1.
Greater Anglia (train operating company)
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Abellio began operating the franchise, then known as the Greater Anglia franchise, in February 2012. It traded initially under the name until it rebranded as Abellio Greater Anglia in December 2013. In May 2015, most of the suburban services were transferred to London Overground. The franchise was re-tendered as the East Anglia franchise and awarded to Abellio in August 2016, the company resumed trading as Greater Anglia on 16 October 2016 when the new franchise commenced. In January 2017, Abellio announced that subject to gaining Department for Transport approval, the sale was completed in March 2017. In December 2003 the Strategic Rail Authority awarded the Greater Anglia franchise to National Express, the franchise was to run until March 2011, with provision for a three-year extension if performance targets were met. As a result, National Express East Anglia was granted an extension until October 2011. In March 2011 the Department for Transport announced that Abellio, Go-Ahead, in October 2011 it awarded the new franchise to Abellio, the services operated by National Express East Anglia transferred to Greater Anglia on 5 February 2012. The franchise was originally to run until July 2014, in March 2013 the Secretary of State for Transport announced the franchise would again be extended until 15 October 2016. Greater Anglia was rebranded as Abellio Greater Anglia in December 2013, on 31 May 2015 the Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Cheshunt and Chingford services, as well as the Romford to Upminster service, transferred to London Overground Rail Operations. On the same day, the Liverpool Street to Shenfield stopping services transferred to the TfL Rail concession managed by MTR, the refurbishment programme was completed in 2016. In June 2015, an Abellio /Stagecoach joint venture, FirstGroup, in December 2015 it was announced that Stagecoach had pulled out of the joint bid with Abellio, and that Abellio would continue the bid alone. In August 2016, it was announced that Abellio had successfully bid to retain the franchise until 2025, a franchise commitment is to purchase 1,043 new carriages,660 from Bombardiers Derby Litchurch Lane Works with the other 383 to be built by Stadler Rail. In January 2017, Abellio announced that subject to gaining Department for Transport approval, extensive refurbishment of some of the existing vehicles, prior to replacement. Raise Public Performance Measure scores to at least 92. 9%, two weekday trains operating between Norwich and Ipswich to London with a journey time of 90 min and 60 min respectively. Free WiFi on trains and stations, £60M investment for station upgrades with a focus on Broxbourne, Cambridge, Cheshunt, Harlow Town and Southend Victoria stations. Introduction of digital screens on all stations with improvements in car and cycle parking along with upgrades to ticket offices. New ticketing programs with offers for infrequent travelers and part-time workers, introduction of an automatic delay repay service for season and advance ticket holders
2.
Great Eastern Railway
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The Great Eastern Railway was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923, the GER was formed in 1862 by amalgamation of the Eastern Counties Railway with a number of smaller railways. It also served an area, including Enfield, Chingford, Loughton. This suburban network was, in the early 20th century, the busiest steam-hauled commuter system in the world, the station was renamed Bishopsgate on 27 July 1847. The Great Eastern attempted to obtain a West End terminus, alongside the one in east London, via the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway, a new London terminus at Liverpool Street was opened to traffic on 2 February 1874, and was completely operational from 1 November 1875. From this date the terminus at Bishopsgate closed to passengers. In 1922, a marble memorial was installed at Liverpool Street station commemorating GER staff who had answered the call of duty to fight. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Henry Wilson, who was assassinated by two Irish Republican Army gunmen on his way home from the unveiling ceremony. A smaller memorial to Wilson was later placed adjacent to the GER memorial, alongside one to Charles Fryatt, the Great Eastern Railway was made up of a number of constituent companies when it was formed in 1862. The most notable was the Eastern Counties Railway, which had taken over most of the companies by this time. The history and exact status of many of these railways is quite complex, in many cases the operation of the railway that built the line was taken over although the original railway company often existed in legal form after that date. This suggests that despite the fact some of these railway companies had been taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway prior to the 1862 Act. BTR - Bury St Edmunds and Thetford Railway - became part of the GER in 1878, the GER also provided staff, locomotives and rolling stock in return for 50% of the gross takings. Changed name to ESIR in 1878 ESIR - Ely and St Ives Railway - taken over by GER in 1898 E&NR - Ely, formed in 1875 and taken over by GER in 1898. The latter two operated what are now the Metropolitan, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines of the London Underground, the GER had two seats on the management committee which met twice per year and the GER members were supported by the Secretary and a solicitor. GNGEJR Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway - a joint railway committee formed in 1879 and it consisted of five directors from each company, met every quarter and the GER members were supported by the Secretary, a solicitor, an engineer and the General Manager. The table below shows the dates of the railways that made up the Great Eastern. Other railways NLR - North London Railway GNR - Great Northern Railway Notes A - worked by NLR until 1866, then by GER one year and NLR the next until 1874 then GER and successors
3.
London and North Eastern Railway
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The London and North Eastern Railway was the second largest of the Big Four railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948, at that time, it was divided into the new British Railways Eastern Region, North Eastern Region, and partially the Scottish Region. Sir Ralph Wedgwood was the Chief Officer for its first 16 years, the North Eastern Railway had the largest route mileage,1,757 miles, the Hull and Barnsley Railway just 106.5 miles. The M&GNJR was incorporated into the LNER in 1936, in 1933, on the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board, the LNER acquired the remaining operations of the Metropolitan Railway Company. The LNER was the majority partner in the Cheshire Lines Committee, the LNER covered the area north and east of London. It included the East Coast Main Line from London to Edinburgh via York and Newcastle upon Tyne, most of the country east of the Pennines was within its purview, including East Anglia. The main workshops were in Doncaster, with others at Darlington, Inverurie and Stratford, the LNER inherited four of Londons termini, Fenchurch Street (ex-London and Blackwall Railway, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, and Marylebone. In addition, it ran suburban services to Broad Street and Moorgate, on 13 February 1923, an express passenger train overran signals at Retford, Nottinghamshire and was in a rear-end collision with a freight train. On 23 December 1923, a passenger train overran signals and was in collision with a light engine at Belford. On 28 July 1924, a train overran signals and collided with another at Haymarket station, Edinburgh. On 12 May 1926, during the General Strike, a passenger train was deliberately derailed south of Cramlington. On 7 August 1926, a multiple unit overran signals and was in collision with a freight train at Manors station, Newcastle upon Tyne. The accident was caused by the tying down the controller with a handkerchief. When he leant out of the train he struck an overbridge and was killed, the train was able to continue moving until the collision. On 14 February 1927, two trains were in a head-on collision at Hull Paragon station, Yorkshire due to a signalmans error. Twelve people were killed and 24 were injured, on 27 February 1927, an express passenger train collided with a light engine at Penistone, Yorkshire due to a signalmans error. On 17 August 1928, a train collided with a lorry on a level crossing at Shepreth. On 27 June 1928, a train was in a head-on collision with a parcels train that was being shunted at Darlington
4.
East of England
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The East of England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999 and it includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region and its population at the 2011 census was 5,847,000. Bedford, Luton, Basildon, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford, the southern part of the region lies in the London commuter belt. The region has the lowest elevation range in the UK, North Cambridgeshire and the Essex Coast have most of the around 5% of the region which is below 10 metres above sea level. The Fens are partly in North Cambridgeshire which is notable for the lowest point in the country in the land of the village of Holme 2.75 metres below sea level which was once Whittlesey Mere. The highest point is at Clipper Down at 817 ft, in the far corner of the region in the Ivinghoe Hills. In the late 1960s, the Roskill Commission considered Thurleigh in Bedfordshire, Nuthampstead in Hertfordshire, the East of England succeeded the standard statistical region East Anglia. The East of England civil defence region was identical to todays region, England between the Wash and Thames Estuary has since post-Roman times been and continues to be known as East Anglia, including the county traversing the west of this line, Cambridgeshire. Essex, despite meaning East-Saxons, previously formed part of the South East England, as did Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, the earliest use of the term is from 1695. Charles Davenant, in An essay upon ways and means of supplying the war, wrote, The Eleven Home Counties, then cited a list including these four. The term does not appear to have used in taxation since the 18th century. East Anglia is one of the driest parts of the United Kingdom with average rainfall ranging from 450 mm to 750 mm. This is usually because low pressure systems and weather fronts from the Atlantic have lost a lot of their moisture over land by the time they reach Eastern England, however the Fens in Cambridgeshire are prone to flooding should a strong system affect the area. Northerly winds can also be cold but are not usually as cold as easterly winds, westerly winds bring milder and, typically, wetter weather. Southerly winds usually bring mild air but chill if coming from further east than Spain, spring is a transitional season that can be chilly to start with but is usually warm by late-April/May. The weather at this time is often changeable and occasionally showery, summer is usually warm and continental air from mainland Europe or the Azores High usually leads to at least a few weeks of hot, balmy weather with prolonged warm to hot weather. The number of storms from the Atlantic, such as the remnants of a tropical storm usually coincides with the location of the jet stream
5.
Liverpool Street station
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The station opened in 1874 as a replacement for Bishopsgate station as the Great Eastern Railways main London terminus. By 1895 it had the largest number of platforms on any railway station in London. During the First World War, an air raid on the station in 1917 led to 162 deaths, in the build-up to the Second World War, the station served as the entry point for thousands of child refugees arriving in London as part of the Kindertransport rescue mission. Liverpool Street was built as a station with provision for the Underground. A tube station opened in 1875 for the Metropolitan Railway, and the station today is served by the Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, Liverpool Street is the third-busiest railway station in the United Kingdom after Waterloo and Victoria, both also in London. It is managed directly by Network Rail, a few daily express trains to Harwich International provide a connection with the Dutchflyer ferry to Hook of Holland. Stansted Express trains provide a link to Stansted Airport and Southend Victoria-bound services stop at Southend Airport, most passenger services on the Great Eastern Main Line are operated by Greater Anglia. Since 2015, the Shenfield metro service has been controlled by TfL Rail, a small number of late-evening and weekend services operated by c2c run via Barking. The station is split into two halves, the west side for the Lea Valley Lines services and the east side for services via Stratford. The typical off-peak weekday service pattern from Liverpool Street is, Liverpool Street station was built as the new London terminus of the Great Eastern Railway which served Norwich, the GER had been formed from the merger of several railway companies, inheriting Bishopsgate as its London terminus. Consequently, the GER planned a more central station, the station was planned to be around 630 by 200 ft in area, with its main façade onto Liverpool Street and an additional entrance on Bishopsgate-Street. The line and station construction were authorised by the Great Eastern Railway Act 1864, the station was built on a 10 acres site previously occupied by the Bethlem Royal Hospital, adjacent to Broad Street station, west of Bishopsgate and facing onto Liverpool Street to the south. The development land was purchased, displacing around 3,000 residents of the parish of St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate. To manage the disruption caused by rehousing, the company was required by the 1864 Act to run daily low-cost workmens trains from the station. The station was designed by GER engineer Edward Wilson and built by Lucas Brothers, the overall design was approximately Gothic, built using stock bricks and bath stone dressings. The building incorporated booking offices as well as the offices of the GER, including chairmans, board, committee, secretary. The station was built with a connection to the sub-surface Metropolitan Railway, with the platform sunk below ground level, the Metropolitan Railway used the station as a terminus from 1 February 1875 until 11 July 1875, their own underground station opened on 12 July 1875. Local trains began serving the partially completed station from 2 October 1874, the original City terminus at Bishopsgate closed to passengers and was converted for use as a goods station from 1881
6.
Buffer stop
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A buffer stop or bumper, bumping post, or stopblock, is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track. The design of the stop is dependent, in part, on the kind of couplings that the railway uses. The term buffer stop is of British origin, since railways in Great Britain principally use buffer-and-screw couplings between vehicles, several different types of buffer stop have been developed. They differ depending on the type of coupler used and on the intended application and these are particularly important for passenger railway applications, because the anticlimbers prevent telescoping of the railroad cars during a head-on impact. One such accident occurred when a Northern Line train powered past the block at Moorgate station in 1975 on the London Underground system. Largely because of its mass, a train transfers an enormous amount of energy in a collision with a buffer stop. Rigid buffers can only cope with very low-speed impacts. To improve stopping performance, a way of dissipating this energy is needed, following a buffer stop accident at Frankfurt am Main in 1902, the Rawie company developed a large range of energy-absorbing buffer stops. Similar hydraulic buffer stops were developed by Ransomes & Rapier in the UK, when it is desired to slow or stop moving trains, without erecting a solid buffer stop, dowty retarders may be employed. They press upwards against the wheels, and may optionally be turned off as required, raja Trains Depot in Tehran Stopping speed,20 km/h Stopping distance,20 m. Wheel stops are used to slow moving trains from continuing down a level track section. 22 October 1895 – Gare Montparnasse, Paris, France – express train overruns buffer stop,1902 – Frankfurt am Main, Germany – Serious buffer stop collision inspires development of Rawie range of energy-absorbing buffer stops. 27 July 1903 – Glasgow St Enoch –16 killed 27 injured 1948 – diesel train through buffer stops at Los Angeles,15 January 1953 – Union Station, Washington, D. C. – Federal Express #173, pulled by PRR4876, overruns the stop after its brakes fail, the locomotive enters the concourse of the station building before falling through the floor. 1972 – BART train went through buffer stops due to fault in automatic train operation,28 February 1975 – Moorgate Underground rail crash –43 killed,74 injured – buffer stop collision made far worse by small size tube train running into large dimensioned dead-end tunnel beyond. The tunnel could accommodate full-size surface stock thus permitting the smaller train to concertina inside the tunnel,13 April 1978 – Budapest, Hungary – commuter train overruns a buffer stop owing to brake failure and crashes into the station building. 8 November 1986 – Hua Lamphong, Bangkok, Thailand –5 killed,7 injured – buffer stop collision made by a train at a speed of 50 km/h. 8 January 1991 – Cannon Street station rail crash, London –2 killed,11 July 1995 – Largs – Class 318 EMU goes through buffer stops
7.
British Rail Class 313
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The British Rail Class 313 is a dual-voltage electric multiple unit train built by BREL York Works between February 1976 and April 1977. They were the first units in Britain to have multi-function Tightlock couplers, allowing coupling, following the withdrawal of most first-generation stock, they are the oldest EMUs in regular service on National Rail on the British mainland, the oldest units are now 41 years old. The Class 313 was developed following extensive trials with the prototype Class 445 PEP built in the early 1970s, the 313 is similar to the Class 314, Class 315, Class 507 and Class 508. They are standard length and width, but the roof is lower, due to this, each motor coach has shoe gear on both bogies, whereas normally it would only be on the leading bogie. They are fitted with trip-cocks that are struck by a raised arm at red signals. The units were originally numbered 313001-064, each unit is formed of two outer driving motors and an intermediate trailer with a pantograph. This is a reversal of the started in the 1960s. Part of the reason was to simplify the equipment to allow dual-voltage operation, on 750 V DC each motor coach draws its supply directly through its shoe gear. 313s have series-wound DC GEC G310AZ traction motors controlled by a controlled resistance system with series and parallel motor groupings. Great Northern and Southern units have been retro-fitted with cab air conditioning, Great Northern units have sanding equipment. Unlike some other DMU/EMU classes, additional brake force is not available when the brake application is initiated and is the equivalent force of a step 3/full service application. WSP is still active when making an emergency application, the air suspension is linked to the braking system via a Variable Load Valve, which increases air brake pressure when the coach is more heavily loaded to compensate for the additional weight. The DMS A coach has a compressor and main reservoir tank, the MA provides power for the following,415 V AC - headlight, traction/braking resistor cooling fan, coach heater fans. 240 V AC - cab heater fan, thermostat fans, appliance sockets,110 V DC - control supply, battery charging, train lighting, cab air conditioning, CCTV system. V vehicles are numbered as follows, 62529-62592 - DMSO 71213-71276 - PTSO 62593-62656 - BDMSO All units have standard class seating only. As built, the doors were opened by the passengers. Unfortunately many people did not wait for the release and gave the handle a much harder tug. Concerns over passenger safety led to the removal of the handles from March 1977 to be replaced by push-buttons which serve the purpose as the handles
8.
Felixstowe railway station
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Felixstowe railway station serves the town of Felixstowe in Suffolk, England. It is the terminus of the 11. 75-mile Felixstowe Branch Line from Westerfield and it was opened by the Great Eastern Railway in 1898 as Felixstowe Town railway station but since 1967 has been the only station in the town. Trains in 2012 are operated by Abellio Greater Anglia, the railway from Westerfield to Felixstowe was opened by the Felixstowe Pier and Railway Company on 1 May 1877. The first railway station was at Felixstowe Pier and a second was added at Felixstowe Beach. The railways principal promoter, Colonel George Tomline, was criticised in the Suffolk Chronicle for building the stations where he thinks people ought to be, rather than where people actually live. It is also claimed that the Beach station was sited there to be away from the Ordnance Hotel, on 13 July 1891 Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, wife of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and a relative of Queen Victoria, arrived on a train at Felixstowe Beach station. She and five of her children stayed in the town on holiday until 6 August and this gave the town a boost as a holiday resort. Although the population of the town in 1891 was only 3,507 development was increasing along the ground north of the Beach station. By now the line had been purchased by the GER which set about obtaining powers in June 1893 to divert the railway to Hamilton Road. The new Town station was opened on 1 July 1898 by Lord Claud Hamilton, the direct line from Trimley to Felixstowe Beach was closed and all trains then had to reverse at the Town station before continuing their journey. A new Orwell Hotel was opened in 1898 opposite the station entrance, a promenade was built along the seafront in 1903 and a pleasure pier opened in 1905. Lord Claud Hamilton was invited back to the town in 1909 to open a new Spa Pavilion, the developing resort was by now served by direct trains from London Liverpool Street station. In 1905 the 10,00 service from London called at Westerfield to detach carriages for Felixstowe and it was only allowed two minutes to do this, and the Felixstowe portion continued on its way just three minutes later. A non-stop train each way between Liverpool Street and Felixstowe Town was introduced in 1906, another fast train was introduced in 1907 with a single stop at Colchester. In 1923 the Great Eastern Railway became a part of the new London, fewer through trains were run from London than before World War I, but from 1929 until 1939 there was a regular Eastern Belle Pullman service. It left Liverpool Street at 11,00, took less than two hours to reach Felixstowe, and returned at 19,35, in 1938 the LNER received new powers to double the Felixstowe Branch Line and enlarge the station. An additional platform was provided at Felixstowe in 1939, but the track along the branch failed to materialise due to the outbreak of World War II. Bombs fell near the station during the war resulting in damage to the signal box
9.
Colchester railway station
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Colchester railway station is on the Great Eastern Main Line in the East of England, and is the primary station serving the town of Colchester, Essex. Its three-letter station code is COL and it is 51 miles 52 chains down-line from London Liverpool Street and on the GEML is situated between Marks Tey to the west and Manningtree to the east. The junction is grade-separated so trains branching to and from Colchester Town or the Sunshine Coast Line do not cross the main line, Colchester station was opened in 1843 by the Eastern Counties Railway. It is currently managed by Abellio Greater Anglia, which operates all trains serving the station. The station was opened on 29 March 1843 by the Eastern Counties Railway and was named simply as Colchester, locally, however, it is also known as Colchester North to distinguish it from Colchester Town station. Buses also use this unofficial name, Colchester station is not particularly conveniently sited for the town, but buses connect to the town centre. Colchester Town station is closer to the town centre, as passenger numbers passing through the station increased, particularly with growth on the Sunshine Coast Line, the layout of the station became inadequate. This problem was heightened on summer weekends when large numbers of holiday trains destined for Clacton-on-Sea were added to the schedules, the station had also been built on a relatively sharp curve. Prior to electrification of the lines, Colchester was modernised in 1962, following the reconstruction the station has two main platforms. The junction is protected by a trap leading to friction buffer stops, there are also bay platforms at both ends of the up main platform. The London-end bay is used for trains to and from London. Previously this platform was used for frequent services for the Sudbury Branch Line, however, most of these services were truncated to terminate at Marks Tey from the mid-1990s. The other bay platform is used for services to Colchester Town, the down side platform is an island platform with two faces, one on the down main, and one on the down branch line. Platform 1 is mainly used for Clacton-on-Sea trains and occasionally for Norwich trains, the main ticket office is a modern glass-fronted design, sited on the north side of the station, and access to the platforms is via a subway. The previous station building is on the side and provides access to the up platform for those with tickets or wanting to buy tickets from a machine. Both entrances to the station have automatic ticket gates, former train operating company Anglia Railways operated services known as London Crosslink from Norwich to Basingstoke via Stratford. This service started in 2000 and ended in 2002, on 12 July 1913, at approximately 3 pm, an express passenger train travelling at high speed collided with a light engine at Colchester due to a signalmans error. Part of the train was derailed
10.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
11.
Eastern Region of British Railways
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Together with the North Eastern Region, it covered most lines of the former London and North Eastern Railway, except in Scotland. The region ceased to be a unit in its own right in the 1980s and was wound up at the end of 1992. The region was formed in at nationalisation in 1948, mostly out of the former Great Northern, Great Eastern, of all the Big Four pre-nationalisation railway companies, the LNER was most in need of significant investment. In the immediate post-war period there was a need to rebuild the destroyed stations in London and along the busy East Coast Main Line, additionally, the LNER had begun a suburban electrification programme which the British Transport Commission was pledged to continue. In 1967 this policy was reversed and North Eastern was merged with the Eastern region, over the years the region was recast to be geographical rather than being based upon pre-nationalisation ownership. In 1949 the Eastern Region gained the London Tilbury and Southend lines from the London Midland Region, the main routes were, Liverpool Street station and the former GER eastern main line to Shenfield, Colchester and Harwich in Essex, Norwich in Norfolk and Ipswich and Felixstowe in Suffolk. Liverpool Street station and the former GER western main line to Cambridge, London Kings Cross railway station to Stevenage in Hertfordshire and Peterborough in Cambridgeshire. Fenchurch Street railway station to Basildon, Southend and Shoeburyness, the lines were managed as the Great Northern and the Great Eastern, with the regional headquarters at 55 Liverpool Street. After the merger with the North Eastern Region, that headquarters in York became the headquarters of the new Eastern Region. The original plan had called for the electrification of most of the LNER. Instead, the Eastern Region had to content itself with being an early adopter of diesel-electric power, the premier East Coast Main Line was not electrified throughout until the late 1980s, by which time the Eastern Region had been abolished with the coming of sectorisation. British Railways Atlas Ian Allan Publishing 2004 Dudley, G, - Lessons from British Transport Policy 1945-99 Routledge 2001 Daniels, Gerald David, Dench, Leslie Alan
12.
Single-track railway
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A single-track railway is a railway where trains travelling in both directions share the same track. Single track is found on lesser-used rail lines, often branch lines. Single track is significantly cheaper to build, but has operational, for example, a single-track line that takes 15 minutes to travel through would have capacity for only two trains per hour in each direction. By contrast, a track with signal boxes four minutes apart can allow up to 15 trains per hour in each direction. This hindrance on the capacity of a track may be partly overcome by making the track one-way on alternate days. Long freight trains are a problem if the passing stretches are not long enough, other disadvantages include the propagation of delays, since one delayed train on a single track will also delay any train waiting for it to pass. Also, a single track does not have a track that can allow a reduced capacity service to continue if one track is closed. These consist of stretches of double track, usually long enough to hold one train. The capacity of a line is determined by the number of passing loops. Passing loops may also be used to trains heading in the same direction at different speeds to overtake. Some form of signalling system is required, in traditional British practice, single-track lines were operated using a token system where the train driver had to be in possession of a token in order to enter a stretch of single track. Because there was one unique token issued at any one time for each stretch of single track. This method is used on some minor lines but in the longest single-track lines in Britain this has been superseded by radio communication. This generally worked but was inflexible and inefficient and it was improved with the invention of the telegraph and the ability to issue train orders. Converting a single-track railway to double track is called duplication or doubling, converting double track to track is known as singling. A double-track railway operating only a track is known as single-line working. Building bike trails on rail corridors has occurred in limited examples, also reclaiming a railway corridor to use trains again, that have become bike paths, limits the use of double tracks. The bike path is usually where the track would be
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