NR Anglia Route Study

[Christopher125]

Following on from the GWML and Sussex areas, Network Rail have now published their draft 'Anglia Route Study'

 

Anglia Route Study: Draft for Consultation

 

The route covers four main lines through Greater London, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. These are the Great Eastern Main Line from Liverpool Street to Norwich and branches, the West Anglia Line from Liverpool Street to Cambridge and Kings Lynn and branches, the Thameside Lines from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness via Upminster and Tilbury and the North London Lines from Stratford to Richmond including the Barking to Gospel Oak Line.

 

The Anglia area is also a significant generator for freight with many freight facilities located around the route including the Port of Felixstowe and the newly opened Thames Gateway port.

 

The route study identifies a number of constraints across the network, the most significant of which is on-train crowding on peak services into London Liverpool Street and London Fenchurch Street. Other constraints examined include regional and suburban connectivity and access to diversionary routes.

 

The study identifies a range of choices for funders for Control Period 6 (2019-2024) to address these constraints, comprising train lengthening and additional services to increase capacity in order to accommodate the growth in passenger and freight services whilst maintaining performance.

 

In the longer term the Long Term Planning Process proposes a strategy to address the challenge of accommodating the projections for growth, outlined in the four Market Studies, for passenger and freight services through to 2043.

The document itself can be found here (.pdf)

 

Chris

[Christopher125]

Summary for CP6:

 

Great Eastern Main Line (including cross-country freight)

 

0.4.2 In order to meet the conditional outputs GECO1, GECO2, GECO3, and F2NCO1, a range of options are presented to funders.

These include:

• additional platform capacity at Liverpool Street

• headway reductions between Chelmsford and Stratford

• provision of a passing loop at Haughley Junction

• doubling of Trowse swing bridge

• headway reductions on the Bury St Edmunds line

• further doubling of the Felixstowe branch

• further doubling between Ely and Soham

• level crossing closures at Ely

• increased linespeeds to at least 110 mph between Shenfield and Norwich

• provision of a passing loop north of Witham.

 

West Anglia Main Line

 

0.4.3 In order to meet the conditional outputs WACO1 and WACO3, the options presented to funders are:

• platform lengthening to 12-cars at 18 stations

• increases in linespeeds up to 100 mph.

 

Further journey time improvements on services to

Cambridge and Stansted Airport would depend on the ability to

separate fast trains from slow trains south of Broxbourne. This is

likely to require an additional pair of tracks between Broxbourne

and Tottenham Hale, the cost of which, however, may not be

justified by journey time improvements alone.

 

Additional benefits (and funding streams) would need to be captured, such

as the connectivity and capacity improvements proposed by the Crossrail

2 project or the need for additional capacity triggered by

development in the Lea Valley. Some early enabling works are

presented as options for CP6 including level crossing removal and

land purchase.

 

North London Line and Gospel Oak-Barking Line

 

0.4.5 To meet the conditional outputs CLC01 and CLFCO1, it is

the route study’s assessment that the extra capacity planned for

CP5 will be sufficient to accommodate the anticipated demand up

to the end of CP6, for both passenger and freight services.

 

0.4.6 Despite this the study sets out several schemes that would

support resilience on the routes in particular in relation to the mix of

freight and passenger traffic. This are noted in the longer term

sections below, but depending on the growth in freight traffic from

North Thameside during CP5 and CP6 may be required earlier.

 

Essex Thameside

 

0.4.7 In order to meet the conditional outputs ETCO1 and ETCFO1, the following options are proposed:

• lengthening from 8-cars to 12-cars of 8 trains in the three-hour morning peak

• works to improve passenger circulation at Fenchurch Street.

 

0.4.8 There is adequate capacity to meet the forecast demand

for freight services up to the end of CP6.

 

Chris

[Joseph_Pestell]

Seems strange that they need extra capacity at Liverpool St given the number of trains diverted onto Crossrail.

 

A difficult location to expand so probably more sensible to divert West Anglia services via Seven Sisters into a new tunnel at Stoke Newington. In turn, that could free up paths through Tottenham Hale where quadrupling is quite difficult (although 3 tracks with bi-directional running should not be too difficult).

[Glorious NSE]

The residents of Ely i'm sure would love to get rid of that crossing by the station...

[great central]

The residents of Ely i'm sure would love to get rid of that crossing by the station...

 

But would they love the replacement bridge, it'd be massive. Unless a tunnel was dug and somehow prevented from flooding?

[Glorious NSE]

But would they love the replacement bridge, it'd be massive. Unless a tunnel was dug and somehow prevented from flooding?

 

Assuming they weren't stuck in traffic, I bet they would...

[Fenman]

The residents of Ely i'm sure would love to get rid of that crossing by the station...

Planning permission has just been granted for a by-pass which will take the heavy traffic, leaving the underpass open for cars. I understand it is then intended to close the level crossing.

 

Paul

[Glorious NSE]

So actually that one may happen without NR having to do anything! Bonus.

[Mike Storey]

Have scan-read through much of the report and in some detail on the freight market analysis and separate freight market study. What I find incredible is that no projection has been attributed to the creation of Liverpool2 giant dock to accommodate the huge container ships which will start to use the widened Panama Canal (PanaMax) from next year.Currently such ships from the far east head south around South America and approach the UK from the south, so that Southampton and the Haven ports (Felixstowe, Harwich, Thameshaven etc) are convenient. From 2015 many will be approaching across the northern Atlantic. Liverpool will be a logical port of call for many of these, given much of the traffic heads to the midlands, north and Scotland.

 

A number of the most significant schemes in Anglia depend on a business case to support the level of container train movement from the Haven ports, either partially or wholly, which help a large number of the passenger schemes in their bids for funding. I just wonder whether these schemes will survive into the longer term if Liverpool (and possibly later, Bristol) new traffic has not been built into the modelling, causing lower growth (or worse) in Anglia. I would hope that someone has dealt with this, but I can see no reference to it at all. Has anyone seen it elsewhere?

[Christopher125]

Seems strange that they need extra capacity at Liverpool St given the number of trains diverted onto Crossrail.

 

A difficult location to expand so probably more sensible to divert West Anglia services via Seven Sisters into a new tunnel at Stoke Newington. In turn, that could free up paths through Tottenham Hale where quadrupling is quite difficult (although 3 tracks with bi-directional running should not be too difficult).

Crossrail will continue to run some services into Liverpool St which will lose a platform as a result:

 

2.4.3 ...In addition during peak times, a Crossrail residual

service will operate 4 tph between Gidea Park and the existing

London Liverpool Street terminus station.

 

2.4.4 Following the introduction of Crossrail services, the

number of platforms at London Liverpool Street station will reduce

from 18 to 17. This is to enable platforms 16 and 17 to be

lengthened to accommodate Crossrail trains.

 

Remodelling Bow Jct will also allow some extra service:

 

2.4.5 Network Rail are developing a scheme for CP5 that will

remodel Bow Junction to allow trains running on the Main Lines to

make use of the Electric Lines between the Crossrail tunnel portal at

Stratford and London Liverpool Street station. This will enable

longer-distance trains to make better use of the platform capacity

freed up at London Liverpool Street by Crossrail. Initially, this project

will provide the infrastructure to support an additional two peak tph

main line services, likely to originate from the Southend line. This

will increase the number of trains using the Main Lines between

Shenfield and Stratford by two tph in the high peak morning hour.

 

As for the WAML Crossrail 2 would emerge at Tottenham Hale and reinstate four tracks from there northwards, but extra capacity can be provided in the meantime:

 

2.5.1 A scheme is currently in development that will increase

the number of trains along the West Anglia route between Stratford

and Angel Road to provide increased station stops and additional

capacity on the route. This will be achieved by providing an

additional track from around the Coppermill Junction area

northwards to Angel Road...with a view to achieving a standard

four tph service between Stratford and Angel Road stations, two

of which will continue north to Bishops Stortford.

 

 

Chris

[Glorious NSE]

I think it's a big unknown to everybody Mike - most of the existing routes also seem to include a call on the European mainland as well, coming up the channel and doing Rotterdam and Felixstowe, or Southampton and Hamburg (for instance) is no bother - but calling at Liverpool would put them the wrong side of England to do the mainland Europe call - effectively any time you save calling at Liverpool instead of Felixstowe you lose again on the way to the mainland.

 

Some folk are predicting that will mean that the new larger ships will just not choose to use those newly expanded ports on the West of the UK, other folk are predicting them to call there and rail a large chunk of their load to mainland Europe via the tunnel - I think the latter sounds unlikely to me, but time will tell...

 

Another uncertainty is what happens to Felixstowe in light of the new competition on the Thames - does it grow? Shrink? Remain static?

If Thames Gateway has the huge growth, then the capacity to get that traffic across North London is critical.

If Felixstowe has huge growth, much of that can be dealt with by putting capacity in on the cross country route, but that would be useless for Gateway traffic.

[Astockfan101]

Anyone know what will happen with the bay platform at ilford when Crossrail starts? 

[lmsforever]

Something needs to be done with this line as my recent journey  did not seem inter city more like a slow cross country amble ,the passengers deserve a better class of journey and the region can only benefit from developments on the track.I cant see how Liverpool Street can be expanded its hemmed in by buildings and the answer could be going underground  for new services with connections up to the existing concourse.I hope that new trains are going to arrive sooner than later and that they will offer a good passenger experience and not be glorified commuter units that are to arrive on other lines nearby ,modern inter city coaches will attract more passengers must arrive soon . 

[Foulounoux]

Planning permission has just been granted for a by-pass which will take the heavy traffic, leaving the underpass open for cars. I understand it is then intended to close the level crossing.

Paul

Do they also mean closing the queen Adelaide crossings as well The report talks of crossings.

[Christopher125]

I cant see how Liverpool Street can be expanded its hemmed in by buildings and the answer could be going underground  for new services with connections up to the existing concourse.[/i]

There's more possibilities than you might think, see page 80:

 

Summary of intervention: This option is to provide additional platforms at London Liverpool Street to support the increase in services from the GEML.

 

Options for potential additional platform locations

• new platform 0 located within the shopping area to the west side of London Liverpool Street Station, but potentially requiring platform

1 to be shortened

• three new platforms between the existing platforms 10 and 11, one adjacent to platform 10 and two within the taxi rank area

• remodelling of the existing platforms 1-10 within the western most train shed to allow provision of an additional three 12-car length

platforms or an additional two 12-car and two 10-car platforms

• creation of an additional terminus station to the north of London Liverpool Street within the area of Network Rail owned land adjacent

to Shoreditch High Street station on the East London Line. This would potentially be utilised by services from the West Anglia route

 

Chris

[Suzie]

It is hard to see how any freight can be accommodated south of Ipswich with all the GOBLIN freight capacity being eaten up by Thames Gateway making the obvious new chord at Forest Gate pointless, and freights crossing the main line on the flat at Stratford has got to eat in to capacity to be completely unrealistic.

 

Surely it should be possible to do some work at Liverpool Street to extend the platforms into the current concourse area to add a few coaches to main line trains and perhaps provide a new larger concourse at ground level above the platforms instead of the inadequate space that is in use currently.

 

Replacing the loco hauled trains (with non-passenger DVTs) with proper mainline EMUs will give platform capacity for another two coaches so it should not be a big job to get Norwich trains up to 12-car formation from the current 9-car formations. Increased line speed will reduce the number of replacement trains required too.

[Mike Storey]

I think it's a big unknown to everybody Mike - most of the existing routes also seem to include a call on the European mainland as well, coming up the channel and doing Rotterdam and Felixstowe, or Southampton and Hamburg (for instance) is no bother - but calling at Liverpool would put them the wrong side of England to do the mainland Europe call - effectively any time you save calling at Liverpool instead of Felixstowe you lose again on the way to the mainland.

 

Some folk are predicting that will mean that the new larger ships will just not choose to use those newly expanded ports on the West of the UK, other folk are predicting them to call there and rail a large chunk of their load to mainland Europe via the tunnel - I think the latter sounds unlikely to me, but time will tell...

 

Another uncertainty is what happens to Felixstowe in light of the new competition on the Thames - does it grow? Shrink? Remain static?

If Thames Gateway has the huge growth, then the capacity to get that traffic across North London is critical.

If Felixstowe has huge growth, much of that can be dealt with by putting capacity in on the cross country route, but that would be useless for Gateway traffic.

 

Thanks Martyn

 

DBS appear to be promising to operate up to 4 trains per day from Gateway now, via Barking and Gospel Oak to the midlands and north, all at night, which will be interesting once the capacity works on GOB start in earnest. I see that most of the big shipping lines have "signed up" to Gateway, but most abstraction has so far been from Tilbury and Thamesport. They promise only 30% of their containers will go by rail. As you say, it is wait and see, but if they do go to plan, I would avoid the Thurrock junction on the M25 for the next 50 years. They plan up to 6 giant berths, which is more than Felixstowe and Southampton put together (5).

[Gwiwer]

 

 

• creation of an additional terminus station to the north of London Liverpool Street within the area of Network Rail owned land adjacent

to Shoreditch High Street station

 

Which shall not be called Broad Street under any circumstances

 

To some extent more capacity can be created at Liverpool Street by reducing turn back times for longer-distance trains.  Those for inner and outer suburban services are already quite short at times and reliability must always be borne in mind.  But I see no need to have a Norwich set occupying a platform for 30 minutes when 15 would do as one example.  Yes this would require timetable changes but those will be inevitable as Crossrail comes on stream and the new Anglia franchise develops.

 

There is plenty of spare capacity on the Temple Mills route north from Stratford but the pinch points which restrict its usefulness are the six tracks from Liverpool Street to Bethnal Green (which cannot be increased) and the layout around Stratford itself making the Down Main the only viable option for trains then taking the Lea Valley route without creating conflicting moves.  

 

Another variable in the melting pot is to what extent Cambridge traffic (and possibly beyond to Kings Lynn) might shift onto - or indeed away from - the future Thameslink services to serve that city.  That then has an impact upon demand and service provision on the West Anglia route.  

 

Platform 18 at Liverpool Street cannot be extended due to the constrained site therefore Crossrail has been allocated the next available 16 and 17 which could be lengthened.  I anticipate the arrangement will operate something akin to Euston where LOROL trains serve two platforms amid LM and VT ones either side.  In times of need those platforms need not be exclusive to Crossrail just as the LOROL ones at Euston and the GatEx ones at Victoria are also used by other services if required.

 

Time will tell how customer demand settles and what future service provision will be required.  How many will shift from Liverpool Street as a destination / interchange and how many find Crossrail station through central London preferable.  Liverpool Street is however quite admirably situated for those working in the Square Mile many of whom may not find any need to change their travel habits.

 

An interesting read on the whole and a document which highlights, when read between the lines, the vast difference between the intensive commuter and main line services at Liverpool Street and the rural byways of East Anglia such as Reedham - Yarmouth where the only intermediate station with its handful of stops-by-request trains serves little more than a pub and windmill.

[Mike Storey]

Which shall not be called Broad Street under any circumstances

 

Absolutely, because it is part of the old Bishopsgate site!

[Fenman]

... Another variable in the melting pot is to what extent Cambridge traffic (and possibly beyond to Kings Lynn) might shift onto - or indeed away from - the future Thameslink services to serve that city. That then has an impact upon demand and service provision on the West Anglia route.

...

 

While it was included for a time as an outer Thameslink route, Cambridge-King's Lynn has been removed from all recent proposals. The idea seems to be that KL-London KX will go half-hourly after Ely infrastructure mprovements are completed, and these will form the non-stop London (KX terminus) services, all served by Electrostars (other Cambridge services currently using KX will all shift to Thameslink and Class 700s) - the proposed use of SETs to KL has been dropped.

 

KL to/from Liverpool St is currently an afterthought, and demand drops precipitously between Ely and KL (I used an Abellio GA service last night, and it was like a ghost train by the time it arrived at KL, with just 2 others in my carriage). This might be due to the slowness of Cambridge-LivSt compared to the KX route? Unless you're a City worker, KX (even before Thameslink) is likely to be a more useful terminus for you than LivSt.

 

Paul

[The Stationmaster]

I think it's a big unknown to everybody Mike - most of the existing routes also seem to include a call on the European mainland as well, coming up the channel and doing Rotterdam and Felixstowe, or Southampton and Hamburg (for instance) is no bother - but calling at Liverpool would put them the wrong side of England to do the mainland Europe call - effectively any time you save calling at Liverpool instead of Felixstowe you lose again on the way to the mainland.

 

Some folk are predicting that will mean that the new larger ships will just not choose to use those newly expanded ports on the West of the UK, other folk are predicting them to call there and rail a large chunk of their load to mainland Europe via the tunnel - I think the latter sounds unlikely to me, but time will tell...

 

Another uncertainty is what happens to Felixstowe in light of the new competition on the Thames - does it grow? Shrink? Remain static?

If Thames Gateway has the huge growth, then the capacity to get that traffic across North London is critical.

If Felixstowe has huge growth, much of that can be dealt with by putting capacity in on the cross country route, but that would be useless for Gateway traffic.

Don't overlook too that many of the current ship container routes from the Far East include a call in the Middle East and the effective size limit on those ships is not the Panama Canal but the Suez Canal.  I cannot see shippers wishing to lose out on the Middle East simply to get to Europe quicker via Panama and then losing time by going into the Irish Sea to get to Liverpool - they will simply aim for the best suited group of ports for their traffic and that effectively means the southern part pf England and a Channel, or more likely North Sea port for teh continental part.

 

As far as Felixstowe is concerned observation suggests that it doesn't just deal with boxes to/from the UK but also serves as a tranship port for elsewhere as well and in that respect it has the advantage of being right on the doorstep of the North Sea and being much closer to ports on the other side of that sea than Southampton or even Thamesport.

 

Any tranship to rail really serves only one market - the one which needs, and pays for, quicker arrival at destination.  In that case a port near the Western Approaches, such as Falmouth, would clearly offer the best advantage (Cornish mainline upgrading taken into account of course) but every attempt to get it off the ground has failed because the market simply has not been there.  It would seem that the advantage of a 24 hour saving in transit time simply is not worth the cost for the bulk of the traffic - hence Liverpool would, to me at any rate, stand no better chance of getting such a tranship scheme off the ground than would Falmouth.  And in any case the speed of some more recent container ships is such that there would be little or no time saving anyway by the time the ship has docked and several hours have been spent shifting boxes off it.

[Glorious NSE]

The other variable is that for anyone who really does want their box somewhere in Europe in a hurry there are now overland rail routings available, which may erode some of the top end of the time sensitive market...

[Mike Storey]

Don't overlook too that many of the current ship container routes from the Far East include a call in the Middle East and the effective size limit on those ships is not the Panama Canal but the Suez Canal.  I cannot see shippers wishing to lose out on the Middle East simply to get to Europe quicker via Panama and then losing time by going into the Irish Sea to get to Liverpool - they will simply aim for the best suited group of ports for their traffic and that effectively means the southern part pf England and a Channel, or more likely North Sea port for teh continental part.

 

As far as Felixstowe is concerned observation suggests that it doesn't just deal with boxes to/from the UK but also serves as a tranship port for elsewhere as well and in that respect it has the advantage of being right on the doorstep of the North Sea and being much closer to ports on the other side of that sea than Southampton or even Thamesport.

 

Any tranship to rail really serves only one market - the one which needs, and pays for, quicker arrival at destination.  In that case a port near the Western Approaches, such as Falmouth, would clearly offer the best advantage (Cornish mainline upgrading taken into account of course) but every attempt to get it off the ground has failed because the market simply has not been there.  It would seem that the advantage of a 24 hour saving in transit time simply is not worth the cost for the bulk of the traffic - hence Liverpool would, to me at any rate, stand no better chance of getting such a tranship scheme off the ground than would Falmouth.  And in any case the speed of some more recent container ships is such that there would be little or no time saving anyway by the time the ship has docked and several hours have been spent shifting boxes off it.

 

If the new Thames Gateway does build up to its planned capacity (6 x giant berths), both in berthing availability and in faster unloading processes, then I could see it taking much away from Felixstowe, which was the point of this - the effect on Anglia RUS plans. F2N schemes would become less attractive, and attention would divert to GOB and NLL capacity (or a new route altogether), yet again. But, as related above, this is a huge unknown as yet, as is the effect of the new Liverpool2. What amazes me is that the funders of both of those new port schemes seem to have great confidence in their ability to attract business, despite doubts such as yours and others, but neither the RUS nor the Market Studies seem to acknowledge their potential effect, however questionable.

 

Incidentally, Falmouth did not get off the starting blocks primarily on ecological grounds Mike (something to do with very rare weed growing in the creeks across the bay and the fauna they support - which is now strictly protected, even from small craft), which prevented the dredging and other disturbance necessary etc., but would even then have faced major questions on transit via road or rail. 

[The Stationmaster]

If the new Thames Gateway does build up to its planned capacity (6 x giant berths), both in berthing availability and in faster unloading processes, then I could see it taking much away from Felixstowe, which was the point of this - the effect on Anglia RUS plans. F2N schemes would become less attractive, and attention would divert to GOB and NLL capacity (or a new route altogether), yet again. But, as related above, this is a huge unknown as yet, as is the effect of the new Liverpool2. What amazes me is that the funders of both of those new port schemes seem to have great confidence in their ability to attract business, despite doubts such as yours and others, but neither the RUS nor the Market Studies seem to acknowledge their potential effect, however questionable.

 

Incidentally, Falmouth did not get off the starting blocks primarily on ecological grounds Mike (something to do with very rare weed growing in the creeks across the bay and the fauna they support - which is now strictly protected, even from small craft), which prevented the dredging and other disturbance necessary etc., but would even then have faced major questions on transit via road or rail. 

My immediate predecessor in my final job before the Wr came to an end did the last of the several putative trainplans and capacity assessments for the container trains out of Falmouth - basically an hourly service for about 16-18 hours per day!  A lot of infrastructure 'enhancement' would have been needed to handle that lot and i doubt anyone could ever make that sort of money available.

[31A]

While it was included for a time as an outer Thameslink route, Cambridge-King's Lynn has been removed from all recent proposals. The idea seems to be that KL-London KX will go half-hourly after Ely infrastructure mprovements are completed, and these will form the non-stop London (KX terminus) services, all served by Electrostars (other Cambridge services currently using KX will all shift to Thameslink and Class 700s) - the proposed use of SETs to KL has been dropped.

 

KL to/from Liverpool St is currently an afterthought, and demand drops precipitously between Ely and KL (I used an Abellio GA service last night, and it was like a ghost train by the time it arrived at KL, with just 2 others in my carriage). This might be due to the slowness of Cambridge-LivSt compared to the KX route? Unless you're a City worker, KX (even before Thameslink) is likely to be a more useful terminus for you than LivSt.

 

Paul

At the time the Cambridge-King's Lynn electrification was authorised and it was proposed that the main service to London from King's Lynn would be to King's Cross, BR gave assurances (which I seem to recall may have been in exchange for financial and / or political support for the scheme?) that they would continue to provide at least some through trains to Liverpool Street, and ever since there has indeed been a token service of a few 'peak' trains in each direction.  I suspect this was more a sop to emotional attachment of local people to Liverpool Street as the traditional London terminus for that part of the world rather than in response to any real demand that couldn't be better served by King's Cross...