A welcome to Yarnfield Junc., Searchlight Lane Junc. and Little Bridgford Junc.

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

All three form part of the new layout, with grade separated flyover at Norton Bridge north of Stafford.

Finished on time over the Easter blockade this reduces a lot of the conflicting movements at Norton Bridge and releases extra paths on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line).  I've just watched 1A26 and 1M30 pass through the area on green signals (on the railcam.uk maps), when before one of them would have been slowed or stopped to allow the other to pass.  http://www.networkrail.co.uk/improvements/stafford-crewe/nortonbridge/

I remember posting about this years ago when the options for the new layout were being considered, but I'm darned if I can find it!

[IndustryInsider]

NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s press release on the work:

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/passengers-benefiting-from-gbp-250m-railway-upgrade-between-stafford-and-crewe

[SandTEngineer]

Yes some good news.  Bit premature of NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to state that it has removed one of the last bottlenecks on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line).  There is still a major one a Colwich which was discussed for a potential flyover many (many) years ago.

[ChrisB]

One of the last (few) seems right to me

[grahame]

One of the last (few) seems right to me

You'll never remove the last bottleneck for as soon as you do, somewhere else will become your capacity limiter.

Now that Reading isn't the bottleneck on the GW^▸ (Great Western) main line, Didcot is.  Fix that and you're looking at Royal Wootton Bassett ... then Bathampton, Swindon (Kemble line), Thingley and Didcot (West).  You're going to need extra platforms at Paddington, Didcot, Chippenham and Bath Spa to be off the main line ...

There's no bottleneck only when you have more capacity than requirement!

[ChrisB]

Hence 'one of the last'....

[PhilWakely]

Hence 'one of the last'....

[pedant mode]should read 'one of the remaining.....'[/pedant mode]

[ChrisB]

Or 'one of the last few'...which is what its 'short' for

[Electric train]

One of the last (few) seems right to me

You'll never remove the last bottleneck for as soon as you do, somewhere else will become your capacity limiter.

Now that Reading isn't the bottleneck on the GW^▸ (Great Western) main line, Didcot is.  Fix that and you're looking at Royal Wootton Bassett ... then Bathampton, Swindon (Kemble line), Thingley and Didcot (West).  You're going to need extra platforms at Paddington, Didcot, Chippenham and Bath Spa to be off the main line ...

There's no bottleneck only when you have more capacity than requirement!

The 2 junctions on the GW now Reading has been flattened out (pun intended)  identified as potential CP grade separation due to time table conflicts between freight and passenger trains are Morton Jcn and Southcote Jcn.  Wooten Bassett is much less of a problem

[IndustryInsider]

If anyone's interested, the revised layout at Norton Bridge has now been added to the opentraintimes map for the area:

http://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/sta