News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 254 - 30/06/2014
- RAIL MEETINGS [all issues]
- STATIONS [all issues]
- Upgrade of Cambridge railway station to cope with increased passenger numbers falls behind schedule
- Work starts on bus route to new Cambridge Science Park Station
- Railfuture national conference in Cambridge revealed latest news about Cambridgeshire rail schemes
- RAIL FRANCHISES [all issues]
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
- WEBSITES [all issues]
Cambridgeshire County Council are carrying out a consultation on the Draft Wisbech Market Town Transport Strategy. This is an important opportunity to express your support for the reopening of the railway from Wisbech to March. Railfuture East Anglia branch urges supporters of the railway to contribute at http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/info/20006/travel_roads_and_parking/66/transport_plans_and_policies/3 before the 11th July 2014 deadline. The second page of the survey is for Wisbech with a question and free form text box relevant to the rail reopening; "Do you support the public transport/community transport schemes in the strategy?" and "Do you have anything further you would like to add?".
As David Statham reminded attendees at Railfuture's conference on 21st June, the TSGN Class 700 trains, which have to last another 40 years, will have no Wi-Fi or power points when introduced. Yet, the Department for Transport has just announced that National Express has won a 15-year franchise for Essex Thameside and there will be on board free Wi-Fi, which many passengers expect these days. This betrays considerable inconsistency by the DfT. Although the Class 700s were specified in 2009 it should have been possible to negotiate the addition of Wi-Fi and power sockets at a reasonable cost. When Railfuture was invited to inspect the Class 700 mock-up in Kassel, it repeatedly said that Wi-Fi and sockets were absolutely necessary. First Capital Connect wanted them but the DfT was adamant.
Network Rail says that it has invested more than £430m (a record amount it claims) in improving and expanding the East Anglia rail network over the last 12 months. One notable example is the the £59m Ipswich Chord. Passenger numbers have continued to grow each year. Over the last the years East Anglia rail passenger numbers have increased by 17.5%. Abellio Greater Anglia's passenger journeys have grown from 105.8m in 2010 to 124.4m in 2013, while is similar to the 35m to 37.8m increase on the neighbouring c2c services for the same period.
The Department for Transport is consulting on the future of the Northern and TransPennine franchises. This should normally have little relevance to East Anglia, but hidden among the suggestions is to split the Norwich-Liverpool service, which would reduce the attractiveness of rail. Railfuture East Anglia and other branches are all against it, and this view will feature in the Railfuture official response. See DfT document at www.gov.uk/government/consultations/future-of-northern-and-transpennine-express-rail-franchises.
First Capital Connect is introducing an 'overnighter' ticket designed for clubbers to visit London, Cambridge, Stevenage and Brighton on Friday and Saturday nights (after 22:00) returning the next morning (before noon). It is surprising that it is launching new products so close to the expiry of its franchise - perhaps it was in the pipeline assuming FCC would win - and it is not clear if their successor will continue the ticket.
The Abellio Greater Anglia re-tractioned 4-car class 317 'demonstrator' has now entered service, having performed a VIP trip from Liverpool Street to Bishops Stortford on 10th June. The aim is to show how an electric train built in the early 1980s can be given the capability of a brand new train. Two of the four carriages have been refurbished for passenger evaluation.
On 5th June the ORR released the passenger journey and revenue numbers for 2013/14. These can be downloaded as a PDF from their website: http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/13344/passenger-rail-usage-quality-report-2013-02-20-q4.pdf. The key headlines are big growth in London and South East passenger journeys and revenue, but a slowing down of growth on long distance services. The open-access operators show continued passenger journey and revenue growth.
RAIL MEETINGS
Network Rail's Senior Programme Development Manager Rob Fairhead speaks at Railfuture East Anglia meeting
People: [Rob Fairhead]
On Saturday 14th June 2014 Rob Fairhead of Network Rail was the guest speaker at the Railfuture East Anglia meeting in Colchester. He spoke about some of the projects (in East Anglia and also around London) he had been involved with (such as the Cambridge Island Platform, Beccles Loop, West Anglia Outer 12 Coach and Ipswich Chord) and some of the ones planned for the future (mainly Control Period 5, which covers 2014-2019). Some key points from his presentation were:
- Beccles loop - Several factors took this project from having marginal benefit to being achievable — including the resignalling of the line, and land for access being provided by the council
- Ipswich yard - ability to handle longer freight trains - cost £25m
- Cambridge Science Park station - Complete in May 2016; Relocation of freight facilities a little known part of this project
- Felixstowe branch - will have additional two-track sections, but not a complete doubling. Currently 30tpd (trains per day) in each direction. Expect 48tpd by 2019 and 56tpd by 2030. Probable relocation of Westerfield station to west side of crossing to allow a double track line to diverge onto the branch. Aim to complete by aMrch 2019 at a cost of £60m
- Ely upgrade - Ely to Soham will leave 1 mile as single track to save on costs; Ely North Junction should be complete in 2017
- West Anglia Main Line - third track on the up side from Copper Mill to Angel Road where it will terminate; NR to study whether it should rejoin at Angel Road (would mean a new access route would be needed to the island platform); Additional platforms at Tottenham Hale, Northumberland Park and Angel Road; Complete by early 2018, costing £86m
- Great Eastern Mainline - Norwich in 90 has to overcome 83 crossings; NR route study consultation in October 2014
- Haughley Junction - doubling completed around April 2015, costing £5m
- Lea Bridge - new station to open in December 2015, costing £11.6m
On the subject of the new Rail Operating Centres (ROCs), where 800 signal boxes will be transferred to 12 ROCs over 30+ years, but many in the next 5 to 10 years, Rob Fairhead said that the Romford ROC building would be complete in 2014. Control of Colchester PSB would transfer 2015/2016 and Cambridge PSB would transfer in 2017.
STATIONS
Upgrade of Cambridge railway station to cope with increased passenger numbers falls behind schedule
Keywords: [CambridgeStation]
According to the Cambridge News the completion dates have slipped for the radically reconfigured ticket hall, which will be doubled in size, plus the multi-storey cycle park. The ticket hall, which would allow far more people to enter and exit from the station at the same time, should have been completed by summer 2014 but work will continue into 2015. According to Abellio Greater Anglia one of the reasons is that the planning process has taken longer than expected. However, the new toilets have been completed and development of the new pedestrianised station square has started. There will eventually a 231-bedroom Ibis hotel as part of the new One The Square building, which will overlook the new piazza. Construction for that should start in November 2014 with completion expected to be spring 2016.
Work starts on bus route to new Cambridge Science Park Station
Keywords: [CambridgeNorthStation]
On 1st July coincidentally just days after Cambs County Council Service Director Strategy and Development Bob Menzies spoke about the project at the Railfuture national conference in Cambridge, work will start on providing a bus route to the new Cambridge Science Park station. Using the remaining stub of the former Cambridge to St Ives railway line, it will allow guided buses to continue from the busway direct to the station. The new route will be an ordinary road, unguided, contrary to the original plan, but will have catchpits at both ends to prevent other vehicles from using it.
No passive provision was made for the extended bus route when Milton Road level crossing was removed when the busway was built. Therefore a considerable amount of work will be required necessitating further disruption on Milton Road for around nine months (to March 2015). The guided busway had been built as a standalone scheme, rather than in conjunction with the new station, which was not a certainty at the time. The bus route will remain idle for around 14 months until the station opens in May 2016. However, the bus route work has to be done now in order to spend a £6m DfT grant (for the access points and bus route), which would expire if not used by the end of March 2015.
Like the rest of the guided busway, the extended route will also include a four-metre wide cycle path that will run parallel to the road.
Railfuture national conference in Cambridge revealed latest news about Cambridgeshire rail schemes
The two speakers from Cambridgeshire County Council, Jeremy Smith and Bob Menzies, talked about the various rail schemes in Cambridgeshire that they are working on.
Cambridge Science Park station is now funded by the Department for Transport, as was originally the expectation back in 2009 when the council made its application. However, that changed when funding was cut by the Coalition Government in 2010 and Cambridgeshire County Council brought it back to life with their innovative funding proposal to pay for it with revenue from trains stopping (something that was suggested to them by CAST.IRON). It is now scheduled to open May 2016, but the council feels this is too far in the future: it looks bizarre to the nearby hi-tech industries that it should take so long to build and open a railway station when technology is changing so rapidly and time to market is critical for high technology companies. However, the snail-like speed is down to the way that Network Rail's GRIP procedure works. Network Rail is expected to build the station in 2015. Mr Menzies assured attendees that if the number of car parking and cycle parking spaces proves to be insufficient (as Railfuture believes) there is space for more to be added.
With regard to Wisbech and Haverhill, Jeremy Smith said he felt that reopening the railway is the right solution for Wisbech but the County Council had to show the DfT that they had examined the other options in order to recommend reopening the railway. He felt the railway was not the right solution for Haverhill as the railway would need to rebuilt with a road in the way but the railway would be looked at along with other options so it could turn out that the railway is the best solution.
RAIL FRANCHISES
Charles Horton becomes CEO and Dyan Crowther named as Chief Operating Officer of Govia Thameslink Railway
On 13th June Govia announced that Dyan Crowther (who lives in the East Anglia branch area) would be joining the company from Network Rail, where she had been Route Managing Director for London North Western (and before that Managing Director of Arriva Trains Northern), to become the Chief Operating Officer of the new TSGN franchise, reporting to the chief Executive Officer, Charles Horton. Mr Horton had been announced as CEO on 6th June.
RAIL ROUTES
Ipswich chord is gradually being used for freight movements
Railfuture believes there are now four workings each way over the new Ipswich chord since the 18th May 2014 timetable changes, which is an improvement over the 'trial' GB Railfreight working. These workings are all of the GBRf ones.
Freightliner still needs to resolve its crewing/fuelling issue, whereby staff still need to go to Ipswich yard. The Freightliner services that will most benefit from the chord are those that need access to the East Coast Mainline to Doncaster or Teesport. However, the majority of Freghtliner workings to the depots accessed via the WCML and tend to be the ones that take advantage of electric traction. To convert these to cross country however, requires more of the F2N capacity upgrades to be completed, vis, Haughley Junction, Soham to Ely double tracking, Ely to Ely north junction, Syston west chord double tracking, 4th track through Leicester between Syston and Wigston and a 'flying junction' at Wigston. These are schemes due to happen in CP5.
Work is currently taking place to lengthen Ipswich Yard, including overhead gantry masts between London Road and Hadleigh Road rail bridges.
The Port of Felixstowe recently won another contract: Evergreen's China Europe Shuttle.
WEBSITES
Open Train Times website enhanced to show the signal settings and train positions from London to Cambridge and Peterborough
Hitchin to Cambridge has just been added to Open Train Times website (which shows track sections with train positions) so that the whole of the route between King's Cross and Cambridge/Peterborough Great Northern route is now included (although only part of Cambridge station is shown). The signal maps are as follows:
- http://opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/ECM1 - Kings Cross to Hitchin (ECML South)
- http://opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/ECM2 - Hitchin to Tallington [north of Peterborough] (ECML South)
- http://opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/sbr - Hitchin to Cambridge (Anglia South)
A list of all the maps can be found at http://opentraintimes.com/maps. The website track diagrams have been designed to be suitable for displaying on a smartphone, so travellers can work out what is happening on their route in real time.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 254 - 30/06/2014
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