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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 241 - 30/05/2013

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

Railfuture News Snippets 241 - 30/05/2013



Railfuture is inviting members to take part in a walking event from Bedford to Sandy to promote the East West Rail Link between between Bedford and Cambridge on Saturday 29th June 2013. Details on http://www.railfuture.org.uk/ox-cam.

David Statham is the new managing director of First Capital Connect. The branch is hoping that he will speak at a future meeting and has invited him to the national conference in Cambridge on 21st June 2014.

There's a chance for Winslow residents to find out more about the planned East West Rail project at a talk on Monday 17th June at 19:00 in the function room of the Bell Hotel in Winslow. The local Chamber of Trade has invited the East West Rail Consortium's Patrick O'Sullivan to give a talk. To book a free place, please call chairman of the chamber of trade, Trevor Goosey, on 01296 711199.

It has been revealed that Chiltern Railways is having to modify the Track Access Agreement drawn up with Network Rail to allow for a phased introduction of services on the new 'Evergreen 3' route. In 2015 it will commence services between London and the new Water Eaton station (likely to be called Oxford Parkway station) with services only running from there to Oxford in 2016.

Work on expanding Peterborough station is now well under way with the shell of the new island platform constructed. It has not dawned on many yet that using the new platforms 6 and 7 exclusively for cross-country services means the the loss of cross platform interchange for passengers from East Anglia to the North. The time to walk to the stairs up the stairs along the footbridge, down the stairs and along the platform will be considerably longer than the quick dash between platforms currently possible. It means that some unofficial connections will be lost, but as the railway industry does not recognise these it believes there are no disbenefits to passengers.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has released its report into an incident near Littleport on 5th January 2012 in which a FCC Class 365 train brought down the overhead wires. The problem was entirely caused by Network Rail as it had not maintained the line in a fit state and had not followed its down maintenance schedule (the inspection was around two years overdue). The stadalone overhead mast was tilting (by 3.1 degrees) away from the track pulling the line around 310mm towards the cess (the edge of the track). The wire was therefore too close to the pantograph edge and 'blow off' occurred. The portal masts did not suffer from this tilt. Since then the masts have been replaced. See the RAIB report - http://www.raib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/130520_R062013_Littleport.pdf.

The Mid-Norfolk Railway's AGM will be held at the Memorial Hall in Norwich Street, Dereham at 14:00 on Saturday 29th June. Dereham station will be open at 09:30 serving food and drinks. Members can travel on trains that day at the discounted rate of £5 on production of a current membership card. According to the AGM notice booklet the MNR operated trains in 2012 on more days than any other year since it started operating. The MNR made a profit of £44,811 in 2012 (on income of around £290k), versus £15,874 profit in 2011 and a loss of £14,862 in 2010.

The government has recently published fascinating national travel statistics about travel in Britain since 1995 categorised by, for example, 'trips, distance travelled and time taken' and 'average number of trips by selected private transport modes'. See https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/nts01-average-number-of-trips-made-and-distance-travelled.

The MNR will be staging its biggest ever steam gala from Friday 19th to Sunday 21st July 2013.


RAIL ROUTES
Cambridgeshire County Council long-term strategy includes station reopenings and new rail links

Cambridgeshire County Council's long-term strategy to improve transport, which was published in mid-May 2013, includes a series improvements to the railway that show a very different attitude to a decade ago when it was fervently anti-rail and pro-bus, as shown by its destruction of the Cambridge-St Ives railway line to run buses instead.

In the strategy, which accepts that improved infrastructure is critical to cope with planned housing developments (potentially 95,000 new homes in Cambridgeshire by 2036), the council is looking at stations for either Fulbourn or Cherry Hinton because population is growing in those areas. It had dismissed the stations as not being viable in the late 1990s. Officially the council would not commit to reopening the railway between March and Wisbech saying merely that it was "being considered", although they have funded Atkins to conduct studies into it. Likewise a new station for Addenbrooke's Hospital is merely a possibility. The council's strategy contained an impressive map of the rail network showing how it could look if all of these improvements went ahead.

High Court dismisses 'Evergreen 3' legal challenge and grants Chiltern Railways powers to construct rail route

On 17th May Chiltern Railways' powers to construct and upgrade the rail railway at a cost of £130m to provide a new route between London and Marylebone were confirmed by the High Court, which dismissed a legal challenge to the Transport and Works Act Order granted by the Secretary of State for Transport in 2012. The challenge had been on environmental grounds over the impact of nitrogen oxides on the Oxford Meadows Special Area of Conservation. All is not over yet, however, as there may be an appeal of the decision, which is possible given the tenacity demonstrated to date by the serial litigant (who also opposed an unrelated plan to build 8,000 homes).

Chiltern Railways is ready to start work on the projectr which should see London to Water Eaton to London trains operating by summer 2015 and the full route to Oxford (which is an essential part of the East West Rail Link) open in spring 2016. To cope with the frequent service current plans are for Oxford's station to have one platform extended and an extra one added.

Network Rail opens up the Hitchin Flyover to walkers prior to opening to raise money for charity

Keywords: [HitchinFlyover]

Prior to commissioning of the Hitchin flyover (but after construction including tracklaying had taken place) Network Rail allowed around 800 people to walk much of the route on Saturday 18th May in aid of Hitchin's Holy Saviour Church and the Garden House Hospice. The walkers set off in groups of 20 from Stotfold Road. The event, which was organised by Network Rail, was a way of thanking Hitchin residents for the disruption that construction of the flyover had caused them over several months. It follows previous public relations activities such as the Whitemoor Yard open day almost a decade earlier.


STATIONS
East Suffolk line stations have ticket vending machines for the first time

Keywords: [EastSuffolkLine]

The East Suffolk line stations at Woodbridge and Saxmundham now have brand new TVMs. This means that passengers now have the opportunity to buy their ticket (or collect a pre-booked one) before boarding the train. This will reduce the number of people who do not pay because there is insufficient time for the conductor to work their way along the train selling tickets. The ticket machines have been part-funded by Suffolk County Council.


GUIDED BUSWAY
Two bus passengers hurt and sent to hospital after collision between car and bus on Cambridgeshire guided busway at Longstanton

During the morning commuter period on Friday 17th May at the unprotected guided busway junction in Station Road, Longstanton a crash occurred between a Stagecoach service from St Ives existing the busway and a grey Vauxhall Astra came from the Willingham direction that crossed its path. The car, which hit the bus around its passenger door damaging it in the process, was left severely damaged by the force of the collision and ended up on the busway track. Two of the 15 bus passengers were taken to hospital with cuts and bruises. At least another nine passengers were "a bit battered and bruised", according to the police officer attending the scene. The busway was cleared in less than two hours.

Final attempt to settle Cambridgeshire Guided Busway dispute between council and BAM Nuttall without going to court

Cambridgeshire County Council and BAM Nuttall are due to face each other in court some time in 2014 over their financial dispute that saw construction costs escalate (from the £87m agreed to built it to the £161 million BAM Nuttall claims it spent), faults not being fixed and the busway opened more than two years late. However, the legal process requires both sides to try to reach an out-of-court settlement if possible. It has been revealed that the council's cabinet will meet behind closed doors to decide on its approach for a new round of mediation. If the council is utterly defeated in court (an unlikely scenario, and one the council claims will not happen) then taxpayers could be left with a bill for more than £100 million. However, a negotiated settlement would still cost taxpayers tens of millions of pounds.

Some councillors are calling for a settlement because the only real winners from legal proceedings would be the lawyers. Independent councillor Mike Mason, who represents Cottenham, Histon, and Impington, said it was hard to judge what to do because so much information about the case was being kept secret adding "This has gone to the point where the council is between a rock and a hard place and the pressure will be on them to come to a settlement. I think they are saying we don't have a really strong case and let's settle for what we can get, which will be to cut the baby in half. I think they have to cut their losses now." Whatever the settlement the cost to taxpayers will be higher than originally planned because the dispute only covers those aspects of the project undertaken by BAM Nuttall. A lot of ancillary work came out of other budgets and has been well hidden.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh rode on the busway from Cambridge station to Addenbrooke's Hospital on 23rd May.

Luton-Dunstable guided bus project could repeat some of the same mistakes as the Cambridgeshire scheme

Keywords: [LutonDunstableBusway]

It seems that little has been learned from the debacle over construction of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway (which was opened two years late and £60m over budget) as BAM Nuttall's construction of the Luton-Dunstable scheme (also on a railway route) appears to be heading in the same direction (although lateness and cost increases are not as bad). The Bedfordshire scheme's design and building costs are reportedly £4.1m over budget and the proposed opening date has been pushed back by several months to "late summer" (2013).

CAST.IRON chairman Tim Phillips, who led the group's attempts to purchase and reopen the Cambridge to St Ives railway line told the Cambridge News that there were "frightening similarities" in the Luton project. He said: "It is not just CAST.IRON who have observed that kerb-guided busways are essentially the same as the 'plateways' that were the railways' predecessors over 150 years ago. That technology didn't last long because the new railways were clearly superior despite some disadvantages. In the meantime railways have been developed to the height of technical achievement while in Cambridgeshire and Luton it appears they are almost literally trying to reinvent the wheel. Kerb-guided busways are a clumsy, inelegant attempt to get mass rapid transit on the cheap. It seems that councillors and other promoters have completely ignored the common sense that everyone else knows - 'on the cheap' equals 'more expensive' in the long run."


PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Mid-Norfolk Railway operates its first passenger trains north of Dereham station

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

On Saturday 18th May a UK Railtours charter called the "Silver Lining" (from "Hi Ho Silver Lining") travelled from London St Pancras to Hoe (north of the level crossing, as far as bridge 1701). Six days earlier a DMU had operated the first train, which was a special exclusively for people who had sponsored sleepers on the northern extension. The extension has taken more than a decade to open to passengers, although a works train had travelled that far in 2009, having been pushed behind other projects such as the passing loop at Thuxton and bringing steam to the line.

Mid-Norfolk Railway collects redundant Network Rail equipment following re-signalling of the Ely to Norwich route

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

On 9th May 2013 volunteers from the Mid-Norfolk Railway were seen at Brandon collecting signalling materials that it had purchased from Network Rail. A base had been set-up at Brandon to hold all of the removed kit, ironically some of it from Wymondham, necessitating a journey for the MNR that could have been avoided had the equipment simply been moved 'over the fence' by NR's contractors, but the process required central logging of every item. Whilst the MNR was unable to obtain everything that it wanted (finding that items on its wish list had already been cut-up or had disappeared) it now has a lot of spare concrete gate posts and mechanical signal spares including a gantry signal.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 241 - 30/05/2013

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