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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 128 - 22/12/2003

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News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.

Railfuture News Snippets 128 - 22/12/2003



RAIL FRANCHISES
National Express awarded the Greater [East] Anglia franchise

On 22nd December 2003, the SRA announced National Express Group as preferred bidder for new Greater Anglia Franchise, which hegins on 1st April 2004, for 7 years, and a possible 3-year extension to 2014. This was deadline that the SRA has stuck to, promising in January 2003 that it would announce a preferred bidder before the year end.

This is the first franchise awarded under the SRA's new "key performance indicator" policy, which sets clear requirements for the services to be delivered to passengers. Few tangible benefits were announced. It was confirmed that the deal will not include brand new trains to replace old traction and rolling stock on the London-Norwich inter-city route. Instead, National Express is likely to replace the old trains with newer, refurbished rolling stock, probably those previously used by Virgin on West Coast Main Line or Cross Country franchises.

Commenting on the news National Express Group's chief executive Paul White said: "We have submitted a strong and robust bid which contains a range of exciting ideas, many of which were suggested by key stakeholders during our consultation meetings. Importantly, we believe that there will be timetable efficiencies that can translate into real benefits for passengers from a single operator out of Liverpool Street station, meeting the SRA's objective of one operator, one terminus. Our top priority will be to deliver punctuality and reliability improvements as well as raise the general standards of services across the east of England."

GB Railways Executive Director Max Steinkopf said: "We're extremely sorry that we've not been awarded the new franchise, especially as we've established an excellent record for customer service, service development and performance during the time we've run Anglia Railways. We congratulate National Express on securing the new franchise and give our commitment to passengers that we will continue to run the best possible service for the remainder of the existing franchise. I would like to thank the Anglia Railways team for the achievements we've delivered together over the last 7 years."

User groups in the FGE area expressed concern. The Chairman of ONTRACK, John Smock said "The decision sends the wrong signal to rail users; quality and performance would appear to take second place to the cheapest option". The Chairman of Manningtree Rail Users Association, Derek Monnery, said, "If the new franchisee brings its own managers to run the new franchise rather than using the best of the existing teams, then there is likely to be a decline in performance. We will monitor the new operator's performance very closely and will inform the Strategic Rail Authority if we are not happy".

From April 2004, for any least two years, National Express will operate every train in East Anglia (east of ECML and north of NLL), since it also has the Central and c2c franchises.

First Group shareholders may be wondering if the £22m to buy GB Railways (Anglia breaking even, Hull Trains just into profit, and the profitable but young GBRf) was worth it. Former GB Railways shareholders may still receive a 50p per share windfall if First Group's bid for the Northern franchise - one of two bidders - is successful.


ST.IVES LINE
Government awards significant level of conditional funding for guided busway

Cambridgeshire County Council, in a scheme that rewards so-called well performing authorities, has been told it may receive £65m to build its guided busway, subject to a successful Transport and Works Act application. It had asked for £73m in July 2002, but other cost increases had pushed this to over £80m. This means that it would need to raise at least £15m, perhaps £25m (depending on the final scheme) from Section 106 funding from three housing developments.

The government did not say when the money would be paid, or how much the County Council would be able to deviate from the original scheme bid for.

CAST.IRON received a significant amount of media attention following the announcement, with some niavely expecting CAST.IRON to admit defeat. However, chairman Tim Phillips, in newspaper and radio interviews said: "CAST.IRON's fully costed plans reinstate a railway for just £30 million. It would be a dreadful waste of time and public money to have to bring this evidence (and everything else) to the Public Inquiry so our initial plan must be to persuade the remaining pro-busway County Councillors that they are going to look pretty foolish when the Public Enquiry hears that rail was an option, and cheaper than GB, yet they dismissed it." Tim told CAST.IRON's supports not to be disheartened, saying the County had a very long way to go, with many obstacles to cross, not least the need for the Alconbury distribution centre to need a rail link via St.Ives.

It is not yet obvious whether the GAf announcement will help or hinder CAST.IRON in its attempts to get franchised trains to run on its line. Having only one operator (prior to 2006) to deal with reduces its number of partners to one, but NEx may consider a financial investment for exclusive access.

The government also approved £78.4m for the shorter Luton-Dunstable busway, for which a TWA application was submitted the very next day, 18th December.


RAIL ROUTES
East West Rail Link still threatened by rowing lake

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

The notice for the rowing lake planning application, which encroaches upon 30 metres of the old Sandy-Bedford trackbed, was advertised in the Times & Citizen Newspaper on 28th November 2003. Objections to Development Planning & Control Manager and Beds County Council must be in by 24th December 2003.

Network Rail holds stakeholder meeting to explain Ipswich tunnel closure

Keywords: [IpswichTunnel]

Railfuture were among the attendees of a Network Rail meeting on Tuesday 25 November 2003 at Ipswich Town Football Club, who were reminded that the tunnel is due to be closed from 11th July to 5th September 2004. Most of the discussion was concerned with Manningtree issues, where the London trains would terminate. An extra 250 temporary spaces will be provided, but may not be enough if people drive direct to Manningtree rather than using the free parking at Ipswich and the free rail replacement coach. Road speed restrictions will also be introduced. It is hoped to provide an extra booking office window at Manningtree. Extra car parking space will also be provided at Colchester.

The old wagon & carriage works South of Ipswich Tunnel is no longer owned by Network Rail and is not available for use as a temporary station. Network Rail looked at renting or leasing the site but could not make a financial business case.

During the closure period there will be a through morning peak passenger train from Norwich via Cambridge to Liverpool Street and an evening return working. There may also be a return working off peak. Norwich passengers will be able to travel to London via Cambridge using Anglia Railways services and changing at Cambridge. For the period of the closure express coach services will operate as from Stowmarket to Manningtree and Felixstowe/Woodbridge to Manningtree.

At the same time as work is carried out on the tunnel the opportunity will be taken to carry out extra infrastructure work (i.e. trackwork, signalling etc.).


RAIL PATRONAGE
ATOC predicts 1,000 million passengers in 2003

Keywords: [ATOC]

Between January and November 2003 there were 925 million passenger journeys. The Association of Train Operating Companies is predicting that on 30th December the 1,000 millionth passenger for 2003 will be reached. This will be the largest number of passengers in any calendar year since 1962. Because passengers these days travel much further than previously, this year will again see the largest passenger kilometres figure since 1947.


RAIL SERVICES
Central Trains moves forward in delivery of quality service to passengers

Keywords: [CentralTrains]

Central Trains representatives Tony Brown (at Railfuture meeting in November) and Nick Brown (at RPC meeting in December) announced a series of measures to improve the passenger experience.

Over the next 12 months, Central Trains is to replace the BR design APTIS ticket issuing systems at staffed stations with the current TRIBUTE system, primarily because APTIS cannot be used with the CHIP & PIN authorisation system for credit/debit cards.

Following agreement with the RMT rail union over the issue of "technology" payments for the use of the portable Avantix ticket issuing/information systems, these have started to reappear from this month on Central Trains services, replacing the SPORTIS machines.

Conductors will also be issued with mobile 'phones to allow them to call ahead to stations, for example to arrange for a taxi to take a customer to their destination if connections are missed due to late running. Passengers will be allowed to make calls on these mobiles.


WEBSITES
Grand Central Railway's website reveals plans

Keywords: [GrandCentral]

A website not mention in Snippets before, is the one for Grand Central Railways http://www.grandcentralrail.co.uk, mentioned in Railwatch December 2003 issue, which is trying to obtain an open-access licence to operate high-quality cross-Pennine rail services.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 128 - 22/12/2003

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