Loading...
 

East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 234 - 29/10/2012

[Home] [Meetings and Events] [Campaigns] [Consultations] [Newsletters|Latest|Covers] [News Archive] [Document Archive] [Gallery] [User Groups] [About] [Contacts]

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

Railfuture News Snippets 234 - 29/10/2012



Railfuture and ESTA's joint footfall count at Halesworth on 18th October took place for the entire day, and included a count of the number of passengers making use of the bus that calls at the station. The exercise will be repeated in a year's time and the figures from both will enable Railfuture to compare usage before and after the new timetable that commences on Sunday 9th December. There ought to be a considerable rise in user numbers over the entire route when the whole Ipswich-Lowestoft route switches from two-hourly to hourly, and factual data proving this will help other campaigns both in the branch area and across Britain. Since the Ipswich-Saxmundham hourly service began in December 2010 passengers numbers have grown from 345,000 to 569,000.

Following government approval for the Ipswich Chord in September (see [Snippets 233]) an Ipswich Chord track diagram has now been published.

Network Rail has confirmed that the new signalling between Harling Road and Trowse Junction, near Norwich, will come into effect over the weekend of 3rd/4th December 2012.

Greater Anglia is offering some new advance fares to London Liverpool Street in time for Christmas shoppers. For example, £6 one-way from Cambridge and £8 one-way from Clacton-On-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze. However, it should be noted that walk-on fares with a rail card can still be cheaper, particularly at the weekend. In addition, Greater Anglia's new walk-on Super Off-Peak Day Return is available seven days a week, unlike First Capital Connect's equivalent which is available only at weekends and Bank Holidays only. GA advance tickets can be purchased up to 18:00 the day before departure from the ticket office, online or from its Customer Contact Centre on 0845 600 7245.

According to performance figures for the period between mid-September and mid-October, 95% of Greater Anglia trains ran on time, up from 92.5% during the same period last year and the highest since the combined franchise was created in 2004. This compares with a national average of 92.03%. The Moving Annual Average (MAA) of 91.7% is also a 12-year high.

A mystery shopper exercise of stations across the Greater Anglia network between 16th September and 13th October has named Diss station as offering the best customer service with an overall score of 96%, and achieved 100% for the provision of customer information and 97% for the standard of the toilets.

The FLUA AGM will be held on Saturday 17th November at 14:00 at the Good News Centre, St. John's Church, King's Lynn, which is very close to the station - simply turn left outside station and the church is in front of you. The guest speaker will be Steve Dunn of the London City Mission, who will talk about this work. As usual there will be representatives from First Capital Connect and Greater Anglia. A report will be in [Snippets 235].

The Bramley Line Heritage Railway Trust issued a newsletter in mid-October. The main news is that Network Rail has signed and issued the Bramley Line with a licence to develop a 'base' in the yard at Waldersea for an office, rolling stock restoration and picnic area. NR has also renewed its licence ot inspect and clear vegetation on the line between Whitemoor Junction (at March) and just beyond Weasenham Lane LC. This licence has never allowed them to do anything more than basic clearance. See: http://www.bramleyline.org.uk/Documents/2012/BramleyLineNewsletter%20Autumn2012.pdf.

Michael Portillo's new television series features railways on the European mainland using the 1913 Bradshaw Continental Guide. His new five-part series will be on BBC Two (and BBC HD) at 21:00 on Thursdays, starting on 8th November.

According to RAIL Magazine, the Nene Valley has received ministerial approval to take ownership of the Fletton Link from BRB(Residuary), which it has used since 1977 and leased from 2007.

The Norfolk Orbital Railway's 'Return to Holt' appeal, as mentioned in [Snippets 233] successfully reached its £15k target of pledged by individuals or organisations of over £100 before the 14th October deadline. On 6th, 7th and 8th December they will invite individual supporters to make their own donations of up to £5,000 online via the Big Give. See: http://www.norfolk-orbital-railway.co.uk/Pages/land_appeal.html. Also, see EDP news item.

On Tuesday 27th November at 20:30 Jonathan Denby, Head of Corporate Affairs at Greater Anglia will be speaking to the Cambridge University Railway Club at Fitzwilliam College.

27th October marked the 30th anniversary of two significant railway openings in East Anglia. Cambridge power signal box, next to Hills Road bridge, was officially opened by Sir Peter Parker, and Norwich Crown Point train depot was opened, replacing a depot that was next to the station.


STATIONS
Cambs County Council launches public consultation on Cambridge Science Park Station

Keywords: [CambridgeNorthStation]

Cambridgeshire County Council has launched its consultation on the new Cambridge Science Park station (located just north of Chesterton Junction) that should open in December 2015. A report will appear in [Snippets 235].

The aerial photo plans for the station show that an area will be provide for 450 car parking spaces at ground level. This is just enough for the 2,500 passenger journeys per day (i.e. about 1,300 out and return journeys) predicted in year one, but clearly insufficient as numbers grow to, probably, three million, which would only be a third of those using Cambridge station. The two through platforms and one south-facing bay platform will all be accessed via a footbridge to cross the freight lines that will be retained. The facilities to be provided at the station, were not published in advance of the consultation.

Events will be held for potential passengers to explain how the station would change their travel plans, and what they would like to see there. The answers will help develop the plans for the station that will serve one of Cambridge's main business areas, including the Science Park, St John's Innovation Centre and Cambridge Business Park, as well as lots of housing in the north of the city and adjacent villages such as Milton. Events will be held as follows:

  • Wednesday, 14th November 14, 16:30 to 19:30 at the Shirley Centre in Nuffield Road, CB4 1TF
  • Thursday, 15th November, 12:00-14:00 at St John's Innovation Centre in Cowley Road, CB4 0WS
  • Monday, 19th November, 16:30-19:30 at Milton Primary School in Humphries Way, Milton, CB24 6DL
  • Wednesday, 21st November, 12:00-14:00, Unit 23, Cambridge Science Park, CB4 0FZ
  • Thursday, 22nd November, 12:00-14:00, Churchill House on Cambridge Business Park, CB4 0WZ.
The consultation runs until Friday 30th November, and can be completed online at http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/scienceparkstation.

The Cambridge Cycling Campaign has called for the new station to be designed around the large numbers of people on foot or on bike who will wish to use it. Their station consultation information page at: http://www.camcycle.org.uk/campaigning/issues/scienceparkstation/. They want good accessibility and do not want the mistakes in the design of the footbridge for the new island platforms at Cambridge station to be repeated.

Long list of winners for the Greater Anglia Station Adopter Awards

Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]

On Friday 19th October Greater Anglia held a ceremony to announce the winners of its Station Adopter Awards held this year at the East Anglian Railway Museum, Chappel. The 2012 awards were presented by Neil Buxton, General Manager of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships. The winners, runners-up, highly commended and finalists in each category were:

  • Best Small Station - Winner: Trimley; Runner up: Bures, Darsham; Highly commended: Acle
  • Best Medium Station - Winner: Woodbridge; Runner up: Burnham-on-Crouch; Other finalists: Attleborough, Wymondham
  • Best Staffed Station - Winner: Colchester; Runner-up: Ely; Other finalists: Diss, Gidea Park, Witham
  • Most Improved Station - Winner: Kirby Cross; Other finalists: Brundall Gardens, March, Thetford
  • Innovation Award - Winner: Annette Day, Darsham station adopter. Other finalists: Essex and South Suffolk CRP, Great Chesterford
  • Station adopter, Marks Tey station adopter.
  • Community Involvement - Winner: Friends of Thetford station; Highly Commended, Friends of March station; Other finalists: Wivenhoe Station adopters, Great Yarmouth Welcome Hosts, Wickham Market station adopter.
  • Best Adopter Group - Winner: Crouch Valley Line Promotion Group; Highly Commended, Cantley; Other finalists: Cantley, Ely, Thetford, West Runton, Witham, Wivenhoe.
  • Special Award - Winner: Wivenhoe station adopters (George McKissock and Sue Dawes); Other finalists: Darsham, Newport, Somerleyton
  • Best Personal contribution - Winner: Corinne Sermons Marks Tey station adopter; Other finalists: Great Chesterford, South Woodham Ferrers station.

New ticket machines to be installed at 13 Greater Anglia stations

Greater Anglia will be investing £270k to install 30 new and additional ticket vending machines at 13 of its key stations. The new TVMs will replace the existing Shere Fast card-only operated machines, which are almost life-expired, and will have the most up-to-date and customer-friendly screen layout to reducing the number of steps to complete a ticket purchase. They will also allow customers to collect pre-booked tickets.

Three ticket vending machines have recently been replaced with newer models at Cambridge station, although time will tell whether they are faster or slower than the old ones. The expansion of the station entrance and booking hall will take place in 2013, and will see the opening up of arches. More ticket windows will also be created, and the installation of additional ticket machines and ticket barriers should reduce congestion at the station, which has recently been the subject of complaints in the Cambridge News with a photo of "ticket queue chaos" with queues twenty metres outside the entrance. Railfuture has complained to Greater Anglia about the regular long queues on Saturdays.

Greater Anglia have other plans to improve facilities at stations, including providing electric charging points at 20 stations, and the future introduction of the "plus cab" book in advance taxi service. They have already provided 1,650 Blackberry devices to all customer-facing staff and 140 additional service staff since the start of the franchise in February 2012.


RAIL ROUTES
Official approval for Chiltern's Evergreen 3 phase 2 link between Marylebone and Oxford

On 6th January 2010 Chiltern Railways deposited its Transport and Works Order application to construct a route for trains between Marylebone and Oxford. It only needed a short chord just south of Bicester North and east of Bicester town stations, plus a new station, and closure of some level crossings some of which needed to obtain land to build bridges. The rest of the work, which involved track doubling and line speed increases, was all within the railway reserve. Yet it took nearly three years for approval (on 18th October, six weeks after the inspector's report from the second public inquiry was received by the DfT) of an apparently simple scheme that had generated objections from a small number of people primarily about environmental issues. The original opening date was May 2013, for the timetable change.

In 2015 the full half-hourly service will commence, although it is possible that some of the upgrades may 'go live' before then. Passengers will benefit from a enlarged station at Bicester Town (with ticket office and coffee kiosk) plus additional car parking, a new station at Water Eaton and reinstated track between Oxford North Junction and Oxford station, where two new platforms will be built.

The scheme has reduced the costs of the East West Rail Link western section (see below) by £70m. However, Chiltern had contracted BAM Nuttall to do just the Marylebone-Oxford work since there were no signs that the government would approve EWRL. The works on this stretch of line must be future-proof for EWRL and therefore work specification will change. Chiltern expects to have this defined and agreed in early 2013.

Despite both schemes having the potential to help one another, no thought has been given to providing diversionary routes during engineering works, such as constructing a western chord at Claydon Junction that Marylebone-Oxford trains could use and still be faster than a bus replacement. This is not being proposed, despite it being much cheaper than the Bicester chord that links track at different grades.

East West Rail Consortium holds stakeholder meeting as completion of full scheme slips to 2019

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

On Monday 29th October Railfuture attended a presentation by Patrick O'Sullivan of the East West Rail Consortium which provided a progress update of the western section of new East West Rail Link. Information divulged included:

  • Newton Longueville station has been deleted from the project because a housing development has been cancelled. People from there could go to Bletchley or Winslow station instead
  • Network Rail are now essentially running the project and taking the construction cost risk
  • EWRC are on the Delivery Board in the interest of the 'local contribution' (£30-50m)
  • EWRC now has a Communications Manager, Carol Jones, who will be supporting the public consultation programme
  • Total cost is now estimated at around £500m (it was £250m plus electrification costed at £130m)
  • It has become a much larger project than the GRIP 4 scheme: fully double tracked Oxford to Bicester; freight and inter-city trains; more complex interchanges at Bletchley and Bedford; much more emphasis on renewal or by-passing of level crossings (there are 43 between Aylesbury / Bicester and Milton Keynes)
  • Platform capacity at Milton Keynes Central station is now an issue
  • Likely permitting process is a Development Consent Order (from Planning Act 2008), which requires environmental impact assessment (EIA) and consultation programme with residents and businesses on the route.
  • The EIA had to be conducted for all four seasons - the winter one must begin soon or a year could be lost
The project schedule is now as follows:
  • 2012-13 - Environmental surveys [MUST start winter 2012/13] and impact assessment
  • Jan 2013 - Network Rail Business Plan
  • 2013-15 - Planning process, and engineering
  • 2013-14 - Water Eaton - Bicester (not electrified, Evergreen 3)
  • 2015-16 - Oxford station area (separate NR project)
  • 2015-17 - Water Eaton - Bicester electrification and Bicester / Aylesbury to Bletchley (with trains to MK and Bedford by Dec 2017)
  • 2017-18 - Bletchley to Bedford
  • 2018-19 - Bletchley to Bedford electrification
  • 2019 - Bedford station area

Chiltern Railways runs a special train to promote the East West Rail Link to officials and the media

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

On Friday 12th October Chiltern Railways operated a 20mph special train to from Aylesbury onto the freight-only route as far as the buffer stops at Claydon Junction to promote the reopening of the £400m western section of the East West Rail Link. A temporary platform on the reversing siding at Claydon was built on the day allowing the invited passengers to alight from the Chiltern Railways three-car Class 168 train. Photographs were then taken of dignitaries at the buffer stops. Footage was featured on the evening news programmes, where it was claimed to be the first passenger train for 20 years, although that excluded numerous charters. On its return the train stopped at Quainton Road station with the guests having lunch at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.

Although Chiltern ran this service, it is not known yet which franchise will be responsible for the route, with current operators, or their successors, First Great Western, London Midland and Chiltern all being possible.

Railway trackbed to Hunstanton to be severed just 600 metres from former terminus station

Keywords: [HunstantonBranch]

With ironic timing just as the 150th anniversary of the opening of Hunstanton's railway line was being marked amid growing calls for the line to be reinstated, members of the West Norfolk Council planning committee voted in favour of an application by Marstons to build a pub and restaurant on the trackbed at Southend Road, opposite Tesco.

Former borough mayor Colin Sampson, who is also chairman of the Fen Line Users Association, said the decision was "regrettable". It was made despite more than 200 people signing a petition calling for West Norfolk Council to protect the former track bed that first opened on 3rd October 1862 and closed in May 1969. The Hunstanton Civic Society has called for a public inquiry to decide whether the development should be allowed to go ahead. Unfortunately Norfolk County Council removed route protection from disused railway lines in the county some years ago.

Network Rail envisages electrification of Felixstowe to Peterborough route

Keywords: [Electrification]

At the Suffolk rail conference held in Ipswich on Friday 26th October, Network Rail suggested that the cross-country rail line from Suffolk to the Midlands could be electrified within the next 20 years. Richard Schofield said electrifying the line from Felixstowe through to Ipswich and then Haughley Junction to Ely dock junction and then Ely North Junction to Peterborough could be included in the next round of major projects once the Great Western and Midland Mainline electrification had been completed. The increasing amount of freight using the eastern ports and being carried cross-country made the proposal viable, he said.


GUIDED BUSWAY
County Council given more time to respond to BAM Nuttall's claims because of amount of documentation involved

Cambridgeshire County Council had been told to respond to BAM Nuttall's defence and counter claim for increased busway construction costs by Friday 26th October. However, this deadline has been put back to 31st December 2012 because of the amount of documentation that the council needs to review and provide. Earlier BAM Nuttall had been late in providing evidence to support is claim. BAM Nutall's case alleges that Atkins, appointed by the council to oversee the project, had delayed the scheme. Local politicians have suggested that Atkins had a financial interest in dragging out the project as long as possible.

Busway concrete beams repaired after only 14 months of use

One of the few claimed benefits of a concrete kerb-guided busway over a rail-based transport system is the supposed 'maintenance free' infrastructure, provided it has been installed correctly and the foundations are robust. However, this has been seriously called into question as 16 beams (about 1 in 6) in the single-track section near Trumpington Park and Ride have become seriously out of alignment. Observers have speculated that the "hunting" apparent at higher speeds (round this sharpish curve) may have caused lateral vibration in the beams that would, over time, have caused the pads to work loose.

In late October the County Council did some temporary repairs to the southern single-track section, digging out the infill from a couple of dozen beam-ends and re-inserting the support pads that apparently had fallen out. The track looks pretty level but proper repairs still need to be done.

Further criticism of busway as ambulance is prevented from reaching seriously injured cyclist because of bollards

An administrative error and process failure, rather than another design fault in the busway, appears to be the reason why paramedics were prevented from reaching an unconscious cyclist who had been seriously injured on the busway route at Fen Drayton. The ambulance crew didn't have with them the security code to unlock one of the busway bollards in order to drive along the maintenance track. In the meantime members of a nearby running club administered first aid and set up a human cordon to stop cyclists and pedestrians disturbing the scene before a Magpas helicopter arrived.


WEBSITES
Greater Anglia 'season direct' website should make life easier for its season-ticket holders

The Greater Anglia http://www.seasondirect.com website is intended to be used solely by season-ticket travellers, separating out their needs from other types of passengers. It claims to offer a hassle free, discounted season ticket scheme with added benefits, exclusively designed for regular commuters. Season tickets can be ordered online and received by post. Annual season ticket can be paid monthly by direct debit, with compensation paid back into a bank or building society account via the delay repay claim scheme. As a bonus, they allow unlimited travel on all Greater Anglia services at weekends and on Bank Holidays. Regular Special offers specific to commuters and their families are also promised.

Website offers news about air-rail integration around the world

The http://www.airrailnews.com commercial website aims to "bring the air-rail community together." It is run by the Global AirRail Alliance (GARA), which exists to join rail operators, airports, airlines and suppliers from around the world who work on creating a seamless travel experience between the air and rail. For rail campaigners it is a useful source about rail-air integration around the world. Railfuture has just published a major survey of information on "Public Transport Links to UK Airports" - see http://www.railfuture.org.uk/dl445.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 234 - 29/10/2012

[Prev Issue (233)] [Snippets Issues] [Next Issue (235)] [Category List] [Keyword List] [People List] [Story List] [Branch Dashboard]