Darwin Foiled Again

[Emerald Fox]

Do you like to go shopping here?:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchwood,_Solihull

 

The Grand Union goes through Solihull.

[tidal]

I can see why the OP used the reference he did as the boater's decision-making processes, although not eligible for a Darwin Award, could well have been.

 

I wouldn't have attempted that trip in the forecast conditions in any of my past very seaworthy salty boats.
The area is notoriously dangerous in deteriorating weather conditions and anyone attempting it in a cruiser of that type is not only putting themselves at risk but also those who will always try and rescue them when it all goes wrong.

 

Yes engine failures can happen to anyone but that is. in my opinion, a secondary consideration to the original flawed decision.

Edited November 14, 2015 by tidal

[kbarber]

The "ten foot" is the space in the centre between the two pairs of tracks on a four track line.

 

Note that all these dimensions are nominal.

 

The "four foot" is actually 4' 8 1/2", or more correctly these days 4' 8 3/8".

 

The "six foot" can be as tight as 4' 8" in very restrictive conditions and the "ten foot" can likewise be as tight as 6ft.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

Bit more mixed than that.

 

Modern standards mandate a 'ten foot' between fast and slow lines, so a 4-track route paired by direction (e.g. the Great Northern main line) will have two 'ten foots', but if paired by use there will be only one (like the Midland). I don't know when such things were mandated, the earliest 4-track lines had just a 'six foot' between all lines (you can still see it in Tring Cutting on the LNWR main line, and between New Cross Gate and Norwood Junction on the LBSCR). I always thought it was a huge irony that a BR induction course video alledgedly showing a line with two ten-foots was actually filmed on the latter line which had none at all! (And not a word about the possibility of local variations. No, I wasn't impressed, even though I supposedly had to use it.)

 

The bit from the outer edge of the outermost track to the edge of the formation is in fact known as the cess.

[Peter X]

Bit more mixed than that.

 

Modern standards mandate a 'ten foot' between fast and slow lines, so a 4-track route paired by direction (e.g. the Great Northern main line) will have two 'ten foots', but if paired by use there will be only one (like the Midland). I don't know when such things were mandated, the earliest 4-track lines had just a 'six foot' between all lines (you can still see it in Tring Cutting on the LNWR main line, and between New Cross Gate and Norwood Junction on the LBSCR). I always thought it was a huge irony that a BR induction course video alledgedly showing a line with two ten-foots was actually filmed on the latter line which had none at all! (And not a word about the possibility of local variations. No, I wasn't impressed, even though I supposedly had to use it.)

 

The bit from the outer edge of the outermost track to the edge of the formation is in fact known as the cess.

 

This, plus its continuation from Norwood Junction to West Croydon, is the line built after the railway company bought and closed the Croydon Canal in 1836. It was straightened out a bit for trains, e.g. by making a cutting just west of Anerley (hence the remaining section of canal in Betts Park) and an embankment to the east where the canal had followed a contour, but mainly followed the same line. This is just a theory, but might they have been saving space because otherwise the width of the canal plus towpath wouldn't have accommodated the four tracks, perhaps especially at pinch points such as road bridges?

[kbarber]

 

This, plus its continuation from Norwood Junction to West Croydon, is the line built after the railway company bought and closed the Croydon Canal in 1836. It was straightened out a bit for trains, e.g. by making a cutting just west of Anerley (hence the remaining section of canal in Betts Park) and an embankment to the east where the canal had followed a contour, but mainly followed the same line. This is just a theory, but might they have been saving space because otherwise the width of the canal plus towpath wouldn't have accommodated the four tracks, perhaps especially at pinch points such as road bridges?

I don't know the history well enough to be sure but I would be extremely surprised if that section was built as anything other than double track. Remember in 1836 New Cross would still have been a suburban town with open country between there and Bermondsey, where the expanding conurbation would first have been encountered. Commuter traffic is unlikely to have overwhelmed a double track until the 1850s, I'd guess (we'd need a timetable to be sure). Remember also this was a new technology under development; the need for such things as a ten-foot won't have become apparent until after the first quadruplings had taken place.

 

My guess (and I emphasise it is guesswork) would be that this line was one of the early quadruplings, planned - and probably commissioned - while 'time interval' was still the standard method of operation (therefore requiring few signals and none at all between stations) and before the needs of maintenance staff had become apparent. By the time they realised they could have done with space between lines for signal posts and to enable regular inspection of the track, sufficient development had taken place along the linesides that further widening would have been horrendously expensive. So they settled for what they'd got and found other ways around the problems. I imagine the LNWR encountered similar issues, albeit in their case we know the widening started with a 'third line' and quadrupling presumably came later still. (Incidentally, their way of dealing with the signalling problem was to place both sets of signals on the far left of the formation, so drivers on the up fast or the down slow had to read and obey signals on the far side of 2 other lines.) By the time other railways were quadrupling they were able to benefit from experience and the GNR certainly had a very adequate ten-foot throughout it's quadruple track areas.

[Peter X]

Thanks kbarber, I don't know much about railway operations and the history of it, but your explanation sounds plausible to me. Certainly that line ran through a very rural scene in 1836, the main point of its existence being to connect London to Croydon. As a resident of Croydon I see it that way round; Croydon was yet to become the centre of the universe (and recently voted 4th worst place to live in the UK), but it already had enough significance that a railway was seen as worth building, and buying up a canal company to do so.

 

Much of the development along the line happened over the next few decades, a particular trigger being the movement of the Crystal Palace from Hyde Park to Sydenham Hill in 1854 which led to a lot of grand housing being built all around it, including Penge and Anerley. So I imagine traffic on the line would have soared from then onwards, and the company in 1836 could at best only have foreseen in general terms that London would expand a few decades later to engulf the area.

 

Er... sorry to be going way off topic here!