues associated with level crossings than anything else.
(As an aside, at work over the weekend there was a lot of moaning about people having been unable to board 4-car services on the way up to London. I'm not sure if things may have been made worse by VTEC being up the wall - whilst it's normal for the stopping services to be hard to board by Hatfield it's certainly not normal for people to be being left behind as far back as Sandy! I gave up using GN at weekends ages ago - evidently the right judgement...)
Last edited:
I don't know about the 4-car stopping service but on Sunday I caught the 1104 from Stevenage which was an 8-car 365. I boarded in the rear most carriage and it was proper wedged - far busier then we see in the morning peak.
Looks like the works are due for completion in mid-November. http://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.uk/villageplatforms
Seems short sighted if any incident means swapping a unit and sending an 8-car 365 that will then have to skip the station if there's no dispatch staff there.
I guess if they're not installing monitors, they're not going to want to install mirrors either - given they're not considered safe in hours of darkness. I don't know if this is a firm ruling or just the DfT saving money because it believes the future is coach mounted cameras.
Which makes things a bit of a mess when GN isn't going to be running 100% of trains with in-cab monitors until the last 365s go (and of course the 313s but that's not relevant here).
As people have probably noticed, if a 387 has an in-cab DOO monitor fault then it skips stations without dispatchers available in the daytime.
bramling
Veteran Member
The platforms should have been lengthened to 8 cars ages ago really, but we are where we are.
If an 8-car 365 ends up there, presumably it would have to skip Meldreth anyway, and if on an up service then it would have to skip all three.
The whole situation is a bit of a mess, but it comes down to money, and evidently no one considers it good value for money to extend all six platforms.
Same goes for the 8-car platforms at the likes of Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn GC, Welwyn North and Knebworth I suppose, although a couple of these would be quite expensive to do for various reasons.
Much of GN's capacity issue could simply have been resolved by running as many 12-car trains as possible along with extending the suburban platforms at King's Cross. At least this would avoid the chronic unreliability associated with Thameslink.
"Lengthening the Suburban Platforms" as a concept was killed off by the redevelopment of Kings Cross; there's no space to extend towards the tunnels.
There's going to be quite a bit of money spent on some of the above stations for various things, but platform lengthening isn't part of the work.
I suppose a much cheaper way to improve capacity is to run more 8 car services off peak and weekends, and on Sunday to run 2tph instead of 1.
- Status