News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 244 - 31/08/2013
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
- ROLLING STOCK [all issues]
- Greater Anglia Class 379 emu will have batteries fitted for independently-powered test running
- Government confirms size of order for new trains to be used by Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern train operator
- GUIDED BUSWAY [all issues]
- WEBSITES [all issues]
- PRESERVED RAILWAYS [all issues]
According to Greater Anglia, in correspondence with Railfuture the redevelopment work to Cambridge Station concourse area to increase the size of the concourse, provide more entrances, exits and tickets gates is currently planned to begin in February 2014.
Great Yarmouth is the latest Greater Anglia station to offer free Wi-Fi connections, which these days are primarily used by people with smart-phones and tablets. GA is planning to provide the facility at 100 stations all in conjunction with The Cloud.
Greater Anglia says that its new cleaning programme at the Ilford depot will help to restore exterior paintwork on its fleet of Class 315, 317, 321, 360 and 379 EMU trains. A new cleaning product should strip away contamination such as embedded brake dust.
On the weekend of 14th and 15th September Network Rail will be working on the connection to the 'Canal Tunnels', which is the new link between the Great Northern and Thameslink lines just north of King's Cross. Only one track out of the four between Finsbury Park and King's Cross (which covers Belle Isle Junction) will be available for use. Further work will take place in October and November.
The new piazza area around King's Cross station will be officially re-opened on Thursday 26th September.
It is hoped to reopen the station building at Wickham Market on the East Suffolk Line for community use. More than £110,000 has been raised - about a quarter of the sum needed - to convert the empty building, which is owned by Suffolk County Council.
A charter train visited both the Griffin Wharf branch in Ipswich (where no charter had been for at least 20 years) and Felixstowe docks on Saturday 10th August.
The Retail Prices Index (the measure of inflation used by the government for setting rail fares) for July 2013 was 3.1%, which means that regulated rail fares will increase in England by an average of 4.1% on 5th January 2014. In Scotland the formula used is RPI-1%, which means an increase of just 2.1%.
The Luton-Dunstable guided busway, built on a railway line like the Cambridgeshire guided busway, should open on Wednesday 25th September. At a cost of £91m for just 6.1 miles of bus-only route (between Blackburn Road in Houghton Regis, through Dunstable and into Luton town centre, of which 4.8 miles is a concrete guideway along the disused Luton-Dunstable railway) makes it makes Cambridgeshire's busway like a bargain. More details at http://www.lutontoday.co.uk/news/business/business-news/91m-busway-set-to-open-next-month-1-5415791.
RAIL ROUTES
Railfuture interviewed by ITV Anglia News about vital rail improvements as Transport Secretary visits region
On 20th August board members of 'New Anglia', the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for Norfolk and Suffolk, along with certain business leaders and local MPs Chloe Smith, Priti Patel and Ben Gummer attended a meeting with Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, who was visiting the region. They were eager to emphasise to him that rail improvements in the region would transform the economy of East Anglia and would cost little. Somewhat controversially, these costs were compared with those of HS2, which would be 100 times more. Mr McLoughlin was well aware of their aspirations, as he was carrying with him a copy of the East Anglia Rail Prospectus form 2012.
The investment requested was mainly around route infrastructure, which would reduce journey times and improve reliability, but also concerned on-board deficiencies such as the lack of WiFi and power-points on services.
Chris Burton, editor of Railfuture East Anglia's newsletter, RAIL EAST, was interviewed by ITV Anglia News whilst the Secretary of State was in the region and it was broadcast several times throughout the day.
ROLLING STOCK
Greater Anglia Class 379 emu will have batteries fitted for independently-powered test running
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
Greater Anglia has mainly electric stock for its intensive mainline services to and from London but also dozens of diesel multiple units for the non-electrified branch lines. That is likely to remain the case for decades until overhead wires are installed on the last branch. Since all of the advantages of electrification are on the rolling stock and almost all of the disadvantages are in the continuous electrification infrastructure ealong the route. People with the rail industry and Railfuture have asked whether it is possible to have one without the other. Well, Network Rail (NR), Bombardier, Greater Anglia, the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Enabling Innovation Team (EIT), a group set-up to accelerate the adoption of railway innovations, clearly think so as they have set-up a new joint project to test whether battery-powered trains can be used the provide all of the benefits without many of the disbenefits.
Little has been revealed about the project at this stage. One of Greater Anglia's 30 class 379 emus built by Bombardier and in operation since 2011 will be fitted with two types of battery: lithium (iron-manganese) phosphate and hot sodium nickel salt. The train will initially be tested on the Old Dalby test track and possibly on heritage lines to ensure that it is not likely to fail on an operational line, for example, because it is a faulty battery. After that it will operate with its pantograph down on a Greater Anglia electrified branch line on revenue earning services so that if a battery problem occurs the pantograph can be raised to restore power. The test programme should run until the end of 2014. The intention is to then remove the batteries so that the train can will be 'standard' again.
Richard Eccles, Network Rails's director of network strategy and planning, who spoke to Railfuture's meeting in Cambridge in December 2012, said: "If we can create an energy storage capability for trains, electric traction can be introduced to more parts of the network without the need to necessarily extend the electrification infrastructure, As the principal funder and delivery manager, we have done a great deal of feasibility work before reaching this stage, both to define the outputs we seek from the trial and to build confidence in the project across the industry."
News article: http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/rolling-stock/british-group-to-test-battery-powered-emu.html
Government confirms size of order for new trains to be used by Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern train operator
Despite Siemens winning their bid to build the new Class 700 Thameslink emu trains several years ago, the contract took a considerable amount of time to agree and sign. Only now has the government finally confirmed the size of the order for trains, which be operated both north and south of London. The 1,140 vehicles will be formed of 55 12-car and 60 8-car trains. One of the issues of having such long fixed-formed trains is that there will be a large number of empty seats at off-peak times. It is therefore likely that the 8-car trains will be in use for more of the day than the 12-car ones, leading to more intensive use and an uneven maintenance requirement.
GUIDED BUSWAY
Cambridgeshire County Council and BAM Nuttall reach agreement before dispute goes to court
On 30th August it was announced that Cambridgeshire County Council had reached agreement with the guided busway contractors BAM Nuttall. The county council had blamed BAM Nuttall for everything and had consistently claimed that their "robust" contract would ensure council taxpayers did not lose a penny. In contrast BAM Nuttall had blamed the council (and its agents) for most of the unforeseen problems and for lack of management. In the end, unsurprisingly, both sides lost out, with BAM Nuttall appearing to lose the most, but the council incurring lots of costs that it is naturally keeping rather quiet about.
The headline figure is that council taxpayers will be about £35m out of pocket, but BAM will probably have lost about £50m (plus their undisclosed legal costs - another £10 perhaps). Basically BAM have had their entire claim for more money rejected (apart from £800k). However, the council have not got a penny from them for the delays (there were entitled to £14k a day, which amounted to more than £10m as it was two years late) and the county council had to pay another contractor to complete the work. The council also had to pay their managing agents (Atkins) to supervise BAM (for an extra two years), plus some staff to sit around doing little for two years, and they had to pay all of their own legal costs, and they had to pay interest on the extra £33m that they paid BAM up front (which will be returned, but not the interest). Hardly the victory that the county council have claimed but they are good at spinning.
On top of this the land acquisition costs were higher than originally expected and much of the 'section 106' money has not been forthcoming as developments have stalled. It's a pretty big financial hole for the council. On top of this they used money from other budgets to do things to help the busway's viability (such as road improvements). A huge cost overall.
The council is still claiming that the busway is hugely successful but this should be treated with extreme caution. Patronage wads 40% above the year one estimate (but the year one figure is always deliberately pessimistic so that it can be exceeded) and is only about 20% above the year two figure and it's possible it will only just exceed the year three prediction. Many of the passengers are pensioners paying nothing. The buses take as long as by road and the southern section doesn't have an evening or weekend service at all.
WEBSITES
National Archives website has fascinating details about the history of Britain's railways
A section within the National Archives website is dedicated to Britain's railways. With assistance from staff at the National Railway Museum it has been structured and presented in a very easy to access manner. See http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/railways.
PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Norfolk Orbital Railway claims a "breakthrough" as first parcel of land is purchased for reinstatement of railway
Keywords: [NorfolkOrbitalRailway]
The Melton Constable Trust (MCT), which is the charity behind the Norfolk Orbital Railway is now the full legal owner of its first, and it claims "utterly vital", section of the route for the railway extension into Holt. The land, which has been sold to them by the County Council for £25,000 is not just the former trackbed but much more besides, is immediately opposite the North Norfolk Railway (NNR) station at High Kelling, bordering the "Old Cromer Road" and known as "The Belt". It is only 50 yards long but gives proof of its intentions. Without this short stretch the line could not be extended from the NNR's High Kelling station (which in typical RyanAir style it calls "Holt") into the town of Holt itself. That purchase was made possible by its fund raising push in late 2012, aided by match funding from the Big Give.
The trust also has an option on the next section of trackbed as well, which they say "paves the way for the reconnection of the fast growing town of Holt to the national network" via the NNR, which has a connection to the network. The MCT is now appealing for £85,000 to secure the next stretch, having paid a £15,000 deposit after agreeing terms for the purchase. The first instalment of £20,000 needs to be paid by 30th November 2013. Their immediate intention is to secure the land for the route, so that nothing can physically block the building of the railway.
Trevor Bailey, one of the trustees of The Melton Constable Trust, said "we shall be very happy to see the North Norfolk Railway's heritage services running to Holt. Those services provide huge car-free tourism benefits and could be of great economic advantage to Holt itself." An agreement has been signed with the North Norfolk Railway covering the extension of the railway into Holt (the first phase of its very ambitious scheme) and the principle of a through transport service from the Bittern Line.
The Holt, Melton Constable and Fakenham Railway Company has an agreement with the NNR (http://www.norfolk-orbital-railway.co.uk/NNR%20Agreement%202009.pdf) to support the running of services using NNR metals. Incidentally, the NNR has recently submitted an application to the District Council for erection of a new education facility at their "Holt" station at High Kelling. The accompanying plans to this application clearly show the route set aside for the extended track alongside this building to enable connection with the extension to Holt Town.
An NNR statement on its website says "The NNR is broadly sympathetic to the aims of the promoters of the Norfolk Orbital Railway, but will never allow the heritage railway to be downgraded in any way. With a record number of 157,800 passengers carried in 2013, the NNR is making a valuable contribution to tourism and the economy of the region."
Press release: http://www.norfolk-orbital-railway.co.uk/images/Press%20release%20on%20land%20purchase.pdf
Norfolk Orbital Railway: http://www.norfolk-orbital-railway.co.uk.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 244 - 31/08/2013
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