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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 146 - 05/02/2005

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

Railfuture News Snippets 146 - 05/02/2005

Please note: the Railfuture East Anglia website has moved from the 'virgin.net' domain to 'ntlworld'. The new address is: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/martin.thorne1/RailfutureEA-Snippets.

Railfuture East Anglia Branch AGM, Ely Maltings at 13:00. The following motion "That this meeting call upon the [Railfuture] National Executive to ring fence the Rail Defence Fund for the purposes which successive AGMs agreed that it should be used and make it clear to all Branches and affiliated user and campaigning groups, who is responsible for the Fund and the procedure for applying for grants" has been submitted, and Nick Dibben suggests that members may wish to think about this prior to the meeting.

The regional transport group STEER are holding their own AGM immediately afterwards, and Railfuture members may wish to stay for it.

Members might also be interested to know that Adrian Lyons of the Railway Forum will be speaking to the Railfuture East Midlands branch AGM, Corn Market Hall, Kettering at 14:00 on Saturday 5th March 2005.

A venue has been found for the 2005 Rail Users' Conference. It will be in the Mechanics Institute, Manchester on 5th November 2005.

Thanks to sponsorship from South West Trains, Ralifuture is able to offer all members the chance to obtain a free copy of "The case for rail" by Norman Bradbury if they successfully introduce a new member to Railfuture. Simply inform David David Harby, Railfuture membership secretary, who you have introduced and that you wish to claim your free copy. He will send out your copy of the book as soon their membership application form is received.

Anyone wishing to support the reopening of the railway from Bristol to Portishead can sign an online petition at http://itc.napier.ac.uk/e-petition/bristol/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=62. The reopening has the support of its local MP Dr Liam Fox.

The Epping-Ongar Railway are offering its members the chance to ride with the driver for just £10, with membership being £12 per year. See http://eorailway.co.uk/Members.htm.

Nomination papers for the election of Officers and Board Members of Railfuture are now available from John Lee at The Birches, Eye Lane, East Rudham, Norfolk PE31 8RH, Tel/Fax/Ans: (01485) 528088. All nominations must be on official forms, signed by the proposer, seconder and candidate, who must be current members. Strict deadline for returns to John Lee by 28th February 2005. Nominations from female members and younger members are encouraged. It's likely that an East Anglian candidate will stand this year, so look out for your papers with the next Railwatch. Posts up for election are Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer, Membership Secretary, Sales Officer and up to 10 seats on the Board (formerly the National Executive). All require a great deal of time commitment. Board meetings are held every two months and currently alternate between London and Birmingham/Leicester but more convenient locations could be chosen.

RAIL SERVICES
Timetable change on 12th December has impact with customers causing 'one' to make changes

Keywords: [OneRailway]

Despite improvements to services the inevitable complaints have rolled in. By mid-December 'one' claimed to have received "between 450 and 500".

One problem with the Ipswich-Cambridge services, which have a single class-153 unit, has been overcrowding during weekday mornings, especially between Newmarket and Cambridge where schoolchildren joined the train. Apparently revenue has been lost as the conductor has been unable to get from one end of the train to the other. At the Felixstowe to Newmarket corridor study meeting held at Ipswich Town Football Club on Tuesday 1st February when Forest Heath council commented on overcrowding 'one' anticipated that the Cambridge service (constrained by single track with the loop at Dullingham) would receive 2 car class 156 trains later in the year.

Overcrowding occurs on other lines too. Regular commuters on the two-carriage 07:43 Lowestoft?Norwich service claim that as many as 60 people have to stand between Oulton Broad North and Norwich, according to a report on the Norfolk Railway Society website.

The Norwich mainline services have seen several cancellations, with trains from London often being terminated at Ipswich.

From Monday 7th February 'one' will be revising its timetable as a result, it claims, of customer feedback. It includes an additional afternoon train between London and Colchester, specifically timed to suit school children as well as additional stops on morning, late afternoon and late evening services on mainline and branch services.

During the first four weeks of the timetable 'one' reached 89.4% punctuality, which has increased to 91.7% for January. The worst performing 'one' service is Stansted Express, which stood at 86.6% in January.

'one' press release: http://www.onerailway.com/latestinformation/news/newsdisplay.asp?id=671.

New trains with "doors" for 'one'

Keywords: [OneRailway]

  Nine 18-year-old Class 150 trains in use on 'one's rural and Ipswich-Cambridge services are to be replaced with the younger Class 156 trains, which are 16 years old. A 'one' press release highlighted the advantages of these trains as having 8 more seats and "better key components such as doors". Hopefully this means that the doors are more reliable as opposed to the Class 150's having no doors.

The Queen travels on a scheduled WAGN service

Keywords: [WAGN]

On 27th January the Queen chose to travel from Sandringham to London for the Holocaust Day Memorial service on a regular King's Lynn ? King's Cross train operated by WAGN. Unfortunately she was unable to travel on one of "one's" trains.

Another successful year for Eurostar

Eurostar is the latest train operator to celebrate record passenger numbers. It carried 7.27 million passengers in 2004, and expects this growth to continue for several years, especially with the opening of St.Pancras and Stratford stations in 2007 that will be ideal for East Anglian travellers. Eurostar's French division should be profitable by 2007 although the separately incorporated British business will take longer because all of its services would incur the higher track access charges on the UK side of the channel.

BBC news item: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4148065.stm.

Hull Trains makes first ever public use of diversionary route via Ely and Cambridge

Keywords: [HullTrains]

The ability of the national rail network to have capacity to offer diversionary routes was shown on Saturday 22nd and 29th January when engineering works for extensive track and overhead line improvements on the ECML between Peterborough and Hitchin led to Hull Trains making its fist ever passenger diversion from Peterborough to Ely and Cambridge, where it terminated, requiring passengers to switch to WAGN or 'one' trains. The reason for not continuing to London was not clear but may be due to lack of turnaround time at King's Cross.

PASSENGER SURVEYS
Huntingdon MP's "unscientific" rail survey finds many commuters unhappy

A survey of rail commuters by Huntingdon MP, Jonathan Djanogly, published in January found nearly half of the passengers at Huntingdon and St Neots felt that security on trains and at stations was poor. Many were critical of car parking and information during delays and cancellations; two-thirds thought connections with bus services were poor. However, staff where praised for their customer-focused attitude. No-one thought that ticket or car parking prices were good value.

ESTA survey shows overcrowding and infrequent train services is top complaint

ESTA's passenger survey carried out in November 2004 has highlighted the need for more frequent trains, with more seats available. Overcrowding was not a problem for bus passengers. They wanted better information and reliability and more bus shelters. ESTA members had been asked to complete a detailed questionnaire about a train or bus journey which they made in November. This has resulted in an 8-page report being sent to the train and bus operators and Suffolk County Council plus MPs and other decision-makers.

On 41% of train journeys surveyed passengers were forced to stand. Sadly 21% of train journeys attracted comments about litter. There were positive remarks: 85% said train staff were helpful and efficient; while 88% found bus drivers courteous and helpful. ESTA's last similar survey was in August 2003.

News article: http://www.eastsuffolktravel.org.uk/news/.

RAIL ROUTES
Cambridge to Colchester Railway Development Company wishes to form partnership

The Cambridge to Colchester Railway Development Company (CCRDC) held two meetings in Haverhill in late January to discuss the forming of a partnership, and to report on the latest happenings to group members. For the moment the company plan on focusing on the section between Haverhill and Cambridge, as this is where the majority of the users would come from.

On 17th January the Community Rail Partnership for the Sudbury-Marks Tey line held a meeting. It was confirmed that Network Rail plans to close the line on 9th July for 2 weeks to replace the old jointed rail and wooden sleepers with continuous welded rail mounted on steel sleeps. This will allow an increased speed limit of 60mph.

News source: http://www.sudbury-branchline.co.uk/news/news_story14.html.

RAIL FARES
Errors in fare manuals take week to fix on computer systems

The new fare timetables effective from 2nd January 2005 overpriced the 'Saver' fares from Wymondham, Attleborough, Thetford and Brandon to London. Instead of rising to £27.40 an incorrect fare of £33 was published instead. However, according to 'one' it would take a week to correct the fare on the Internet and NRES systems. No explanation why an immediate change - usually possible with computer systems - cannot be made was not given.

East Anglia to Birmingham can be cheaper via London with Chiltern Railways

E-Day is Chiltern's brand new value ticket for travel between London and Birmingham. It can only be booked online, hence its name, and you print your ticket on your own home or office printer. Chltern is not the first UK TOC to offer e-ticketing; Gatwock Express and ScotRail sleepers have them. It's been available on German, Italian and French railways for several years.

Chiltern's single fare is a flat rate £5, adult or child. However, it must be booked at least 7 days ahead, travel is limited to certain trains and travel plans can't be changed.

The E-Day ticket is particularly lucrative to Chiltern since it can only be booked through their ticket, hence they receive the 9% sales commision, plus the restrictive terms means that they can oversell seats because of "no shows", which is a practice widely adopted by airlines.

See http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/pages/home.asp?newsID=188&news=true.

RAIL FRANCHISES
Government allegedly demands £100m a year payback from ECML franchise

Keywords: [EastCoastFranchise]

According to an article in the Times on 28th January, the winner of the East Coast intercity franchise will be required to pay £100m a year to the government in premiums in order to reduce overall subsidy of the railways. Currently passengers pay just 45% of the costs of the railway compared to 75% prior to the Hatfield accident.

Incumbent operator GNER currently pays a premium of around £25m. The new target is more than the £75m per year contribution from 'one', which is the current highest contributor. It is believed that continual above-inflation fare rises will be essential.

GNER's "Back Our Bid" campaign to keep the franchise met criticism from the SRA in late 2004, and has now been forced to remove the campaign from its website after Virgin Trains and First Group complained to the SRA, claiming that it was unfair to the bidding process.

DSB, Denmark's national rail group, in partnership with EWS is apparently the only one of the four bidders to propose new rolling stock. It has told the SRA that it is prepared the underwrite the purchase of new 140mph Hitachi trains, although the ECML is limited to 125mph. This would presumably be an add-on to the Integrated Kent Franchise. An announcement on the winner is expected in mid-February.

Virgin CrossCountry and Midland Mainline are front runners to replace Central Trains in East Anglia

Keywords: [CentralTrains]

Network Rail have apparently been pressuring the SRA to announce which franchises will become responsible for services from the dismembered Central Trains franchise as 18 months is required for planning purposes. Virgin CrossCountry is rumoured to be favourite for Birmingham-Stansted, although Midland Mainline may be assigned the route for crewing efficiency.

STATIONS
New coffee kiosks open at two stations

A new coffee shop - Right Track - opened for on Monday 17th January at Burnham station until mid-morning only. A Puccino's coffee outlet has been operating at Rayleigh station since the beginning of the year, but only during the morning and early afternoon.

Even larger stations fail to offer refreshment facilities when there are many passengers waiting. Cambridge station had none of its 8 outlets open at any time on New Year's Day and none are open on Saturday evenings despite the station being very busy.

Plan to move Huntingdon bus station to the railway station may not happen

Keywords: [HuntingdonStation]

According to the Hunts Post newspaper, the proposal to move the bus station in Huntingdon to a major multi-modal transport interchange near the railway station may not happen, since Huntingdonshire District Council no longer plans to move offices from its current 1960s building to where the bus station is currently located. A report by transport consultants Steer Davies Gleave has recommended keeping the Prince's Street site and improving the layout, because the railway station is too far out of town.

RAIL CUSTOMER SERVICE
Norwich customer service centre for 'one' to open in February 2005

Keywords: [OneRailway]

Grosvenor House, close to Norwich station on Prince of Wales Road, is being converted at a cost of £2.5m to become 'one's new customer service centre handling up to a million telesales, customer relations and service inquiries calls a year. It is due to open in February. Staff from centres in Ipswich, Colchester as well as Norwich station will be transferred there. The building was once the headquarters of the British Rail Eastern Region's Norwich division.

RAIL INFRASTRUCTURE
Network Rail awards five-year civils contract to Kier

Network Rail has awarded a five-year civil engineering renewal contract for East Anglia to Keir. The £20m deal allows a possible extension for another two years if performance targets are met. Announcing a series of contracts Network Rail Chief Executive John Armitt said: "The award of these contracts is a significant step toward our goal of controlling costs, whilst delivering a safer, more reliable railway infrastructure and better train performance. The huge task of rebuilding our railway is well underway."

In an unrelated development, GNER service trains is now being used to monitor the quality of the track on the East Coast fast and slow lines. The miniaturised laser equipment has been fitted to the front axle of HST power cars, thus avoiding the cost of Network Rail running its own New Measurement Train and wasting paths. Great Britain is the first country in the world to utilise such equipment on 125mph passenger service trains. It was pioneered on a Class 168 on the Chiltern lines and is also to be used on the WCML. This should save NR hundreds of thousands of pounds a year according to chief engineer Andrew McNaughton. It is hoped that Network Rail will continue to drive down costs through sensible initiatives such as this.

PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Mid-Norfolk Railway continues to be used as a training ground for the 'big' railway

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

The value of the Mid-Norfolk Railway to the national railway was shown again in 17th January when a Plasser and Theurer USP 5000C ballast regulator from Balfour Beatty Rail Ltd was used on the line for training purposes. The machine ploughs and sweeps track in order to facilitate tamping and is able to store ballast, moving it from areas of surplus to where it is required, is operated by a crew of three.

The MNR also offered classroom facilities as part of the deal. In return the equipment helped immensely with the MNR's track maintenance programme.

Wisbech-March Bramley line acquired signal box - now it buys its first train

Keywords: [WisbechBranch]

The Wisbech and March Bramley Line Committee has reached agreement with Derby-based Porterbrook Leasing Ltd to purchase five MK2f coaches (Class 488), formerly used by Gatwick Express. In a press release Peter Downs, the Bramley Line Chairman said "These vehicles are in excellent condition and we are extremely lucky to have been offered them ahead of other Heritage Railways in the UK. The vehicles have only just been taken out of service and are exactly what we are looking for to operate over the line between Wisbech and March."

One of the coaches is a first class vehicle with 41 seats in a 2 x 1 configuration. The standard class ones have 48 seats in a 2 x 2 configuration. All are air-conditioned and have disabled access, secondary door locking, a toilet and baggage area. The railway has plans to operate only at weekends and bank holidays.

The train was due to be transferred from Stewarts Lane Depot in Battersea to March on Friday 4th February, where EWS has offered storage. The transfer was due to take place on Wednesday 2nd but prevented by driver's hours being exceeded. The cost of moving the carriages is around £2,500. The public or local businesses were offered the chance to have their name or logo on a coach for its lifetime and a certificate of sponsorship for just £500. Alternatively 20 people could sponsor a coach with a £25 donation each receiving a certificate.

Unfortunately the BBC got the wrong end of the stick and pronounced that "A passenger rail service is operating between Wisbech and March in Cambs for the first time since 1968." A two-minute news report showing the coaches being moved was broadcast on BBC Look East on 4th February.

'One' Anglia who now lease March station have been asked to consider providing the group office space at March station and also allowing them to set up a display of our project. Membership leaflets are currently available at the ticket office at March Station.

The Bramley Line now have a PO Box number: Wisbech and March Bramleyline, PO Box 132, Wisbech, PE13 2WZ.

WEBSITES
Government's Transport Direct website formally launched at end of 2004

Transport Direct http://www.transportdirect.info, the government's £50m travel information and journey planning service for Great Britain is claimed to be a world first in delivering comprehensive multi-modal door-to-door journey planning travel information. It aims to compare car journeys with available public transport options, persuading people to take public transport and has a facility for users to buy rail and coach tickets on partners' websites without re-entering journey details. Unfortunately the accuracy of its information as been ridiculed by the media, including the Guardian who ran a scathing attack.

It claimed that "the planner leaves [travellers]] camping overnight at remote train stations or stranded for hours at bus stops. Routes that should take two hours can end up taking seven times as long." John Thurso, Lib Dem transport spokesman, tried the system and found the recommended journey from Scotland to Westminster would take 16 hours and 26 minutes compared with the usual seven hours. One of the inaccurate examples was a Huntingdon-Cambridge-Cheshunt trip. The attack caused Charlotte Atkins MP, Minister for Transport, to write a letter defending the system saying "Given the huge amount of information, there are inevitably going to be errors. Improvements are constantly being made as user feedback comes in. The vast majority of users are finding the information useful and accurate."

New website for contacting your Member of Parliament

Anyone who wishes to contact their MP but doesn't know who they are can find their MP or MEP by entering their post code on http://www.writetothem.com. This new website is an improved version of http://www.faxyourmp.com.

The http://www.theyworkforyou.com website is even better. It will find your MP, but also give informaiton about them and allow you to find everything they said in the House of Commons in the current parliament.

TransportWatch website reveals their intentions for the railways

The campaign group TransportWatch, a reincarnation of the "Railway Conversion League", have been writing letters in newspapers and paying for advertisements to promote their views. One has recently appeared in Private Eye. Their website http://www.transwatch.co.uk contains examples of their proposals, which include replacing main line stations like Waterloo with a coach station and ripping up the rails. Adrian Lyons, Director General of the Railway Forum, has put together an excellent rebuttal of the advert. This was published in Rail magazine issue 505.

Complaints about the TransportWatch advert in Private Eye have already been lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority. Anyone can make their own complaint, if they consider it to be a mixture of half-truths, misleading comparisons, selective statistics, subjective opinions, at: http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/.

National Express sets up website to promote its bid for Greater Western franchise

In 2004 the GNER/Chiltern consortium set-up a website to promote their bid for the Greater Western franchise. Now National Express have done the same: http://www.nationalexpressgroup.com/gwf.

Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 146 - 05/02/2005

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