The Anonymous Widower

Beeching Reversal – Firsby And Louth

This is one of the Round 3 bids of Beeching Reversal projects that the Government and Network Rail are proposing to reverse some of the Beeching cuts.

The Proposed Route

This route was part of the historic East Lincolnshire Railway, which is shown in this diagram from Wikipedia.

Note.

1. North of Louth, the line used to connect to Grimsby Town, Immingham and Cleethorpes.
2. The loop that goes through Mablethorpe.
3. Boston is to the South.
4. The Poacher Line between Boston and Skegness is the only section that is still open.

These Google Maps show sections and features of the route.

North From Spilsby Road Level Crossing

The Spilsby Road level crossing is in the South-West corner, with the track of the old railway between Firsby and Louth going to the North-East.

Junction With The Poacher Line

This is an enlargement of the South-West corner of the map.

• The Spilsby Road level crossing can be seen.
• The Poacher Line does a loop and goes South-East on its way to Skegness.
• It looks like Firsby station was quite important, with three platforms and lots of facilities.

A junction could be built here to connect the Firsby and Louth line to the Poacher Line.

Would a station built between the lines, be possible to provide interchange between the Louth and Skegness trains?

Willoughby Station

Note.

1. The scar of the East Lincolnshire Railway can be followed from the South-East corner to the North-West corner of the map.
2. The green scar of the Mablethorpe loop can be seen branching off from the East Lincolnshire Railway to the North-East corner of the map.

Could a station be rebuilt at Willoughby?

Alford And Alford Town Station

Note.

1. The green scar of the East Lincolnshire Railway can be can be followed from the South-East corner to the North-West corner of the map.
2. The town is Alford
3. If you click on the map to enlarge it, you can see Station Road, which must have been the location of Alford Town station.

I would have thought a station would be needed.

Straight Between Alford And Louth

Note.

1. The green scar of the East Lincolnshire Railway can be can be followed from the South-East corner to the North-West corner of the map.
2. There are three stations on this section; Aby for Claythorpe, Authorpe and Legbourne Road.

This section would appear to be a rail engineer’s dream.

How many stations would be needed?

Louth

Note.

1. The green scar of the East Lincolnshire Railway can be can be followed from the South-East corner to the North edge of the map.
2. Louth is the largest town in Lincolnshire without a station.

It could be difficult to thread the line through the town.

Onward To Grimsby

The map shows the final section of the route between Louth and Grimsby.

Note that from North of New Waltham, the track bed has been used for Peeks Parkway.

Does this mean that any reopened rail line between Firsby and Louth must end at New Waltham or Louth?

Grimsby Town Station And Centre

Note.

1. Grimsby Town station is in the West.
2. The rail line between Grimsby Town and Cleethorpes stations runs across the map.
3. Peeks Parkway runs up the East side of the map.
4. It looks to me, that this was once a large triangular junction, that also allowed trains to go between Grimsby Town an Louth stations.

Grimsby town centre seems to have been planned for cars and losers without cars can go elsewhere.

Thoughts On The Firsby And Louth Rail Link

I have a few thoughts on the possible design of a rail link between Firsby and Louth.

Should The Line Allow Freight Trains?

It might be a future need that freight trains will need to go between say Peterborough and Immingham, but I don’t think any use that route at present.

So other than the occasional maintenance train, I think the route could be freight-free at present.

Should The Line Terminate at Grimsby?

Consider.

• Grimsby is a town of 88,000
• It is a large centre for food processing, which needs large numbers of people.
• Grimsby is becoming an increasing important centre for the development of renewable energy.
• Grimsby and Boston are nearly fifty miles apart, which illustrates that Lincolnshire is not a small county.

I believe in a perfect world, Grimsby would have an hourly train service to Boston via Louth and several other stops.

Terminating at Louth rather than Grimsby would be like terminating all trans pennine services at Leeds.

So how would a line terminate at Grimsby?

• The missing side of the triangular junction could be rebuilt, so that traIns could run between Grimsby Town and Louth stations.
• Trains could terminate at a new Grimsby South station on the outskirts of the town.
• Trains could continue through Grimsby Docks station and terminate at Cleethorpes. with possibly an additional station in Grimsby town centre.

There is always an innovative tram-train solution, where with a small amount of street running, they sneaked into the town centre and called at Grimsby Town station and the major places people needed to visit.

This solution has been proposed for Ipswich and Felixstowe by East West Rail to increase the capacity on the Felixstowe Branch. I wrote about this scheme in Could There Be A Tram-Train Between Ipswich And Felixstowe?.

It would be challenging, but I think that it might be possible.

Failing that, I believe that a single-track could be sneaked along Peeks Parkway and go through the town centre to Grimsby Docks and Cleethorpes. stations.

The distance between Cleethorpes and New Waltham is about 7 miles.

A train would probably take about ten minutes.

Any town centre station could be a single platform.

Would An Hourly Service Be Enough?

An hourly service between Boston and Louth would probably be enough, but in an ideal world two trains per hour (tph) would probably be better.

• A single-track section between New Waltham and Cleethorpes could probably handle four tph working bi-directionally.
• Two tph is also regularly handled on single platform stations, like Galashiels and Newcourt.
• The long straight sections of the route offer lots of scope for loops.

My feeling, is the service should start hourly, but that it can be designed to be upgraded to two tph. Or it could even work at two tph at certain times of the day.

Could Boston and Cleethorpes Be Run In Fifty Minutes?

Consider.

• This time would be ideal for a service as it would give ten minutes to turn the trains at both ends.
• Boston and Cleethorpes would be the longest service that would be run and it is 50 miles.
• Fifty minutes would need an average speed including stops of 60 mph.
• Ipswich and Cambridge is run at an average of 43.2 mph with seven stops.
• The straight and flat Breckland Line has an operating speed of between 75 and 90 mph.
• Trains between Cambridge and Norwich average 53 mph with six stops.

I believe that the Firsby and Louth line could be built with an operating speed of up to 90 mph and fifty minutes between Boston and Cleethorpes could be possible.

Will Firsby And Louth Be Single Track?

I believe that the route can be single track with one platform stations.

This will save both space and costs and would probably allow two tph with careful design.

As there are long straight sections to the North of Alford, I suspect it wouldn’t be difficult to add passing loops, if they were required.

What Rolling Stock Would Be Used?

Lincolnshire is a renewable energy-rich county and because of offshore wind and the HumberZero project, Lincolnshire will probably have more wind power and green hydrogen per head of population, than any other area of the UK.

So undoubtedly, the trains will be zero carbon, which means, electrification, battery electric or hydrogen trains.

If new trains are in the budget, then the obvious candidate is the Hitachi Regional Battery Train.

The specification is given in this Hitachi infographic.

Note that it is a 100 mph train with a range of 56 miles.

It would need to be charged at both ends of the route.

In Cleethorpes Station – 16th September 2020, I suggested that electrification be added between Cleethorpes and Habrough stations should be electrified, so Cleethorpes and Manchester services could be run by Hitachi Regional Battery Trains.

This electrification could be used to charge the trains at Cleethorpes or a charging system could be installed.

This Google Map shows Boston station.

Note.

• The station has only two platforms.
• It looks like there were two North-facing bay platforms.

A charging system would be added to charge the trains.

The other obvious train for the route, would be Alstom’s Class 600 train, which is powered by hydrogen.

This is a visualisation of the train.

The specification has not been published yet, so there is no idea of the operating speed, although the range will be several hundred miles.

I speculated about the train in Breeze Hydrogen Multiple-Unit Order Expected Soon.

• There will be plenty of hydrogen available in Lincolnshire if the Humber Zero project goes to plan.
• Trains may be able to do several trips between refuelling.
•  Trains will not need any infrastructure at Boston.

The forsby and Louth route would be an ideal route for both trains.

The Hitachi product will probably be slightly larger, faster and new!

March 17, 2021 Posted by AnonW | Hydrogen, Transport/Travel | Beeching Reversal, Boston Station, Class 321 Hydrogen/Alstom Breeze, Cleethorpes Station, East Lincolnshire Railway, Hitachi Regional Battery Train, HumberZero, Hydrogen-Powered Trains, Louth, Poacher Line | 2 Comments