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Werrington Dive Under (also known as the Werrington Grade Separation) is a replacement dual track
grade separated In civil engineering (more specifically highway engineering), grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights (grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other tra ...
railway junction at Werrington Junction, north of railway station in
Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...
, England. The junction leads to the Great Northern/Great Eastern Joint line (GN/GE) which goes through to and beyond. Completed and opened in December 2021, the dive under allows trains on the west side of the
East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...
(ECML) to access the GN/GE line without conflicting with the faster passenger services on the ECML. The dive under was constructed by a 'jacked deck' on slide paths installed in access tunnels. The curved 'jack deck', pushed into place beneath the main running lines, will be the first use of such a structure in the United Kingdom. The installation uses a patented method of construction.


Original junction

When the line closed between and Spalding in 1982, freight traffic, instead of cutting across the western edge of the
Fens A fen is a type of wetland. Fen, Fenn, Fens, Fenns, may also refer to: People * Fen (name), a Chinese given name and surname * Fen Cresswell (1915–1966), New Zealand cricketer * Fen McDonald (1891–1915), Australian rules footballer * Kees ...
, was diverted through Peterborough station. Trains therefore had to use Werrington Junction, located north of Peterborough railway station, for access to/from the GN/GE line. In order to use the junction trains have to cross the lines used by the fast ECML passenger services on the level and, in the case of trains to Spalding, also use the Up Fast line for three miles between Peterborough station and the junction. This can cause delay to fast passenger trains.
Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...
, Network Rail's predecessor, recognised that the ECML was congested and so upgraded the GN/GE line to accommodate the heavy container trains to and from the east coast ports. However Werrington Junction was still a significant bottleneck.


The dive-under

In 2016 Network Rail submitted a
Transport and Works Act Order The Transport and Works Act 1992 (TWA) was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to provide a system by which the construction of rail transport, tramway, inland waterway and harbour infrastructure could proceed in the UK by ord ...
(TWAO) to the
Secretary of State for Transport The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...
to build either a flyover or a dive-under to avoid the fast lines north of Peterborough and allow passenger and freight trains to access all lines without affecting other faster services. In summer 2018
Chris Grayling Christopher Stephen Grayling (born 1 April 1962) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician and author who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019. He has served as Member of Parliament (United King ...
approved the order after a public inquiry favoured the dive-under option in preference to the flyover. Initially costings were estimated to be in the region of £100 million, but the agreed cost on approval was £200 million. The project saw the construction of of new line which runs underneath the fast lines, culverting works on Marholm Brook, and the movement of the lines westwards over the culverted brook. This means that trains for the GN/GE line no longer need to cross the fast lines on the level, nor use the Up Fast line between Peterborough station and the junction. The project, coupled with other ECML improvement schemes (such as the four-tracking from to Woodwalton), improved capacity on the line through Peterborough by 33%, according to Network Rail. This equates to two extra train paths an hour in 2021, when the work was completed. This will, in turn, cut 21 minutes off the fastest to service, 13 minutes off the fastest King's Cross to service, and it will also see an increase of 1,050 'Intercity' possible seats per hour on express trains through Peterborough. The Spalding and Peterborough Transport Forum claimed that increasing the number of freight trains operating through Spalding would cause the level crossing barriers in the town to be down for 24 minutes of every hour. The Campaign for Better Transport praised the works and stated The construction will involve use of the UK's first curved box jack, which will consist of ten sections joined together, creating a curved box. The contractors expect to remove of earth and the box will weigh . The junctions at the north and south ends were connected in November 2021, as was the signalling. However, regulatory approval will mean a projected opening date in December 2021. Provision has been made for future overhead electrification works if necessary.


See also

* Hitchin Flyover - a flyover at Hitchin to alleviate traffic problems in accessing the Cambridge line north of Hitchin * Nuneaton North Chord - a flyover on the West Coast Main Line at Nuneaton constructed for similar reasons
Video of tunnel box being pushed into place


References


External links


Network Rail news release with computer generated video of the new lineTWAO government documentsVideo of the box being pushed under the ECML, hosted on BBC News
{{coord, 52.6131, N, 0.2884, W, region:GB, display=title Rail junctions in England Rail transport in Cambridgeshire Tunnels in Cambridgeshire Peterborough East Coast Main Line