Sunshine Coast Line

Sunshine Coast Line is also a colloquial name referring to the Nambour and Gympie North railway line in Queensland, Australia.

v • d • e Sunshine Coast Line

Legend GEML towards London Colchester GEML towards Norwich East Gate Junction Harwich Road Colchester Town (closed Sundays) Hythe (Essex) (closed Sundays) Hythe level crossing Hythe Station Road Wivenhoe Former Brightlingsea Line Alresford (Essex) Thorrington level crossing Station Road Thorrington (closed 1956) Great Bentley level crossing Plough Road Great Bentley Weeley (closed Sundays) Thorpe-le-Soken Kirby Cross Frinton-on-Sea Frinton-on-Sea level crossing Station Road Walton-on-the-Naze Clacton-on-Sea

The Sunshine Coast Line is a railway line linking Colchester to Walton-on-the-Naze and via a branch line to Clacton-on-Sea. Passenger services are run by National Express East Anglia. Trains to Clacton-on-Sea are usually trains from London, while those to Walton-on-the-Naze start at Colchester on weekdays and Saturdays, but at Thorpe-le-Soken on Sundays. There is one through train in each direction between Walton-on-the-Naze and London on weekdays only (1739 from Walton-on-the-Naze and 2118 return). The line is part of the Network Rail Strategic Route 7, SRS 07.08 and is classified as a London & South East commuter line.^[1]

On Sundays, Colchester Town, Hythe and Weeley are all closed. Therefore, on this day a shuttle train service operates on the Walton branch between Walton-on-the-Naze and Thorpe-le-Soken and a train service operates on the Clacton branch between Clacton-on-Sea and London Liverpool Street.

Off-peak services

• 1 tph Express service: Clacton-on-Sea - Thorpe-le-Soken - Wivenhoe - Colchester - then onwards to London Liverpool Street.
• 1 tph Local service: Walton-on-the-Naze - Frinton-on-Sea - Kirby Cross - Thorpe-le-Soken - Weeley - Great Bentley - Alresford - Wivenhoe - Hythe - Colchester Town - Colchester

During the peak hours, many London and Clacton trains additionally call at Alresford and Great Bentley.

History

The Great Eastern Main Line opened between Colchester and Ipswich in 1843 and the section to London was due to open in 1849.

The first short section of the Sunshine Coast Line was built by the Colchester, Stour Valley, Sudbury and Halstead Railway to the port of Hythe opened for goods on 31 March 1847. In 1859 the Tendring Hundred Railway Company was formed to extend the line from Hythe to Wivenhoe which opened on 8 May 1863 for both passenger and goods services from Colchester. By the time the Wivenhoe extension open the line was operated by the GER Great Eastern Railway.

The line was then extended to Weeley on 8 January 1866, to Kirby Cross on 28 July 1866, and on to its terminus at Walton-on-the-Naze on 17 May 1867. In the meantime, a short branch to a new, more central station at Colchester St Botolphs (Colchester Town railway station) opened on 1 March 1866.

A second company, the Wivenhoe & Brightlingsea Railway, had been incorporated in 1861 to build a line from Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea which opened on 17 April 1866. There were also proposals to build a line to Clacton as early as 1866, but nothing came of them until 1877, when the Clacton-on-Sea Railway was incorporated. The collection from Thorpe-le-Soken to Clacton opened on 4 July 1882, also operated by the GER.

The GER soon negotiated to buy both the Tendring Hundred Railway and the Clacton-on-Sea Railway, and both became part of the GER on 1 July 1883. The Wivenhoe & Brightlingsea was absorbed by the GER on 9 June 1893.^[2] Electrification of the line was ongoing in 1959 and by January the line was electrified as far as Great Bentley. The first trial train to run on the newly electrified section was on 18 January 1959 which started at Colchester and terminated at Great Bentley. The line was the first to be electrified at 25 kV AC, using overhead wires, with electrified services inaugurated on 13 April 1959 ^[3].

Passenger services have been operated by two different franchises since privatisation in 1997, First Great Eastern ran the services until 31st March 2004 when the National Express Group took over the franchise, with the company branded one Railway until February 2008, at which time it was rebranded to National Express East Anglia.

Current developments

Resignalling 2006-2009

A major engineering project known as The Colchester to Clacton Resignalling Project took place on the line between December 2006 and July 2009. At a cost of £104 million, it has seen the renewal of life-expired signalling equipment and the installation of a new control system. The works should help improve the reliability and increase the performance of train services. The project also consisted of upgrading manual level crossings at Great Bentley, Frinton-on-Sea, Clacton-on-Sea, Thorrington and Alresford. This project required the line to be closed every weekend and bank holiday for the 4 year period. Bus replacements were in operation during this time.

Infrastructure

The line is double track except for the branch between Thorpe-le-Soken and Walton-on-the-Naze which is single track. It is electrified at 25 kV AC, has a loading gauge of W6 and a line speed of between 40-75 mph, except for the branch to Colchester Town which is 0-35 mph.^[1]

Passenger services are operated by electric multiple units. Services to Walton-on-the-Naze are normally Class 321, Class 360 or occasionally Class 315 EMUs, while trains to Clacton are normally Class 360 EMUs, though occasionally Class 321s, and on rare occasions, a Class 315.

Class 321:

Walton-on-the-Naze to Colchester services (4-cars)

Class 360:

Clacton-on-Sea to London Liverpool Street services (4/8/12 cars)

Manually operated level crossing at Great Bentley station which was replaced with barriers in 2008

There are several level crossings. During 2007 and 2008, Network Rail upgraded all the manual level crossings on the line with the exception of the historic gates at Frinton-on-Sea which were replaced in April 2009, despite opposition from the town to keep the manual gates.

Image of level crossing at Thorrington

References

This United Kingdom railway-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/4139.aspx