The Anonymous Widower

A Second New Stations Fund Is Launched

This article in the European Railway Review is entitled £20m fund for new railway stations across England and Wales.

The twenty million pounds is the second New Stations Fund, which provides up to seventy-five percent of the cost of a new or reopened station.

The first fund was used to help fund the following stations.

Note that all stations are on existing railway lines.

Incidentally, I use Lea Bridge station about three or four times a month, as I have a direct bus connection to the station to connect to trains along the Lea Valley.

Which stations in Wikipedia’s lkist of possible proposed stations, do I think will be funded by the next New Station Fund?

These are a few that I think could be possible.

Note.

  1. Bristol seems to have a lot of possibilities, but that is because they are creating MetroWest.
  2. I have rejected several schemes as they are rather large and I reckpon, there is a practical limit of a station costing say five million pounds.
  3. I have also rejected stations, where a whole line like the Camp Hill Line or the Wealden Line is proposed to be reopened.
  4. Leiston, Soham and Wisbech are additions of my own, based on my thoughts in Making Sense Of The New East Anglia Franchise.
  5. There are no new Welsh proposals outside South-East Wales, which got Pye Corner in the first New Stations Fund.

I suspect that now the fund has been announced, some good proposals will be put forward.

Out of interest, these are the numbers of new and reopened stations of the last few years.

  • 2013 – 1
  • 2014 – 3
  • 2015 – 12
  • 2016  – 4

I think that 2015 has the highest total, due to the reopening of the Borders Railway.

 

 

 

August 27, 2016 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

An Illustration That Ipswich In Sixty Is Possible

I went to football at Ipswich today.

The match was a bit mediocre, but the result was the right one and Grant Ward scored a delightful goal.

Usually, after a three o’oclock kick-off, I try to get the fast 17:09 train back to Liverpool Street, where it is scheduled to arrive at 18:19 after two stops at Manningtree and Colchester. I can’t ever remember this train ever being later than more than a couple of minutes.

Today, instead of the usual rake of Mark 3 coaches pulled by a Class 90 locomotive, the train was a Class 321 electric multiple unit. I suspect the change of train was due to engineering works on the line North of Ipswich and the fact that London-Norwich services were being run as two separate services; London-Ipswich and Ipswich-Norwich.

From Colchester, which was left on time, after a stop of perhaps three minutes, the train ran non-stop to London, probably at about an average speed of 100 mph or nearly so.

I didn’t notice any slackening of speed at Shenfield, and after just 59 minutes, the train was passing through Stratford.

We eventually stopped outside Liverpool Street to wait for a platform at 64 minutes and finally stopped in platform 10 at Liverpool Street station at 67 minutes, three  minutes ahead of schedule.

This article in the East Anglian Daily Times, is entitled Faster trains to Ipswich as part of new franchise.

This is said.

Rail journeys between Ipswich and London will take, on average, 64 minutes from the introduction of the new timetable in 2019 once new “Stadler Flirt” InterCity trains are introduced on trains to the capital. At present the average journey time is 73 minutes.

That is more than the stated aim of the Great Eastern rail campaign to have services running to Ipswich in 60 minutes – but Abellio Greater Anglia managing director Jamie Burles said the last four minutes could only be shaved off journey times once Network Rail has carried out improvement work to the line.

So it looks like Abellio aren’t that far from 64 minutes with a nearly thirty-year-old British Rail designed and built Class 321 train.

  • Judging by the smooth ride all the way, I suspect that most of the track and overhead wires is now to a good standard.
  • Perhaps a minute or so can be saved in each of the two stops, by the better acceleration, braking and door systems of the new Stadler Flirts.
  • Better signalling and control of trains at Liverpool Street would surely save a couple of minutes.

Having seen a full station at Ipswich, when I arrived for the match, I suspect that work needs to be done at that station, to create more capacity for Cambridge, Felixstowe, Lowestoft and Peterborough trains, so that London-Norwich services are not slowed by full platforms at Ipswich.

But overall, I’m led to the conclusion, that Jamie Burles statement is substantially correct.

I suspect that once all of the trains on the line are 100 mph trains, with a fast 100-0-100 mph profile for stops, that we’ll be approaching that 64 minute average for trains between Ipswich and London.

I suspect for the magic 60 minutes to be obtained consistently by all trains, that the following will have to be done.

  • Enough extra platform space is created at Ipswich so that London-Norwich and London-Lowestoft services have exclusive use of the current platforms 2 and 3.
  • All electrification on the Great Eastern Main Line needs to be of a high standard and capable of handling regenerative braking.
  • Crossrail needs to be fully integrated with longer distance East Anglian Services.
  • The Southend to Shenfield Line needs to be updated, so it can reliably present and accept trains to fit the schedule at Shenfield
  • All trains are either Stadler Flirts or ombardier Aventras, with perhaps a few 100 mph trains awaiting replacement.
  • Liverpool Street station has enough platforms for the longer trains.

I suspect too, that Network Rail will have to do some smaller work, like lengthening some platforms, adjusting the signalling and adding a crossover.

With some work North of Ipswich, I suspect that Norwich in Ninety will be implemented at the same time as Ipswich in Sixty.

 

 

August 27, 2016 Posted by | Sport, Transport/Travel | , | 5 Comments