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East Anglia Branch News - Snippets Issue 308 - 30/11/2018

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

Railfuture News Snippets 308 - 30/11/2018



Ideas UK has awarded Greater Anglia (GA) a Silver Accreditation for Innovation having carried out an audit of GA to examine its employee innovation programme in areas including leadership support, finance and regulation, communication, and reward and recognition. Recent innovations have included its Virtual Ticket Assistant (ViTA) ticket machines that connect to a real person for help purchasing a ticket, the installation of free water fountains at Ipswich, Cambridge, and Chelmsford rail stations for reducing plastic waste (see in [Snippets 306]), the introduction of digital software to save on printing and paper, and the Virtual Reality events that enabled people to experience its brand new fleet of trains in advance of them arriving in Britain. Silver accreditation is given for a score of up to 75%.

It has been confirmed that plans to relocate Waterbeach station that were supported by South Cambridgeshire District Council's Planning Committee in September 2018 to agree to proposals from developer RLW Estates will not be called in by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, so the Planning Committee's approval stands. The plans will see the station moved to a new location north east of the village, which had a population 5,166 in the 2011 census.

In early November 2018 the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Board gave approval for construction to start on replacing the King's Dyke level crossing with a new bridge. The report to the board noted that without the bridge the level crossing could be shut to road traffic for around 20-25 minutes each hour causing major traffic delays. The cost of the bridge scheme, which includes a new 1km road skirting the quarry, has increased from around £17m to nearly £30m and the CA has agreed to fund the difference. Completion is due in late 2020. Info at https://uk.ramboll.com/projects/ruk/a605-kings-dyke.

The East West Rail company has announced that its first chief executive (CEO) will be Simon Blanchflower, who is currently the programme director for Thameslink. He will lead the company's delivery a new railway line between Oxford and Cambridge, having leadership experience from projects such as the early stage development of Crossrail, Heathrow Express and directing the £7bn Thameslink project. One of his first tasks to oversee will be the public consultation on options for the railway between Bedford and Cambridge in early 2019.

The sale of Millennial digital-only railcards for 26- to 30-year-olds as reported in [Snippets 307] has been delayed until 2nd January 2019 to coincide with the annual fare rises, which will rise by an average of 3.1%. The Rail Delivery Group had said in October that the cards would be rolled out before the end of the 2019.


STATIONS
Greater Anglia renovates main buildings at Ely station

Keywords: [ElyStation]

Ely railway station's main buildings have received a £58,000 facelift by Greater Anglia, with £18,000 funding from the Railway Heritage Trust (RHT), which has improved the look of the station and protected the fabric of the buildings for years to come. The old, badly patched render on the outside of the buildings was removed and the corroded steelwork beneath was replaced with new stainless steel mesh, and then covered with lime render and a specialist porous paint applied to allow the whole system to 'breathe', extending the longevity of the new render.


ROLLING STOCK
First of Greater Anglia's brand-new Swiss-made FLIRT trains arrives at Norwich

Keywords: [GreaterAnglia] [Class755]

The first of Greater Anglia's brand-new trains has now arrived in East Anglia. The four-carriage Stadler bi-mode train was hauled by a locomotive to Norwich, from where it will undertake a programme of testing around the network. It has already undergone thorough testing in the European mainland, including braking, pantographs, noise levels, emissions, operational safety, automatic train protection systems, and testing on special curved tracks against derailment. However, these tests need to be independently repeated by GA whose drivers have been participating in classroom-based training including sessions on new simulators. More trains will be continually delivered with all 38 bi-modes (24 four-carriages and 14 three-carriages) intended to be in service on its rural lines by the end of 2019, assuming that there are no delays by the Swiss manufacturer.

Greater Anglia wins 'Golden Spanner' awards for its intercity and Stansted Express services

Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]

Greater Anglia has won two rail industry awards for improving the performance of its trains. The first was a 'Golden Spanner' for the Norwich-London intercity - clocking up 58,323 miles before developing faults that needed fixing, the highest in Britain for the British Rail Intercity category, and 76,898 miles on its Stansted Express services operated by Class 379 trains, in the "electronic trains" category. Both statistics which are known as miles between train incidents (MTIN) are used moving annual average data for the 12 months ending mid-October 2018. Ga's team at Crown Point Depot in Norwich has now won the ex-BR Intercity category three years in a row.

Another Greater Anglia awards for fitting new anti-wheelslip equipment to its BR-era trains used on rural lines

Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]

The second train award won by Greater Anglia in 2018 is for successfully deploying a new train braking system to improve the reliability of the trains on its rural services. The innovative solution was vital if GA was not to repeat the meltdown when it temporarily abandoned two of its routes (Felixstowe and Sudbury) in November 2015 during the leaf-fall season because too many trains were in the depot undergoing repairs after suffering "wheel flats" following wheel-slip incidents. It was necessary to send the trains away to visit a depot with a wheel lathe to reprofile the wheels. Since then and a wheel lathe has been installed at Norwich Crown Point depot.

The innovative new train 'Wheel Slide Protection' (WSP) braking system is described as being like ABS in cars and judges whether its wheels are slowing evenly when the train brakes. It was first fitted on GA's Class 156 trains in time for autumn 2017 and helped to greatly improve reliability. In fact, Greater Anglia recorded its best ever performance results for the autumn period with GA winning the Engineering award at the Rail Industry Innovation Awards 2017. WSP has subsequently been fitted to GA's five single-carriage Class 153 trains, and GA believes that the number of rural services cancelled because to wheel flats will be reduced even further, resulting in even better performance in future.


RAIL STAFF
Greater Anglia puts Land Sheriffs on its trains and at stations

Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]

Greater Anglia has been using Land Sheriffs on board selected trains to look out for disruptive passengers, such as people who may be abusive, threatening, intoxicated, violent or behaving in a way that endangers the safety of other passengers and staff. In extreme cases they will remove a passenger from the train at the next station where they can then wait to be met by the police, rather than having to hold the train at the station until the police arrive to remove the person.

The 30 Land Sheriffs, which are grouped into nine 'Performance Enhancement Teams' are also placed on platforms to discourage passengers from delaying trains by preventing things like doors being held open when the train is ready to depart. This is particularly a problem at Liverpool Street station where it is important that trains depart at exactly the right time. Land Sheriffs are also deployed at busy events such as football matches, and also keep the large numbers of schoolchildren who use certain stations safe in the mornings and evenings.


Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 308 - 30/11/2018

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