King's Cross remodelling questions

Two odd comments in the December Modern Railways about the King's Cross remodelling that have left me wondering.

Second, it says part of the work was to "move a main sewer on the station approaches which imposed a niggling speed restriction". I can't think of any odd speed restrictions on the approach. Does anyone know what this refers to?

I don't ever recall coming across the terms 'A' and 'C' before. Do these have some special meaning?

clive in post 143831 said:

Second, it says part of the work was to "move a main sewer on the station approaches which imposed a niggling speed restriction". I can't think of any odd speed restrictions on the approach. Does anyone know what this refers to?

I don't think it was an odd speed restriction as such, it was just a speed restriction through the tunnels and they have been able to raise it from 15mph to 20mph and to 25mph in the Down direction.

I am sure I have seen pictures with 8 mph speed boards in place at the exit of at least some of the platforms at Kings Cross. I wonder if this was the odd speed restriction mentioned.

Paul

DriverCurran in post 143840 said:

I am sure I have seen pictures with 8 mph speed boards in place at the exit of at least some of the platforms at Kings Cross. I wonder if this was the odd speed restriction mentioned.

Paul

8kph would make more sense.

No it was definitely 8mph - kph only came into use on UK rail lines in more recent times with Tyne & Wear Metro, DLR, HS1 etc

kph only came into use on UK rail lines in more recent times with Tyne & Wear Metro, DLR, HS1 etc

Peter Bennet in post 143833 said:

clive in post 143831 said:

Second, it says part of the work was to "move a main sewer on the station approaches which imposed a niggling speed restriction". I can't think of any odd speed restrictions on the approach. Does anyone know what this refers to?

I don't think it was an odd speed restriction as such, it was just a speed restriction through the tunnels and they have been able to raise it from 15mph to 20mph and to 25mph in the Down direction.

Probably the fact that the 15 mph didn't stop at the last set of points (and would the old points have actually all required a blanket 15 mph limit, or might they in theory possibly have allowed at least 20 mph if it wasn't for the sewer?), but instead extended for a further eight chains (~176 yards/161 m) inside Gasworks Tunnel. This article has a few more details.

Two odd comments in the December Modern Railways about the King's Cross remodelling that have left me wondering.

First, it says that the track installed included "31 'A' and 'C' point ends". I don't ever recall coming across the terms 'A' and 'C' before. The information I have shows 31 new points ends, but just numbered in the style 5035 for a turnout or 5012A and 5012B for a crossover. Do these have some special meaning?

clive in post 143831 said:

Two odd comments in the December Modern Railways about the King's Cross remodelling that have left me wondering.

First, it says that the track installed included "31 'A' and 'C' point ends". I don't ever recall coming across the terms 'A' and 'C' before. The information I have shows 31 new points ends, but just numbered in the style 5035 for a turnout or 5012A and 5012B for a crossover. Do these have some special meaning?

As you note where two point ends work together, as in a crossover, the points share the same number, suffixed with A or B to distinguish between them. There are some configurations of track layout where three (or more) point ends work together (eg a crossover where one end forms part of a double slip). In this case as before they share the same number with the suffixes A, B & C (&D etc if required) being used. Thus my interpretaion of the statement that the new track included 31 A & C point ends is that 31A points and 31C points are new (or renewed) but that 31B are an unchanged original set of points.

clive in post 143831 said:

Two odd comments in the December Modern Railways about the King's Cross remodelling that have left me wondering.

Second, it says part of the work was to "move a main sewer on the station approaches which imposed a niggling speed restriction". I can't think of any odd speed restrictions on the approach. Does anyone know what this refers to?

I don't think it was an odd speed restriction as such, it was just a speed restriction through the tunnels and they have been able to raise it from 15mph to 20mph and to 25mph in the Down direction.

Peter

The new layout was supposed to have MPH and KPH speed boards for the fitment of ERTMS

chrisdmadd in post 144913 said:

The new layout was supposed to have MPH and KPH speed boards for the fitment of ERTMS

Is that definitely the case? While the Cambrian ETCS installation uses metric speeds currently, there is a plan to go over to mph for standardisation with the wider network.

The Thameslink and GWML installations still use mph.

Harsig in post 144909 said:

clive in post 143831 said:

Two odd comments in the December Modern Railways about the King's Cross remodelling that have left me wondering.

First, it says that the track installed included "31 'A' and 'C' point ends". I don't ever recall coming across the terms 'A' and 'C' before. The information I have shows 31 new points ends, but just numbered in the style 5035 for a turnout or 5012A and 5012B for a crossover. Do these have some special meaning?

As you note where two point ends work together, as in a crossover, the points share the same number, suffixed with A or B to distinguish between them. There are some configurations of track layout where three (or more) point ends work together (eg a crossover where one end forms part of a double slip). In this case as before they share the same number with the suffixes A, B & C (&D etc if required) being used. Thus my interpretaion of the statement that the new track included 31 A & C point ends is that 31A points and 31C points are new (or renewed) but that 31B are an unchanged original set of points.

That's a lovely hypothesis. Unfortunately ...

The points in that area all have four-digit numbers. And absolutely none of them have a C end; they're all singletons or simple crossovers (no switched frogs).