Network Rail Greater Anglia Route Utilisation Strategy

The Greater Anglia Route Utilisation Strategy is a Route Utilisation Strategy published by Network Rail in December 2007. It was the sixth RUS to be produced. The area covered includes the whole of Route 5 West Anglia (WA) and Route 7 Great Eastern (GE), which both focus for passenger purposes on London Liverpool Street, and the London Fenchurch Street services from Route 6. As with other RUSs, the Greater Anglia RUS took into account a number of responses, including the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR).

The routes and services covered by the RUS are varied in type. The key issues are peak crowding on inner suburban, outer suburban and some long distance services, and the capacity of the routes to handle growing container freight traffic; however off-peak service gaps on main passenger routes are dealt with, and the routes also include a number of relatively lightly used services, though with some peak 'spikes'.

Like other strategies in this series, recommendations are divided into short-term (Control Period 3, CP3, the remaining 18 months to March 2009), medium-term (CP4, five years to March 2014), and long-term (CP5, thereafter). A summary of recommendations for each of the strategic routes (as described above) is also provided.

As with several other RUSs the chief solution recommended for peak crowding is to add cars to the trains, which in many cases will require platform extensions, or less commonly to provide additional services, which may require other infrastructural enhancements. The RUS also picks up from the Freight RUS the enhancements desired on the Ipswich-Peterborough freight route.

The short-term improvements are mainly minor enhancements to improve performance, but include the extension of the bay platform at Grays to accommodate 8-car trains.

Thameside route: Minor infrastructure works and additional rolling stock to allow all main line peak-service trains to be extended progressively to 12-car formation; the extension of platforms on the Tilbury loop and Ockendon branch to handle 12 cars, to allow all main line peak-service trains to be extended progressively to 8 or 12-car formation.

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