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t1(M) wrote:Was the railway that runs through the M4/M25 junction shifted, or was the junction built around its existing alignment?
I think it stayed exactly where it was, but it was closed for a long time during construction. Through M4 traffic was diverted along temporary routes, using the permanent slip roads where possible.
Presumably nothing remains of the original bridge?
t1(M) wrote:Was the railway that runs through the M4/M25 junction shifted, or was the junction built around its existing alignment?
I think it stayed exactly where it was, but it was closed for a long time during construction.
The railway did indeed stay where it was, and the design and construction of the M25 and its junction was worked around it. The whole junction is slightly assymetrical.
The passenger service, it was just a branch from West Drayton, was closed in the early 1960s, and the railway was not used for much freight, but they made some use of it by setting up a bulk aggregates terminal just south of the junction, where much material for the M25 construction was delivered. It's still there and serves the general area, and was used extensively again during the recent widening project. I have once or twice in recent times seen an aggregates freight train threading through the M4 junction.
Trebeck wrote:Was the railway line shifted with the demolition of the old Bridge End station here to make way for the M3, or does it not count as the railway bridge was part of the M3 project?
Nope - it was Ballymacarrett which was demolished (Bridge End always having been on its present site since it was opened in 1977), and the railway line wasn't shifted at all for the M3 project. I don't think there was even any consequential adjustment of the track geometry when the crossovers and headshunts were removed, as that bit would have been otherwise straight track.
Halstead wrote:Another example I know that does not directly answer this thread was the Westerham Valley Railway. It was closed in 1961, mainly because the government wanted to build the M25 on part of it's trackbed.
I would be surprised if that was the main reason for it closing - that bit of the M25 didn't open until 1979.
Would the line not have been planned decades before, as part of the Ringways?
The railway ran along the alignment, with possibly the Sevenoaks Bypass spur bisecting the route?
Last edited by Sunil_of_Yoxley on Mon Aug 02, 2010 01:28, edited 1 time in total.
t1(M) wrote:Was the railway that runs through the M4/M25 junction shifted, or was the junction built around its existing alignment?
I think it stayed exactly where it was, but it was closed for a long time during construction.
The railway did indeed stay where it was, and the design and construction of the M25 and its junction was worked around it. The whole junction is slightly assymetrical.
The passenger service, it was just a branch from West Drayton, was closed in the early 1960s, and the railway was not used for much freight, but they made some use of it by setting up a bulk aggregates terminal just south of the junction, where much material for the M25 construction was delivered. It's still there and serves the general area, and was used extensively again during the recent widening project. I have once or twice in recent times seen an aggregates freight train threading through the M4 junction.
The route ran as far south as Staines (with various links to the Windsor line added and lifted over the years) but was lifted permanently south of Colnbrook after M25 J14 severed the route.
Halstead wrote:[
I've also read elsewhere that Chelsfield station had to be rebuilt because it obscured the path of the cancelled Ringway 3 section below Swanley.
Its building was rebuilt, but I don't think it was re-sited.
I do believe that the original driver for this in the ealy 1970s was the railway relocation rather than a road scheme, which tagged on afterwards. The railway used to have a series of sidings where the station is nowadays, which were redundant, and the main track crossed the land where Morrisons supermarket is, with the station (dead end, it didn't go further south) where the main road is now, alongside the pier where fish used to be transferred from trawler to rail wagon, another traffic the rails had by now given up.
The old station was a poor dingy affair, freight/fish and passengers mixed up, with old semi-shack buildings, and the platforms not long enough for trains, which extended well beyond the platform end, and blocked access to the pier
The railway property people would have done the negotiation for the redevelopment, trying to fund the new station from the surplus land sales. It was a good opportunity to include a new road along the old railway lands, which opened them all up.
It is generally good to wait for the railway to develope their own plans and then fit in around. If the highway authority (Scottish Office for the A82 at the time ?) said they wanted the land for a road, the railway would have charged them a bomb for it and would have got the station paid for out of highway funds. In those days roads were Scottish Office but railways nationwide were MoT, and there was the usual civil service trying to score points off each other.
All sounds very sensible. Plus of course everyone would have wanted the A82 out of the middle of Fort William, so you get the station moved to a much more sensible location, you free up the centre of the town and you get a shiny new bypass too. Everyone's a winner!
There's nothing particularly pleasing about having that dual carriageway cutting off the waterfront from the town centre and seriously ruining its attractiveness and potential though. The town centre has always seemed quite grim to me anyway and this just seals the deal. It's a shame they couldn't have a tunnel or something.
MJN wrote:There's nothing particularly pleasing about having that dual carriageway cutting off the waterfront from the town centre and seriously ruining its attractiveness and potential though.
Yep, I've made this assertion several times myself. You could quite easily have a single carriageway along the front here, after all the D2 doesn't offer a great amount of overtaking opportunity. And then have the part alongside the loch landscaped making a nice pleasant walk along here. The view here on a summers evening is breathtaking as the mountains reflect off the water. But it's ruined by having to squeeze down a narrow path next to a dual carriageway.
Although I'm led to believe at peak times the D2 does fill up here. If this was Madeira, you'd have had a several mile long tunnel under the town, with junctions too!
The town centre has always seemed quite grim to me anyway and this just seals the deal. It's a shame they couldn't have a tunnel or something.
I've had recent summer holidays based in FW a couple of times in the last few years, because the surrounding area is spectacular, but Fort William lets it down in a big way IMO. Too much 1960's concrete nonsense and hardly anywhere reasonably priced / reasonable quality to eat out in the evening. We ended up in the fish & chip shop!!
Fort William is grim. There is no argument there from any of the locals either. Many people at this end of Lochaber are more likely to go down to Oban, which takes twice as long and is twice as far than go up to FW.
The Waterfront proposal, which I think is currently in its death throes, wouldn't have made things much better either, with the dual re-routed into the reclaimed land to approach the roundabout at Morrisons at about 7 or 8 o'clock (if the morrisons arm is noon). The land where the dual is now would have been/will be ANOTHER supermarket, with leisure/housing/retail on the seaward side of the new road. That would give us two grim town centre areas, separated by two supermarkets and their car parks.
One of the worst aspects of the current FW waterfront is the fact that as well as the Dual, we also have Middle Street running parallel on the other side of the barrier. This means six lanes of traffic all going north to south between the loch and the town. The A82 does need to be dualled, but Middle Street could be southbound traffic, giving the current northbound lanes over for green space as Mark suggested. There also needs to be more connection between the town and the loch - at the moment there are just four access points to the 'promenade' - from either end, the traffic lights by the pier and one uncontrolled crossing a little further north. The big car park at the north end of the dual has no break in the barrier for pedestrians to reach the loch.
Rob. My mission is to travel every road and visit every town, village and hamlet in the British Isles.
I don't like thinking about how badly I am doing.
GrahamP wrote:It's not a diversion, but in Fort William the railway line was truncated to make room for a rerouted A82, and the station moved back to the new end of the line.
Did the line not carry on down the coast to Ballachulish and Connel?
No, neither the C&O or West Highland completed any of the plans to connect the Ballachulish line to Fort Bill (The Ballachulish was supposedly over engineered with it being the Calley route to Inverness in mind) mostly because plans to connect Fort Bill and Inverness via the Great Glen were never carried out.
rileyrob wrote:
I have an idea that Oban station has also been moved, although nowhere near as far, and this time to make way for development including the ferry terminal.
Kind of, what are now the only 2 platforms were the "Suburban" platforms which was for the Ballachulish trains, the "mainline" platforms for Calendar trains and the train shed are now long gone.
MJN wrote:There's nothing particularly pleasing about having that dual carriageway cutting off the waterfront from the town centre and seriously ruining its attractiveness and potential though. The town centre has always seemed quite grim to me anyway and this just seals the deal. It's a shame they couldn't have a tunnel or something.
The C&O books raise this example, the Original plan for the C&O was to drive the line along the town waterfront to the North Pier. The townspeople rightly fought this off and the railway pier ended up a fair bit further south than it would have. Fort Bill then failed to takeheid and allowed their waterfront to be destroyed by the West Highland.
As for Porthmaddog, which railway are we talking about?
WHR, FR or NR?
wrinkly wrote:..The Kineton example is very interesting. I knew nothing about that...
Quick precis of the Kineton example as it was explained to me at the time.
The railway into Kineton (which is the truncated remains of the Fenny Compton to Stratford line) ran on a very shallow embankment at the point where the M40 was intended to cross.
The original scheme was for the M40 to be on a high embankment to clear the railway from Burton/Little Dassett towards Gaydon. Following public consultation, it appears that the M40 alignment embankment was changed to run in a false cutting to visually screen the road from the two villages. The cutting could not go under the railway as there is a stream a little bit north of the line which constrains the motorway to go over it. The M40 was designed to give the best alignment and screening but the level of the railway had to give and it was designed to be rebuilt alongside the existing line and to go over the M40 on a bridge.
When they looked at the gradient to go from the existing level to go over the M40 they realised it would have to be a long incline and the length of it at the western end took it beyond the existing bridge on the A41.
On the A41 a new higher alignment was built just to the east which allowed the railway to pass under the road at a new higher level slightly to the north of the original alignment.
Halstead wrote:Another example I know that does not directly answer this thread was the Westerham Valley Railway. It was closed in 1961, mainly because the government wanted to build the M25 on part of it's trackbed.
I would be surprised if that was the main reason for it closing - that bit of the M25 didn't open until 1979.
Would the line not have been planned decades before, as part of the Ringways?[/quote]
The railway ran along the alignment, with possibly the Sevenoaks Bypass spur bisecting the route?[/quote]
Now that's nearer the mark! The Westerham Branch was subject to a serious preservation attempt, and much preliminary work (painting the buildings, securing stock and locos etc) had already been done. BR agreed to sell the line, but negotiations were broken off as Kent County council objected, and demanded £26,215 for a bridge for the new A21 over the line at Chevening. This of course was impossible in the short time available, so the branch was severed, but not by the M25 - it was the A21 Sevenoaks bypass that cut the the line in half, the M25 merely got built on part of the trackbed a bit to the west of here many years later.
This was diverted as a result of the Penmanshiel railway tunnel on the ECML collapsing during enlargement work in March 1979. The collapse resulted in the deaths of two workmen, who were buried alive in the rubble. Checks after the incident found the tunnel to be unstable, which also precluded any potential rescue of the two workmen, so it was sealed off and the railway and A1 diverted slightly to the west, with a new cutting made for the railway. The new section of A1 and the realigned ECML opened five months after the incident, in August 1979.
A monument to the workmen stands on a hillside directly above the site of the tunnel, next to the access road from the A1 to Penmanshiel Farm. The white line directly to the east of the present A1 is the line of the old road - the tunnel ran approximately parallel to the east of it.
My then boss drove past the site when the works to reopen the railway were taking place, and said he had never seen such a busy construction site in his life.
wrinkly wrote:My then boss drove past the site when the works to reopen the railway were taking place, and said he had never seen such a busy construction site in his life.
IIRC, it entailed round-the-clock working to get the railway reopened - I think BR want it done as soon as was practically possible. It was certainly a huge achievement given that both the A1 and the railway had to be diverted away from the tunnel.
There was also a lot of activity on the bus front as well, with Scottish Omnibuses' depots at New Street (Edinburgh), Musselburgh, Berwick, Kelso, Galashiels and Dunbar, and United's depot at Berwick, all providing vehicles for the rail replacement shuttles between Dunbar and Berwick. Several vans were hired too, to take the passengers' luggage. The bill for the rail replacement buses was footed by BR and the drivers of the shuttles ended up quite well off through it - I think they were all paid the top rate for their work, as the tunnel collapse was classed as a major disaster.
While the report into the collapse can be downloaded from here. It makes very interesting reading - apparently the tunnel had been unstable for some years, so the collapse could have happened at any time.
The A650 Bingley Relief Road, whilst not requiring a move of the railway, involved re-aligning the leeds-liverpool canal & the re-construction/extension of a railway bridge into one bridge to span the railway, road & canal, whilst keeping the railway open. Interestingly the bridge was built before the cutting for the new road was made underneath it.
