News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 302 - 31/05/2018
- STATIONS [all issues]
- Acceptable but not joyous passenger numbers for first year at Cambridge North station
- Greater Anglia installs new seat benches at stations across East Anglia
- ROLLING STOCK [all issues]
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
- Thameslink timetable revamp was too ambitious as lack of trained drivers causes chaos
- Community Rail Partnerships publish new tourism leaflets for Bittern Line and Wherry Lines
- Grand Central seeks to stop trains at Peterborough to provide connections with East Anglia
- PRESERVED RAILWAYS [all issues]
The next East Anglia branch meeting will be on Saturday 16 June 2018 in Ipswich. Guest speaker will be from Essex County Council. See flyer for detail.
STATIONS
Acceptable but not joyous passenger numbers for first year at Cambridge North station
Keywords: [CambridgeNorthStation]
East Anglia's newest railway station, Cambridge North, which opened on 21st May 2017, saw 320,000 passengers during its first year, according to the official figures. Of course, these will never be fully accurate, not least because of the easement allowing tickets to/from Cambridge to be used at the new station and vice versa. Although that figure averages 6,000 a week, it was considerably lower in the first few months and by June 2018, when the figures were release, patronage was exceeding 10,000 a week.
Greater Anglia, which operates the station, had previously issued a press release announcing patronage of "more than 75,000" after the first six months, implying that there have been three times as many passengers in the second six months a the first, working out at more than 9,000 a week in the latter six-month period. If there was no further growth (highly unlikely!) then there would be about 550,000 passengers in the second year, but one would expect this to reach at least 700,000 because of the service improvements from May 2018 onwards, and hopefully much higher.
The business case for the new station, which was approved around 2012, estimated 800,000 passengers each year, a target that would be reached by the third year. Clearly this is going to be reached, especially with the improved train services that the station will have once the full Thameslink timetable is implemented in 2019. However, that mediocre target is around 1/12th of what Cambridge station already has. Railfuture has always said that there will be much higher patronage than predicted, although so far, Railfuture has been disappointed by the usage levels. Several mistakes were made when the station opened, such as not allowing anyone to park their car unless they paid by mobile phone - since changed to allow paper tickets from the TVM - with unreliable TVMs (still a problem a year later) and initially a poor train service including no direct trains to King's Cross on Sundays. The large station has been described as "lifeless" because of the lack of people around, which has not been helped by the failure to get any retail outlets open in the first 13 months of operation. The Co-Op had announced its forthcoming arrival but has pulled out.
Greater Anglia installs new seat benches at stations across East Anglia
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
In recent months Greater Anglia (GA) has installed over 450 additional, new three-seater benches on railway station platforms, meaning more than 1,300 extra across East Anglia (stretching more than one kilometre if placed end to end), with many stations gaining at least 20 extra seats. It has also replaced a further 318 existing benches with new ones. The work is part of an ongoing programme of station upgrade projects to improve customer information, lighting, ticket purchasing facilities and wider station presentation standards.
Among Railfuture's many campaigns is an adequate number of seats at stations, both on the platform and before the barriers for meeters and greeters. Unfortunately GA has done little for the latter. Railfuture also promotes greater accessibility. GA's new benches are compliant with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act and are at an appropriate height and have arm rests to ensure ease of use by those with mobility issues.
ROLLING STOCK
Greater Anglia's first new Swiss-built train begins testing
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
The first Greater Anglia (GA) bi-mode train has been completed by Stadler and is now being tested in Switzerland at the commissioning centre in Erlen. It is a four-car unit but does not have any internal fittings such as seats, wi-fi, toilets, and bicycle racks, as the principal aim is to test the traction.
Stadler is building 58 trains for Greater Anglia, 38 of which are bi-mode and will use the overhead line where it is present and switch to diesel when it is not and will change power source while the train is moving (e.g. on the Norwich to Stansted and Ipswich to Cambridge services). Most services will still be run predominantly on diesel, such as the rural routes in Norfolk and Suffolk. One assumes that GA will rotate the fleet around the services to get even wear on the pantograph, for example.
The remaining 23 of the 24 four-carriage trains and the 14 three-carriage bi-mode units are in various stages of production at Stadler's factory in Bussnang, Switzerland, along with the 10 electric intercity trains and 10 electric Stansted Express trains, which are part of the same order. Railfuture will be visiting the Bussnang factory in September 2018 to see the trains under construction. Bombardier in Derby are constructing the Aventra electric trains that will be used on the West Anglia and Great Eastern commuter services.
RAIL ROUTES
Thameslink timetable revamp was too ambitious as lack of trained drivers causes chaos
Keywords: [ThameslinkProgramme]
Railfuture - and much of the British rail industry - has been waiting years for the Thameslink Programme to open. Originally called Thameslink 2000, its first (and largest) phase went live on 21 May 2018 connecting Cambridge to Gatwick Airport and Brighton for the first time with Peterborough services to south of the Thames as well. These use the new Canal Tunnels, from just north of King's Cross station into the low-level Thameslink platforms at St Pancras International. Unfortunately, even though 'taster' services had been running for a couple of months, the railway industry was not prepared for such a big change, and the timetable fell apart on the first day following the biggest timetable shake-up in the history of Brtain's railway, ss reported in [Snippets 301].
Running additional services through the central section (St Pancras International via Farringdon and City Thameslink to Blackfriars) required the retiming of every existing Thameslink train (e.g. Bedford-Brighton). That required the re-timing of every train south of London, and getting the right paths through the centre required the retiming of every Great Northern train north of London. As a result, 100% of GTR's train services were retimed. To make things more complicated, some drivers were assigned new depots, in order to make the drivers' diagrams more compatible with the train schedules, and the drivers had to learn to drive the new Class 700 trains that use ATO/ETCS in combination (a world first) within the tunnel section, and the new route. There was considerable pressure from the government for the timetable to be implemented in full in May. However, it became apparent around two days before that there were just not enough drivers who had been trained for their new duties, partly because GTR relies upon rest-day working to release drivers for training. On the day the timetable fell apart with many services being cancelled, leading to high levels of overcrowding on trains, and others being very late.
In the immediately aftermath GTR has been trying to run a cut-down serve - but still with more train services than before - that is reliable. It had been hoped that this would bed in after the first week but it did not. It actually got worse in the second week. Time will tell how long it takes to resolve, and whether the next timetable change can be implemented in December 2018, but having sufficient trained drivers is crucial, and there just isn't enough time to train them all quickly.
The South East is not alone in having severe problems following the May 2018 timetable change. In the north of England passengers are experiencing similar problems though mainly because Network Rail failed to deliver electrification in time so new trains could not be used, and old trains could not be cascaded to other services.
Community Rail Partnerships publish new tourism leaflets for Bittern Line and Wherry Lines
Keywords: [BitternLine] [WherryLines]
New brochures promoting places along the Bittern and Wherry Lines have been produced for the summer 2018 tourism season. They aim to encourage visitors to smaller towns and villages near rail lines in Norfolk and Suffolk. The press release for the new guides say that they highlight the hidden gems, attractions, local events and festivals that can be discovered close to the Norwich, Cromer and Sheringham, and Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft lines.
The guides are published by the Bittern Line and Wherry Lines Community Rail Partnerships, which operate with support from the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP). They are available at staffed stations along the Bittern Line and Wherry Lines routes, and to download from their respective lines' websites.
Grand Central seeks to stop trains at Peterborough to provide connections with East Anglia
Keywords: [GrandCentral]
On 15th May 2018 Arriva-owned Grand Central, which has operated open-access train services on the East Cost Mainline since December 2007, has submitted an application to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to operate additional services on the same routes (north east route from five to six services a day and West Yorkshire from four to six), but stop at Peterborough for the first time. It proposes to stop there on the early morning and late evening West Yorkshire route services, as well as two of its North East services.
Previously other train companies and the DfT, in particular, have objected because they fear revenue would be abstracted from the franchised inter-city operator, which is currently Virgin Trains East Coast but becomes LNER in June 2018, especially on the London to Peterborough flow. One approach to avoiding this is to prevent ticket being sold for just that journey. There will be a period of consultation when they and other industry stakeholders can respond to the application. Railfuture East Anglia has criticised the lack of connections to Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich, so this new service would help close the gaps between services, albeit at the cost of preventing other new services on the capacity-constrained route.
PRESERVED RAILWAYS
Landmark for Mid-Norfolk Railway as it carries passengers to Worthing for the first time
Keywords: [MidNorfolkRailway]
On Saturday 19th May 2018 the Mid-Norfolk Railway ran its first passenger train to Worthing, which is on its northern section. Volunteers have been working on restoring and reopening the northern section from Dereham to North Elmham since around 2001. They opened to Hoe in 2013, and it has taken another four years to extend passenger services less than two miles. The extensino had to be inspected in advance by an Independent Competent Person, who agreed any remaining work to be done prior to carrying passengers.
There is now just the final mile between Worthing and North Elmham to reopen, and there is a firm target to do this in 2020, which will be the 25th anniversary of the MNR's formal existence, although it didn't run its first trains until a little later. Works trains have already run as far as North Elmham, but many rotten sleepers need to be replaced before passenger trains can run.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 302 - 31/05/2018
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