News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 364 - 30/07/2023
- RAIL FREIGHT [all issues]
- TRAIN OPERATORS [all issues]
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
- GUIDED BUSWAY [all issues]
Transport for London announced in July 2023 that it had decided to go ahead with the abolition of the TravelCard add-on from 2024, which it believes will bring more desperately-needed money to TfL (caused by its failure to reach agreement with government). Railfuture has strongly campaigned against this (as had other gorups), and its press release was picked up by Rail Business Daily on 19th May 2023 in an article.
On Friday 14th July 2023 LNER ran a successful 'verification' run between Finsbury Park and Liverpool Street, which is part of wider aspirations to get passengers ot and from London (as opposed to 'dumping' them at Peterbrough, St Neots or Stevneage) if Network Rail has closed the line.and doing the right thing for the passenger. This is the kind of flexibility that Railfuture has long been calling for, not least after an occaison when Finsbury Park station was in chaos and was the lead time on the TV news programmes, all because it could not cope with so many passengers terminating there.
England's Economic Heartland (EEH) will be staging its free-to-attend annual conference at Cambridge Guildhall on Wednesday 1st November 2023. Register at https://www.englandseconomicheartland.com/eeh-conference-2023/.
A meeting was held at Cambridge North on 7th July 2023, organised by the combined Cambridge and Peterborough Authority (CPCA), to press for the Ely Area Capacity Enhancements (EACE) scheme to go ahead.
The Mid-Norfolk Railway (MNR) will be staging a Beer Festival over the August Bank Holiday weekend at Dereham station. They have over 40 Real Ales and 20 ciders to choose from, including some old favourites of the festival. Train tickets are £12 with kids travelling free. The MNR has also revealed that it has raised over £33,000 for its 'Back on Track' emergency appeal, but it is looking to raise at least £95,000 for repair works.
Greater Anglia (GA) has announced the completion of an upgrade to its train depot at Colchester to provide new servicing facilities so that it is able to maintain its Class 755 bi-mode trains there. As part of the work, two 40,000-litre fuel tanks were installed together with a 10,000-litre AdBlue storage tank, a 14-tonne sand storage tower and sand dispenser. New fuel pumps, toilet emptying equipment and toilet water system pumps were also installed, as well as new walkways. The depot now has the capacity to service ten trains a day. However, normally eight trains will be serviced which includes cleaning, refuelling, screen wash topped up, toilets emptied, water refilled, and sanding equipment topped up; sand is used to provide extra grip on slippery rails. Prior to this upgrade, seven trains a day used temporary fuelling facilities at Colchester station or travelled to Ipswich or Norwich's Crown Point depot when their specialist sanding equipment needed to be refilled, which took extra time and used extra electricity and energy.
In a Cambridge News article entitled 'Rail plans point to mass closure of ticket offices' on 6th July 2023, there was a quotew from Greater Anglia Managing Dieector Jamie Burles saying "The station proposals put forward today are aimed at providing a more modern and flexible service." A lot of criticism of the proposals generally are expected.
At Whitwell & Reepham Station in Mid-Norfolk on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th August 2023 there will be a Summer Fayre, which promises a fun-filled weekend of family entertainment. There will be stalls selling a variety of goods, traction engines, a Beer & Gin Festival, children's entertainment, and train rides. Entry is free and there will be food and refreshments available on site. Gates open at 10am both days, and the Fayre will be open until late on Saturday night.
On Saturday 9th September 2023 UK Railtours will run its 'Anglian Angel' train which will venture onto the trackwork at Potter group in Ely. The train will start from Peterborough, calling at Stevenage, Potters Bar, Finsbury Park and Liverpool Street &mbash; the train will take the same route from Finsbury Park to Liverpool Street as mentioned in the LNER 'verification' run above.
RAIL FREIGHT
New rail freight flow of aggregates from Port of Lowestoft to Whitemoor
Keywords: [LowestoftPort]
On Thursday 27th July 2023 GB Railfreight ran a train from Whitemoor Yard, in March, to Lowestoft, with a a rake of empty wagons. Within minutes work started to fill the wagons with aggregates for its return journey. This was the first run of a new railfreight flow from the Port of Lowestoft of aggregates brought in by sea from Norway, thanks to the efforts of Intermodality UK to help facilitate it. The freight sidings were laid back in February 2019.
TRAIN OPERATORS
Greater Anglia's holds 'Environmental Awareness Event' at Cambridge station
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
On 14th July 2023 Greater Anglia (GA) held an 'Environmental Awareness Event' at Cambridge station to showcase its efforts towards sending any waste to landfill and to recycle more, with the assistance of its waste contractor, Veolia, which manages the routes its skip lorries take to ensure they travel the shortest possible distance when collecting the waste.
Every six months over 820 tonnes of waste (e.g. food waste, paper cups, newspapers and even metal, wood and rubber) are collected from Greater Anglia's trains, stations, depots, and offices. Greater Anglia has its own segregation centre, based in Essex, where waste is sorted and almost 60% of waste is recycled with the rest being used for 'energy conversion' where the waste is incinerated to generate electricity. GA says that its recycling figures are as high as 96.7% at Norwich, whilst no waste from Cambridge station has been sent to landfill for the last two years as food waste is composted or used in energy recovery
RAIL ROUTES
Network Rail to replace a mile of track on East Suffolk line during holiday period
Keywords: [EastSuffolkLine]
Network Rail announced in June 2023 that it would be replacing over a mile of worn-out jointed track (some of which is up to 100 years old) with continuously-welded rail to the north of Martlesham on the Ipswich-Lowestoft line over 10 consecutive days bewtween Wednesday 16th and Friday 25th August 2023, during which there will be rail replacement buses operating between Ipswich and Saxmundham, with a bus replacement service also running on Sunday 3rd September (includng buses from Ipswich-Felixstowe) to allow follow-up work to take place. The new rail will improve the ride quality for passengers and reduce noise. The ballast and sleepers will also be completely replaced. At the same time as the track replacement in August, engineers will finish installing a new walkway for railway workers along the embankment. This will significantly improve access to carry out regular, essential maintenance along this part of the line.
The track replacement follows stabilisation works on the Martlesham embankment in spring 2023, so this is a case of coming back to finish the job.
Note: full size bicycles and e-scooters cannot be carried on rail replacement buses.
GUIDED BUSWAY
Two people injured after car and bus crash at Cambridgeshre Guided Busway junction
When the history books cover the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway they wlll have no shortage of incidents to include. The latest occurred on the afternoon of Monday 31st July 2023 when a car and bus crashed at the guided busway junction with Gatehouse Lane in Histon. Two people were injured but not seriously. The bus had to be recovered after the crash.
News: https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/two-people-injured-after-car-27438019.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 364 - 30/07/2023
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Railfuture is a non-profit making pro-rail campaiging organisation, which is run entirely by unpaid volunteeers, including production of Rail News Snippets for the East Anglian branch of Railfuture.
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