Modern Railways – April 2019

http://www.modern-railways.com April 2019 Modern Railways 71

Thurston and Elmswell were reprieved from

closure in the 1960s and Needham Market was

reopened in the 1980s – happily the rather

fine Jacobean-style stations have survived

and are in some cases let for non-railway use.

Newmarket is a sadder story, with very basic

facilities adjacent to the station buildings.

The growth here is even higher; the

Cambridge – Ipswich service was recast to hourly

intervals in 2005, supplemented east of Kennett

by the two-hourly Peterborough – Ipswich

service, albeit this calls only at Bury St Edmunds.

There would appear to be scope for linkage

towards London at the Cambridge end.

In contrast to the Norwich route, competition

on this fast-growing corridor is from the A14 and

is more tempered by Felixstowe lorry traffic and

congestion. The route east of Kennett is shared with

the increasingly significant Felixstowe container

traffic, while west of Kennett there are infrastructure

constraints – it is single track to Cambridge with a

passing loop at Dullingham, while the route into

Ely is single track from Soham. Flirts are again due

to replace the mix of DMUs currently in use. a

the traffic at Wymondham and Attleborough is

primarily linked thereto. The new service was a

good ‘spot’ by the innovative Anglia Railways,

which promoted it with the Strategic Rail

Authority in 2002 through the Rail Partnership

fund! Brandon was added as a stop in 2007.

It is notable that since 2014, the year in

which the A11 road was dualled west from

Thetford to Barton Mills, demand on the route

has stagnated east of Thetford after a period of

significant growth. The A11/A14 route is about

10 miles shorter than the railway between

Norwich and Cambridge, but is unreliable.

Much of the route is cleared for 90mph and

the trains typically take around 80 minutes

end-to-end for the 68 miles with six stops (the

Norwich – Cambridge trains do not stop at

Waterbeach). It is double track throughout

but littered with level crossings. The route was

resignalled from Ely to near Norwich in 2012 and

the new equipment was initially very unreliable.

Rolling stock is Class 170s, but they

are shortly to be displaced by the Stadler

Flirt bi-modes, with trains projected

south to Stansted Airport. The Flirts

will use electric power south of Ely.

IPSWICH ROUTE TOO

Just to demonstrate that the service is not

unique in the area, the statistics for the

Ipswich – Cambridge route are shown in

Table 2. Included are intermediate stations

west of Stowmarket, plus Needham Market,

between Ipswich and Stowmarket on the

main line but only served by local trains.

TABLE 2: IPSWICH TO CAMBRIDGE INTERMEDIATE STATION USAGE

1997-98 2013-14 2017-18

Needham Market 36 91 101

Elmswell 15 80 69

Thurston 14 78 72

Bury St Edmunds 166 578 652

Kennett 8 30 39

Newmarket 59 285 359

Dullingham 11 36 39

Source: Office of Rail and Road. Figures in thousands

Breckland line: Greater Anglia’s No 170203

departs from Wymondham during a snow

shower forming the 09.38 Norwich – Cambridge

service on 17 March 2018. Antony Guppy

DREAMING SPIRES ALSO GROWING

Cambridge’s rival university city of Oxford also

appears to be doing well from rail traffic. I was

reading a blog which mentioned that one of the

coach operators had halved the Oxford to London

frequency to half-hourly, although the ‘Oxford

Tube’ is still every 12 minutes, albeit with lighter

loads observed.

Judging from the ORR statistics (Table 3), it

looks like much of the coach traffic has gone to

rail. For around five years usage at Oxford station

had been around the 6.5 million mark before a

noticeable rise in 2017-18. However, the traffic

does not appear to have necessarily switched to

Chiltern Railways services to Marylebone, which

finally arrived at Oxford in December 2016, having

reached Oxford Parkway in October 2015. On the

Chiltern route the great success story of last year

was Bicester Village station, while traffic at Bicester

North has roughly halved since Village reopened

with through services to Marylebone. Big growth

in local traffic from Bicester Village to Oxford

looks likely.

Numbers from Oxford are generally up,

probably an early win for Great Western’s new IETs,

which bodes well for the planned speed-up of

Paddington to Oxford services. I have to say that

IETs are a lot better than the crowded Turbo DMUs

which used to operate some of the fast trains.

TABLE 3: OXFORD AND BICESTER STATION USAGE

2016-17 2017-18

Oxford 6.5 8.0

Oxford Parkway 0.8 0.9

Bicester Village 1.3 2.0

Bicester North 0.9 0.8

London Marylebone 16.7 16.7

Source: Office of Rail and Road. Figures in millions

Competing with the A14: GA’s No 170203 passes East Barton, just east of Thurston,

with the 13.20 Ipswich – Cambridge service on 12 December 2018. Antony Guppy

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