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:

Progress

At Huyton a further length of the fourth line, from the current end of rails to the far end of the telephone exchange, has received sleepers, but no rails yet.

Update:  By Sunday rails were in place on these sleepers, and a number of S&C track panels were stacked on them.


Meanwhile, at Lime Street, the 'hole' which will eventually become the two new platforms, has been almost completely excavated.

Platform Work at Roby and Huyton

I was somewhat surprised last week to see that all the edge stones on the recently built platform 4 at Roby have been lifted, before anyone had a chance to board a train there.

I don't know the reason for this, perhaps it was built in the wrong place, or the requirements have since changed.

At Huyton, platform 4 will be closed along with the northern access to the station, from 7 August.  Some pallets of building materials have been delivered to the platform, suggesting that similar work is to be undertaken here.

New Timetable: Electric trains! - Ordsall Chord

This week the first details of the new timetable, valid from Sunday 10 December this year until Saturday 19 May 2018 trickled into my database, so here's the results of a very quick scan.

The service at Huyton is pretty similar to the current one, but with many trains re-timed by a few minutes.  The exciting news is that they are, at last, timed for 100mph Class 319 units instead of Class 142 pacers.  This results in slightly faster running times, for example 3 minutes less for a stopping train from Wigan to Lime Street and 5 minutes saved Manchester Victoria to Lime Street.

Of course, a change much more important in the scheme of things is the opening of the Ordsall Chord, with trains from Oxford Road to Leeds (Via Victoria and Bradford.)   Here's an example: http://www.charlwoodhouse.co.uk/rail/liverail/train/10807089.

Another important change in the new timetable is the appearance of electric services at Bolton.  Only local ones so far, there aren't any Scotland services.

Don't forget, as I always say in posts about new timetables, the data is well outside Network Rail's twelve week window and so must be considered provisional.