On March 6th we participated in the first Meet the Manager event held by Hereward Community Rail Partnership (CRP) in Manea. As the tiny station only has a small wooden waiting room (the size of a garden shed), the meeting was held at Manea Community Hall in the village centre. The afternoon meeting was well-attended by local rail users, Parish Councillors and other members of the community who came along to give feedback to Community Engagement Managers from CrossCountry, Greater Anglia and Fenland District Council’s Transport Team, who host Hereward CRP.
Specific issues raised about CrossCountry were the need for more carriages on our 0522 Birmingham – Stansted Airport (which is the morning commuter train from Manea to Cambridge), to relieve crowding and the need for more late afternoon direct trains home from Cambridge. Also, people felt the interior condition of our trains and lack of digital information on board currently compares unfavourably to the almost new Greater Anglia trains used on the Peterborough – Ipswich services. We were able to show people photos of our first refurbed Tubostar and explain more are coming in the months ahead, and that we will look to see if there is anything at all we can do in the medium term to increase capacity available for Cambridge commuting from Fenland stations.
David Jones, Stakeholder Manager, East Midlands & East Anglia, said “I was pleased to advise rail users that whilst CrossCountry is only required to provide two services each way, per day, at Manea we were able to double our service to four services per day, each way, in 2022 in response to the aspirations of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority to develop Manea station as a ‘park and ride’ rail-head for the surrounding area, including the town of Chatteris. However, it was explained to the community that any significant increase in train services at Manea can only be delivered if the necessary rail infrastructure improvements at Ely North Junction can be funded by central Government”.