One of the major pieces of infrastructure being completed is at Princes Risborough. Here a new London bound line has been built, several sets of new points installed along with a new signalling system.
Tonight I wandered along to the station at Princes Risborough to see how they are getting on. It was getting dark, and the pictures were taken on my phone, but it seems that the work in and around the station is pretty much done.
The other major pieces of track work this week are at High Wycombe ( a replacement crossover at the Western end of the station) and in the Northolt Park / Ruislip Gardens area, where the track layout will be totally different than was hitherto the case.
New signals at the north end of Princes Risborough station.
A view from the platform at Princes Risborough, showing the Fast Up Line (in the middle).
2 comments:
Always thought they where installing a passing loop at High Wycombe.... but it seems not. It would have made sense to allow non-stopping trains to pass straight through, just like they could up to about 20 years ago.
So far as I am aware, it was never the recent plans to put a central passing line through High Wycombe.
The purpose of replacing the points north of the station is to increase the Up (London bound) line speed through the station (through platform 3).
This has been done by 'de-prioritising' the points, reducing the Up to Down line line speed across the points (into Platform 2) from 40 mph to 25 mph.
Fast London trains will thus benefit from passing along the new fast Up line at Princes Risborough and by not having to slow down so much at High Wycombe.
The track profile means that the Up line speed will in future drop from 100 mph to 90 mph just before the bridge at West Wycombe. It will then drop to 60 mph approaching the Hughenden Viaduct. Immediately after High Wycombe station, the line speed will then pick up to 85mph before reaching the maximum 100 mph again about a mile later.
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