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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 329 - 31/08/2020

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

Railfuture News Snippets 329 - 31/08/2020



In late August, the government annunced that Brandon station building, which Greater Anglia had intended to demolish but was been given a stay of execution by the High Court, has been granted Grade II listed status, thanks to campaigning by several locals including current and former town councillors (see [Snippets 328] for High Court decision and [Snippets 326] for background). Although the building is no longer under threat of demolition, there is no guarantee that it will be repaired or a worthwhile use found for it. However, it is understood that SAVE Britain's Heritage has commissioned plans by the architect Doug Reid, obtained initial costs from builders, and will now be working with the Suffolk Building Preservation Trust on raising finance to restore the building and find new uses to secure its future.

On Sunday 2nd August 2020, the new bay platform 5 at Stevenage station opened, along with 1.340km dedicated electrified track (a turnback line) to avoid conflicting with stopping trains going north. The 24-month-long project, on which construction work commenced in early 2019 and cost £40m, brings an end to the bustitution of services between Watton-at-Stone (on the Hertford loop) and Stevenage on Monday to Friday, which became necessary from the May 2019 timetable change when the number of Great Northern trains on the East Coast Mainline was increased. The Moorgate trains could not previously terminate on platform 4 at Stevenage (other than at weekends) because they blocked the line while turning around. This was not a problem when the train used to turn around at Letchworth Garden City, prior to the introduction of the new Siemens Class 717 trains. The new platform is outside of the existing station building and requires passing through two sets of ticket gates to interchange.

Thanks to the railway boom in the 1840s and 1850s, there are many notable anniversaries. The railway between Peterborough and London was 170 years on Friday 7th August 2020.

Railfuture has now produced its Easy Stations plaques to be displayed at the winning railway stations. They will be installed when the socially-distanced presentations take place.

According the August 2020 newsletter from the Fen Line Users Association (FLUA), the island platforms at Cambridge station, which were opened in 2012 at a cost of around £18m, will finally have a passenger waiting room with heating and mobile phone charging points. Presently platforms 7 and 8 have waiting shelters and open seating.

Anyone who doubts that Soham station will finally reopen, having closed in 1965, can be reassured by the announcement from Network Rail on 17th August 2020 that has awarded the contract to build the station to J Murphy and Sons Ltd. Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Mayor James Palmer said "the Combined Authority hasn't just funded the project, we have challenged the delivery timescales and pushed Network Rail hard to make sure this long-awaited scheme is delivered as quickly as possible. Our new approach to delivery has already saved us five months, and I am sure we can find other novel ways to speed this up."

Greater Anglia has revealed the most popular destinations for leisure journeys on its network, outside London, in 2019. They were, in order, Norwich first, with almost 650,000 journeys, followed by Cambridge (over 544,000), Chelmsford (427,000), Colchester (420,000) and Ipswich (almost 400,000).

Network Rail is a stage closer to re-opening the third tunnel on the approach to King's Cross station, which will enable it to add an extra two lines into the station as part of the East Coast Upgrade. During August it poured a 315mm-thick concrete base reinforced with 300 tonnes of steel, which allows it to lay the new tracks. Meanwhile at Werrington (north of Peterborough), on the same massive project, the tunnel boring machine has completed the second of two guide tunnels.

Improvements to the overhead wires on the Great Eastern main line between Stratford and Shenfield will be taking place every Sunday from 18th October until 22nd November 2020. This includes new auto tension system, similar to that already installed on the Southend Victoria line, which adjusts to temperature change, and upgrades to the power supply to prepare for the introduction of Elizabeth line services.

Often updates from Network Rail about changes to its planned engineering works are bad news: more time is needed, project will overrun. However, this time it's good news. The works to renew bridge timbers between Ely and March (see [Snippets 328] no longer require a 28-day closure, as engineers have conducted an inspection of the bridges and identified a way of safely performing the work entirely over a series of 11 weekends (previously six weekends were required in addition to the four-week suspension of passenger services). The bridges currently have a 20mph speed restriction.

Sizewell C is proceeding to the next stage of planning, with more road haulage of the construction materials than Railfuture and many others hoped and with no legacy improvements for rail. There are a couple of general lessons. Firstly, the opportunity to use rail was lost because of pinch-points such as Ely. This reinforces the fact that capacity is much more important than marginal cost in achieving modal shift to rail.


COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Train operators are making timetable changes to support the start of the academic year from Monday 7th September, following more trains having been added to the timetable back in July. In Great Northern's case, it is currenrtly operating an enhanced Saturday service, so this will be a further enhancement, with the full timetable resuming from December 2020.

The lockdown, which has seen reduced services and far fewer passengers, has led to much higher punctuality across the network. Greater Anglia says it has achieved punctuality of 97.3% in April, 95.7% in May and 96.2% in June and 96.2% in July 2020. Unsurprisingly the rural branches had the highest performance figures.

Greater Anglia's Managing Director Jamie Burles appears in a three-minute video to promote that the railway is safe to use, welcoming back the public. See https://youtu.be/Yg_sqWH_uTA.

The Mid-Norfolk Railway (MNR) had postponed its AGM until 5th September 2020. However, the planned venue will not reopen until at least October and it has been unable to find a venue at which the expected number of attendees can socially distance. It has therefore followed advice from the Charities Commission Coronavirus (Covid-19) guidance for the charity sector issued on 26th June that is can legally cancel its 2020 AGM. Members will still be sent the audited accounts for 2019. The MNR intends to reopen the Railway to passenger-carrying trains on Saturday 5th September (postponed from 29th August because of delays to paperwork, safety checks and retraining) using a Pacer but with restricted seating and online reservations required in advance. The MNR will decide in September whether to operate its The Polar Express™ Train Ride in 2020. September. The really good news, financially, is that the MNR has been offered a contract by Rail Events to continue running it for a further four years, until 2024.

RSSB modelling shows that passengers very unlikely to catch COVID19 on board a train

Keywords: [COVID19]

In August the RSSB (formerly the Rail Safety and Standards Board) revealed its modelling that showed passengers have only a 1 in 11,000 chance of catching COVID-19 on trains. The computer modelling used a single carriage over an hour with 44 people boarding, 22 alighting and another 22 boarding half-way through the journey, and 44 people alighting at the end of the journey. Railfuture tweeted this analysis and said that it shows the public that they are able to travel safely and confidently again.

On 21st August 2020 Greater Anglia announced that it had formally accepted into its fleet the first six new Class 720 suburban trains from Bombardier. There's still a lot of work to complete before the first ones can enter passenger service, but GA considers the acceptance as a significant step forward towards that target.

During early August Railfuture travelled on trains around East Anglia to observe the number of passengers, their behaviour and age profile. The non-scientific observation suggested a heavy bias towards younger people, who are very unlikely to die from COVID-19 and presumably the least nervous about using public transport. Patronage generally appeared to be 50% aged under 30, 30% aged 30-49, 15% aged 50-70 and 5% over 70.


RAIL ROUTES
Network Rail launches public consultation on Ely Area Capacity Enhancement

Keywords: [ElyNorthJunction]

Network Rail's six-week public consultation on the Ely Area Capacity Enhancement (EACE) scheme will commence on Monday 21st September until 1st November 2020. This is only the first phase, with future public consultation taking place in 2021.

The scheme will increase the number of trains that can be run on the five lines radiating from the city (to Cambridge, Peterborough, King's Lynn, Norwich and Ipswich) for both passenger services and freight trains travelling between the port of Felixstowe, the Midlands and northern England.

Because of the rationalisation of Ely North Junction by British Rail in the early 1990s, and the severe speed limits on bridges (with freight trains limited to 20mph), there are currently only six or seven train paths per direction per hour. Network Rail wants to increase it to 11, which is actually only 10 services paths per hour because the Norwich-Liverpool services that reverse at Ely use two paths.

Despite the project having commenced several years ago, with £9.3m from the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority, New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership and the Strategic Freight Network, the specific engineering works required have not yet been defined. Funding of £13.1m has been secured from the Department for Transport for development of the plan, which would present various options to meet the objectives, with targeted consultation on engineering proposals.

Because of COVID-10 restrictions, the 2020 consultation will take place remotely through an online web-portal. There will also be opportunities to speak to project representatives via webchats at specific times throughout the consultation period as well as by phone. The website link is www.networkrail.co.uk/ely.

Residents and businesses in and around Ely are being invited learn more about the programme as it will be an opportunity for communities around Ely to understand:

  • what the benefits are
  • the challenges that will have to be addressed to increase capacity
  • current funding position of the EACE programme
  • how the public will be consulted as options are progressed

Network Rail plans to submit a business case for including EACE in DfT's Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline in 2022. If funding is awarded then an application for a Transport & Works Act order granting legal powers for the works would then be submitted in 2023 for approval the following year, allowing works to get underway for completion in the early 2030s.

Modern signalling to be introduced on Clacton branch

Keywords: [ClactonBranch]

Network Rail has announced that a new computer-based signalling system on the railway line from Hythe to Thorpe-le-Soken and then to both Clacton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze, should go live in spring 2021 replacing the mechanical system. Work on the new signals, which will be controlled from the power signal box at Colchester, will commence on 12th September 2020 with work being carried out at weekends and include a 23-day stretch of intensive engineering works from Saturday 20th February to Sunday 14th March 2021. During the blockade, alterations will also be made to the overhead line equipment and the track layout will be remodelled to meet future needs.

Network Rail is gradually replacing the first-generation signalling around the network with modern digital-ready systems. This follows the Wherry Lines between 2018 and 2020 and the Ely-Norwich route in 2012.

East West Rail Consortium appoints Steer to develop a business case for enhancing rail connectivity on Eastern Section

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

On 6th August 2020 the East West Rail Consortium announced that it had consultancy Steer to develop, over six months, a business case for enhancing rail connectivity. This will be used to show the Department for Transport (DfT) the economic benefit of improving the frequency of passenger rail services between Ipswich/Norwich and Cambridge (known as the Eastern Section of the East West Rail) and of providing a new direct passenger rail link from Suffolk/Norfolk to Oxford. If the business case is successful the funding will be used to develop the next stage of the project, which is to assess the rail infrastructure requirements and develop a preferred rail infrastructure option.

STATIONS
Greater Anglia switches to PayByPhone for cashless car parking

Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]

NCP, which manages Greater Anglia's 72 station car parks has used Dash as its cashless parking provider. However, from 1st August 2020 it has switched to PayByPhone, which is the global leader in mobile parking payments (available at 13,000 locations across the UK) and can be used without any parking transaction fees. The system is used at Transport for London's 80 station car parks, which are also managed by NCP. Dash season ticket holders will be given the chance to renew their season tickets with PayByPhone.

After downloading the PayByPhone app the registration takes less than 30 seconds.

During the COVID-19 pandemic to improve safety, car parking ticket machine at some stations have been taken out of use. Train operators are actively encouraging people to use touch-free payment for parking.

Volunteers work with Greater Anglia to turn Salhouse rail station into wildlife haven

Keywords: [SalhouseStation]

Salhouse station, which is the first stop out from Norwich on the way to Sheringham, has two adopters, who built their own eco-home on the site of the former station master's house and have spent many years restoring the gardens there. Several years ago they also started to tend to the planters on the platforms. Thanks to Greater Anglia (GA), which has supplied them with wildflower seeds as part of its aim to increase biodiversity at its rail stations through wildlife-friendly projects, the platform and their adjacent garden has been "alive with birds, bees, butterflies, hoverflies, ladybirds, moths and all sorts of other insects who have come to enjoy the flowers" according to the press release.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 329 - 31/08/2020

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