Level crossing closures divide communities, say campaigners

With feelings running high, the sight of a Network Rail hi-vis jacket beside a level crossing attracts the attention of a man who comes striding across a Suffolk beet field, brandishing an alarmingly large pair of secateurs.

“You’re not going to close it, are you?” asks John Day, 69. He concedes: “It’s a little-used crossing.” But he has been coming to Pannington Hall Lane, this isolated spot outside Ipswich, for 40 years to photograph passing trains on the relatively exposed, straight track, and wouldn’t want to lose it.

Closing level crossings is, however, a mandated task for Network Rail, which must weigh up the competing calls for faster trains, lower running costs, a safe railway and the needs of people living alongside it. The intersection of rail and road or path is the most dangerous part of a network that has all but eliminated passenger casualties. It is eight years since a train passenger died in an accident, in which time at least 58 people have died at level crossings.

But without crossings, the railway becomes an endless barrier dividing communities, with people finding themselves literally on the wrong side of the tracks. In the flat, agricultural east of England, the arguments have a particular resonance, with dark warnings of a Berlin Wall running through Suffolk.

A long-standing campaign, Norwich in 90, to upgrade the region’s patchy rail infrastructure and cut journey times has finally won the government’s support. The flip side is that level crossings may need to close. And while local people along the route fear for their links, these counties have also seen some of the most notorious incidents at level crossings – at Elsenham in Essex and Beccles in Suffolk.

Network Rail is scarred by courtroom verdicts of neglect and breaches of health and safety after it allowed crossings to remain open even though the risks were apparent, and shoulders blame for the deaths of Olivia Bazlinton, 14, and Charlotte Thompson, 13, at Elsenham in 2005.

Following inquests into that tragedy, Network Rail was fined £1m. The Office of Rail Regulation ordered it to embark on a nationwide programme of reducing risk. About 900 of just over 7,000 crossings have been shut since 2010, many the low-hanging fruit of barely used crossings with adequate alternatives.

The rest are more complicated. Even at Pannington Hall, where apart from Day virtually no sign of human life is apparent across the mildly undulating fields, simple closure is not an option.

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“We’d never just close a crossing,” says Shenel Bullock, the level crossing manager for the Anglia route. “We don’t have the right.”

She points to a palm-sized sign on the stile beside the tracks, on which the county council declares a public right of way. One of the most basic crossings on the line from London to Norwich, it has nothing more than the stile, some steps and a couple more signs, one a bright yellow, “Stop look listen. Beware of trains”; the second, the Samaritans’ telephone number for anyone who may not be trying to avoid the oncoming trains.

Bullock says the crossing is used primarily, when at all, by occasional ramblers and rail enthusiasts. Yet even the simplest crossing like this demands occasional Network Rail attention and maintenance. About 1,300 passenger trains and 100 freight trains a week run along this track and if they went faster, Bullock says the crossing could not exist in its current form. Trains are limited to 100mph here – 10mph slower than Norwich in 90 plans demand – with the only concession to those crossing being a whistleboard, a W sign that instructs the driver to sound the horn to alert pedestrians.

Bullock is one of about 100 managers appointed by Network Rail since 2010, with the job of eliminating as many risky level crossings as possible. “It’s quite a challenge.”

The solution, after public consultation, could be an upgraded crossing, a diversion, or a bridge. Upgrades such as installing a warning light system mean more expense, management and do not eliminate risk. Diversions – even the few hundred yards along these empty fields to the road bridge – are less simple than they sound. “What sounds reasonable to you and me may not be for ramblers or a farmer.”

Bridges would be a preferred option but at their most basic cost several hundred thousand pounds, and usually far more as rules on accessibility can demand the kind of ramped structure that requires extra land and looks ugly to neighbours. A new bridge replacing Elsenham’s deadly crossing cost £4m. At Motts Lane, Witham, south along this line, a bridleway was preserved via a £2.3m bridge made accessible to riders. Bullock says: “I’ve never seen a horse go over it.”

Level crossings may be a relic of Victorian infrastructure – none will exist along the route of HS2, where about 200 bridges will be incorporated into the route from London to Birmingham, and none exist along the current high-speed route, HS1, which has an impeccable safety record. But constructing road bridges, flyovers or tunnels on virgin railways poses a different challenge from trying to reconcile the flat East Anglian landscape and its old market towns with the desire for faster trains.

The town of Stowmarket is bisected by the rail line, traversable in the centre via two level crossings or a concrete footbridge, a minor eyesore beside the listed Victorian station building, red brick with Dutch gables. The Crown pub sits beside the river Gipping on one side of the northern crossing, with the narrow, coloured terraces of Cardinalls Road on the other. Kym Halladay, 35, is walking across with her two young children, Harrison, four, and Georgia, two, in a pushchair, on the half-mile walk home from the local primary school. “If they closed the crossings, it would be impossible, an hour and a half. I’d have to go all the way round as I couldn’t get the pushchair up the steps of the bridge at the station. It would affect everyone’s quality of life.”

A poster pinned up nearby advertises a recent public meeting where worried residents were addressed by Network Rail representatives. Despite official protestations that closure at Stowmarket is far from being considered, the town has become the focal point for the nascent Suffolk Crossings Campaign.

Mike and Rosie Carter, 56 and 57, who live just outside Stowmarket, cite previous attempts to close the town’s crossings and believe it to be on a target list drawn up by the taskforce that developed the Norwich in 90 plans. The Carters say they are not against faster trains, but that the needs of commuters are being set against those of communities along the route. They also suspect faster journey times can only mean fewer trains stopping here, halfway between Norwich and Ipswich.

Rosie Carter is cynical about their motives: “There hasn’t been an accident in the 27 years we’ve lived here. It costs Network Rail nothing to shut and saves them a fortune.”

Chloe Smith, the MP for Norwich North, spearheaded the taskforce to persuade the government to bring Norfolk’s city within an hour and a half of London, instead of the current 110-117 minutes on most journeys, to spur regeneration and employment. In 18 months, a new franchise competition begins to run the services, potentially a moment at which upgrades will be ordered. The taskforce says better infrastructure and newer trains would do some of the job. But it would also mean upgrading – or closing – an unspecified number of the 91 crossings along the route.

Smith is conscious of the tensions. But she stresses that, despite the precise £476m bill put on the works, there has been no decision yet on how many crossings will be affected. “I want to reassure passengers and residents that the analysis is only at the beginning.”

Industry sources suggest about a dozen could be closed to increase line speeds: fewer than campaigners fear, although more than Smith is willing to admit to. She says: “This is obviously a piece of work that would have to be done sensitively. There is clearly a need to ensure that crossings remain safe for all of their users.”

She says the benefits will be felt not just for Norwich commuters: her taskforce had members from all three counties along the line. “East Anglia needs a fair deal and our work demonstrates the jobs that can be brought to all counties if we can improve our rail line. It’s not only about speed but, crucially, a more reliable service.”

More, faster trains can spell additional problems for users of level crossings: road closures are longer, leading to more traffic queuing, and encourage some pedestrians and drivers to take bigger risks as the red lights flash, knowing they could otherwise be in for a lengthy wait – witness the astonishing footage released by transport police of narrow escapes.

Others, of course, have not escaped. Network Rail argues that even the safest crossing – with full barriers, klaxons and monitoring from keepers or control centres – cannot be entirely secure: the question, in East Anglia and beyond, is whether the price of eliminating the risk is one taxpayers, passengers and local communities are prepared to accept.