Ipswich to Ely Line

v • d • e Ipswich-Cambridge/Ely Line

Legend Fen Line Ely to St Ives River Great Ouse Soham Soham Lode West Anglia Main Line to London Liverpool Street Hitchin-Cambridge Line to London King's Cross Waterbeach Varsity Line to Sandy Cambridge to St Ives River Cam Coldham Lane Junction / Barnwell Junction Fen Ditton Halt Quy Bottisham and Lode Swaffham Prior Burwell Exning Road Halt to Mildenhall Fordham Cambridge to Mildenhall railway Fulbourn A11 / A14 to Great Chesterford Six Mile Bottom Dullingham Newmarket Opened 1902 Newmarket (High Level) / Warren Hill (1848-1967) Warren Hill tunnel Newmarket Warren Hill 1879-1902 Snailwell Junction A14 Kennett A14 Higham Saxham & Risby Bury St Edmunds ( Long Melford – Thetford ) River Lark A14 Thurston Elmswell Haughley Road GEML to Norwich to Laxfield Haughley A14 Stowmarket River Gipping Needham Market Claydon River Gipping A14 Bramford East Suffolk Line Ipswich GEML to London Liverpool Street

The Ipswich to Ely Line is a railway line linking East Anglia to the English Midlands via Ely. There is also a branch line to Cambridge. Passenger services are operated by National Express East Anglia. It is a part of Network Rail Strategic Route 5, SRS 05.07, 05.08 and part of SRS 07.03.^[1]

History

The Eastern Union Railway had built a line from Colchester to Ipswich and they formed a new company, Ipswich and Bury Railway Company, chaired by John Chevallier Cobbold to build an extension from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds which was known as the "Bury extension". It was granted parliamentary approval by Royal Assent on 21 July 1845 and the first train ran on ran on 26th November 1846. The Ipswich and Bury Railway Company was formally merged with the Eastern Union Railway Company on 9 July 1847.^[2]

The 'Newmarket Railway' was built by the Newmarket and Chesterford Railway with the first section from Newmarket to Six Mile Bottom (and on to meet the West Anglia Main Line at Great Chesterford) opened in 1848, followed by a section from Six Mile Bottom to Cambridge in 1951.

The Great Eastern Railway was formed in 1862 acquiring both the Newmarket and Chesterford Railway and the Eastern Union Railway. They opened the final section of the route from Newmarket to Ely and also to Bury St Edmunds in 1879.^[3]

Infrastructure

The line shares the route between Ipswich and Haughley junction with the Great Eastern Main Line which is classified as primary line. The section between Haughley junction and Ely is classified as secondary line with the Cambridge branch being classified as rural.

The line from Ipswich to part way between Kennett and Ely is double track with the remainder, plus the Cambridge branch, being single track (with a passing loop at Dullingham). Where the line is separate from the Great Eastern Main Line it is not electrified and has a line speed of between 40-75 mph. It has a loading gauge of W10 between Ipswich and Ely with the Cambridge branch being W8.^[1]

Proposed developments

Track dualing between Kennet and Ely

The line between Kennett and Ely will dualed by 2014 as part of the Felixstowe and Nuneaton freight capacity scheme.^[4]

Incidents

Freight train derailment June 2007

All traffic on the line was suspended for 6 months following a freight train derailed on the bridge over the River Great Ouse between Ely and Soham on 22 June 2007. The bridge was severely damaged and closed to all traffic^[5] while it was rebuilt. Rail replacement buses operated between Bury St Edmunds, Ely, March, Whittlesey and Peterborough for the duration until the section of line re-opened on 21 December 2007.

References