Spalding Station – 8th September 2021
I’d only ever been through Spalding station a couple of times, but I’d never seen the station, so because I wanted to take some pictures of the completed Werrington Dive Under, I decided to take a train to the station today.
The quality of the station was a welcome surprise.
- It was opened in 1848.
- But it is a Grade II Listed Building.
- It has a very tasteful step-free footbridge totally in-keeping with the rest of the station.
- The Entrance Hall, which I didn’t photograph, was excellent.
I can only fault the station in that it lacks a café or better still a real ale pub. But there is a Sainsbury’s outside the door.
Greengauge 21’s Suggestion, That Thameslink Be Extended To Spalding
In the study by Greengauge 21, which is entitled Connecting East Lincolnshire, this is said.
As noted the Spalding-Peterborough line should be a strong candidate for electrification because of its freight potential, and if so it could also accommodate an extension of Thameslink services from London and the South East to Spalding where interchange would be made with a Spalding–Boston–Louth–Grimsby express bus using the A16.
This Google Map shows the station.
Note.
- The station only has forty-five parking spaces.
- I suspect the express bus could park outside the station.
- There is probably space to the North of the station for a turnback siding.
- Trains seem to take about 21 minutes to cover the 16.6 miles from Peterborough.
There certainly doesn’t seem to be anything that gives a great big No!
Arriving In Platform 0 At Kings Cross
I’ve arrived in Kings Cross station hundreds of times, but today, when i came back from Spalding via Peterborough, it could have been the first time, that I arrived in Platform 0.
I took these pictures of the island between Platform 0 and Platform 1, which contains the InterCity 225.
Note that it is a very long and wide platform.
I am getting more convinced that the answer to the question I asked in Is King’s Cross Station Ready For Parcel Trains?, is in the affirmative.
Was The Queen’s Locomotive Acting As A Thunderbird?
I took these pictures of 67006 Royal Sovereign at Kings Cross when I arrived in Platform 0 from Peterborough today at 15:45.
Note.
- Normally, 67006 is assigned to the Royal Train.
- The locomotive is in Platform 1.
- The Class 67 Locomotive was definitely coupled to the InterCity 225.
- It does appear that the next movement out of Platform 1 was a diesel-hauled empty coaching stock movement to Neville Hill Depot in Leeds at 19:40.
- It looks like the train arrived in Kings Cross at 12:55 from Skipton, nearly three hours late.
It does look as though the train was towed to London by the Queen’s Locomotive and then pushed all the way back to Leeds.
Connecting East Lincolnshire
The title of this post, is the same as that of this study by Greengauge 21.
The study goes through all the transport options in East Lincolnshire, comes to some interesting general conclusions, in addition to those specific to East Lincolnshire and then makes this recommendation.
We recommend putting in hand the studies to compare and select the best of the two ways identified here to use electrified net zero carbon public transport to meet East Lincolnshire’s future connectivity needs.
The two ways are.
Reopening the East Lincolnshire Railway
Reopening the East Lincolnshire Railway between Louth and Firsby and running these services.
- Skegness–Wainfleet–Boston–Sleaford–Grantham–Nottingham
- Louth–Wlloughby–Alford–Firsby–Boston–Donington–Spalding–Peterborough (and
thence potentially, London KX).
Note.
- There would be a mini-hub at Boston.
- There would be good connections to Lincolnshire’s InterConnect bus links.
I wrote about reinstating the East Lincolnshire Railway inBeeching Reversal – Firsby And Louth.
An Express Interurban Bus Alternative
The study describes this option like this.
A Louth–Boston–Spalding express bus, interchanging with the east west Nottingham–Skegness trains with timed
connections at a multi-modal hub at Boston and an improved hourly interval rail service onwards
from Spalding southwards.
One of their suggestions is to extend Thameslink to Spalding.
Russian Convoys
This article on Railway Gazette is entitled Five-Train Platoons To Operate With Virtual Coupling.
This is the first paragraph.
Russian Railways is planning to use platooning technology to operate flights of up to five freight trains next year using radio data exchange between locomotives to create a virtual coupling. The aims to reduce headways from 12 to 6 to 8 min, increasing capacity on congested sections of the Trans-Siberian main line.
As a Control Engineer, I must believe that if the Russians get the programming right, then it should work.
Similar techniques will probably be used with digital signalling in the UK and Europe, where each train is controlled by the signalling. But each train will probably have a driver.
The problem in Russia could also be the large number of ungated level crossings, which according to some I’ve met are prone to a lot of accidents, as drivers regularly chance it after too much vodka.
The Anonymous Widower 