Future Works

On day one of the blockade, let's have look at what's coming up in the future:

• Christmas resignalling work:  72 hour closure of Liverpool Lime Street.  54 hour closure Edge Hill to Weaver Junction and Edge Hill to Huyton. 
• Platforms 6 (old number) and 9 (old) will remain closed at Lime Street from Christmas until April.
• Sunday 21 January, Sunday 28 January, Sunday 4 February, :  Lines closed Wavertree Junction to Hunts Cross / Ditton for resignalling.
• Easter 2018:  Four day blockade Wavertree Junction to Crewe for signalling work.  Four day blockade at Manchester Victoria for "structures", whatever that means.
• Sunday 08 April:  Lime Street closed for resignalling work.
• Platforms 4 (old) and 9 (old) at Lime Street closed from April until July.
• 14 April to 29 April:  Blockade for electrification between Philips Park West Junction and Stalybridge Junction; also Denton Jn to Ashton Moss North and Baguley Fold Jn to Philips Park South Jn.
• May Bank Holiday Weekend:  Four day blockade Wavertree Junction to Weaver Junction for resignalling work.
• Spring Bank Holiday Weekend:  Three day blockade Wavertree Junction to Weaver Junction for resignalling work.
• June/July 2018:  Major blockades at Lime Street with total closure 02 June to 10 June and 14 July to 29 July.  Very limited service 11 June to 13 July.

All the above are, of course, provisional, especially the later ones.

Huyton Day One

Work got under way last night at Huyton and progress has been made already.

Just east of the station, signal LL3586 has been taken away leaving just a stump:

It's the one in the middle of the picture.  I'm expecting it to come back without its feather in due course.

A little further east at Huyton Junction they're getting on with the changes to the electrification, with a new portal structure being craned in:

Last Day

A correspondent (Thanks, David.) reports a notice at Huyton warning that the Up Chat Moss Slow (Roby and Huyton platform 4.) overhead should be treated as live from 12:00 Sunday 8 October.

That doesn't leave much time for testing, as the first train along there is due at 0629 on Monday morning.

(I'm assuming all the track changes will be complete by then, in which case trains for the Up St Helens line will have to use platform 4.)

Five Days To Go

OK, OK, five and a half days!

I paid a visit to Huyton today to see how things are going.  The overnight possession last night was released late, wrecking the service until 10:00.

The electrification equipment at Huyton Junction looks ready, or as ready as it can be before the blockade actually starts.

In this picture just east of Huyton you can see:

1. Top right, a gallows support from the south side, no changes required.
2. Right hand mast, planted in the middle of the future fourth track, to be removed.
3. Left hand mast and short gallows, new support for third and fourth track catenary.

When I was at the station a team of signalling people were testing cables for the new signals, perhaps they were pulled through last night.  Lots of shouts of "There's a ten core plus a two core for the feather" but they didn't reveal any new signal numbers while I was listening.

Eight Days To Go

Just eight days of normal train service remain, before Lime Street closes for phase one of its upgrade.  I'm still not entirely clear how much of the work will be completed in this phase.

Tracks have been laid for the new platforms 7 and 8, although there's still quite a lot to finish, as you can see:

(Update:  Another visit a day later revealed that the tracks laid so far stop before the point where they should merge and pass under the narrow bridge, so there is indeed a lot more to do.)

Meanwhile, at Huyton platform 4, the edging stones are all back in place with just the tarmac remaining to be re-done.

Progress Report Early September

Work continues at Huyton Junction, and I noticed a signal base has appeared for the platform four "starter".  (If anyone has the numbers for the new signals I'd be grateful.)

I also noticed a shiny new AWS magnet in the four foot west of Roby and since writing that I've seen another one in platform 4 there.  TPWS grids have appeared as well, you can see one in the above photo.

The edge of platform four at Huyton is suffering the same demolition and rebuild as happened at Roby:

Clearly someone slipped up - I hope we're not paying for all this work to be redone.

At Lime Street, the new platforms are well on their way: