AlastairFraser
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Agreed, it's 21 minutes in a car at 7pm. It would be hell during rush hour with so much of the route a 30mph slog through villages.
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Wisbech to March line consultation.
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And the fact it isn’t suggests no market - which not coincidentally is what the feasibility study for the railway identified (but did its very best not to highlight!)
I don't see any height, weight or width limits that would stop a coach on that route. Are you sure the short wheelbase buses aren't being used because of a lack of passengers?
If there was an express service run in place of spending £££ on a rail link from Wisbech to March, I am sure it could run with coaches, and with limited stops (perhaps central Wisbech, the edge of Wisbech, the main road near Elm and one in Outwell).
Google Maps suggests the journey time for a car is 22-30 minutes from Wisbech to Downham Market station at 8am tomorrow, and 20-28 minutes for the return journey at 6pm.
The No 60 bus leaves Wisbech at 7.15 and is scheduled to take 24-28 minutes, with 16 advertised stops. Those stops don't include Downham Market station, so you have to walk 5 minutes from the stop before or after the station.
An express coach might be a fantasy, but its gritty realism compared to a rail link to Wisbech.
Between Outwell and Downham Market the road is narrow and winding on an embankment next to Wells Creek.
Like many Fenland roads it suffers badly from uneven subsidence so long wheelbase coaches would have a risk of "bottoming out".
Only one of the two buses in each direction does the Outwell-Nordelph section, the other goes via Three Holes to avoid the worst bit.
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I am sure that it can't be done, having travelled that road many times.
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Eastern Farmer
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I am another who has traveled on that road a few times and there is no chance of getting longer wheelbase coaches down that road whatsoever.
AlastairFraser
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An unguided busway on the section of the formation I suggested would provide a faster and more resilient link to most of the significant regional centres.
Wisbech already has the decent bus link to King's Lynn, and London would be a same platform charge at Ely.
Travelmonkey
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Another idea would be just bolster the existing 60 with some extra subsidies for a few more trips extending to Downham Market statio and have rail tickets valid similar in a way to the 100 that is the cop-out way Wedgewood & Barlaston get served in Staffordshire,
I do think there is wasted potential on the Wisbech-March line but without some significant change like a garden village/town sprouting up the improvement demand will be lacking.
I do think there is wasted potential on the Wisbech-March line but without some significant change like a garden village/town sprouting up the improvement demand will be lacking.
Wisbech has a population of more than 30k, it is not comparable with Barlaston.
The demand comes from linking those 30k people to Cambridge for commuting.
It‘s an awful lot of taxpayers cash to shift a couple of hundred people in the morning, and back again 8-9 hours later. I do hope all alternatives are being considered…
daodao
Established Member
Why the obsession with linking Wisbech to Cambridge? Cambridge's economy is overheating and re-opening rail lines to it, e.g. from Wisbech (and Bedford) at prohibitive expense will only fuel the fire. It's hardly in keeping with "levelling up".
The nearest city to Wisbech, with better long-distance rail connections, is Peterborough. There is already a fast half-hourly express bus on the Wisbech to Peterborough route. Re-opening the Wisbech-March rail line is an expensive white elephant.
Indeed, whihc is in the rail fares system, and appears to be work well. Which rather suggests that the concept would work for other locations …
I suspect the opposite is true.
The Cambridge economy is overheating, therefore rather than causing it to overheat more, making Wisbech more commutable will alleviate pressure on housing, schools, doctors surgeries etc in cambridge and boost service industries in Wisbech.
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But hasn't it been established by other posters that the roads between Wisbech and Cambridge wouldn't be up to such a "quality" bus service !
err, no. No it hasn’t. All it needs is a decent bus / coach service from March - Wisbech. Theres an hourly one already that stops at lots of places and takes justover half an hour. Right now, at peak time, its a 20 minute drive from central Wisbech to March, so an express non-stop bus scheduled for 25 minutes would seem doable.
On the morning after the Autumn Statement, the answer to that should be obvious.
Whatever their disagreements about spending and tax, all of the major political parties agree that what they can do is constrained by the UK's poor economic growth performance, and the need to improve economic growth for what it does for tax revenue. One of the few places in the UK where that growth is already happening is Cambridge, because so many companies want to be next door to one of the top ten universities in the world. Improving the UK's overall growth performance isn't going to happen by strangling one of the few bits that's already doing well.
Exactly! Improving transport infrastructure is one of the ways to ensure that the Cambridge growth phenomenon is not strangled. Making Wisbech commutable (it isn't now) is part of that.
Just looking at the Biomedical Campus (CBC) alone, more than 2k Astra Zeneca employees are moving into their new building. The Discovery Drive lab building, with more than 100k square feet of space, will be opening shortly. 2 new hospitals are in the early stages of planning. In the next few years, the number of new jobs in and around Cambridge will be in the tens of thousands. All of those need employees who need somewhere to live and a way of getting to and from work. And the proportion of jobs suitable for WFH is tiny. Scientific research happens in laboratories using a lot of sophisticated and expensive equipment, not on a laptop at home.
Cambridge is one of the most expensive cities in the UK, for property and other living costs, so keeping the Cambridge growth phenomenon healthy is going to need more commuting, and lots of it. The Fen Line shows that is already happening: until the December 2020 changes Fen Line trains were some of the most overcrowded in the UK and it now supports 2tph 8 car trains at peak times. A big proportion of those journeys are to and from Cambridge, not London. I know because I travel on them quite frequently.
The evidence from the Fen Line shows that the potential for commuting to Cambridge from Wisbech is much higher than this. We are not talking about meeting existing demand, we are talking about future growth. At present, people who work in Cambridge just don't consider Wisbech as a place to live, and people in Wisbech don't consider Cambridge as a place to work.
We have already established how that is impossible to deliver on the existing road infrastructure, and how a 30 minute journey isn't fast enough to deliver a commutable journey time Wisbech-Cambridge. Virtually nobody in Wisbech is going to look at a 30 minute bus ride to March and think, oooh I can now commute to Cambridge. And virtually nobody working on the CBC is going to look at a 30 minute bus ride from Wisbech to March and think, oooh I can now commute from Wisbech. To get that, a 15-20 minute journey is needed. A coach service Wisbech-March on the existing roads would be about as much use as a chocolate teapot for commuting Wisbech-Cambridge.
Yes it has.
A 10 minute train journey from Wisbech to March won't attract AstraZeneca staff to move to Wisbech, if they then have to change at Cambridge, and then be crush loaded for the return journey. They will be far better off moving to somewhere on the line to Kings Lynn.
berwicksfinest
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Again to reiterate, living in Wisbech, Where are all the commuters for Cambridge coming from ??
I personally work in Peterborough, so do most people I know, Amazon provide a dedicated bus service to name but one.
Most people here are of East European origin and mainly work in the agriculture or food packaging and processing factories here and in the surrounding areas. So are we expecting a mega influx of people wanting to work into Cambridge ? If so where are we housing them ? there is no big building or housing projects on the go at the minute largest being the old college of West Anglia site with approx 120 houses hardly worthy of Wisbech International Parkway station.
And to be brutally honest, If I worked in Cambridge and was looking to commute from a surrounding area the last place I'd choose is here in Wisbech.
I personally work in Peterborough, so do most people I know, Amazon provide a dedicated bus service to name but one.
Most people here are of East European origin and mainly work in the agriculture or food packaging and processing factories here and in the surrounding areas. So are we expecting a mega influx of people wanting to work into Cambridge ? If so where are we housing them ? there is no big building or housing projects on the go at the minute largest being the old college of West Anglia site with approx 120 houses hardly worthy of Wisbech International Parkway station.
And to be brutally honest, If I worked in Cambridge and was looking to commute from a surrounding area the last place I'd choose is here in Wisbech.
As a local, do you not want decent public transport ?
berwicksfinest
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Personally it would be no use to me at all, As a Train Driver, I also personally like to see investment in other areas, ELECTRIFICATION.
Both of you are making the mistake of thinking that the economy is static, but it is a dynamic system, and around Cambridge it is changing very rapidly.
I'm old enough to remember Cambridge in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, the streets of Victorian houses near the station were not desirable places to live, and houses were cheap enough for first time buyers. Financial deregulation created new jobs in London and electrification made them accessible from Cambridge. Gradually, over 20-30 years the area changed. The houses are now some of the most expensive in Cambridge, well out of reach of first time buyers. The local shops and pubs are almost unrecognisable from 40 years ago.
The same pattern can be seen elsewhere. Places like Dalston and Shoreditch in London are good examples, where the coming of Overground was the trigger.
And that's how it would work for Wisbech too, if it had a commutable link to Cambridge. The change would be gradual, over 20-30 years. Of course the first commuters from Wisbech to Cambridge wouldn't be AstaZeneca employees, they would be young professionals working for startup companies or in the NHS, looking for cheap houses. The first Cambridge commuters would go to Wisbech because it was cheaper than everywhere else, and all they could afford. As demand increased, prices would rise, and developers would look for opportunities for new build. There would be a multiplier effect, as businesses moved in to provide services for the new residents.
Another factor for Wisbech would be the conversion of "houses in multiple occupation" to homes for commuters. These are currently used mainly by agricultural workers. As time went by fewer and fewer agricultural workers would be able to afford to live in Wisbech, and new arrivals would look for housing in places like Holbeach and Spalding instead.
A commutable link to Cambridge would transform Wisbech, so that, in 30 years time, it would be regarded as a very desirable place to live.
Going into fantasy territory here, but has anyone suggested extending the guided busway from St Ives to March? Using the alignment of the old railway via Chatteris with a gap for the section where the A141 road has been built over, it could provide faster average speeds than the parallel roads. A further extension from March to Wisbech would allow a fast guided bus service to operate from Wisbech to Cambridge mostly away from other traffic.
I moved to Ely in 1999, when there was a letter in the local paper about Ely's "parking crisis", which meant that you could no longer park in the High Street outside the shop that you wanted to visit, for as long as you wanted, for free, but had to use a free car park 200m away.
The area around Mill Road in Cambridge is popular because you can get to various workplaces within a 30 minute bicycle ride.
These are travel times to get from the station at Ely, March, Downham Market & Kings Lynn to get to some of the big employment sites in the Cambridge travel to work area. I used Google Maps and picked the fastest service in and around 7.30-8am. The bottom line is the cost of an anytime day return train ticket (buses would be extra).
Code:
Ely March Downham Mkt Kings Lynn
Milton Rd Science Park 31mins 74mins 54mins 74mins
Addenbrookes 37mins 58mins 66mins 78mins
University West Cambridge 54mins 84mins 92mins 102mins
Granta Park 71mins 92mins 98mins 112mins
Anytime day return £8.50 £19.40 £15.20 £16.00You need to add on the time to get to the first station.
For Wisbech, you also need to add on the travel time between Wisbech and March, and time for a connection. Presumably that extra service would also cost more.
If Wisbech was going to be attractive for Cambridge commuters, then I would expect March to be full of them already.
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But that applied 40-50 years ago too, when it was one of the cheapest parts of Cambridge to live. It wasn't what drove the house prices higher. And actually it is possible to get from nearly everywhere to nearly everywhere in Cambridge by bike in 30 minutes. That's why lots of people cycle, and it doesn't impact on differentials in house prices around the city. The Mill Road area is expensive because it is within walking distance of the station.
Of course these will be different for the CBC and Addenbrookes once Cambridge South opens in 2025.
And I note that you haven't done the area around the main Cambridge station, which is now a major employment hub in its own right.
Absolutely. That's why a 30 minute journey time Wisbech-March is useless.
This is an interesting point. The current service from/to March is only hourly, overcrowded because it only uses 3 car trains, and doesn't stop at Cambridge North. Another issue is the higher fare: March is over 25% more expensive than Downham Market, and with a worse service, for a similar distance. It takes a lot of difference in housing costs to compensate for all of that.
Cross Country should address the capacity issue with longer trains, and add stops at Cambridge North and Cambridge South. If it can't do that then the paths should be given to an operator who can. 3 car trains not stopping at key stations is a luxury Cambridge can't afford now, never mind if there was also traffic for Wisbech.
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If a shuttle between Wisbech and March only makes sense when the Cross Country trains through to Cambridge have cheap tickets, more coaches, and electrification/bimodes for acceleration so you can add extra stops, its not going to help the business case.
In that case, I suspect that it's unlikely that you have to rely on bus transport, particularly for longish distances.
By the time March-Wisbech gets to the business case stage those changes should have happened already. A railway that adapts to changes in demand should be able to deliver such changes as part of its normal timetable revision process. In this case there may be another bite of the cherry if the Ely upgrade project goes ahead, which will require a significant timetable revision.
The evidence from the business case, written for the Combined authority, suggests otherwise.
No, we havent. how does the existing hourly bus manage?
In your opinion. I have a 30 minute journey every morning before catching a train that takes around 35 minutes. Lots of people do this or more. Why do you think that everyone will ignore a 30 minute journey, but that a 10-15 minute shorter journey will suddenly see floods of people? Thats simply not how passneger demand works in repsonse to journey times.
But why not? especially if the bus is free (or cheap)
Plus the travel time to the imaginary Wisbech station, which for obvious reasons is going to be about a mile and a half from any sizeable residential area, and 2 miles from the centre of town. Perhaps they will get a bus to the station…
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The strategic outline business case was done a couple of years back and is publicly available. It basically said the line woould have little patronage (an average of 17 people a train, IIRC) and that something like 85% of the benefits could be achieved by running the service just from March to Cambridge instead (at no additional capital cost).
Or more accurately, the business case didn’t say this explicity, but for people who know how to interrogate business cases, this is what it revealed. The BCR for the new line is, ahem, to the south side of poor.
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Slowly.
I did a 90 minute journey door to door for 25 years to work in London, but it wasn't good for my health.
I'm not expecting floods of people suddenly, it builds over 20-30 years.
Because the overall journey will take too long. The Wisbech-Cambridge bit of the journey needs to be less than an hour to keep a decent overall journey time of 90 minutes or less once the start and end bits are added on. Obviously it helps if one or other or both of home and workplace are near the station, though for home that gets reflected in house prices. On the other hand Cambridge is doing well at locating workplaces near to stations.
In Cambridge a couple of years back is a long time ago!
Then that is what should be done first to see what happens, for both March and Wisbech. I appreciate that it might have to wait for the Ely upgrade. For me, that's a far more useful test than running a coach from Wisbech to March to connect with the existing service.
An extra service to March won’t help Wisbech unless there is a method of getting to March from Wisbech.
In any event, theres no way of running an extra service to March until Ely is sorted, and thats a long way off.
I really cant understand why anyone wouldn‘t want to campaign for better transport links to places like Wisbech, and for them to be delivered asap - and for very obvious reasons a better bus service coudl be implemented almost im edistely, wereas a rail service is going totske half a decade at least. Andif the bus service doesnt work, the epxerimanet will have very little. Whats to lose?
Its a recent innovation for Cambridge to have science workplaces near a station
A commute from Wisbech to Cambridge is always going to be over an hour and probably 90 minutes.
Rather than turning Wisbech into a bad commuter town, what would it take to become a place that people want to move to?
It has some lovely Georgian buildings, although many are in poor condition. Its got nice parks, space to build bungalows, and cheap housing so its affordable for care workers, taxi drivers, bus drivers etc.
I imagine the poor public transport would discourage retirees to move they don't want to rely on driving if the public transport is poor. What would it take to change the public transport for Wisbech to make it an attractive place to retire?
I'm not sure that a station on the edge of an industrial estate would be the way to do that.
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