What Will A Reopened March And Wisbech Railway Mean?
It was mentioned in the blog on Rail News, that a study will look at the reopening of the route from March through Wisbech.
The main reason is that it will allow freight trains between Felixstowe and the North to totally bypass the East Coast Main Line by using the upgraded GNGE.
But will it create better opportunities for passenger services around East Anglia and the Fens?
Getting between Ipswich, Norwich and Cambridge and the North of England and Scotland is not easy, as it means a slow train across East Anglia to Peterborough or a long detour via London.
As an example, going from Ipswich to Manchester takes over four hours and routing is via London. I know a lot of keen Ipswich fans use that route to get to away matches, as the cross country routes are totally inadequate and very crowded.
In a few years time, the TransPennine routes will be electrified, so to get to Liverpool and Manchester from Ipswich, it might be quicker to travel via Doncaster, perhaps changing at Peterborough.
Opening up the route from March to the GNGE would allow direct passenger trains from Ipswich and Norwich to go via Ely and Lincoln to Doncaster.
Lincoln is getting better connections to Nottingham according to the blog in Rail News, so these direct trains might give East Anglia better connections to the East Midlands as well.
But of course, all of this thinking is pie-in-the-sky, as where is the money for shiny new trains?
On the other hand, there might be a glut of hand-me-down InterCity 125s from the Great Western and East Coast Main Lines, as they get replaced by Class 800/801 trains.
So will we see these trains working cross country routes and giving much needed extra capacity out of East Anglia and the Fens?
It’ll be a bit like your mini-cab company saying we couldn’t send the new Nissan, so we sent this immaculate 1970s Jaguar instead. Although the lines wouldn’t be high speed ones, they wouldn’t be slow and mountainous ones, like those through the North of Scotland, where these trains show how good they are.
Repening the line through Wisbech could be unlocking a real box of delights for the East.
The Anonymous Widower 
How will a line fro March to Wisbech allow Felixsowe freight to bypass the Easr coast main line?That would require re-opening the March to Spalding line. Re-opening the 7 miles to Wisbech will cost £75m. The March Spalding line has mostly disapeared, requires a new viaduct and bridge at Rings , in fact the cost would probsbly be greater than HS2. I expect what this is referring to is the link between Peterborough and Spalding being upgraded to open up the old route to LIncoln. The reason the Wisbech branch is being considerd is 2 fold, one it will help the sitting Tory MP fight off a UKIP challenge next may and 2 it will help ease the housing pressure on Cambridge by encouraging Cambridge workers who cannot afford to live in Cambridge to move to Wisbech where house prices are lower.
Comment by Sue Dockett | July 25, 2014 |
I hadn’t checked the map. If they do open anything it will be the direct route from March to Spalding. After all they’ve spent £330 million on upgrading the line through from Peterborough via Lincoln to Doncaster and it is badly connected to the East Coast Main Line at Peterborough. They’ve either got to improve Werrington Junction or recreate the direct line.
Whatever they do, I suspect that they’ll connect the Wisbech line into the system.
I used to live near Cambridge and know the housing pressure in the area. The sad thing is that the line across Norfolk to Peterborough got closed.
Comment by AnonW | July 25, 2014 |
I think they will improve Werrington Junction, I live in Wisbech and regularly drive under the old March Spalding line it would effectively take a new railway to re-open March to Spalding. There was back in the 1840s a proposal to build a line from Lincoln through Wisbech to March but it never happened but it did result in the Ely Peterborough line being diverted south through March instead of going through Doddington. The Wisbech line really depnds on wether the money is forthcoming and the work completed before the next economic crash.
Comment by Sue Dockett | July 25, 2014 |
As I said in my e-mail to you off blog, the real elephant in the room is London Gateway, which will get a lot more traffic, than Felixstowe ever does. There are plans to add extra tracks to the West Anglia Main Line and as this is connected to Stratford getting to London Gateway and the Channel Tunnel would be easier than fitting the freight in between trains on the London Overground.
Comment by AnonW | July 25, 2014 |