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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 286 - 31/01/2017

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

Railfuture News Snippets 286 - 31/01/2017



On Tuesday 14th February 2017 at 14:30 Felixstowe Travel Watch will holding a public meeting at the Salvation Army Church, Cobbold Road, Felixstowe IP11 7EL. The main guest speaker will be Paul Oxley from Greater Anglia, who will talk about what the new nine-year franchise will bring passengers. It is hoped to have a second speaker, who will be from the Ipswich Transport Museum.

On Saturday 18th February 2017 ESTA will be holding a public meeting in Arthur Crisp Studio in the refurbished Beccles Station. The guest speakers are James Steward, Area Customer Services Manager for Greater Anglia, who will talk about the new train fleet, and Councillor Graham Elliott, who will talk about the opening of a cafe, meeting rooms and business facilities in the historic station building.

The Cambridge University Railway Club has announced speakers for its future meetings, which will all be held at 20:30 in the William Thatcher Room, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. The speakers are:

  • Friday 10th February 2017 - Nigel Beavor (Jacobs, engineer) talking about recent and current railway bridge projects
  • On Friday 17th February - Debbie Francis, the Managing Director of Direct Rail Services (DRS), which is a niche nationalised freight operator that is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency
  • Wednesday 8th March - Anthony Coulls of the National Railway Museum
  • Friday 17th March - Peter Latham (Department for Transport)
  • Friday 28th April - Otto Lehtipuu (Finnish Railways)
  • Friday 12th May - James Hodgson (Network Rail) - "Do you wanna build a railway? How to select the most worthy infrastructure schemes through Economic Appraisal".

At King's Cross station the big array of electronic departure boards within the new concourse have been enhanced with two additional sets of data. The scheduled time at each calling point is written in brackets after the station names, which makes it easier to identify the first train that will call at the required station (the times are updated if the train is expected to depart late). The Virgin East Coast trains have little bar graphs showing how many seats in each carriage have been reserved so that passengers can work out which carriages to board to get a seat.


STATIONS
Cambridge News publishes feature and video of construction of Cambridge North station

Keywords: [CambridgeNorthStation]

The Cambridge News continues - along with Railfuture - to provide more positive passenger-focused information about the new Cambridge North railway station than the whole or the rail industry, which seems reluctant to say anything other than provide progress reports to local authorities and other stakeholders. The new station is one of the biggest news stories affecting the north of Cambridge in many years, perhaps even a decade. On 9th January 2017 the Cambridge News published an article and video following its recent site visit (Railfuture will be given a tour on 7th February).

Viewing the still photo, at least wheelchair users making use of the lift will be able to board the train without getting wet unlike many passengers as only three of the 12 carriages will be undercover, something that Railfuture is very critical of.

Network Rail is quoted saying "The station will be very well used, we're sure" but it is still ridiculous to be talking about only 3,000 passengers a day given figure dates back to 2009 and assumed an 2013 opening. Four years of growth is not included in figure.


RAIL ROUTES
Managing Director of East West Rail Company is appointed

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

Phil Verster is to become the Managing Director of the East West Rail Company. He will being in spring 2017, leaving his current position as ScotRail's managing director, which he has held since 2015, setting up the ScotRail Alliance, although not with entire success. He will help determine how the new East West Rail programme should operate and will report to the chairman Rob Brighouse, who was in charge of Chiltern Railways, which has undertaken several major infrastructure projects.

The new East West Rail company, announced by the transport secretary Chris Grayling in late 2016, will oversee the construction and operation of the new Cambridge to Oxford railway line, in what has been reported as the first fully privatised line on Britain's rail network in recent times.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Cambridge News illustrates history of cars stuck on Cambridgeshire Guided Busway using video with slapstick music

On Monday 9th January 2016, after another car ended up on the busway tracks (this time it was near to Cambridge station) and burst a tyre in the car trap, the Cambridge News published a 24-second video featuring still photos of six cars that got stuck on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, and used slapstick music to demonstrate what a joke this continuing problem has become.

Cambridgeshire County Council must feel frustrated, as well as embarrassed, that its baby is seen as a joke. They have insisted that the guided busway rules are "very clear", although residents near to where incidents have happened have calls for clearer signage. The council says that some drivers simply followed their satnavs and ignored the signs and road layout in front of them.


WEBSITES
Another website provides live track map showing positions of trains at and near to a station

The https://traksy.uk/live website provides train times between ay two stations, either now or at a specific date/time, just like a plethora of websites. However, it has a great feature for those interested in what is running on the rail network. There is a live track map showing positions of trains focused around a station. It shows the track layouts, where all trains are and allows you to click on a train to see the operator, where it has come from, where it is going and all recording points en route. This is similar to http://www.opentrainstime.co.uk/maps, which also shows the precise track layouts (e.g. crossovers), but the traksy.uk navigation could be better as it is not possible to scroll the track display to move further along the railway line. For users it is probably worth keeping an eye on all these sites to see how they improve over time.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 286 - 31/01/2017

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