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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 221 - 10/09/2011

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

Railfuture News Snippets 221 - 10/09/2011



Despite optimism in [Snippets 220], East Midlands Trains has been unable to provide a speaker at the Railfuture branch meeting in Norwich on 1st October. Instead there will be a series of discussions about rail matters in the branch area.

The Retail Price Index measure of inflation for the year to July 2011 was unchanged at 5%. This means that the average regulated rail fare will rise (in England) by around 8% (i.e. RPI+3%) in January 2012.

More than 3,000 people attended Network Rail's open day at the new Whitemoor Yard recycling centre on Sunday 14th August, with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire broadcasting from there. A GBRf class 66 locomotive was named Whitemoor. The official ribbon cutting ceremony by Peter Henderson, Network Rail's director of asset management, and Cambs county councillor John Powley took place the next day. The Friends of March Railway Station had many visitors to its stand at the open day.

On 9th August the last of 30 brand new 4-car Class 379 Electrostar trains entered service on National Express East Anglia. The trains are primarily used on the Stansted Express service although some run to Cambridge and King's Lynn.

On 11th August, after a break of several months, a nuclear flask train left Sizewell along the branch to Saxmundham.

Fenland District Council is holding a Rail Development Strategy consultation, which commenced on Monday 5th September and closes on Friday 2nd December 2011. Its proposals include setting up a Community Rail Partnership for Manea, March and Whittlesea, increasing the Peterborough-Ipswich service to hourly, calling at Whittlesea hourly and Manea two-hourly. It hopes for an enlarged car park at Whittlesea and the creation of one at Manea, with platform extensions to three or four carriages for both. See: http://www.fenland.gov.uk/article/3489/Fenland-Rail-Development-Strategy-Consultation.

The Braintree line, which consists of Braintree, Braintree Freeport, Cressing, White Notley and Witham stations, has been re-named the Flitch Line (after a Great Dunmow folk celebration) and adopted by the Essex and South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership, which is looking for adopters for the four stations on the branch. The rail partnership intends to work with commuters and parish and town councils to promote the line, improve facilities and increase usage.

The 6th Bus Rapid Transport UK conference will be held in in Cambridge on 19th-20th Sept. It will showcase the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway - see http://brtuk.org/downloads/BRT-UK%20Conference%20Brochure%20Sep%202011.pdf.

On Monday 15th August BBC Look East broadcast a news item about the Wisbech-March 'Bramley Line'. Two members were interviewed adjacent to Waldersea level crossing where they are in the process of setting up their office. The group have suspended vegetation clearance on the line as it has led to thefts of track components. Track that is covered in brambles has not been affected.

The Confederation of British Industry proposes that the A14 upgrade should be funded through road tolls. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/09/cbi-rail-road-infrastructure. In a u-turn from the past, it acknowledges a need to also expand the rail network to increase capacity for passengers and containers to prevent extra cars and lorries clogging the roads.


STATIONS
Rail minister visits Cambridge to learn more about proposal for a north Cambridge railway station

Keywords: [CambridgeNorthStation]

At the invitation of Cambridge MP Julian Huppert, who has described a north Cambridge station as "critical" to growth and important for hi-tech businesses, Rail Minister Theresa Villiers visited Cambridge on 8th September to discuss the proposals to build Chesterton Station, which is now likely to be called Cambridge Science Park (even though it is 500 metres away from it). She met council officials and also Steve Barclay, the Conservative MP for North East Cambridgeshire, who has been lobbying for additional transport infrastructure.

CAST.IRON has taken Mrs Villiers' visit as a chance to lobby again for its proposed station at Milton Road on the remaining stub of the former St. Ives railway line (see: http://www.castiron.org.uk/MiltonRoad/) making the minister aware of Atkins' reappraised costs of around £5 million for such a scheme.

Cambridgeshire County council is now proposing to borrow the £21m to construct the station providing that the government agrees to write a clause in the new rail franchise agreements for the operators to pay back the council from a proportion of the fares. This method was previously suggested to the county council by CAST.IRON, which had offered to set-up a consortium to build a station on Milton Road. The council need not wait until the franchise commences. Once government agrees to this method of funding construction of the station could commence - a Transport and Works Act Order is not needed as it would be built entirely on railway land - with the station possibly opening in 2013/14.

The county council took the minister's visit as an opportunity to also lobby for the central section of the East West Rail Link and the reopening of the March-Wisbech line to provide a direct Wisbech-Cambridge service. Mrs Villiers also pledged to look at ideas from South West Norfolk MP Elizabeth Truss to improve the Fen Line.

Possible second station for King's Lynn included in council's transport strategy

Keywords: [KingsLynnStation]

A short report in the Lynn News on 14th August said that a second railway station in King's Lynn, other improvements to the railway for passengers and freight and better bus services are targets in the transport section of the core strategy published by the Borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk. No information was provided about the suggested location, although there have long been proposals for a parkway station on the Fen Line close to the King's Lynn bypass.

New entrance opened at Witham station after decades of campaigning

Just outside the Railfuture East Anglia branch boundary, at Witham station in Essex persistence by rail campaigners has paid off as a new £2.2m entrance and footbridge has been completed. The extended footbridge connects the car park directly to the four platforms, saving commuters time on their walk to the station. It should also reduce passenger congestion. Jointly funded by Essex County Council, Network Rail and the Department for Transport, the footbridge development has taken 20 years of hard campaigning by rail users.


RAIL ROUTES
East West Rail report from Oxford Economics claims that reopened western section will benefit UK economy

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

A report from Oxford Economics on the wider economic case for investing in the western section of the East-West Rail, Link, which would connect Reading/Oxford and London/Aylesbury with Milton Keynes and Bedford, claims that the "preferred" route could generate more than £38.1 million a year for the UK economy. It calculates that the "core" route, which does not include extended services from Oxford to Reading, would still generate £32.2 million per year. In the East-West Rail Consortium's press release its chairman, Neil Gibson, said that the report showed "investment in East-West Rail is a great deal for the taxpayer, for business, the travelling public, and for supporting economic growth." The consortium expects, following a meeting with Theresa Villiers on 3rd November 2010, the scheme to be included in the government's High-Level Output Specification (HLOS), due in July 2012, which will feed into the funding package for Network Rail's control Period 5 that runs from 2014 to 2019. It hopes that the western section will open to passengers in 2017. No evaluation of the eastern section between Bedford and Cambridge, stage two of the project, was included in this report.

The 13-page undated Oxford Economics "East-West Rail: The Economic Case for Investment" report, which was published in early August, makes use of the benefit:cost ratio figures calculated by Atkins in July 2010 for its GRIP 4 Outline Business Case, which showed a 6.3:1 benefit for the "Preferred" scheme (to Reading) generating 2.58 million rail journeys and removing 1.47 million car journeys from the road. A direct Oxford-Milton Keynes rail journey would take 45 minutes against the current 100 minutes where a change is required.

Bletchley flyover has visits by a series of test trains

The Bletchley Flyover (just south of Bletchley station) and the relaid line to Newton Longville has not seem much activity in the last year or two. However, in 2011 there have been at least three Network Rail test trains that have crossed the viaduct and proceeded to the end of the line.

On Tuesday 9th August a lone workman was walking along the flyover and a short while later the 2-car former Class 150 track recording train made two traversals along the line, presumably one for each of the two tracks. This follows several days when workmen appeared to be examining the line. Previously on Friday 9th July the class-37 hauled longer test train had also visited the line, as had another train in January 2011. This seems excessive given that there is no freight traffic on the line, so it may mean that traffic is planned.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Guided busway attracts impressive number of passenger journeys in its first 30 days of operation

As stated in [Snippets 220], there were more than 2,000 journeys made on Sunday 7th September when the busway opened (just the northern section, as the southern part is closed on Sundays). A return ticket counts as two journeys. The two bus companies, Stagecoach and Whippet, announced that 55,895 journeys were made in the first seven days. Over the first 30 days there was a total of 224,054 trips, which is 52,227 a week, hence patronage dropped after the first week. The target is just over 291,000 each month, so it reached about 77% of its target. This is impressive, but compares unfavourably to several recent railway line reopenings which have far exceeded expectations.

Unlike railway patronage, the busway has benefited from all pensioners across the country being able to use the busway services free of charge. Unsurprisingly this has led to a large proportion of busway users being over 60 years old - in excess of 65% of some off-peak services. There have also been a large number of parents taking their children for 'novelty' journeys during the school holidays. Unlike railways, the busway is something that 98% of people in the region are unlikely to have ever experienced before. It is widely believed that the pensioner/novelty patronage will reduce in the coming months, whilst commuter trips are expected to increase. It will take several months before true patronage levels can be ascertained.

Newspapers may print county council press releases verbatim without analysis but readers are not fools

On the Cambridge News website many people wrote comments about their journey experiences and their views on whether the claimed patronage justified the construction of the £180 million busway. Comments included the following:

  • If you want to know if the bus is successful you have to subtract the number of passengers no longer using the other services; the bus route is ONLY a success if the increase in passengers justifies the £180m+ spent.
  • The previous bus routes have been cancelled - for example the Stagecoach No. 55 between St Ives and Cambridge. It has just moved existing travellers from one route to another (i.e. forcing them onto the guided bus) and increased their total journey times! This does not indicate that the busway scheme was a success.
  • The absolute number is unimportant, what is more useful to know is the overall delta of people using a bus service before the busway to people using a bus service now.
  • How many made journeys off-guideway between Huntingdon and St Ives and between Science Park and City Centre/Station? None of these depend on the guideway. And, of course, it doesn't tell us for how many of these people their journey was slower or no faster via the guideway.
  • Having used the bus from St. Ives to Cambridge daily for the past twelve years the past week [i.e. week one of the busway] were some of the worst journeys ever. Buses packed with OAPs and kids, not running to any timetable and 25 minutes wait on three occasions. As a commuting tool it's hopeless and more like a pensioners' coach tour.
  • Most of the people that I've seen on them have been pensioners riding for free for the novelty and something to do. A couple I know said that when the winter comes they are going to ride it all day to St Ives and back to save on the heating at home!
  • How many people went by guided bus who before it opened went by car? That is the question.
  • What I would like to know is how much congestion has the busway solved.
  • How many of them were people like me: at a loose end for the day so used my bus pass to try a new experience? The test will be AFTER everyone's tried it out once. I'm included in the present statistics but I certainly won't be a regular user.
  • It is important not just to compare the busway patronage with buses on roads the previous few weeks as some bus services had been cut much earlier in the year. Perhaps a whole year each side of the opening would be best, and this would overcome seasonal fluctuations.
  • The comments people have made to me have been negative. Buses 40 minutes late and taking longer than if they had driven. Generally people are saying it's quicker and cheaper to drive.
  • During the past week [i.e. week one of the busway] of getting the bus not once has it picked me up/dropped me off on time!
  • It would nice to have the same consumer choice of bus operators on the A14 "Express Service" as on the GB. By the way, I never thought I'd call the A14 an express service. What a difference in perception the busway has made!
  • Remember that bus journeys before the opening were slowed down - perhaps to make the busway look better. Buses from Swavesey used to go via Bar Hill to Cambridge - then the service got longer - via Longstanton and Bar Hill and then round Over back roads, then round Willingham backroads, then Longstanton, then Bar Hill then Cambridge - making journey times ridiculously long.

Council doesn't know - and perhaps doesn't want to know - who is using the busway and what journeys are being made

Many people had questioned the feasibility of there being 55,000 individual journeys in a week based on the limited number of bus services operated. Of course, the magic trick is seat re-use. The seat may be occupied by someone going from Huntingdon to St. Ives (off busway), then to the Science Park (on busway), then to the city centre (off busway) then to the station (off busway) then to Addenbrooke's (on busway). Those two busway journeys would count as five bus journeys.

Conscious of mounting criticism of the busway from members of the public, and doubtful that the busway was achieving anything positive despite the enormous cost of construction, CAST.IRON submitted a Freedom of Information request to find out how much the patronage figures were being inflated by journeys entirely off the busway and by non-paying passengers whose journeys were not time critical. They asked for the following breakdown of trips:

  • From/to all start/end points between Huntingdon railway station and St Ives bus station inclusive; and the same for the opposite direction.
  • Trips from/to all start/end points between Cambridge Science Park and Cambridge station inclusive; and the same for the opposite direction.
  • Starting from all stops located between Huntingdon rail station and St Ives bus station inclusive, terminating in Cambridge city centre; and the same for the opposite direction.
  • From the north terminating at Addenbrooke's; and the same for the opposite direction.
  • From Trumpington P&R to Cambridge city centre; and the same for the opposite direction
  • Number undertaken using a senior bus pass.

The council responded that the information will be held by the bus operators, Stagecoach and Whippet, but that the Council has not been provided with this information and as such, it is not held for the purposes of the regulations. The council clearly does not seek to receive any figures to justify whether the busway is a success or not. Cynics might say that this is because it never can justify it and would rather pull the wool over council taxpayers' eyes.

Cambridge News conducted one-off race amongst its journalists to identify fastest mode of travel from St Ives to Cambridge - the car won!

The Cambridge News did more than just print press releases when it ran a Top Gear-style transport mode contest between three of its journalists to travel between the St Ives busway park and ride and central Cambridge at peak time. The guided bus was narrowly beaten by the private car, and the cyclist came last. However, critics felt that the competition was weighted in favour of the busway:

  • Busway passenger got the first bus that arrived so an all-operator season ticket would have been required - not everyone has these
  • Travel time to get to the P&R site was ignored - this is not representative as no-one lives at the P&R
  • The fastest mode by far, motorbikes, were not included in the competition
  • The option of a train carrying a bike could have been much faster but was not possible to test
  • The cyclist was penalised by having to use the slower unfinished surface from St Ives to Swavesey
  • Another option of travelling to Addenbrooke's, with a change of bus at the station was not included
  • A better question would be whether the guided bus is significantly faster than a bus on the road - which has a more direct route.

The general view of people commenting on the Cambridge News' competition is that it showed the busway was not faster and made it appear better than it actually was.

Busway maintenance track from St Ives to Swavesey to be raised to avoid flooding and surfaced to aid cyclists

On 30th August the maintenance track between St Ives and Swavesey was closed for around three months so that the level can be raised to reduce the number of days each year when it will be underwater and also to surface it so that the ride for cyclists is improved. This work does not prevent buses from operating on the busway. Corrections to the park and ride at St Ives are continuing as is the construction of passenger facilities at Longstanton.

County Council releases bus drivers' instruction manual following a Freedom of Information request

Readers interested in the rules for driving buses on the busway may be interested in the following excerpts from the guidance provided to bus drivers:

  • A bus must only operate in the one direction that the respective guideway track is designed for. There must never be any attempt to operate in the opposite direction to that designed, even in an emergency.
  • Whilst in guidance, the vehicle must only travel forwards and CANNOT REVERSE more than a very short distance.
  • Drivers should operate at line speed (max 56mph) where possible unless advised otherwise by the control room, or if in their judgement there is a safety-critical risk (for example thick fog, people trespassing on the track, work adjacent to the track).
  • Guidewheel settings must be 2605mm +/- 2mm. Setting the wheels too wide runs the risk of over-compression, leading to overheating, and guidewheel failure....the guidedway is only 2600mm -0+3mm between kerbs.
  • There is a risk that on a curve that a rear tyre could come into contact with the inside kerb, causing scuffing and leading, potentially, to a rear-wheel blow-out....[but] the guideway is designed with sufficiently gentle curvature to avoid this sort of problem, providing that the bus runs reasonably straight and is not 'crabbed'.
  • Whenever a bus has undergone extensive repair or overhaul which may have affected its alignment, BEFORE the bus is allowed to operate on the Busway again. A section of guideway will need to be booked for [a trial to] take place.
  • If a guidewheel does touch a solid or substantial vertical object like a kerb...the bus should not be used in a guideway again until it has been checked.
  • On approaching the guideway, a vehicle must be steered gradually to the right until the guidewheel lightly contacts the right-hand metal guiderail which leads onto the concrete track
  • Slight pressure must then be applied to the steering wheel to ensure that the right-hand guidewheel remains in contact with the metal rail until the vehicle has fully entered the guideway.
  • As the bus moves forward it may be necessary to turn the steering wheel further to maintain the contact with the pick-up kerb as the bus body straightens to run parallel to the kerb.
  • The maximum recommended speed of approach and entry to any guideway section is 30 mph.
  • When in a guideway drivers should NEVER wrap their fingers around the wheel but only rest their palms on the spokes or rim. (In this way, should any ride problem occur and the wheel turns rapidly, injury to hands and fingers will be avoided).
  • The frequency of potential incidents will be far lower in a guideway than in ordinary driving on road, but the probability of being able to avoid such incidents developing into problems is also significantly reduced.
  • A distance of not less than 500 metres must be maintained between guided buses in normal operations.
  • A very small obstruction in the guideway can, in practice, be run over at speed in safety. However it is always better to try to stop safely before any such obstruction and remove it.
  • During normal operations on the guideway track, no vehicle shall stop at any place other than at designated stops apart from in an emergency. If it becomes necessary to stop on the guideway track, the driver must contact the Control Centre immediately.
  • Drivers should also be aware that their wing mirror will stick out over the platform area and therefore should be wary of the risk of hitting a pedestrian standing close to the edge of the stop when driving into, or out of, a Busway stop.
  • [When continuing after a burst-through] to reduce the effects of such a jolt to an acceptable level an advisory speed limit of 40 mph is imposed.
  • Extended periods of stopping to adjust running times to fit with published timetables must not be done while travelling on the Busway. However, actions to adjust running times must be done, where necessary, by speed adjustment, layover zones at Park and Ride sites and on road.

It is unclear how an 'advisory' speed limit can be 'imposed'. It is either a limit or not. One assumes that the reason for steering to the right is because the driver sits on the right. Observations have shown that the 500-metre rule is not followed. Drivers have stopped on the busway, for example, the driver stopping to tell people to keep off the other track.


WEBSITES
New social website aims to ensure travellers' transport problems are quickly fixed by relevant authorities

The new http://www.FixMyTransport.com website allows travellers to enter details of problems, such as at railway stations and bus stops, and has a team of people who will forward on the problem to the organisation responsible for fixing it. The website has an inspired strapline: "Euston we have a problem!"


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 221 - 10/09/2011

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