13 : 23 : X2 : X3 : X13 - Fun With Numbers (5)

 But First, The Puzzle Picture

The puzzle picture shows a new line leaving the "Tilbury Loop" for a new station at Barking Riverside. 

We see the line leaving the existing layout and climbing on a viaduct to cross the remnant end of Ripple Lane marshalling yard (long since gone) before snaking round to the new terminus. Here is a slightly earlier view via Google Earth.

The bridge work spans part of the railway, then Choats Road and Thames Road (running diagonally to bottom left in the above picture), current access to the new development, then snaked round to the terminus.

The whole new-build line is on embankment and viaduct, as seen in artists impression at Choats Road ...

... and below, approaching the terminus.

And this is what the area looked like before anyone had thought of the new development.

The wodge bottom left is the former Barking Creekmouth power station.

Longer term plans include new housing to the north of the railway and a station named Castle Green ...

... serving even more new housing seen in white outline centre right below.

What does seem a little strange is that the huge development at Barking Riverside will not get a through service to central London. The change at Barking will offer Underground services plus National Rail but the Underground is very slow and the "proper" railway dumps you at Fenchurch Street with a further leg into the real centre. It seems likely that lots of people will want to go that way and will face a tedious and frustrating journey.

At Last The Too True New X2 Review!

fbb is not familiar with the detailed history of the X2 service, but in 2016 the leaflet was advertising and "up to" every 30 minutes between Oxford, Abingdon, Didcot and Wallingford.

The route was fast via A34 to Abingdon ...

... then via Steventon and Milton Park ...

... and on to Didcot and Wallingford. Milton Park might have been "Georgian style housing" but, in fact, is a big slice of industrial estate ...

... which, fbb guesses, contributed muchly to to the increase of frequency for the X2 to "up to every 15 minutes".

Equally as part of fbb guesswork and lacking a timetable, your author thinks that the four buses an hour only ran as far as Didcot with the onward Wallingford leg remaining every 30. Under lockdown, the split was every 30 and every 60.

Maybe during the lockdown, support money has come to an end, but from Thames Travel's point of view, the X2 is reduced to every 20 minutes ...

... and the link to Wallingford is now part of a wider re-jig of services in the area and appears as service 33.

But, as we know, that revised (i.e. reduced) 20 minute frequency has been incorporated into the former Oxford Bus X3/X13, hitherto running every 10 minutes between Abingdon and Morse-town.

So, from 10 buses an hour via the A34 (X2 x 4, X3 x 3, X13 x 3) we are down to 6 (X2 x 3, X3 x 3). Whether this will change once we are let out to play again is unclear - but fbb doubts it.

The "Privatised Railway" - The Future?

We are already seeing trains in Wales returning to the public sector and in England HMG is footing the bill (and a huge bill it is, too) for all the empty trains that are running about, as well as running several franchises that have thrown in the towel wrapped round the keys!

Now comes the news that in 2022, when the franchise deal with Dutch State Railways comes to an end, The Sturgeon will be taking her trainset back into her state ownership (or someone else's if she had been caught by the giant fishhook of the of the Salmon(d) crisis). This news has been broken spectacularly by a front cover headline on the latest edition of Rail magazine.

If the privatised railway is not yet completely dead, it must be on the verge of its last-gasp death rattle. What might the new operation be called?

How about "British Rail". Then there would be some operating regions. We already have Wales and Scotland so, add in London Midland, London North Eastern, Cross Country and Network South East and there is a basis for an dynamic and passenger-focused nationalised railway system.

But; please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE, whoever sets it up, make sure that politicians cannot tinker with it year after year.

How about a BINDING National Plan for Rail.

Tomorrow, more from "In The Loop" ...

... but possibly not THAT loop!

 Next Variety blog : Tuesday 23rd March