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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 267 - 31/07/2015

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

Railfuture News Snippets 267 - 31/07/2015



Railfuture East Anglia has produced some slides to support the Cambridge 'City Deal' work - click [HERE]. The slides are intended to be read stand-alone, or used for reference during a workshop, and are therefore more verbose than if they were simply to prompt a speaker and an audience. All of Railfuture's Cambridge 'City Deal' documents are available at http://www.railfuture.org.uk/East+Anglia+Cambridge+City+Deal.

The guest speaker at the Fen-Line Users Association (FLUA) AGM in King's Lynn on Saturday 21st November 2015 will be Keith Jipps, the Passenger Service Director of Great Northern.

On Tuesday 21st July the Mid-Norfolk Railway finally commissioned its signal box at Thuxton, its mid-way point between Dereham and Wymondham Abbey, taking over from the temporary signal hut that was used since the passing loop opened in 2010. Control was switched over the weekend and was just completed by the 1st August deadline imposed by a member who had funded the final work to complete the building.

On Sunday 26th July the Southern franchise, which includes Gatwick Express, and some Southeastern services were merged into Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which has been operating the Great Northern and Thameslink services since 14th September 2014. The combined franchise will is the largest on Britain.

Chiltern Railways has already announced that its new London Marylebone to Oxford Parkway service will commence on Monday 26th October 2015 with two trains per hour. During July, more than a month ahead of schedule, the last piece of track for this truncated service was laid, although a lot of work is still needed to run trains into Oxford station from spring 2016. See http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/last-track-laid-for-new-oxford-london-line.

An online petition to Parliament was set-up on 28th July 2015 to provide protection for closed railway track-beds to aid rural regeneration. It can be found at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105077. If 100,000 signatures are made then the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament. Like all such petitions it lasts for six months and will, therefore, end on 28th January 2016.

Staying with Parliament, Bernadette Kelly, a former Director General Business and Local Growth, will be joining the Department for Transport as the new Director General Rail Executive. She replaces Clare Moriarty who has moved to DEFRA.


RAIL FREIGHT
First spoil trains visit Barrington branch at end of June

Keywords: [BarringtonBranch]

The freight-only Barrington branch, which connects with the national rail network just south of Foxton Station, has been ready for use for several months following complete relaying after six years out of use. On 30th June a freight train depositing spoil arrived at Barrington at 0739 from 'Wembley Eur Frt Ops Centre'. The reverse working departed at 11:22, taking 50 minutes to travel to Cambridge Reception Roads where it reversed about 100 minutes later, going via Royston, Stevenage and Finsbury Park before taking using Camden Junction to go back to Wembley arriving two hours later. A regular freight flow is anticipated.


RAIL ROUTES
New study estimates re-opening Wisbech to March railway line at up to £110 million

Keywords: [WisbechBranch]

An outline business case and feasibility study have been conducted got Cambridgeshire County Council into reopening the March to Wisbech railway line. Both are "very positive" according to local MP Steve Barclay with business case (which assumes a station in Wisbech town centre) representing "high value for money" with a benefit-to-cost ratio of 2.27:1 and 4.41:1 including wider economic beneifts. The study found that two trains per hour from Wisbech (conditional upon planned capacity increases at Ely) represented better value than just a single train per hour because of the higher passenger numbers and greater benefits to the economy depsite the higher operating costs. The study was also considered terminating the line at the A47, avoiding a road bridge but without a station in Wisbech itself. Unsurprisingly the benefits were much lower. The total cost is estimated between £70m and £111m, which include risk and optimism bias.

A look at the study shows how costs can increase. They say that a half-hourly shuttle could simply shuttle backwards and forwards from Wisbech to March on a simple single line, but as soon as it is suggested continuing the service onto the national rail network, which could they suffer delays, they add a pair of platforms at Wisbech and reopening platforms at March etc, or put a passing loop on the line. This is probably because of concerns that without extra infrastructure to provide resilience it will be challenging to timetable the services, and cope with late running, but that saddles the scheme with large extra costs. Since Network Rail would have to pay compensation for delays that it causes, which are more likely if only minimal infrastructure is in place, it is not surprising that they propose extra infrastructure given that they will not be paying the capital cost for it. This is a classic example of how the financial arrangements of the railway are broken.

The work in these studies is to satisfy Network Rail's GRIP2 stage of the process. The GRIP3 stage is expected to begin in autumn 2015. The If the line is reopened, as is looking increasingly likely, then it will have been at least an eight-year project as current investigations began in 2012 and the line will not reopen before 2020.

Railfuture issues press release as short list of two Bedford-Cambridge rail corridors are announced

Keywords: [EastWestRail]

On 25th July Railfuture issued a press release to warmly welcome the East West Rail Consortium's announcement showing the two preferred corridor options of the Central Section of East West Rail between Cambridge and Bedford, which it has reduced down from five possible broad corridors (with two having variants making seven in total). The two, which were previewed in a RAIL magazine article a week earlier, are described as "Bedford (South or Central) to Cambridge via Hitchin" and "Bedford (South or Central) to Cambridge via Sandy." The intention had been to draw up a short list of three. Railfuture, which has been campaigning for the Oxford-Cambridge railway for around 25 years and did a lot of the early promotion of it prior to the setting up of the consortium, has also provided a map showing the two broad 'corridors', a term used rather than 'route' to avoid causing planning blight. The corridors are very broad so shouldn't rule out St Neots and Cambourne, which Railfuture had proposed, not least because it would enable a shorter (and therefore quicker) route between Cambridge and Peterborough.

The two corridors will be evaluated closely by the end of 2015, and only if neither can be taken forward will the dropped ones be reconsidered. A preferred route will then be chosen and developed for the Central Section for consideration for inclusion in Network Rail's Initial Industry Plan (IIP), which is due for publication in September 2016. The IIP is used to consider investment in the future control periods.

Ely-Peterborough passenger services could be designated 'community rail'

Rail Minister Claire Perry has announced that the government intends to designate passenger trains serving the 29-mile rail route between Peterborough and Ely, which is known as the "Hereward line", as a community rail service and will stage an eight-week public consultation that ends on Friday 25th September. The special designation, which is used on several lines in East Anglia (such as the Bittern line and Wherry lines) will give greater flexibility to tailor services to the needs of the community although such a change is not essential to improve services as demonstrated by the introduction in December 2013 of a two-hourly at Manea station (see [Snippets 249]). The distinction between the Ely-Peterborough through route and branch lines is that it is a crucial artery in the rail network for freight trains.


ROLLING STOCK
Abellio Greater Anglia to spend millions to improve its older trains

Abellio Greater Anglia has announced plans to invest a extra £4 million in service improvements across its network in the next four months. This brings the total invested by it took over the franchise from National Express in 2012 to £35.5 million.

The investment is primarily on modifications to its class 317 trains, and also 40 of its 4-carriage class 321 trains (see [Snippets 268] for more info), that are used in many parts of its network. The 'minor refresh' work will include new seat covers, better lighting and an enhanced deep cleaning.

Passengers using Ely station will see a completely rebuilt waiting room and shop (at a cost of £500,000) on the island platform (platforms two and three) with the toilets inside the same building. This will also be fully wheelchair-complaint. Wheelchair users will benefit from a new accessible ticket window in the station building, whether there should be more space. Railfuture has long complained that it is impossible to enter Ely station in the peak when a train from Cambridge arrives.


STATIONS
Cambridge city Council approves two new access routes to the new Cambridge North station

Keywords: [CambridgeNorthStation]

It is vital that pedestrians and cyclists can access the new Cambridge North railway staiton in the shortest possible time in order to maximise patronage sand avoid road congestion. Cambridge City Council has given full planning permission to an application received 3rd June 2015 for the provision of two pedestrian and cycle access points and associated works within Cambridge Business Park. They will reduce the walking distance from the five buildings at the east end of Cambridge Business Park (Churchill House, Trinity House and Selwyn House) with a combined total of 645 people plus Redgate Newnham House and HP Autonomy House) from 1,600 metres to 500 metres and encourage people to travel to work at Cambridge Business Park by train.

Railfuture is still campaigning for the disused access along the North side of Cambridge Business Park from Milton Road to the sidings, which is owned by Network Rail, to be converted into a public footpath and cycleway to enable these two north-side accesses (one on East side of Trinity House, one on East side of Autonomy House) to the east end of Cambridge Business Park to provide a short-cut access to the new railway station. It is hoped that the station will open in December 2016 (subject to Network Rail's planning application being approved at the scheduled meeting on 19th August).

PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Mid-Norfolk Railway commissions signal box at Thuxton to commission to operate passing loop

Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]

The Mid-Norfolk Railway opened its passing loop at Thuxton in September 2010 (see [Snippets 209]), which was vital to operating a more-intensive service, but did not have the money or manpower to build and fit out a signal box. Initially it built a small cabin to house the ground frame, whilst the signal box was constructed. Almost five years later, on Sunday 19th July the last train was signalled using the cabin and on Tuesday 21st July the signal box was commissioned and controlled a train at 10:30. Some work on the interior of the signal box remained, but the switchover had to take place by 1st August in order to benefit from a large donation from a member. The Mid-Norfolk Railway welcomes donations and needs more volunteers as well.

The MNR wishes to enhance the signalling to make its operation more efficient. At Garvestone, almost a mile out from Thuxton signal box, improvements will be made to give the signalman an indication that a train is approaching further out than before. Another big project for the future is to implement signalling at Dereham station so that the MNR can run trains on its Northern Section at the same time as another train operates in the section between Dereham and Thuxton.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 267 - 31/07/2015

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