News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 232 - 28/08/2012
The region's train operators ran a significant number of extra trains, especially late night ones, to cope with the demand during the Olympics and Paralympics. These were well loaded, especially when the opening and closing ceremonies overran.
With the annual RPI inflation to the end of July being 3.2%, fares will rise (if the government does not relent) by 6.2%. This featured heavily in the news on 15th August and Railfuture East Anglia branch secretary Nick Dibben was quoted in a Cambridge News story saying "Any large increase is not going to be welcome, particularly at a time when people's salaries haven't been increasing. There will always be some people who will say it's no longer economic for them to go to work." Railfuture is campaigning furiously behind the scenes against the RPI+3% rise.
The closing date for the DfT consultation on the combined Thameslink/Great Northern franchise has been extended to Friday 14th September 2012.
The August edition of 'theRail.Engineer' magazine has an article, with a series of photographs, about the construction the Hitchin flyover (see http://www.therailengineer.com/2012/08/02/turn-right-at-hitchin), which was covered in [Snippets 230].
Official approval for the Ipswich chord, which will allow freight trains from Felixstowe to head west without reversing at Ipswich, is expected to be granted imminently. In the meantime Network Rail has been completing land surveys and engineers have been on the site behind the former bacon factory on Hadleigh Road to conduct preliminary testing work. Storage buildings from the former factory that stood in the way of the new route have been relocated.
It is understood that a junction will be installed on the weekend of 8th/9th September to link new tracks at the existing terminal at Felixstowe. There are now three new tracks running parallel to Fagbury Cliffs and ballasting work has already commenced.
Greater Anglia ran extra trains for the Clacton Air show on Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th August. It has also recently introduced a facility to buy season tickets online and collect them from ticket vending machines (which do not support transactions involving large amounts). They are the first TOC to do this, which was a franchise commitment. Greater Anglia is also rolling out 'print at home' and mobile device tickets across more of its network.
From 3rd September a new PlusBus 'add-on' ticket will be available to/from Ely station and is designed for regular travellers. It is valid on both the 'absolutELY' city bus service run by Norfolk Green, and local Stagecoach services 9 and 12 in Ely, from just £6.75 a week.
Latest rail usage statistics from the ORR show that for the three months between 1st April and 30th June 2012 the total number of passenger kilometres was 14,400 million, which is 360 million more than the same quarter in 2011-12.
Stansted Airport will have a new owner within the next year, as BAA agreed not to contest the ruling forcing it to sell the airport. In recent years the number of passengers per annum has fallen from 24 million to around 17 million.
Ely Museum will have a talk entitled "Liverpool Street to King's Lynn" by Robert Stripe of FLUA on Thursday 6th September at 19:00. Entrance cost is £1.50 for members and £2 for non-members. The venue is Vernon Cross Room, Ely Museum, Market Street, Ely (opposite the bus stops).
On Saturday 8th September the Friends of March Station will be opening the former platforms 3 and 4 to the public from 10:00 to 15:00 so that visitors can have a look round.
On Thursday 13th September at 21:00 BBC Four will broadcast a programme about the development of the InterCity 125 - a fleet of high-speed engines introduced by British Rail in 1976 in a bid to revive its commercial fortunes and make train travel more appealing to the public. With an advertising campaign fronted by Jimmy Savile and new boss Peter Parker in charge it was a huge success. The programme will be repeated on Friday 14th at 01:45 and Saturday at 22:40.
The Cambridge Railway Circle has announced that Dyan Crowther, Operational Services Director at Network Rail, will be speaking to them on Friday 1st February 2013.
The Whitwell and Reepham Preservation Society has recently installed another set of points, towards the end of their land, to allow them to branch out onto Marriott's Way to bring the track back into the original station platform. This will require a headshunt and a reversal. It is not publicly stated if they have obtained permission from the local authority to do so yet.
RAIL ROUTES
First phase of Ely-Norwich resignalling goes live over August weekend
Keywords: [ElyNorwichLine]
On Monday 20th August the first phase of two phase of the resignalling of the Ely to Norwich line went live, having been postponed from late June because of technical problems that required further testing. This 29.5 mile phase covered the western end from Ely north Junction to Harling Road, which is just east of Thetford. This saw signal boxes being closed (with barriers replacing manual gates at level crossings) as the semaphore signals were replaced by colour light signals that had been concealed under covers for some months. Commissioning of the remaining 23.5 miles from Harling Road to Trowse Junction is due to be carried out in December 2012.
Unfortunately some train delays were caused by data transmission issues with the signals, but these were resolved the following weekend. However, they are having a lot of problems with the MCB-OD level crossings (manually controlled barriers with obstacle [sometimes called 'obstruction'] detectors). At ground level there is a sensor to check that no vehicle, or person (perhaps having fallen over) is on the crossing. Whilst there have been no problems in urban areas, in rural areas where the roads are very muddy (e.g. tractors and other farm vehicles bringing mud off the land) the tends to get splattered into the detector, rendering it out of action. The signaller still lowers the full barriers but does not know whether it is safe for the train to cross so he then phones the driver and tell them to check that the crossing is clear. The signaller then calls out someone to go and clear the sensor. The call-out is happening on a daily basis. Network Rail is looking at a solution to avoid this: perhaps fitting a wiper and a water squirter). Surprisingly there is no CCTV on the level crossing for the signaller to check. Of course, the purpose of the MCB-OD is for the barriers to descend automatically with no human involvement, as a prelude to fully computer-controlled signalling.
RAIL PUNCTUALITY
Almost 95% of Greater Anglia's train services were 'on time' in July 2012
Abellio had an inauspicious start on 6th February when its Greater Anglia franchise commenced, which weas blamed on poor weather. However, in the four-week period covering 24th June to 21st July its train services reached 94.56% punctuality (under the five-minute and 10-minute 'on time' rules) across its network - the highest of any four-week period since the combined franchise area was created in April 2004. The period saw a 4% year-on-year improvement, when NXEA was the train operator and was attributed to closer working with Network Rail staff.
The Great Eastern Mainline services reached 93.4% punctuality - although this is expected to improve once the overhead line work is completed - whist its other services were at 94.8%.
News article: http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/business/greater_anglia_records_jump_in_rail_punctuality_figures_1_1469124
GUIDED BUSWAY
First anniversary of Cambridgeshire Guided Busway surprises no-one when County Council claims it has been a success
Cambridgeshire County Council claims that more than 2.5 million journeys (2.35 million by Stagecoach alone) have been made on the guided busway in its first year, which is 40% more than the 1.64 million expected, and just short of the second year goal of 2.6 million. However, it conveniently fails to point out that this includes all tickets sold for any part of a bus route that includes a guided section even if the passenger does not travel on the busway, or only a very short section of it. For example, the unguided journeys from Huntingdon to St Ives and Cambridge Science Park to the city centre and from there to the station are counted. It also fails to point out that many journeys on the busway itself were by pensioners who pay nothing. It is difficult to estimate but perhaps as few as one million journeys involved more than 50 metres on the busway by a passenger who paid. No wonder that there is no visible reduction in congestion on the roads.
The local media seemed to lap up the press releases from the county council (who claimed it was a "magnificent success") and the bus operators without any attempt to question or analyse the figures. No journalist sought a monthly breakdown of patronage, which is obtainable, otherwise they would have discovered that patronage is flat-lining, with no organic growth taking place to hit the patronage targets of future years. However, money is being spent on trying to increase passenger numbers, with the Government funding expansion to the St Ives park and ride, Stagecoach has purchased extra buses to increase the frequency of departures to every seven or eight minutes, and has added new destinations including Peterborough and Ramsey.
The busway targets, prior to Northstowe new town being built, is 3.5 million passengers a year. However, that is for the basic service, and it would be a great distortion to include passengers to new destinations to try to hit the target.
Rather than spend precious journalistic time on the busway claims, the media relied upon outsiders to provide criticism to try to balance the spin. Tim Phillips, chairman of CAST.IRON, said: "It will take a great deal more than the current information before we accept genuine easing of A14 traffic and a much greater increase in local, national and international journey opportunities could not have been made through rail reinstatement and improvements to conventional bus services - and at far lower cost." Tim Phillips was also interviewed live on BBC Radio Cambs on Tuesday 7th August, the first anniversary of the busway's opening.
News article: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/Guided-bus-celebrates-first-birthday-with-25m-journeys-31072012.htm
Traveller's Blog: http://travellingtheguidedbusway.blogspot.co.uk.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 232 - 28/08/2012
[Prev Issue (231)] [Snippets Issues] [Next Issue (233)] [Category List] [Keyword List] [People List] [Story List] [Branch Dashboard]