Some are barely there, just pedestrian gates at the end of footpaths or farm track occupation crossings. Others are unlikely survivors of a bygone age - wooden swing gates operated by train crews. Then there are some over B-roads with long defunct automatic half-barrier equipment, or even automatic locally-monitored open crossings with no barriers. Remarkably the A47 Wisbech bypass, which carries tens of thousands of vehicles every day, is crossed using the latter (although here the rails have been removed).
Finally, the line reaches Weasenham Lane in Wisbech itself (another train crew-operated gate crossing). Here the rails have been removed altogether and this tendril of the network gives up the ghost.
With speed restrictions at some crossings of 10mph, plus the time taken to open and close gates, it would be a seriously slow ride. But that hasn’t stopped raw local passion keeping up the pressure to return Wisbech to the railway map - indeed, the society believes most of the crossings could be closed.
Gilbert continues: “It would have an enormous benefit on connectivity to the rest of the network and Cambridge itself. For the passenger traffic, yes it would be a slow build-up. But as soon as people start thinking of wages levels and the opportunities in Cambridge and the relative costs of setting up in Wisbech, there would be a snowstorm, I think - with people wanting to move to Wisbech and build there. I think it would be closely followed by a significant industrial opportunity.”
The group is not alone in its belief and persistence. In 2009 the Association of Train Operating Companies produced its Connecting Communities report, and on the back of ever-increasing passenger numbers it kicked off in optimistic mood.
“This report seeks to complement recent and ongoing studies into options for capacity enhancement by looking at other opportunities to connect communities which have grown in recent years but which do not have good access to the rail network. In particular... schemes which could be delivered relatively quickly, through short links to (or new stations on) existing lines, and by making use of freight lines (current or recently closed).”
Re-opening the line to Wisbech, upgrading the level crossings and providing a new station was listed in the appendices as a scheme that would cost £12 million with a Benefit:Cost Ratio of 1:1 (higher when the capital expenditure was taken out of the calculation). This put it about halfway down the list of projects ATOC considered, and it called on the Department for Transport to develop a policy to safeguard promising routes.
However, most of the political and financial muscle so far has come from local government - namely Cambridgeshire County Council, which remains the prime mover today.
“We have great prosperity in the south of the county and the reverse in the north of the county,” says Bob Menzies, the council’s Director of Strategy and Development.
“The north is poorer, there are fewer job opportunities, educational attainment is less. It’s quite marked. It’s almost like the north-south divide across the country runs through Cambridgeshire. We have a situation in Wisbech that a lot of people in the county are a good hour and a half away from Cambridge. If we get the railway line re-opened between Wisbech and March and get (ideally) through trains from Wisbech to Cambridge, we could have journey times of half that.”
So it isn’t just about serving a population now, it’s about creating opportunities in the future?
“Absolutely. At the moment people from Wisbech don’t go to Cambridge because it’s quite a journey. They would look more to Peterborough for shops, education, employment - or even to King’s Lynn. They travel east-west, not north-south. It’s this access to employment in the south of the county - the higher value jobs. It’s not about a transport problem in itself. It isn’t a congestion problem from Wisbech to Cambridge (apart from the outskirts of Cambridge), but it is about creating new journeys - journeys that don’t take place at the moment.”
