Oxford station - facilities, improvements, parking, incidents and events - merged posts

[whole diary]

[SandTEngineer]

For those interested in what is still to come to pass at Oxford later this year, I thought this 2016 Network Rail (NR^» (Network Rail - home page)) presentation would be of benefit: https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/ConstructingExcellenceOxford/network-rail-eng-presentation-14-0116-py-final

Note there is an error in the slides in that Phase 0 is shown as being delivered in Summer 2018 when that should have been Summer 2016..

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

[Class 50]

If anyone wants an update, Rob Mashford from Network Rail is giving a presentation on the ongoing and future Works , to Railfuture @ Jericho Community Centre 33 Canal Street OX26BQ. 18.30hrs on Monday 19th Feb 2018.
Non members and those interested are most welcome .
This was a very successfull and interesting meeting last year, so very strongly recommended .

[Oxman]

A massive infrastructure investment for Oxfordshire was announced today. The focus for the first year is transport related. According to the Oxford Mail:

"There will be £3.25m for a Botley Road corridor project - to give buses priority and improve cycle provision and the road condition - and £500,000 will be put towards a study to widen Botley Road rail bridge to facilitate the Oxford Station development and create more rail lines."

[paul7575]

A massive infrastructure investment for Oxfordshire was announced today. The focus for the first year is transport related. According to the Oxford Mail:

"There will be £3.25m for a Botley Road corridor project - to give buses priority and improve cycle provision and the road condition - and £500,000 will be put towards a study to widen Botley Road rail bridge to facilitate the Oxford Station development and create more rail lines."

Must be one of the most studied bridge widening schemes ever...

Paul

[ChrisB]

Quite possibly as it happens.....both restrained by the approach from the City  and above by the railway & station. It certainly won't be easy

[jdw.wor]

Can someone please tell me why half a million pounds is needed for a study into widening one bridge when, I suspect, everyone knows of its advantages.

[Rostock0]

My guess is that the study is about the traffic chaos that will ensue if they close the road under the bridge. It's a genuine choke point.

[stuving]

Can someone please tell me why half a million pounds is needed for a study into widening one bridge when, I suspect, everyone knows of its advantages.

The announcement was confusing, in part for the usual reason that some of it was not backed up by fuller details "published" on line. But this was confusinger, as it looked as if there were two DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) schemes for similar things on different timescales. However, I think it's the same thing with too many names (is that an appellation mountain?)

As far as I can make out, this is the government's Housing Infrastructure Fund (not the Housing and Infrastructure Fund) for which applications were invited last year. The announcement on 21st March was for grants to Oxfordshire (plus districts) as well as Greater Manchester and the West of England. Those three total £300M, of which £215M is for Oxfordshire.

This involves setting up agreements (like contracts, but without so many lawyers or words), and the relevant one is the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal. The local end of this is dealt with by the Oxfordshire Growth Board and the LEP^» (Local Enterprise Partnership - about) - OxLEP. OxLEP's announcment of this was a bit vague, but the OGB has a list of things which includes:

Widening Botley Road railway bridge will support the Oxford rail station development, enabling more rail lines to be provided to increase capacity through Oxford; while widening the road underneath the bridge will provide more space for cycle lanes and wider pavements.

The Year 1 funding is for design work.

The numbers for that item are £500K in year 1, £500K for later follow-up design work, and £40M for the build itself (presumably assuming a split with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) and ANO).

I think it was implied, and perhaps even said, in the earlier proposals to widen the railway line that it would be kinda nice to widen the road as well, and this would be the only opportunity to do it.

PS: The West of England bit of that funding appears to be smaller and at an earlier stage of definition.

[ChrisB]

Bear in mind that "widen" doesn't mean the usual here.....where most would think that the bridge supports are being pushed further apart, so as to widen the road underneath (or over the top)

IN this case, 'widen' means to stretch it sideways, across the road underneath. The road isn't being widened, the bridge is - such as to take more tracks across it. THis means more road being covered by a widened bridge.

Anyone that knows this current bridge knows that the road drops each side of it, and floods regularly in the dip underneath. Not only will the drainage need improving, but the slope of the road will need to start further out away from the bridge in order to get below earlier.

Reasonably easy on the country side, but on the city side, oh dear. There is a road junction - into the station on the north side & a road that leads to the car park on the south side, that is likely to become the bus station. To get down far enough soon enough coming from the city, the drop will need to start a lot closer to the city & Frideswide square (which has only just been redesigned, doh!.

So there will need to be slip roads created to access the station/car park, to the sides of the through road that drops to go under the bridge. There is space to do it, but the wide spaces/pavements that have just been created will all disappear under the slip roads. The design will be crucial to keep the area looking good, rather than a motorway junction imho

[stuving]

Bear in mind that "widen" doesn't mean the usual here.....where most would think that the bridge supports are being pushed further apart, so as to widen the road underneath (or over the top)

IN this case, 'widen' means to stretch it sideways, across the road underneath. The road isn't being widened, the bridge is - such as to take more tracks across it. THis means more road being covered by a widened bridge.
...

But ... that's not what the OGB's words (cf last post) describing the study say:

"Widening Botley Road railway bridge will support the Oxford rail station development, enabling more rail lines to be provided to increase capacity through Oxford; while widening the road underneath the bridge will provide more space for cycle lanes and wider pavements."

The simple future tense may be misleading, of course.

[ChrisB]

Ok, boy....widening the road when the bridge abutments are brick built & already several metres high from the road to bridge level. To take (at least) one side down to dig out the earth behind?

And which side - lose car park (or bus station already designed to fit, so that would be smaller_ or station area (actually the mega bike park). Your talking serious £millions just doing that, while closing the road for weeks in order to achieve it.....nah, won't happen easily

[grahame]

Ok, boy....widening the road when the bridge abutments are brick built & already several metres high from the road to bridge level. To take (at least) one side down to dig out the earth behind?

And which side - lose car park (or bus station already designed to fit, so that would be smaller_ or station area (actually the mega bike park). Your talking serious £millions just doing that, while closing the road for weeks in order to achieve it.....nah, won't happen easily

I believe that a certain Mr Brunel managed to dig a tunnel under the River Thames somewhat downstream of Oxford. What scope for modern day successors to burrow under both the Isis and the railway below the current railway bridge?  If Stonehenge can be tunnelled ...

[stuving]

Like I say, it's a study. They ask the question, and back come the answers - with numbers (large) - for a variety of options. Then, as you suggest, they pick something at the lower end of the price range (though not exactly cheap, of course).

[ellendune]

Ok, boy....widening the road when the bridge abutments are brick built & already several metres high from the road to bridge level. To take (at least) one side down to dig out the earth behind?

And which side - lose car park (or bus station already designed to fit, so that would be smaller_ or station area (actually the mega bike park). Your talking serious £millions just doing that, while closing the road for weeks in order to achieve it.....nah, won't happen easily

The premise is that if you want to widen the road, then the time to do it is when the bridge is being replaced to widen the railway. Otherwise you end up replacing the bridge twice!

This sort of bridge replacement has been done before many times. It can be done relatively quickly though Botley road would clearly have to be closed to some time just to dig the road out. Yes that would be difficult as there are no alternatives without a long diversion. 

You can construct foundations for the new abutments in advance using large piles on either side of the railway or if necessary during a short possession. The old bridge deck is removed, the abutment walls demolished, and new precast concrete abutments lifted in followed by the new bridge deck.  To keep the deck relatively thin it would have to be a single piece like the new bridge over Caversham road at Reading.

It may be possible to widen only on one side in which case one abutment wall could remain. 

The loss of car park or station would depend on how wide the new bridge needed to be, but I doubt it would be that significant.

[ChrisB]

Hmmm. Its a railway-over-road bridge.

That means the abutments that the bridge sits on run alond each side of the road underneath. At right-angles to & underneath the railway.

Widen the bridge to take more rails - yes, one simply lengthens each side of each abutment and lay a new wider bridge on top.

To effectively lengthen the bridge, you would need to dig out the undersoil under each/one side of the railway, relocate abutments further apart! To privide extra width for the road underneath. Thats a serious civil eng job that is. The area would need closing for many weeks!