1986 - the rail blue era comes to an end

Ely 28.4.1986

47 574 Ely 28.4.1986

(Both copyright Rail Thing/Steve Sainsbury)

FACEBOOK - 80s UK RAILSCENE

By 1986 the BR blue era, which had been with us for almost 20 years, was on the verge of vanishing, though the process would take a few years!

My only trip to Ely, on 28 April 1986. threw up quite a variety of trains. I saw first generation DMUs and a few loco-hauled, including the class 47 'classic' train seen above.

I'm scanning all my rail pics from 1971 onwards, and I'm sort of up to 1986, but there is still a lot of far older stuff in the attic! Together with current shots and features on various railways around the world, this will provide most of the content for this blog over the coming years. 

Why not bookmark this blog so you can keep up with all these various strands? I am also looking for contributors or partners to produce more and more content, with the intention of making this the most popular rail blog on the 'net within a year. If interested please email me on leysiner@aol.com 

Ely 1986

(All 28.4.1986 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

FACEBOOK - 1980s RAILSCENE

Another place I've only visited once (so far), Ely in Cambridgeshire. The date is 28.4.1986 and the station is busy with a variety of diesel traction including classic DMUs. Sadly Eastern Region units were not numbered, so identification isn't easy. It's probably safe to say that all the units here are now scrapped. I particularly like the  one that appears to be in GWR livery - it's actually a South Yorkshire Transport vehicle, so still quite a way from home.

You'll also notice a lot of steam age infrastructure still around, including semaphore signals.

More info (from Wikipedia)

Ely railway station serves the city of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England. The station lies on the Fen Line from Cambridge to King's Lynn, which is electrified at 25 kV AC overhead. It is a busy station served by trains running to a variety of destinations including Cambridge, Stansted Airport, London (King's Cross and Liverpool Street), Ipswich, Norwich, King's Lynn, Peterborough, Leicester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. Ely station was built in 1845 by the Eastern Counties Railway at a cost of £81,500, the land on which it was built being a marshy swamp.^[2] The station was modified substantially in the early 1990s, at the time that electrification was taking place.

Three other non-electrified lines meet at Ely:

• The Breckland Line to Thetford and Norwich diverges from the Fen Line to the north of Ely.
• The line to March and Peterborough also diverges to the north.
• The line from Ipswich joins to the south of Ely station.

Ely station won first prize in the station of the year competition 1987 (medium-sized category).

Services

The station is served by four operators:

• CrossCountry trains provides an hourly service from Stansted Airport to Birmingham New Street. This service is routed via Cambridge, Peterborough andLeicester, and uses Class 170 Turbostar diesel multiple units.

• East Midlands Trains provides an (approximately) hourly service from Norwich to Liverpool via Peterborough, Nottingham, Sheffield, and Manchester. Services are operated using Class 158 diesel multiple units (or, occasionally, Class 156 diesel multiple units) which reverse at Ely.

• Great Northern serve the station as part of their service from London King's Cross to King's Lynn. Outside peak hours the services run non-stop between London and Cambridge as part of the half-hourly "Cambridge Cruiser" service. One train per hour then continues beyond Cambridge, stopping at all stations on the Fen Line to King's Lynn. The journey from King's Cross to Ely is timetabled to take just over an hour on the fastest services. Services are more frequent (up to every half an hour) during peak hours when demand is highest. During peak hours most trains divide (northbound) or couple (southbound) at Cambridge which adds some minutes to the journey time. In addition, during peak hours most services make additional stops between London Kings Cross and Cambridge which contributes further to an extended journey time. During recent years the number of direct services has increased; from the timetable change of December 2013 there are direct services from London every half hour from 16:44 to 23:14. Some off-peak services can take as little as 1 hour and 5 minutes between London and Ely. During peak hours they can take up to 1 hour and 21 minutes. Most services are operated by Class 365 electrical multiple unit. Additional peak services to/from London start or terminate at Ely.

• Abellio Greater Anglia serves the station with three routes:
  • An hourly service between Cambridge and Norwich via the Breckland Line. These services use three coach Class 170 Turbostar units. Four units are diagrammed to work the hourly service.
  • A two hourly service between Ipswich and Peterborough via Bury St Edmunds. These services also use three coach Class 170 Turbostar diesel multiple units. Two units are diagrammed to work the two hourly service.
  • On weekdays there are four services that operate to London Liverpool Street in the morning peak, three of which originate at King's Lynn while one commences at Ely. There are four return journeys in the evening; one terminating at Ely while the other three continue to King's Lynn. There is no service on Saturday or Sunday. These services normally use Class 379 or Class 317electrical multiple units.

The Hunstanton portion of the 10.39 service from Liverpool Street at Ely in 1958

Station platforms viewed from across the bridge

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Cambridge		CrossCountry Stansted Airport-Birmingham		March
				Manea Limited Service
Thetford		East Midlands Trains Norwich-Liverpool		Peterborough
Brandon Limited Service				March Limited Service
Waterbeach		Great Northern Fen Line		Littleport
Cambridge		Abellio Greater Anglia Breckland Line		Brandon
				Shippea Hill Limited Services
Bury St Edmunds		Abellio Greater Anglia Ipswich-Peterborough		Manea
Waterbeach		Abellio Greater Anglia Liverpool Street-King's Lynn/Ely Peak only		Littleport
Historical railways
Soham Line open, station closed		Great Eastern Railway Ely and Newmarket Railway		Terminus
Chettisham Line open, station closed		Great Eastern Railway Ely to Peterborough Line		Terminus
Disused railways
Stretham Line and station closed		Great Eastern Railway Ely and St Ives Railway		Terminus

Retail

There are two branches of Locoespresso on the station, one on platform 1 and the other on platform 2/3. These serve hot and cold drinks as well as snacks, magazines and newspapers. Platform 1 also includes an L.A. Golden Bean kiosk which sells hot and cold drinks and snacks.

Derailment

On Friday 22 June 2007 a goods train derailed at Hawk Bridge which carries the Ipswich line over the River Great Ouse a mile south of Ely. Photographs showed derailed wagons on their side, only prevented from plunging off the embankment by subsidiary structures and their attachment to the rest of the train. As a consequence of the derailment the bridge had to be rebuilt and there were no train services between Ely and Bury St. Edmunds until the works were completed on 21 December 2007.

Low bridge

Immediately north-east of Ely station, the railway lines pass on a bridge over the A142. The height available for road traffic passing beneath the bridge is only 9.0 feet (2.7 m) which is unusually low for a bridge over an A-road. Despite the various warnings, the limited headroom is a frequent cause of accidents. High vehicles must use a level crossing next to the bridge.

Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	1.255 million
2005/06	1.279 million
2006/07	1.421 million
2007/08	1.506 million
2008/09	1.583 million
2009/10	1.580 million
2010/11	1.732 million
2011/12	1.824 million
2012/13	1.878 million
2013/14	1.976 million