Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi

I went to Bristol PW today, the first weekend visit in months, as against the regular weekday visits, and to my surprise it is a bus station again. Every weekend since April, until some far off point in the future that the staff do not know, the Severn Tunnel is being worked on every weekend. Hence, buses from Newport, BPW and Swindon.

Last year year it was re - wiring, and before that the track. Now the are lining the tunnel.
 
Throughout the 1990s, the DfT spend about ten years rebuilding the dilapidated MS Avon bridge. before it was finished.

In light of this, the Thelwell Viaduct repairs on the M6 involved the building of a second bridge before shutting the original for repairs. This was a lot quicker and apparently cheaper.

Would it be cheaper/better for NR and DfT to build a second Severn Tunnel, then shut and fix the original at leisure.

Newport - Bristol Parkway is valid via Gloucester/Cheltenham if you'd rather not sit on a coach.

Sundays are not a day to cross the Severn.  To get home today, a member of my family trained from BTM to BPW then bussed from BPW to Newport then trained from Newport to Cardiff Central then trained from Cardiff Central to Radyr and then bussed from Radyr onwards as NR had everything north of Radyr closed today.

As she said, how can she sleep if she keeps having to get off the bus/train every 15 minutes.

Simon, I was across in South Wales [Chepstow] earlier today, having gone across at the start of the weekend.   Here's the only offering that the First Great Western site came up with to get me home.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/longwayround.jpg)

And that is a journey of around 35 miles as the crow flies!

I use the train where I can ... but as this was a weekend away, and included my Dad who's in in his late 80s, I confess to us taking the car.   The old Severn Bridge was also shut westbound, but that's perhaps a story for another site.

I thought they were still wiring it. Also, the opportunity is being taken to do the work at the same time as signalling work in connection with the Newport Area Resignalling, which would shut the tunnel anyway.

I'm afraid it's inevitable that a structure the age of the ST will need a lot of regular maintainance that involves shutting the line. It happens every year, but admittedly this year is worse. It's a shame that we won't get a 90mph tunnel with an intermediate section to increase capacity as a result.

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/ ;D

Perhaps a new tunnel as part of the electrification project?

Not going to happen.

You're probably right, but what a sad reflection of the state of the country we can't "afford" to build a new Severn Tunnel.

Which country are you referring to when you say "we"?

Sorry if this comes across as sounding rather divisive, but in the light of the Scots announcing they would rather not be a part of "Team GB" come next Olympics, I genuinely do believe there is a debate to be had regarding whether the English or the Welsh actually benefit from a new  Severn Tunnel.

No - Alec Salmond said he wanted to end "Team GB" - not the Scots. The Scots (and English/N- Irish) have been angered by this, and it has backfired on the SNP!!!!

And talking of the Olypics - we are building new Velodromes, new rowing lakes and sponsoring atheletes with serveral billion pounds.

And we can't afford a new tunnel. Well, if we have a new stadium (which will be derelict by 2013! - like the Greek olympic park in 2005) who needs the tunnel.

2012 is far more important!

</rant>

I dont see the problem with the current one to be honest

also i would imagine that the cost of building a bridge is significantly less than that of building a tunnel

The main problems with the current tunnel are that it is dilapidated, and current speed and use restrictions limit the number of trains that can travel from Wales to England at peak times.

Changes in population, and commuting, mean more local trains are needed between Bristol and Cardiff. A new tunnel, or bridge, could allow HST to travel at high speeds, and allow more local trains to travel between Bristol and Cardiff at peak time.
 

No way will they ever build a new Severn Tunnel. A bridge should be affordable in the 5th richest country in the world, but almost certainly isn't, although I suppose it's possible that the Welsh Assembly might be able to scrape the money together one day, as long as they don't expect a contribution from this side of the Severn.

I'm not convinced... 2 trains per hour from South Wales to London and Bristol seems frequent enough to me. They just need to make the trains longer.

The argument that justified the second Severn bridge also justifies an additional rail link. More capacity is needed. 2 Intercity trains per hour and a local train per hour (6 crossings) is about its limit. At peak, more trains are needed.

My initial observation is that the DfT experience of maintaining the M5 Avon bridge, directly led to the decision to build a second Thelwell Viaduct (bridge) to allow the original to be fixed. The result is that there is now more capacity to cross the River Mersey via M6.

The ongoing maintenance of the Severn Tunnel is now reminiscent of the 10 odd years of road works to the M5 Avon bridge. If so, does the cost of maintaining the tunnel whilst keeping it open exceed the cost of building an alternative and repairing the tunnel at leisure?

The cost of the second Severn Bridge is funded by a toll, why could no a second severn rail crossing also be funded by a toll? Then again, surely the ^1000 million that FGW are paying the DfT for the privilege of running the franchise could pay for such a crossing.

I am afraid that you misunderstand the way the Treasury works. The ^1000 million FGW has to pay is not for rail improvements it's just part of general government revenue. It can't be allocated to building a new rail crossing of the Severn as that would be hypothecation which the Treasury doesn't allow. It's also why all the tax collected off motorists doesn't go towards building new roads or even maintaining the existing ones.

I see a bridge has been suggested, the problem with the Severn is unless you go upstream of Sharpness you need a suspension bridge to span the width and to give the necessary clearance for shipping. Also I didn't think you could run a railway over a (long) suspension bridge because to stay up they have to sway which would distort the tracks. Further having sailed a narrow boat in both directions from Sharpeness to Portishaed the tidal flow is awesome and would make building any piers for a ridgid bridge in the full flow almost impossible. Don't forget Avonmouth has the second highest tidal range in the world. But even if they could be built they would be extremely vunerable to being hit by quite large ships as the origanl Severn and Wye bridge at Sharpness was. You only have to think of one of the car carrying floating bricks that serve Royal Portbury losing it's engines on the approach to the Dock and being swept upstream.

You could build a new bridge to replace the old Severn and Wye bridge from Sharpenss to Lydney, which was destroyed in a tragic accident in the 60s, when two petrol  barges missed entrance to Sharpness dock in fog and were swept upstream by the tide, and hit the bridge and blew up. Up to it's destruction  it was used for diversions but as the largest engine that could be used was Dean Goods or equivalent most Expresses went via Gloucester as now.

Even if it was built it would be a long way round with slow approaches unless say you built a new line from west of Sodbury tunnel across to Sharpness and really fettled up the old South Wales mainline west of Lydney for 125 mph. It's  pretty well alinged already as it's a Brunel route and virtually level running beside the river. The new link could have junctions with the Midland where it crosses probably somewhere near Berkley.

But it would only be of any real use for London services, but still it would free up the tunnel for local services.

However I still say it's a tremendous inditement of the 5th largest economy in the world that we can't "afford" a second Severn tunnel.

Seems Stupid to have ever have got RID of the Severn Rail Bridge, OK it had been Damaged but BR had drawn up plans to repair the bridge with a Double length Span so not having to rebuild the Damaged Pier.

Thanks for that background information, smokey!

There's also some useful information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Railway_Bridge and http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/focus/2004/10/sharpness_rail_disaster.shtml

The so-called Second Severn Crossing runs parallel to the Severn Tunnel. It is not a suspension bridge. Maybe one day when petrol reaches ^2 a litre it will seem a bit wasteful to have six traffic lanes across it, and a couple can be used for other purposes. Its gradient profile might not suit heavy rail, but South Wales - Bristol LRT?

Curiously, I can find no reference to the weight restriction on the Second Severn Crossing. Anybody with this knowledge?