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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 263 - 31/03/2015

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News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.

Railfuture News Snippets 263 - 31/03/2015



Railfuture East Anglia has produced an updated set of A5 leaflets. These are: "More tracks, More trains", "New stations and lines", "Reopening the railway to Haverhill" and "Reopening the railway from March to Wisbech."

Recently Railfuture East Anglia has "Socio-economic considerations in the East Anglia rail franchise" workshops run by Mott MacDonald in conjunction with the Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB). The branch also attended by invitation on 25th February 2015 a workshop at Clare College in Cambridge organised on behalf of the DfT by Transport Systems Catapult about the East Anglia rail franchise. A third meeting was with Claire Ruskin (Cambridge Network), Sir Arthur Marshall and Cllr Tim Bick all on the City Deal Assembly (Tim Bick is the chairman) to discuss Railfuture's City Deal and Cambridge Metro work.

It is understood that the East West Rail Consortium plans to announce three potential 'corridors' for the East West Rail central section June. It has been suggested that an Addenbrooke's Station would be built as part of the route but Railfuture is eager for it to open much earlier, perhaps as soon as 2020, to cater for the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Cambridgeshire County Council's now prefers the name Cambridge North for the new station rather than Cambridge Science Park. The latter name was controversial amongst the business community because it excluded the Business Park and St John's Innovation Centre. Railfuture will use the name Cambridge North on its publicity from now on.

Railfuture East Anglia has produced two papers to show how rail could contribute to the Cambridge City Deal aspirations of connecting people to jobs in the Cambridge area whilst overcoming the chronic peak period congestion. The documents are "Cambridge Metro: High quality transport infrastructure for the Cambridge City Deal" and "Cambridge Metro: Delivering an urban rail scheme for the Cambridge City Deal". These have subsequently been the base for an article in the Cambridge News, which featured as the main news item for a day, featuring the Railfuture logo.

On 6th March the East Anglian Daily Times featured the Railfuture East Anglia analysis of station footfall figures that were included in Rail East issue 165 (February 2015). It said "station usage has increased by an average of 12.5% in the region since 2009, with particular growth along the East Suffolk Line where frequency has been increased."

The New Anglia LEP has produced a revised final edition of its Rail Prospectus for East Anglia, which can be viewed from http://www.newanglia.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Our-Counties-Connected-a-rail-prospectus-for-East-Anglia.pdf.

As mentioned in [Snippets 257] Cambridgeshire County County had launched a public consultation about plans for a new £16.9m road-over-rail bridge at King's Dyke on the line between March and Peterborough. The consultaiton feedback was positive and the bridge has now been approved. Once built, the level crossing on the A605, which suffers from severe congestion and is also an accident blackspot, will be closed

Govia Thameslink Railway is encouraging passengers to register on its website before 31st March 2015 to receive marketing emails by crediting their account with £10 to use on an online ticket purchase.

Manchester Airports Group, which owns Stansted Airport, wants the DfT to operate round-the-clock trains to the airport, as happens at Gatwick. As a starting point it wants the first morning train to the airport to leave Liverpool Street at 03:40, which is an hour earlier than the current first departure.

According to the Wisbech Standard, local government minister Eric Pickles recently told a fellow minister to "pull your finger out and get a move on" about the Wisbech railway line re-opening.

Stagecoach has announced a new direct service from Trumpington Park and Ride to Cambridge Railway station along the guided busway - it will not go via Addenbrooke's. Known as route 'R' the journey time will be five minutes and it will operate every 15 minutes during the peaks (06:00 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 20:30).


STATIONS
New station proposed on Bittern line on outskirts of Norwich

Keywords: [BitternLine]

A new railway station on the edge of Norwich has been proposed in a study commissioned by Broadland District Council to examine the needs of the Norwich's northern and eastern outskirts, which are undergoing rapid growth. A station on the Bittern Line, which runs from Norwich to North Walsham, Cromer and Sheringham, has been identified for either the Broadland Business Park, or in Rackheath. The council intends to use the document to lobby other agencies, such as the New Anglia Enterprise Partnership, to back its vision to improve transport links between the city and the coast. However, this study is not the first to propose stations at either location.

The study has also suggested infrastructure changes to the Bittern Line including alterations to Whitlingham junction, changes to the passing loop at North Walsham and the remodelling of the track at Cromer station, which currently prevents long trains from visiting the North Norfolk Railway. Ultimately the council wants to see half-hourly on both the Bittern and nearby Wherry Lines.

New stations in Norfolk have been proposed over the years, for example, at Postwick to the east of Norwich and another on the Fen Line south of King's Lynn, but neither proposals have moved forward. If a new station is built it would become the first new station in Norfolk for more than 25 years, when Roughton Road, on the outskirts of Cromer, was opened on the Bittern line. In fact, only three others have been built in the whole of East Anglia in that time: Cambridge North (scheduled to open in 2016 but may be delayed to 2017), Southend Airport and Braintree Freeport (the latter two were privately funded and are outside the Railfuture East Anglia branch area).


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 263 - 31/03/2015

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