The Fully-Renewed Level Crossing in Sunningdale, Berkshire

Date filmed: 18/12/2021
Videos filmed at: 11:12 | 11:33 | 11:40

Route: London Waterloo to Reading Line
- Sunningdale Station

Location: A30 London Road, Sunningdale
Trains featured:
Lowering 1 (Starts at 0:13):
1) 2 Class 458s (South Western Railway) - 2:34
London Waterloo ➡ Reading

2) 2 Class 458s (South Western Railway) - 4:45
Reading ➡ London Waterloo
-
Lowering 2 (6:36):
2 Class 458s (South Western Railway) - 8:26
London Waterloo ➡ Reading
-
Lowering 3 9:08):
2 Class 458s (South Western Railway) - 11:00
Reading ➡ London Waterloo

A very large level crossing located on the very busy A30 within the village of Sunningdale near Ascot and Bracknell, Berkshire. This level crossing has a total of four road lanes going through it and is very heavily used by road traffic. In October 2021, this level crossing was fully-renewed as part of phase two of the Wokingham and Feltham re-signalling programme. The level crossing was fully renewed by Atkins and it uses Newgate 'Rising Arm' barriers, four full-length variants of these drive-up / drive-down barriers have been installed here in total. This the largest level crossing using this set-up of equipment installed in the country thus far. The whole level crossing set-up itself is now very new as of the time of filming and making this video, with the barrier skirts now fitted underneath the entire length of barrier (whereas previously they only stretched part-way from the barrier box to railings which separated the footpath from the road), and four new 'E2S' alarms have also been installed here, one for each corner.

There is also a total of four road lights (wigwags) here, two of which are on a traffic island between each pair of road lanes which run through this level crossing. The alarms are now quite a bit more audible than before, though they do all sound exactly the same. In April 2022, there are plans in place to move control and monitoring of the level crossing from the Feltham Area Signalling Centre to a Rail Operations Centre in Basingstoke, but this is yet to happen as of making this video.

Three separate lowerings are featured in this video. During the first lowering, the level crossing was lowered for over eleven and a half minutes for just two trains to pass, as it was initially lowered before the Reading-bound train had even stopped at the next station up the line (Longcross), and was left lowered even though the London-bound train had only just left Ascot when the first arrived into Sunningdale Station and cleared the level crossing! A lot of traffic built up as a result of this, and if it weren't for nearly six minutes of the first video being cut, this entire video at this length would probably cover just that one lowering with end-of-video pictures. Swathes of waiting traffic quickly built up as a result of these, arguably, avoidable delays added onto what was necessary.

Thanks for watching!