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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 243 - 31/07/2013

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

Railfuture News Snippets 243 - 31/07/2013



First Capital Connect will be holding a 'meet the manager' session at Royston station on 7th August 2013 between 16:00 and 18:30.

In early July the Cambridge City Council Planning Committee approved, by 5 to 1 votes the plans for the new cycle park at Cambridge Station, which will have somewhere between 2850 and 3298 spaces according to the meeting notes. Construction work is to start in early 2014 possibly opening in December 2014. Proper covered secure cycle accommodation at the station has been a long-running campaign by Cambridge Cycling Campaign.

A ticket machine costing £26,000 has been installed at North Walsham station, which was re-staffed briefly a few years ago. Installed by Greater Anglia, it was part funded by Norfolk County Council. It was formally opened by local MP Norman Lamb on Friday 12th July. Railfuture and the TOC would like ticket machines at the larger unstaffed stations, such as Cromer, but the cost is seen as prohibitive in almost all cases, except where there may be insufficient time for the conductor to sell tickets on board.

Simon Burns, Minister of State for Transport, who is also and MP for Chelmsford, officially opened Greater Anglia's new £680k CyclePoint at Chelmsford station on Wednesday 17th July. The 40% capacity increase means there is now with parking for almost 1,000 cycles.


ROLLING STOCK
First Capital Connect announces £31m mid-life overhaul Class 365 trains

Keywords: [FirstCapitalConnect]

First Capital Connect has announced a £31 million overhaul of its fleet of 40 Class 365 trains (160 carriages), which are some of the last bought by British Rail and date from the mid-1990s and are now looking quite tatty. This works out at about £200,000 per carriage. Train owners Eversholt Rail Group, who lease the trains to FCC, will fund the refurbishment, which should be completed by 2017. Refurbishment of the interiors will be combined with a major overhaul of the train.

FCC is promising improved fully automated audio and visual passenger information system but has not said how it will differ from the existing facilities, which most passengers consider to be adequate. There will also be better accessibility for disabled people with wheelchair-accessible toilets in each four-carriage unit, two spaces for wheelchairs instead of one, with companion seating. First Capital Connect's new managing director David Statham said: "Everything our passengers tell us shows that a clean and comfortable travelling environment is important to them. This major investment in one of our biggest fleets of trains will give us just that - a brighter, new-look train cabin with better information and better facilities for people with disabilities."

Some commuters spend longer travelling on a train than sitting in their living room, so journey quality is really important. However, it is unclear what these better facilities will be as the refurbishment will not see any of the things that passengers have come to expect with brand new trains. There will not be power sockets by the seats for laptops and charging mobile devices (such apparently modest facilities are difficult and expensive to retro-fit on older roiling stock apparently although not too difficult for inter-city operators), no Wi-Fi and no air conditioning. It appears that most passengers will see little more than new seat covers and carpets, and hopefully internal doors that work reliably. Even improved ride quality - something that can be quite poor in certain parts of the trains - was not mentioned in the press release.


STATIONS
Government funding will provide electric car charging points at 20 Greater Anglia stations

Thanks to the government's announcement in July regarding funding for electric car charge points, 20 Greater Anglia stations will be provided with them at a cost of £165,000. The stations are Bishops Stortford, Broxbourne, Cheshunt, Chingford, Ely, Gidea Park, Harold Wood, Highams Park, Harlow Town, Hertford East, Ilford, Ipswich, Norwich, Shenfield, Stansted Mountfitchet, Waltham Cross, Walthamstow Central, Wickford, Witham and South Woodham Ferrers Station.

Investment for new passing loop pays off as patronage grows by 12% in a year

Greater Anglia has announced that in the first six months after the Beccles loop opened and the Ipswich-Lowestoft switched for two-hourly to hourly on Monday to Saturday (though still two-hourly on Sundays) over 270,000 journeys have been made on the line, up from 243,000 in the same period for 2012. Railfuture conducted a passenger count at Halesworth in October 2012, prior to the full service improvement and will repeat it again in October 2013 to see what change has occurred. At the time Halesworth station (which is half way along the route) had an hourly service to Ipswich but two-hourly to Lowestoft. According to Greater Anglia patronage is up 60% on 2009/10, which was the last year in which a two-hourly service was operated along the whole of the line. This clearly demonstrates how an improved frequency can greatly improve the attractiveness of rail services.

Railfuture was concerned that the need to trains to pass one another at the 400-metre passing loop at Beccles would lead to long delays when ones of the trains was not running to time. It was therefore expected that punctuality would fall. However, the Moving Annual Average punctuality (half of which is since the passing loop came into operation) is now over 90% for the first time in at least 14 years. The resignalling on the line has improved the reliability of the infrastructure.


PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Mid-Norfolk Railway board agrees to buy a shed for train maintenance

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

One of the urgent infrastructure projects at the Mid-Norfolk Railway has been to acquire and erect a shed so that its trains and carriages can be serviced under cover. This is much more pleasant for its volunteers (and may encourage more people to volunteer) and means that more can be achieved as bad weather will no longer hamper work. In addition owners of steam engines will be more willing to hire their locomotives to the MNR as they will be safe.

The board meeting on 25th July agreed to finance the purchase of a second-hand frame and purlins of a shed which is about 18m wide by 55m long (allowing six vehicles - two on each of the three roads - to be stored undercover) and 8m high for around a third of the cost of a new building. This means that the £16,000 already in the shed appeal can go to the cladding, foundations and construction of the building essentially giving a current fund of £40,000 towards the building. The three roads leading to the new shed will have sufficient track to allow two vehicles to stabled on each road allowing 12 vehicles to be stored there, six inside and six outside. However, in the future, when funds allow, the shed could be extended forwards so that more vehicles would then be undercover.

Mid-Norfolk Railway used as rail head for Class 170 Turbostar to for repairs

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

On 16th July a damaged two-car Class 170 was taken by rail to Dereham and then each carriage was transferred onto two low-loaders for a journey by road to Wolverton works. Since Greater Anglia's Crown Point depot near Norwich Station does not have road access the MNR's Dereham base has been used several times in the last decade as a transfer point. This is the first time that a Class 170 has been transferred. Such work provides a useful, albeit small, income stream for the MNR

Mid-Norfolk Railway declares its July Steam Gala an "operational and financial triumph"

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

The MNR's 3-day Steam Gala (its most successful gala ever) saw packed trains and platforms (2,500 people turned up to travel) and despite an 11th-hour question mark being put on the two mainline visitors, all four locos performed perfectly. In a message to volunteers the MNR said "The whole railway can be justifiably proud of this fantastic event." Whilst the event was not a cheap one to put on, they didn't go overboard with the budget and the railway made a healthy profit. The shop and buffets recorded record takings and the publicity the railway has received was considered invaluable.

Hopefully some of the profit made over that weekend will find its way to essential infrastructure work that is needed, such as the new maintenance shed as mentioned above.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 243 - 31/07/2013

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