Slippery rails, flooding, landslips and other issues - November 2016 (merged topic)

[whole diary]

[bobm]

The Network Rail spokesman on BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Spotlight last night explained work to provide a new culvert is due to be finished in 2018 but admitted that until then that section of line was at risk.

He also stated that the booms used in the past had not been deployed because of health and safety considerations.  He claimed by the time they had the warning from the Environment Agency it was dark and it was decided it was not safe to have workers trying to erect them in poor light with fast flowing water.

He also stated the line would reopen a lot sooner than it had in the past because of the raising of the location cabinets above the floodwater.

[Zoe]

I note that some trains are now running as far as Tiverton Parkway.  Was there a blockage between Taunton and Tiverton Parkway preventing this until this morning?

[TaplowGreen]

I am very sorry that poor young lady had to endure such a journey.  I hope, at the very least, that she sends the whole thing to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Customer Services.  The taxi driver from Plymouth needs to be identified and dealt with - what he did was unforgiveable.

Also, and this needs to be very sensitively done, the staff at Taunton need to be praised for their initiative in buying the pizzas but gently asked to bear vegetarians in mind if they need to do it again.

Let's hope the Peninsula Rail Task Force report launched yesterday in Westminster leads to some very serious investment to minimise the possibility of this happening again.  Anyone in London who thinks the problem in Devon is only the sea wall is getting a terrible reminder that it is not.  Cowley Bridge needs properly sorting, pretty much whatever it takes.

Hopefully once common sense prevails & HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) is cancelled or drastically scaled back, some of the colossal resource set aside for that white elephant can be redeployed elsewhere to resolve problems such as this.

[ChrisB]

That resource is borrowed money for *capital* investment. Improvements are not capital, thus the money wouldn't be available in the same way. It's something most don't understand. The works you mention would have to fight for taxpayers taxes....and the NHS is likely to have higher urgency.

[JayMac]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have just tweeted saying that Network Rail are on course to have the lines open at Cowley Bridge tomorrow.

[LiskeardRich]

I note that some trains are now running as far as Tiverton Parkway.  Was there a blockage between Taunton and Tiverton Parkway preventing this until this morning?

CrossCountry have been running to Tiverton the whole time. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to Taunton. There isn't adequate platform and sidings at Tiverton to turn lots of trains, Taunton has its 5 platforms and also some sidings if needed to get trains out of the way.

[Zoe]

CrossCountry have been running to Tiverton the whole time. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to Taunton. There isn't adequate platform and sidings at Tiverton to turn lots of trains, Taunton has its 5 platforms and also some sidings if needed to get trains out of the way.

Looking at the Exeter TD messages from the last 24 hours it seems that although some services did run through to Tiverton Parkway in the morning, they were terminating at Taunton later in the day.

Even if XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) do run through to Tiverton Parkway all day today, this seems to be a change from previous occasions when GWR ran through to Tiverton with XC terminating at Taunton or Bristol.

[JayMac]

CrossCountry are keeping their options open it seems. They've made no Short Term Planning (STP) or Variation (VAR) to their timetables. Westbound XCs^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) are merely terminating early at Tiverton Parkway this morning. Later services where the rolling stock is not due to work back may terminate earlier.

I'd hazard a guess that Network Rail are working their butts off at Cowley Bridge and, although they are publicly saying 'tomorrow', are hoping they may have the lines open later today.

[Pb_devon]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have just tweeted saying that Network Rail are on course to have the lines open at Cowley Bridge tomorrow.

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Devon webpage report opening at 13.00 today.

[Zoe]

T3 has just been removed from E41 and E56 on the Exeter TD.  Looks like 1C79 and 1A83 are running through.

[bobm]

Indeed - with a 40mph speed restriction.

[IndustryInsider]

That resource is borrowed money for *capital* investment. Improvements are not capital, thus the money wouldn't be available in the same way. It's something most don't understand. The works you mention would have to fight for taxpayers taxes....and the NHS is likely to have higher urgency.

And even if the entire HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) budget was made available that only equates to about £4-5bn per year.  I'm not going to pretend that wouldn't make a difference, but there would be all sorts of pulls on that money each year - capacity increases, new stations and routes, as well as trying to weather proof loads of locations around the country.  It might be quite some time (late 2020s?) before all these flooding issues could have enough money thrown at them from the HS2 fund.

I expect when the floods subside they'll be loads of talk and little action. Again.

[ChrisB]

If the damage took weeks to repair each time, the priority might be higher....

[IndustryInsider]

Certainly it would appear that raising the equipment cabinets reduced the closure time and cost of repairs so that when the floods waters had subsided it was just a case of repairing/relaying ballast that had been displaced.

I'll be interested to see what effect the equipment raising at Hinksey and Maidenhead has over the coming years - Hinksey of course also had the track level raised.

[Bob_Blakey]

A question...would the signalling configuration permit temporary stabling at the Tiverton Junction loops so that all timetabled services could call at Tiverton Parkway? And even if this was possible would there be any gain from so doing?

And to repeat a previous assertion of mine - the situation at Cowley Bridge could be significantly improved by replacing the existing A377 embankment, which blocks nearly 70% of the Exe / Creedy floodplain width, with an elevated roadway. This would stop so much of the wet stuff being diverted onto the railway. It would also tie in quite nicely with the large amount of work currently being done by the EA to mitigate the flood risk further south.