News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 301 - 30/04/2018
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
- ROLLING STOCK [all issues]
- Greater Anglia's modifies its Norwich Crown Point Depot ready for new Swiss-built trains
- Greater Anglia's provides free WiFi on commuter trains between East Anglia and London
- STATIONS [all issues]
A reminder that the Railfuture Ltd AGM will be held in Edinburgh on Saturday 12 May 2018. Main speaker will be Alex Hynes, the Managing Director of the ScotRail Alliance.
The Mid-Norfolk Railway will stage its official re-opening to Worthing weekend on 19/20th May 2018. Worthing is four miles north of Dereham station and is the furthest point at which passenger trains may travel. MNR volunteers are already working hard on replacing sleeper on the final stretch between Worthing and North Elmham, which will hopefully open to passengers in 2020, the 25th anniversary of the MNR being formed.
RAIL ROUTES
GTR reminds passengers about Thameslink Programme timetable shake-up from May 2018
Keywords: [ThameslinkProgramme]
A month before phase 1 of the £70m Thameslink Programme goes live, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) has advised passengers to be aware of the biggest timetable shake-up in the history of Britain's railway. The changes will affect almost a million rail journeys a day in the southern half of England. It runs around 3,200 trains a day - one every 27 seconds - and the times of all of these will change from Sunday 20th May as new services are introduced, with better intervals between trains promised. GTR has warned passengers that the redeploying of trains and crew may result in some disruption initially, so they have asked passengers for their understanding during the transition period of several weeks during which time a very small number of trains will not run.
In East Anglia Railfuture is particularly excited by the regular direct train services between Cambridge and Brighton via Gatwick Airport, and through-London services from Peterborough. These will begin in May and with the second phase a year later (part of their RailPlan 20/20 programme) 80 more stations will have direct services to central London stations such as Farringdon, City Thameslink and Blackfriars.
ROLLING STOCK
Greater Anglia's modifies its Norwich Crown Point Depot ready for new Swiss-built trains
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
Work has begun at the Greater Anglia (GA) Crown Point train depot in Norwich, which opened in 1982, to provide to facilities to service the Swiss-made Stadler bi-mode and electric trains, will serve the region from 2019 and comprise 36 three- and four-car bi-modes for the regional services and 20 12-car electric units used for the Airport Express and InterCity trains. GA is investing more than £40 million in upgrading Crown Point depot, which includes accommodating longer trains than at present plus new train washing facility. It was originally intended to service some of the trains at a new Brantham depot near Manningtree, but that will no longer be built.
Special high walkways will be installed to give engineers access for maintenance and repairs - as unlike the old fleet, most of the new trains' components are on the roof - due to their lowered floors which make them more accessible to passengers. New jacks will be installed to enable engineers to lift a complete train without having to split the carriages for bogie and underframe equipment removal. The depot will gain upgraded controlled emission toilet (CET) facilities since all the new trains will have large tanks to collect waste, again unlike the old fleet which emptying it onto the tracks.
Stadler will be responsible for maintaining their brand new regional bi-mode at the depot, and around 70 GA staff will transfer to Stadler, 12 of whom will be seconded as Systems Technicians and will each spend six months with Stadler in The Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland and/or Spain learning how to look after the new train systems.
To provide additional space and reduce pressure on Crown Point depot while the work is being carried out, Greater Anglia has leased an additional depot at Colchester from Balfour Beatty.
Greater Anglia's provides free WiFi on commuter trains between East Anglia and London
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
One of the biggest revolutions on the railways in the past decade is how people occupy their time. Business travellers with laptops may have wanted to read and write emails, but since the rise of the smartphone and tables from 2007 most passengers now want to be 'connected' throughout their journey. Railfuture recognises this and has long campaigned for free and fast Wi-Fi on all trains (and at all stations).
Greater Anglia (GA) is investing £4.5 million to upgrade and install free W-iFi on its commuter trains between East Anglia and London, up to a limit of 90MB. It will also provide a free infotainment channel called Connect that will allow passengers using GA's mobile app or using or at www.gaconnect.tv to watch NOW TV and Hayu TV shows, which provide the latest news as well as other entertainment. This facility does not use the mobile network, but accesses a server (content is accessed once and stored on its hard drive) on the train so there is no limit to how much is consumed. GA's Intercity services between Norwich and London already have free Wi-Fi and infotainment, but that service is now being rolled out to other trains, starting with the Class 321 Renatus trains followed by Stansted Express (which has Wi-Fi but not infotainment) and then the class 360 and Class 317 trains, with completion by the end of 2018.
GA's brand new trains, which will arrive from 2019, will have the same free Wi-Fi and infotainment service.
STATIONS
Greater Anglia is installing more than a thousand modern Customer Information Screens
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
Greater Anglia is installing more than a thousand modern Customer Information Screens (CIS) across its 133 stations, including some that have never had them before such as Beccles, Brundall Gardens, Elmswell, Gunton, Lakenheath, Oulton Broad South, Spooner Row and Whittlesea. GA says that the CIS will display train running information in a clear, easy-to-read format and will be much more informative when trains are delayed as custom messages can be set-up by GA's control centre. Diss was one of the first stations to have the new CIS.
Although many travellers have smartphones, not all do and sometimes there may be no mobile signal, so Raidttuure has been calling for better CIS. However, thought needs to be given on where best to site them, not just so that they are readable in bright sunlight but also having sufficient screens to avoid people having to walk far (and especially up and down stairs) to find out information.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 301 - 30/04/2018
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