News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 336 - 31/03/2021
- STATIONS [all issues]
- Soham station construction progresses but weekend line closures required to build platform and install footbridge
- Greater Anglia reveals progress on plans for station improvements in Fenland
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
The government COVID-19 instruction (in England) had been to "only travel if essential" (work that cannot be done at home, and for other legally permitted reasons, such as journeys to school) but from Monday 29th March 2021 this changed to "minimise journeys".
Network Rail replaced worn track on the Cambridge-London West Anglia Main Line between Stansted and Broxbourne over two weekends in March 2021. The high-output track relaying system (HOTRS) train was used. It quickly replaces existing rails and sleepers, working like a conveyor belt, with the front part of the train running on the old rails, while the rear runs on the new rail that the system has installed.
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 saw the first operation of Greater Anglia's new Class 720 suburban trains in passenger service between Clacton and London and also Colchester Town and London. The trains are built by Alstom (formerly Bombardier) in Derby.
Great Northern and Network Rail reminds passengers that, as part of the ongoing improvements to the East Coast Mainline, major engineering works will affect journeys in and out of London King's Cross on Friday 23rd, Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th April 2021. Railfuture had been very unhappy with earlier communictiaons to the public that they should not travel into London at all. Fortunately on this occaision the message said not to travel "on the routes" specified "unless your journey is essential", but unfortunately it did not encourage people to travel into Liverpool Street instead.
Greater Anglia has revealed that the extension of platform 4 at Cambridge station will not now be lengthened and usable now until the end of July 2021 (rather than the publicly-announced end of April), as work has still not commenced (the press release said December 2020). As previously announced, the work will be done mainly at night and be of minimal inconvenience to passengers.
As reported in [Snippets 334], the cost for constructing Beaulieu station, near Chelmsford, had grown to £171 million, £14 million than available, putting the scheme at risk. However, Essex County Council's cabinet has approved the unlocking of grant funding worth over £200 million through two major Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) projects in north Essex that would deliver 14,109 new homes.
The Restoring Your Railway (RYR) bid for feasibility funding to reinstate the King's Lynn to Hunstanton railway line was submitted by Norfolk County Council to the Department for Transport on Friday 5th March 2021, with letters of support from James Wild MP, New Anglia Local Economic Partnership, The Norfolk Coast Partnership, Associated British Ports, The Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – and over 7,000 others! There have been 195 schemes submitted across Britain, 60 in round 1, 5 in round 2 and 85 in round 3. This includes ones rejected and resubmitted, hence both Dereham and Hunstanton appear in lists 2 and 3. The government has only funded 10 schemes in each of the first two rounds and had intended to do the same for the third. The full list of bids to date (all three rounds) can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/969125/restoring-your-railway-all-bids.csv/preview.
Network Rail has completed the resignalling of the railway around Clacton, following a 23-day closure from Saturday 20th February to Sunday 14th March 2021. Clacton signal box is due to be removed at the end of April as the new system is controlled from a powered signal box at Colchester.
Grater Anglia says that, because COVID-19 has led to running fewer trains and a reduction of passengers boarding and alighting at stations, overall, just under 95% of trains were on time according to the moving annual average results from March 2020 to March 2021. Several of the branch lines have recorded highs. The Norwich–Great Yarmouth annual average punctuality figure is currently at 96.9% of trains on time, Norwich–Sheringham and Marks Tey–Sudbury lines are both at 96.8%, Norwich–Lowestoft line is 96.1%, Norwich–Cambridge line is 95.7% and the Ipswich–Felixstowe line is 95.5%. The mainlines have achieved sightly lower punctuality, partly caused by constraints towards Liverpool Street.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced in mid-March that he has appointed Nilesh (Neil) Sachdev as Chair of the East West Railway Company for a three-year period, replacing Rob Brighouse, who has served as the founding chairman of the company since 2017. Days later, on 18th March 2021, he also announced that the proposed Expressway (road) between Oxford and Cambridge was being cancelled as analysis shows the benefits the road would deliver are outweighed by its costs. The DfT would continue to work on more targeted, localised road improvements to boost transport in the region, alongside East West Rail. It was revealed by the government on 27th March 2021 that the expressway had cost £28m of public money before being scrapped.
Labour's Dr Nik Johnson has also promised to scrap the £4bn Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) scheme if elected as mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in May 2021. He called the CAM a "fools' folly" and "a potential blackhole for national and local government finances", saying "I don't believe it [CAM] offers value for money or benefits all residents of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough." He calculated: "At €92m per single track kilometre the CAM costs will be greater than Crossrail and HS2 - which costs €78m/STK", and it works out more than three times the cost per single track kilometre than Edinburgh trams. The Liberal Democrat candidate for the mayoral elections, Aidan Van de Weyer, had already come out against the metro plans, saying too much money is being spent while "crucial elements" are "uncertain or completely unknown". The Lib Dems have branded the mayor's vision as "imaginary bus tunnels".
The Mid-Norfolk Railway has announced that it will not be reopening to the public "until May at the earliest", by which time the vast majority of the adult population in Britain will have had their first COVID-19 jab and many will have had their second as well, so that public confidence in travelling on its trains will be sufficient to operate trains profitably.
Whitwell & Reepham railway station will be operating an outside table service at its cafe and reopening its campsite from 12th April 2021, which is the date when the government eases the COVID-19 lockdown. Indoor seating will resume on 17th May. The first 'Steam Sunday' will be held on the 2nd May and steam Sunday with Sunday roasts will begin again on the bank holiday, 30th May. All dates subject to changes imposed by government.
The May 2022 Timetable Consultation will now be conducted after the local government elections on 6th May 2021, at least as far as the East Coast Mainline is concerned.
The Department for Transport has begun a consultation on changes to penalty fares in England and Wales, which it says are currently set too low to act as a deterrent to fare dodging (double the full fare with a minimum of £20, which in 2021 is equivalent to £14 when it was set in 2005).
An auction of railway experiences (visits to a railway operating centre and signabox amongst others) for Railway Family Week to raise funds for the Railway Benfit Fund will run until 30th April 2021. See: https://go.eventgroovefundraising.com/rfwauction.
STATIONS
Soham station construction progresses but weekend line closures required to build platform and install footbridge
Keywords: [SohamStation]
The work to build Soham station entered the main construction phase in March 2021, which saw the first of eight weekend possessions in 2021 on the line between Ely and Bury St Edmunds. Engineers will need to work on or near the track to build the new platform and footbridge, with additional work including ground levelling and adjusting the track alignment to make sure the gap between the platform and train meets the required industry standard.
The planned line closures are on Sunday 14th March, Sunday 21st March, Sunday 2nd May, Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd May, Sunday 30th May, Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th June, Sunday 20th June and finally Sunday 29th and Monday 30th August 2021.
NR March 2021 Soham station newsletter: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Soham-Newsletter-Spring-2021.pdf.
Greater Anglia reveals progress on plans for station improvements in Fenland
Keywords: [ElyPeterboroughLine]
According to a Greater Anglia update in mid-March 2021, construction of a new 112-space car park at Manea station should start in spring 2021, along with new bicycle parking and a bus turning and drop-off area. At March station the car park improvements and work on the platform 1 buildings should begin in summer 2021. Both are being funded via a £9.5million package from the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA). Further plans are in the pipeline for Whittlesea, which could include an upgrade to the manually-operated level crossing.
RAIL ROUTES
New 'breakthrough' partnership between Combined Authority and Network Rail on Wisbech reopening scheme
Keywords: [WisbechBranch]
On 10th March 2021, the Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, James Palmer, announced 'a powerful new partnership' with Network Rail to develop proposals for reopening the Wisbech–March line in parallel with the Ely Area Capacity Enhancement (EACE) project. This follows Mr Palmer's announcement on 3rd March that he would now ask the Combined Authority's Transport & Infrastructure Committee to recommend the allocation of £300,000 from its medium-term financial plan to enable the next steps of planning, which would include reviewing documentation, options assessment, and developing timescales and cost estimates for the reopening, taking around seven months with the outcome being presented in November 2021 to the Transport & Infrastructure Committee and Combined Authority Board.
This 'breakthrough' partnership with Network Rail (NR), puts the Combined Authority inside the NR team, so that they can work together efficiently (in both cost and time) and streamlined (to avoid a waste of resources, doubling up, and unnecessary delays) reducing costs where projects dovetail and methods of working are compatible. Following meetings with rail minister Chris Heaton-Harris, has undertaken to consider funding the Combined Authority's plans for the railway restoration. In 2028, by which time NR's work to improve train services through Ely should be complete it should be realistic for trains to return to Wisbech (the 'Capital of the Fens' and one of the biggest settlements in England with no link), transforming it as an investment opportunity, opening up services and a wider field of jobs for its residents.
Second non-statutory public consultation on East West Rail launched
Keywords: [EastWestRail]
On 31st March 2021, the East West Rail Company launched its second non-statutory public consultation with the comments and ideas received feeding into the design, construction and operation of the end-to-end route. It adds more detail to the proposed Central Section linking Bedford and Cambridge, where it is now suggesting options for both St Neots South (or at Tempsford instead) and Cambourne (north or south) stations. The EWR Co. is operating in a legal environment so it needs to show that it has looked at everything and why it rejected the northern approach into Cambridge with good reason, which is why the documents include details of what the route might have been. It is important that the eventual Development Consent Order (DCO) is bomb proof against any challenge at public inquiry. While we might regard this as a waste of time, it will reduce the chances of further delay in delivering the railway.
The consultation revisits the western section of East West Rail as well, suggesting how it could improve Oxford station and its supporting infrastructure, including Oxford Parkway and Bicester Village stations plus "options for new stations at Bedford, to support regeneration in the town centre, as well as at Bedford St Johns." On the Bletchley-Bedford section one option is replace the intermediate stations with 'merged' stations, to provide better facilities and faster journeys, by relocating the stations at Woburn Sands, Ridgmont, Lidlington, Stewartby and Bedford St Johns. The latter was moved in the mid-1980s, in order to link the line to Bedford Midland station, but this time it would be on a new (shorter) alignment. Retaining all 10 intermediate stations, which only had about 50,000 jounreys per year total, almost all being served only by existing all-stations services, is still an option, although it's unclear how patronage on them could be substantially increased. Certainly consolidating the stations would make it easier to path faster passeger trains and freight trains.
The substantial consultation document revisits the western section that has already been covered a by Transport & Works Act Order. For example, it again looks at reinstating the second track at Fenny Stratford. On the downside, it says that the link from Aylesbury is a possible future route, as many feared from the funding announcement in January 2021.
The DfT's unwillingness to fund overhead wires on any part of the route got one mention, in the section entited "Powering EWR services". It says "we are aiming to deliver a net zero carbon railway and will be considering conventional and emerging technological solutions for powering trains when all EWR services are fully operational. This could mean we operate conventional electric trains powered by overhead electric lines, or it could be that we use a different technology to help lower our carbon emissions: that decision hasn't yet been taken."
The "Making Meaningful Connections" consultation is not all about infrastructure, though, as the public are invited to give their views on improving the customer experience, such as better facilities both at stations and on board the train. See https://eastwestrail.co.uk/consultation, which includes maps and documents at the end of the consultation page. The consultation ends of 6th June 2021.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 336 - 31/03/2021
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