Peterborough to get Flyover

[CockneySparrow]

My only thought is IF this does go ahead and the junction is grade seperated, would we see MORE freight sent via Lincoln and if so would this mean more paths for InterCity services via Grantham?

Not to mention the fact that more trains would surely mean longer opening hours of the signalboxes as they're only open a few hours a day if that on the GN/GE line.

Signal boxes between Peterborough and Lincoln are due for closure this year, some have already been demolished, expect to see them all gone by Decembers timetable
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I did propose a new line from Kings Dyke to Peakirk - largely brownfield and peripheral Peterborough which would have solved this rebuilding of PBO and neatly bypass East Anglia freight via the GN/GE Joint line. A very senior NR manager quite liked it - but he has recently retired. It ought to be looked at again. It was walked , mapped and costed.
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Forget March- Wisbech - route lost for ever , and longer than the above proposal ....

Should have kept the March to Spalding line
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Wasn't there something recently about the difficulty in constructing the necessary gradients on the Nottingham-Lincoln line for a flyover due to the proximity of the A46 Newark by-pass and for a dive-under due to the proximity of the River Trent?

Or am I just imagining this?

There is alot of wet land north of Newark so would affect any plans for a flyover
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March - Spalding a great loss, it is now clear. With increasing intermodals from Harwich/Felixstowe, any routing to keep them away from the ECML south of Doncaster must be welcomed. In this sense, grade separating Werrington Junction is something of a red herring because ideally you'd not have the freight at PBO anyway.

March to Spalding is lost forever, if they were to get around the prison at the March end which could be possible but tight, they will be snookered at the Spalding end with no access what so ever

The trackbed in between is fairly much in tact, although in recent years new houses have become close to the line at Murrow

 

[mr_jrt]

March to Spalding is lost forever, if they were to get around the prison at the March end which could be possible but tight, they will be snookered at the Spalding end with no access what so ever

You know, they could never build buildings there - the land is lost to development, because a railway was built there. Point is, what's there can be demolished if the will is there. Look at the borders railway, for example. It increases costs dramatically, but the words 'impossible' and 'possible' have a very definite meanings and shouldn't be bandied about lightly.

 

[deltic08]

You know, they could never build buildings there - the land is lost to development, because a railway was built there. Point is, what's there can be demolished if the will is there. Look at the borders railway, for example. It increases costs dramatically, but the words 'impossible' and 'possible' have a very definite meanings and shouldn't be bandied about lightly.

Exactly.

A1(T) upgrade to motorway in North Yorkshire has swept away at least two dozen properties in 15 miles. Third runway at Heathrow will sweep away a whole village. Why should railway reinstatement be stopped over the loss of a few properties? Oh silly me, not a level playing field where railways are concerned.

 

[HSTEd]

Reopening between March and Spalding, even for a single track freight only line, would be massively more expensive than a flyover at Werrington Junction which essentially provides the same result.

 

[mr_jrt]

Reopening between March and Spalding, even for a single track freight only line, would be massively more expensive than a flyover at Werrington Junction which essentially provides the same result.

I have no particular interest in this area beyond generally being in favour of improvements to the railway, (so don't worry you've got an ideologue here! ) but in this case, I wouldn't say the two things are the same - improvements to the junction are nice, but unless you lay a new track from Werrington Junction through Peterborough station to the line to March, then you're comparing Apples and Oranges as the freight will have to consume precious ECML capacity for a short stretch, preventing the paths being used elsewhere as there aren't exactly many other branches to bring traffic in from to utilise them. At best, you have paths freed up by the commuter services terminating at Peterborough, in which case as long as you have a clear route through the station from the March line (didn't the recent changes achieve just this?) then you're ok, otherwise, nope. Note, I'm not that informed about the layout north of Peterborough, I can see a number of tracks dotted around (i.e. 5 past the junction), but the modern usages aren't clear from the info I have to hand, so I'd appreciate any info anyone could throw my way!

 

[Tomnick]

The five lines north of Peterborough are, from west to east: Down Slow/Stamford, Up Stamford, Down Fast, Up Fast, Up Slow (reversible as far as Werrington). Freight trains between March and Spalding running via a new flyover at Werrington wouldn't conflict with too much other traffic at Peterborough - really just a handful of trains from the south that either use the Down Slow for regulating purposes (including one or two ECML passengers) or are headed for Stamford. Most trains for the Down Slow/Stamford are from the March direction anyway, and likewise for those off the Up Stamford. There are a few that recess in the yards on the Up side of the ECML and cross (with difficulty!) to the Down Slow/Stamford or from the Up Stamford, and there'd still be conflict with these - though some may well be the very trains that would end up being diverted via Spalding anyway! There's also the potential for conflict with the faster passenger traffic between March (and beyond) and Peterborough - a few are booked to recess at March, presumably for this reason.

 

[mr_jrt]

Thanks for that. Any particular reason the Stamford lines qualify for segregation? i.e. is traffic high enough to warrant it? Seems reasonable enough that you'd just build a double track flyover to hook the joint line up to the Stamford lines and be done with it, any freight coming up the ECML proper can cross on the flat to the Stamford lines if they're that quiet.

...also, wonder why it's only 3 tracks between Peterborough and the Stamford line branching off...sort that (there's plenty of room) and once NR have completed Huntingdon to Peterborough then you'd have 4 tracks on the ECML almost all the way to Grantham (deliberately ignoring Welwyn ). Push on the short distance to Grantham by adding a new bore to Stoke tunnel and you would be able to restore the local service between Grantham and Peterborough...

 

[HSTEd]

There is no spare platform capacity at Grantham, and although you could fit another through platform on the existing electrified freight loop I don't know of any serious proposals to do that.

Also "restoring local service" is probably just going to end up as a euphemism for "Withdrawing the intercity service and reducing Grantham to 365s only".

Also judging by the destinations and sources of various flows it seems likely that extending the 4 track north to Grantham would require the conversion from the current paired-by-direction system to paired-by-use.
With the slow lines west of the fast lines between Grantham and Peterborough.
It avoids lots of conflicting moves at Grantham and Peterborough.

 

[SouthStand]

On a slightly related note. There are more works closures of the Wygate Park level crossing in Spalding planned. Can anyone tell us how far away are we from regular freight through Spalding and 75mph passenger services?

 

[Tomnick]

Thanks for that. Any particular reason the Stamford lines qualify for segregation? i.e. is traffic high enough to warrant it? Seems reasonable enough that you'd just build a double track flyover to hook the joint line up to the Stamford lines and be done with it, any freight coming up the ECML proper can cross on the flat to the Stamford lines if they're that quiet.

Historically, the Stamford (Midland Railway) lines formed a physically separate route to the ECML (Great Northern Railway), the latter being a conventional four-track railway at that point. The long level crossing at Helpston, for example, used to consist of two separate crossings, each operated from its own signal box. At some point (Peterborough resignalling?), the Down Slow was removed south of Helpston - possibly to allow curves to be eased on the fast lines? - and a connection put in from the Down Stamford at Helpston, allowing all slow line traffic to use the latter. There'd be no point in trying to rearrange the layout to do away with the segregation of the Stamford lines - the vast majority of traffic, barring only a handful of freights and one evening passenger train, is to/from March so needs to use the western side of Peterborough station anyway.

The earlier proposal to allow the flyover to be used by trains off the Up Slow (or Up Fast) seems entirely sensible. I'm sure that the amount of freight traffic will decrease significantly if a lot gets shoved onto the Joint, but there's still the hourly Norwich passenger to make that movement (which can only be done immediately north of Peterborough at present), which would probably justify the extra connections if there wasn't too much cost involved. There's occasional talk of altering the Liverpool - Norwich service to run via Melton though, which would ease Grantham's problems (probably requiring an additional service into Nottingham to compensate) and minimise the need for the Up Slow - west side movement at Peterborough. Is there any reasonable prospect of sufficient local traffic being generated between Peterborough and Grantham to warrant the extensive works that you speak of??

 

[MarkyT]

Thanks for that. Any particular reason the Stamford lines qualify for segregation? i.e. is traffic high enough to warrant it? Seems reasonable enough that you'd just build a double track flyover to hook the joint line up to the Stamford lines and be done with it, any freight coming up the ECML proper can cross on the flat to the Stamford lines if they're that quiet.

There's definitely an argument for dropping the double track flyover (or raising the flyunder) between the Stamford pair to minimise conflicts, but it might be expensive, requiring the Stamford bound (down?) line to follow a new alignment around the west of the new ramp. Should probably be an option to cost and consider.

...also, wonder why it's only 3 tracks between Peterborough and the Stamford line branching off...sort that (there's plenty of room) and once NR have completed Huntingdon to Peterborough then you'd have 4 tracks on the ECML almost all the way to Grantham (deliberately ignoring Welwyn ). Push on the short distance to Grantham by adding a new bore to Stoke tunnel and you would be able to restore the local service between Grantham and Peterborough...

If you put in the additional double track bore then the whole four track section between Peterborough and Grantham could be reassigned to paired by use rather than paired by direction. The westerly pair would then be the Nottingham lines, Nottingham - March trains in both directions would not have to touch the ECML at all. Then there would be an even more persuasive argument for the aforementioned Stamford/Joint Line grade separation.

However another option in the event of 4 tracks through from Grantham to Peterborough would be to route the freights on the new Nottingham pair through Grantham to Allington Junction triangle, then turn right to Sleaford where a new chord could give access to the Joint Line heading north.

 

[Class 170101]

Surely the problem then becomes if you pair by direction south of Peterborough and by speed north of Peterbroough you create the same problem that applies just north of York where there is a flat Junction at Skelton Bridge Jn. Lots of conflicts there I would have thought.

 

[Tomnick]

The vast majority of potential slow line traffic south of Peterborough will be either suburban passengers turning back at Peterborough, freight trains to/from Stamford or freight trains largely running to/from Spalding, so there'd be very few trains that'd need to cross from the Up Slow (north of Peterborough) to the Up Slow (south of Peterborough). That said, I can see very little justification, beyond the hourly Norwich passenger, for an extra bore at Stoke Tunnel - surely that, and the extensive remodelling/redesignation between Peterborough and Stoke would far exceed the cost of a flyover at Werrington?

 

[HSTEd]

If you did all that with four tracks to Grantham and an extra platform you could run a lot more Nottingham-East Anglia trains without too much difficulty though.
It also solves the Stoke tunnel bottleneck obviously - and cuts 15 minutes off the Nottingham-Grantham journey times by eliminating the pointless waits for ECML paths.

And I have a feeling skylighting the tunnel would be cheaper than a new bore... but that is just me.

 

[Tomnick]

It's a pretty poor show if we can't fit a couple of 90mph units in between a 6tph service over five miles or so of double track railway! An extra platform at Grantham and faster connections to/from the south would ease the pressure there - and remove the constraint of the single through platform for Nottingham trains - without the need for such extensive and expensive work further south. Non-stop via Melton is a similar journey time to the existing time via Grantham anyway!

 

[HSTEd]

Faster connections won't really help, the railway is pushed far too hard to accept additional trains.
You might as well just break the trains at Grantham in that case.

The problem is that you require enormous numbers of conflicting moves across the ECML and back again with the current layout.
Untangling the ECML traffic between Peterborough and Grantham and the addition of a chord at Sleaford solves the problems of a flyover and a great more besides.

£50m buys a single track flyover at Hitchin - so you would be looking at rather more for a Werrington flyover.

That would be a big chunk of the necessary money for the chord at Sleaford and the works at Grantham and further south.
A perfunctory inspection with Google Earth suggests the alignment is already three lines for a significant part of the distance so its not as if tis two tracks the entire way.

While its more expensive it is probably the better long term option.
Nottingham-East Anglia could be 20 minutes faster than via Melton and have far higher frequencies than could otherwise be imagined.

 

[Tomnick]

You're talking about Up trains between Nottingham and East Anglia crossing the ECML twice, currently once per hour. That could be reduced to once if they could use the new flyover at Werrington - hardly a huge constraint! Given that we're talking about a two-car DMU, I think the corridor will require a fair amount of growth before an increased frequency looks likely - even then, if the majority of the freight paths are shifted onto the Joint, there should be plenty of spare capacity. Do you have any estimate of the cost of a second bore at Stoke Tunnel, the adjustments to the layout at Helpston, the resignalling of everything between there and Grantham and the adjustments at Grantham? I'd be amazed if it didn't exceed the cost of a flyover and some minor changes to the layout at Werrington by a considerable margin, certainly in excess of any additional benefits that'd be achieved.

 

[HSTEd]

A flyover at Werrington is unlikely to be able to support moves across the ECML unless you want to push the price up even more.
The gradients required to enable easy use by freight trains would mean the approach would likely have to begin somewhere already on the Stamford line, precluding a "slalom" which would bring a line down on the east side of the ECML.

I have no idea how much a second bore would cost at Stoke Tunnel and I don't advocate such - instead I advocate sending in the diggers and simply removing the tunnel completely, the terrain is hardly highly mountainous - it is sufficiently shallow that it appears to have had a major effect on the growth of plant life above it.

Growth on the Nottingham-East Anglia route is currently constrained by awful journey times, ridiculous timings of the Grantham-Nottingham stretch (there is functionally only 1tph between nottingham and Grantham as the trains are 12 minutes apart) and the fact that there are no paths because a Class 158 that has to make those moves will eat up paths that are too expensive to spare as they are competing with an InterCity operator.

ECML-South resignalling is already programmed to occur in a few years time as part of the ETCS rollout so I don't think its reasonable to assume an all new resignalling from nothing would be required as part of this proposed project since you could delay this scheme until that time - indeed I doubt it could possibly happen before then.

 

[Tomnick]

We can probably add the cost of the closure of the ECML for several weeks then - earthworks on that scale around an operational tunnel of that age doesn't sound like a good combination. I agree that the existing Nottingham - Peterborough timings are painfully slow, but I'm sure that it's largely because of the constraints of other services on different parts of the route (there's a fair chunk of pathing allowance on the Up approaching Grantham, for example, not because of the ECML but because of the Liverpool-bound train coming off the single line at Nottingham Branch Jn) - starting again, with a blank canvas, I'm sure that much quicker paths could be found, but, as it is now, there's little point speeding one section of it up if it still has to fit into the same path through the sections on either side.

 

[ultrabox]

On a slightly related note. There are more works closures of the Wygate Park level crossing in Spalding planned. Can anyone tell us how far away are we from regular freight through Spalding and 75mph passenger services?

The linespeeds will increase once the final stage of resignalling is complete. Werrington Junction to Spalding closes after final train on Friday 24th October with Lincoln taking over control with the first trains on Monday 3rd November.

 

[CockneySparrow]

It was March - Spalding via French Drove & Cowbit. The Wisbech line originally continued on to a junction at Magdalen Road (the current Watlington station) with the Ely - Kings Lynn line.

The Watlington to Wisbech part is almost certainly blocked off in Wisbech, not sure whether there are any other obstacles along the way
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In a ideal world, the Spalding to March route would never have been closed but used for freight - besides what reason did BR give at the time for closing the route?

Still I wonder what we will end up at Werrington Junction, my gut tells me a Hitchin type flyover will be chosen.

Very suspect this one, it closed some years after the beeching cuts surviving until the early 80s, not sure when passenger services finished but think they were in the beeching era

Funny thing with this is that the line closed and track lifted then a few months later a prison was built over the track bed, so it was either decided the line had to go for the prison or the authorities were 100% on the ball for available land to build a prison
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I agree that the existing Nottingham - Peterborough timings are painfully slow, but I'm sure that it's largely because of the constraints of other services on different parts of the route (there's a fair chunk of pathing allowance on the Up approaching Grantham, for example, not because of the ECML but because of the Liverpool-bound train coming off the single line at Nottingham Branch Jn) - starting again, with a blank canvas, I'm sure that much quicker paths could be found, but, as it is now, there's little point speeding one section of it up if it still has to fit into the same path through the sections on either side.

The EMT services leaves Grantham then it gets pulled up to allow an East Coast service through to Peterborough,

 

[David Barrett]

Very suspect this one, it closed some years after the beeching cuts surviving until the early 80s, not sure when passenger services finished but think they were in the beeching era

The Spalding to March passenger service was withdrawn concurrently with the complete closure of the line with effect from 29th. November 1982. Three of the five intermediate stations served by stopping trains over the same section: Cowbit, Postland and French Drove, closed to passengers with effect from 11th. September 1961 although two, Murrow and Guyhirne, closed in 1953 so those going in 1961 were during Dr. Beeching's tenure but both pre-dated the publication of the reshaping report. Murrow lost its goods facilities in 1947 and Postland from 19th. April 1965 whilst the others went with effect from 6th. October 1964.

 

[MarkyT]

At Stoke I would build the new pair for the fasts slightly to the east of the existing tunnel. Once the new alignment was finished, all traffic could switch to it whilst the old alignment was temporarily closed for improvements, perhaps including opening out the tunnel to improve clearance for freight.

Four tracks throughout between Grantham and Peterborough could be coupled with a similar enhancement to the south as far as Huntingdon. The whole way could be paired by use and to avoid any changes to stations and signalling further south a flyover for the up slow to cross the fasts could be provided just to the north of Huntingdon that could also be useful for access to the north and south from any railfreight development on the old Alconbury air base site.

 

[Aictos]

The linespeeds will increase once the final stage of resignalling is complete. Werrington Junction to Spalding closes after final train on Friday 24th October with Lincoln taking over control with the first trains on Monday 3rd November.

I didn't know this, thanks for this *thumbs up* So what linespeed increases will we see then?

 

[deltic08]

Reopening between March and Spalding, even for a single track freight only line, would be massively more expensive than a flyover at Werrington Junction which essentially provides the same result.

March-Spalding via Peterborough is 13 miles longer than via Murrow. Over time this additional time and fuel use would exceed the cost difference between grade separation at Werrington and reopening the direct route. Short termism always wins even though it is not the most sensible option.

Reinstating March-Spalding would cost in the region of £180M for 19 miles. Grade separation at Werrington £80-£100M. That gives payback in 46 years by my calculations at current traffic frequency.

I don't understand why the Joint line is being upgraded to 75mph whereas the Settle-Carlisle remains 60mph where 90mph 158s operate.

 

[edwin_m]

I don't understand why the Joint line is being upgraded to 75mph whereas the Settle-Carlisle remains 60mph where 90mph 158s operate.

The Joint line is intended to get most daytime freight off the ECML including intermodals which are cleared to run at 75mph and if they were limited to a slower speed for a significant distance the FOCs would probably complain.

The S&C only carries bulk freight which is generally limited to 60mph - the 75mph stuff normally goes on the WCML. Even if higher speeds were possible the route via Blackburn and the S&C would probably be uncompetitive for time-sensitive freight.

 

[Bald Rick]

March-Spalding via Peterborough is 13 miles longer than via Murrow. Over time this additional time and fuel use would exceed the cost difference between grade separation at Werrington and reopening the direct route. Short termism always wins even though it is not the most sensible option.

Reinstating March-Spalding would cost in the region of £180M for 19 miles. Grade separation at Werrington £80-£100M. That gives payback in 46 years by my calculations at current traffic frequency.

I don't understand why the Joint line is being upgraded to 75mph whereas the Settle-Carlisle remains 60mph where 90mph 158s operate.

Many people on this forum would like to see your calculations for the £180m cost (compare to costs of other reopenings), the estimate for the Werrington flyover (compare to Hitchin) and the Net Present Values for the business case.

Also how do you then get a freight train from the London via the ECML (say from London Gateway or the NLL) to the joint line conflict free?

 

[Chris125]

Many people on this forum would like to see your calculations for the £180m cost (compare to costs of other reopenings), the estimate for the Werrington flyover (compare to Hitchin) and the Net Present Values for the business case.

I really can't see how it adds up, any time and fuel saving is surely outweighed by the need to maintain 19 miles of double track along with all the associated signalling and structures.

Chris

 

[Class 170101]

Many people on this forum would like to see your calculations for the £180m cost (compare to costs of other reopenings), the estimate for the Werrington flyover (compare to Hitchin) and the Net Present Values for the business case.

Also how do you then get a freight train from the London via the ECML (say from London Gateway or the NLL) to the joint line conflict free?

Send it over Hitchin Flyover thence via Cambridge.

If Crossrail gets its way then most Tilbury freight will be routed via the T&H anyway and there is no route from the T&H to the East Coast Main Line from the Tilbury direction. It would need to travel via the MML instead to Doncaster.

 

[deltic08]

Many people on this forum would like to see your calculations for the £180m cost (compare to costs of other reopenings), the estimate for the Werrington flyover (compare to Hitchin) and the Net Present Values for the business case.

Also how do you then get a freight train from the London via the ECML (say from London Gateway or the NLL) to the joint line conflict free?

Looking at the trackbed on Google Earth, many of the structures are intact. The bridge over the Nene is missing but supports are present. Very few buildings block the route even in Cowbit and outskirts of Spalding.

The junction at March is intact and signalled together with a mile of track. That leaves 18 miles to restore. I have not included land purchase as I don't know how much remains with the property board. We are only looking at 60-70 acres of poor quality land.

I have taken data from Borders rail 2010 and Ripon-Harrogate 2006reinstatements of which I have intimate involvement.

Borders railway was costed at £8.2M per mile with 16 miles of double track dynamic loops. Ripon-Harrogate was costed at £3.4M per mile for single line with a four mile dynamic loop or £4.3M per mile double track throughout. Signalling is including in these estimates but I have deducted station costs as there would be no stations Spalding-March.

We all know that Borders rail is £70M over budget at £350M due to the false start before Network Rail took over therefore dynamic loops have been shortened by seven miles to save money.

I just averaged the cost of the two schemes per mile, added the cost of say twenty former level crossing replacement bridges at £1.5M each, twenty properties costing £0.5 each ( including disruption compensation) plus 10% inflation from 2010 and it came to £183M.

Can anybody come up with a more accurate figure?