Thursday, 23 April 2020

More Freight by Rail to and from East Anglia and The South Coast to English Heartlands


Rail Magazine Issue 903 April 22-May 5 Pages 48-55 and then pages 56-57, the demand-capacity issue has to be weighed with radial lines, the legacy of closures and what gives or takes going forwards. Werrington Duck Under is being implemented. It helps ease pathing on the ECML, but given there's growth demand for more freight from East Anglia to Doncaster for example, a brand new strategic link from the March area to the Spalding/Deeping St Nicholas for example would seem logical as paths between Ely and Peterborough are going to be premium, yet this is not listed as a goer in the articles rather a Peterborough-Wisbech-Kings Lynn new railway; which raises the question, where are we going, are we singing from the same hymn sheet, who is the director-lead person/s and what is the dynamic plan? Bedford-Cambridge east-west rail will probably not be a freight user friendly design line and the gap is surely between North London Line and the great way round Peterborough-Nuneaton. Meanwhile the A14 and A421 do a roaring trade in user-demand for more roads with wall to wall juggernaut movements east and west, let alone the A47.   

What is willing to take a lead and say we, like Rotterdam to Germany, need a new, direct freight line (which could have passenger workings in gaps) to get freight direct from East Coast to West Midlands. Otherwise the conflict with London centric interests, environmental concerns and junctions like getting through Leicester just proliferate. Southampton has issues with Reading bottlenecking and can't run direct to East Midlands, which gets all the lorries whilst Birmingham gets all the trains! Something along the lines of a new direct Peterborough-Northampton for M1, DIRFT and wider proliferation on the one hand and Great Central via Oxford to Leicester direct, albeit with a new link at Narborough would seem logical.  


Update 23-07-21
2. Our twin railway solution:




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