Opportunity for an East Lincoln Parkway?

[Meerkat]

Lincoln station is cramped, has very limited parking, and the traffic in the City is ugly.
With the advent of an improved direct London service and the building of the Eastern bypass would an East Parkway be a good idea?
I am thinking on the Grimsby line just before it goes under the new bypass, which has a convenient junction nearby. Quite a bit of employment in the vicinity and a bus link to the nearby County hospital might be quicker than going from Central. With the bypass it could be a railhead for a large area.
Wouldn’t be cheap (even by railway standards) as you would want to have enough platforms or sidings to terminate services from the West.
If you were using Parkway to terminate services from the West could that mean Central wouldn’t need more than two platforms, enabling the lengthening of the main two to accept full IET lengths?

 

[Aictos]

What about the Peterborough, Leicester, Leeds terminators etc?

You also forget that the current Lincoln Central is well placed for local transport such as buses, surely a better idea of such a business plan exists is to keep Central as it is but open up a Parkway station with two platforms to encourage commuters to use that station.

 

[Grimsby town]

I completely agree with this. Currently the Sheffield service waits at Lincoln for 40 minutes, the London service is likely to have a long layover in Lincoln and the proposed Newark Northgate shuttle would have enough time to reach such a station.

My preferred solution however would be to have a station at both Cherry Willingham/Reepham and Washingborough. Theses stations could each be served by one terminating train per hour and one train running through to either Peterborough or Grimsby.

 

[si404]

This is a very good idea. Looking at the December timetable, you get stuff like Newark - Peterborough services to reduce terminating at Lincoln.

I'd second a station at Washingborough as an idea. Not necessarily as an alternative for the A15 Parkway. One station should be just off the A15, but the other doesn't have to be. Two stations for terminating instead of Lincoln is a good idea - there's enough trains from the west to provide >2tph service to two places east of Lincoln, though I guess having >3tph at a parkway station almost makes it good enough to use as a park & ride for Lincoln (which isn't the primary purpose, of course!)

 

[class26]

Is Central being cramped with restricted space the reason why the new LNER 800 service to London have such poor paths to Newark ? They often have a wait of approx 15 minutes at Newark before setting off south when the best solution would be to depart Lincoln later and have 2 / 3 minutes at Newark but presumably they have to vacate the platform at Lincoln?

The idea is very good I hope it gains support away from this forum.

 

[class26]

What about the Peterborough, Leicester, Leeds terminators etc?

You also forget that the current Lincoln Central is well placed for local transport such as buses, surely a better idea of such a business plan exists is to keep Central as it is but open up a Parkway station with two platforms to encourage commuters to use that station.

I don`t think anyone is suggesting closing central for this new station. Lincoln central, you are right is wonderfully placed for the city centre. The parkway station would be further east, built where there was space and after central could terminate or continue to elsewhere. The idea of a proper transport hub is far too good for it to ever happen I guess !

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Lincoln station is cramped, has very limited parking, and the traffic in the City is ugly.
With the advent of an improved direct London service and the building of the Eastern bypass would an East Parkway be a good idea?
I am thinking on the Grimsby line just before it goes under the new bypass, which has a convenient junction nearby. Quite a bit of employment in the vicinity and a bus link to the nearby County hospital might be quicker than going from Central. With the bypass it could be a railhead for a large area.
Wouldn’t be cheap (even by railway standards) as you would want to have enough platforms or sidings to terminate services from the West.
If you were using Parkway to terminate services from the West could that mean Central wouldn’t need more than two platforms, enabling the lengthening of the main two to accept full IET lengths?

I would not reduce the number of platforms

 

[Meerkat]

I would not reduce the number of platforms

Why not? If few trains terminate then you don’t need them all and it would allow lengthening of the current platforms.

 

[tbtc]

The idea is very good I hope it gains support away from this forum.

It certainly gains my support - you could provide a way of getting people out of their cars, make central Lincoln much nicer (without all of the traffic) - it seems a practical idea that would solve current problems (rather than any "re-opening" scheme).

The only question is how frequent services to a Parkway station would need to be to attract motorists - at the moment Lincoln doesn't have huge numbers of trains passing through - if you built it on the Grimsby line then (once the new EMR franchise is running its planned services) you could have:

• Hourly Nottingham - Grimsby service
• Hourly Leeds/Sheffield - Lincoln service
• Bi-hourly London - Lincoln service
• Bi-hourly Newark - Lincoln service

...but these probably won't be brilliantly co-ordinated (since they come from different directions), so you could easily have gaps of half an hour or longer between trains, which might not be very attractive for motorists - would you wait half an hour for a five minute train journey? So it may require an extra DMU to shuttle between the P&R and central Lincoln to ensure a good enough frequency - certainly at peak times - that's not a huge obstacle, of course - I'm just wondering how long a gap between trains I'd accept before I decided to risk a P&R instead of driving into central Lincoln.

Maybe if you extended the planned hourly Doncaster - Lincoln service and all Peterborough services too then you'd have enough of a "turn up and go" frequency?

Good idea in theory - I'm certainly not arguing against it - just raising one practicality.

 

[Meerkat]

The Parkway wouldn’t be a P&R for Lincoln itself. It would be for long distance/regional traffic to London/Nottingham/Sheffield. Must be a decent sized market to the west of Lincoln who are car dependent and wouldn’t drive into central Lincoln to catch a train.
Would hopefully take traffic off the Lincoln to Newark road, which is pretty rotten for traffic.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is Central being cramped with restricted space the reason why the new LNER 800 service to London have such poor paths to Newark ? They often have a wait of approx 15 minutes at Newark before setting off south when the best solution would be to depart Lincoln later and have 2 / 3 minutes at Newark but presumably they have to vacate the platform at Lincoln?

Average wait at Newark (NNG) in RTT for mid October is 6 mins, none are shown as waiting for 15 mins although there is an 11 minute that skews the average.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...3/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=GR
The individual wait times are: 3, 11, 4, 6, 7...
Then that single 11 min wait at NNG is gone in the Dec 16 timetable, with the average wait over the 6 services reducing to a reasonable 4 mins...

 

[si404]

So it may require an extra DMU to shuttle between the P&R and central Lincoln to ensure a good enough frequency - certainly at peak times - that's not a huge obstacle, of course - I'm just wondering how long a gap between trains I'd accept before I decided to risk a P&R instead of driving into central Lincoln.

As has been pointed out, it's not primarily for people to park and get the train to Central Lincoln, but for people to park and get the train there instead of doing that in Central Lincoln.

See also Southampton Airport Parkway, Birmingham International, Worcestershire Parkway, Oxford Parkway, etc.

 

[class26]

As has been pointed out, it's not primarily for people to park and get the train to Central Lincoln, but for people to park and get the train there instead of doing that in Central Lincoln.

See also Southampton Airport Parkway, Birmingham International, Worcestershire Parkway, Oxford Parkway, etc.

If that`s the case siting is crucial. If it`s on the Grimsby line then it will only appeal to those going to West and south. For Sleaford, Spalding , Boston Doncaster it would still be necessary to go to Central unless a spur from the Sleaford line was built to divert that line into the new Parkway station ? That would no doubt increase the cost hugely.

 

[Meerkat]

If that`s the case siting is crucial. If it`s on the Grimsby line then it will only appeal to those going to West and south. For Sleaford, Spalding , Boston Doncaster it would still be necessary to go to Central unless a spur from the Sleaford line was built to divert that line into the new Parkway station ? That would no doubt increase the cost hugely.

I am not convinced anyone is going to drive to a station to get a slow train along the Doncaster-Peterborough line. The market is London/Nottingham

 

[tbtc]

The Parkway wouldn’t be a P&R for Lincoln itself. It would be for long distance/regional traffic to London/Nottingham/Sheffield

As has been pointed out, it's not primarily for people to park and get the train to Central Lincoln, but for people to park and get the train there instead of doing that in Central Lincoln.

See also Southampton Airport Parkway, Birmingham International, Worcestershire Parkway, Oxford Parkway, etc.

The market is London/Nottingham

Fair enough - just seems a wasted opportunity to build a station like that for the sake of an hourly stop on the Grantham service and a bi-hourly London service, when there's so much traffic congestion in/around central Lincoln that could be removed if there were a frequent/attractive enough P&R facility for journeys into Lincoln itself.

The examples cited above are in areas of the country with much higher population density (e.g. a large part of the target market for motorists wanting a P&R on the east of Lincoln is the Wolds), close to motorways or other roads that are generally busier than the A46 and with a much more frequent London service (if that's the market that you are intending to focus on).

<crayon mode> if the idea is to build a huge car park for Lincolnshire people heading to London, why not replace the two Newark stations with an out-of town one at the diamond crossing (and a thousand parking spaces)? (yes, I know the River Trent etc etc )

 

[Meerkat]

<crayon mode> if the idea is to build a huge car park for Lincolnshire people heading to London, why not replace the two Newark stations with an out-of town one at the diamond crossing (and a thousand parking spaces)? (yes, I know the River Trent etc etc

A split level station at Newark has long been a favourite idea of mine - would hugely improve connectivity. But not instead of a Lincoln East Parkway. The Lincoln Bypass and especially the Newark bypass/A1 junction are very very congested

 

[VT 390]

<crayon mode> if the idea is to build a huge car park for Lincolnshire people heading to London, why not replace the two Newark stations with an out-of town one at the diamond crossing (and a thousand parking spaces)? (yes, I know the River Trent etc etc )

If this were to happen would't it mean that it would no longer be able to have direct London to Lincoln services unless they missed Newark?

 

[Meerkat]

My crayon version has the Nottingham line stay south of the bypass until East of the ECML, bringing the split level station close to the main road into town. North Gate would close and the link between ECML and the Lincoln line would remain, just north of the new station.
All hugely expensive and would need combining with a (very necessary) revamp of the bypass.