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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 252 - 30/04/2014

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

Railfuture News Snippets 252 - 30/04/2014



Between 8th December 2013 (when a two-hourly service was introduced) and 15th March 2014 the number of passenger journeys at Manea station in Cambridgeshire was 1,205, about 16 each day. This is a tripling in passenger numbers compared to 386 in the like-for-like per the year before, when a two trains per day service operated.

Abellio Greater Anglia is offering 30,000 cheap advance fares of just £:5 on the Norwich-London route and the connecting branch lines. These must be bought by 17th May and are for travel between 19th May and 4th July 2014 inclusive.

Felixstowe Travel Watch will be holding its AGM on Tuesday 27th May at 19:30 at the Salvation Army Church in Cobbold Road in Felixstowe. The guest speaker will be David Squire of First Norfolk and Suffolk, the local bus company.


RAIL ROUTES
Cambridgeshire County Council publishes Atkins report on Capital Cost of Re-opening March-Wisbech line

Keywords: [WisbechBranch]

An Atkins 70-page report on Capital Cost of Re-opening March-Wisbech line, dated 4th April 2014, has been made available on the Cambridgehsire County Council website at: www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/2623/march_wisbech_rail_study_stage_2. The Executive Summary says "The capital cost including optimism bias of reinstatement of the line for passenger services, overhaul of the signalling and level crossings is estimated to be in the range of £50-75 million depending on the station location and whether or not an over bridge for the A47 is included or not. These costs were calculated in line with a GRIP 1 cost estimate. The costs could be higher once ongoing maintenance is considered in the appraisal."

A separate document, the "Wider Economic Benefits of a Rail Service Between March and Wisbech", dated 28th March 2014, has also been uploaded. The council's initial study document dated 7th December 2012 is also available.


RAIL FRANCHISES
Abellio Greater Anglia given two-year 'direct award' franchise extension until October 2016

On 16th April The DfT announced that the Greater Anglia franchise, operated by Abellio, would be extended by 27 months to run until 15th October 2016. This was extended under the 'direct award' process following the West Coast franchise fiasco in 2012 and means that the extension is just two months shorter than the original, competitively-fought, 29-monthly franchise that began on 6th February 2012. The DfT had intended to award a 15-year franchise from 2014 but that has been postponed, which means that passengers will have to wait longer for significant changes.

Some, minor, improvements will be introduced for the franchise extension. These include:

  • A new Cambridge-Stansted Airport hourly off-peak service of eight trains on Monday-Friday (0900-1600) utilising rolling stock that would otherwise be stabled. This is in line with the recommendations of the Airport Commission's study into airport capacity in the UK, which highlighted the importance of surface access to airports.
  • Improved Sunday services: Norwich-Sheringham winter Sunday services to have same pattern as summer ones (85% increase); new last train on Sunday evening throughout the year on Marks-Tey-Sudbury line; Norwich-Lowestoft to have hourly rather than two-hourly summer service (87% increase); London-Norwich to have two more summer Sunday services in each direction
  • More than 400 new cycle parking spaces across its stations.

The Mark 3 carriages on the Liverpool Street to Norwich trains will be refurbished and introduced into service in 2015. One welcome improvement will be the installation of at-seat power sockets. More standard class seats will be provided, but only by stealing first class seats rather than running longer trains. Controlled-emission toilets will also be installed on the ageing rolling stock. Other improvements wil be stronger (and more environmentally friendly) lighting. The work will include typical refurbishment such as seat covers and new carpets.

During the extension the Greater Anglia franchise will become smaller as TfL's new Crossrail concession, which commences in May 2015, will strip it of inner-London Metro services between Liverpool Street and Shenfield. Despite this, Abellio will pay the government £266 million in premium payments over the 27-month period from July 2014 to October 2016 according to a Commons Written Answer on 30th April.


ROLLING STOCK
GTR's new Class 700 Thameslink trains undergo winter-condition testing in Vienna to ensure they will be reliable

Keywords: [Class700]

Govia Thameslink Railway will be introducing its new Siemens class 700 'Desiro City' Thameslink trains from 2016, and they will be running through the new tunnels in 2018 when the 10-year Thameslink Programme is complete. With 24 trains an hour in each direction through the central 'core' section, much of which is in tunnels, it is vital that the new trains are reliable. One possible cause of problems is the change in air temperature, and in winter, especially when there is snow and ice. It is important that problems with the trains are discovered before they enter passenger service. Therefore manufacturer Siemens is sending the trains to its specially-designed 'climate chamber' for vehicles in Vienna. Tests will make sure the cold weather does not cause problems with the couplers, external CCTV, traction and brakes, doors and windscreens. As well as simulated winter testing every Class 700 carriage will be also be run continuously on the circular test track at Wildenrath in Germany.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Cambridgeshire County Council plans free legal action against BAM Nuttall over the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway as serious faults are found

The never-ending saga of the controversial Cambridgeshire Guided Busway has entered a new era as members of Cambridgeshire County Council's cabinet has agreed to spend vast sums (at least £20 million) repairing the busway ifself and, in parallel, seek to recover those costs BAM Nuttall, the construction company that built the busway and is, in the council's opinion, the root cause of the latest problems, something that is disputed by BAM Nuttall. Because the latter denies that the problems are defects, claiming many are routine maintenance issues, it has refused to fix them. Given that the busway was highly experimental (something always denied by the council), unlike the railway that it replaced, the stability over time of the busway was always going to be unpredictable. The council bears the risk of not recovering any costs with the full financial burden falling on council-tax payers.

The most serious fault on the busway affects bearings between busway beams and their foundations, which have moved out of place causing the beam to drop and a step to appear in the track. All of the bearings are thought to be at risk of moving and will potentially affect, in the long-term, every beam laid between Cambridge Science Park and St Ives, causing a very uncomfortable journey in places for passengers with the certainty of it getting worse if not fixed. Cracks "larger than normally permissible" have appeared in some beams. The council's executive transport director Graham Hughes question the "serviceability and longevity" of the busway in a report to cabinet members.

Long-term consistent critic of the busway, Councillor Mike Mason, who has a transport background, believes that there could be great difficulty in continuing to operate the busway but his greatest fears were financial in terms of the liability that may accrue. Councillor Maurice Leeke, the Liberal Democrat leader, told the Cambridge News that the Conservatives' silence was a reflection of their embarrassment over the busway, which has already been the subject of a lengthy legal battle over that the council only partially won.

Unsurprisingly the council has decided that a different company will be responsible for building the extension to the busway across Milton Road to the site of new Cambridge Science Park station.


Few passengers complain about Cambridgeshire Guided Busway - is this satisfaction or is complaining seen as wasted effort?

In the 32 months since the Cambridgeshire Guided busway around 7.8 million passengers (many travelling free) have used the buses that form the 'busway' service, although many passenger journeys do not even make use of the busway. In that entire time, according to a press release from Cambridgeshire County Council, which seems to be a non-story to promote the supposed "success" if the busway, the council claims to have received just 37 complaints for "busway service matters within the control of the council." Of course, this categorisation is pretty meaningless, as the council is responsible for little, and the vast majority of complains would, surely, go direct to Stagecoach and Whippet as the operators, or be passed onto them by the council (and therefore not included in the figures). More importantly, the press release ignores the fact that people often don't make complaints as they believe it is utterly pointless. Another subtlety is that the council only includes complaints from passengers and not by road users unhappy at being held up by buses, for example, where the busway crosses Harrison Way in St Ives, as these do not relate to a "service".


PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Extension planned to Mid-Suffolk Light Railway following successful negotiation for land

Keywords: [MidSuffolkLightRailway]

Although Snippets tends to focus on the three major heritage railways in the Railfuture East Anglia branch area (North Norfolk, Mid-Norfolk and Nene Valley), which are all connected to the rail network and offer benefits to it, there are several much smaller heritage railways. One of these is the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway, which has just secured agreement from a landowner to extend its line by 600 metres (doubling its length) and construct a new small station the size of a hut to be known as Wilby Halt (a station on the line with that name closed in 1952). The next task is to secure funds and obtain approval from the local authority, Mid-Suffolk District Council.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 252 - 30/04/2014

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