A New Town's New Town, Disruption for a Road Dive Under & Lincolnshire's Sunday Buses

Monday - A New Town's New Town
Anyone heading north of Peterborough along the East Coast Main Line would struggle to miss what looks like a new town being built around three miles out. This is actually the building site for a grade separated junction to the west of Werrington, itself split in two with the modern 'half' acting as one of Peterborough's townships. The new junction at Werrington will see the Up/Down Stamford line offer a link to the Great Northern/Great Eastern 'Joint Line' by means of a dive under. Presently, freight trains coming from the Ely/Felixstowe direction have to cross the ECML at Werrington Junction to reach the Joint Line for northbound travel. The irony here is that to reduce congestion on the ECML, northbound freight trains have to effectively block all lines to get off.
     I often stare in awe at the sheer complexity of such undertakings and the Werrington Grade Separated Junction is no exception. Specific tarmac car parks, prefabricated office blocks and even traffic light road operating systems have been installed. The main site car park looks positively urban. The amount of work that needs doing also sounds insurmountable. The connecting spur from the south end of the Joint Line diverged over a mile before Werrington Junction - a sufficient length to allow a suitable gradient to pass under the ECML. On the west side of this Anglo-Scottish artery, the new link joins the Up/Down Stamford which itself needs moving a bit to the left. Were it to remain in situ, the curve required for train leaving in the direction of the dive under would be too sharp. Moving a two-line railway a little bit to the left required compulsory purchase orders and the temporary closure of two footbridges.

Tuesday - Disruption for a Road Dive Under
Driving along the A1 today I was a little disheartened to see yellow road signs that show disruption is expected "until Summer 2021" - yes, Summer 2021. The area in question is while by-passing Grantham, just south of the A607 (Melton) junction. Very similar to Werrington's grade separated junction, here the A52 will head under the A1 and along a new formation that by-passes Grantham and will come out 'yon side' (as they say locally) just north of Prince William of Gloucester Barracks. The benefits here are immediately beneficial to all Grantham residents and those many thousands of truckers who have to pass through the town's centre each week. There is no east-west by-pass, just a north-south alignment in the form of the A1. The new A52 by-pass, as reported almost two years ago in the LEYTR, will have to quite literally bridge the ECML. But still, Summer 2021... It got me thinking - without any online research, I genuinely wondered which will be completed first. Werrington or Grantham?

Sunday - Lincolnshire Buses Today
Driving home with the kids from my parents' house in Cleethorpes today, my son (who has a penchant for all things geographical) started to make a list of the likely buses we'd pass en route. He'd not realised that today was a Sunday and Lincolnshire's limited bus network is positively moribund today. It got me thinking though as we dissected the county: how many bus routes outside urban Grimsby/Skegness/Lincoln/Scunthorpe actually run today? I made a list:
     InterConnect 1 (Lincoln - Grantham)
     InterConnect 37 (Spalding - Peterborough)
     InterConnect 56 (Skegness - Lincoln)
     InterConnect 59 (Skegness - Mablethorpe)
     101 (Bourne - Peterborough)
     322 (Hull - Scunthorpe - Swansea)
     327 (Hull - Scunthorpe - Bristol)
     339 (Grimsby - Lincoln - Westward Ho!)
     FastCat 350 (Ashby - Scunthorpe - Hull)
     447 (Hull - Lincoln - London Victoria)
     448 (Hull - Grimsby - London Victoria)
     449 (Mablethorpe - London Victoria)
     InterConnect 505 (Spalding - King's Lynn)
     567 (Hull - Scunthorpe - London Victoria)
It's worth noting that seven of the above list of 14 services are long-distance National Express routes, representing half of all services in Lincolnshire on Sunday. Towns like Louth only have National Express to rely on. As we headed from Grimsby the only time we had the possibility of meeting any of the above routes was as we passed through Horncastle, (we could have bumped into InterConnect 56). And of course in Bourne the 101 but as we were travelling during the late afternoon/early evening the latter had finished operating. I had hoped we'd pass the 448 heading Hull-bound but that didn't happen either since we headed via New York and Langrick, whereas this long-distance coach service operates via Sleaford and Tattershall.
     Is there anywhere else whose Sunday timetable comprises 50% National Express?

September

I've been offline for much of September thanks to a change in broadband supplier. Who knew such a relatively seamless change would result in a complete loss of service that won't actually be concluded until 7 October? And, of course, it came amidst the 'press week' for the September/October LEYTR, which has been done over the course of a month, adding significant time to produce the forthcoming edition.

With the use of my neighbour's broadband as a temporary measure (my laptop is able to find their wifi signal and I've been given their password enabling me to connect) I thought I'd catch up on my transport diary for the whole of September.

14 September - Going to Great Grimsby
As you'll read in greater detail in the next LEYTR, and on the www.GCT113.com blog once I am back online, I took my bus back home today and along with three other preserved Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport vehicles ran a free shuttle service between the Fishing Heritage Centre and the Docks. Of note and not mentioned elsewhere is the knocking sound that started coming from the entrance doors while they were closed and the bus was in motion. The sound disappeared when the doors were opened and so I made the assumption that the noise was coming from one of the runners at the top of the doors. While driving the bus back to where I keep it, I called at lay-by after lay-by to shove shards of folded paper in anything that I could find to see whether it solved the problem. It didn't. It wouldn't be until the end of the month when I sorted out the problems.
     I wanted to expand further on driving GCT 113 through Grimsby's town centre today. The return trip from the Docks was deliberately routed this way to offer a better connection for those who travelled in on public transport but it had the unexpected effect of garnering significant interest from many members of the public and Stagecoach staff, some of whom had driven MBE 613R in service from 1977 until 2005 and again during the summer of 2014. Some had even driven TJV 100 in service from 1966 until 1981. Even more had, I'm sure, had the pleasure of driving E930 PBE from 1987 until the early-naughties when the bus was transferred to Chesterfield depot. Frustratingly, the latter (Leyland Tiger/Alexander P) has yet to be painted into a GCT livery, but internally the bus is very familiar.
     The last time I took GCT 113 home (a year earlier) was was inundated with emails from people who didn't ride on the bus but simply witnessed it pass them who's made enquiries and discovered my website. I was asked by no fewer than seven people if I'd effectively hire the bus out for events ranging from Year 11 Proms to a birthday treat for a 10-year-old boy. Sadly I'm unable to hire the bus out and on a technicality I'm still not legally permitted to receive a 'restoration donation' for providing the bus for free so I had to sadly turn down all requests. Had I been living in Grimsby I'm sure I'd have loved to oblige some of the easier requests for free but living there other side of Lincolnshire it would take a not inconsiderate amount of time and diesel to do a round trip.
     Back to today and it was a great day, helped by the weather, and I was able to catch up with Stagecoach staff I'd not seen in years, who all managed to make it for a short time to the Fishing Heritage Centre. I actually thought one chap had died, so was rather shocked when he shook my hand, as large as life!

26 September - Delightful Delaine
I'd not stretched the legs of my bus for almost four months since the Fenland BusFest in May until mid-September when I took it to Grimsby and two weeks later I found myself behind the wheel of GCT 113 yet again. Again, a full write-up of the day will be made on www.GCT113.com's blog once my internet is restored, but a major news story for me is that I finally established why my entrance doors were knocking. Initially I was a little dismayed when I was driving the bus to Bourne as despite the specifically located bits of folded paper, the knocking sound still persisted. I met with my friend and transport journalist/writer Steve Knight and had arranged to give him a lift to Bourne Bus Station for his 1500 bus for Peterborough. With a little more mechanical know-how than I, Steve was able to try out various theories while the bus was in motion and within two minutes had identified the problem and offered a solution.