Anoraksia Question

[mattdaniels]

Was suffering a mild bout of anoraksia during morning coffee and wondering - can you, in theory, drive a train from any one station on the mainland rail network to any other? (Assuming its a diesel, so no power issues) ie. is the national rail network "all joined up" with no "orphan" lines such as the Waterloo & City Line on the tube?

[anonymous-user]

Yes.

[Magog]

The narrow gauge Vale of Rheidol railway was operated by BR until the late 80's. I think the line on the Isle of Wight is technically part of the national network, there are of course many heritage railways which are not connected to network rail. But I suspect within the narrow confines of your question, the above posters answer is correct.

[anonymous-user]

In addition to the IoW, I'm not sure you can actually cross any points to get on to the Brokenhurst to Lymington line from the Main Line. Lymington being a main line station but you'd have to change platform to get over too other route. I've looked on the aerial shots on multimap and whilst there seems to be remnants/impressions of old and removed lines there are no obvious and specific crossing points, indeed it even looks like there are buffers after the platform end going towards Southampton and going toward bournemouth there is one opportunity/impression for/of crossing points but it's not clear as to whether there are actually any rails to allow it. I know they changed the rolling stock on it a couple of weeks ago but not sure if they reconnected it then to do that.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 11th June 12:17

[nc107]

There's a thing called gauge clearance (kinematic movement of the vehicle)unfortunately. In laymans terms "is the hole big enough to shove the train down?". So although there the lines may be continuous (no idea on that) for instance surface stock generally won't fit on the underground, and many "south of the river" stock will have problems north of the river and vice versa. So you would need a "fits all" vehicle. I'm not sure if one exists.

[john_p]

Looks like that line branches south of Brockenhurst, just north of where it splits off into sidings on the east side

I would have thought it'd be tricky to service / maintain trains if they couldn't get to a main depot

[anonymous-user]

john_p said:

Looks like that line branches south of Brockenhurst, just north of where it splits off into sidings on the east side

I would have thought it'd be tricky to service / maintain trains if they couldn't get to a main depot

You mean here (50.810974,-1.578327) I know that's what I thought, but it is not as definetive as I'd like, you can't actuall make out a rail crossing points in the middle of the mainline track, as you can just north of the station here (50.817434,-1.572424) from platform 1.

Anyway I'll check it out next time I go through.

With regard to servicing very true, I know they only updated the rolling stock from slam doors two weeks ago, so it is possible the servicing would have not taken place at a main line depot and done in the east sidings, anyway all conjecture and just offering a possibility. They should have reconnected for the new rolling stock anyway which will need servicing at a main line depot so it's a bit of a mute point. I just thought it might have been a possibility.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 11th June 13:08

[Magog]

There are 2 or 3 crossovers by the look of it, It's much clearer on the Bing Maps Aerial view than on the Google Maps version.