News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 283 - 31/10/2016
- RAIL FRANCHISES [all issues]
- Nine-year Greater Anglia franchise commences with Abellio launch event at Liverpool Street station
- Pension fund among financial backers of Greater Anglia's £600m order for trains from Stadler in Switzerland
- STATIONS [all issues]
- GUIDED BUSWAY [all issues]
- PRESERVED RAILWAYS [all issues]
Issue number 4 (dated 12/10/2016) of the new weekly Cambridge Independent newspaper featured the Cambridge Metro map and gave lots of plugs for Railfuture. It also explained the capacity problems with Ely North Junction and how they are preventing better passenger services until resolved.
On 13th October 2016 the Department for Transport announced that on Govia Thameslink Railway the Delay Repay scheme was being expanded to introduce a new threshold. For journeys delayed by between 15 and 29 minutes a new 25% payment could be applied for. The 50% after 30 minutes, 100% after 60 minutes and the full return fare after two hours is unchanged. This would be introduced "within months" (once the processes and information was in place) according to the DfT announcement, which was obviously tactical to pacify GTR passengers inconvenienced by the long-running problems on its Southern Railway business unit. Railfuture issued a press release welcoming the move and called for it to be rolled out across all train operators in Britain. The DfT plans to mandate it in the new South Western, West Midlands and South Eastern franchises that are in the pipeline. On a related matter, the Consumer Rights Act has applied to the railway since 1st October 2016 and strengthens the right of passengers to claim compensation for poor service.
Jamie Burles, the Managing Director of Greater Anglia, has accepted two invitations from Railfuture East Anglia. He will be the guest speaker at the branch meeting in Cambridge on Saturday 3rd December 2016 at the Friends Meeting House, and again at the national AGM on Saturday 20th May 2017 in Peterborough.
Cambridge Station has won first place in the national awards for cycling at stations, hosted by the Rail Delivery Group, thanks to the opening of the new 2,850-space cycle park. On Monday 31st October the new section of the booking hall opened, with the existing part being closed off (apart from the entrance to Marks & Spencer) to allow it to be renovated. The full area should be open in December 2016 - some months later than had been hoped because of various unforeseen issues (and more than a year later than the original plans). The new station square was partially opened during October.
At the Suffolk Rail Conference on the 24th October 2016, which was held at Ipswich Town Football Club, Railfuture was given a five-minute slot in which to promote its new Easy Stations Awards. The awards are intended to encourage train operators in East Anglia to improve stations to become easier to use especially in terms of accessibility for persons with reduced mobility (PRM). See slides. Funding for this award scheme has come from the legacy of Clara Zilahi, herself an active campaigner for rail improvements and a particular advocate for those with reduced mobility.
During October, three stations on the Bittern Line between Norwich and Sheringham (Salhouse, Brundall Gardens and Roughton Road) became 'request stop only' in order to help maintain the service timetable owing to leaf fall.
On Thursday 3rd November between 14:00 and 19:00 at Trimley Sports and Social Club, High Road, Trimley St Martin, Network Rail will be meeting the public and displaying its plans to upgrade the Felixstowe branch to increase capacity for more freight trains (ultimately 47 trains a day in each direction, up from the 33 currently) and to make the passenger service more reliable. The main intention is to double the track near Trimley station but it also proposes to close six pedestrian crossings between Trimley and Nacton to improve safety and reduce delays, hence the need to consult the public. To mitigate the closures it intends to build a bridge over the track for a public bridleway.
EDF will be holding a series of public exhibitions about the proposed Sizewell C Power station in November and December. Railfuture wants to ensure that the plans to deliver construction materials by rail are progressed. The exhibition dates are:
- 24th November 2016, 11:00-15:00, Visitor Centre, Sizewell B, Leiston IP16 4UR
- 25th November 2016, 14:00-20:00, Jubilee Hall, School House, Church Road, Theberton IP16 4SB
- 26th November 2016, 10:00-16:00, Community Centre, King George's Avenue, Leiston IP16 4JX
- 28th November 2016, 11:00-15:00, Ufford Park Hotel - The Vista Room, Yarmouth Road, Melton IP12 1QW
- 29th November 2016, 11:00-15:00, The Concert Hall Cafe, Snape Maltings, Snape IP17 1SR
- 29th November 2016, 16:00-20:00, Village Hall, The Street, Westleton IP17 3AH
- 30th November 2016, 12:00-18:00, Community Centre, Victoria Road, Kings Field, Aldeburgh IP15 5HY
- 1st December 2016, 11:00-15:00, Village Hall, High Street, Wickham Market IP13 0HE
- 2nd December 2016, 11:00-15:00, Market Hall, High Street, Saxmundham IP17 1AF.
On 24th October 2016 the name Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), which dates back to 1993, became defunct as it adopted the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) banner. In fact the ATOC website had ceased to exist for some time. It means that the RDG is now responsible for National Rail Enquiries, the Rail Settlement Plan and other activities.
Watch a video (https://youtu.be/K-oNtZaADb4) of Dr Colin Harris of Cambridge Connect speaking about their proposed tram system for Cambridge as part of a meeting in Cambridge entitled "Rebooting the City Deal." The tram scheme is supported by Railfuture East Anglia.
Bob Barnard, past-president of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers, who is a recently-retired electronic engineering graduate who spent his career as a railway signal engineer working for what is now Alstom, will be giving a lecture about the Digital Railway (i.e. ERTMS, ETCS etc.) in Cambridge on Thursday 17th November from 18:30. The venue is the Cambridge University Engineering Labs, CB2 1PZ.
On Wednesday 23rd November Heike Sowa of the Rail Haverhill campaign will be speaking at a public meeting organised by the Cambridge University Railway Club at Fitzwilliam College in the William Thatcher Room, commencing at 20:30.
RAIL FRANCHISES
Nine-year Greater Anglia franchise commences with Abellio launch event at Liverpool Street station
Keywords: [GreaterAngliaFranchise]
Abellio commenced its new nine-year franchise on Sunday 16th October 2016 and held a launch event at Liverpool Street station on Monday 17th October. Greater Anglia Managing Director Jamie Burles was joined at the event by Rail Minister Paul Maynard, who described the franchise as "deliberately ambitious", and Mark Pendlington of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership.
The ceremony restated much of the investment that was announced in August 2016 (see [Snippets 281]) when Abellio was announced as the winner. Abellio UK's Managing Director Dominic Booth referred to the £1.4bn invested (by financiers, not Abellio itself) in a 100% new train fleet comprising 1,043 new multiple-unit vehicles (Bombardier Aventra EMUs for commuter services and Stadler Flirt units for inter-city and regional) that would enter service between 2019 and 2020. This, he claimed, would allow a 13% increase in the number of services operated each week, with 32,000 extra seats into London in the morning peak. A completely new timetable will be launched in December 2019. Direct investment by Abellio includes £60m in station enhancements and another £14m in staff training and development.
Fleet refurbishment undertaken by Abellio during its two-year direct award was coming on stream, and passengers would notice improvements to trains from the start of the franchise. Additional stop-gap trains would be introduced to create much-needed extra capacity. May 2017 will see the entry into service of 18 four-car Class 321 EMUs being displaced from Great Northern by Siemens Class 700s. This would release existing trains for a £23m refurbishment programme. The high-profile stakeholder aspiration of "Norwich in 90" inter-city trains will begin running at off-peak times, albeit only two each way each day.
Because of a new ruling by the Department for Transport, it will be known as Greater Anglia - the Abellio prefix is removed. Ironically the prefix was added some time after Abellio took over from National Express, so the branding will have been changed and reversed. It is understood that the DfT no longer allows the owning company's name to be included in the trading name of any TOC. It is possible that the aim is to avoid future expense in removing names when a franchise changes hands.
Pension fund among financial backers of Greater Anglia's £600m order for trains from Stadler in Switzerland
Keywords: [GreaterAngliaFranchise]
As reported in [Snippets 282] at the end of September Angel Trains agreed to fund the £900m order for 665 Bombardier EMU carriages. A week later on 5th October a contract worth more than £600m was signed for Stadler trains comprising 378 carriages. The two contracts together, for a total of 1,043 vehicles, amount to the 'the largest-ever privately-funded train procurement in the UK' according to Abellio UK Managing Director Dominic Booth who announced the news.
Funding for these trains has come from via Rock Rail and SL Capital Partners (a subsidiary od Standard Life Investments) along with GLIL infrastructure investment, which is a joint venture of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund and London Pensions Fund Authority. Rock Rail is a recent entrant to the rail industry having signed a deal in February 2016 to provide £200m finance for 25 Class 717 six-car Siemens dual-voltage EMUs for Govia Thameslink Railway to be used on their Moorgate services.
Although Stadler's trams are in use in Britain (e.g. on London Tramlink), Greater Anglia is the first British train operator to order their main line passenger trains. The order covers 58 Flirt UK trainsets, which are derived from the latest generation of Stadler's best-selling Flirt family and will be built in Switzerland. All trains will be able to run using 25kV overhead wires but some will also be bi-modes, with diesel engines being used when not under the wires. Use of electric traction can be maximised as the bi-mode trains can switch between diesel and electricity whilst on the move. For example, a train from Norwich could run under the wires until it heads for the Ely route, then lower its pantograph and raise it again once it reaches Ely North Junction, where the wires begin. It would not have to wait until it stopped at Ely station. This reduces the amount of diesel that needs to be carried around. The bi-mode trains are not, however, hybrid trains since they cannot use both sources of power are the same time. Whilst there would be benefits to Greater Anglia from wiring platforms, such as platforms 6 and 7 at Peterborough, so that the overhead wires could be used when the train is waiting to return, there is unlikely to be a viable business case to do so.
Stadler will be providing 10 x 12-car EMUs for the London-Norwich inter-city services. These will have 628 standard and 80 first class seats plus a bistro. There will be another 10 x 12-car EMUs for the London-Stansted Airport route but these will be standard class only with 710 seats. The 24 four-car and 14 three-car bi-mode units for regional services will have standard class only like current Greater Anglia services. The diesel engines will be housed in a mid-train power module car. The trains will have a maximum speed of 160km/h and will all have climate-controlled air-conditioning, with a floor height of 960mm (the British standard), 2+2 seating, Wi-Fi, power-points and real-time passenger information. They will be articulated multiple-units and will, naturally, have regenerative braking.
STATIONS
Significant progress on construction of Cambridge North station during October as May 2017 opening date looms
Keywords: [CambridgeNorthStation]
Track re-configuration work has been on-going at Chesterton sidings to support the new Cambridge North station since early 2015 but the first signs that a station was being built were not apparent until November 2015 when the platforms were being constructed. Progress was limited to railway (i.e. permitted development) rather than station works as planning agreements still needed to be signed, but once done the frame of the station building started to be erected. Real progress occurred during October 2016 when the railway line between Cambridge and Ely was closed for three weekends. This allow work to be undertaken at the platforms: initially the canopies, then footbridge across the mainline tracks (i.e. between the platforms) followed by the long footbridge (across the freight tracks) from the station building. A Network Rail Youtube video shows the footbridge being lowered into place on 14th October 2016. A Railfuture video (see: https://youtu.be/QdPBJW_pjis shows the view from a passing train.
News: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/watch-footage-cambridges-new-station-12071606.
No decisions have yet been made on which Thameslink trains will continue from Cambridge to Cambridge North. It seems Network Rail didn't listen to the TOCs (or Railfuture in its submission to the consultation) in the design of the station, which was inherited from Cambridgeshire County Council's consultants. As a result there is only capacity to reverse two trains an hour there, because the bay platform was not made into a loop and there is not a suitably-located crossover at the station for reversing onto the up line. Both Greater Anglia and GTR have franchise commitments to serve the station and they are still discussing which trains should serve it from opening and in the new Thameslink timetable. Ely may be a more practicable terminus for services from London.
GUIDED BUSWAY
Bus driver injured as bus collides with delivery van on busway junction at Longstanton
When the Cambridgeshire Guided busway opened in 2011 (and even before the opening date) the 'incidents' reported in news stories were generally vehicles getting stuck on the busway. Bus passengers faced occasional inconvenience but little more. However, in recent times there have been a series of accidents where the driver and/or passengers have been injured. The latest occurred just after 19:00 on Wednesday 19th August when the bus and an Asda delivery vehicle collided at the former level crossing at Longstanton. The delivery van was tipped onto its side and front of the single-deck bus was severely damaged. The bus driver had a minor shoulder/arm injury and was taken to Addenbrooke's hospital but none of the six passengers required medical attention. The junction was left partly blocked until around 23:00 as vehicles awaited recovery. Stagecoach said afterwards, according to the Cambridge News, that their CCTV showed the bus has a green light to proceed.
News: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/guided-bus-crash-six-people-12060132.
PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Melton Constable Trust proposes to lay demonstration track west of North Norfolk Railway terminus at High Kelling
Keywords: [NorfolkOrbitalRailway]
In its October 2016 update, the Melton Constable Trust and its partner company the Holt, Melton Constable and Fakenham Railway Company, which is promoting the Norfolk Orbital Railway, revealed physical progress on the ground at Holt. It has obtained planning consent to construct an initial embankment over the track bed that it already owns beyond the North Norfolk Railway's present terminus at High Kelling (although it uses the name "Holt"), so that track can be laid as a demonstration of the trust's aims and show tangible progress. It also intends to display on that track an item of rolling stock, which the North Norfolk Railway has agreed to provide. The trust is also in the process of purchasing a second, longer, section of track bed extending its existing section towards Holt. The railway route into and through Holt is protected by the North Norfolk District Council's Local Development Plan. This helps to ensure that a new roundabout on the by-pass being developed to access a large housing development to the south leaves sufficient room for the railway to pass through on the northern side of the bypass.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 283 - 31/10/2016
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