Cambridge Line electrification 1975, why stop in Royston?

[Transilien]

Royston doesn’t seem like a particularly important place and also is very close to Cambridge. Also a diesel shuttle is operationally complex and inconvenient for passengers. (I know that the Liverpool Street line was the main route at this time but this could have changed with electrification)Why did BR wait until 1991 for electrification to Cambridge?

 

[Magdalia]

Royston doesn’t seem like a particularly important place and also is very close to Cambridge. Why did BR wait until 1991 for electrification to Cambridge?

The original GN suburban electrification proposal was part of the Modernisation Plan and only went out to Letchworth. It was intended to start after the Chingford/Enfield/Hertford/Stortford scheme was completed in 1960, but was lost as part of the investment cutbacks that preceded Beeching.

In the early 1970s, when GN suburban electrification was eventually approved, the main route between Cambridge and London was still to Liverpool Street, with full restaurant service on Kings Lynn trains and buffet cars on most Cambridge trains.

Electrifying to Cambridge at that time was regarded as too expensive because it was thought necessary to provide on train catering, and this would need to be loco hauled, but there was nowhere suitable to maintain electric locomotives without building new facilities for a small fleet.

By then both Baldock and Royston had commuter traffic, but Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton only had a few trains a day. The limited amount of commuting from Cambridge was almost entirely to Liverpool Street.

When electrification to Royston was completed in 1978 the Cambridge-Kings Cross Buffet Expresses were replaced with trains to Liverpool Street, and Royston-Cambridge got a shuttle service with DMUs. These were based at Cambridge (which had always been heavily involved in maintaining the GN DMU fleet) and also covered Hitchin-Huntingdon.

BR didn't wait until 1991 to electrify to Cambridge. The line from Bishops Stortford was electrified in 1987, and for almost 2 years had loco hauled trains with class 86s worked over from Willesden. Royston-Cambridge followed in 1988.

When the Cambridge-Kings Lynn electrification was approved, through working between Kings Lynn and London ceased in 1990, and it was only then that Kings Cross became the main route between London and Cambridge. When Kings Lynn electrification was completed in 1992, and through trains to London were restored, they were to and from Kings Cross, apart from a few peak time Liverpool Street trains. This was partly driven by the need to provide capacity on the Liverpool Street line for the Stansted Express.

 

[Chrius56000]

The simplest answer I can offer is that at the time B.R. completed the G.N. electrification to Hitchin and Royston in 1976, they had continuation to Cambridge in mind, but with the general passenger downturn during the 1970s/1980s the cost of Royston–Cambridge electrification couldn't be justified, then when electrification was eventually authorised from Hitchin–Peterborough, and eventually all the way to Edinburgh, B.R. was able to make a case for extending the Electrification Teams to complete the Royston–Cambridge section as an "in–fill" project!

I made use of the "Anywhere in Network South East for £5" offer to have a day out from Salisbury where I was on holiday with my late dad and his neighbour in 1987, and the Cambridge – Royston section was still DMU operated, although the re–signalling project along that length supervised by Cambridge P.S.B. had been commissioned by this time!

 

[StephenHunter]

Why did they feel they needed locos for catering when the 309s were doing hot food on an EMU?

 

[Clarence Yard]

It was just a reason to answer queries about the demise of the through trains to Cambridge. The decision to reduce that section from Royston to just being a DMU service had been taken years earlier. In those days there was no intention to wire to Cambridge or provide catering on any EMU.

Interestingly, the early 1960’s scheme didn’t have the EMU’s maintained at Hornsey - the shed was going to be in East Goods, Finsbury Park.

 

[norbitonflyer]

High cost of el;ectrifying the complex layout at cambridge? (same reason the wires stop at Wigston, just short of Leicester)

 

[Taunton]

Why did they feel they needed locos for catering when the 309s were doing hot food on an EMU?

The trains generally ran on beyond Cambridge, to Kings Lynn, and indeed the rump of the through service to Norwich, so needed to be loco hauled anyway. Back in steam, and into early diesel, days, Liverpool Street to Norwich was seen as equally divided between via Ipswich and via Cambridge.

London to Oxford had catering, as trains were through to Worcester/Hereford. It surely would not be done then that Cambridge would have equivalent facilities withdrawn .

 

[Magdalia]

Why did they feel they needed locos for catering when the 309s were doing hot food on an EMU?

The class 309s were fully occupied on the Clacton line, and could not have run beyond the electrification boundary, for example to Kings Lynn.

There was no prospect of a new EMU with catering because BR did not have the design capacity. The class 312s used Kings Cross-Royston were basically a revised version of the class 310, not a new train, with the design resources concentrating on the inner suburban class 313 as development of PEP.

 

[edwin_m]

High cost of el;ectrifying the complex layout at cambridge? (same reason the wires stop at Wigston, just short of Leicester)

Also re-signalling it - I think it was still multiple boxes with semaphores at the time.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Also re-signalling it - I think it was still multiple boxes with semaphores at the time.

Is the right answer to the original question. Needed to be funded and done first.
Similar to rationalisation and resignalling Weaver to Motherwell before the WCML wires could be extended to Glasgow.

 

[Falcon1200]

Why did they feel they needed locos for catering when the 309s were doing hot food on an EMU?

Perhaps because existing loco-hauled stock would have been used, cascaded from other routes where new stock had been provided?