News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 288 - 31/03/2017
In early March 2017 there were signs of clearance work at Greater Anglia's Brantham depot site at Manningtree, even though the site has not yet been purchased from the landlord or, as Railfuture understands, a final price agreed. One assumes that the clearance process is to check if there are any contamination or other issues with the land. The depot must be ready for end of 2018 in order to be fitted out in time for the new Stadler trains that will arrive in 2019. Construction of the depot will start in summer 2017.
On 21st March Abellio completed the sale of 40% of its company that runs the Greater Anglia (GA) rail franchise to Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Apparently the Dutch state railway, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, has set a funding limit of £1 billion for all of Abellio's franchises in Britain, and it was necessary to sell a stake in order to bid for other franchises.
Construction work on the platform extensions at Foxton and Shepreth are getting on with the foundations now completed. However, Network Rail has now made public its decision (for financial reasons) not to extend the platforms at Meldreth. Although extensions were not necessary, because there is no level crossing unlike the other two stations, the lack of platform space will force all passengers to use just half of the train to board and alight, increasing dwell times. Railfuture is also concerned by the narrowness of the platform at one end. The station still suffers from the London-bound platform only being accessible from stairs.
On 20th March work began on extending the platform at Stevenage station to allow all the carriages of Virgin's new Azuma trains to fit into the station. The £800,000 work is scheduled to be completed on 15th June. Stevenage's platform extension follows work done at Durham and Northallerton stations.
Felixstowe Travel Watch will hold its AGM in Felixstowe at the Salvation Army Church on Cobbold Road from 19:30 on Tuesday 9th May 2017. Councillor Phil Smart, who holds the transport portfolio at Ipswich Borough Council and is also on the Railfuture East Anglia branch committee, will be the main speaker. FTW's autumn public meeting will be on Tuesday 17th October 2017 from 14:20 at the same venue. On that occasion the guest speaker will be Alex Kirk who is Network Rail's design manager for the new passing loop at Trimley.
ESTA's 2017 AGM will be held in St Mary's Church Hall, Halesworth, starting at 14:00 on Saturday 13th May. The hall is to the southwest of the Parish Church. Walk through or round the churchyard, bearing right, and the hall is a modern building to the left. The guest speaker will be Steve Royal, Operations Manager of Anglian Bus. It is also hoped to have a speaker from the Southwold Railway Trust to update us on their work.
The FLUA AGM will be on Saturday 18th November 2017 at a new venue: Waterbeach. There will be the usual representatives from Great Northern (GTR) and Greater Anglia in attendance to answer questions.
RAIL ROUTES
Funding provided for £9.8m study for rail capacity enhancements around Ely and beyond
Keywords: [ElyNorthJunction]
The Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough and New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are each providing £3.3m, which along with £2.2m from the Strategic Freight Network, to cover the £8.8m cost of technical and feasibility studies into enhancing the rail network in the Ely area (where five railway lines come together) to allow passenger services to be improved (an average of six trains pass through the area hourly with an additional service every two hours), and also support more freight trains to and from Felixstowe. Greater Anglia is currently unable to deliver its franchise commitment of making Ipswich-Peterborough an hourly service, and aspirations for a half-hourly Norwich-Cambridge service are on hold as well. The key bottleneck in the region is Ely North Junction, upon which the studies will focus, and where adjacent roads and level crossings are part of the problems preventing the easy solution of simply reinstating the layout that British Rail removed around 1991.
It must be stressed that the funding is merely to produce an outline business case for the work. Essentially it needs to look at the problem, identify possible solutions and decide which one to take forward. The infrastructure work will cost significantly more. Plans to upgrade Ely North Junction had been scheduled for development during Control Period 5 (2014-19) but the scheme was deferred as part of the Hendy review when it became clear that the previously agreed Network Rail upgrade programme could not be delivered with the funding available. In addition, work to double the Soham-Ely line for more freight was aborted when the ground conditions were found to be incredibly difficult, leading to suggestions for a new rail route around Ely.
ROLLING STOCK
Greater Anglia's Class 170 trains to be ugraded and refurbished prior to being replaced by new trains
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
For several years Railfuture has been calling on train operators to enable passengers to be as productive as possible, and has been supporting the widespread rollout of Wi-Fi and charging facilities (including USB sockets) on all carriages. It was reported in [Snippets 287] that the Greater Anglia (GA) Class 321 and Class 317 electric trains undergoing a significant programme of refurbishment. Now £5m is to be spent on GA's Class 170 Turbostar diesel trains, which were introduced between 1999 (eight three-carriage trains) and 2002 (four two-carriage trains) and are used on the Cambridge-Norwich, Cambridge-Ipswich and rural routes, will have plug sockets installed. The carriages will also have refurbished seats with new cushions, backs and covers, new carpets, new flooring in the toilets, refurbished heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, new wall panels, repainted vestibules, grab handles and grab rails and a deep clean throughout.
The first upgraded train is now back in service and the work will be complete with all trains in service by early 2018. Arriva Traincare undertook the upgrade project at its Crewe facility under contract to Porterbrook Leasing, which owns the trains.
GUIDED BUSWAY
Transporter driver who went onto guided busway tracks 'didn't understand' no entry signs
Another month and another unauthorised vehicle goes onto the 'novelty' guided busway - something that very rarely happens on railway tracks where it is obvious that it is not a road!
At around 08:30 on Friday 3rd March 2017 a transporter carrying four Mazda cars got trapped on the guided busway tracks apparently because a Lithuanian driver took the wrong left-hand turn on Milton Road in Cambridge (having missed the entrance to the garage before it) as he 'didn't understand' no entry signs. Unsurprisingly the vehicle got stuck in the car traps and could not go forward. However, he realised his mistake and, because of the power of the transporter, was able to reverse out. Cambridgeshire County Council claimed that it did not cause any disruption to bus services.
The Cambridge News has delighted in reporting the series of mishaps and sat navs directing motorists onto the tracks. It said that six vehicles have got stuck on the tracks at various points between December 2016 and March 2017.
News: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/driver-transporter-who-went-onto-12685764.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 288 - 31/03/2017
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