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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 198 - 28/11/2009

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

Railfuture News Snippets 198 - 28/11/2009



The next Railfuture East Anglia branch meeting will be held at 14:00 on Saturday 5th December at Alex Wood Hall, 75 Norfolk Street, Cambridge, CB1 2LD. Speaker will be Mike Lamport of the Olympic Delivery Authority will talk about the rail services provided for the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012. Mike has held various posts in the rail industry including Head of Communications at National Express's London Lines franchises.

The guest apeaker at FLUA's AGM in King's Lynn on Saturday 21st November was Chris Curtis of Network Rail. He gave a fascinating and in-depth presentation about how Network Rail operates in East Anglia and provided news of several schemes that will take place in the next few years, such as the new island platform at Cambridge.

Disruption to first Captial Connect's train services is still occurring because of the shortage of drivers caused by too few drivers volunteering to work overtime and restdays whilst pay negotiations are taking place. The train operator has around 600 drivers but it needs 80 drivers to operate the Great Northern routes from Peterborough and King's Lynn on a Sunday.

ESTA has published the results of its August survey of train and bus journeys made by members; and sent these to the operators, decision-makers and news media. It found that 91% of the trains used were on time; and of those that were not the lateness had fallen to 12 minutes compared to 15 minutes in the 2008 survey.

Network Rail is asking for views about the future of stations. to take part in its survey and be in with a chance to win an annual season ticket (up to the value of £2000) or £2000 visit http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/6063.aspx.

Stratford International station will be opening on Monday 30th November, but it will only be served Mon-Fri (so passengers wishing to travel between Stratford and Gravesend will have to wait for the new timetable).


RAIL FRANCHISES
Department for Transport announces that National Express East Anglia franchise will terminate after seven years

Keywords: [NationalExpressEastAnglia]

In late November the Department for Transport announced that National Express would have to give up the East Anglia franchise in 2011, seven years after it commenced on 1st April 2004. The franchise was for ten years but the last three were conditional on performance and in the DfT's gift. Although NXEA met the perforrmance levels the DfT decided, as had been speculated, not to automatically extend the franchise because Natrional Express had given up the East Coast franchise. The DfT had decided, presumably upon receiving legal advice, not to attempt to excercise the cross-default clauses to end the NXEA and c2c franchises early. Railfuture East Anglia branch officers Peter Wakefield and Nick Dibben were quoted in the Cambridge News. The latter expressed concern that the commitments that NXEA had committed to might be lost. The DfT intends to re-tender the franchise so that the train services in East Anglia will not be temporarily run by a state-owned company. It has not indicated ifthe franchise would be merged with the Essex Thamesdide franchise, currently branded as c2c, which also ends in 2011, although this was once deemed likely.

In the 2008/09 financial year because of lower than expected revenue NXEA received £14m of support from the 'cap and collar' arrangement with the DfT. It was one of only two TOCs eligible, the other being First Great Western, which received £72.5m (£25.6m and £46.9m per half year). First Capital Connect was due to pay a premium of £71.0m in 2008/09, but its £94.8m premium scheduled for 2009/10 will become an overall subsidy as £14.8m was received for April-September 2009.

National Express East Coast franchise handed back to the DfT on 13th November

Keywords: [NationalExpressEastCoast]

As stated in [Snippets 197], Lord Adonis issued a formal termination notice to National Express East Coast, ordering the transfer just before midnight on 13th November, and this took place as planned. The East Coast Main Line Company, branded as East Cost, a subsididary of the DfT-owned holding company Directly Operated Railways Ltd has take on all 2,850 staff. The trains have been rebranded rather than reliveried to save money, just as National Express did when it inherited the trains from GNER.

East Coast will maintain the current NXEC service, but is not bound to the same 'premium payment' financial regime. As a result, for example, the £2.50 seat reservation fee will be dropped from 1st Janaury 2010. A series of staiton improvements will take place, which includes remodelling Peterborough station concourse with ticket barriers will be installed. Barriers will also be installed at King's Cross.

The East Coast Mainline Railway Ltd website is at http://www.eastcoast.co.uk, and is basically the same website as NXEC used but rebranded. Therefore registered users can still sign into their account and view past ticket orders on the site. However, National Express East Anglia, whcih had been sharing the same systems, has been split and users are has gone back to its old booking system. This means that NXEA customers will need to re-register. The old 'nationalexpresseastcoast.com' website now redirects to the East Coast website.

National Express made use of its rail customer database to promote its coach services. It issued the following message: "Thank you for travelling with National Express East Coast. As you may of (sic) heard, National Express will no longer be operating the East Coast mainline train service from 23:59 on Friday 13 November. After this time the service will be taken over by East Coast Mainline Company Ltd. with all tickets purchased still valid. As a thank you for travelling with National Express East Coast, we would like to give you 50% off your

first coach booking with us and entry to a £1,000 prize draw..." This was a tactic they employed with the demise of their Silverlink franchise."

Change at the top of First Captial Connect

First Group director Jim Morgan, who had been interim managing director of FCC since Elaine Holt left in April 2009, has left First Group. Mary Grant, Managing Director of First Group's Rail Division will act as FCC MD until a permanent MD is found. FCC's deputy MD Karen Boswell has left FCC to join her former boss Elaine Holt at East Coast, where she will become managing director.


STATIONS
Station upgrades continue

At Shelford station on the Cambridge-Liverpool Street line, both platforms have recently been resurfaced with tactile paving introduced and the ticket office having a new roof.

Further south on the route at Audley End, a £690,000 extension to the car park, which will increase it from 550 to 700 spaces in line with future growh predictions, has been under construction since 13th November and should be completed early in 2010 by Buckingham Group Contracting. This scheme is part of the National Express East Anglia Service Improvement Plan.

The car park at Diss, between Stowmarket and Norwich, is being expanded by using land occupied until recently by disused sidings.

CCTV has been in place at Waterbeach for several weeks now, with neither of the two ticket machines having suffered vandalism.

Meanwhile, Network Rail has submitted a new planning application for a footbridge and eventual installation of lifts at Downham Market station. The original application was writhdrawn following complaints that the design would 'overpower' the Grade-II listed station building.

Renewed proposal to reopen Soham station

Keywords: [SohamStation]

According to the Cambridge News, East Cambridgeshire District Council has proposed reopening Soham station, which closed in 1965, and has begun talks with Network Rail. The action has been triggered by upgrading of the line between Felixstowe and Nuneaton to carry freight trains thus avoiding the current route via London, and became newsworthy when the European Union recently agreed to fund £8.5m of the £42.4m upgrade cost. Although reports suggested that Soham would have a direct service to Cambridge, this realistically only be achieved by reversing a diesel train at Ely. It is most likely that passengers boarding at Soham would have to change at Ely, and therefore the level of use that a Soham station would see is highly dependent on the timing of connections.


RAIL ROUTES
East West Rail Consortium admits that western section will perobably be delayed owing to recession

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

The East West Rail consortium had hoped to commence construction of the western section (linking Oxford to Bletchley) in late 2010 for opening in 2012. However, largely because of the economic recession, which has affected housing and commercial developments, it is now proposing to start construction in early 2014 for route roepening in late 2015.


RAIL SERVICES
National Express East Anglia announces its new vision for Norwich - Ipswich - Colchester - London

Keywords: [NationalExpressEastAnglia]

Despite being told that its franchise would not automatically onconue beynd 2011, although not specifically told that it would be ineligible to bd, on 20th November NXEA announced three key aspirations for the Norwich-Liverpool Street mainline. These are quicker journey times with a fastest journey time from Norwich to London of 90 minutes (rather than the current 114 minutes for the 115-mile journey), new trains and a programme of infrastructure improvements.

Speaking at the Shaping Norfolk's Future conference NXEA's Managing Director Andrew Chivers said that the TOC was targeting plans for beyond 2014 and had already undertaken much groundwork in starting to build an alliance to influence investment plans for Network's Control Period 5, which will cover 2014-2019. He revealed that EEDA are now using Atkins to develop a business case which includes all the benefits to the region as a whole.


RAIL FREIGHT
Bacon Factory curve may be built to allow freight trains to avoid London during 2012 Olympics

Keywords: [IpswichChord]

According to the Ipswich Evening Star newspaper, construction may begin in 2010 on a north facing curve linking the East Suffolk line with the Great Eastern mainline in order to bready in time for the 2012 Olympics. The Bacon Factory curve, so called because it would be built on the former Harris bacon site in Hadleigh Road industrial estate in Ipswich, has been proposed for many years in order to allow freight trains from Felistowe to avoid a time-consuming reversal in Ipswich yard (which also requires additional locomotives) when taking the route via Bury St Edmunds, Ely and Peterborough to avoid the congested rail route around London.

A tightly curved viaduct over the mainline would need to be constructed. With a maximum speed of 30mph, it is likely to cost £47m if double track but only £32m if single track. Network Rail has put the design brief out for tender and intends to commence public consultation exercise involving Suffolk County Council, Ipswich Borough Council and Babergh District Council.

Railfreight terminal at Alconbury increasingly unlikely as former airfield is bought in a £27.5 million deal

On 11th November it was announced that the Urban&Civic company has bought Alconbury airfield and land owned by Alconbury Developments Limited. ADL had sewcured a TWA Order to build a railfreight terminal on the site with links to the East Coast Main Line. However, the cost of building the link, including the necessary flyover, was seen by many as prohibitively expensive.

A variety of uses may be found for the airfield. RAF Alconbury was not part of the sale and is still owned by the MoD for operational occupation by the United States Air Force.


PASSENGER SURVEYS
Passenger Focus identifies passengers' top 12 priorities for improvement in rail services

As part of its Intercity East Coast research conducted in September 2009, Passenger Focus has listed a top 12 (1 is top) priorities for improvement based on feedback from rail passengers. They are:

  1. Punctuality and reliability of the train
  2. Value for money for the price of the ticket
  3. Being able to get a seat on the train
  4. Length of time the journey was scheduled to take (speed)
  5. Facilities and services on board the train
  6. Frequency of trains for this journey
  7. Provision of information about train times/platforms
  8. Personal security while on board the train
  9. Personal security at the station
  10. Ticket-buying facilities
  11. Ease of getting to and from the station
  12. Facilities and services at the station.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Cambridgeshire County Council announces third delay in in opening the guided busway

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, now being promoted with the 'sexy' title of "The Busway" has been due to open - in its entirety - in "Spring 2009". It was then announced that the northern section only (which rnus on the former Cambridge to St.Ives railway line) would open in "Late summer 2009". Then it was announced that subject to contractor BAM Nuttall handing over the busway at the end of October it would open "within a month" to allow for driver training. After an opening date of Sunday 29th September set new bus timetables were published with some bus services being dropped to allow new services to operate on the busway. Embarrassingly on Monday 16th November Cambridgeshire County Council announced that the busway would not upen "until the New Year", but were not prepared to be any more precise, saying "We will not commit to an opening date until we can sign off the route."

The council claimed that the delay was because of "snagging" issues. However, it had not yet accepted the handover of the busway from BAM Nuttall, believed to be caused by the council's refusal to contribute towarsds the substantial cost overrun.

Following the announcement of the third delay, opposition Liberal Democrat county councillors expressed concern about structural problems with the new busway viaduct near to St.Ives. However, the county council's spokesman claimed that there was merely a problem with water entering the viaduct which could weaken it leading to problems in future years. Cyclists are making frequent use of the parallel cycle track and bridle way. However, there have been many complaints about the 'unfinished' surface and severe flooding espeically towards St.Ives. Construction is still continuing on the section south of Cambridge raiwlay astaiton although no date - not even the year - has been given.


PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Trial of new weedkiller to take place on the Mid-Norfolk Railway

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

On Thursday 12th November two MNR representatives met a weed-killer supplier, who wishes to conduct a trial/test of some mew products. It is hoped that they will take on the weed control on the Northern Section trackbed from the white gates just north of Dereham station all the way to Hoe level crossing. This will help to keep the vegetation under control as the permanent way team must periroitise their time on the operational railway between Wymondham and Dereham.

Work on reopening the line from Dereham to Hoe is continuing and has recently benefited from individuals from the probation board conducting some work five days a week including the digging out of sleepers abnd vegetation clearance. In addition, drawings for the Hoe platform building have recently been given to the planning office.


WEBSITES
New website set-up to promote the re-creation of British Rail

A website called http://www.bringbackbritishrail.org has recently been set-up, presumably encouraged by the nationalisation, albeit temporary, of the Inter-City East Coast franchise as mentioned above. It is organised by Ellie Harrison who describes herself as a "frequent passenger" and does not claim to represent of have the backing of any organisation.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 198 - 28/11/2009

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