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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 201 - 05/02/2010

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

Railfuture News Snippets 201 - 05/02/2010



The Railfuture East Anglia branch AGM will be held at the Quakers' Meeting House, St. John Street, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 1SJ on Saturday 27th February. Guest speaker will be NXEA's Alan Neville, who is repsonsible for their stations between Whittlesea and Audley End.

The new rail user group for Foxton, Shepreth and Meldreth stations (on the between line Cambridge and Royston) will be holding its first public meeting on Tuesday 23rd February 2010 from 19:00 in the sheltered housing communal room in Elin Way, Meldreth. The Railfuture East Anglia branch chairman, Peter Wakefield, helped a local councillor to set-up the group.

Michael Portillo's 'Great British Railway Journeys' series, which attracted around 2 million viewers at tea-time on BBC-2 in January, is being shown again weekly, starting on BBC1 at 22:25 on Sunday 14th February.

Neal Lawson has been appointed as the Managing Director of First Capital Connect, following the departure of interim MD Jim Morgan and temporary replacement by First Group Head of Rail, Mary Grant, in November 2009. Mr Lawson joined FCC in May 2009 and had been its Engineering and New Trains Director.

On 3rd February an early day motion was put forward by MPs to strip First Capital Connect of its franchise, primarily because of the poor service on the Thameslink route (rather than the Great Northern) over the last few months. A severely reduced timetable has been operated because of driver shortages, rolling stock problems and the bad weather.

The DfT's consultation on the ECML timetable changes can be found at http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open/2010-08/consultation.pdf.

ESTA Felixstowe's meeting on Tuesday 16th February at 14:30 will be held at St. Andrew's Hall, Felixstowe. There will be a succession of railway films and extracts (some going back to the 1930s) all with an East Anglian theme.

The Mid-Norfolk Railway will be holding a 6-mile sponsored walk (its 6th) along the trackbed of the northern route on Good Friday (2nd April) to raise funds for various schemes in the Northern Section. These include new level crossing gates at County School, and at swanton road in Derehm. The walk starts at 11:00 from County School, with a coach leaving Dereham at around 10:15, which must be booked in advance.

Following its successful Burns Night the Mid-Norfolk Railway has a St Georges Day dinner on Friday 23rd April 2010 leaving Dereham station at 19:30. Price is £12.00 per person for a three-course meal on board the train. Tickets can be obtained from the Ticket Office when the station is open.


RAIL FRANCHISES
DfT launches stakeholder consultation about franchises to replace National Express East Anglia and c2c in 2011

Keywords: [NationalExpressEastAnglia]

The DfT is seeking views on what is required from the franchisees when the Greater [East] Anglia and Essex Thameside franchises are re-let. The latter is just outside the Railfuture East Anglia branch area so this Snippets article will concentrate on the former.

The document points out that by 31st December 2011 Network Rail is due to have provided a new island platform at Cambridge plus extended platforms at Broxbourne, Cheshunt, Harlow Mill, Sawbridgeworth and Stansted Mountfitchet stations. This will allow longer and potentially more trains to be operated. As one would expect, bidders will be required to co-operate in the implementation of works at stations designated for improvement under the National Stations Improvement Programme, which has a £150m fund allocated. The DfT considers better access to stations as important to improve the door-to-door journey, and this will, where appropriate, lead to additional car and cycle parking spaces being required.

The consultation document points out that ideas are invited for possible Boxing Day services, which is a Railfuture objective, on main lines as a minimum.

Like the 2004 Greater [East] Anglia and the 2006 Thameslink franchise the DfT confirms that the operator must serve - and co-operate with the development of - the proposed Chesterton Interchange station, which it envisages will open in 2014.


STATIONS
East Suffolk Travellers' Association publishes results of Lowestoft station relocation survey

Keywords: [LowestoftStation]

In August and September 2009 ESTA conducted a survey, with some funding from Railfuture and Wherry Lines Community Rail Partnership, of 1,400 passengers about the effects of relocating Lowestoft station 450 metres further down the line (with the loss of the track as well) away from the seafront. It found that 21% of existing users of Lowestoft station would use the trains less often, if at all, although 3% of passengers might be persuaded to travel more. 80% of passengers oppose moving the station. ESTA has sent its 40-page report to the regeneration company 1st East, local councils, the train operator, Network Rail and politicians.

ESTA also found that over 50% of passengers reached or left Lowestoft station on foot and a third of visitors were heading for the shops or beach, for which the existing station is ideally suited.

Although the chances of the station being moved back 400 metres have diminished there is now an alternative proposal to set to cut the track back by 40 metres. This is something than ESTA may accept providing that station improvements are made, such as canopies, and that charter trains can still use the station.

Norfolk County Council seeks improved access to Great Yarmouth station

Keywords: [GreatYarmouthStation]

The Grade II-listed former Vauxhall combined road and rail bridge over the River Bure is currently only used by pedestrians and cyclists. However, Norfolk County Council wishes it to be used to carry buses and taxis as well in order to improve journey times to and from the railway station. The council is preparing an application for funds to restore and strengthen the bridge so that it can support vehicles.


RAIL FREIGHT
Funding for Bacon Factory Curve and freight loops at Ely are confirmed

Keywords: [IpswichChord]

On 5th February Network Rail confirmed that as part of its plans to increase capacity between Ipswich and Peterborough for rail freight two new 775m-long passing loops east of Ely station will be built at a cost of £18m along with the £35m 1km-long Bacon Factory Curve at Ipswich (see [Snippets 198] for details of the proposal). These schemes will definitely go ahead as Network Rail has given a £53m contract for design and construction of both schemes to Jacobs Engineering for completion by 2014.

According to Network Rail's planning documents, the changes will speed train movements through the junctions at Ely and reduce the number of shunting/train reversal movements across Ely level crossing, both of which will reduce the closure time of the level crossing.


RAIL ROUTES
Network Rail puts out tenders for Ely-Norwich resignalling project due for completion by the end of 2011

In January Network Rail issued tenders for its project to renew the signalling between Ely and Norwich by December 2011. The work, which is intended to use some of the new modular signalling concepts, will see the closure of some manned signal boxes (with a new cabin receiving signals by fibre optic cable or radio from a new workstation at Cambridge power signal box) and replacement of semaphore signals with colour-light ones.

One of the aims of modular signalling is to construct and test the components (which plug together) in the factory so that less time is spent installing and testing the equipment on the railway itself, with fewer highly skilled people needing to be on-site. This reduces possession time and consequently reduces costs. This approach requires more planning as more work is done in the factory such as cutting the cables to length. Modular signalling offers an advantage over the life of the equipment as additonal components can be added (such as new signals) when required, without having to make major changes to what already exists.

NR is only able to fund 'like-for-like' resignalling and therefore line capacity will not be increased by creating extra signalling blocks. However, signalling will be set up for 100 mph for units where possible, although this may require track improvements which are not yet financed. Most level crossings will have automatic full barriers with protecting signals but instead of being manually controlled monitored by CCTV some of them will use radar pods to detect obstructions on the crossings. Two level crossings that are not near stations will have their automatic half-barriers renewed.

Changes to the track will be minimal. One improvement is at Brandon where a new main-main facing crossover at the Thetford end of the loop will permit bi-directional working at the down platform so that a passenger train could overtake an up freight train. The crossovers at Thetford will be retained, and a new signal at the Norwich end of the up platform will, during engineering work, allow terminating passenger trains to return to Norwich. However, at Wymondham, the Norwich-end ground frame and siding connections will be removed, but the up siding will be retained. Crossovers will be removed at Shippea Hill and Lakenheath, but the crossover and connection at Eccles Road will stay.

It is envisaged that the signalling will be commissioned over three weekends in 2012.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Bus operators angry at delay in opening Cambridgeshire Guided Busway may claim compensation from county council

Stagecoach and Whippet, the two remaining bus operators who have committed to run services on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, have publicly complained about the delays, which should have seen the busway open in spring 2009, that are preventing them from using the busway. According to the Cambridge News, Andy Campbell, managing director of Stagecoach, said: "We have invested £3 million in specially-adapted buses...and were ready to run services last spring with the high-spec vehicles we bought for the purpose. Instead, we have lost revenue, including the cost of taking on additional staff that we haven't been able to utilise yet. We are happy with the quality of the track, and would have been happy to begin in November 2009." Whippet's boss, Peter Lee, said the company had bought three new buses costing £140,000 each adding "We aren't a big company, and these were substantial extra costs for us. Those were extra costs we could ill afford, and had we known there would be such a big delay, we might have saved that money. Of course the buses are now getting older, so there is depreciation in value to worry about." According to Bob Menzies, the county council's busway Head of Delivery, it identified more than a thousand snagging issues on the northern section of which around half are outstanding.

The busway faced further public criticism when it was revealed that Bob Menzies will take an all expenses paid trip to Sydney, Australia on 22nd February 2010 to speaking at a transit conference. He will speak about the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway project and will also join a panel discussing "How does Bus Rapid Transit compare against light rail? One Cambridge blogger asked "One wonders, is this for him to belatedly learn how it SHOULD have been done, or to teach the rest of the delegates how it SHOULDN'T be done?" Mr Menzies is a chartered engineer who has worked for the council since 1988 and has been involved in much smaller projects such as introducing traffic-calming measures and speed camera installation.

South Cambridgeshire District Council appear to have lost patience as well. On 28th January they passed a motion to formally request that Cambridgeshire County Council issues a comprehensive public statement concerning the future operation and likely cost of the Cambridgeshire Guided Bus Scheme.

On 29th January the Cambridge News picked up on the story reported in [Snippets 200] weeks earlier that BAM Nuttall is liable to pay £14k compensation for each day the handover is delayed. If the full amount as laid out in the contract were to be imposed by a court, the contractor would have to pay Cambridgeshire County Council in excess of £5m. Based on the comments from the bus companies they are likely to demand some of this compensation for themselves. Meanwhile, the county council has admitted that the busway has caused it a small cash flow problem and it will put aside around £1m, which has been obtained by cutting funding for other projects such as safety schemes, community transport, Market Town Strategy schemes and local bus infrastructure in Cambridge and Huntingdon.


PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Whitwell and Reepham Railway hopes to expand outside of station yard

Keywords: [WhitwellReepham]

There has been speculation that Network Rail has gifted three miles of redundant track to the Whitwell & Reepham Railway Preservation Society, which would enable it to become a major rail preservation scheme rather than just the present short train ride within the yard, which was made possible when 130 metres of track was donated by the Spa Valley Railway. However, there are doubts that this story, which was reported on a rail newsgroup, is actually true. The railway's website makes no mention of it. Assuming that sufficient labour were available, and ballast could be afforded, then such an amount of track would be enough to extend north to the Thelmelthorpe Curve or south towards Lenwade. All of this would be subject to obtaining the land.

Businessman Mike Urry, who owns the Whitwell and Reepham station site, envisages three phases of expansion. The first, which is on-going, returns the station to its original layout by relaying track and restoring the station buildings. The second would extend the line along Marriott's Way to re-create the Themelthorpe curve to reach nearby Reepham railway station. The final, and much more ambitious, long-term phase would aim to linking up with either the North Norfolk Railway or the Mid-Norfolk Railway at County School.

Mid-Norfolk Railway on schedule to open Thuxton passing loop by September 2010

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

The Mid-Norfolk Railway has completed a large amount of the work needed to provide a passing loop at Thuxton station, to allow it to operate two trains on the line. On 30 January a works train edged its way into the 'up' platform at Thuxton, which was the first time a train had stood on the formation since 1965, when it was singled. Only the track at the level crossing and adjacent to it remains to complete the physical loop, although the signalling (colour lights outside the station and semaphores in the station vicinity) remains to be completed, with the signal box only half built. It is vital that the loop is functional by September 2010 when the MNR intends to host a major diesel gala. The MNR is still asking for donations to fund the work (see: http://www.mnr.org.uk/help/passingloop/).

The second platform is being extended to support five coaches (as it did until the 1950s when BR reduced it to just two coaches) and refurbished, although it would not need to be completed in order to use the loop.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 201 - 05/02/2010

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