Is Coal In Terminal Decline?
I’m no lover of coal, because of all the pollution and carbon dioxide it creates. I’ve also never met anyone from a coal mining family, who would ever want to work in a mine.
So when I look at the latest freight statistics from the Office of Rial and Road, I am rather pleased to see that in the last year coal traffic on UK railways has fallen over the last twelve months, from 1.66 billion net tonne km to 0.64 billion net tonne km (a drop of 61.2%).
As this is mainly imported coal to be burned in coal-fired power stations, I don’t think it is bad for employment. Power stations may be closing, but new ones must be opening to fill the gap in electricity generation.
A Very Wet Stop At Lincoln
I had intended to have a good lunch at Lincoln and go up the hill to look at the cathedral.
But the weather put a stop to that and I just went to see the progress on the two level crossings in the area. This Google Map shows the area of the station and the two crossings that are being given step-free footbridges.
Lincoln Level Crossings
These are some of the pictures I tried to take.
Progress doesn’t seem to be very fast.
It will be interesting to see if Network Rail’s solution makes things easier. This Google Map shows the southern part of Lincoln.
Lines Through Lincoln
The lines come into the City and through the station on an East-West axis. You can just make out the scar of the Lincoln Avoiding Line, which used to allow trains to by-pass the level crossings. Together with Lincoln St. Marks station, it closed in the 1980s.
According to Wikipedia, train services run between Lincoln and
- Newark North Gate and Leicester via Newark Castle and Nottingham using the Nottingham to Lincoln Line (“Midland line”);
- Sheffield via Retford and direct to Doncaster via the Doncaster to Lincoln Line (“Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Line”).
- Peterborough via Sleaford via the Peterborough to Lincoln Line (“Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Line”)
- Grimsby Town via Market Rasen, with occasional journeys to Cleethorpes
Most of these services operate on an hourly or two-hourly basis although some services to places like Nottingham might go to two trains per hour.
There are also once daily services Monday to Saturday to London St Pancras operated by East Midlands Trains and to London Kings Cross operated by Virgin Trains East Coast.
Lines to Doncaster, Newark, Nottingham and Sheffield run to the West and lines to Grimsby, Peterborough, Skegness, Sleaford and Spalding are to the East.
You can understand, why the Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) for the East Midlands felt that services could be improved by joining services together in Lincoln to free up platform space. At present some Grimsby Town services go though Lincoln to Newark North Gate.
It’s certainly a tricky problem at Lincoln and I can’t help feeling that at some time in the future, there’s going to have to be a solution that takes freight trains away from Lincoln High Street.
What Has The EU Done For UK’s Railways?
I am not a Eurosceptic although like may, I am a bit sceptical about some of the things that the EU does with our money.
An article on the Rail Engineer entitled The Freight Train Of The Future caught my eye.
Susrail is an EU project which aims to create more environmentally freight trains. This is an overview from the article.
SUSTRAIL aims to increase rail freight performance through a whole system approach which involves a number of work packages. The current system was benchmarked (WP1) and duty requirements established (WP2).
Then two parallel but linked packages considered the freight train of the future (WP3) and sustainable track (WP4), after which a business case (WP5) was developed and the new vehicle and track systems were tested (WP6). Thirty-one organisations in twelve countries shared the work for which the project coordinator was Consorzio Train, an Italian consortium of rail research institutions. UK participants were Network Rail (technical coordinator), Tata Steel and the Universities of Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield and Huddersfield.
Initial benchmarking involved Network Rail and the Universities of Leeds and Newcastle. This analysed three selected freight routes in Bulgaria, Spain and Britain (Southampton and Felixstowe to Warrington).
It is a fascinating article and well worth a read.
But at least the EU is doing something to make freight trains more efficient and less noisy.
It did raise a chuckle, as I read how they were looking at the dynamics of freight wagons. As I remember from the 1960s, the superb dynamics of the InterCity 125 benefited from research done by British Rail, to solve the problem of the large number of freight train derailments of the time.
Before GOBlin Electrification – Crouch Hill
I’d never been to Crouch Hill station before, but I went to take these pictures.
It is another tidy station with fairly long platforms, steep staircases and no lifts. Although unlike Leyton Midland Road, the station is in a cutting, rather than on a viaduct.
My pictures were as you can see interrupted by a dreaded Class 66 locomotive, with all its noise and smell passing through. After electrification, hopefully we’ll see something more environmentally-friendly like an elderly Class 90 or a brand new Class 88 locomotive. Unfortunately, I think we’ll see mainly Class 66s pulling freight trains for some years, as there are so many of them and they seem to be pretty reliable, although unloved by the drivers.
Should We Increase Rail Freight To Avoid Calais And The Migrants?
The BBC has quoted the French Police Chief at Calais as saying that the number of trucks trying to use the ferries and Eurotunnel has dropped.
Is this because it’s now the Summer holidays and the drivers have flown to their holidays or could it be that at last the needs of freight transport between the UK and Europe are being increasingly fulfilled by the obvious alternative, that hopefully would be totally useless to the migrants? – Direct freight trains between UK and Europe.
I wrote on this in December 2014 calling the post, Would Reorganising Cross-Channel Freight Cut Illegal Migration?
I stand by what I said then.
You have to remember, that a lot of freight flows between the UK and Europe are large and predicable. This is a few freight categories that I know go by rail over the channel.
- Car components including complete engines for Ford and BMW.
- Complete vehicles. Four years ago, you didn’t see car trains on the Gospel Oak to Barking and North London Lines, but now they are quite common.
- Fresh fruit from Spain to the UK.
- Steel products for Tata Group between Wales and The Netherlands
Are cargoes like Scottish fish and meat from all parts of the UK something that will be going on that list? These would only need refrigerated containers, that you see all over the railways. With meat too, there are no welfare issues and as a beef farmer once told me, dead carcasses pack three times better in a refrigerated truck, than livestock.
I have also found this informative article on the DB Schenker web site. It isn’t dated unfortunately, but it makes a lot of general points. This is the first two paragraphs.
When the Channel Tunnel between Calais in northern France and Folkstone on the southeastern coast of England opened in 1995, many forecasted a bright future for rail freight transport between Great Britain and continental Europe. An enormous amount of effort and money went into the construction of the two-track rail tunnel. The high hopes for the groundbreaking project have not yet been met, however. In fact, only 1.1 million metric tons of freight was transported by rail via the tunnel under the English Channel in 2010, less than before the 50-km tunnel opened.
High prices in particular have prevented rail freight transport from making greater use of the tunnel. Competition between freight forwarders that use the truck shuttle has kept prices in check. Eurotunnel charges a higher, constant price for block trains, however, and as a result, only a few providers can afford the transfer.
The last part in particular blames the high charges and the charging method of Eurotunnel. Governments should apply pressure here.
The article does talk about problems with the UK loading gauge, which hopefully are being fully addressed now.
At least thought freight trains between the UK and Europe can now get from Barking in East London to virtually anywhere in Europe.
Perhaps, the UK Government should use taxation and tax relief to encourage more freight flows across the Channel to go on freight trains.
The losers would be UK haulage firms and drivers, but they can’t find Cross-Channel trade very profitable and stress-free at the moment.
Should We Link HS2 And HS1?
According to this article on the Global Rail News web site, there has been speculation over the weekend in the Press that there will be a direct link between HS1 and HS2.
There are two main reasons why the HS1 and HS2 should be directly linked.
Obviously, in a decade or so, it would be very nice to get on a train in Birmingham and then be in Paris or Brussels without changing trains in under three hours.
Within a decade, the amount of freight going between the Midlands, North and Scotland, and the Channel Tunnel and the ports in the Thames Estuary is going to have grown substantially! So if HS1 was connected to HS2 and the West Coast Main Line by a full-size tunnel, the freight trains could be diverted deep under London. This would free-up the North London and the Gospel Oak to Barking Lines for much-needed passenger services.
A few years ago, digging a full size tunnel between HS1 under Islington to say Old Oak Common would have been an immensely difficult project, but Crossrail and other tunnelling projects around the world have changed all that.
My insight into the minds of those who create these big projects, makes me think, that if HS1 and HS2 are linked directly, it will be used for other purposes.
But above all we must boldly go!
Acton Dive-Under – 4th July 2015
-I took these pictures as I passed the Acton Dive Under.
On this page on the Crossrail site, this is said.
The start of excavation follows nearly two years of work to re-configure the freight yard. The work on the dive-under is being managed by Network Rail and is expected to last until 2016.
Progress would appear to be in line with that statement.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see this work finished earlier than expected, as surely when the Acton Dive Under is complete, this must make the operation of the railway easier, as freight trains crossing from the sidings at Acton will cause less disruption.
Freight At Maryland Station
I had to catch a train from that ruin in the East, Maryland, this afternoon. When I took pictures of all the stations before they are taken over by Crossrail, I gave Maryland a score of 2/10. As these pictures I took today, show of a freight train passing through, I think I was generous.
Sorting this dump out will need a real top quality architect with imagination. This Google Earth image shows the station and the roads around it.
Maryland Station
The following problems will challenge the design team.
1. The site is cramped and surrounded by busy roads.
2. The access to the station is along narrow pavements, even if they opened up the entrance on the South side.
3. The Crossrail platforms on the South side of the station are too short for the new trains and selective door opening will have to be used.
4. There would also appear to be few redeeming features in the current station. There isn’t any Victorian ironwork to preserve.
This is what is shown at present on the Crossrail web site.
Proposed Design
At least the number of trees has been increased!
I wish the architects the best of luck, but I sometimes feel that the only way to improve the station, would be to put a concrete raft over the whole area and build some tower blocks on top. At least they’d have good access to the rail system.
But then what do I know about architecture?
Freight At Hackney Wick Station
When I took the pictures, for the article about the redesign of that Hackney Wick station, two freight trains came through.
Is it just my feeling or are there more and longer freight trains on the North London Line?
The one that went west was particularly long. But at least it was electric hauled.
In all my searching for rail improvements in North and East London, I couldn’t find any plans for new freight routes to reduce the amount of freight traffic through the area.
The only positive thing is that the Gospel Oak to Barking Line is being electrified, which will mean that the trains will hopefully not be powered by noisy and smelly diesel locomotives.
So will we be seeing more freight trains going through in the middle of the night, as trains have to get past London on their way between. Felixstowe, Harwich, London Gateway and all the ports in the East to the West Coast Main Line and the Great Western?
The only partial solution is to electrify Felixstowe to Nuneaton via Peterborough and complete the East-West Rail Link to minimise traffic to and from Felixstowe going through London.
The only thing we can say about freight through North and East London, is that the problem will be get more and more difficult.
Imagine what would happen if the new Ultra Large Container Vessels started serving say Liverpool or Glasgow and then large numbers of containers were sent by rail through the Channel Tunnel to Europe. There have been plans to do this in the past as it saves time in getting goods from North America to Germany.
The High Meads Loop At Stratford
This piece started life as an investigation into a rail line connecting the North London and Lea Valley Lines at Stratford, but it ended up as more of an index to what is happening to trains around Stratford and up the Lea Valley.
If you travel on the North London Line from Hackney Wick station to Stratford station, you’ll see a rail line going off to the North side of the line under the Olympic Village.
High Meads Loop At Stratford Joins North London Line
If you travel up the Lea Valley Line, you’ll see the other end of the line.
High Meads Loop At Stratford Joins Lea Valley Line
This is the High Meads Loop and it is generally used to move freight trains. You can see it on this Google Earth image, as it curls round the western side of Stratford International station, starting from the triangular junction to the east of Hackney Wick station and the River Lea and eventually joining the Lea Valley Line between Stratford and the under-construction Lea Bridge station.
High Meads Loop
I walked around the area today starting from Stratford International DLR station and much of it is hidden under concrete in East Village.
What has always surprised me, is that this line doesn’t appear to have provision for a station, especially as it could connect to so many important places in the area.
But then it does seem to me that the design of the rail system in the area of the Olympic Park and Village didn’t put getting an efficient railway first. These questions must be answered.
1. Why was a fully-functional International station, built at Stratford International and has then never been used to run services to the Continent through the Channel Tunnel? This is answered partially in this section in Wikipedia about International services at the station. If Kent gets two stations at Ebbsfleet and Ashford International, then surely East London and Essex deserves one too!
2. Why too, is the link between the two Stratford stations, so much of an afterthought? Today, when I came back from my walk, there was the inevitable lost soul, who’d taken a train to Stratford International and needed to get a train to Romford. And his Narional Rail ticket wasn’t valid for the one-stop hop on the Docklands Light Railway. But this is East London and the Train Captain told him to ride Don’t get me wrong, I like the DLR, but surely for the Olympics we could have put a more spectacular or at least a better link between the two stations?
3. In some ways too, I often think that they used the high-speed service from St. Pancras to Stratford, just to give it something to do. For a start foreign day-trippers to the Olympics should have come straight into Stratford International on Eurostar. Why wasn’t this arranged?
4. I am pretty local to the Olympic Park and can get a train from Dalston Kingsland to Stratford. I went to the Olympic Park that way a couple of times, but to get home, the powers-that-be either sent you to Stratford International or West Ham. In one instance I walked to Clapton and got a bus home as everything was congested. The arrangements might have worked for getting to Central London, but they weren’t good for locals, who like me wanted to walk out of the Olympic Park and then probably get a bus home. One solution would have been to put more capacity on the North London Line, by extending the Class 378 trains to five cars, as is now being done. Why wasn’t this done on the North London Line in time for the Olympics? Especially, as the line has always been overcrowded compared to the East London Line.
5. Soon after the Olympics, I met a big cheese in the Docklands Light Railway on a train. He felt and I probably will agree with him, that the DLR overperformed in the Olympics and dear old Cinderella didn’t miss a beat. I suspect though that to many she has more than a touch of Minnie Mouse, but to East Londoners and knowledgeable visitors, she is the way to travel, where you get a grandstand view much of the time. So why wasn’t more use made of the DLR for the Olympics by designing it into the heart of the Olympic Park?
6. We also had the farce of if you went to the Olympics from St. Pancras, you had to go through the Eastfield shopping centre to get into the Olympic Park. Why? Was the Olympics about sport or shopping?
7. Look at this Google Earth image of the Eastfield shopping centre.
Eastfield
Notice how the DLR goes under the centre and emerges on the west side before curving round to get to the station at Stratford International. It has always puzzled me that no provision has been made for an extra station on this loop. It strikes me that the developers feel most shoppers will bring their cars or not buy anything heavy. I would use the centre more if it was easier to get home from say John Lewis with perhaps something weighing ten or twenty kilos. Why was this extension of the DLR designed to be never more than a timid link?
If I look at some of the rail designs of the last few years, I get the impression, that they are less timid and not designed to be easiest to construct. The London Overground in particular has been innovative in some of its infrastructure to design affordable and efficient railways. Look at the Clapham Kiss as just one example.
In any developments to improve Stratford, there is also a thundering herd of elephants in the room, which will probably have more effect on what happens than any politician.
And that is Crossrail!
What is planned now is only Phase 1 of Crossrail and future developments will give Crossrail a bigger share of London’s passengers and even more influence.
1. Crossrail has been designed to take slightly longer trains and with its massively long platforms, the capacity of the system is quite a bit bigger than what we’ll see when the line opens.
2. Crossrail can also take more trains through the core, so we’ll definitely see extra branches on the line. Ebbsfleet on HS1 is safeguarded and Tring on the West Coast Main Line is being seriously studied.
3. Crossrail lacks an easy and hopefully cross-platform interchange to high speed services to Europe and in the future to the North. An easy interchange to HS1 at St. Pancras and Stratford is impossible, but one at Ebbsfleet could be incorporated with the extension of Crossrail to the station.
So what do I think should be done to sort out the sins of the pre-Olympic rail system development in the Stratford area?
1. A Better Connection Between The Two Stratford Stations And To The Eastfield Shopping Centre.
Look at this Google Earth image of Stratford station.
Stratford Layout
The DLR branch between Stratford International and the core system passes underneath the rail lines, including Crossrail and the Overground , and the Central Line, at right angles.
The passenger connection between the DLR and the lines passing through above is not easy, although it is step-free. If you take the wrong tunnel from the rail lines, you end up on the wrong DLR platform.
As the two subways are one each side of the DLR lines, couldn’t something better be done to make this interchange easier? For a start how about a sign saying take these stairs from the through platform to get your DLR service to Stratford International?
I also think that there should have been a station on the DLR line underneath Eastfield. It would be interesting to know what the shopping centre thinks.
2. Will We Ever See International Services From The Station That Has The Word In Its Name?
If Crossrail extends to Ebbsfleet, this will take a big chunk out of High Speed passengers to Stratford and St. Pancras. If say you lived in East Kent and worked in the City or the West End of London, why would you not take a convenient service, High Speed or otherwise, to Ebbsfleet and then change to Crossrail for where you actually needed to go?
Stratford International also lacks an easy link to all of the other services at Stratford and especially to Crossrail, even if the DLR link is improved. But any cross-platform link is impossible!
Passengers will get increasingly fed up with second-rate stations, when they see some of the modern ones that work, like Reading and Kings Cross. St. Pancras may look spectacular, but it is A Fur Coat And No Knickers Station
So Stratford International, which I find an unwelcoming place, could become a massive white elephant, that had its brief moment of fame at the Olympics.
3. The Moans In North East London
Read the various Internet forums and web pages and some of the biggest complaints are about the poor transport links to and from places in North East London and the Lea Valley, like Walthamstow, Leyton and Tottenham.
Things are improving,
The transfer of the Lea Valley Lines to an operator who cares about passengers in London and the uprating of the Victoria Line later this year, can’t be anything but positive.
But more could be done!
4. A Shoreditch High Street Station On The Central Line?
After Crossrail has bedded in, will we finally see a connection between the Central Line and the East London Line at Shoreditch High Street? I think we will as because Crossrail is an effective by-pass for the Central Line from Stratford to Liverpool Street, the Central Line could probably be shut for several months under Shoreditch High Street, whilst the link is created without causing too much inconvenience to passengers, except for those using Bethnal Green. But even those would have the new Whitechapel Crossrail station a couple of bus stops away
5. Extending the DLR to Tottenham Hale
This was mooted a few years ago and a document called DLR Horizon 2020 talked about extending the system from Stratford International up alongside the Lea Valley Lines to Tottenham Hale station. This article on London Reconnections describes the proposal like this.
Extend the DLR from Stratford International to Tottenham Hale via the Lea Valley. The route would run alongside the current Lea Valley rail lines where possible and the line would serve the Olympic site and feature additional stops at Lea Bridge and Walthamstow Marshes.
It may be a worthy idea, but does it really make economic sense, when according to what you believe a lot of things may be happening in the area.
- A new Lea Bridge station and a new Hall Farm Curve are being created.
- A rebuilt Hackney Wick station is being planned.
- Crossrail 2 is being promoted and could serve the area.
- Transport for London will be taking their first bite out of the Lea Valley Lines in the very near future.
- There could be a a major upgrade in the Tottenham Hale area, which is described in this document on the Haringey Council web site.
- According to this Future section in Wikipedia for the Tottenham Hale station, funding is being sought to add extra tracks to the Lea Valley Line so that four trains per hour can be run on the line.
When the heavy rail expansion is sorted and the area between Tottenham and Walthamstow is developed as housing and a very large wetland and leisure area, the case for a Lea Valley Light Railway may be stronger.
6. Using The High Meads Loop For Passengers
Trains can use the High Meads Loop to pass across the northern side of Stratford Intergenerational station. This Google Earth image of the station, shows the lines passing round the North-Western corner.
Stratford International Station
Note also the Docklands Light Railway station on the northern side of the deep station box, virtually above the DLR logo.
I think with a will a station could be built on the High Meads Loop just to the north of the DLR station, which would allow trains to travel between the North London Line and the Lea Valley Line calling at a station close to the International station and possibly a station in the East Village.
But as with extending the DLR from Stratford International would it all be worthwhile?
Unless of course some developer wants to do a mega-development and pays for the trains and the infrastructure.
7. Conclusion
I think we should leave well enough alone and accept that Stratford International station is probably a shining white elephant.
In the meantime, we should make it easier to transfer between one station too many at Stratford.
The High Meads Loop is probably best left to sort out the freight that has to travel through the area until someone does the right thing and builds a proper freight line that avoids the North London and the Gospel Oak to Barking Lines.
