Selby swing bridge works

[snowball]

Since the most recent thread with this title has been closed before the start of the works to which it refers, I'll start another.

There's a press release on the NR site about the works, including details of an exhibition.

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.c...ovements-ready-to-swing-into-action-20cb.aspx

The opening paragraphs read:

The major refurbishment of Selby swing bridge is fast-approaching, and local people can find out more by coming to an open day on Thursday, 3 July.

The drop-in event will be on the ground floor of the site offices on Ousegate, Selby, from 10am to 7pm. Members of the Network Rail Selby team and staff from the train operating companies will be on-hand to answer questions and discuss the road closures and changes to train services needed to complete the work.

The £14m investment, which starts on Friday 26 July, will be the most significant improvement made to the bridge since it was built in 1889.

It includes steelwork repairs, replacing and strengthening sections of the bridge and a new coat of paint. Work on the bridge’s hydraulic system will be undertaken and the track which runs across the bridge will be replaced. New walkways and steps for bridge operators are also being installed.

The work is planned to finish in time for normal rail services to resume on Monday, 8 September.

Phil Verster, Route Managing Director for Network Rail, said: “Once these improvements are complete, many parts of the bridge will not need any further work for decades. It will also mean an existing speed restriction on passenger services will be lifted. We will have people working on site all day, every day, to get this work finished.

It goes on to give details of service alterations, and closures of Ousegate.

No hint in the wording that the bridge might ever be electrified.

 

[ainsworth74]

I seem to recall that work was already carried out to prepare the bridge for electrification in the 1980s. Obviously that became surplus to requirements in the event but it would explain why they're not talking about it now as the bridge might already be ready. Alternatively they didn't think it was relevant for this press release and would just confuse matters.

Either way I wouldn't read much into it.

 

[34D]

Interesting that work on the hydraulics is to take place. Is anyone local able to say when it last opened for a passing boat?

I'd be interested in photographing it in the open position, assuming the summer work affords such a possibility.

 

[lincolnshire]

Selby Swing Bridge opens after the last train every night and is closed again for the first train in a morning the next day.

So if you want a picture of it open to river traffic Sunday morning would be good as it returns to rail postion later due to Sunday service starting later.

Its usually manned on a 2 shift system unless engineering work on the line requires it to be manned.

The bridge operators cabin which contains the present hydraulic pumps and control panel was lifted by approx 2 feet ready for electrification which never happened and the main line was diverted away from Selby. You can see the sections of steel work inserted into the legs to get the required clearances.

So the present bridge is to get its 3rd hydraulic system in its lifetime and by Network Rails blurb is looking at a life of 20 years, never last as long as the origional system which worked into approx 1970,s .

 

[snowball]

The British Railways (Selby) Act, authorising the ECML Selby diversion, received Royal Assent in July 1979, and I think electrification of Hitchin to Edinburgh was authorised in 1984.

So the raising of the cabin on the bridge must either have been done well before electrification was authorised, or well after it was known the main line would not go via the bridge, or indeed both.

Anyway, now that it may be be needed fairly soon, it's good that it's already in place.

 

[34D]

Selby Swing Bridge opens after the last train every night and is closed again for the first train in a morning the next day.

Wow. This I did not know. Thank you for the information. Presumably this is just done to comply with some obscure act rather than for a purpose

Does it also explain why last trains from Hull back to civilisation are ridiculously early?

 

[Tomnick]

Surely it's done simply to ensure that river traffic can pass freely whilst the box is closed overnight?! The first and last services are, no doubt, timed around box opening hours - with no night shift - but the box opening hours could be extended (or opened continuously) if the will was there to run earlier/later services. Either way, it's a general issue along the length of the line, rather than just specific to the swing bridge.

 

[Welshman]

Please pardon a stupid question, but if the bridge is opened every night to river traffic once the last train has gone, and the cabin controlling the hydraulic mechanism is on the moving part of the bridge, and the bridge moves through 90 degrees to become parallel with the river.......how does the signaller/controller get off the bridge to go home at the end of the shift?

Similarly, at the start of the new shift in the morning....?

 

[John Webb]

Please pardon a stupid question, but if the bridge is opened every night to river traffic once the last train has gone, and the cabin controlling the hydraulic mechanism is on the moving part of the bridge, and the bridge moves through 90 degrees to become parallel with the river.......how does the signaller/controller get off the bridge to go home at the end of the shift?

Similarly, at the start of the new shift in the morning....?

The bridge is 'asymmetric' and swings to one side of the river as seen here:
Selby railway swing bridge

© Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
(Click on picture to go to the larger original.)
I think, therefore, the operator can get on and off the bridge from the adjacent bank without resorting to a boat or swimming!

 

[Welshman]

The bridge is 'asymmetric' and swings to one side of the river as seen here:
Selby railway swing bridge

© Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
(Click on picture to go to the larger original.)
I think, therefore, the operator can get on and off the bridge from the adjacent bank without resorting to a boat or swimming!

Ah, right!
Thank-you.

 

[snowball]

What happens to the adjacent road swing bridge at night?

Or the nearby one on the bypass?

Presumably they remain open to road traffic, so are they manned 24h?

Or do they block the river to shipping and so defy the purpose of opening the rail bridge?

 

[Crossover]

Wow. This I did not know. Thank you for the information. Presumably this is just done to comply with some obscure act rather than for a purpose

From a family friend who has taken their boat along the river before, it sounds like river traffic generally has priority over the railways, though it is a while since I heard this so my mind may be playing tricks somewhat!

 

[Ploughman]

Worked on a couple of track relays in and around the station.
Every time the bridge had to swing at least once on the Sunday afternoon to let something through.
Meant we had to get the Ballast trains out of the way first.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

What regular river traffic uses the river in the bridge area ?

 

[edwin_m]

Selby diversion was commissioned in autumn 1983. ECML electrification go-ahead was definitely later, 1984 sounds right.

Could the raising of the cabin have been part of the ECML container gauge improvement works in 1978-9?

 

[balne-wonderer]

What happens to the adjacent road swing bridge at night?

Or the nearby one on the bypass?

Presumably they remain open to road traffic, so are they manned 24h?

Or do they block the river to shipping and so defy the purpose of opening the rail bridge?

Correct, they remain open to traffic and are manned 24 hour. Otherwise getting through or around Selby on a night would be almost impossible.

 

[snowball]

Correct, they remain open to traffic and are manned 24 hour. Otherwise getting through or around Selby on a night would be almost impossible.

How often do the road bridges need to be swung at night to pass nocturnal river traffic?

 

[lincolnshire]

How often do the road bridges need to be swung at night to pass nocturnal river traffic?

Watch out for the Marie Celseste passing up river heading for York.

I think you might find one hand will do to count all the boats passing in the dark through the bridges.

Often a lot of boats insurance states that you should be tied up by darkness I do belive.

One of the last comerical operations was the barge taking the newsprint rolls of paper up to York for printing the Evening Press as this was loaded direct from the barge into the building from the river side. There was also at one stage the barges running from Goole docks to the mill just through the Toll Bridge.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Surely it's done simply to ensure that river traffic can pass freely whilst the box is closed overnight?! The first and last services are, no doubt, timed around box opening hours - with no night shift - but the box opening hours could be extended (or opened continuously) if the will was there to run earlier/later services. Either way, it's a general issue along the length of the line, rather than just specific to the swing bridge.

Better known as Cinderella railway from Gilberdye to Hessle Road.

Since Selby to Gilberdyke has no maned crossings or signal boxes and Hull paragon is 24x7 working for sets to shed for fuel and through the wash plant and platform shunts for next day working.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The bridge is 'asymmetric' and swings to one side of the river as seen here:
Selby railway swing bridge

© Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
(Click on picture to go to the larger original.)
I think, therefore, the operator can get on and off the bridge from the adjacent bank without resorting to a boat or swimming!

If you enlarge the picture of Selby bridge opened you can see the where the steel legs are to lift the operators cabin to get the clearances required.

 

[snowball]

Here's a view of it from 1910, and if you click on the "Next" arrow on that page, it takes you to one from 2002 from a similar angle.

 

[westv]

If the ECML diversion had never been needed would the swing bridge still have been as it is now?

 

[snowball]

If the ECML diversion had never been needed would the swing bridge still have been as it is now?

It would have been electrified in the second half of the 1980s.

 

[westv]

If the ECML diversion had never been needed would the swing bridge still have been as it is now?

It would have been electrified in the second half of the 1980s.

Sorry, I meant would it still have been a swing bridge or would another type of bridge have replaced it?

 

[ainsworth74]

If the ECML diversion had never been needed would the swing bridge still have been as it is now?

If it they hadn't built the diversion we would have a lot of threads talking about the capacity constraint that is Selby! Trying to send everything that goes through Selby currently along with what we currently send down the avoider between York and Doncaster just wouldn't be possible.

In terms of the bridge itself it seems unlikely that something else would be have been built as that would require rendering the river unnavigable to all but the smallest water traffic. I suppose it's possible they would have done something to try and raise line speeds over the bridge.

 

[snowball]

In theory they might have built a short bypass of Selby including a high-level bridge, perhaps near to the swing bridge on the road bypass, but in reality they probably wouldn't have done

 

[balne-wonderer]

How often do the road bridges need to be swung at night to pass nocturnal river traffic?

I managed to come across one at around 3am once. It was the one in the town centre and there was a few late night revellers that we daring each other to hurdle the barrier. I managed to smoke four cigarettes given the leisurely pace of work by the bridge operator.

 

[Mugby]

Is there any trace whatsoever remaining of where the old ECML used to curve northwards after crossing the bridge?

 

[yorksrob]

Is there any trace whatsoever remaining of where the old ECML used to curve northwards after crossing the bridge?

The overgrown junction is still visible from Hull bound trains, but this soon gets swallowed up by a new road.

 

[deltic08]

In theory they might have built a short bypass of Selby including a high-level bridge, perhaps near to the swing bridge on the road bypass, but in reality they probably wouldn't have done

Plans were drawn up for a new high level route to the east of Selby over the Hull line and river. Obviously dropped when new west alignment was paid for by Coal Board.

 

[balne-wonderer]

For those who are in the area, the railway bridge that crosses the road adjacent to river has an interesting layout.

It actually has two entrances but on separate highways, some people believe that the road merely splits in two around the supports and end up rejoining dangerously in traffic.

 

[John Webb]

For those who are in the area, the railway bridge that crosses the road adjacent to river has an interesting layout.

It actually has two entrances but on separate highways, some people believe that the road merely splits in two around the supports and end up rejoining dangerously in traffic.

Picture here:
Ousegate railway bridge

© Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
I assume the right-hand side has been dug-out to allow taller vehicles to pass but can get flooded at times.