• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

How long is too long for an absolute block section and where is the longest?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Watershed

Veteran Member
Associate Staff
Senior Fares Advisor
Joined
26 Sep 2020
Messages
11,945
Location
UK
Of course I will not be starting at Euston, I will be starting at Southport, so any detour via Euston will effectively double the journey time. London is over 30 miles further away from here than Edinburgh!
You wouldn't need to go down to Euston, you can catch the Sleeper from Preston or Crewe.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
Just like the Lizard is better than Land’s End and it’s rampant commercialism. Any idea how to get to Duncansby and Dunnet Heads?
Land‘s End is still better than The Lizard, especially if you walk in from Sennen Cove (avoiding the high parking charges at Lands End!).
JoG isn’t even a headland, whilst the other two are on big cliffs with lighthouses (plus the short walk to the dramatic stacks of Duncansby)
I drove there, I can’t imagine there is any other option than a taxi or hire car if you arrive by rail (there’s nothing but lighthouses there!)
 

RT4038

Established Member
Joined
22 Feb 2014
Messages
4,179
I strongly believe that all railways should primarily be there to cater for the local residents, who’s homes they serve. Unfortunately, Southport is a good example of a place where it’s rail services are designed to cater more for people from Liverpool and Manchester coming into Southport, rather than people who live in Southport travelling to places they want to get to, either locally or long distance. The quality of the Merseyrail service being equal in both directions, getting to Liverpool is not a problem, although getting to Lime Street adds an hour onto any long journeys, but the direct services from Stalybridge and Alderley Edge are much more use for people travelling from extremities of Greater Manchester to visit Southport, than anyone from Southport wanting to get to Manchester Airport for example.
Surely the railway should be primarily there for the majority of people that travel? If most people are coming into Southport from outside, rather than Southport going out, then the train service should be arranged to suit that demand.

At least one overnight stop in Caithness is the most likely outcome of my journey on the Far North line in the future.


Of course I will not be starting at Euston, I will be starting at Southport, so any detour via Euston will effectively double the journey time. London is over 30 miles further away from here than Edinburgh!
Aside from the possibility (and expense) of hiring your own train, an overnight stop (or a sleeping car to and from Crewe/Preston) is the only answer. Southport to Wick is hardly a major traffic flow to justify faster train service, or that shorter block sections would make the slightest difference to this fact.

Would you say this counts as unreasonably/ridiculously/too long if the driver couldn’t even get to a telephone? This of course highlights the importance of GSM-R today. Any failure caused by the system’s age could result in the same situation.

I would only consider a worthwhile journey. What about the lost revenue from passengers who refuse to travel by train again when their trains are frequently delayed because of infrastructure constraints?
Probably not as much as the cost of resolving the infrastructure constraints.
 

507020

Established Member
Joined
23 May 2021
Messages
1,835
Location
Southport
You wouldn't need to go down to Euston, you can catch the Sleeper from Preston or Crewe.
I’ve been looking at the timings for the sleeper. It makes a lot of sense coming from the south, but when you’re closer to Scotland than London, there’s nothing wrong with going in the daytime.
Land‘s End is still better than The Lizard, especially if you walk in from Sennen Cove (avoiding the high parking charges at Lands End!).
JoG isn’t even a headland, whilst the other two are on big cliffs with lighthouses (plus the short walk to the dramatic stacks of Duncansby)
I drove there, I can’t imagine there is any other option than a taxi or hire car if you arrive by rail (there’s nothing but lighthouses there!)
Sennen Cove is the other place I was thinking of that was better than Land’s End. I can’t imagine driving all the way up to Thurso or Wick, but I can’t imagine there being car hire up there either. I am a fan of places where there’s nothing at all so I’ll have to work something out. In the meantime I’m more likely to go to Ribblehead.
Surely the railway should be primarily there for the majority of people that travel? If most people are coming into Southport from outside, rather than Southport going out, then the train service should be arranged to suit that demand.
Then that begs the question do more people travel south from Thurso and Wick than visit there? Should all railway stations be evaluated more on whether they are used more by local residents or by visitors? If the latter was found to be the case, there would be a lot of people in this country who’s local railway station would not provide them with a reasonable service for where they live.
Southport to Wick is hardly a major traffic flow to justify faster train service, or that shorter block sections would make the slightest difference to this fact.
Exactly. It would be egregious abuse if anyone timetabled a direct service from Southport to Wick. It is not an unreasonable or indirect route to simply go to Scotland and reach Wick from there, as this traffic flow is justified, but does not necessarily need to be a continuous unbroken journey from Carlisle or Bewick-upon-Tweed. However, improved journey times the Southport, Far North and West Coast Main Lines could all be facilitated by linespeed increases, not to mention a more reasonable connection from Southport to the northbound WCML at Preston via the Burscough North Curve or any other improvements in Scotland. Shorter blocks won’t make any improvement if you have an infrequent service which runs to time, but longer ones give you no room to increase frequency or recover late running. I intended this thread as a list of the longest blocks on the network, but it has now become John o’Groats journey planning.
Probably not as much as the cost of resolving the infrastructure constraints.
Is this to say that infrastructure constraints should not be resolved and the service should not be improved, so as not to encourage any new passengers to use it? There notably needs to be at least 4 tracks continuously all the way from Liverpool to Stockport including the Castlefield corridor, regardless of cost, as the service is not currently good enough. Bearing in mind that it is completely straight, if the Chat Moss route was restored to 4 tracks throughout, the fast line could be increased to 125 or 140mph, facilitating a Liverpool - Manchester express journey in approximately 23 minutes. The railway should continue to receive improvements indefinitely.
 

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
I can’t imagine driving all the way up to Thurso or Wick, but I can’t imagine there being car hire up there either.
Three days from the South East, with loads of sightseeing and stop offs on the way.
Driving round the top of Scotland is absolutely amazing, another world!
 

Pigeon

Member
Joined
8 Apr 2015
Messages
802
It is now a proven technology internationally, but rather than adopting European interoperability in the first place, I do believe it would have been a better solution to have designed, entirely in house of course, "a new British signalling system fit for the 21st century" that didn't necessitate ripping out all of the existing signalling infrastructure in the whole country at some point in order to implement the changes. ETCS, while it is now the future, draws no lineage from what is already in place in much of Great Britain, which makes it all that harder to implement.
...
I believe the British Rail Research Department of the 1970s and 80s was by far the greatest loss of privatisation. One of its aims was to develop new technology which maintained compatibility with what was already in situ, something ETCS can't do.

Agree completely (with one quibble, over phrasing rather than content: if the best justification for anything, railway-related or not, that can be invoked is "fit for the 21st century" or any similar piece of nebulous meaningless testicular advert-speak, that is equivalent to an admission that there is actually no good reason for doing whatever it is at all and therefore the whole idea should be junked forthwith).

The insistence on European interoperability is just plain silly, for the obvious reason that Continental trains will never run over here (unless on lines specially constructed for the purpose), because they don't fit. End of story. On the other hand compatibility with existing systems is equally plainly of prime importance, to allow for incremental replacement, otherwise you no longer have a rail network but instead an assemblage of bits separated from each other by a barrier considerably less susceptible to workarounds than those lesser difficulties such as presence vs. absence of electrification that we already have to deal with, leading in turn to all kinds of fiddlepotting on at the interface points and inevitably crappier services from the awkwardness. Probably even more so these days since solutions similar to fringe boxes, with humans doing the protocol translation between different systems, are so much less favoured.
 

InOban

Established Member
Joined
12 Mar 2017
Messages
4,208
'Surely a direct local service between Thurso and Wick with a reasonable journey time, which doesn’t even require any reversals as the junction is facing the right way, is the pinnacle of the Far North line being for the residents of Thurso, Wick and Georgemas Junction, above the service to the rest of Scotland taking several hours.'

There is a frequent direct local service between Thurso and Wick. It's called the bus. It picks up and sets down at useful places like the hospital. Indeed it reaches the places no train service could possibly reach.
 

Annetts key

Established Member
Joined
13 Feb 2021
Messages
2,644
Location
West is best
There is no practical way to move from the existing traditional mainland U.K. signalling systems to a radio based system without installation of something like ETCS/ERTMS. So I really don’t see the point of spending lots of money reinventing the wheel.

The most sophisticated conventional signalling system we have is limited to four aspect LED signals using either track circuits or axle counters, controlled by either a relay based interlocking, the current SSI type system or equivalent.

The mistake that was made, was not requiring new rolling stock to be fitted with ATP (before we decided to adopt ETCS/ERTMS) or to be made with with provision for ETCS/ERTMS (after we decided to move to ETCS/ERTMS). Or to have full provision for said equipment to be quickly and easily fitted at a later date. And for the manufacturer/supplier to prove that with a working practical demonstration. This would have made the introduction of either a more widespread use of ATP or ETCS/ERTMS a lot easier.

The GWML ATP system sits ‘on top of’ or ‘overlaid’ on the existing signalling system (in this case MAS track circuit block colour light signalling). Before the GWML electrification project, there were plans too ‘overlay’ ETCS/ERTMS on the existing signalling system on the GWML. The existing track circuits, signals and interlocking were all to be retained for an unspecified number of years. Then at a later date, once all rolling stock was fitted, the lineside signals would be removed.

But this has not happened. Instead the gaps (deliberate non continuous fitment to see how it affected train operation when it was a pilot scheme) in the ATP system were ‘filled in’, and various parts were ‘recontrolled’ (political word, actually resignalled) to TVSC so that electrification could take place.

It should also be noted that for some time, the railway has wanted to go straight from absolute block systems to ETCS/ERTMS saving having to pay for the cost of any modern conventional colour light track circuit block systems.

Things have been held up by the introduction of ETCS/ERTMS taking longer than expected.
 
Last edited:

Highlandspring

Established Member
Joined
14 Oct 2017
Messages
2,778
The really long section working between boxes tended to be on Saturday night and early on Sunday. There were pretty well no goods, parcels or mail trains, but some lines would remain open for night trains, sometimes only one in each direction. If there was no engineering work, then just about every box with a switch would be closed, but those without a switch (and sometimes others for some specific reason) would have to stay open if the line was to remain open to traffic.
That still can be the case today. For example on Sundays on the G&SW line Thornhill and Kirkconnel boxes are switched out making the block section 34 miles (or 36 minutes for a passenger train) from Holywood to New Cumnock. In the past some lines had so many boxes switched out that they required a ‘Sunday battery’ to boost the voltage halfway to keep the block circuits working.

There is a frequent direct local service between Thurso and Wick. It's called the bus. It picks up and sets down at useful places like the hospital. Indeed it reaches the places no train service could possibly reach.
That would be the Caithness General Hospital directly opposite Wick station…
 

InOban

Established Member
Joined
12 Mar 2017
Messages
4,208
Not just the hospital, and people will be travelling to it from all over the area, not just next to Thurso station.

People suggesting regular direct services between Wick and Thurso don't help rail supporters with sensible ideas.
 

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
What’s the process to switch out a box? My uninformed mind can’t see what order to do it without doing something you shouldn’t…..
 

Tomnick

Established Member
Joined
10 Jun 2005
Messages
5,825
What’s the process to switch out a box? My uninformed mind can’t see what order to do it without doing something you shouldn’t…..
5-5-7 to the box on either side, acknowledged by a single beat on the bell, to get a 'line clear' to clear your signals. One on the bell each way once you've done that, the box on either side replaces the block indicator to 'normal' and acknowledges the 5-5-7. Turn the block switch out, wait for the boxes either side to test bells and block instruments (which involves each of the boxes on either side giving another 'line clear' briefly*, to each other this time) to establish through communication, and - once you're told that this has been done - go home!

* - if they have Welwyn Control, which prevents you giving another 'line clear' unless the passage of a train out of the section has been proved, they have to "wind out" - to release or override it - twice, legitimately of course!
 

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
5-5-7 to the box on either side, acknowledged by a single beat on the bell, to get a 'line clear' to clear your signals. One on the bell each way once you've done that, the box on either side replaces the block indicator to 'normal' and acknowledges the 5-5-7. Turn the block switch out, wait for the boxes either side to test bells and block instruments (which involves each of the boxes on either side giving another 'line clear' briefly*, to each other this time) to establish through communication, and - once you're told that this has been done - go home!

* - if they have Welwyn Control, which prevents you giving another 'line clear' unless the passage of a train out of the section has been proved, they have to "wind out" - to release or override it - twice, legitimately of course!
Thanks
 

RT4038

Established Member
Joined
22 Feb 2014
Messages
4,179
5-5-7 to the box on either side, acknowledged by a single beat on the bell, to get a 'line clear' to clear your signals. One on the bell each way once you've done that, the box on either side replaces the block indicator to 'normal' and acknowledges the 5-5-7. Turn the block switch out, wait for the boxes either side to test bells and block instruments (which involves each of the boxes on either side giving another 'line clear' briefly*, to each other this time) to establish through communication, and - once you're told that this has been done - go home!

* - if they have Welwyn Control, which prevents you giving another 'line clear' unless the passage of a train out of the section has been proved, they have to "wind out" - to release or override it - twice, legitimately of course!
Is it not also possible to 'switch out' with a train in one of the two sections?
 

Gloster

Established Member
Joined
4 Sep 2020
Messages
8,289
Location
Up the creek
And you can only start the process when the block indicators are at Normal/Line Blocked, i.e. no train must be in section between you and the boxes at either side, nor must one have been accepted. Where you have points, you also have to have them set for the through route, although you do this before sending the 5-5-7.
 

Tomnick

Established Member
Joined
10 Jun 2005
Messages
5,825
Is it not also possible to 'switch out' with a train in one of the two sections?
No - I suspect that's because the risk of that train being overlooked during the process of switching out and testing bells/blocks would be unacceptable. It'd certainly be confusing if the train was in the rear section, i.e. 'train entering section' not yet sent to the box in advance, as it wouldn't then be sent at all!

You can switch in with a train in the combined section, but not if a 'line clear' has been given with the train yet to enter the section.
 

Gloster

Established Member
Joined
4 Sep 2020
Messages
8,289
Location
Up the creek
No - I suspect that's because the risk of that train being overlooked during the process of switching out and testing bells/blocks would be unacceptable. It'd certainly be confusing if the train was in the rear section, i.e. 'train entering section' not yet sent to the box in advance, as it wouldn't then be sent at all!
And also the, albeit small, risk of a second Line Clear being given while the train was in the new, longer section. Although technology may have made that impossible nowadays, forty years ago it was theoretically possible, particularly if somebody was a touch slow.
 

RT4038

Established Member
Joined
22 Feb 2014
Messages
4,179
No - I suspect that's because the risk of that train being overlooked during the process of switching out and testing bells/blocks would be unacceptable. It'd certainly be confusing if the train was in the rear section, i.e. 'train entering section' not yet sent to the box in advance, as it wouldn't then be sent at all!

You can switch in with a train in the combined section, but not if a 'line clear' has been given with the train yet to enter the section.
Indeed. I recalled that something like this had occurred contributing to the collision at Dagenham East on 30th January 1958. https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Dagenham1958.pdf

On re-reading the report I see that this practice had already been banned in various parts of British Railways, and the Inspecting Officer's recommendation was that it be extended to all.
 

Ken H

On Moderation
Joined
11 Nov 2018
Messages
6,271
Location
N Yorks
507020 said in this long post ( https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-and-where-is-the-longest.220375/post-5243976 )he would not consider driving to Thurso. Mrs KH and I drove to Thurso one weekend to see a friend who was terminally ill. Left Midlands Fri tea time, got to Thurso 0200 next morning. Left Sunday morning, back home about 1800. Work next day. Pug 405 Diesel.

Re the question about the procedure for switching out boxes, i recommend getting copy of British Railway Signaling by Geoffrey Kitchenside and Alan Williams. Out of print but a few for sale on the interweb.
 
Last edited:

6Gman

Established Member
Joined
1 May 2012
Messages
8,382
Reminiscent of the old bobby on the end of the platform with an egg-timer.
"Well, its been all of 15 minutes now - must be safe to start this one"
There's a reason why time interval signalling was abandoned a very long time ago.
 

Highlandspring

Established Member
Joined
14 Oct 2017
Messages
2,778
No - I suspect that's because the risk of that train being overlooked during the process of switching out and testing bells/blocks would be unacceptable. It'd certainly be confusing if the train was in the rear section, i.e. 'train entering section' not yet sent to the box in advance, as it wouldn't then be sent at all!
One of the fun quirks of Scottish Region Tokenless Block (used on single lines) is that not only can you switch out with a train in the section but you can switch out with a train on the single line either side of the box that’s switching out as long as they’re both heading away from that box. That leaves you with one long single line section with two trains in it, albeit both going in opposite directions. The idea was that the signalman at a remote loop could switch the box out and travel on one of the trains and it was used in this way extensively on the West Highland Line at one time.

The block circuits are arranged so that the system understands what’s going on and the block at each end won’t clear from ‘Train Going To’ until both trains have been cleared back. There’s only one ScR Tokenless box which retains the ability to switch out these days and that’s Lugton on the G&SW.
 

Ken H

On Moderation
Joined
11 Nov 2018
Messages
6,271
Location
N Yorks
One of the fun quirks of Scottish Region Tokenless Block (used on single lines) is that not only can you switch out with a train in the section but you can switch out with a train on the single line either side of the box that’s switching out as long as they’re both heading away from that box. That leaves you with one long single line section with two trains in it, albeit both going in opposite directions. The block circuits are arranged so that the system understands what’s going on and the block at each end won’t clear from ‘Train Going To’ until both trains have been cleared back.
surely if one breaks down and decides to go back for some reason, you could end up with 2 trains going the same way in the same section. or is that banned?
 

Highlandspring

Established Member
Joined
14 Oct 2017
Messages
2,778
surely if one breaks down and decides to go back for some reason, you could end up with 2 trains going the same way in the same section. or is that banned?
Put simply it doesn’t just ‘decide to go back’.
 

Bald Rick

Veteran Member
Joined
28 Sep 2010
Messages
29,070
The insistence on European interoperability is just plain silly, for the obvious reason that Continental trains will never run over here

European interoperability is about a lot more than how big the train is. It is about having standard equipment with standard requirements so that it becomes cheaper. Signalling being a great example.
 

Deepgreen

Established Member
Joined
12 Jun 2013
Messages
6,340
Location
Betchworth, Surrey
Just like the Lizard is better than Land’s End and it’s rampant commercialism. Any idea how to get to Duncansby and Dunnet Heads?
I did it by taking my bike on the train and cycling from Thurso. Not really a practical option these days of course.
 

MadMac

Member
Joined
13 Jun 2008
Messages
955
Location
Moorpark, CA
The block circuits are arranged so that the system understands what’s going on and the block at each end won’t clear from ‘Train Going To’ until both trains have been cleared back. There’s only one ScR Tokenless box which retains the ability to switch out these days and that’s Lugton on the G&SW.
Youre right, I hadn’t thought of that one. Lugton will lose that once Barrhead goes to WSSC (next year?). Only two other places still with ScR Tokenless both ways are Keith and Huntly IIRC.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top