News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 388 - 31/07/2025
Railfuture will have a stall at Lowestoft station from Monday 11th to Thursday 14th August 2025, which coincides with the visit to the station by the Railway 200 'Inspiration' train. The Railfuture stall will be next to the Wherry Lines CRP stall.
Rail Time Trains is now showing trains calling at Cambridge South station from Monday 26th January 2026. The first train appears to be the Cross Country service to Stansted Airport, calling at the new station at 05:35 and departing a minute later. It is closely followed by a Greater Anglias train to Stratford, with a 05:40 departure. The first King's Cross service (which originates from King's Lynn) departs at 05:46. The first northbound train is a Cross Country service for Birmimgham New Street, due to depart at 05:52. Of course, the opening date could be delayed if there are probems with the new station, but this should be unlikely given that contractors are scheduled to leave the site in October 2025.
An article in the Cambridge News on 18th July 2025 reported that Network Rail has confirmed that the toilets at Cambridge South station won't be open for public use without a ticket. Councillors had previously been told the toilets at the new station would be accessible to people not travelling by train, and shared their frustration about this at a joint development management committee meeting on Wednesday 16th July 2025. The provision of a publicly accessible toilet had never been made a formal requirement of the permission for the Cambridge South Station project, although the planning inspector and Secretary of State had both "strongly encouraged" some sort of public facility, like a café or toilet. The ticket gates are to be placed right at the station entrances, rather than closer to the platforms because of a lack of space.
Greater Anglia has announced that an open day is to be held at Norwich's Crown Point Depot on 6th June 2026 as part of the Railway 200 celebrations, with admission by ticket only. Tickets will be available for booking in March 2026. There was speculation that it wold be on 20th September 2025 but this is not the case.
An update on the Peterborough Station Quarter project — for which there was a presentation at Railfuture's mini-conference on 15th May 2025 — suggests that it will be undertaken in five phases: 1) City Link, 2) Station Square, 3) Station Buildings (East), 4) Western Access and 5) Multi-Storey Car Park. In theory, construction should be under way in early 2026, and completed in 2028. The BBC reported on 17th July 2025 that the Department for Transport (DfT) has agreed to pay nearly £48m towards the project, on the condition that the council is responsible for any "cost overruns", and a report will be presented to councillors on 23rd July.
Network Rail (NR) and Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) have warned travellers that there will be signifnicant disruption on the East Coast Mainline over the August Bank Holiday for further testing of the new ETCS signalling as part of the East Coast Digital Programme. Rail replacement buses will be in use, including some from St Neots to Bedford and Hitchin to Luton Airport Parkway, to allow passengers to make their journeys using the Midland Mainline instead. The route to Liverpool Street is, of course, unaffected. Meanwhile, urgent late night engineering work took place on the Fen Line between Ely and King's Lynn between the evening of Monday 28th July and the morning of Friday 1st August 2025 (see here. The driest spring in 50 years and continued low levels of rainfall means that the peat soil on which the Fen Line sits is increasingly drying out and earlier than has been the case in previous summers. NR has already used 25k tonnes of ballast (and the price of ballast has gone up 80% recently).
On 23rd July 2025, Network Rail announced that its new CEO to replace Sir Andrew Haines would be its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Jeremy Westlake, effective from October 2025 when Haines retires. Commenrators said that this is "standard safe interim practice — promote the bean counter."
The public has seen very little progress towards ther setitn gup of Grewat British Railways (BGR). Insiders are aware that the GBR Transition Team was wound up, along with Rail Partners. The Guardian reported in July 2025 that hundreds of DfT civil servants are to be moved to the state-owned rail operator, DfT Opertor (DFTO). Howevee, it says that no-one will be made redundant, which begs the question of what these people will do when the railway supposedly becomes more efficeient, and leaner, when the three decades of fragmentation is ended. See article.
During July 2025, Greater Anglia launched new ticket as part of UNLONDON campaign. It is intended for Londoners to escape the capital and enjoy a mini-break in the East of England, paying less with Greater Anglia's new 'Long Weekender' return fare. It enables passengers to leave London Liverpool Street at any time on Friday or Saturday and return at any time on Sunday or Monday (they are not limited to specific trains). This is quite exceptional in Britain but exists in various forms in other countries, such as Belgium where a weekend ticket offers half-price fares from 21:00 on Friday to the end of Sunday GA launched them at ticket offices initially, rolling them out to its app and website from Friday 18th July, but not on its TVMs. Railcards can also be used. The fares, which could fill empty seats on contra-flow services, are really useful when the journey involves travel on a Friday or Monday, but offers less of a saving against two super-off-peak singles for people going on a Saturday an returning on a Sunday, particularly on commuter routes such as to Cambridge. Example Weekend Return fars from London Liverpool Street are: to Manningtree: £40, Bury St Edmunds: £47, Norwich: £58, Cambridge [GA only]: £31, Ely [GA only] £32, Felixstowe: £45, Lowestoft: £59, Great Yarmouth/Hoveton & Wroxham/Cromer/Sheringham: £59. Info taken from Greater Anglia press release.
As is usual for the annual Cromer Carnival, Greater Anglia will run two trains on Wednesday 20th August 2025, to help with the expected increase in passengers. The morning outbound train will leave Norwich at 10:10, stopping at Hoveton and Wroxham, North Walsham, and Cromer, whilst the evening train will leave Cromer at 22:12, stopping at Roughton Road, Gunton, North Walsham, Worstead, Hoveton and Wroxham, and Salhouse before arriving in Norwich. Other services have also been retimed to allow for more passengers.
According to the latest newsletter from the Fen-Line Users Association (FLUA), at Waterbeach station, the trailing crossover between the lines south of the level crossing, which has been out of use for several years, but has recently been reinstated. FLUA is not aware of any plans to turn back northbound trains here, but it might provide extra flexibility when engineering work is taking place. Perhaps the intention is to terminate services there during possessions whilst the new Waterbeach Town station is being constructed. On Thursday 11th July 2025, members of the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) executive board agreeed unanimously to the business case and a £43.35 million budget (a rise of more than £6 million when compared with the £37 million budget expected in 2022) for the new station. See BBC new story.
FLUA celebrated the 180th Anniversary of Waterbeach station opening on Wednesday 30th July 2025. On the same day Greater Anglia and others celebrated (see BBC news article) the 180th anniversary of nearby Ely station, where a commemorative plaque (organised by Visit Ely) was unveiled by Councillor Mike Banyard, the mayor of Ely. Permanent history boards, entitled "The Railway (sic) comes to Ely" are now a feature on platforms two and three, telling the story of rail in the city.
Downham Market station will be open on Sunday 21st September when the town takes part in the national Heritage Weekend scheme for the first time. FLUA will have a stand at the station and there will be displays highlighting the station's history. There are plans to run a vintage bus service to and from the town centre.
According to an article in the Ipswich Star on 24th July 2025, Ipswich Borough Council has approved plans to build 109 new homes (as three blocks of flats) in Ranelagh Road opposite Ipswich railway station. Many of the new residents will choose to use the railway, of course.
It was reported on 29th July 2025 in the Cambridge News, amongst others, that surplus railway land in Cambridge to be 'unlocked' to build 425 new homes. The government announcement covered several sites around the country. It did not state which land in Cambridge, but it is widely believed to be around Cambridge North. More homes close to the station will obviously increase rail patronage. However, it was also unclear if this was just a reannouncement or if this is even more homes.
Shareholders attending the North Norfolk Railway PLC's AGM in July 2025 were told that the heritage railway had returned to profit in the year ending 31st January 2025, with a surplus of £207,987 for the full year. For the previous two years, there had been losses of £24,791 (2024) and £267,494 (2023). See EDP and RBS news stories.
Jo Shanmugalingam has been appointed as the new Permanent Secretary of the Department for Transport, taking over from Bernadette Kelly.
Train operator c2c, which runs Essex to London commuter services, transferred to the public sector in the early hours of 20th July 2025. Neighbouring Greater Anlgia will be the next to transfer, in mid-October 2025, nine years after its franchise began.
On Monday 8th July, a Great Northern class 717 train ran on the Northern City Line using ETCS Baseline 3, Release 2 (also referred to as version 3.6.0). What is really special about this, is that it uses the GPRS 2.5G mpobile radio system rather than the 2G GSM-R system to connect to the ETCS signalling system. GPRS uses packet switched technology, rather than the older (and now antiquated) circuit switched technology, which has limited capacity (and potentially limits the number of trains that can run) as every connection requires a dedicated channel. GPRS is the first system that was package switched — esentially for internet traffic — and it may seem suprising that a later generation (3G, 4G or even 5G) is not being used instead. The railway has gone from using techclogy that is almost redundant in mobile telephony to onew that has largely been pahsed out (except in areas where later technolgy has not been provided). Actually. the railway is not as daft as it seems, because GPRd is piggybscked on GSM meaning that the same transmitter masts can be used,wheras 3G, 4G and 5G would need new masts. GPRS is needed to accommodate the high frequency of services that operate on the East Coast Mainline, as part of the Government-funded East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP). All 25 Class 717 trains in Great Northern's fleet will now be upgraded over the coming months and the baseline will also be used by all train operators on the East Coast Mainline. See news story.
The Whitwell & Reepham Railway will be holding a Vintage Transport Weekend on 2nd-3rd August 2025 from 10:00-16:00. There will be vintage cars, vans, lorries, buses, motorbikes and steam engines, plus model and craft stalls. Diesel trains run on the Saturday and steam on the Sunday. Entry is completely free, although there will be a small charge for train rides.
The plans for a Universal theme park, to the south west of Bedford, which will be a key future stop on the East West Rail route on the Marston Vale Line as well as the Midland Mainline, continues to make waves. Work on the construction of a two-platform railway station for the Wixams has been paused (see article) because because a larger station. Conservative Mayor Tom Wootton has agreed to terminate Network Rail's existing contract, despite £28.3m having already been spent on the project, so that design work could now begin on a larger, four-platform train station that could accommodate the 8.5 million visitors annually expected initially to visit the Universal resort, which will cover 268 hectares). Annual visitor numbers are expected to reach 12 million after 20 years of operation, ranking among the top ten most visited theme parks in the world, beating Universal Studios Florida. Unlike many such attractions, it will stay open until 23:00 every day, which will make the two stations busy until late in the evening. It will also have a substantial area that is free to visit, with restaurants, shops, cinemas, escape rooms, and even mini-golf. This means that visiting the attraction will be cheap, hence even more people using the trains. Bedford Today newspaper reported residents' concerns over traffic and parking, hence the need for rail. For details of the Universal plans, see here.
On 14th July 2025 the government issued a statement saying that its plan to create a "European Silicon Valley" between Oxford and Cambridge would generate jobs across all sectors, not just for those at the top of the science and technology industry. Lord Patrick Vallance, the minister responsible for leading the plan, said it was about creating jobs and opportunities to have "a thriving community right the way across the corridor."
On 7th July 2025 an article in the Eastern Daly Press (EDP) titled "Norfolk town's disused railway lines could be revived" looked at a recently-published transport strategy that contained a 'wishlist' of improvements in Great Yarmouth as part of a new strategy for the future of the town. It included road schemes such as the dualling of the A47 Acle Straight and more frequent train services between Yarmouth and Norwich, but also highlighted other measures to make it easier and more pleasant to get around the town, such as turnng disused railway line routes into 'green travel' routes for pedestrians and cyclists. Better bus, cycling and walking links between Yarmouth and various holiday parks are also suggested. No money is allocated for the schemes, but the pourpose of a strategy is to use it to secure funding from the government and developers.
According to Lowestoft Journal article, the former Oulton Broad North Station signal box, which was was built in 1905 and extended in 1927, has now been installed and is in place at its new home the East Anglia Transport Museum. It became redundant when the Norwich-Lowestoft line was resignalled.
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Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 388 - 31/07/2025
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Railfuture is a non-profit making pro-rail campaiging organisation, which is run entirely by unpaid volunteeers, including production of Rail News Snippets for the East Anglian branch of Railfuture.
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