Tangy's rail brainbenders V (closed)

[greatkingrat]

There are actually at least three platform 0s apart from Kings Cross.

[tubeguru]

What is it with NR assigning platform 0 to new platforms at stations? Why not just make it the next number up? I know that P0 at KX is next to P1, but so what?

I suppose they have to keep it physically sequential for the stupid passengers who have to use it.

[Starkey7]

I'm waiting for platform -1. Or even i.

But what was wrong with plain old 1a?

[dudey]

Or they could just renumber all the platforms, but i suppose that would cause too much confusion.

Here's a quick, slightly related question, just for fun. First to post the answer wins.

Which NR station has a Platform 5, but only 4 platforms?

[Edgemaster]

Or they could just renumber all the platforms, but i suppose that would cause too much confusion.

Here's a quick, slightly related question, just for fun. First to post the answer wins.

Which NR station has a Platform 5, but only 4 platforms?

I don't know, but I do know the answer to "Which NR station has a Platform 5, but only 3 platforms?"

[RichieG]

Portsmouth Harbour
(To be fair, there probably are quite a few stations that meet the 'has a Platform 5 but only 4 platforms' arrangement... semi-related, which NR station has a Platform 15 but only 8 platforms?*)

* to be fair, this could be considered a 'trick' question...

[Edgemaster]

Oh, I have been to Portsmouth Harbour station on a steam rail tour!

My 3 platform question still stands though

[tubeguru]

Portsmouth Harbour
semi-related, which NR station has a Platform 15 but only 8 platforms?*)

Bristol Temple Meads. There are only eight platform faces, but five of them are split arbitrarily in two by what are known as St. Andrew's Crosses. These are platforms 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, and 11/12. There is no platform 2 or 14.

Platform 15 was the last to be brought into use at Temple Meads when the old parcels platform was got rid of. A clue to its late arrival can be found if you look at the two starting signals on the London end of platforms 13 and 15. The P13 signal is B53. You would expect the P15 signal to be B55 (as the starting signals are numbered numerically across the platforms), but B55 is the up relief signal on the Bristol East gantry. Because the numbers after B53 were already taken they had to use the next available, which was B91.

[RichieG]

I knew I shuold've put a disclaimer on that post saying certain HST drivers couldn't answer :p

Thanks for the extra information though, quite interesting

[tubeguru]

The Bristol area is quite complex regarding signalling. Fortunately I have learned where every signal in the station and the east gantry take you so I never get lost!

Most drivers just rely on remembering that you can only accept even-numbered platforms or 15 if you're going west from Bristol, and odd numbers going east from Bristol or terminating from the east. A lot of drivers won't know that the Down Filton signal, B24 on the east gantry can only put you in platforms 15 to 9. They'll just decide what to do based on whether the number is even or odd.

[tangy]

Just to clarify:

--For question 0, I will accept any one of the three stations (bar KX) that has this feature, doesn't matter which one. It only dawned on me there was more than one possible answer after I posted up the questions having remembered a short piece in a railway journal I read!

--For questions 3/4. In this question I defined it as a train being powered by the third rail being phsically unable to transfer directly to another line/route still using the 3rd rail system. For example, a suitably cleared 3rd rail only train can run from WEY to AFK if it so wished as all the lines it travels along are 3rd rail but would get stuck at North Pole if it were to head up the WLL!

Thus in effect to leave the third rail route/line the train/unit has to have a pantograph (to join the OHLE system) or be hauled with a diesel loco.

Hope this has cleared up matters.

[Starkey7]

Neil, you talk about complicated signal arrangements. But could a driver with no familiarity with a given route drive a passenger train in normal service along it? After all, he is given distant notification of most speed restrictions and all signal aspects, so surely he just needs to go with what he sees? Or if not, then what are the main limitations?

[tubeguru]

In theory you could indeed drive any route, although you would be concentrating so hard on everything that you would probably have some kind of incident. Either that or you;d drive so slowly and cautiously that you'd hold everything behind you up and be late.

Some of the things I can think of that you need to know about before you drive any section of line are:

Short signal spacings (of which there are many on the Western region)
Linespeeds
Gradients
Tunnels and their associated local instructions
Junctions and where they take you (if you don't know what the junction indications are you have no hope)
Low adhesion areas
Location of level crossings in case of wrong direction movements
Locations of stations where unsighted on curves
Change of controlling signaller, in case you need to contact them if the SPT isn't working (you would therefore need a WON for the region you are driving in with the phone numbers)

Simply put, no company will let a driver drive any route that they have not learned and proved they have learned, as the risk of having an incident is too high.

[tangy]

Or they could just renumber all the platforms, but i suppose that would cause too much confusion.

A platform re-numbering exercise would be a very good idea at Stratford (SRA) as the current numbering is in such a mess since the NLL platforms got shunted up to the high level. So from north-south the platform numbers are as follows:

Platform 2, 1, 12, 11, 10a, 10, 9, 8, 6, 5, 3, (future 3a), 4a and 4b with Jubilee platforms 13, 14, 15 (and future DLR platforms 16 and 17) on the low level.

The original platform 4 is now abndoned and platform 7 hasn't existed in a long time. Platform 4 was the original DLR platform (trains from Poplar) before the building of the new 4a/b on the other side of platform 3!

Even when the NLL was on teh low level, you still had the odd situation of the newer Jubilee line platforms (numbered 13/14/15) being right next to platforms 1 and 2! Thus when the NLL had moved to the high level late last year, they couldn't use the logical 13 and 14 (as they were already used) so recycled thier original platform 1 and 2 numbers!

The whole station needs a total renumbering exercise to get things back into order!

[rhubarbrhubarb]

Yes, Stratford is a mess, as Tangy says. Platform 7 used to be a London-facing bay, I think, as was platform 4 before it was taken over for DLR (before that decamped to the new platforms 4A and B). The new platform 3A will double-side the westbound Central line track which, I guess, will assist the expected crowds returning into central London from the Olympics.

I've heard that the main problem with re-numbering the platforms at somewhere like Stratford into a logical sequence is cost. Re-signing the station itself is pretty straightforward and not too costly, but other things that would have to be done would include re-programming the automated audible and visual information systems, altering the signalling diagrams (wherever they might be located), altering the electrical power supply diagrams (wherever they might be) and changing lots of paperwork and electronic information files (by Network Rail and the TOCs), the sort of documents which I'm sure Tubeguru (as a train driver) is far more familiar with than I am. Anything that refers to specific platform numbers would have to be revised.

The only thing that might persuade the parties concerned to sort out the platform numbering at Stratford is the Olympics. If the situation now (as Tangy describes it) is deemed to be unsustainably stupid, then something might get done.

Roger.