Worst Improvement?

[tbtc]

What's been the worst "improvement" to the railways?

A couple of suggestions:

1. The ECML wiring. Done cheaply, not powerful enough, falls down too easily and didn't cover diversionary routes/ extensions that should have been done at the time (meaning only one of the six trains north of York each hour is electric, whilst the rest are diesel - a waste)

2. Edinburgh Park station. Building a station to serve the busy office parks outside Edinburgh makes sense. However, building a two platform station with no loops or scope for overtaking means the "express" to Glasgow frequently getting stuck behind the stopping Bathgate/ Dunblane services (especially with the proposed increase in fast Glasgow services and the doubling of the Bathgate service when it's extended to Airdrie etc) - a brand new bottleneck where there wasn't one before

3. Electrificaton to Hazel Grove. GMPTE get the wires on their patch, but no use for Buxton/ Sheffield, meaning Hazel Grove EMUs terminating "short" when there's demand for more frequent/ longer services to Buxton etc

I'm sure there's a lot of other examples, where lines have been reopened with single track sections that cause problems, or improvements have been done "on the cheap"...

 

[generalvegitable]

another bad move was the bletchley flyover, since it was built it has had very little traffic, not enough to even warrant it even being there

 

[mrcheek]

Whilst the Beeching cuts were necessary and unavoidable, the lifting of excess tracks on routes that were being kept was a stupid idea. Scores of lines are now overworked single track, and would cost a fortune to redouble.

Oh yeah, and Birmingham New Street.

 

[me123]

2. Edinburgh Park station. Building a station to serve the busy office parks outside Edinburgh makes sense. However, building a two platform station with no loops or scope for overtaking means the "express" to Glasgow frequently getting stuck behind the stopping Bathgate/ Dunblane services (especially with the proposed increase in fast Glasgow services and the doubling of the Bathgate service when it's extended to Airdrie etc) - a brand new bottleneck where there wasn't one before

I've never noticed it being a bottleneck. I've never travelled through the station frequently or regularly, but I do use the Glasgow-Edinburgh route often and I've never been held behind a train in this area.

I would agree, though, with the ECML wiring. There are far too many diesel trains that need to run on the line if you ask me.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Whilst the Beeching cuts were necessary and unavoidable, the lifting of excess tracks on routes that were being kept was a stupid idea. Scores of lines are now overworked single track, and would cost a fortune to redouble.

The Beeching cuts were necessary, but they went too far and lead to the decline of the railways. Now we're experiencing a regrowth. Places like Alloa, for example, had a line but had to pay millions of pounds to get it back after Beeching closed it.

Overall, this "improvement" (as it would have been considered at the time) must have been one of the worst things to happen to the UK railways.

 

[EM2]

Euston

 

[generalvegitable]

Euston

Definately true

 

[tbtc]

Birmingham New Street.

That was a real missed opportunity to build additional lines into New Street - when they were rebuilding for the shops - we'll never get another chance to improve the "throat" of the station

 

[The Planner]

The throat isnt a problem, its the speed within the station and the need for some more platforms.

 

[Mojo]

Don't understand what the problem is with Euston. Large concourse, food court, plenty of retail. Platforms and concourse seem to be well-lit.

Might not look as nice as St Pancras, but seems fine to me.

 

[Royston Vasey]

1. The ECML wiring. Done cheaply, not powerful enough, falls down too easily and didn't cover diversionary routes/ extensions that should have been done at the time (meaning only one of the six trains north of York each hour is electric, whilst the rest are diesel - a waste)

The 91+Mk IV sets aren't exactly standing idle though are they? Just that service frequency has grown and HSTs have been able to fill the gap, whereas there were no more 91s/Mk IVs. On which basis, not building enough Mk 4 sets of them can maybe be added to the list!


Anyway, may I pitch in with Operation Princess??

 

[Phoenix]

Birmingham New Street.

As soon as I had seen the title of the thread I knew this was going to come up.
As a Brummie I ignor the bad side of the building as it's more of a home station for me which I have got used to.

But I do agrree terrible design which was practical when first built but did not stand a chance in hell in the 21st century the main problem is the lack of light within the station.I understand the speed limit to be too low but honestly passengers can deal with aspects such as this because we have slightly bigger fish to fry such as the continuing delays over the Birmingham - Coventry line considering it's is apparently the busiest two track mainline in the UK.

All I say is let there be light!

And oh yeah Birmingham Snow Hill is far worse it's a multistory car park for trains.

 

[driver9000]

How about all those massive marshalling yards such as Kingmoor and the hump yards which were built just as Beeching was sharpening his axe and wagonload freight was dwindling. Kingmoor is a fraction of its original size.

 

[Mojo]

How about all those massive marshalling yards such as Kingmoor and the hump yards which were built just as Beeching was sharpening his axe and wagonload freight was dwindling. Kingmoor is a fraction of its original size.

Not just that but what about stations such as Portishead that were rebuilt and put out of use less than 15 years later.

 

[Phoenix]

How about all those massive marshalling yards such as Kingmoor and the hump yards which were built just as Beeching was sharpening his axe and wagonload freight was dwindling. Kingmoor is a fraction of its original size.

The Problem was the fact that in beechings actions to improve the railways it was him who commissioned these various Hi-tech yards which were built at completely the wrong time and still to this day we see the skeletons of these once proud yards.

It's also to be remembered that Beeching apparently commissioned the MGR system which still to this day is one of the backbones of the rail freight industry.

 

[The Planner]

we have slightly bigger fish to fry such as the continuing delays over the Birmingham - Coventry line considering it's is apparently the busiest two track mainline in the UK.

Well you have more or less answered your own question there, it is such a heavily used mixed traffic raillway, that when something goes wrong, it goes wrong big stlye !! Freight entering from a stand or 30mph at Stechford or crossing at 20. 110mph Pendos mixing with local services, Coventry I wont even start on.

 

[Phoenix]

Well you have more or less answered your own question there, it is such a heavily used mixed traffic raillway, that when something goes wrong, it goes wrong big stlye !! Freight entering from a stand or 30mph at Stechford or crossing at 20. 110mph Pendos mixing with local services, Coventry I wont even start on.

Yeah what I meant is when we have problems such as this in the area a Bad looking station such as new street isn't really a problem currently on our minds.
We can deal with that as long as we can get past Coventry station on the way out of New Street.

 

[Failed Unit]

What's been the worst "improvement" to the railways?

A couple of suggestions:

1. The ECML wiring. Done cheaply, not powerful enough, falls down too easily and didn't cover diversionary routes/ extensions that should have been done at the time (meaning only one of the six trains north of York each hour is electric, whilst the rest are diesel - a waste)

I know another poster has point it out but apart from the 1130 and 1230 London - Newcastle daigrams all the other services north of York run off the wires for part of the route, so power isn't the problem here. Even the 0700 Edinburgh - London which is HST 100% of its journey is a balancing for a the Aberdeen - London service. The 0930 Edinburgh and 1530 should be 91's (and sometimes is) but their are not any left!

If you look at the 6 TPE on north of York
2x NXEC, most are 91's with the HST running north of Edinburgh in most cases,
2x XC & 2x TPE which are under the wires for a minority of the route.
1x GC again not much choice.

I new order of 125mph EMU's is really long overdue, as in my opinion the Voyagers on the WCML 100% under the wires is a lot more criminal waste.

I've never noticed it being a bottleneck. I've never travelled through the station frequently or regularly, but I do use the Glasgow-Edinburgh route often and I've never been held behind a train in this area.

Don't see the issue here either, heading to Glasgow the express leave at 00,15 etc, the trains stopping at Edinburgh Park follow 3 minutes afterwards. Going the other way you maybe follow at train into Haymarket but that is normally the padding and it also happens heading into Queen Street when you catch up with the stoppers calling at Lenzie, Bishopbriggs etc. The point overall is true some passing loops in stations would be very useful to help recover from disruption.

To me the biggest "Worse improvement" was the pacer! Spent most of its early life broken down, cost a fortune in mods and has never been as good as what it replaced. I guess if BR knew how unreliable they would be they would have just ordered more sprinters day 1.

 

[The Snap]

Manchester Victoria.

That's if you could even call it an 'improvement'. It has been ruined by the M.E.N. arena. The refurbishment of platforms 3-6 is not bad cosmetically, but the building of the arena has made the station dark and dingy, and a shadow of it's former vibrant self.

(I say this even though I'm not old enough to have ever been in the station pre-M.E.N., I'm judging by photographs I've seen.)

 

[tbtc]

I know another poster has point it out but apart from the 1130 and 1230 London - Newcastle daigrams all the other services north of York run off the wires for part of the route, so power isn't the problem here. Even the 0700 Edinburgh - London which is HST 100% of its journey is a balancing for a the Aberdeen - London service. The 0930 Edinburgh and 1530 should be 91's (and sometimes is) but their are not any left!

If you look at the 6 TPE on north of York
2x NXEC, most are 91's with the HST running north of Edinburgh in most cases,
2x XC & 2x TPE which are under the wires for a minority of the route.
1x GC again not much choice

That's the problem though. When they wired the ECML there was no "plan B" - no diversonary lines or other lines were done (apart from the Aidedale/ Wharfdale) - the Hetford loop is the only alternative route. For a few quid more they could have done the Durham Coast or Leeds - York, or Ely - Peterborough etc.

If those were done then the case for things like Transpnnine electrification would have been easier at a later date.

To me the biggest "Worse improvement" was the pacer! Spent most of its early life broken down, cost a fortune in mods and has never been as good as what it replaced. I guess if BR knew how unreliable they would be they would have just ordered more sprinters day 1.

If we're talking units, then the 175/180s deserve a mention. The railway would have been a lot better with more 170s/ Voyagers, rather than two "micro" fleets. Did we learn nothnig from British Rail and it's tiny classes? The danger of letting each TOC decide it's own trains...

 

[charley_17/7]

What's been the worst "improvement" to the railways?

3. Electrificaton to Hazel Grove. GMPTE get the wires on their patch, but no use for Buxton/ Sheffield, meaning Hazel Grove EMUs terminating "short" when there's demand for more frequent/ longer services to Buxton etc

Hazel Grove got wired (albeit a bit late) for the Picc-Vic project. Before the 'Windsor Link' and ' Hazel Grove Chord', it was just part of the Manchester - Buxton service.

At one time, Hazel Grove had a ten minute peak period frequency, and some of the best off-peak levels of ridership in the area, but this has been run further and further down over the years. Yet DfT have just given £164million to build the Hazel Grove bypass between 2014-2019, a road proposed since the 1960s, and possibly earlier.

If Picc-Vic had got fully built, rather than the 'bits' we got (like Hazel Grove, Altrincham and Bury Interchanges), the section as far as HG would have run to Victoria Low Level, 10 minute peak frequency, the section past HG would be either a busway, a diesel operated shuttle or electrified to Buxton. Of course, none happened!


Another 'improvement' that wasn't much good was the rationalisation of Dore, removing the platforms from the Chesterfield route, and singling the track towards Totley Tunnel. Benefit of hindsight!

 

[me123]

If we're talking units, then the 175/180s deserve a mention. The railway would have been a lot better with more 170s/ Voyagers, rather than two "micro" fleets. Did we learn nothnig from British Rail and it's tiny classes? The danger of letting each TOC decide it's own trains...

Similarly, look at Voyagers. Far too short, and the smells and poor seat alignment made it a poor experience for the customer. Things soon got out of hand on Cross Country and remain this way today. Largely down to the Voyager.

The thing that frustrates me about the Voyager, really, is that it so easily could have been so better. Three little mistakes were all that it took to really kill that mainline route. And it's a shame; I think the Voyagers have/had the potential to be really good trains. Let's hope people will look back on this, and ensure we do not make the mistake again. Looking forward to IEP, hopefully XC will get some new trains which are more suitible, allowing displacement of the Voyagers and finally restoring some control to the XC route.

 

[43106]

It's an engineering "improvement", but why have straight forward junctions (consisting of 2 sets of points and a single diamond crossing) been replaced by a ladder branching off to a single line which opens back out to a double line? (examples are Temple Hirst and Euxton Junctions) It CAUSES a bottleneck. I fail to see the purpose of this at all. Are their any railway professionals out there who can explain the logic of this?

 

[The Planner]

Single line junctions are odd yes, but fixed diamonds are a pain to maintain apparently. Some of the highest failure rates of infrastructure are caused by them. The ones at Norton Bridge are some of the worst in the country, which is why they have a long standing TSR on them.

 

[driver9000]

I dont know about the layout at Temple Hirst. Euxton Junction has a ladder as its possible to cross over between the Fast and Slow lines (and vice versa) there a diamond crossing would prevent this routing being possible. It doesnt create a bottleneck, as the traffic heading to Manchester (Up/Down Central) is timed to not interfere with fast WCML services, which usually pass while an Up service is in Leyland station, unfortunately the Manchester Victoria-Blackpool North services do seem to clash at Euxton Junction with the Down service being held at the signal protecting Euxton until the Up service has come off the Up Slow and cleared the junction although this may be part of the running time as there is 10mins running time Chorley-Leyland our diagrams dont show pathing allowances so I cant be sure. Euxton Junction was improved a few years ago to make it a double track junction by creating a new lead off the Up Fast with a 60mph PSR with trains being given flashing yellows which you can also get on the Up Slow too, however the crossover from Slow-Fast is still 30mph, increasing to 50mph onto the Central. The new lead is used mostly by TPE services with Northern being mostly on the Slow lines with the exception of Up Hazel Grove services.

 

[me123]

It's an engineering "improvement", but why have straight forward junctions (consisting of 2 sets of points and a single diamond crossing) been replaced by a ladder branching off to a single line which opens back out to a double line? (examples are Temple Hirst and Euxton Junctions) It CAUSES a bottleneck. I fail to see the purpose of this at all. Are their any railway professionals out there who can explain the logic of this?

Single lead junctions have caused, amongst others, crashes and fatalities at Bellgrove and Newton. Newton's junction has now been "fixed" and is no longer single lead. Bellgrove is still single lead, but blue SPAD signals have been installed to protect against a future incident.

 

[johnb]

Similarly, look at Voyagers. Far too short, and the smells and poor seat alignment made it a poor experience for the customer. Things soon got out of hand on Cross Country and remain this way today. Largely down to the Voyager.

Say what? XC was near-unusable pre-Princess (and I tried to use it a lot); now it's a reliable, regular-interval service that has seen massive increases in passenger numbers. That's why the trains are full, even though they provide more capacity than the pre-Voyager service.

Most passengers don't care about seat alignment, as satisfaction surveys consistently show. But yes, the bog smells are, erm, crap.

The thing that frustrates me about the Voyager, really, is that it so easily could have been so better. Three little mistakes were all that it took to really kill that mainline route. And it's a shame; I think the Voyagers have/had the potential to be really good trains.

How on earth d'you get 'kill', on a route which grew faster than the national average throughout a decade when the national average growth was its fastest since WWII?

Let's hope people will look back on this, and ensure we do not make the mistake again. Looking forward to IEP, hopefully XC will get some new trains which are more suitible, allowing displacement of the Voyagers and finally restoring some control to the XC route.

IEP doesn't include any of the XC routes. At most, it may involve the displacement of some electric stock onto electrified XC routes (although the only fully electrified XC route, Brum-Glasgow, was transferred to WC at the new franchise - Brum-Manc is the only other segment where this could conceivably be done), so the Voyagers can be redeployed to replace retired HSTs.

 

[MCR247]

johnb: They are overcrowded, as when Vomiters were ordered, the were going to double the frequencey, and half the carriges, if that makes sense. ie EDB-PLY every 30minutes, 4 car opposed to every 60mins, with 8 coaches, but they couldnt maintain the TT becasue of reliability problems, and they then had to go back to the old TT.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
But yes, I'd have to say 220/1s are the worst improvement

 

[SouthEastern-465]

I know this Is not really a good story,but Grove Park Station use to be In NSE style everything e.g the platform clocks,walls,signs etc.. but about april this year everything was taken down the walls were refurbished and painted SouthEastern purple colour they use on buildings they use,the NSE style wall was stripped of itstyles and painted purple and on and on etc... I guess Its the way of the world.
Regards

 

[Spaceflower]

The Sunderland Metro extension

 

[87015]

Say what? XC was near-unusable pre-Princess (and I tried to use it a lot); now it's a reliable, regular-interval service that has seen massive increases in passenger numbers. That's why the trains are full, even though they provide more capacity than the pre-Voyager service.

Unusable? Have big difficulties reading a timetable thats a bit more complicated than standard pattern do you? Everyone else seemed to find it quite useable! I'm sure all the people that have lost XC services as a result of the shambles that was Operation Pumpkin will disagree with your opinion that it was a success.