Category Archives: Calder Valley

More on the Calder valley line

24 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Calder Valley, Engineering, Flooding, Mytholmroyd, Network Rail, Northern Powerhouse, Rail Investment, Railways, Yorkshire

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As the weather was meant to be good yesterday I took a little trip down the Calder valley line to Mytholmroyd, one of the towns which was badly hit by the Boxing Day floods of 2015. Nearly 15 months later, Mytholmroyd is still struggling to recover from the devastation. Although both the pubs have reopened, they’re still showing the effects. The Shoulder of Mutton’s beer garden backs on to Cragg Brook which burst its banks that day, flooding the whole area under several feet of water. Here’s what the brook and beer garden look like today. Giant ‘Lego’ blocks act as a bulwark against the brook, but take up all the beer garden!

DG267761. Flood repairs. Mytholmroyd. W Yorks. 23.3.17

The Environment agency is currently working on strengthening the towns flood defences, so I’m hoping that this is only a temporary measure.

It’s not just businesses that suffered in the floods. I passed several homes along the brook which are still empty as the owners are waiting for them to be renovated or dry out. Whilst the floods no longer make the news it’s clear the effects linger, even if the TV cameras  don’t.

The reason for my visit  wasn’t to gawk at the damage caused by the floods, it was to have a look at another of the worksites on the railway West of the station as a follow up to my earlier blog on the Calder line modernisation. There’s several footbridges on this stretch. Most of them have been renewed over the past few years and replaced with high sided metal structures suitable for electrified lines. What they’re not good for is photography – unless you’re carrying a ladder. However, one stone arch bridge remains at the end of Erringden Rd. Wide enough for a road, it’s now just a footpath. It cuts right across what will be one of the sites for where track renewal will be taking this coming weekend (25-26th March) – as you can see from this shot.

DG267764. Preparing to relay the track. Mytholmroyd. W Yorks. 23.3.17

Looking back East towards Mytholmroyd station. The Up line on the right was renewed back in January 2014. Lights and matting have been left in the cess next to Down line which will be renewed this weekend. New rail has been dropped in the four-foot of the Up line. In the background is one of the new footbridges. The two signals seen here are controlled by Hebden Bridge signalbox, which will be abolished as part of the resignalling scheme. No new cable troughing has been laid in this area but the existing troughs have had broken or missing lids replaced.

For reference, this next view was taken back in January 2014, looking back to the bridge I was standing on today.

DG168579. Relaying the Up Main. Mytholmroyd. 19.1.14.

Renewal of the Up line in January 2014

Whilst I was in the area I had chance to get a shot of one of the new freight flows that use the line. Last summer, GBRf started hauling stone from Arcow quarry on the Settle-Carlisle line through to Bredbury or Pendleton in Manchester. The trains run as Q services (Q=as required) and have several different paths allocated for them to use in the timetable, so they’re a bit unpredictable. I only found this one was running a few hours before it did. Here’s 66725 hauling 6M38, the 11.25 Arcow quarry to Bredbury.

DG267801. 66725. 6M38. Arcow Quarry - Bredbury stone. Mytholmroyd. W Yorks. 23.3.17

If you want to see the location on google maps. Use this link.

 

The Calder valley line sees £100m of improvements

19 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by in Calder Valley, Rail Investment, Yorkshire

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Whilst most attention is focussed on the various electrification schemes across the North-West and Pennines, other work to upgrade lines in the North is going ahead with little fanfare. One such scheme kicked off this month with work starting on upgrading the Calder Valley line across the Pennines.

Work’s already been completed between Manchester Victoria and Rochdale, the highlight of which was the opening of a new Western facing bay platform at the end of October 2016. Now the focus moves East from Littleborough towards Bradford. Between now and August 2018 a series of work that includes station improvements, resignalling and track lowering (as well as the opening of the new station at Low Moor) will see speeds raised from 55-60mph to at least 70mph (and in some cases 90mph, although I’ve been told these could be too short for drivers to take advantage of). Whilst there’s been extensive track renewals along the line in the past decade, with the remodelling and renewal of Bradford Mill Lane Junction, renewal of Dryclough Jn and long lengths of the Up line either side of Mytholmroyd, some plain line still dates from 1966.

As well as adding capacity for extra services the work will reduce journey times, meaning that a Bradford – Manchester trip (with four stops) will come down from 58-61 minutes to 53-54 minutes. Whilst the time savings are modest at present, the increased linespeeds and smaller sections between signals will increase the resilience of the service and reduce delays.

Four signalboxes will be abolished and control of the line will be transferred to York ROC. The boxes to close are Hebden Bridge, Milner Royd Junction, Halifax and Bradford Mill Lane – where the junction will have new crossovers installed to enable more parallel moves and facilitate increased services between Halifax, Bradford and Leeds.

Network Rail has already confirmed dates for some of the work taking place between now and June. These are;

Sowerby Bridge and Luddendenfoot (26mp to 29mp)

25/3/17 – 27/3/17 Preparatory work for track lowering at Sowerby Bridge

01/4/17- 03/4/17 Track Lowering at Sowerby Bridge station (gauge clearance).

10/4/17 – 14/4/17 Sowerby Bridge follow up works

29/4/17-30/4/17 Prep works at Luddendenfoot

6/5/17-8/5/17 Track renewal at Luddendenfoot (West of Sowerby Bridge tunnel) and follow up work at Sowerby Bridge

13/5/17-14/5/17 Follow up works at Luddendenfoot

22/5/17-26/5/17 Follow up works at Luddendenfoot (Mid Week nights)

3/6/17-4/6/17 Follow up work at Luddendenfoot

Work on a new footbridge at the listed station of Hebden Bridge is expected to start in January 2018. The bridge (which will be fitted with lifts) will make the station fully accessible as the current subway ramps don’t meet the required standards. UPDATE: It’s since been confirmed that this was incorrect. Hebden Bridge won’t be getting a footbridge. Instead, lifts will be installed in the old lift shafts at the station. At a later date, the Down platform will be extended West to allow trains to stop within the modern signalling overlaps. As more dates are announced for other work, I’ll try and post them to this blog. There’s clearly a lot more work to do. Strings of new rail have been dropped just West of Milner Royd Jn and the ‘Orange Army’ have been busy around Halifax over the weekend. Sowerby Bridge has seen a lot of lineside vegetation clearance and there’s many sites in the Calder valley where new cable toughing has appeared.

Meanwhile, here’s a series of pictures of what you can expect to see, and what you already have…

DG168543. Relaying the Up Main. Mytholmroyd. 19.1.14.

Relaying the Up line West of Mytholmroyd station in 2014. Now the old ballast base has been  dug out and replaced the Road Rail Vehicle (RRV) moves in to drop new concrete sleepers into place.

 

DG19352. Relaying track. Bradford Interchange. 23.10.08.

In 2008 Mill Lane Junction at the approach to Bradford Interchange was replaced, with capacity added. A decade later, it’s going to be rebuilt to have yet more capacity added – allowing multiple entries/exits at the same time. This is a good illustration of how the railways have gone from rationalisation to expansion. In the background is Mill Lane Jn signalbox which will be abolished under the resignalling programme.

 

DG19303. Milner Royd Junction signalbox. 17.10.08.

Milner Royd Jn signalbox is of historical interest as it’s the only surviving example of the work of a small company called Smith and Yardley. The box was built in 1878 but will be made redundant in the next couple of years.

 

DG12731. 158791. Hebden Bridge. 25.9.07

The listed station at Hebden Bridge is a delight. The platform I’m standing on (the Bradford bound side) is the one that’ll be extended in the direction of the photo.

 

DG231394. Signalbox repainted. Halifax. 14.10.15.

Halifax signalbox (formerly Halifax East) was built by the Railway Signal company in 1884.

 

07070. Hebden Bridge SB. 7.8.99.

Hebden Bridge signalbox was built in 1891 by the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. It’s a great example of their standardised, prefabricated design produced at Horwich. The box is listed Grade 2.

 

DG235206. Clipping new track in place. Luddenden. 22.11.15.

An RRV moves a rail into place on newly laid sleepers at Luddendonfoot in November 2015

The modernisation of the Calder Valley route reflects its new importance as a vital freight artery as well as a growing passenger railway. The last year has seen the line used by biomass trains from Liverpool Docks to Drax power station, stone from Arcow quarry on the S&C to Manchester and waste from Knowsley (Liverpool) to Wilton. There’s also daily trains moving the remaining coal stocks from the closed Ferrybridge power station to Fidlers Ferry.

DG257854. 66610. Mytholmroyd. 4.10.16

66610 hauls an empty rake of coal wagons from Fidler’s Ferry to Ferrybridge past Mytholmroyd.

 

DG257869. 66082. Mytholmroyd. 4.10.16.JPG

DB Schenker’s 66082 passes Mytholmroyd with domestic waste from Knowsley (Liverpool) to Wilton on Teeside.

Of course, it’s not just freight. The Calder Valley is an important diversionary route for Trans-pennine services when the Diggle route is closed for engineering work. When electrification of that line starts, the Calder valley’s enhanced capacity will be extremely useful.

DG249423. 185136. 185151. Sowerby Bridge.7.8.16

A pair of TPE class 185s pass at Sowerby Bridge station on the 7th August 2016 when the Colne valley route was closed for engineering work.

 

Spring’s in the air

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Calder Valley, Politics, Rail Investment, Travel

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There’s been no time to blog today despite the volumes I could’ve written about the continuing political farce. We saw the wheels come off Brexit when David Davis was forced to admit how woefully unprepared the Govt was to a Parliamentary Committee, as well as having to answer awkward questions to reveal some of the tariffs we’d face in the future (link).  Meanwhile, despite a hugely embarrassing Govt U-turn on NIC and a massive open goal to aim for, Jeremy Corbyn added another excruciatingly bad PMQs to his list (link).

Instead, I’ve been busy whittling down my email inbox before enjoying some of the beautiful pre-spring sunshine by wandering down into Sowerby Bridge to get a few photo’s. One of the beauties of buggering off to Asia for a couple of months is that I’ve missed the drab and dismal early months of the year and slipped straight into March instead – and today was a glorious showcase for the month. The countryside is actively throwing off winter’s hibernation. Birds are busy gathering nesting material whilst plants are industriously sprouting new life. There’s a sense of expectation and optimism in the air – well, amongst the flora and fauna anyway, this is still Yorkshire after all!

Whilst I was in town I popped in to a Network Rail event in a local Church hall. It was purpose was to brief residents about the upgrade works to the Calder Valley line which are taking place over the next couple of  years. The work includes track renewals and remodelling as well as signalling replacement and line-speed improvements. Stations will be improved too. For example, next year Hebden Bridge will have a footbridge (complete with lifts) installed.  I’ll blog about the whole project another time.

Tomorrow I’m off to Huddersfield for a social gathering at the ACoRP office, so I’ll blog again as soon as time permits.

Calder valley freight resurgence.

26 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in Calder Valley, GBRf, Railfreight

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It’s hard to imagine now but a century ago the Calder valley line would have been a main freight artery carrying hundreds of thousands of tons of coal for use within the UK and for export via Liverpool docks. Now, the traffic has disappeared (along with all the collieries) with just a single coal train running on the route. In fact, freight traffic of all sorts has dried up. On weekdays between 06:00 and midnight the following services traverse the valley.

Preston Docks – Lindsay empty bogie tanks (runs as required Mon – Fri)
Immingham-Fidlers Ferry loaded coal hoppers & return empties (runs as required between Tues-Fri)
Scunthorpe – Pendleton steel slag in bogie hoppers & return empties (runs on a Friday only – as required)
Seaforth – Tinsley empty steel train (runs on a Friday only – as required)

However, all this is about to change, thanks to ‘King Coal’s’ replacement – wood chip biomass….

Energy giant Drax has signed a deal with port owner Peel Ports which will see Liverpool handle up to three million tonnes of wood pellets a year. The pellets, which are a by-product of the commercial forestry and saw-milling industry will be imported from North America.

All of the wood pellets will be sent to Drax by rail from Liverpool as the biomass terminal will include its own rail loading facility and storage capacity for 100,000 tonnes. The cost of the new terminal is estimated at £100 million and the facility opened this month. It will become fully operational from July 2016 when it will be able to facilitate up to ten train loads of pellets to be sent to Drax per day.
A three year contract to run the trains has been won by operator GBRf.

The route taken will be a circuitous one from Liverpool via Warrington, Northwich, Altrincham, Stockport and Rochdale, then via the Calder Valley and on to Wakefield & Knottingley to Drax.

Here’s a report from the Liverpool Echo on the opening of the terminal & first train.

On their Facebook page GBRf announced that “initially 13 trains per week will run, increasing to 23 trains per week sometime in mid 2016” The trains will be using some of the 200 high capacity biomass wagons that Drax purchased in 2013. These have a capacity of 116 m3, which Drax says is nearly 30% more than other UK wagons. The payload of the wagons is 72 tonnes with a gross laden weight of 102 tonnes. The wagons are capable of being hauled at 75mph.

As a precursor to this service one train a day (each way) is already running Monday – Thursday. Some 50 kt of biomass will be moved from Liverpool to Drax over the next few weeks, although this will be carried in GBRf’s own biomass wagons. The empties run from Drax to Liverpool overnight with the loaded service passing through the Calder valley each evening (passing Sowerby Bridge at 2235).

The new flow is a welcome reversal of the fortunes of freight in the Calder valley, let’s hope more services follow.

I’ll add some illustrations of the wagons & trains as soon as I can. Right now WordPress seems to be playing up & won’t let me!