F2N capacity enhancement

[L Brightwell]

The Felixstowe to Nuneaton (F2N) enhancement scheme has been under discussion for years now.

There are many wanted investments along this route which have been long overdue, some of which were planned to take place years ago, but haven't.

Freight is continually increasing in and out of Felixstowe and other places, not only intermodal traffic. One intermodal even started this week running in and out of Felixstowe! This surprises me considering the amount of capacity constraints we see today!

In my point of view, I would be surprised to see much more trains be introduced on this congested route and there is a long list of upgrades required to accommodate future growth in passenger and freight traffic.

Sticking to the F2N capacity enhancement scheme, many upgrades are needed that includes:

• further doubling of Felixstowe branch,
• Haughley Junction doubling,
• headway reductions a lot of the way,
• Soham to Ely doubling,
• Ely North Junction remodelling,
• Resignalling work to the line between Peterborough and Syston, the list goes on.

But what is the reason that these are taking so long to do?

Many of which should have been done years ago now. Like I say, I really cannot see much more traffic until further upgrades are carried out and completed.

 

[Aictos]

I don't know the reasoning but surely one item of infrastructure that should be done and is missing from the opening post is electrifying the route all the way into Birmingham itself, for starters not only would freight be electrically hauled but the XC services between Birmingham and Leicester/Stansted could go fully EMU.

There's probably a good reason why more of the F2N route doesn't have electrification but it's essential if we as a country are to reduce our CO2 emissions.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Welcome to the forum. I see this is your first post. This may be best in the Speculative ideas section - I will contact a moderator to see if it needs moving. It has been suggested it is high on the priority list for electrification and some of your suggestions would happen in parallel.

It could be argued that the Werrington Grade separation currently happening will help the the F2N project.

 

[hwl]

It could be argued that the Werrington Grade separation currently happening will help the the F2N project.

Werrington will certainly help

 

[waverley47]

F2N is an odd one.

It's not like the WCML rebuilding or GWML wiring, which are very visible projects connecting huge cities and loads of commuters. Those projects improved journey times for passengers, and improved capacity for freight, so everyone was happy.

In comparison, this project connects Cambridge, Leicester and Birmingham at a push, with empty countryside in the middle. There isnt a visible benefit for passengers, so it's politically difficult to spend £xbn to fix it.

In an ideal world, and as Gralistair pointed out, it's high up the list. But that list has a lot of other very important improvements coming first (Huddersfield line, wiring to Bristol, ECML improvements, HS2). The fault for this lies squarely at the door of government for not spending enough to speed up rail freight, and provide wired routes outside of London, but also at NR's door for failing to forsee problems with wiring elsewhere.

As you point out, it's also difficult for other reasons. There isn't 'one single point of failure' as there is elsewhere, you need to do all the individual projects to get the benefit.

It's attractive to go to government and say "give us £xbn to build a flyover at Werrington, and the benefit is we'll get two extra trains an hour to Leeds or Edinburgh." That's easy for government to understand, and easy to sell politically.

In comparison, if you go to government and say "give us £xbn to remodel a junction in Norfolk, and the benefit is faster journeys from Ely to Ipswich, and better freight capacity on the route," that's more difficult. They don't understand the full benefits, it's hard to sell, and when you go to them three years later and say "okay, we built it, but to fully realise the benefits we also need money to redouble a chord in Leicester," they will start getting uppity.

The government, as is often said here, knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. F2N is the perfect example of this.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

However, if the Midland Main Line got electrified even as far as Derby and Nottingham that would include Leicester area so that would be a good piece of the jigsaw. It just needs as stated above quite a few components to come together. Electrification of the small length Felixstowe branch to Ipswich would be a great start.

 

[swt_passenger]

Isn’t part of the problem that the same short name “F2N” keeps getting “rolled forward”, but IIRC it started out as a gauge clearance project that was reported complete years ago.

Is there a definite description of what the overall project currently is?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Isn’t part of the problem that the same short name “F2N” keeps getting “rolled forward”, but IIRC it started out as a gauge clearance project that was reported complete years ago.

Is there a definite description of what the overall project currently is?

Not sure I will try and find some references - clickable links for you - but I remember when the Electric Spine plan was first mooted/announced, quite a few both inside and outside said the priority was wrong and F2N was more important. Then of course there was the Julian Worth article followed by the David Shirres plan and then TDNS itself making quite clear you needed electrification for freight if you were serious about decarbonisation.

 

[snowball]

As mentioned in another thread recently, they now appear to be looking at track alterations in the Leicester area not including the Wigston flyover, so it seems F2N will have to cross the MML on the level for a long time to come.

 

[L Brightwell]

However, if the Midland Main Line got electrified even as far as Derby and Nottingham that would include Leicester area so that would be a good piece of the jigsaw. It just needs as stated above quite a few components to come together. Electrification of the small length Felixstowe branch to Ipswich would be a great start.

Electrifying would be particularly beneficial on the Felixstowe branch and further up the MML to Derby, Nottingham and maybe even Sheffield! All routes would do well with electrification to reduce CO2 emissions the government and rail operators have been targeting for a few years now. The F2N enhancement could help put forward electrification to these routes, especially as only little bits of the line from Felixstowe to Nuneaton is electrified. However, I don't think F2N should be an excuse for this and more routes should go electric other than the Felixstowe branch and further wiring of the MML

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Mar 2021 ==

As mentioned in another thread recently, they now appear to be looking at track alterations in the Leicester area not including the Wigston flyover, so it seems F2N will have to cross the MML on the level for a long time to come.

Leicester is one of the more complicated and constrained areas. The line from Syston to Leicester is only 3 tracks, which could do nicely with a fourth track. Doubling Syston East Junction would be another issue to solve. I find that a grade separation at Wigston would make big differences for the better really. A lot of freight that goes through Leicester comes to/from the line from Narborough and South Wigston, through Leicester and off towards Melton Mowbray and onwards to Peterborough and so on. Without a grade separation here, there is no choice but to cross the busy MML to access these lines. This would also help with the CrossCountry services running to/from Birmingham as well, not having to interfere with MML traffic.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Found one of the references where the Freight companies thought doing the spine before F2N was crazy.

Report hails £2.7m daily savings from railfreight | Railnews | Today's news for Tomorrow's railway

partial from John Smith MD Railfreight at the time

“Neither do I really understand some of the details of the electric spine. We are reviving and electrifying a stretch of railway between Oxford and Bletchley that’s been out of use for 20 years, before we electrify across Suffolk, double the Felixstowe branch or deal with the Immingham approaches.”

 

[Dr Hoo]

There are several fundamental problems in referring to F2N as a shorthand (and I confess to having used the term very loosely myself).

Obviously nothing is really going to or coming from 'Nuneaton' specifically. Traffic is either from even further afield (e.g. Trafford Park) or only goes part of the way anyway (e.g. turns off at Werrington). So it doesn't completely solve anything if you deal with all the bottlenecks and lack of wires on F2N but don't sort also out terminal access and capacity in Manchester or electrify the Joint Line. And so on.

There is only so much cash for freight upgrades and Felixstowe isn't the only candidate. E.g. the Southampton-West Midlands axis also needs an electrification solution and Peak District to London stone traffic also needs more capacity.

Any significant increase in traffic implies a lot of investment in new locomotives, wagons, terminals, warehousing and so forth; generally by private companies at a time when international trade patterns are in a state of flux anyway.

Rail freight makes next to no profit and usually only pays marginal costs for track access. Beyond that, even some existing flows from Felixstowe need continual Mode Shift Revenue Support (subsidy) to keep them from reverting to road. It is quite hard to make a business case on other than 'environmental' grounds (with many other schemes bidding for a similar pot, e.g. MML or Trans-Pennine electrification).

Meanwhile the various facilities within the Port complex are not well adapted to changing traction type on site and none of the three FOCs serving Felixstowe have any suitable bi-modes anyway.

For all of the calls to 'just get on with it' there are still a huge number of ducks to line up.

Thanks to our new member for raising the issue.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

For all of the calls to 'just get on with it' there are still a huge number of ducks to line up.

Agreed. I think like North Transpennine Upgrade where a piecemeal approach is being taken, this scheme and its add-ons also needs a piecemeal approach. It then has the benefit of keeping HMTreasury reasonably happy too.

Felixstowe- Ipswich wire and do the battery shunters in terminal.
Midland Mainline - gets the dual benefit of passenger benefits and gets another piece of the jigsaw.
Birmingham New Street - Leicester - some passenger traffic can use etc.
Ely-Petrborough

etc

 

[A0]

There are probably two key improvements needed - Haughley Junction and Ely North.

Those two alone will alleviate a number of the capacity problems - not all the freight continues on towards Nuneaton so the improvements beyond Peterborough are, in the scheme of things, less important.

In terms of electrification, that's very much a 'nice to have' - there are a huge number of young (i.e. less than 20 year old) diesel freight locos. You can't just scrap those overnight. There are more practical things which can be done, such as replacing their engines with newer, lower emission variants which saves disposing of perfectly good locos prematurely which would otherwise go for scrap.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I have just found this gem. It is a large document so difficult to give a quote but I will try.

Freight Network Study April 2017 (networkrail.co.uk)

Network Rail is pleased to publish the Freight Network Study, which considers the future development of rail freight across the rail
network in Great Britain. This study forms part of the rail industry’s Long Term Planning Process (LTPP), which looks at the requirements
of the rail network over the next 30 years and is intended to support the series of Route Studies that have been published or are under
development.
Today, the railway carries hundreds of millions of passengers and tens of millions of tonnes of freight a year. Rail freight volumes have
increased significantly in the last twenty years, and the value of goods carried today is estimated to be in the region of £30 billion

 

[Bald Rick]

The simple answer is ... it’s an awful lot of money, and the full capacity isn’t needed yet. So elements are done to realise capacity over the years. There’s no need to do it all now.

Also freight forecasts are notoriously unreliable. Some of the growth Felixstowe forecast 10-20 years ago has instead gone to London Gateway, for which resolving Felixstowe - Nuneaton is of no use.

F2N did start as a gauge clearance project about 20 years ago, with clearing Ipswich Tunnel (again) the biggest item. Many things have been delivered under that broad heading subsequently, including lengthening the loop on the Felixstowe branch, Bacon Factory curve, additional signal sections in a few areas, the Nuneaton north chord (hardly used) and s few other bits and pieces.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Leicester is one of the more complicated and constrained areas. The line from Syston to Leicester is only 3 tracks, which could do nicely with a fourth track. Doubling Syston East Junction would be another issue to solve. I find that a grade separation at Wigston would make big differences for the better really. A lot of freight that goes through Leicester comes to/from the line from Narborough and South Wigston, through Leicester and off towards Melton Mowbray and onwards to Peterborough and so on. Without a grade separation here, there is no choice but to cross the busy MML to access these lines. This would also help with the CrossCountry services running to/from Birmingham as well, not having to interfere with MML traffic.

Based on pre-Covid data, Network Rail believed that 4-tracking from Wigston North to Leicester is/was a bit of a no-brainer, and suggests cracking on with business case development.
However grade separation seems to be off the agenda. This may be because the main growth foreseen by NR, Midlands Engine etc. is from West Midlands to Leicester and through Loughborough to points North (i.e. not towards Melton).

(Search "Leicester Area Strategic Advice" and get the source report from NR)
Note this study did not account for demand that might come from reopening the Ivanhoe line for passengers,
Also none of the demand scenarios seem to include additional Leicester-Peterborough XC services (unless they're already in the baseline).

The simple answer is ... it’s an awful lot of money, and the full capacity isn’t needed yet. So elements are done to realise capacity over the years. There’s no need to do it all now.

Yes, and the Leicester report to me shows how what was being talked about until 2019 ("Leicester Capacity Scheme"), which during CP6 suggested a big project of a flyover, extra platforms, 4-tracking Wigston to Syston and possibly a cherry on top has been split into a more incremental set of potential interventions, (EDIT) as it looks like we're seeing with electrification.

 

[TheBigD]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned anything about addressing the large number of level crossings along the route, particularly across the fens...

 

[Bald Rick]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned anything about addressing the large number of level crossings along the route, particularly across the fens...

That’s part of the Ely scheme.

 

[L Brightwell]

There are several fundamental problems in referring to F2N as a shorthand (and I confess to having used the term very loosely myself).

Obviously nothing is really going to or coming from 'Nuneaton' specifically. Traffic is either from even further afield (e.g. Trafford Park) or only goes part of the way anyway (e.g. turns off at Werrington). So it doesn't completely solve anything if you deal with all the bottlenecks and lack of wires on F2N but don't sort also out terminal access and capacity in Manchester or electrify the Joint Line. And so on.

There is only so much cash for freight upgrades and Felixstowe isn't the only candidate. E.g. the Southampton-West Midlands axis also needs an electrification solution and Peak District to London stone traffic also needs more capacity.

Any significant increase in traffic implies a lot of investment in new locomotives, wagons, terminals, warehousing and so forth; generally by private companies at a time when international trade patterns are in a state of flux anyway.

Rail freight makes next to no profit and usually only pays marginal costs for track access. Beyond that, even some existing flows from Felixstowe need continual Mode Shift Revenue Support (subsidy) to keep them from reverting to road. It is quite hard to make a business case on other than 'environmental' grounds (with many other schemes bidding for a similar pot, e.g. MML or Trans-Pennine electrification).

Meanwhile the various facilities within the Port complex are not well adapted to changing traction type on site and none of the three FOCs serving Felixstowe have any suitable bi-modes anyway.

For all of the calls to 'just get on with it' there are still a huge number of ducks to line up.

Thanks to our new member for raising the issue.

There's much needed work across the country to accommodate all this extra growth. I live in Anglia hence my specification on the F2N project.

The best thing to do will be to sort out and upgrade the most important projects and work down the list from high to low priority schemes. As bottlenecks only get worse as time goes on with extra rail traffic and increases the importance of being upgraded.

Projects on the F2N scheme have been needed for a while now, but are only becoming more and more desperate for upgrades as time goes on whilst more and more traffic is being introduced.

Whatever you do to upgrade the railway, it's no quick solution. We can only hope that important rail projects are carried out by Network Rail before these bottlenecks become too bad.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Mar 2021 ==

Based on pre-Covid data, Network Rail believed that 4-tracking from Wigston North to Leicester is/was a bit of a no-brainer, and suggests cracking on with business case development.
However grade separation seems to be off the agenda. This may be because the main growth foreseen by NR, Midlands Engine etc. is from West Midlands to Leicester and through Loughborough to points North (i.e. not towards Melton).

(Search "Leicester Area Strategic Advice" and get the source report from NR)
Note this study did not account for demand that might come from reopening the Ivanhoe line for passengers,
Also none of the demand scenarios seem to include additional Leicester-Peterborough XC services (unless they're already in the baseline).



Yes, and the Leicester report to me shows how what was being talked about until 2019 ("Leicester Capacity Scheme"), which during CP6 suggested a big project of a flyover, extra platforms, 4-tracking Wigston to Syston and possibly a cherry on top has been split into a more incremental set of potential interventions, (EDIT) as it looks like we're seeing with electrification.

The Leicester area upgrades comes with a few rail enhancement schemes, such as F2N and Midlands Engine Rail. Therefore I can see something like this being an important part of the railway to upgrade and to remove the multiple bottlenecks in Leicester and the surrounding area (i.e. Wigston, Syston East Junction).

 

[EllieAquitrain]

partial from John Smith MD Railfreight at the time: "Neither do I really understand some of the details of the electric spine. We are reviving and electrifying a stretch of railway between Oxford and Bletchley that’s been out of use for 20 years, before we electrify across Suffolk, double the Felixstowe branch or deal with the Immingham approaches.”

"electrifying [EWR]"

Hahaha

 

[swt_passenger]

"electrifying [EWR]"

Hahaha

Although quite correct in 2014?

 

[Glenn1969]

But will Midlands Engine Rail actually happen in the post Covid world? Especially if HS2b East is abandoned completely. Guess Leicester would a loser in those circumstances?

 

[HST43257]

But will Midlands Engine Rail actually happen in the post Covid world? Especially if HS2b East is abandoned completely. Guess Leicester would a loser in those circumstances?

I think the NIC was suggesting that such things should happen and not HS2, so local enhancements and not long distance. The issue is that, in my view, such upgrades are only worth it if HS2 happens.

 

[Class 170101]

The simple answer is ... it’s an awful lot of money, and the full capacity isn’t needed yet. So elements are done to realise capacity over the years. There’s no need to do it all now.

Also freight forecasts are notoriously unreliable. Some of the growth Felixstowe forecast 10-20 years ago has instead gone to London Gateway, for which resolving Felixstowe - Nuneaton is of no use.

F2N did start as a gauge clearance project about 20 years ago, with clearing Ipswich Tunnel (again) the biggest item. Many things have been delivered under that broad heading subsequently, including lengthening the loop on the Felixstowe branch, Bacon Factory curve, additional signal sections in a few areas, the Nuneaton north chord (hardly used) and s few other bits and pieces.

Haughley was supposed to have been done around 4/5 years ago now (I seem to recall a blockade for it) but never happened. However F2N will still be needed even if London Gateway expands simply because London Gateway traffic must either run via T&H or via GEML and NLL via Forest Gate Jn and Stratford - both flat Junctions.to reach the WCML at Willesden. The space isn't there for both Ports to send their trains via London so one must go Cross Country - Felixstowe Freight.

In terms of Nuneaton North its lack of use can only be because Felixstowe Freight goes via London rather than via Leicester and that relates to the constraints Haughley Jn - single lead junction, Soham to Ely Dock Jn single line, Ely North Jn and onwards to Peterborough, Werrington, Syston single line, then the three track section to Leicester and flat junction crossing moves in the Leicester area - quite a list there.

Agreed. I think like North Transpennine Upgrade where a piecemeal approach is being taken, this scheme and its add-ons also needs a piecemeal approach. It then has the benefit of keeping HMTreasury reasonably happy too.

Felixstowe- Ipswich wire and do the battery shunters in terminal.
Midland Mainline - gets the dual benefit of passenger benefits and gets another piece of the jigsaw.
Birmingham New Street - Leicester - some passenger traffic can use etc.
Ely-Petrborough

etc

Whilst it might suit HM Treasury to do things piecemeal politically doesn't this approach cost more in the long run?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Whilst it might suit HM Treasury to do things piecemeal politically doesn't this approach cost more in the long run?

tbh I am not sure. I would have thought with decent planning and a pipeline of work - not necessarily.

 

[Bald Rick]

Haughley was supposed to have been done around 4/5 years ago now (I seem to recall a blockade for it)

Over a decade ago, when the renewal was done.

However F2N will still be needed even if London Gateway expands

I’m not doubting that. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t all need doing right now.

 

[Class 170101]

Over a decade ago, when the renewal was done.




I’m not doubting that. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t all need doing right now.

Really that long ago for Haughley

Perhaps F2N might not need doing now in capacity terms though with few passengers for the last year and probably for most of this (somehow) an opportunity missed I would have thought.

 

[Bald Rick]

Perhaps F2N might not need doing now in capacity terms though with few passengers for the last year and probably for most of this (somehow) an opportunity missed I would have thought.

But when you need a Transport and Works Act Order, which takes an absolute minimum of two years...

 

[TheBigD]

Really that long ago for Haughley

Perhaps F2N might not need doing now in capacity terms though with few passengers for the last year and probably for most of this (somehow) an opportunity missed I would have thought.

Whilst there is certainly less passenger trains on the route, there hasn't been any reduction in the number of liners.