The Anonymous Widower

Beeching Reversal – Restoring A South Humber Link

This is one of the Beeching Reversal projects that the Government and Network Rail are proposing to reverse some of the Beeching cuts.

The project is described by these two paragraphs in this article in the Yorkshire Post, which is entitled Government Announce Yorkshire Rail Schemes That Could Receive ‘Reverse Beeching’ Funding.

North Lincolnshire Council have bid for funding to subsidise a new train service that would allow passengers from Barton-on-Humber to travel to Gainsborough, from where they would be able to catch direct services to Sheffield.

This would be achieved by diverting the existing Barton to Grimsby and Cleethorpes trains up a freight-only section used by traffic heading to Immingham docks. There have never been passenger trains using this path before.

This rail map clipped from Wikipedia shows the Barton Line to Barton-on-Humber station.

Note.

1. Barton-on-Humber station has a bus link to Hull station.
2. The loop gives a grand tour of the Port of Immingham on what is now a freight-only line.
3. There is a lot of development going on in the area including the AltAlto aviation biofuel, that I wrote about in Grant Shapps Announcement On Friday.

Perhaps all this development is causing a lot of small problems.

• Is it causing congestion on the roads?
• Are workers difficult to find in the Immingham area?
• Is commuting over the Humber Bridge expensive?
• Is parking difficult in the Port?

North Lincolnshire Council could feel that a better rail connection serving the Port of Immingham, would be an asset, that reduces these problems.

I suspect the current two-hourly service between Barton-on-Humber and Cleethorpes stations, will be replaced by an hourly one, between Barton-on-Humber and Gainsborough Lea Road stations, that takes the following route.

• Barton-on-Humber to Ulceby
• At Ulceby station the train will reverse and go clockwise around the loop.
• After calling at Great Coates, Healing, Stallingborough and Habrough stations, the train would go West to Barnetby and Gainsborough Lea Road stations.
• Passengers wanting to go from Barton-on-Humber to Grimsby Town or Cleethorpes, would change at Great Coates station.

It may look a rather round-about route, but I suspect that the plan includes some stations to serve the Port of Immingham and the industrial development.

I suspect that some of these port, oil, chemical and energy companies can afford to pay a contribution.

Gainsborough Lea Road Station

Gainsborough Lea Road station is a mix of architectural styles.

But with the addition of a friendly café and some other facilities, it would be a good interchange between the Immingham area and Sheffield and the county town of Lincoln.

Future Trains

Lincolnshire is an energy-rich county, which partly explains all the industrial development in the North-East of the county around Grimsby, Immingham and Scunthorpe.

• Immingham is a large importer of biomass for power generation.
• There are off-shore and on-shore gas fields connected to Theddlethorpe gas terminal.
• There is the large power station complex at Keadby.

But the energy mix is a-changing.

• Keadby now includes a solar farm.
• Wind turbines are springing up both on land and in the sea.

If I was to make a prediction, it would be that more and more large energy-related businesses will develop in the area.

• In recent months, Altalto’s waste-to-aviation biofuel plant has been given national and local government backing to be built at Immingham.
• ITM Power are involved in a hydrogen development project in the area.
• I wouldn’t be surprised to see hydrogen produced for transport from all this energy.

I think it will be inevitable, that zero-carbon battery electric or hydrogen-powered trains will run in the area.

• Cleethorpes and Doncaster via Scunthorpe 52 miles apart.
• Cleethorpes and Barton-on-Humber are 23 miles apart
• Lincoln and Newark are 16.5 miles apart.
• Lincoln and Doncaster are 37 miles apart.
• Lincoln and Sheffield are 48 miles apart
• Lincoln and the electrification at Peterborough are 54 miles apart.
• Skegness and Sleaford are 41 miles apart.
• Sleaford and Grantham are 18 miles apart.

With charging facilities at Barton-on-Humber, Lincoln, Skegness and Sleaford, the whole of Lincolnshire could be served by zero-carbon battery electric trains.

I suspect LNER could lead the way, as a five-car Class 800 train equipped with batteries, is predicted to have a 56 mile range away from the wires, which would easily handle a return trip between Newark and Lincoln.

There could be a small problem, in that the first train of the day, between Lincoln and London Kings Cross positions from Doncaster Carr IEP Depot, so running Doncaster to Newark via Lincoln might challenge the battery range of the train. I suspect, that the positioning could be performed via Newark with a reverse, prior to the installation of a charging facility at Lincoln Central station.

I estimate that Barton-on-Humber and Gainsborough Lea Road stations are about 35 miles apart, so with today’s battery technology, I suspect that a round trip in a battery electric train would be on the limit. But with charging facilities at Gainsborough, there would be no problems.

I suspect that East Midlands Railway would use several of their forty diesel Class 170 trains on this and other routes in Lincolnshire, so perhaps a good interim solution would be to run the Class 170 trains on Altalto’s biodiesel, that will be produced at Immingham.

There is also the possibility, that some or all of the Class 170 trains will be retrofitted with MTU Hybrid PowerPacks, which would cut their diesel consumption.

Surely, with all Lincolnshire’s energy, hydrogen-powered trains must be a possibility. But they seem to be stuck in a siding!

The MTU Hybrid PowerPack and Altalto’s bio-diesel seems a more affordable and less risky route.

A Direct Connection To London

In the Wikipedia entry for Gainsborough Lea Road station, there is a section called Future Services, where a direct connection to London is mentioned.

Conclusion

Given that the likes of East Midlands Railway, Hull Trains, LNER and TransPennine Express are improving their services to Hull, Lincoln, Cleethorpes and Grimsby, this local North Lincolnshire Metro serving the Port and the industrial development, could well be welcomed by those that live and work in the area.

I doubt that the infrastructure cost will be very high.

July 12, 2020 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Altalto, Barton Line, Battery-Electric Trains, Beeching Reversal, Class 800 Train, Cleethorpes, East Midlands Railway, Grimsby, Hull Station, Hull Trains, Hydrogen-Powered Trains, Lincoln, LNER, mtu Hybrid PowerPack, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, TransPennine Express