Gloucester resignalling design contract awarded

[stuu]

Are both the middle roads through Glos station still in use? One looks very overgrown, with an iffy-looking track.

A container train used one of the tracks when I was there at the beginning of June, fairly sure it was the northerly one

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It was a mechanical signalbox, so the location would have appeared in a renewal programme at some point. Maybe they brought it forward a little to align with electrification and track renewals. The financial wizards had some mechanism for accessing at least a proportion of the renewals budget even for a non-fully depreciated asset replaced early.

The CP5 Manchester-Blackpool upgrade/electrification cost more per track km than the much-publicised GW scheme.
It's difficult to know how much the Kirkham scheme cost in relation to the rest (eg the redesign of the Bolton area foundations, or the Blackpool remodelling).
The scheme began with the fatuous notion of 125mph line speeds, but ended with no material change from 70/75mph (although through trains are not checked to 30mph through Kirkham now).
But the new Kirkham layout and new platform seems to be a very efficient layout.
The line, including the Blackpool South branch, is now managed from Manchester ROC.
Something like 5 manual signal boxes were eliminated.
If the Fleetwood branch comes back, there will have to be some changes at Poulton, where the former branch junction was eliminated.

 

[Elecman]

The CP5 Manchester-Blackpool upgrade/electrification cost more per track km than the much-publicised GW scheme.
It's difficult to know how much the Kirkham scheme cost in relation to the rest (eg the redesign of the Bolton area foundations, or the Blackpool remodelling).
The scheme began with the fatuous notion of 125mph line speeds, but ended with no material change from 70/75mph (although through trains are not checked to 30mph through Kirkham now).
But the new Kirkham layout and new platform seems to be a very efficient layout.
The line, including the Blackpool South branch, is now managed from Manchester ROC.
Something like 5 manual signal boxes were eliminated.
If the Fleetwood branch comes back, there will have to be some changes at Poulton, where the former branch junction was eliminated.

Correct it was 5 signalboxes eliminated , Blackpool, Carleton, Poulton, Kirkham and Salwick ,

 

[edwin_m]

It would be fair to say that one of them is used more than the other (though I can't remember which)

Trains use the southern through track to access parts of the double-length southern platform via crossovers, when there is already a train in the other part of that platform. I believe this was intended to be the only through passenger platform when the station was rebuilt in the 1970s, with the northern one intended for parcels use so retaining its much older canopy. Increasing traffic later needed that platform to be brought back into passenger use, but it remains much shorter than the other one without intermediate crossovers. So I'm expecting that the northern through track is the one that sees little use.

 

[ABB125]

Trains use the southern through track to access parts of the double-length southern platform via crossovers, when there is already a train in the other part of that platform. I believe this was intended to be the only through passenger platform when the station was rebuilt in the 1970s, with the northern one intended for parcels use so retaining its much older canopy. Increasing traffic later needed that platform to be brought back into passenger use, but it remains much shorter than the other one without intermediate crossovers. So I'm expecting that the northern through track is the one that sees little use.

Might be; despite not living that far from Gloucester, I'm quite unfamiliar with its station!
Either way, one of the through tracks has concrete sleepers, welded rail etc and the other wooden sleepers and joined track (or something like that).