Could The Fenchurch Street And Grays Service Be Handed Over To The Elizabeth Line?
Before I discuss the suggestion in the title of this post, I will write down some thoughts.
The Capacity And Connection Problems At Fenchurch Street Station
If you read the Wikipedia entry for Fenchurch Street station, this paragraph sums up some of the problems of the station.
Fenchurch Street is one of the smallest railway terminals in London in terms of platforms, but one of the most intensively operated. It is the only London terminal with no direct interchange with the London Underground. Plans to connect it stalled in the early 1980s because of the lack of progress on the Jubilee line, but it is close to Tower Hill on the Underground and to Tower Gateway on the Docklands Light Railway.
I live in Dalston and if I want to use the services out of Fenchurch Street station to get anywhere it is a struggle.
As all services out of Fenchurch Street station stop at Limehouse, West Ham and Barking stations on the approach into London, I will usually go via either West Ham or Barking stations. As the three services out of Fenchurch Street are each two trains per hour (tph), this can mean a near-thirty minute wait at either West Ham or Barking stations, which at some times of the year are not the most customer-friendly of stations.
More services out of Fenchurch Street station would help to ease the problem, but the station is at capacity and nothing short of a complete rebuild of the station will solve the problems the capacity and connectivity..
There is a section called Future in the Wikipedia entry, where this is said.
There have been proposals to move the station 380 yards to the east to allow the station to expand to 6 platforms, (up from the current 4) and would be built partly on the site of Tower Gateway DLR station, which would likely be permanently closed.
The new station could be built with direct interchange with Tower Hill tube station, which could also have a replacement DLR station for Tower Gateway as Transport for London have looked into closing Tower Gateway and constructing a replacement on the Bank branch to increase capacity.
This project sounds like it would take a long time and cause a lot of disruption and inconvenience. But it would add capacity and connectivity.
This Google Map shows the location of the station.
Note.
- Fenchurch Street station is towards the bottom of the map in the centre.
- It is completely hemmed in by buildings.
- There is just a small square in front.
I feel it would be very difficult to rebuild a larger station in the same place.
Services Into Fenchurch Street Station
Currently, there are three services into Fenchurch Street station.
- Fenchurch Street and Shoeburyness via Limehouse, West Ham, Barking, Upminster, West Horndon, Laindon, Basildon, Pitsea, Leigh-on-Sea, Chalkwell, Westcliff, Southend Central, Southend East and Thorpe Bay.
- Fenchurch Street and Southend Central via Limehouse, West Ham, Barking, Upminster, Ockendon, Chafford Hundred Lakeside, Grays, Tilbury Town, East Tilbury, Stanford-le-Hope, Pitsea, Leigh-on-Sea, Chalkwell and Westcliff
- Fenchurch Street and Grays via Limehouse, West Ham, Barking, Dagenham Dock, Rainham and Purfleet.
Note.
- All services are two tph.
- All services call at Limehouse, West Ham and Barking.
Each station gets the following frequency of trains.
- Barking – 6 tph
- Basildon – 2 tph
- Benfleet – 2 tph
- Chafford Hundred Lakeside – 2 tph
- Chalkwell – 4 tph
- Dagenham Dock – 2 tph
- East Tilbury – 2 tph
- Grays – 4 tph
- Laindon – 2 tph
- Leigh-in-Sea – 4 tph
- Limehouse – 6 tph
- Ockendon – 2 tph
- Pitsea – 4 tph
- Purfleet – 2 tph
- Rainham – 2 tph
- Southend Central – 4 tph
- Southend East – 2 tph
- Stanford-le-Hope – 2 tph
- Thorpe Bay – 2 tph
- Tilbury Town – 2 tph
- Upminster – 4 tph
- Westcliff – 4 tph
- West Ham – 6 tph
- West Horndon – 2 tph
c2c would appear to be offering a service, that is well-balanced about the stations it serves.
Can Elizabeth Line Trains Reach Barking?
This map from cartometro.com shows Woodgrange Park junction, where the Gospel Oak and Barking Line crosses over the Great Eastern Main Line.
Note.
- The Gospel Oak and Barking Line is shown in orange.
- Gospel Oak station is to the North-West and Barking is to the South-East.
- The Elizabeth Line tracks are shown with a dash of purple.
- It looks to me, that a train on the Elizabeth Line going East could come through Platform 2 in Forest Gate station and then take the Gospel Oak and Barking Line through Platform 2 at Woodgrange Park station.
- It also looks as if trains could go through Platform 1 at both Woodgrange Park and Forest Gate stations to go West on the Elizabeth Line.
I don’t know whether they still do, but c2c trains used to use Woodgrange Park junction to access Liverpool Street station, when Fenchurch Street was closed or at weekends.
At Barking station, they would take the flyover over the station call in Platforms 7 and 8 in the station.
From the Eastern ends of Platforms 7 and 8, trains can use one of three routes.
- The London Overground route to Barking Riverside station.
- The c2c route to Grays via Purfleet.
- The c2c route to Upminster.
Note.
- The platforms at Barking Riverside station are probably too short for the Elizabeth Line trains.
- The Class 345 trains would fit into the bay platforms at Grays and Southend Central.
The simplest thing to do would probably be to divert the two tph between Fenchurch Street and Grays to either Liverpool Street or Paddington at the London end.
Each station would now get the following frequency of trains.
- Barking – 6 tph
- Basildon – 2 tph
- Benfleet – 2 tph
- Chafford Hundred Lakeside – 2 tph
- Chalkwell – 4 tph
- Dagenham Dock – 2 tph
- East Tilbury – 2 tph
- Grays – 4 tph
- Laindon – 2 tph
- Leigh-in-Sea – 4 tph
- Limehouse – 4 tph
- Ockendon – 2 tph
- Pitsea – 4 tph
- Purfleet – 2 tph
- Rainham – 2 tph
- Southend Central – 4 tph
- Southend East – 2 tph
- Stanford-le-Hope – 2 tph
- Thorpe Bay – 2 tph
- Tilbury Town – 2 tph
- Upminster – 4 tph
- Westcliff – 4 tph
- West Ham – 4 tph
- West Horndon – 2 tph
Only Limehouse and West Ham would get fewer trains.
But there would surely, be an extra pair of paths between Fenchurch Street and Barking.
I have also looked at trains through Pitsea, Upminster and Westcliff it appears that nearly all of the traffic is c2c’s passenger trains.
So would it be possible, with perhaps improved signalling to add an extra two trains between Fenchurch Street and Shoeburyness?
Each station would now get the following frequency of trains.
- Barking – 8 tph
- Basildon – 4 tph
- Benfleet – 4 tph
- Chafford Hundred Lakeside – 2 tph
- Chalkwell – 6 tph
- Dagenham Dock – 2 tph
- East Tilbury – 2 tph
- Grays – 4 tph
- Laindon – 4 tph
- Leigh-in-Sea – 6 tph
- Limehouse – 6 tph
- Ockendon – 2 tph
- Pitsea – 6 tph
- Purfleet – 2 tph
- Rainham – 2 tph
- Shoeburyness – 4 tph
- Southend Central – 6 tph
- Southend East – 4 tph
- Stanford-le-Hope – 2 tph
- Thorpe Bay – 2 tph
- Tilbury Town – 2 tph
- Upminster – 4 tph
- Westcliff – 6 tph
- West Ham – 6 tph
- West Horndon – 4 tph
More stations are getting four and six tph.
Conclusion
There are certainly possibilities to improve c2c by running services on the Elizabeth Line route.
Flotation Energy, Vårgrønn Take First Permitting Step For Another Oil & Gas-Powering Floating Wind Farm
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Flotation Energy and Vårgrønn, who recently filed a Marine Licence application for their 500 MW Green Volt floating wind farm in Scotland, have now submitted a Scoping Report for the 1.4 GW Cenos floating offshore wind farm to Marine Scotland.
And this is the first paragraph.
The developers have submitted leasing applications for both Cenos and Green Volt as part of the Crown Estate Scotland’s Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round, whose winners are expected to be announced in the second quarter of this year.
Both wind farms have web sites, where you can find more information.
It’s beginning to look like applications for the INTOG leasing round, are going to use quality floating technology and generate very large numbers of megawatts.
In Cerulean Winds Is A Different Type Of Wind Energy Company, I wrote about their plans for a 6 GW proposal for INTOG, spread around four sites in the North Sea.
It looks like we have several companies flexing their technologies to harness the dragons of the Celtic Sea and now it appears, the new giants of the wind are preparing to make a good fist of decarbonising oil and gas in the North Sea.
Utility Completes Testing Of Revolutionary Zero-Electricity Hydrogen Reactor
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Central.
These two paragraphs introduce the article.
Utility completes testing of revolutionary zero-electricity hydrogen reactor.
Utility announced at its 3rd annual technology day event, the successful completion of their pilot plant testing program for the H2Gen™ reactor product line. Utility is the only decarbonization technology company pioneering the eXEROTM technology platform optimized for hard to abate industry sectors.
Am I right in thinking, that Utility have developed a way of splitting hydrogen out of hydrocarbons by cleverly exploiting physics and chemistry?
This is the first paragraph on their Learn More page.
The Electroless Coupled Exchange Reduction Oxidation technology platform (eXERO™) capitalizes on both the advantages of electrochemical processes (which yield high product purity without the need for expensive purification steps) and chemical processes (which have comparatively low capital and operating costs, especially avoiding the losses of electricity generation and transmission). The eXERO™ technology platform is achieved by removing the external electrical circuit from an electrolyzer and instead driving the electrolysis reaction with the overpotential (voltage) that exists between different gas compositions. Similar to a conventional solid oxide electrolyzer, oxygen ions are transferred from the cathode to the anode through an oxygen ion conducting electrolyte. However, unlike a conventional electrochemical reactor, electrons are transferred from the anode to the cathode through an electronically conducting phase within the electrolyte, also known as a mixed conducting electrolyte.
In a section on the page, with a heading of Principles, this is said.
The eXERO™ technology platform is based on two streams which are separated by an impermeable electrolyte, and counter-exchange of oxygen ions and electrons. Thus, one of the streams undergoes reduction while the other stream simultaneously undergoes oxidation. Unlike traditional fuel cells or electrolyzers, no current is extracted or delivered to the reactor to drive the process. Rather, an overpotential can be induced by introducing gases of different composition at the anode and cathode the cell. Examples of gases introduced at the anode to induce an overpotential, relative to steam (water) are shown below:
This is interesting. Very interesting!
Belgians To Start Building World’s First Artificial Energy Island Next Year (VIDEO)
The title of this post, is the same as that, of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Belgian offshore construction companies Jan De Nul and DEME, through their consortium TM EDISON, have won the tender for the construction of the Princess Elisabeth Island in their home country and the first artificial energy island in the world.
And this first paragraph outlines the project.
The artificial island, which will be built some 45 kilometres off the Belgian coast and will occupy an area of approximately five hectares above the waterline, will serve as the link between the offshore wind farms in the country’s second, 3.5 GW Princess Elisabeth offshore wind zone and its onshore high-voltage grid.
Initial plans don’t seem to be putting any wind turbines or solar panels on the island.
The most impressive part of the article is the video, which shows how the island will be constructed.
To some people of my age, the construction of the island will seem familiar, as the island will be built in a similar way to the Mulberry harbours of World War II.
A few years ago, I went inside some of the giant Pheonix caissons in The Netherlands, where they were initially used to plug the dykes after the North Sea Flood of 1953. They are now a museum of the floods called the Watersnoodmuseum.
Engineering is repeating itself.
9 Energy, House And Rail Projects Planned For Norfolk
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Eastern Daily Press.
The article is a survey of major projects across Norfolk.
Projects in the article with my thoughts will now be detailed.
Railway Village
This is described as follows in the article.
Plans to build a new 5,000-home town north of Dereham could take a significant step forward in 2023.
The proposals have been dubbed a ‘railway village’ and would lie close to the Mid Norfolk Railway at North Elmham.
The 1,278-acre site has been put forward by its owners as a potential area for development included in Breckland Council’s forthcoming local plan – a document detailing how the district should grow over the next two decades.
This map from OpenRailwayMap shows North Elmham and the Mid-Norfolk Railway.
Note.
- The yellow line is the Mid-Norfolk Railway.
- The site of the former North Elmham station is shown by the blue arrow at the top of the map.
- The orange line across the South-East corner of the map is the Breckland Line between Cambridge and Norwich.
- Wymondham station is on the Breckland Line, but trains between the Mid-Norfolk Railway and Norwich would be able to call at Wymondham station.
Wymondham station could be converted into a proper connection between the Breckland Line and the Mid-Norfolk Railway, with services being run between Norwich and North Elmham via Dereham.
In the Wikipedia entry for the Mid-Norfolk Railway, there is a section, which is entitled Community Railway, where this is the first paragraph.
The Mid-Norfolk Railway was established as a multi-functional line, with an intention to operate a community service in addition to tourist and freight services. The railway has also stated their belief that a commuter service between Dereham and Norwich remains a viable proposition, with the MNR either running the service themselves or working with an existing train operator. One obstacle on the MNR to running such services is the requirement to operate five manual gated level crossings between Dereham and Wymondham, although level crossing automation is a possibility in the future.
Later the section indicates that the Mid-Norfolk Railway could be extended to Fakenham.
This map from OpenRailwayMap shows the original route between North Elmham and Fakenham.
Note.
- The yellow line is the Mid-Norfolk Railway.
- North Elmham station is at the top of the yellow.
- Fakenham is at the top of the map.
Adding Fakenham to the passenger service from Norwich would surely increase its viability.
There have been ambitions in the past to create a Norfolk Orbital Railway, that would connect the National Rail stations at Sheringham and Wymondham, using the tracks of the North Norfolk Railway and Mid-Norfolk Railway, and some new and relaid track.
This map from OpenRailwayMap shows North Norfolk from Fakenham and North Elmham in the West to Sheringham in the East.
Note.
- Fakenham is on the Western edge of the map about halfway up.
- North Elmham is in the South-West corner of the map, on the yellow line, what indicates the Mid-Norfolk Railway.
- The railway shown in the North-West corner is the Wells and Walsingham Light Railway. which is a 260 mm. gauge railway.
- Sheringham station, which has an hourly service to Norwich via Cromer, is in the North-East corner of the map.
- The Eastern terminus of the North Norfolk Railway is a short walk from Sheringham station.
- The blue arrow to the West of Sheringham station, indicates the Western terminus of the North Norfolk Railway at Holt station.
The Norfolk Orbital Railway would need to connect Fakenham and Holt, which doesn’t appear to be easy.
But if the connection could be made, Greater Anglia could run a combined service around the county, which would allow those living in the houses at North Elmham to get easily to the coast or the City of Norwich.
Wash Barrage
This is described as follows in the article.
A bid to build a tidal barrage stretching from Norfolk to Lincolnshire was unveiled at the end of last year.
While the scheme has seen objections from conservation groups, proponents say it would help protect the Fens from flooding, generate tidal power and would allow a new deep-sea container port to be built.
A planning application has yet to be submitted for the scheme, which Centre Port, the group behind the proposal, said could be operational by the end of the decade if given the go-ahead.
The Wash Barrier has a web site, but I doubt the RSPB will like it.
New Reservoir
The article says that the proposed site is between Chatteris and March in Cambridgeshire.
Long Stratton Bypass
This is described as follows in the article.
The Long Stratton Bypass has been mooted for decades and finally looked like it was going to get underway after funding was approved in 2021.
The scheme will mean motorists can avoid passing through the centre of the town.
It was needed, when C regularly commuted to Norwich in the 1980s.
Norwich Western Link
This is described as follows in the article.
The flagship infrastructure project has been thrown into doubt after County Hall announced an indefinite delay earlier this month.
The 3.9-mile road is designed to link the A47 with the NDR to the west of the city and has been hailed as a council priority for several years.
Climate protestors are mounting a High Court challenge.
Windfarms
These are described as follows in the article.
There are a series of major windfarms planned for the Norfolk coast.
These include Swedish energy giant Vattenfall’s Boreas and Vanguard projects, which could be some of the largest in the world.
The company was granted development consent for its Norfolk Vanguard windfarm in 2022, pledging to get underway early this year.
The two schemes could power more than 3.9m homes in the UK.
Hornsea Three, another major scheme which could power another 3.2m homes, is set to start being built in March.
Note.
- The author missed out the Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon Extension windfarms.
- Total wind power that will be developed is around 6 GW, which would supply around a quarter of the UK.
The only problem is that Norfolk is protesting against the cables to connect the wind farms to the National Grid.
I suspect they will have to be put under the sea. I wrote about this in Is There A Need For A Norfolk-Suffolk Interconnector?
New Rail Junctions
The problems around Ely station are described as follows in the article.
A key rail junction, which could help to boost growth across the region, could steam ahead this year.
Ely Junction is important because it links five lines connecting Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge, Peterborough and King’s Lynn.
It is currently operating at full capacity, which limits the opportunity for growth of routes for passenger and cross-country freight services.
It would also enable more frequent passenger services, including between King’s Lynn and London.
An outline business case was submitted to the Department for Transport last year to seek money for the next stage of the design process – but the government has yet to make a decision.
There are also problems at Haughley Junction.
Hospitals Rebuild
The article also puts the case for developing both King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth hospitals.
Conclusion
Norfolk is going to be busy.
The Anonymous Widower 