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Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms

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Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 26/10/2011 at 10:49 #22053
UKTrainMan
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Was reading bits of this interesting article on Rail.co and the paragraph below the photo of Neasden Junction, which reads Quote:
Mention must also be made of Birmingham Moor Street, where, after many months of waiting, signalling works were completed in November 2010 to bring into use the bay platforms. Chiltern Trains use these for some services as capacity at the three platform Snow Hill station (the 4th platform being used for Midland Metro tram services) is limited.
, leaves me wondering and hoping that a future version of Saltley could feature a 2010 or 2011 era with the bay platforms at Moor St included.

Cheers B)

Any views and / or opinions expressed by myself are from me personally and do not represent those of any company I either work for or am a consultant for.
Last edited: 26/10/2011 at 10:49 by UKTrainMan
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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 26/10/2011 at 11:07 #22055
jc92
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might be awkward writing a timetable for 2011 with chilterns services terminating at moor st otherwise
"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 29/10/2011 at 10:32 #22193
IrishDave
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Unfortunately, the reason it took so long for the bay platforms to be connected was that they had to wait for the resignalling to happen before they could justify the expense of putting the points and extra signals in; it didn't make commercial sense to spend millions of pounds altering the signalling on Saltley panel in 2008, only to rip it all out and transfer all the signalling to West Midlands in 2010.

As such, the new bay platforms were never controlled from Saltley PSB, and were only brought into use after South Bottom panel was transferred to West Midlands Control Centre (the building next door), which is a vast building originally intended to house the whole of the West Coast Main Line but which will now take over the signalling across the whole West Midlands by 2017. WMCC already controls the Coventry area, Leamington to Snow Hill, and Wolverhampton (excl) - Shrewsbury (excl). The Birmingham to Water Orton corridor gets transferred this autumn: indeed, the line through Water Orton and Tamworth is closed on Derby meet weekend, thus necessitating XC trains being diverted via Lichfield, and giving those of us who enjoy going on rare track an extra incentive to go.

Anyway, the point is that it's basically impossible for the bay platforms to end up in Saltley sim, since so much of the signalling has changed that it would be ridiculously complicated to even think about creating eras. It could be an interesting challenge trying to "adapt" the current timetable to operation without the bay platforms at Moor Street...

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 29/10/2011 at 11:21 #22195
Stephen Fulcher
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Thats not strictly correct.

Moor Street bays were installed some time AFTER control passed to the WMSC, not at the time of the original commissioning.

Also, Snow Hill was completely unchanged during the resignalling of the rest of Saltley South Bottom - the only difference was the signals being plated "WM" instead of "SY". Even the original interlocking remained unchanged, merely controlled from the WestCad on the WMSC Snow Hill workstation rather than from Saltley panel.

The new bay platforms at Moor Street have signals at their ends which are plated "WM" and not "LJ", and the layout on the Snow Hill lines alongside is exactly as the Saltley Sim depicts aside from the lead into the bays, so to add them into SimSig would not be difficult.

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 30/12/2011 at 14:01 #26460
TimB2010
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" said:
Thats not strictly correct.

Moor Street bays were installed some time AFTER control passed to the WMSC, not at the time of the original commissioning.

Also, Snow Hill was completely unchanged during the resignalling of the rest of Saltley South Bottom - the only difference was the signals being plated "WM" instead of "SY". Even the original interlocking remained unchanged, merely controlled from the WestCad on the WMSC Snow Hill workstation rather than from Saltley panel.

The new bay platforms at Moor Street have signals at their ends which are plated "WM" and not "LJ", and the layout on the Snow Hill lines alongside is exactly as the Saltley Sim depicts aside from the lead into the bays, so to add them into SimSig would not be difficult.
That's not strictly correct. Moor St bays were built at the time Moor St station was rebuilt into it's present form, but not connected to the network for some time. This is why, for a long period, there was a Great Western 2-8-0 loco on static display in one of the bays - as the station was rebuilt in GWR style, it was an appropriate static exhibit to use some of the space before the bays were connected.

As IrishDave says, the reason the bays were not connected is purely financial, and entirely to do with the pointlesness of adding bays to Saltley panel within 24 months of it being decomissioned would seem to be a little silly.

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 30/12/2011 at 17:45 #26481
Stephen Fulcher
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The loco concerned, which is still there, has been for some time and as far as I am aware will remain for some time as well.

I agree that it would have been pointless to modify Saltley Panel, which would have been a lot more expensive and complex than altering a WestCad screen. It is also possible, although I am not sure, that the "new" Snow Hill occupied the same space on Saltley Panel as the "old" Moor Street from before it was closed, so there may not have been room to easily accommodate it either.

If memory serves me correctly, there was also some wrangling as to who was going to pay for it, which in part contributed to it not being done at the time of the Leamington Corridor Resignalling.

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 31/12/2011 at 16:19 #26528
TimB2010
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" said:
If memory serves me correctly, there was also some wrangling as to who was going to pay for it, which in part contributed to it not being done at the time of the Leamington Corridor Resignalling.
As far as I remember, there was an article in Railway Magazine a few years ago saying that, as well as this, the project was being put on hold due to conducting a feasibility study into building a new (temporary) station at Curzon St to release some capacity from New St for the rebuilding. This was obviously decided to be non-feasible, as it didn't happen.

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 31/12/2011 at 21:32 #26543
Stephen Fulcher
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It will be interesting to see if they ever build that chord that was sort-of proposed to link the Camp Hill lines with Moor Street.
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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 01/01/2012 at 01:18 #26553
Cave87
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" said:
might be awkward writing a timetable for 2011 with chilterns services terminating at moor st otherwise
r

I am currently tring to do this for the 2011-2012 timetable, and I can assure you it isn't easy. Other changes include the removeal of the turnback facility at Shirley meaning trains start/terminate at Whitlock End. I can assure you it is causing some headaches.

Also no real point in updating Saltley at the moment as the lines from Bordesley Jcn-Water Orton-Wichnor Jcn/Nuneaton is being resignalled and recontrolled, which is completed during 2012.

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 04/01/2012 at 22:00 #26821
daza7789
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" said:
Thats
The new bay platforms at Moor Street have signals at their ends which are plated "WM" and not "LJ", and the layout on the Snow Hill lines alongside is exactly as the Saltley Sim depicts aside from the lead into the bays, so to add them into SimSig would not be difficult.
It would not be difficult?? I trust you have the signal numbers, point numbers, TC IDs and lengths, permissive working arrangements, approach control timers and routes avaliable on all signals affected by the new bays, flank locking arrangements, TRTS arangements, gradiants, how the whole lot is acctually layed out on the work station, are there TCORs in the bays, aspect control on all signals affected by the new bays. co'acting point arrangements, speed limits over all new xovers/lines etc etc etc

Trust me adding 1 extra set of points as a pain, a major mod like this is a nightmate, especially without the data as per above. Adding it into seperate eras makes it even more of a nightmare.

Now dont get me wrong, I would love to add the bays at moor st, problem is then I would need the new Tyesley north jn, and the new lay out at south jn to also be added to make TTs work, well of course those 2 junctions came with the leamington corridor resig, which resignalled the whole lot from leamington - bordesley/Jewlery quarter. A huge job, also a job that geoff worked on with TRE so conflict of interest also comes in i am affraid, same applied to the water orton corridor resig.

Ta
Daz

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 04/01/2012 at 23:42 #26828
Stephen Fulcher
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A badly written post on my part, sorry Darren.

I meant to suggest that there is not a significant alteration to the track layout in that area, rather than actually coding SimSig being easy.

I could however get the data you are referring to, however I am also fully aware that the Leamington Corridor is likely to be a conflict of interest with TreSim, and also that in itself Moor Street bays are largely meaningless as Tyseley is considerably different now, and any 2011/2 timetable still would not work as Tyseley is considerably faster now than it used to be.

Sorry if I caused any offence.

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Re: Birmingham Moor Street bay platforms 04/01/2012 at 23:56 #26830
daza7789
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Stephen

No offence caused trust me, the main issue aside from the data was the rest of the leamington corridor alterations that haave happened, and that to do one would mean to have to do them all. Huge task and conflict of intrest. I am sure that you understand some of the complexities that even the smallest alteration can throw up. dont get me wrong I would love to be able to add the bays, and may be able to reach a comprimise one day, but unfortunatly a huge amount of work for the time being, still keep that data in hand you never know

Ta
Daz

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