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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 220 - 08/08/2011

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

Railfuture News Snippets 220 - 08/08/2011



It is hoped that someone from East Midlands Trains will be speak at the Railfuture branch meeting in Norwich on 1st October, but this has not been confirmed. As mentioned in [Snippets 219], Andrew Munden of Network Rail will speak at the meeting in Cambridge meeting on 3rd December.

On 5th August Cambridgeshire county Council, as the Waste Planning Authority, granted planning permission for the development of the former cement works at Barrington to "import suitable restoration material over a period of five years to partially infill an existing quarry void." The materials would be brought in by rail, with permission having been granted in April 2011 (see [Snippets 216].

As part of the Fenland Open Heritage Weekend the Friends of March station will be holding its second Open Day at March station on Saturday 10th September 2011 between 10:00 and 15:00. There will be a chance to see the work that the group has been undertaking. It has been provided with some lengths of track to install in between the station platforms but will not be able to install it until it can arrange for a mobile crane to move them into place.

Peter Waszak of the Nene Valley Railway will be giving a talk on the history of Peterborough's railways on Thursday 1st September at St Mark's Church Hall, Lincoln Road, Peterborough the venue is opposite the Vineyard restaurant. It starts at 19:30. Admission is £3.

ESTA's first ever Sponsored Cycle Ride took place in July and over £140 was raised for group funds.


RAIL ROUTES
Network Rail's Ipswich Chord plans accepted for examination by the Infrastructure Planning Commission

Keywords: [IpswichChord]

On Friday 29th July Network Rail issued a press release saying that the Infrastructure Planning Commission has accepted for examination ts plans for the construction of the £41m 1km-long double-track Ipswich Chord (formerly known as the Bacon Factory curve), which would allow freight trains from Felixstowe to avoid a reversal at Ipswich. The scheme is funded as part of the Felixstowe-Nuneaton Freight Capacity Upgrade. This is an important hurdle that has been overcome before the plans can be approved. If they are then work on the scheme is due to start in 2012 and will be completed in early 2014, potentially take 750,000 lorry journeys off the road every year. Atkins and Balfour Beatty have been chosen as the contractors.


RAIL FRANCHISES
DfT announces plans for franchises affecting East Anglia

Keywords: [GreaterAngliaFranchise]

On 5th August the DfT announced that the Essex Thameside franchise would not merge with the Greater Anglia franchise - despite an analysis of the benefits of the merger having been done (see [Snippets 219]) - when it confirmed that a new 15-year contract for the Fenchurch Street to Southend route would commence in May 2013.

Philip Hammond, Secretary of State for Transport, has decided to exercise his option to curtail the Thameslink franchise, as held by First Capital Connect, to September 2013, two years early. The replacement franchise will be for less than 15 years, and will focus on managing services through the major Thameslink infrastructure upgrade, which should complete in 2018. It may be re-let shortly after that.

Because the DfT wants to limit the number of franchise changes at any time, it will push back the start of the 15-year Greater [East] Anglia franchise to July 2014. This means that the short interim franchise currently being processed will be extended by a year, as the specification allows.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Very low-key opening of Cambridgeshire Guided Busway on Sunday 7th August but two thousand people try out busway 'novelty'

The opening ceremony of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway early on Sunday 7th August was very low key, with no-one from the Department for Transport taking part, despite providing £92.5 million of the funding of this major project. Ministers had been very keen to attend in the early days before the delays and cost overrun occurred. The sole MP in attendance, Andrew Lansley, stood back. Before cutting the ribbon, recently appointed Cabinet Member for Growth and Planning councillor Ian Bates gave a speech. He said that the construction of the busway was history and people should look to the future. Referring to congestion on the A14 and future growth in the region he provided an exceedingly lame justification for the world's longest busway: "we had to do something; this is something." Beside him were the managing directors of the two bus companies. Stagecoach and Whippet, along with the Leader of the Conservative group at Cambridgeshire County Council, Nick Clarke, and Head of Busway Delivery, Bob Menzies (who was referred to just as "Bob", having become so well-known during the continuously-delayed busway delivery process). Notable by her absence was Councillor Shona Johnstone, the fervent proponent of the busway who, according to her Twitter message, was on holiday in a boat in the Indian Ocean.

The council had invited more than fifty people (including competition winners from the Cambridge News and Hunts Post) to see the ribbon cutting (at 08:30) and travel free of charge on two special buses, which left at around 08:45, to Cambridge and back. Various local councillors and dignitaries were present. A few dozen members of the public were present to see the ceremony. Unlike a typical railway opening, there was no brass band, stalls, ice-cream vans - nothing but the buses, and a solitary ambulance on standby. It was certainly nothing like the opening of the North Norfolk Railway's level crossing which attracted 8,000 people on a February weekday in 2010.

Many photographers were waiting for the buses along the route - including some on the southern route to Trumpington which doesn't have a Sunday service! Sunday was a very pleasant and sunny day, and many people took the opportunity to try out the bus, some coming from many miles away. From conversations overheard on the bus, many were not regular bus users. Many seemed to be taking it just for the journey, staying on the bus at Cambridge bus station and returning straight away. Within an hour buses were becoming full, with people having to wait for another bus to arrive. Both operators laid on extra buses. According to Stagecoach MD Andy Campbell on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire the next day, 2,000 people used his buses on the Sunday, compared to the 200 that would normally use a bus in that corridor. Although this may sound high, the council expects there to be 11,500 passengers a day within months of opening (and 20,000 once Northstowe new town has fully opened - if it ever does).

On Monday 8th August, the first day for commuters, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire was broadcasting along the busway. Very early buses were virtually empty, but apparently between 07:00 and 09:00 buses leaving St. Ives were almost full. On the evening BBC Look East programme the BBC broadcast comments from people alighting the bus in Cambridge. For a massive infrastructure investment it wasn't comforting to hear passengers complain that the bus was late or no faster than driving - and this was in August when traffic levels are the lowest of the year.

For such a large scheme teething problems were inevitable. The customer information system was not working at St Ives and some of the traffic lights at the former railway level crossings were being operated manually by men in yellow hi-vis vests. There were reports of buses having to wait up to four minutes for the lights to go green at Orchard Park. Although the full bus service will be running, the car park at St Ives is still being modified; the waiting facility at Longstanton is still being constructed, and the entire rail-bus interchange at Cambridge station is still a building site, although the link road leading to both the southern section and the foot of the Hills Road bridge is finished. The cycleway from the Science Park to Swavesey now has a tarmac surface, but from there to St. Ives it has not been surfaced yet.

Opening of busway makes the national news as CAST.IRON wastes no time in exploiting media

Keywords: [CASTIRON]

Every aspect of the busway fiasco has been highlighted in the Cambridge News and Hunts Post. However, there it has generated only a few mentions in the national news media, other than the specialist press, until days before the opening.

On Friday 29th July there was a five-minute feature on the busway on BBC Radio Five Live. Bob Menzies of Cambridgeshire County Council gave a couple of quotes and there was a short interview with Tim Phillips of CAST.IRON who made the point that the cost was more than £180 million regardless of who paid for it. On Tuesday 2nd August Tim Phillips recorded a 20-second sound-bite for BBC Breakfast and on Wednesday he did a contribution for the Friday 5th August edition of 'You and Yours', the BBC Radio 4 lunchtime show. In the same report Cambridge MP Julian Huppert said it's "a bit of a national joke, when I talk to people in the department of transport. They are aware of it [the busway] but not in a positive way." Tim Phillips also appeared on Anglia News on Sunday 7th and Monday 8th August, and on the BBC News Channel, also on 8th August.

CAST.IRON also issued a press release prior to the opening saying that the busway 'will not deliver any benefits', which was picked up by the Cambridge News on 5th August. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrat opposition claimed that each minute saved by using the busway will have cost £28 million, and some current services on the A14 are five minutes quicker from Huntingdon to Cambridge than Stagecoach's 55 service on the guideway. That story was picked up by the Hunts Post.

CAST.IRON's Twitter account @CAST_IRON_INFO has been joined by @NoGuidedBus relating to the http://www.noguidedbus.com website, which is a rich source for audio recordings of radio programmes about the busway.

Can busway really get the patronage it claims - legitimately?

According to Cambs County Council at the 2004 public inquiry, the busway would eventually see 20,000 passenger journeys a year. This was expected to be in 2016 once Northstowe was built. However, it is still claiming that in the first year the busway will be used by 3.5 million passengers a year, which is around 11,500 people per day. There are 192 buses per day so that works out at 57 passengers per service on average, which is a very high loading for buses - especially in the evenings and at weekends. Of course, some people will leave the bus before others join, so the number of people on board at any time will not be as high. When judging whether the busway was worth constructing, one must exclude people whose journeys are entirely off the busway, such as those travelling between Huntingdon and St Ives or between Cambridge Science Park and Railway Station and any journeys abstracted from existing bus services. It is not clear what the council intends to measure.

It is believed that the bus operators pay a flat rate - rumoured to be £5 per bus - to travel on the busway between 07:00 and 19:00. On the "You and Yours" programme, Stagecoach MD Andy Campbell said that they will make a loss initially but are looking to the long-term. Stagecoach claims to be committed to using the busway for ten years, but will review the minimum level of service, which it is contracted only to provide for the first five years, depending on whether any houses have been built in Northstowe.

Busway smartcards unexpectedly available from day one but facility is lacklustre

Keywords: [SmartCards]

A plastic credit-card-sized smartcard for use with both bus operators - a key commitment at the public inquiry - was unexpectedly confirmed just six days prior to the busway opening. Previously the council had been unable to say when it would be in place.

The smartcards can be bought online allowing 10 single journeys for between £18 and £30 depending on the distance of travel. The cheapest return journey is therefore £3.60, more expensive than the £3.50 for a Dayrider.

The smartcards will be despatched with 10 single trips pre-loaded and can then be topped up with cash onboard. Auto-topup from a credit card, like Oyster, is not supported. Trips loaded onto the smartcard must all be used within one month, when they expire and are non-refundable, so the smartcard appears to be aimed at commuters or very regular users only. By comparison Oyster cards remain active for at least two years and are refundable. A further limitation is that the system assumes that people will only make one particular journey as they are required to have to specify journeys as it does not use a PAYG touch in touch out system like Oyster. The busway smartcard offers nothing that a paper-based carnet of 10 tickets wouldn't also provide.

The smartcard is the only form of ticket that is accepted by both operators, so for many travellers there is no viable inter-operator ticket. Ticketing is also inconsistent between the companies. A Stagecoach 'Family' ticket is only for one adult whereas Whippet Family ticket were for a family of two adults and two children. Passengers have also complained that the electronic signs at bus stops list the times of the next buses but do not say which company's bus it is.

The park and ride sites at St Ives and Longstanton are currently free to use. However, there is no commitment for this to remain the case.

The county council launched a new website http://www.thebusway.info days before the busway opened to provide information about routes, fares and timetables. Unfortunately their press release was published early in the morning but the website was not running until the afternoon. One post to the Cambridge News website said: "Does nothing concerning the busway run on time? Even the new website was not available as it should have been on 1st August!"

That humorous post was probably only beaten by Paul Harvey who wrote: "Cllr Ian Bates, the county council's planning chief, said 'nothing was being left to chance ahead of the opening on Sunday 7th August' whereas everything was left to chance in the planning and construction." Ironically, BAM Nuttall has been awarded a Green Apple Environment Award, for works carried out on the busway, according Twitter @BAMNuttall.

Question raised over maintenance cost of busway after Bedfordshire County Council allocates £250k per year to its busway

Cambridgeshire County council has always claimed that its guided busway is effectively 'maintenance free', as the track would last for decades without any repairs being necessary. However, the Luton-Dunstable busway, which is now being built by BAM Nuttall, will cost £250,000 a year according to Bedfordshire County Council, although it is believed that the total cost is £500,000 per year and the concrete may have only a 12-year life. Observers are asking how such a difference between two similar schemes can exist and whether Cambridgeshire has underestimated the running costs of its busway.

The £89.2 million Luton-Dunstable busway scheme is also suffering the same fate as Cambridgeshire, whereby developer contributions to top-up the government's £80.2m contribution have not been forthcoming. In Cambridgeshire's case Northstowe new town development has not taken place, and in Luton it is the former Vauxhall motors site according to a report in the Dunstable Today newspaper. The completion date has also slipped, from late 2012 to spring 2013. Like the Cambridgeshire busway it is being constructed by BAM Nuttall.


PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Whitwell and Reepham Railway sees 2,500 visitors to its steam rally

Keywords: [WhitwellReepham]

For a railway confined to a yard in the middle of darkest Norfolk far from any tourist attraction, the Whitwell and Reepham Railway has an astonishing reputation for attracting visitors in huge numbers.

Its Steam Rally over the weekend of 30th and 31st July had 12 large traction engines, nine scale traction engines, 17 stationary engines, 12 classic cars, four commercial vehicles, seven tractors, two living vans, trade stands, model railways and loads more. This enticed more than 2,500 visitors over the two days (readers may wish to compare this with the busway opening, above). Hopefully the profit made from this event will help the railway to expand. Its next target is to extend track onto the former railway line that ran to Norwich City, so that it can run trains in front of the station platform. The preservation society now has almost 400 members, although only a dozen or so regular volunteers.

Leiston Works Railway acquires former rail trackbed to Leiston Station

The Leiston Works Railway, a recently-formed not-for-profit railway preservation society, has recently purchased a tract of land that ran from the Rishard Garrett works, across Main Street and behind a row of houses to join with the operational railway line at Leiston Station, which is on the former branch line to Aldeburgh that it used for carrying nuclear flask trains from Sizewell. The group hopes in the future to link up with the railway line, which will lose its traffic in the next few years. However, in the short term the volunteers will clear the vegetation and results of continuous fly tipping from their land, lay track and run an original shunting loco on it.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 220 - 08/08/2011

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