Level Crossings

Before they built the Lincoln by-pass I was regularly held up for ages at the High Street level crossing, among other places in Lincoln. That by-pass was one of the best decisions ever made in the history of anything.

Right, firstly from a historical perspective there is no maximum level of trains / vehicles specified for full barrier crossings specified in law, and it is only really since the demise of BR that outside parties have been able to substantially influence proceedings - as the promoters of the BAA airtrack scheme found out any increase over current train frequencies will normally trigger protests from local councils which in this day and age the railway cannot ignore.

Secondly as you say there is a set of criteria (including number of tracks, pedestrian volumes, traffic volumes, railway line speed, road speed limit, road user sightliness in the crossing approach, train service frequency, setting (i.e. urban / rural) against which 'Automatic' crossings (ones with half barriers) and 'open' crossings must be assessed. What may be acceptable in rural Lincolnshire on the GE / GN Joint line may not be suitable on a rural crossing over the ECML for example. If substantial changes occur (like a new housing development) it may be that the railway is forced to upgrade the crossing to a 'manned' (CCTV / OD) type (though they can require a developer contribution to the costs of the upgrade).

Well, they'd both be impassable to large vehicles due to Smart Cars jutting out having been parked at 90 degrees to the kerb........

So help me god, after this weekend trying to negotiate Madeira Grove in Woodford (a road to the right and running parallel to the City bound track) a few times with a dozen or so of the things parked this way, I'm hiring a battered old Transit for the next visit - and woe betide any of the Smart Car owners who haven't worked out by then that if they can be bothered to park them in the traditional manner they don't take up much more space anyway.

Anyway, I'm sure I've linked to this picture before but here it is again in all its 1938 glory, including a railway worker being shouted at by a passenger because the train is 30 seconds late.

Probably some of the busiest from a rail perspective are the ones at Tallngton and Helpston on the ECML north of Peterborough, and the parallel Midland route to Stamford. The ones across the Windsor Lines at Manor Road, Mortlake and Priests Bridge also see a lot of rail traffiv - off peak there are 16 trains an hour. If you count the two crossings at Vine Road as one you get 20.

For crossings as busy as these, the "traffic moment" is probably an underestimate as a measure of congestion as the potential road traffic is constrained by the time the gates are actually open.

Until the 1980s there were only three north-south roads in Lincoln, spaced apart by less than half a mile, crossing the river and the three railways that ran east/west. Despite the construction of Pelham Bridge in 1958, the bypass in the 1980s and the Inner Relief Road at Brayford West about ten years ago, Lincoln High Street is as bad as ever. The situation has actually been made worse by the closure of the Avoiding Line which crossed the High street on a bridge, and the concentration of all services at Central station which, unlike St marks, is east of the High Street and thus requires all terminating trains from the west (the majority) to cross the level crossing - and gain when they go back west. The latest scheme is to build an east west route connecting the High Street to Pelham Bridge to funnel all traffic over that one route.It is not clear, but it may be that the High Street will then be pedestrianized- breaking a link that is nearly 2000 years old: the road forms part of Ermine Street.

I think you have the tally of Central Line ex-LCs now.
The nearest extant equivalent is presumably Highams Park on the LO Chingford branch. This would be a fiendishly difficult one to remove as regards motor traffic, though a pedestrian subway has existed for 100 years. Hatch Lane a mile north was only replaced 45 years ago (and was hand worked to the end).
I often wondered why they bothered with Theydon in the 40s, given that the initial frequency of Central Line trains was so low there, and the B172 was hardly a motorway.

From looking at a map, satellite and streetview and very limited local knowledge, I can see only three ways to replace the level crossing here - none less than extremely expensive, possibly even approaching eye-wateringly expensive.

1. change the grade of the railway. This would be relatively simple from an engineering perspective as the line is basically straight. It would however require a total closure north of the nearest reversing point (at least) for the duration of the works. Some back gardens would almost certainly be lost. The station would need to be rebuilt, although there is a slim chance the existing buildings could be retained and modified.

2. build a bridge or tunnel, starting at the junction of the station access road and the main road, replacing the car park and divider between the station and The Avenue with a (likely steep) ramp (up or down) and then under or over the railway (possibly One The Avenue and/or the shed-like building on the west of the railway will need to be demolished), emerging/touching down with another (likely steep) ramp replacing the existing car park, with one building (probably budgens) needing to be demolished for access reasons. It likely that either a bridge or tunnel would require at least a short term closure of the railway here and the resulting bridge/tunnel may not be suitable for large vehicles (including buses). The existing crossing would likely have to remain for pedestrians and cyclists.

3. build a U-shaped bridge from the station access road junction with the main road, over the railway, and down onto one carriageway of the road southwest of the present crossing. This would need to flyover the station buildings, and require the demolition of at least one building west of the station, possibly two. Access between this bridge and the road northwest would be problematic at best.

As well as full vehicle crossings how many footpath crossings are there? I know of three on Romford - Upminster alone.

If their is an existing pedestrian subway, it might be easier to obtain a closure order. Not ideal, though. Two crossings were closed in Seaham, on the Durham coast, conditional on the provision of a foot bridge or foot crossing at each.
On the same line further south, a complex three-way underpass was closed, and a level crossing substituted, when a disused portion of West Hartlepool docks was developed for retail and residential use.
There is still an 'other-way-round' crossing between York and Harrogate, with a plunger to depress to summon the gateman.

Near Wicksley.

Rail traffic isn't too frequent there, so for it to be normally closed to the road gives you an indication of how quiet the road is!

Aren't there similar ones on the Isle Of Man Railway, or did they go when they laid the sewer.

Of course, the Epping Ongar railway have just replaced the one at North Weald that was once on the Underground. I wonder if that is kept shut across the road?

Dstock, sorry for my ignorance; where is that?

When I mentioned pedestrian crossings I did mean those on lines with various flavours of TfL trains.

As somebody mentioned GEML east of Shenfield, there is one at Mountnessing that I think has always been a footbridge but when the new A12 was build alongside the footpath users were left with a far more dangerous crossing of the road on the level which says a lot about the different levels of risk thought acceptable on rail and road.

Level Crossing Orders are still made by the Secretary of State for Transport. A new Order was made for the Highams Park crossing a few years ago when the signal box was decommissioned and the barriers converted to cctv remote control.

Miff, do you know where copies of such DfT orders can be found?