Ely–Peterborough line
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The Ely–Peterborough line is a railway line in England, linking
East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
to the
Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...
. It is a part of the Network Rail Strategic Route 5, SRS 05.07 and is classified as a secondary line. It is used by a variety of inter-regional and local passenger services from East Anglia to the West Midlands and North West, as well as freight and infrastructure traffic; it also links with the busy
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 ...
at its western end. Fenland District council (the area's primary local authority) put forward their Rail Development Strategy for the route in 2012, which includes infrastructure upgrades for the intermediate stations, improved frequencies for the services using it (e.g. doubling the Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport service to half-hourly and the Ipswich to Peterborough service to hourly) and establishing a Community Rail Partnership for the line in 2013–14.


History

The line was originally opened by the Eastern Counties Railway company in 1847, linking the ECR mainline from London via and Ely to and with Peterborough. Trains initially terminated and started from , though a link to the Great Northern Railway's station was subsequently built to allow through running to the Midland Railway line to and the GNR main line to the north. Onward travel was also possible over two
London and North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...
lines from Peterborough, to and whilst March would soon become a very busy junction with the opening of branches to via Wisbech and Cambridge via St Ives (both by the ECR) in 1847–48 and the GNR route to in 1867. The latter two were subsequently jointly vested in the GER and GNR in 1879. Many of the branches fell victim to the
Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...
in the early to mid 1960s, as did Peterborough East and several of the intermediate stations. The March–Spalding line also closed in 1982 with the rundown of the marshalling yard at Whitemoor, leaving only the original main line in operation.


Service

Passenger services are provided by
CrossCountry CrossCountry (legal name XC Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the Cross Country franchise. The CrossCountry franchise was restructured by the Department for Transport (DfT) ...
,
East Midlands Railway Abellio East Midlands Limited, trading as East Midlands Railway (EMR), is a train operating company in England, owned by Abellio, and is the current operator of the East Midlands franchise. History In March 2017, the Department for Transport a ...
and
Greater Anglia Greater Anglia (legal name Transport UK East Anglia Limited) is a British train operating company owned as a joint venture by Transport UK Group and Mitsui & Co. It operates the East Anglia franchise, providing the commuter and inter-city ser ...
. To the west most trains continue beyond Peterborough to either
Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...
and
Birmingham New Street Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the Birmingham station group, three main railway stations in Birmingham city centre, England, and a central hub of the Rail transport in the United Kingdom, British railway system. It is a ma ...
(via the
Birmingham–Peterborough line The Birmingham–Peterborough line is a cross-country railway line in the United Kingdom, linking Birmingham, and , via , and Since the Beeching Axe railway closures in the 1960s, it is the only direct railway link between the West Midlan ...
), or to Nottingham, Sheffield,
Manchester Piccadilly Manchester Piccadilly is the principal railway station in Manchester, England. Opened as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of Manchester city ...
and . To the east most trains continue beyond Ely to Norwich or to Cambridge and Stansted Airport (joining in one direction or in the other the Cambridge–Norwich "Breckland" line) or to . Connections are available for stations to at Ely. Services used to run between London and Peterborough but these services were dropped in 2010. The line is used extensively by freight trains from the Port of Felixstowe to the West Midlands, North West and Scotland, as it forms part of the Felixstowe to rail freight corridor that is being upgraded by Network Rail to allow more railborne freight from the port to be diverted away from the London area.


Infrastructure

The line is double track throughout, has a
loading gauge A loading gauge is a diagram or physical structure that defines the maximum height and width dimensions in railway vehicles and their loads. Their purpose is to ensure that rail vehicles can pass safely through tunnels and under bridges, and ke ...
of W10 and a line speed of . Apart from short stretches at each end, the line is not electrified.


See also

*
Railways in Ely The Railways in Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely are an important interchange point between several routes in England. There are Junction (rail), junctions north and south of the city where rail routes from Suffolk and Norfolk connect with routes ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ely-Peterborough line Rail transport in Cambridgeshire Ely, Cambridgeshire Transport in Peterborough Railway lines in the East of England Standard gauge railways in England