News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 400 - 31/07/2026
- STATIONS [all issues]
- Stansted Express to trial overnight Friday trains during summer 2026 to evaluate demand for permanent service
- Public meeting in Waterbeach hears about progress of new housing development and plans for 'relocated' station
- £47k spent on new digital information screens at North Norfolk stations
- Cam Valley Community Rail Partnership received £25k to support its six stations
- Great Northern to reduce the number of ticket machines at its stations
- Greater Anglia seeks permission to carry out further renovations at Bury St Edmunds station
- WEBSITES AND APPS [all issues]
Following Andy Burnham's appointment as Prime Minister, replacing Keir Starmer, on Monday 20th July 2026, he has kept both Heidi Alexander as Secretary of State for Transport and Lord Hendy as the rail minister. However, Lilian Greenwood has left the Department for Transport (DfT), replaced with Justin Madders. On the Transport Select Committee (TSC) Baggy Shanker and Catherine Atkinson have left (both are Derby MPs, so maybe a perceived conflict of interest with final selection of site for GBR HQ], replaced by Jacob Collier and Daniel Francis.
GTR has announced some temporary changes (i.e. reductions) to services over the summer school holiday — between mid-July and the start of September 2026 — to match the changes in usage and travel patterns we see over this quieter period. This has been demanded by the Department for transport (DfT) to avoid 'unnecessary' costs.
It was announced in late July 2026 that Steve White, who leads the Southeastern Railway and Network Rail joint operation in that area, is to become the Managing Director of the new integrated business unit (IBU) for Greater Thameslink Railway. He was Managing Director of Southeastern for almost four years before becoming the first leader of the integrated South Eastern Railway (SER) in July 2025.
In early July 2026, staff were told that the first Greater Anglia (GA) train to carry GBR livery will be "out in the coming weeks". There are two of them stabled at Ilford at the time. News reports said that GA's first GBR-liveried train was at Liverpool Street station on 16th July - see Network Rail Media Centre announcement.
On Wednesday 8th July 2026 the Hereward Community Rail Partnership be joined by Community Rail colleagues from across East Anglia (by Cam Valley Community Rail Partnership, East Suffolk Lines, Essex & South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership, New River Line Community Rail Partnership, and the newly formed St Edmunds Line Community Rail Partnership) along with Visit Ely to promote Community Rail and tourism to the city, and the wider East Anglia region. They will be on platform 1 at Ely station between 09:30-12:30.
Geoff Marshall, who visits new stations when they open, posted a 16-minute YouTube video called "The New Cambridge South Station is OPEN!" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGLK93rKrGQ on 8th July 2026. In the video, he said it was station number 2,798 and the eighth to open in 2026. He visited on Tuesday 30th June (the second working day) and included some footage that he took a few days before it opened. He did not reveal anything that people didn't already knew, except that the retail unit on the western side will be occupied by a coffee shop run by the same people as the Gourmet coffee van outside the eastern entrance. Roger French OBE, who runs the https://busandtrainuser.com website was with Jeff. His review of the station can be read here He includes some of the limitations, such as the minimal toilet provision, which does not get mentioned in the video.
Network Rail issued a press release on 29th July 2026 entitled "Cambridge South: If you build it, they will come!" to announce that there had been a total of 110,000 entrances and exits in the first four weeks of its operation. Its official estimate of 1,8 million would equate to 140,000 in 28 days (5,000 per day, 35,000 per week), and astonishingly it is quite close to that already. Jamie Burles, managing director for GBR Anglia said: "It is fantastic to see so many people using the new station in just the first month since it opened and I'm sure this is only just the beginning of the story for Cambridge South. Having seen over 110,000 journeys in the first month alone demonstrates that the demand was there, waiting for us to build this new facility, and open a new gateway to this very important biomedical campus. It really does go to show how investment in the railway can transform people's lives for the better, by building connectivity and providing easier ways to get to where people most need to be." Jamie Burles has basically done Railfuture's job for it. See Network Rail YouTube video.
Patronage for Cambridge South station will increase naturally each year until the 2040s as more companies move to the adjacent Cambridge Biomedical Campus. A BBC article on 28th July 2026 revealed that Pharmaceutical giant GSK plans to close its site in Stevenage site (it has been in the town for 50 years) and move about 1,000 staff to a new research and development facility on the Cambridge campus, completing the transfer in 2029. GSK's new site in Cambridge is currently under construction. Unfortunately, the aerial image on the BBC website shows the land prior to Cambridge South station being built.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced that Manningtree and Royston stations — both in the Railfuture East Anglia branch area, along with around others 20 in England — are to have new-style ticket gates that are designed to reduce face evasion. See news story.
Network Rail informed the Fen Line Users Association (FLUA) that from Monday 3rd August, there will be timetable changes on the line to and from King's Lynn, and extra late night engineering works on other Anglia routes, as track is again affected by hot weather and sustained low rainfall. The peat and clay that sits under long stretches of the railway in East Anglia has dried out and shrunk, causing the track to drop in places and become uneven. Great Northern services between Ely and King's Lynn from will temporarily arrive at King's Lynn four minutes later than normal and depart four minutes earlier. FLUA commented: "If the timetable can cope with an extra four mins for the speed restrictions, maybe it could also cope with two minutes for a stop at the other Waterbeach station (see below).
It was good to see the BBC finally reporting something positive about EWR: young people in Cambourne are eager to use the train for new opportunities to get to work. See news story, from `6th July, which said "Teenagers living in Cambridgeshire and Buckinghamshire say they hope East West Rail (EWR) will help them overcome transport hurdles that are holding them back from taking up opportunities in work and further education." This was also featured on the lunchtime BBC Look East, with Janine Machin reporting.
Paul Bristow, Mayor of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) will be a speaker on "The prize — why trams are good for places, people and growth" session on Thursday 24th September 2026 in Coventry at the 'Time for Trams' event. The organisers say "This is not just another conference. It is a rallying point for political leaders, policy makers, investors and delivery experts who recognise that Britain needs to move faster — and think bigger — when it comes to mass transit."
Rail Technology Magazine had an article in its July 2026 issue entitled "Learning from C3R: What the rail industry can learn from the delivery of the Cambridge Resignalling, Relock and Recontrol" project" written by Martin Short, Project Director, Alstom.
At Darsham Station, next to the A12 on the East Suffolk Line, Woodbridge-based Reubens butchers and deli is opening a shop there. It is taking over the site formerly occupied by the Emporium antiques store, which moved to the Saxmundham Hand car wash site on the High Street next to the railway bridge. Before becoming the antiques store, the premises housed the Stradbroke Arms pub, which opened in 1860.
LNER has completing the first live operation of an Azuma train under European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 2 supervision between Welwyn Garden City and Hitchin on the East Coast Main Line, during testing that took place overnight on Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th July 2026. See news story.
In its accounts to the year ending 31st January 2026, as recently sent to shareholders, the North Norfolk Railway reported that passenger numbers dropped by 9pc (from 143,469 to 129,197) and a and profits (down to £81,325 from £207,987 the previous year) despite marking its 50th anniversary since opening in 1975. Turnover for the year stood at £4.13m, with 66 permanent staff supporting operations. See news story.
The Mid-Norfolk Railway (MNR) has started to sell places on its Polar Express™ trains on selected dates from 14th November to 23rd December 2026. Visit https://www.midnorfolkthepolarexpressride.com/ to book. Other MNR events can be found at https://www.midnorfolkrailway.co.uk/.
STATIONS
Stansted Express to trial overnight Friday trains during summer 2026 to evaluate demand for permanent service
Keywords: [StanstedExpress]
Greater Anglia will be trialling overnight Friday Stansted Express trains during summer 2026 for airport passengers arriving at London Stansted Airport, and for those travelling for early Saturday morning flights. The additional services will run every Friday night into Saturday morning from Friday 3rd July until Friday 25th September 2026. The trial will see additional trains run approximately every 30 minutes between around 23:50 and 05:00, helping passengers who may otherwise have fewer public transport options late at night or in the early hours of the morning. Most trains will run between Stansted Airport and Tottenham Hale, where customers can connect with the Victoria line Night Tube for onward travel across the capital. Some early morning services will continue through to, or start from, London Liverpool Street station. The trial will help Stansted Express understand customer demand for overnight airport rail services before any decisions are made about opportunities for any overnight services operating on a long-term basis.
Closer joint planning between Greater Anglia (GA) and Network Rail Anglia has enabled railway teams to review and adjust engineering plans. Likewise, the close relationship between GA and c2c has allowed some of GA's surplus class 720 trains (no longer needed post-COVID) to be used by c2c, by creating a common pool (creating a 'go anywhere' fleet on both routes). Having access to more trains should enable c2c to reduce the number of cancellations. Moreover, the class 720s are generally more reliable, with more capacity, quicker acceleration reducing journey times etc. compared to c2c's class 357 trains.
Public meeting in Waterbeach hears about progress of new housing development and plans for 'relocated' station
Keywords: [WaterbeachStation]
A public meeting, chaired by Councillor Anna Bradnam, was held in a packed room in Waterbeach on Wednesday 1 July 2026 to brief the village residents about progress of the new town development, north of the village and the plans for the railway station. The meeting began with the housing and water issues, and the station was discussed last. The meeting overran.
Just like Cambridge North and Cambridge South, the station will be built down to a price. The difference with those two stations is that money was no object for operational reasons but passengers were third class, if that. With the new Waterbeach station there are no infrastructure changes required (other than signalling), just the station and its approaches/facilities.
Many would suggest that if you want to convince users of an existing station to switch to a new station (and to weaken their case for objecting at any public inquiry) then you need to make the new station far better (as the East West Rail Company appears to be doing on the Marston Vale line when it consolidates nine stations into four). The new station will not be much better, and in some ways worse.
It was already known that the platforms would only be eight carriages long. The cheapest time to extend it is when it is being constructed, but let's not go there. Because they do not want to move the signalling if it is lengthened in the future (strike-in points for the AHB level crossings are fixed) then platforms would have to be extended to the north.
Both the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) and Network Rail (NR) representatives (Charles Baker was the latter) referred to the "relocated" station (not "new" station). They are very much of the mindset that the current station will close.
Councillor Anna Bradham, who represents the area, said that she has been working hard to get facilities at the new station, such as a waiting shelter, toilets and refreshments. These had not originally been intended. There is "cover" on the southbound platform — this consists only of a canopy — no protection at all from the side (e.g. wind, rain, snow), although a glass wall might be installed (much of the station design is still to be planned). The shortish canopy will be south of the footbridge (which have fully covered stairs — that's good, and rare) but it was unclear to the audience if there would also be a canopy north of the lifts (no-one asked the speakers to confirm). A good point was made about people using the waiting room to be protected from the elements having to wait on the western (down) side and rushing to get to the western (up) side to board the train. That might be OK for the able bodied, but not many others, and imagine lots of people all dashing up the stairs, along the platform, and down the stairs at the same time. At least on the existing Waterbeach station platforms there are largely enclosed shelters, albeit unable to take more than about a dozen people. It was confirmed that there would be no ticket gates (ATGs), so people wouldn't be delayed getting into and out of the station. In fact, it would be unstaffed (although the design referred to staff welfare facilities).
Someone from the audience pointed out that the new station would have many more passengers than the current one, but it doesn't seem to have any more capacity for them.
A persistent questioner was concerned about climate change and wanted solar power to be used at the station, as it is at Cambridge North and South stations, suggesting it be installed on the canopy. This is not intended, although it is possible that the waiting room would have solar panels. It would not generate enough power for the station. No one made the point that if the canopy was much longer and was on both platforms then it could possibly do so.
The planning application for the eastern development requires the station to be 'open' before the first house can be occupied, along with a road from the A10 to the station.
The archaeological work for the railway (but not for Anglia Water's pumping centre) has been completed, and the access road to bring materials for the station has been built. Construction should begin around September 2026 with completion in early 2028 (a little longer than the 10 months that Soham station took). The expected opening date was May 2028 according to the first speaker but "summer/autumn 2028" on the slides about the station.
Charles Baker (NR's sponsor for the station) said what he had to say (the official line), the basis of which is that timetabling is a challenge to fit around limited capacity, referring to more than 50% of the cost of Cambridge South station being mitigations to offset the dwell time (i.e. four tracking, line speed increase at Shepreth Branch Junction and using Cambridge station's fourth track under Hills Road). As an example of the challenges, he referred to the conflict of serving people wanting to travel from York to London versus commuters from Royston to London. Interestingly he said that there are around 50 stations in various stages of development. The flaw in Charles' 'not possible' argument is that he assumed every train would stop at both stations. One could argue that if the service was frequent enough then they could alternate so that no service stopped at both. In that case there would be no dwell time impact. Another flaw in his argument was that the time penalty isn't just slowing down, stopping and starting, but also passengers alighting and boarding. The latter would take less time if the passenger load was split between two stations. A decision on shutting the station solely because of timetabling (this was not stated at the meeting — cost is probably an issue) is being done within a silo — if the Ely Area Capacity Enhancement (EACE) scheme was implemented then the timetable would be more flexible — one of the three killer capacity constraints (Downham Market-Littleport single track, Ely North Junction single-lead junctions and Welwyn two-track section) would be resolved (at least partially). They had seemingly dismissed the Railfuture proposal for a turnback at the new station, which would have enabled trains to reliably start on time there without imported delay from further up the line. Suffice to say the audience was not impressed by the NR attitude.
Three would be a gap of 18 months, or so, between the new station opening and the first house being occupied. Yet, they seemingly intend to open the new station — and therefore close the current (180-year-old) one — at the earliest opportunity, rather than schedule it for the first arrivals of the eastern development, for which it is a planning requirement.
It is not known how many people from the western development would use the new station, of course, and their existence might well justify the new station opening as soon as possible, but that was not mentioned. It seems foolish to switch from the old to new station overnight so that a few people can benefit and the majority lose out. Any sane approach would surely be to slowly ramp up the services calling at the new station and slowly reduce the services calling at the existing one, monitoring how usage changes and acting accordingly.
The people at the meeting were from Waterbeach, so no-one mentioned people in Horningsea and other places, who will in future need to drive through the village. Cambridge North is an option for them (if they can fight their way through the traffic entering Cambridge from the A14 in the morning peak and vice versa in the afternoon), but the railway has no joined up thinking — what car parking capacity at Cambridge North will there be for such people? People on the western side of Waterbeach may find the time to drive a bit further along the A10 and turn right will be similar to turning right at Car Dyke Road and crawling through the village.
Final approval for a station closure comes from the Office of Rail and Road, after the Secretary of State has evaluated the consultation responses. No mention was made during the meeting of there being a public inquiry as part of the closure process.
£47k spent on new digital information screens at North Norfolk stations
Two-metre-high digital information touchscreens have been installed at Sheringham, Cromer, Hoveton & Wroxham and North Walsham stations, at a cost of £47,778 from the Greater Anglia (GA) Customer and Community Improvement Fund, which is ultimately taxpayers. GA didn't decide to install the screens by itself, but North Norfolk District Council applied for the funding and it was approved in July 2025. Passengers and visitors will be able to use the screens to access information about local attractions, businesses, events, tourist information and maps of the local area, helping them make the most of their time in North Norfolk. Norfolk County Council provides the feed of live onward bus departure information to improve connections between local bus and rail services.
Cam Valley Community Rail Partnership received £25k to support its six stations
The Cam Valley Community Rail Partnership has received £25,000 of grant funding, some of which has been used to launch a new website, and it hopes to install wayfinding boards at its six railway stations (Foxton, Meldreth, Shepreth, Whittlesford Parkway, Shelford, and Cambridge South).
News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgjeqe883yo.
Great Northern to reduce the number of ticket machines at its stations
Great Northern (GN) has announced that it will be reducing the number of automatic ticket machines (TVMs) at its stations in order to reduce costs. Fewer transactions are being performed at TVMs, particularly as contactless is rolled out, but also an increase in purchasing via an app. GN have data on use by time of data, but Railfuture has discovered that this data is not by specific TVM. GN has provided the following list of stations and number of TVMs (although it is unclear if this is the number being removed or the number that will remain: Arlesey (1), Baldock (1), Biggleswade (1), Hitchin, Huntingdon (1), King's Lynn (1), Royston (1), Sandy (1), St Neots (1).
Other operators have not announced plans to reduce numbers, but no doubt they are coming, as the cost pressures are similar and no doubt demand is also reducing.
Greater Anglia seeks permission to carry out further renovations at Bury St Edmunds station
Keywords: [BuryStEdmundsStation]
Suffolk News reported on 28 July 2026 that further renovations could be carried out at Bury St Edmunds railway station as passenger numbers continue to increase and are now above pre-Covid levels. In the April 2024-March 2025 year, it had 929,244 entries and exits, making it the 575th most used, out of 2,586 stations in Great Britain (back in 2015/16, usage was 603,518 and for 2017/18 it was 633,362).
The station dates back to 1846 and in recent years, the station master's house comprising of three levels has undergone restoration, the main station entrance building has been renovated on the south side with extensive façade works and interior restoration including the main platform access stairs, and the underpass has been recently renovated to include new ticket purchasing and main concourse facilities. Sadly, however, much of the station building is empty, as tenants have not been found to occupy the huge amount of space available. Work is required to prevent 'further decay to the building', according to a design and access statement submitted to West Suffolk Council.
Greater Anglia (GA) has sought listed building consent for the works to the northern side façade of the Grade II listed site, on Station Hill. The works include cleaning, repointing and brick replacement, with repairs to brickwork and stonework as well as window renovations and replacement. There would also be repairs and decoration to the rainwater downpipes. However, there are no current proposals to renovate and repair the inside.
WEBSITES AND APPS
Excellent website shows location of all trains in Britain with timings including lateness
The https://map.signalbox.io website provides an interactive live map of the national rail network in Britain showing where all currently running trains are, which direction they are travelling in, and whether they are on time or late. You can click on each train to see full routing and live scheduling. It is useful but also addictive. Features include the ability to find the train that you are on using your location.
This website has similar functionality to https://bustimes.org/map, which covers buses.
Additional content will be added to this page.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 400 - 31/07/2026
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Railfuture is a non-profit making pro-rail campaigning organisation, which is run entirely by unpaid volunteers, including production of Rail News Snippets for the East Anglian branch of Railfuture.
How we spell Railfuture — singular, one word, one capital letter (can be abbreviated to Rf).