Mansion House and the S7s

Yes, it is only just too short and no equipment for S7 operation has been fitted in the bay.
The long term solution, under the Bombardier SSR resignalling, was to close the existing EB platform, run all EB trains through the bay, with a wider east-end of the platform. Reversing there eliminated.

Could help with the serious water ingress at the east end of the eastbound platform. Remove the equipment and fill the rooms with concrete.

I know there's no dearth of reversing facilities on the District, but all the same are there any plans to deal with the loss of flexibility and handy short-turn points? After all, without Mansion House (apart from Tower Hill obviously) there's only South Ken and Embankment in the area and reversing east-west at those locations will likely cause more problems than it would solve in a lot of circumstances as you hold up the eastbound even more with tipping out and then shunting (not to mention the effect on the Westbound). Also Putney Bridge (another one lost) was used quite regularly and there's no other really useful location round there apart from Parsons Green (and High Street). There's the crossover at Putney Bridge of course, but again it's a mainline shunt move and requires tipping out and reversing at Parsons Green also requires tipping out.

Meanwhile, with the fairly new West Ham reversing siding, which is mainly rust these days, you have three stations in a row (Bromley-by-Bow, West Ham and Plaistow) with reversing facilities and the same situation at Acton Town, Ealing Common, Ealing Broadway.

Call me cynical but I reckon we can probably do a bit better than this. Don't get me wrong, though, I know Mansion House wasn't called for very often and obviously all the points need maintaining and they can fail and they need to be secured in certain situations and I've no doubt run times could be improved with the change in layout, but the recent loss of a number of reversing facilities across the SSR seems to be sacrificing quite a lot. Whitechapel (admittedly long since modified and that was due to crossrail (and reversing is still possible here, but it is not nearly as convenient as it used to be)), Farringdon and Putney Bridge were all regularly used. So yeah, I was just wondering if anything like the proposals to turn the widened lines to Moorgate into a mega siding was planned for the District?

And if they keep the crossover, they will also be able to reverse west to east there, which will be a move not currently available.

Surely you design the train around a very detailed specification, based on customer needs, existing infrastructure, and various other things. If the s7s had been designed to fit the Putney Bridge bay, for the sake of the odd couple of reversals, and disruption, then you'd be reducing capacity. In this case, having the lengthened trains is very much a lesser of two evils. As it is, various changes are being made, notably the power supply, and sidings, so you might as well go the whole hog, seeing as these trains will most likely be in service for 40 years.

tut - Mansion House used to have both a middle bay and one off to the side, which was 'lost' in the 80's when development overhead occured.

I don't know if its there behind fascia panneling, or if the space has been given over to other things, or has giant piles going down through it, or if its been partially blocked latterally and the rest donated to the platform... but... one wonders if, actually, the site could offer a bit more flexibility than Bombardier were prepared to consider. Rejigging the platforms and tracks around the 'throat' might give just enough room for three tracks within the station.

The space has been reused!

There is lots that can be done with the old infrastructure, e.g. there aren't enough parks in London, there aren't enough building plots, too many bus routes are overly congested etc and then there's manufacturing !

I know a little bit about Crossrail, I did the enabling works surveys from Paddington to Liverpool Street in 1995/6. It is ridiculous that it takes so many years to get a railway built but much of that is to do with short termism as I mentioned, the NIMBY brigade etc.

As I am forever saying the country needs a national transportation plan for the future, the politicians need to organise that and then ensure that all future projects adhere to the plan. In the short term, endless enquiries into routes once planned should not be allowed, there should be no excuse for not getting on and overspending should not be allowed either. The trouble these days is that it's pretty much every man for himself in modern rip-off Britain, politicians of all persuasions have much the same level of competence, they dress alike and look alike and have pretty much the same values but few have any real vision and over the last few decades they have allowed the country to be run down to such a state that it is no longer self supporting, the railways in that regard are the tip of the iceberg. Transportation and Utility should be non-profit making efficient businesses but that's pretty difficult to do in a country that no longer manufactures what is required for itself let alone the rest of the world which it also serviced in the 19th century.
IMHO Britain needs to be reindustrialised, build its own trains etc instead of paying foreigners to do it. There would be more than enough work to keep all those currently unemployable graduates employed for the rest of their lives and the thousands that will follow them for decades to come.

Most people laughing at the French seem not to know that the Class 375s when delivered were out of gauge for parts of the Kent Coast lines.

Networkers have been into Smithfield sidings in the past. That has been officially prohibited since the OLE was extended to City (only 319, 377/2, 377/5 permitted north of Blackfriars now).

I stand to be corrected but I thought those Networker prohibition signs were originally provided due to ICMU/immunity concerns rather than gauging.

The Kent Coast issue was a French style foul up. The routes concerned were designated as restriction C1 but the infrastucture itself did not conform to that restriction.

That was (and still is) not so much for gauge clearance issues but rather the fact that the original traction package fitted, being one of the first deployment of AC motors for train traction purposes had a nasty tendency to induce large amounts of electrical noise onto the track some of which had the potential to cause track circuits to falsely clear under the train and in theory allowing another Clapham style smash to happen. Thus in the run up to their introduction lots of signalling alterations had to be made to accommodate them  - although such work was also necessary for routes used by Eurostars and class 92s* as they also had early AC drive systems.

Later generation units such as Bombardiers Electrostars benefited from technology improvements so their AC drives are far more stable and produce far less noise thus allowing their use on lines where Networkers are banned e.g. London Bridge - East Croydon (there are 'no Networker' boards on the Brighton lines as they curve away at Bermondsey)

Now I know some Networkers have been fitted with revised traction packages in the last couple of years which are presumably comparable with Electrostars and if the whole fleet is done, the need for 'no Networker' signs will disapear (Trains being 'out of guage' physically speaking is covered by other procedures and doesn't use lineside signs)

*The reason why class 92s have to be dragged by diesels when diverted via Redhill is because the track circuits used on the Clapham Junction - Redhill section are not compatible with the class 92 traction package yet are fine for the later built Electrostars. At one stage after privatisation there was talk of using Networkers on the London Bridge - Tonbridge via Redhill runs (in place of the 508s), which was fairly rapidly canned when it was pointed out just how much signalling work would be needed to accommodate them.

Hope this helps
Train 064 departs Acton Town M-F at 0603 passes through Earl's Court at 0622 arrives at Mansion House Bay Road at 0643 it Departs at 0659 towards Wimbledon This is the ONLY scheduled Mansion House reverser but if the service is disrupted it is quite likely that a late running Tower Hill train may be reversed there

no booked reversers on weekends except when engineering work/service disruption