There will be some transfer and no doubt the buses/taxis have taken a hit at Cambridge station. To a lesser extent there was a smaller abstraction when Cambridge North opened but this was then annoyingly distorted by the pandemic.
The ability to change at Cambridge North for passengers travelling between the Hitchin Branch and Stansted Airport, Not sure if that would be counted as new traffic or abstraction. It was possible to change at Cambridge before it opened, however I would drive as the journey time was uncompetative .
I presume you mean Cambridge South rather than North as the change point for someone travelling Hitchin to Stansted.
Fen Line trains running to London in the morning peak and from London in the evening peak have been stopping at Letchworth and Royston for many years, since before Cambridge North opened.
It's a bittersweet success so far, as on the one hand there's a really useful new station I can now use regularly, on the other hand clearly something related to the extra station call has messed things up somewhere as reliability has absolutely plummeted. Previously the GN fasts have generally been punctual enough, particularly outside peak times; now the half-hourly frequency is effectively halved as nearly all of the time there's either a 15+min delay or a cancellation. Maybe I'm just unlucky but On Time Trains does show a lot of reds and blacks on the reliabity chart.This is on BBC News see here:
Cambridge South already 'part of everyday life' at city campus
GBR Anglia says the station is on track to reach 1.8m journeys in its first six months.www.bbc.co.uk
Other developments:
- the old cycle path under Addenbrookes Bridge has now reopened, the temporary path has been dug up
- Murphys have almost completely cleared the construction compound on the up side, but a small area north of the ditch is still fenced off and has a small amount of material stored on pallets
- the new Abcam/Discovery Drive multi-storey car park, next to Addenbrookes Bridge, is progressing quickly and now has Prologis and Cambridge Biomedical Campus signage that can be seen clearly from the trains.
Not altogether sure but Cambridge Central and Cambridge North are the 3rd and 4th biggest flows.
When was it ever reliable?
Beat me to it.
I was a commuter in the WAGN and FCC eras. The service was very reliable.
Correlation is not cause and effect. It is well documented that the recent decline in reliability on the GN side is mainly due to the introduction of the class 379s and the severe impact of the heatwaves and drought on the infrastructure in the Fens.
Since the introduction of Thameslink and all the additional services it’s certainly a different railway reliability wise even if it is much busier now. The infrastructure on the WAML certainly seems to be showing its age.
Just time really. This happens most years to one extent or another.
I guess the question is given the Fen line is almost certainly going to suffer this issue every year now is what can be done to mitigate it. Could the single track section be double tracked so that trains aren't needing to be held whilst waiting for the opposite train.
We’re somewhat off topic now, but I would suggest breaking the spine at Cambridge, Cambridge North or even Ely - i.e. running shuttles. It’s 3 tph Ely and Southbound; an average 10 min transfer is a drop in the ocean against a 20% chance of cancellation and 40% chance of 15 min delay [or whatever the real numbers are]
I very much doubt it. We just have to accept it is what it is.
I concur - it bodes well for EWR.
