News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 259 - 30/11/2014
- RAIL FRANCHISES [all issues]
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
- Great Eastern Rail Campaign's submits report to the government calling for massive investment to deliver major financial benefits
- Network Rail publishes draft Anglia route study but critics attack 'lack of ambition'
- RAIL INVESTMENT [all issues]
- GUIDED BUSWAY [all issues]
Railfuture East Anglia will hold its next branch meeting in Peterborough on Saturday 6th December 2014 (see flier). The awarding of the East Coast franchise had been expected from some months and now that it is known (see below) it had been hoped to get a guest speaker from the winner, but despite a log of effort this has not been possible. The good news is that they will be sending a senior executive to speak at Railfuture's summer conference in Newark on 20th June 2016.
The autumn conference in London on 1st November 2014 organised by Railfuture was well attended and very enjoyable. Many of the attendees were left stunned and open mouthed by the frankness of speaker Anna Matthews of Delta Rail who lambasted the rail industry including thinly veiled attacks on the organisations of the previous two speakers (from Passenger Focus and East Coast) who were sitting close by. The most humorous and well-received presentation was probably given by Railfuture's own Director of Policy, Ian Brown, who talked about his involvement with Crossrail. Stefanie Browne from RAIL magazine, who talked about getting more women into the rail industry, was warmly welcomed at her first-ever conference presentation.
RAIL FRANCHISES
Joint venture between Stagecoach and Virgin will take over the East Coast inter-city route from the government operation in March 2015
On 27th November the Department for Transport announced, many weeks later than expected, that a joint venture between Stagecoach and Virgin, in which Stagecoach will have a 90% share, has won the franchise to run the East Coast mainline rail route from 1st March 2015, taking over from state-owned Directly Operated Railways, that have run the service since late 2009 when National Express defaulted on their franchise.
The new franchisee will pay the government around £3.3 billion in premium payments over the lifetime of the franchise. Whilst it will be offering service improvements, realistically only those that call at Peterborough (and therefore connecting with services from Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge) will benefit people in East Anglia. Of course, passengers will benefit from the brand new "state of the art" intercity express trains, but they would have been used regardless of who won the franchise.
BBC news item: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30222458.
RAIL ROUTES
Great Eastern Rail Campaign's submits report to the government calling for massive investment to deliver major financial benefits
On 4th November 2014 the Great Eastern Rail Campaign finally submitted its long-awaited "Great Eastern Report" to the government. The report called for £476m investment in the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) in order to deliver up to £4.5bn in wider economic benefits and create thousands of jobs. A key output from the investment would see a regular 90-minute London to Norwich service (the so-called "Norwich in 90" campaign), down from 109 minutes (an average of just 63 mph for the whole journey), with the same stopping patterns but without any compromise on performance.
It said that passengers also wanted London to Chelmsford in 25 minutes, to Colchester in 40 minutes and Ipswich in 60. Faster services would be achieved by using new, superior rolling stock (likely to be included in the Greater Anglia rail franchise tender) able to run at 110 mph following investment in track upgrades, signalling and overhead wire replacement. Changes to freight paths will be necessary to accommodate the faster service. With dramatically improved rail services the region could become the "California of Europe" it was claimed.
Network Rail publishes draft Anglia route study but critics attack 'lack of ambition'
On 5th November 2014 Network Rail published its draft Anglia route study, which covers not just routes within East Anglia but also around north London. As usual, the consultation period lasts for 90 days and will close on 3rd February 2015. Details on how to respond to this consultation can be found in chapter 7. See http://www.networkrail.co.uk/long-term-planning-process/anglia-route-study/.
In the study Network Rail listed some of the infrastructure upgrades that it could carry out from CP6 (1st April 2019) on the Anglia route to accommodate the huge growth in demand from passengers and freight over the next 30 years. Among the potential options for the Great Eastern Main Line identified in the study are:
- Upgrading track, signalling and overhead lines to increase line speed between Shenfield and Norwich to 110mph, which would reduce journey times between London and Norwich to 90 minutes (addressing the political aspiration for "Norwich in 90")
- Additional platforms at Liverpool Street to increase capacity
- Digital Railway bringing better signalling technology to allow more trains on the existing network
- Doubling of Trowse swing bridge (as it used to be until the 1980s) to allow more trains from Norwich to London and Cambridge
- Installing a loop (new track) at Haughley Junction and Witham to hold freight trains to help achieve faster London-Norwich journeys
- Further doubling of the Felixstowe branch line to accommodate the forecast increase in freight services
West Anglia main line improvements identified in the study include:
- Platform extensions at many stations to allow longer trains on the West Anglia Main Line
- Two extra tracks to the West Anglia Main Line south of Broxbourne to increase capacity
- Doubling the single line tunnel to Stansted Airport so that more trains can serve the airport - especially northwards
The draft study was criticised by the London Stansted Cambridge Consortium (LSCC), which represents businesses and public organisations. It was "dismayed" that the study appears to ignore the Davies Commission recommendations to improve links to Stansted Airport. In particular the airport wants to see journey times to/from London reduced to 30 minutes, which is something that would require extra tracks along the whole route in order to separeate fast and slow trains. The study says: the cost [of an additional pair of tracks] may not be justified by journey time improvements alone."
RAIL INVESTMENT
Abellio Greater Anglia to spend £10m improving the passenger experience
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
Abellio Greater Anglia has publicly committed to spending £10m on improving the passenger experience. The investment, which is in addition to the £20m announced earlier in 2014, includes interior refurbishments for its 24 Class 317/6 (interior repaint) and 21 Class 350 trains, although the latter will see little more than new seat covers. It will add another set of intercity Mark 3 carriages to its fleet (actually the ex-Virgin 'Pretendolono') in order to allow carriages to be takem out of service for a refurbishment programmme that will begin in January 2015. At some stations ticket gates will be replaced with better (i.e. faster) versions, which can also read the barodes of mobile and print-at-home ticketing and should be future-proof for smart-ticketing schemes. At four stations the waiting rooms will be improved. It will also introduce wireless mobile public address systems at eight stations so that customer service staff can make announcements whilst out on the platforms. Abellio will also hire more cleaners, customer service operatives and catering staff.
GUIDED BUSWAY
Confused motorist rescued after driving along Cambridgeshire Guided Busway
Although the guided busway has had very few serious incidents involving injuries, there have been a large number of embarrassing incidents, way beyond the number suggested in evidence at the public inquiry back in 2004. The Cambridge News, as always, was delighted to report the latest incident when a confused motorist had to be rescued vy villagers after driving along the guided busway in the Histon area.
Could introduction of car parking charges charges at previously free busway park and ride sites affect busway patronage?
On 11th November BBC Look East revealed that Cambridgeshire County Council's Economy and Environment Committee) decided to introduce, for the first time, car parking charges at St Ives and Longstanton park and ride sites that serve the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway. The two sites ar ebudgeted to cost the County Council £508,00 to run in 2014/15. The change follows the introduction by the council in summer 2014 of all-day £:1 charges for the Cambridge park and ride sites, used by noin-guided bueses, leading to a 10% fall in patronage according to Stagecoach. The two busway operators, Stagecoach and Whippet, who have to pay a fee to use the busway, have expressed concerned that they could lose passengers.
Charges are likely to be between 50p and £2 per day and will start in April 2015 and are likely to earn the council revenue of £120,000 a year. Measures will need to be taken to prevent motorists parking in nearby steeets. This will include double yellow lines on roads near the park & ride sites.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 259 - 30/11/2014
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