UK: Complicated track layout - Newcastle

[John Ashworth]

I've always been fascinated by the complicated track layout outside the old Newcastle Central Station (1962 photo):



Of course it had all changed by 1999:



(Click on thumbnail below for larger photo):



NB: First two photos can be found here

[Steve Appleton]

Nothing could illustrate the massive contraction of the UK's railway system over a short 30 year period any better! And also the concurrent rise of the car. A complete terminal concourse demolished for..... a car park.

Building all those diagonal crossings, many of which are on a curvature and each at a different angle, must have taken considerable planning and skill.

By contrast, most, if not all, SA's diagonal crossings are straight-tracked. Curve before and curve after maybe, but straight at the point of the crossing.

[Steve Appleton]

Of interest too in the older picture is the use of catch or "trap points". Two types are in evidence.

The left-hand track has a set of "wide to guage trap points". In this, the two switch rails move inwards in opposite directions to derail a potentially fouling vehicle straight down onto the sleepers without causing it to run off to one side. The points blades will progressively bear on the inside of the fallen wheels providing useful braking force to stop the vehicle.

The right hand loop with the small diesel loco on it has a set of "double trap points" (without crossing frog) where the trap points would derail the vehicle partially to one side.

The last observation is the third rail electrification which has been replaced by overhead catenary. With so many long gaps in the third rail, I wonder, over the years, how many electric trains must have come to a stop, having being "gapped" here .

[John Ashworth]

Well spotted, Steve. I had seen the catch point on the left but hadn't noticed the one on the right.

[Andreas Umnus]

Steve has really studied the picture. I needed just after reading of his post a while to discover what he wrote about. But Steve has right, it really is a complicated track layout.
Must be a nightmare for every worker at a signal box - like myself.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

But the second picture is slightly misleading having been taken from a point far forward of the first. In the B and W photo the equivalent view os from the point of the steam engine shown.

This shows then loss of 2 lines to the left, lioss of the one platform and its lines etc.

[allanroy]

googled and found some more photos of this complex station





found these two images here http://www.skylighters.org/ncs/index.html

there are more pictures on the website

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Any track diagrams anywhere?

[Tom Macrery]

Just outside of Rovos' fence we have a very interesting, perhaps even unique, double cross-over. Both lines are convex (curved) toward each other and so close that two trains cannot pass that section at the same time.

Edit: I have just noticed that in the second picture (foreground, slightly left of center) there is also such a double cross-over, but the two main convex lines are so close that they even overlap.

[Martin Coombs]

Whilst I too regret the loss of the complexities of Newcastle upon Tyne station's east junction, let's put it into context: the suburban network out to the coast, which utilised the platforms now turned into car-park, was de-electrified in the late '60s and then became the basis of the Tyneside Metro in the '70s. This meant that the new trains ran into tunnels through the city centre rather than ending up in Central Station. This represents an improvement in the suburban service rather than a loss.

As far as main line trains are concerned, in the second photo you will notice the new platform 10 out beyond the left of the overall roofs. This only came into existence in the '90s, though perhaps it was only made possible by less need for tracks for freight to bypass the station.

Martin
(who went from firing at Sydenham in 1974-5 to transport planning for Tyneside Passenger Transport Executive later in the decade, working in an office building only a couple of hundred yards behind the camera viewpoints which started this thread!)

[John Ashworth]

Martin, good point about the suburban network. When I was at university in Durham in the early '70s I travelled out to the coast from time to time and the local rail service was appalling, with half-derelict stations. The opening of the Metro transformed it. It's a superb metro system.

[Mike Haslam]

In 1967 I was at college in Newcastle and had my digs out on the coast at Whitley Bay. I traveled by train (DMU) every day and knew the station well. The trains I took used to run out from where the car park now is. On boarding the train I used to take the seat right behind the driver so I could see the line ahead and watch the driver at work. Loved it!

Turtle

[John Ashworth]

Those first-generation DMUs where you could see over the driver's shoulder were superb! Now about the only place you get that view is on driverless trains like London's Docklands Light Railway and Copenhagen's metro.

[Martin Coombs]

In 1967 I was at college in Newcastle and had my digs out on the coast at Whitley Bay. I traveled by train (DMU) every day and knew the station well. The trains I took used to run out from where the car park now is. On boarding the train I used to take the seat right behind the driver so I could see the line ahead and watch the driver at work. Loved it!

Turtle

Like Mike I was in digs at Whitley Bay when a student, in my case at the beginning of the '70s. If I had no lectures I would nip off early and go and phot the NCB steam locos at Backworth on the way home, or occasionally caught the 4pm or thereabouts shipyard workers' train round the Riverside line to North Shields. That route really was almost derelict - telephone wires often stolen and sometimes hand signalling, but then there were only a couple of trains a day!

Martin

[Tom Macrery]

I just realized I have a photo of the double-crossover I mentioned above. This picture is from March 2008 when we still, indeed, reversed home into Capital Park.