Potential Disruption Monday 21 November in Exeter area

[whole diary]

[Southernman]

From South West Trains website - getting organised!

Advanced warning of possible service disruption Monday 21/11/11 Due to a derailed freight train in a engineers work site.. between Exeter St David - Exeter Central SWT^▸ (South West Trains) Services will be subject to alterations... 4 Buses have been arranged to operate a rail shuttle should they be required. Further updates will follow once more is known. Message Received :20/11/2011 21:31

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

I just logged in to tell you all about this, but you beat me to it :-)

[eightf48544]

Not an easy place to rerail a train on a rising curved gradient.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

state of play..... Swt services will call additionally at st James park, services on the exmouth branch will be hourly departing from platform 1 ( the bay). The loco in question is going to be blocking the line until at least this evening as a crane is required to remove

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

For anyone who has not seen ...

[SandTEngineer]

Whoops.  There are a set of catch points under the train.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

Yes that's correct I found a good photo showing them however I don't own the copyrite so can't post it... But you can search for photos of the class 50 that derailed on the down years ago

[paul7575]

The up and down lines are both fitted with protecting points to deal with runaways or runbacks, however the hardware is slightly different.  The up line only has the switch rails, with the inner being the longer of the two, so an up direction train running back should end up with its right hand wheels still in the four foot, as shown in the pictures. In the down direction the switch and crossings are complete with the common crossing, and lead away to a full sand drag.

I think it was explained to me once that the setup is designed around likely failure modes in normal direction running, hence the down line having a more complete set of hardware...

If you zoom in on Google maps satellite view the difference is clear...

Paul

[phile]

66611 the Loco

[SandTEngineer]

The up and down lines are both fitted with protecting points to deal with runaways or runbacks, however the hardware is slightly different.  The up line only has the switch rails, with the inner being the longer of the two, so an up direction train running back should end up with its right hand wheels still in the four foot, as shown in the pictures. In the down direction the switch and crossings are complete with the common crossing, and lead away to a full sand drag.

I think it was explained to me once that the setup is designed around likely failure modes in normal direction running, hence the down line having a more complete set of hardware...

If you zoom in on Google maps satellite view the difference is clear...

Paul

Correct....Facing runaway points are referred to as TRAP POINTS designed to direct a train passing a signal at danger away from a conflict and trailing runaway points are referred to as CATCH POINTS designed to direct a train running away in the wrong direction (usually on rising gradients) and usually into the ballast

Now then in BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days trains would have been running past on the Down Line by now (which after all is signalled in the UP direction here) as there doesn't appear to be anything foul of it in the photograph

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

66611 the Loco

66111 i know they all look the same :-p

[noddingdonkey]

Trains have been running past it all day-even in this post BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) era!

[bobm]

Out of interest; on this route where does Up change to Down as I assume it must at some point as trains actually pull into Exeter St Davids in the Up direction on the GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about) line. 

Presumably a through train from Barnstaple to Exmouth runs as a Down service as far as St Davids and then an Up before possibly becoming a Down again once it branches off after St James Park station?

[paul7575]

Probably just in front of that loco pictured earlier.  That's where the change of mileage is shown in the sectional appendix - 172.04 from Waterloo becomes 194 from Paddington, between the crossovers at the station and the crossover on the incline...

Paul

[Oxman]

The line from St Davids to Central (the one the train derailed on) is known as the Up Waterloo. The other line is the Down Waterloo Reversible. The lines from Central to/from Pinhoe are called the Up Waterloo/Down Waterloo.

The Western lines through platforms 5 and 4 at St Davids are called the Up Main and Down Main.