Corridor 7 — Cawdor Point to Thorne Vale
South-east short-sea arrivals to the northern interchange. The longest single-mode run we operate, and the clearest example of why the fastest route is not the shortest one.
| # | Leg | Mode | Distance | Circuity | Running |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | Receipt, plan and lift at Cawdor Point | 3h 00m | |||
| 1 | Cawdor Point → Kelvedon Gateway | Rail | 163 km | 1.21 | 2h 38m |
| — | Interchange at Kelvedon Gateway | 1h 30m | |||
| 2 | Kelvedon Gateway → Merrow Junction | Rail | 207 km | 1.16 | 3h 20m |
| — | Interchange at Merrow Junction | 1h 30m | |||
| 3 | Merrow Junction → Ondermere | Rail | 93 km | 1.20 | 1h 30m |
| — | Interchange at Ondermere | 1h 30m | |||
| 4 | Ondermere → Thorne Vale | Rail | 137 km | 1.19 | 2h 13m |
| — | Discharge and release at Thorne Vale | 2h 00m | |||
Of that total, 4h 30m is spent standing still under a crane rather than moving — 23% of the door-to-door clock. Cutting a lane's transit almost never means running faster; it means taking a lift out of it.
Corridor 7 collects short-sea arrivals at Cawdor Point and runs them north through Kelvedon Gateway and Merrow Junction to Thorne Vale.
The route that looks wrong on a map
There is a shorter path. Cawdor to Kelvedon to Halgate to Thorne Vale is around 426 km against our 601. Anyone looking at the network diagram for the first time asks why we do not use it.
The answer is that the Halgate to Kelvedon link is road, not rail. Taking it means lifting every box off a train onto a lorry and back again — two mode changes, eight hours of interchange — to save about two and three-quarter hours of running. It is 175 km shorter and most of a shift slower. Our routing engine works this out from first principles rather than being told, which is why you can put any pair of terminals into it and trust the answer.
Sunday
Cawdor’s gate closes at 23:00 and the berth takes no vessels on a Sunday, so there is nothing to load. We do not run an empty path to preserve the appearance of a seven-day service.
Equipment on this service
20ft and 40ft GP. No 45ft: two structures on the Kelvedon approach will not take it.