National Rail Expansion - Norfolk

 Ok, I know my blog background used to be London and my name used to be Tubebloggerguy, but I had this fantastic idea for a series that was too good not to do – What if I made a post for every English ceremonial county (except Rutland, West Midlands, Bristol, Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester, Greater London and City of London - either too small or too urban)?

In case you didn’t know, I am from Norfolk. That is the most I will tell you about where I live until I move away from there. So, why not I start with my home county?

As of March 2021, there are thirty National Rail stations in Norfolk. There used to be many more, however since the Beeching cuts about 60 years ago, many of East Anglia’s railways have either been made into heritage routes or closed completely. Beeching proposed a further closure of East Anglian railways, which would’ve made the Norwich-London Liverpool Street line Norfolk’s only railway line. Luckily, the government rejected this proposal.

Just before I initially thought of the idea for this series, I was looking at the Bittern line from Norwich to Sheringham, where, to avoid cutting through the centre of Cromer (a village in North Norfolk), the train comes into Cromer station and then heads in the other direction along the same stretch of track to go to Sheringham, the line’s terminal. This means that from the other station in Cromer, Roughton Road, it is way faster to drive to Sheringham than getting the train. From the beach in Cromer, where most visitors go, it is also slightly quicker to get the bus than walking to the station to get the train to Sheringham. However, I struggle to think of a reason why you would even need to get from Cromer to Sheringham, giving the facilities are rather similar in both villages.

To fix this weird occurrence, I propose reopening one of the railways affected by the Beeching cuts – the King’s Lynn to Hunstanton Railway. However, the new railway would go further than Hunstanton, following the Norfolk coast all the way up to Cromer, which, due to the train having to pull out and come in from opposite directions to get to Sheringham, is already built like a terminal. Cromer would also be the new terminal of the Bittern line. The route would appear on the signs at King’s Cross as follows (notes in brackets):

Great Northern

Cromer via Cambridge (current signs just say via Cambridge)

Calling at:

King’s Cross (existing operational station)

Cambridge (existing operational station)

Cambridge North (existing operational station)

Waterbeach (existing operational station)

Ely (existing operational station)

Littleport (existing operational station)

Downham Market (existing operational station)

Watlington (existing operational station)

King’s Lynn (existing operational station) (The train would have to do what currently happens at Cromer and pull out in the other direction to the one it came in in, but it would very quickly move onto an abandoned stretch of track that used to be part of the line from King’s Lynn to Dereham. The same would happen when going along to Norwich, which I will come back to later.)

Sandringham (limited service – weekends and bank holidays only)

Snettisham

Heacham (limited service – peak hour and weekends only) (would need to be at Norfolk Lavender, as central Heacham is too built up)

Hunstanton (would need to be slightly east, as the town is too built up)

Holme-next-the-sea (limited service – weekends only)

Wells-next-the-sea (existing Heritage Rail)

Blakeney

Sheringham (existing operational station)

West Runton (existing operational station)

Cromer (existing operational station) (It is weird to have Cromer as the terminal for the North Norfolk Coast branch of the Great Northern line, but it is in a better location for a terminal than the Bittern line’s current one at Sheringham and would mean you could get the train from Norwich to the North Norfolk coast.)

 

Next off, I would make another Great Northern branch that would go to Norwich from King’s Lynn directly, only stopping at poorly connected Dereham and the closed Swaffham station. From King’s Lynn, this would mean that it would sometimes be quicker to get the train to Norwich, then change for the Bittern line if you wanted to get to Cromer. The line I am about to propose would provide a direct connection to Norwich for people in King’s Lynn, as well as providing a service to London and Norwich from Dereham and Swaffham. The route would appear as:

Great Northern

Norwich via Cambridge (it would still need to say via Cambridge, as that is a major hub)

Calling at:

King’s Cross (existing operational station)

Cambridge (existing operational station) (after which it would appear as Cromer via North Norfolk Coast)

Cambridge North (existing operational station)

Waterbeach (existing operational station)

Ely (existing operational station)

Littleport (existing operational station)

Downham Market (existing operational station)

Watlington (existing operational station)

King’s Lynn (existing operational station) (would also need to pull out in the other direction and join up with the remaining section of rail that the line only going as far as Dereham used)

(the rail would then be rebuilt between King’s Lynn and Dereham)

Swaffham

Dereham (existing Heritage Rail)

Norwich (existing operational station)

 

The final change I would make would be another line, starting at Ely, proceeding directly to King’s Lynn (not stopping at Downham, Watlington or Littleport) and going via Fakenham and Holt to Cromer. This would appear on signs as “via King’s Lynn”, similar to the current trains to King's Lynn that show "via Cambridge" at King's Cross.

There we go, the first article in this brand-new series!

The least-served London Overground station

It's no secret that Kensington (Olympia) is the least-served Tube station. I mean, it even says so on the Tube map! But did you know that there is an equivalent for the Overground?

Battersea Park is a station next to... you guessed it, Battersea Park! It is mainly served by Southern services, however it gets 16 London Overground services a week (one each weekday in each direction at 22:48 and 23:03, one northbound at 06:33 each weekday as well as one northbound at 07:26 on Sundays). According to the London Overground timetable for this branch (which also has the only official current map I can find with the station on), a train terminates here each day, coming in from Dalston Junction. This train then leaves in the opposite direction 15 minutes later. I don't know why this service happens, and why it doesn't go all the way to Highbury & Islington in some services, but according to Wikipedia, "since December 2012, a skeleton London Overground service has run to and from Battersea Park (instead of Clapham Junction) at the extreme ends of the day to retain a "parliamentary service" between Battersea Park and Wandsworth Road. The station is also used by London Overground when the route into Clapham Junction is closed by engineering work." In case you didn't know, "parliamentary" is just a posh word for ghost train. A list of examples is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_train.

The timetable is:

Monday-Friday Sunday

06:33 23:03 07:26

22:04 N/A

If I made a Tube line, where would it go?

 At the moment, there are 11 Tube lines, as well as TfL Rail, Overground, Trams, Cable car and DLR. London hasn't had a new Tube line (unless you count the Elizabeth line as Tube, even though it has a different roundel) in over 40 years. This is the line I would make if I was given the opportunity:

First off, I would replace the High Wycombe to Marylebone Chiltern service with this Tube line. This would create better links to central London from High Wycombe, Wembley and Marylebone for relatively cheap. It would also stop at Brondesbury or Brondesbury Park Overground station.

Next, I would bring the line up to Mornington Crescent station. This would relieve stress on Camden Town station as there would be another direct way to King's Cross St Pancras, where the line would go next. This would then join up to the Piccadilly line and share the stretch of track up to Green Park, however wouldn't stop at Covent Garden. 

After Green Park, it would go along to Sloane Square station, renamed King's Road. It would then go to a new station, King's Road West, around 51.48458483715844, -0.17548151633188858. After that, it would go to Imperial Wharf before terminating at Wimbledon Park.

The least used Zone 1 Tube station

 Now, I was looking at the Tube Map the other day and I wondered: What is the least used station in Zone 1? You may know that Roding Valley is the least-used station on the whole Underground network, but what is the least-used station in the most used zone? Well, to find out, I had to venture into the endless maze of Wikipedia. I went to the List of London Underground stations page and pressed "sort by usage". I then scrolled down until the first time I saw Zone 1. However, 2 stations with exactly the same (rounded) values came up - Lambeth North and Regent's Park, both on the Bakerloo line. This honestly didn't surprise me - I suspected these two would pop up quite early. Now, I still didn't know the least used Zone 1 station, but I had narrowed the list down to two potential candidates. I scrolled back up to the top of the Usage column and saw a reference mark, number 5. I hovered over it and saw this link: Station Usage Data. I clicked on it and immediately saw that I had downloaded an XLSX file to my computer. I opened it and scrolled down to Regent's Park. Station Usage (2019): 3,867,435. I then scrolled up to Lambeth North: 3,868,659. I now knew that the least used Zone 1 station was Regent's Park and, to be honest, it didn't surprise me. The station entrance is nowhere near the park's main attraction: ZSL London Zoo. However, the station is close to Madame Tussauds... but Baker Street - an interchange also on the Bakerloo line - is closer. On top of that, Great Portland Street station, which provides a direct route to the park from the busiest station, Kings Cross St Pancras, is only 183 metres away. Really, I don't think there is a point to Regent's Park station, giving it is next-door to a much more accessible station, and not too far from another station on exactly the same line that is also an interchange. Even if they didn't close the station, it would probably provide more use if they connected GPS and Regent's Park together underground - that way, people wouldn't have to pay two separate fares to get from one to another. All in all, On my least-used scale, Regent's Park ranks a 3/10 rating, and is classified in my usefulness of stations list as "A bit pointless, ngl".