East Anglian Railways-The last Twenty Years.
On April 3rd our guest was local photographer Ian Scotchman to present East Anglian Railways-20 years of change. Starting in 2004 after the change over between Anglia Railways and ONE, new services continued to be developed including through trains to Lowestoft and Peterborough from Liverpool Street. Much of the traction remained as such but the new HS1 link through Essex was seen under construction and London Gateway and Tilbury 2 were coming on stream with other area freight services continuing to expand. The Stratford area had yet to be developed for the 2012 Olympics but we saw many special trains including for The Lowestoft Airshow and nuclear flask traffic to Sizewell and Southminster as well as aggregate and RHTT workings. However by 2020 a revolution was underway as all the passenger and some of the freight traction was undergoing replacement. New Stadler and Aventra units have replaced all of the old classes of which many have gone for scrap or transferred away. Some Stadler units were temporarily stored on the Mid Norfolk Railway prior to commisioning because of the pandemic and the opening of the new Elizabeth line has also transformed inner suburban workings especially through the rebuilt Stratford complex. We saw convoys of withdrawn Class 315s and 317s on their last journeys and the transfer of the Class 90s to Freightliner enabling withdrawal of the Class 86/6s previously used. The day of the meeting coincided with the final day of Class 321 operations. Freight was seen on the new HS1 link and new links at Dagenham Dock and London Gateway terminal were also featured. The area is now administered by both Greater Anglia and C2C although other passenger companies have services into the area. All the major freight operators are represented and is the most reliable of all the Network Rail Regions. A thoroughly enjoyable presentation.