European Railroad Discussion > Sonning, before the wires

When the Great Western Railway opened the London to Bristol mainline in 1835 one of the most impressive civil engineering achievements was the cutting (cut) at Sonning, just east of Reading, some 33 miles west of London, which was dug entirely by hand. Widened to four tracks later in the 19th century it has always been a favoured location for photography. But that is all set to change thanks to the inexorable march of GW Mainline Electrification catenary. On my second not-working-Wednesday I headed west to Reading, biking from there back to Sonning and, later, on to the next station towards London, Twyford. Weather wasn't quite as nice as last week, I managed to get wet in a brief shower but it was mainly bright and occasionally sunny, and there was no wind, which is the curse when cycling.

On site from about 11:00 to 16:00 I saw 10 freight trains (shooting nine of them) and multiple passenger services. The latter are all operated by Great Western Railway, a First Group company and consist of either 40 year old HSTs or BR built Turbo DMUs (classes 165 and 166). 66s and 59s monopolise the freights. Of the 10, eight were related to the construction industry and two were intermodals.

This is a link to all the pictures, I've included six in this post https://nick86235.smugmug.com/Trains/2016/Autumn-2016/i-jCHNTKs

1: My train from Paddington was eight minutes late so I only just made the A4 bridge at Sonning in time for the 4L31 Bristol to Felixstowe. Bristol is a relatively new intermodal terminal, it sees on average two trains each way five days a week. One of the major commodities it handles is bulk wine from South America. the loco is 66517. As you can see there's plenty of evidence of catenary masts towards Reading, but thankfully little in the cutting itself.
2: A couple of minutes behind the 4L31 came this London bound 2+8 HST.
3: Moving to the next bridge to the east, Warren Hill Road, and looking back to the A4 bridge a rather tatty looking 66623 on the 6M91 Theale to Hope cement empties. Theale is a few miles west of Reading, there's a big business and industrial park which includes both a cement and a stone terminal and oil storage tanks, all of which are served by rail. The train consisted of a mixture of older Lafarge and new Hope Construction Materials cement tanks.

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4: Back to the A4 for shot looking east towards Warren Hill Road bridge, 66039 is westbound on the 6V38 Acton to Moreton-on-Lugg, which is between Hereford and Leominster on the Welsh Marches

5: And back on Warren Hill Road bridge for 59202 on the 7C77 from Acton to Merehead, this is a so-called 'jumbo' train, made up of 42 vehicles. Rather unusually for a class 7 train (max. 45 mph) but it's running on the down fast line. A turbo is heading east.

6: And finally, taken on the bridge east of Twyford station, an HST in full Great Western Railway finery. It's a rather sombre livery, not really what you associate with the GWR of old - their passenger cars were either chocolate and cream or crimson lake. The train is the 15:36 Paddington to Cheltenham. The clearances between tracks on the left reflect the original 7' gauge of the GWR.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/16 05:50 by 86235.

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Thanks, Nick.  Gerry

Neat bridges, particularly the masonry and iron (I suppose). Thanks for posting.

King_Coal Wrote:
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> Neat bridges, particularly the masonry and iron (I
> suppose). Thanks for posting.

It is a good looking bridge, and there's no raised parapet. What you can't see are the notices placed by Network Rail and the Samaritans, dissuading those in desperate situations from taking their own lives by jumping off the bridge. Standard practise on bridges and other places where the public interacts with trains.

Great photos Nick. On four track lines are the two middle ones reserved for high speed trains generaly? Also in the land of classic design, why are the cantary supports so ugly?

The track arrangements in pictures 4, 5 and 6 are, from left to right, up slow, down slow, up fast, down fast.

Good question about the catenary, Network Rail are under some pressure to revise the design, especially in AONB locations (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty)

Network Rail engaged with a Swiss firm (I think) to design the catenary, I think it's so uncompromising as a consequence of the loose bit of knitting that BR used for the ECML in the late 80s and which has given trouble ever since.

This gives you an idea of the furore the catenary design has provoked.

http://www.savegoringgap.org.uk



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/16 11:38 by 86235.

CPRR Wrote:
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>On four track lines are the two
> middle ones reserved for high speed trains
> generaly?

In the UK (but I suspect everywhere else as well) four tracks can be paired by direction or by speed. If paired by direction it means that two tracks on one side can be either slow towards the middle or fast in the middle. All arrangements are common in the UK, often requiring flyovers to change from one arrangement to another, A good example of this is at Wimbledon on the south western main line where pairing by speed changes (heading away from London) to pairing by direction with slow trains on the outside. As a result many stations further out only have platforms on the outside tracks. In contrast on the Great Eastern line out of London (Liverpool St) to East Anglia the flyover at Ilford changes the arrangement from pairs by direction to pairs by speed. Also there are lines (such as the Metropolitan between Finchley Road and Harrow) where the slow trains use the centre tracks and have a single "island" platform. I guess these alternatives must be the same the world over!

spflow Wrote:
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> In contrast on the Great Eastern
> line out of London (Liverpool St) to East Anglia
> the flyover at Ilford changes the arrangement from
> pairs by direction to pairs by speed.

Not so, the flyover at Ilford rather uniquely simply switches the up and down electric from being to the south of the up and down fast on the London side to the north on the country side. Don't ask me why but in GE and LNER days there was a flat crossing at Ilford that performed the same function.

Sorry, you're right of course! I should have know after all my misspent student days traveliing down the GE line. Can you think of any examples of up/down pairings being switched to slow/fast ones (other than at Harrow on the Met?).

spflow Wrote:
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> Can you think of any examples of
> up/down pairings being switched to slow/fast ones
> (other than at Harrow on the Met?).

The WCML is a strange mixture of configurations - at Rugby the Up-Up Down-Down arrangement of the Trent Valley changes to Up-Down (Northampton) Up-Down (Weedon) which it retains once the two pairs of lines join each other again at Roade.

The one route where the track arrangement is consistently Up-Up Down-Down is the ECML from King's Cross to Digswell, Woolmer Green to Huntingdon and Fletton to Stoke Tunnel.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/16 03:17 by 86235.

Not sure if the flyover just north of King's Cross to get the slow line over to the west side of the formation is what you meant. One other example is Crewe, on the West Coast Main line which is, from East to West up slow, up fast, down fast, down slow north of Crewe and south of Crewe it is up fast, down fast, up slow, down slow. To some extent the switching is grade separated via the Independent lines round the back of Crewe station itself.