‘Northampton Gateway Strategic Railfreight Interchange – Project Overview and Construction Update’, by George Collinson, 2nd January 2024
2nd January 2024 Meeting.
2nd January was the date of the first meeting of the year for us and we started off with a Zoom Presentation from George Collinson, a Network Rail Sponsor who talked about the ‘Northampton Gateway Strategic Railfreight Interchange - Project Overview and Construction Update’.
After introducing himself, [born in Wigan, lives in Cardiff] he told us what Sponsors do and their responsibilities.
The actual site is on the Northampton Loop Line north of Hanslope Junction [Courteenhall] and the site is on the right very near Junction 15 of M1. The site is accessed both northbound and southbound with crossovers and entry/exit of 40mph, and there are 3 reception sidings and 3 intermodal sidings.
The site is 5m square feet. In November 2022 construction work for the railway connections started and in September last year there was a nine-day blockade on the line to set-up and last month the fibre cables were diverted. This Easter the final connections will be made, and the REB, Main Line and Terminal commissioning will be completed for entry into service.
The key challenges are overlapping project stages, access, signalling integration, civil works, industrial actions and future capacity expectations.
There was a vigorous Q&A session which George managed admirably, and we had an attendance of 47. The decision to hold this meeting via Zoom proved a wise one, as ‘Storm Henk’ battered parts of southern England and caused transport chaos that day!
Rob Davidson, Branch Secretary