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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 203 - 27/03/2010

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

Railfuture News Snippets 203 - 27/03/2010



The presentation given by Railfuture East Anglia branch chairman Peter Wakefield to Hunstanton Civic Society on 2nd March was attended by more than 100 people. He was interviewed by the Lynn News about the work of Railfuture.

The brand new book by Railfuture, Britain's Growing Railway Volume I 'A-Z of Reopenings' can be bought from the Railfuture website - go to http://www.railfuture.org.uk/books. The 128-page book costs £9.95 including postage and packing.

First Capital Connect will be holding Meet the Manager sessions at Stevenage station on 30th March at 1700-1930 and Finsbury Park station on 20th April at 1600-1900.

A reminder that the DfT's consultation on the Greater [East] Anglia franchise closes on 19th April 2010.

The Whitwell and Reepham Railway will be holding a Cheese and Wine evening on 18th August 2010 from 18:00 to 22:00. See http://www.whitwellstation.com for details.

The Trumpington Residents Association will be discussing the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway at their meeting on Wednesday 31st March from 19:30. It will be held at Fawcett School. Details on http://www.trumpingtonresidentsassociation.org.

The Mid-Norfolk Railway and Railfuture have scheduled their respective meeting dates to avoid clashing this year. Railfuture's members will be able to attend the MNR's AGM on Saturday 19th June and the branch's meeting in Ipswich on 26th June. The MNR has announced that its Hallowe'en train will run a day early on Saturday 30th October.

Peterborough City Council has approved redevelopment around the area of the former Peterborough East station, which was closed in 1966. A community centre will be built on the site of the station itself. Some campaigners had hoped that the station could be roepened for interchange with the Nene Valley Railway, although the NVR had no aspirations to do so.


RAIL FRANCHISES
Suffolk County Council publishes wish-list of rail improvements for delivery as part of Greater [East] Anglia franchise

Suffolk County Council has drawn up a wish-list of improvements for rail services in response to the DfT's consultation on what the new Greater [East] Anglia franchise should provide. The list, which is to be discussed by its cabinet, includes an hourly service between Ipswich and Peterborough, which when interleaved with the Cambridge-Ipswich service would create a twice-hourly service between Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich. The council is eager to ensure that an hourly service on the East Suffolk line is written into the franchise agreement, as this would ensure that the Beccles loop is implemented by 2012 as Network Rail suggests.

The council wants to see new trains on the main line to London but they should be designed for InterCity-style comfort (e.g. 2+2 seating with some tables) rather than high-density suburban-style seating. It is eager that engineering work is planned further in advance so that much more than one week's notice can be given to passengers if services are being replaced by buses. Looking to the longer term, it wants the rail industry and housing developers to look at replacing some level crossings with rail bridges, although this is primarily to avoid increased road congestion as the number of passenger and freight services increase rather than improve safety.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Stalemate over opening date as BAM Nuttall refuses to acknowledge 'defects' in Cambridgeshire Guided Busway

Months after saying that it could not disclose anything in public about its strained relationship with guided busway contractor BAM Nuttall for legal reasons, and despite holding council meetings in private and limiting information to the elected councillors, Cambridgeshire County Council finally went public in early March, which is seen as a sign of its frustration.

Papers for the county council's cabinet meeting on Tuesday 16th March were published on its website, leading to front-page headlines and substantial TV and radio coverage about its "stalemate" with the contractor. The papers, which reflect the council's view, say that it has identified six "defects" that have prevented it from taking control of the busway and opening services. The council's contract with BAM Nuttall forces the contractor to fix all defects within four weeks of handover, otherwise the council can give the work to another contractor and charge BAM Nuttall the cost. However, because the contract was completion of the entire scheme at the same time, rather than a phased delivery, the council's hands are tied until the entire scheme is completed, which is now acknowledged as November 2010 (21 months late) at the earliest. This clause in the contract forced it to abandon plans in March 2009 to use an alternative contractor to finish the busway loop at Orchard Park.

The council has outsourced all of the inspection work to consultants Atkins, who are described as "independent" in newspaper reports, but have been embedded at the council for several years. The council report lists the six defects as:
* Water seeping through the new bridge over the Ouse onto the steelwork below
* Parts of the maintenance track (aka cycle track and bridleway) being built too low (in a drainage ditch) and therefore flooding
* The St Ives park and ride site being built on the wrong gradient leading to pools of water when it rains
* No design information about the alternative foundations which were used

Although the council says that these are "defects" (which need to be rectified prior to opening, rather than "snagging" that can be rectified afterwards) it claimed that BAM Nuttall has not accepted that they are defects as defined in the contract. Observers suggest that the dispute is not caused by interpretation of the contract itself but in the associated documentation, probably the Works Information, which may be too vague and open to interpretation. It is possible that those documents were written by Atkins, who would therefore be inspecting the works based on what they intended the documentation to mean.

If the council fixed the problems themselves, as well as not being able to charge BAM Nuttall, the ten-year warranty for other work done may also become void. Despite incurring delay penalties of £14,900 each day, BAM Nuttall has decided not to give way. As explained in Snippets 202, BAM Nuttall gets paid 95% of all its costs whilst construction tasks place (funded by the council taking out loans as necessary) in order that the work can continue. Only after completion will it pay back any surplus through the shared gain/pain formula. However, BAM Nuttall's obligation to repay is avoided if the cost overrun is not its fault.

Just hours before the council cabinet was to meet (about a week after the 'stalemate' was reported) a very carefully worded joint statement stating that the two sides had met and provided that the expected progress occurs both parties are hopeful that it will be possible to indicate by the middle of April the target date for trialling and then operating the [northern section of the] busway. Incredibly all of those italicised words appeared in the sentence making it completely meaningless.

BAM Nuttall representative talks to Institute of Civil Engineers about the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway

Given the serious problems with the construction of the guided busway, one might expect BAM Nuttall to keep a low profile. Rather surprisingly, given that there the busway's full opening will be at least two years late, BNL's CGB construction manager, John Ely, will give a lecture to the ICE at the Double Tree Hotel, in Milton Keynes, on 30th March at 18:30 entitled "How to Build the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway." Critics say it should be called "How NOT to build..." The ICE invited him to speak after having awarded him the James Rennie Medal in 2009 for his role in delivering the busway.

County Council re-issues guided busway publicity video to remind passengers what they will get...one day

In a move that is widely seen as a desperate attempt to put a positive spin on the busway disaster story, the county council has re-released a video of guided buses operating on the busway to the media, despite the fact that guided buses are very unlikely to run for at least another ten months (early 2011), unless it can reach agreement with BAM Nuttall to open the northern section whilst the southern section is still being constructed.

Government offers extra funding for Luton-Dunstable guided busway despite massive cost increases and delays in Cambridgeshire

Keywords: [LutonDunstableBusway]

On Wednesday 10th March the government announced will contribute more than £80 million to convert the Luton-Dunstable railway line, where the track is still in place, into another concrete guided busway. BAM Nuttall is one of the bidders shortlisted to construct it despite the delays and cost overruns in Cambridge where it is locked in dispute with the county council.

Challenged about why the government would pay for another busway when the current one could not be completed, Transport Minister Sadiq Khan said that he had been assured by Cambridgeshire County council they have almost reached resolution of the problems they have got with the contractors - although no-one at the council was this optimistic in public - and he had his "fingers crossed" that he "will be able to go to Cambridgeshire to announce the opening of that scheme soon." However, Mr Khan then proceeded to cite Cambridgeshire as an example of what not to do. He claimed that BAM Nuttall "have learnt the lessons from Cambridgeshire and they are going to make sure this scheme doesn't have the problems Cambridge has." The Labour controlled Borough of Luton is claims that it has "a very different contractual arrangement to the one they have in Cambridge; we have placed all the risk with the contractor." Critics do not understand this claim as Cambridgeshire said they had done exactly the same!

Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Cambridge said: "The government is throwing good money after bad to repeat an experiment which has been fraught with disaster. What planet is Sadiq Khan on? He is clearly trusting everything to luck or else he has been given a very poor account of the situation in Cambridgeshire. There is no way this guided bus experiment should be repeated with taxpayers' hard-earned money until the lessons learned from Cambridgeshire have been well-documented."

Railfuture opposes the conversion of any railway routes, where the railway track is still in place, into busways, guided or otherwise.

Guided bus in Leeds hits central reservation crash barriers

As if the negative publicity about the busway in Cambridgeshire was not enough discredit kerb-guided busways, on 8th March a bus using the guided busway in Leeds 'de-kerbed' and hit the central reservation crash barriers on York Road. The bus was damaged on the driver's side at the front and a length of the crash barrier was also wrecked but no-one was hurt. First Bus, which operates the service has promised that the cause of the accident would be investigated.


PRESERVED RAILWAYS
North Norfolk Railway's Sheringham station is visited by mainline train - via level crossing - for first time since 1960s

Keywords: [NorthNorfolkRailway]

With a charter scheduled for only six days later, it was only on Friday 7th March that the North Norfolk Railway received the final signed-off paperwork from Network Rail to permit an overnight permission for 6th/7th March. This enabled the NNR to complete the final 17 metres of track at Sheringham in the early hours of the 7th, the rest having been done on 20th/21st February.

On Sunday 7th March at 12:40 the level crossing at Sheringham was used by the first train from the mainline. DRS took a Class 37 locomotive across it, as a test run prior, much to the enjoyment of the crowds that had gathered to watch. This was the first crossing onto the NNR's line since 1975 when a temporary link was provided for one weekend as BR had lifted the crossing on 28th January 1970. The DRS train went to the NNR's Holt station and back.

The first passenger train since the 1960s made the crossing on Thursday 11th March 2010 when the level crossing was was officially opened by Pete Waterman OBE. According to the police, around 5,000 people turned out to see the ceremony, which was covered by BBC Look East and Anglia News. The Railfuture East Anglia branch was among the many invited guests.

On 24th April there will be a visit by a charter train originating from Crewe. Because of the train length restriction at Cromer it will split at Norwich, with half going to the NNR and the other half to Great Yarmouth.

The occasional use level crossing we will around six return trains a year, each carrying 300-400 passengers, which is lower than most charter trains because of the five-coach limit at Cromer station. The NNR expects the charters to arrive on Friday or Saturday night and return on Sunday and therefore generate a need for accommodation in the town.

Axle counters are used between Cromer and Sheringham as there are no signals on this section except at Cromer. When a train goes onto the North Norfolk Railway they have to be manually reset (from the Trowse Swing Bridge 'box, which controls the Bittern Line) to 'line clear' so that service trains can get to Sheringham NR station.

In terms of visitors, however, the charters will have less effect on the railway itself. In 2009 around 130,000 tickets were bought for trains on the North Norfolk Railway.

Mid-Norfolk Railway had a successful 2009

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

According to the March 2010 edition (number 105) of the MNR's Blastpipe members, which is sent to its 1,000 members, passenger numbers reached a record high in 2009, with a 15% increase on the previous year. In addition, supporters donated £3,422 to its 'Sponsor a Sleeper' appeal between October and December 2009, which released the full £2,000 offered by British Sugar. With donations from previous years, a total of 487 sleepers for the Northern Section have been sponsored. However, the original estimate of 500 sleepers needing replacement between Dereham and Hoe, to allow passenger services to commence, has risen to 800. This means that another 317 (at £25 a time) are sill needed.


WEBSITES
Great Yarmouth politician launches campaign for "total refurbishment" of the seaside town's railway station

Keywords: [GreatYarmouthStation]

The http://fixourstation.com website was launched in late January 2010. It is promoted by Andrew Baxter on behalf of Great Yarmouth Conservatives. The website says that the station is "the gateway to Great Yarmouth for tourists, locals and visitors alike. However, when people arrive at Great Yarmouth station all they will see is a rundown, dreary shack with minimal facilities and dirt and grime everywhere." It says that local people "no longer want to be embarrassed by our station."

The website contains a "gallery of shame" and allows vistors to leave comments. However, the campaign makes it clear that it do not hold the station staff responsible for the neglect over many years. Instead it blame National Express East Anglia and the other railway authorities. A petition on the website says "We the undersigned demand that National Express East Anglia make urgent improvements to Great Yarmouth Train Station. We are angered that it has been neglected leaving it in a poor condition with sub-standard facilities. We want a bright, welcoming station instead of the eyesore that we currently experience."

It is estimated that tourism in Great Yarmouth provides £450-£500 million to the local economy, and the railway contributes to this.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 203 - 27/03/2010

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