News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 313 - 30/04/2019
- RAIL FRANCHISES [all issues]
- RAIL ROUTES [all issues]
- STATIONS [all issues]
- Automatic Number Plate Recognition now in use at 20 Greater Anglia stations making life easier for passengers
- Greater Anglia restores Attleborough and Thetford stations
- WEBSITES AND APPS [all issues]
The Department for Transport (DfT) announced on 4th April 2019 that 73 stations across Britain will benefit from £300m of additional funding. In East Anglia GTR gets funding for Biggleswade station and Greater Anglia receives money for just Stowmarket, despite having applied for other stations including Marks Tey without which the Sudbury-Colchester Town service is stymied. The announcement hints at further round of funding for 'Mid-Tier' (£250,000 - £1m category) later so all is not lost for others such as Needham Market.
The public inquiry on the Western Section of the East West rail Link ended on 30th April 2019.
The temporary closure of Sheringham railway station, in order for the platform to be completely rebuilt for longer trains, will remain closed until at least Thursday 16th May 2019 (rather than reopening on Monday 6th May as planned), after a fault was discovered with a batch of beams. Greater Anglia says that the replacement bus services have "worked very smoothly to date, achieving 98% punctual running".
The Wherry Lines were closed for nine days from Saturday 23rd March 2019, reopening on Monday 1st April. This was to have been for the new signalling to be commissioned, but problems with the new ElectroLogIXS interlocking means this has been delayed, probably until February or March 2020. The junction at Brundall was remodelled as planned, but until the delays mean that Brundall signal box, its semaphore signals and the manual crossing gates will remain in use. Reedham Junction box was closed as planned but the incomplete signalling has created a seven-mile block section between Brundall and Reedham Swing Bridge. The Berney Arms route (between Reedham Junction and Great Yarmouth line remains closed until the re-signalling is finished, although Greater Anglia is considering a minimal shuttle service from Yarmouth to Berney Arms as it has no road access. Closing 'old technology' signal boxes has solved Network Rail's problem of having to train staff to operate them, to replace retiring signallers.
On Tuesday 9th April 2019 Network Rail published its Cambridge Corridor Study - see www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Cambridgeshire-Corridor-Study-2019.pdf.
On Saturday 18th May 2019 from 10:30 to 12:00 "ONTRACK" Rail Users Association 2019, which campaigns for better transport across the Tendring District (including buses) will be staging a Question Time as part of its AGM. It is the public's chance to grill an Abellio senior manager, councillors, and other transport stakeholders about all forms of transport. The event will be held at the Gospel Chapel, 62 Old Road, Frinton-on-Sea CO13 9BY.
On Saturday 13th April 2019 Greater Anglia's Stakeholder Manager Alan Neville gave a presentation at the Mid-Anglia Rail Passengers Association (MARPA) AGM on behalf of GA and Network Rail (NR). In a upbeat presentation he explained that NR had £2.164 billion to spend in its Anglia region (larger than just East Anglia) on operations, maintenance and renewals (OMR) in the control period 2019-2024, which was a 21% increase on the previous five-year control period. Of the total £950 is operations and maintenance. The upgrade of Haughley Junction (just north of Stowmarket on the Great Eastern Mainline) from a single-lead junction to (presumably) a double junction was at the GRIP3 stage development process. The Ely Area Capacity increase project should have the outline business case produced by November 2019, with GRIP2+3 to be complete by June 2020. To great disappointment in the room, he said that there is a proposal is to double just three miles of track between Cambridge and Newmarket by 2043. It was singled in the mid-1980s with just a passing loop at Dullingham. There were insufficient train paths to allow GA to operate an hourly Ipswich-Peterborough service primarily because freight trains used up the network capacity. However, he was hopeful that it could be hourly at weekends and some other times. He promoted GA's Flexipass for regular travellers to Liverpool Street. GA really appreciates the work done by its 200+ stations adopters who cover 95 stations.
The Mid-Norfolk Railway has announced that tickets for the 2019 Polar Express Train Ride tickets are now available at its dedicated website www.midnorfolkthepolarexpressride.com.
The BBC news website (see www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47845050) reported on a study by Highways England into the impact of £300m+ schemes to solve traffic congestion showing that, overall, it has not worked as some peak hour benefits have been offset by an increase in off-peak delays.
RAIL FRANCHISES
Abellio announced as 'Winning Bidder' for the next East Midlands rail franchise
Keywords: [EastMidlandsFranchise]
On Wednesday 10th April 2019, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced that Abellio was the 'Winning Bidder' for the next East Midlands rail franchise, which starts on 18th August 2019 and run until at least 21st August 2027 with the DfT having an option for a two-year extension. The franchisee is to be known as East Midlands Railway. The decision to award the franchise to Abellio was controversial in that the DfT announced at the same time that Stagecoach (which is the current owner of the East Midlands franchise and was one of three bidders) has been disqualified from bidding for any new franchises because it was unwilling to help fund the enormous deficit of the industry-wide Railways Pensions Scheme.
Whilst most of the services operate on the Midland Mainline and in the East Midlands, the franchise also operates the service between Norwich and Peterborough. The new franchise means that Abellio will be the only train owning company (as a partner with the Japanese in the case of Greater Anglia) providing services on the Ely to Norwich line. The new franchise promises more trains on Sundays, with earlier and later services on other days so this might mean a later Ely-Peterborough service allowing trains from Cambridge via Ely after 21:00, something that Railfuture has been calling for, although the wish is for direct trains rather than having to change at Ely. The DfT said that there would be "replacement of the entire regional train fleet", however, the word "replacement" does not actually mean entirely new trains, as was the case when Abellio won the long-term Grater Anglia franchise. The intercity routes will have branch new bi-mode trains but there will be high-quality refurbished trains on the regional/local services, Trains will be introduced between 2020 and December 2022.
As is the policy for all new franchises, it will offer Delay Repay after 15 minutes (DR15), which will bring it into alignment with GA on Peterborough-Norwich.
DfT's press release: www.gov.uk/government/news/more-seats-services-and-state-of-the-art-trains-for-passengers-on-new-east-midlands-railway.
RAIL ROUTES
Improved level crossing safety on the Felixstowe branch line
Keywords: [FelixstoweBranch]
Four level crossings on the Felixstowe branch line will be made more restrictive (to make crossing the railway safer) as part of the £60.4m project to increase capacity primarily by adding a long passing loop. The level crossings at Morston Hall, Thorpe Lane, Levington and Westerfield will have full barriers, three with obstacle detection systems and one manually controlled by the signaller using CCTV. Network Rail announced on 10th April 2019 that it will temporarily close each crossing - to remove the existing barriers and equipment replacing them with new equipment - between the following dates:
- Morston Hall closed from 4 May until 28 May
- Thorpe Lane closed from 28 May until 17 June
- Levington closed from 25 May until 1 July
- Westerfield closed from 25 May until 15 July
Project information: www.networkrail.co.uk/felixstowe-branch-line.
STATIONS
Automatic Number Plate Recognition now in use at 20 Greater Anglia stations making life easier for passengers
Keywords: [StationCarParking]
NCP has now rolled out Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology across 20 Greater Anglia (GA) stations, of which Audley End, Bishop's Stortford, Cambridge, Colchester, Diss, Ipswich, Kelvedon, Manningtree, Marks Tey and Whittlesford are in the Railfuture East Anglia branch area. For the operators the benefits are an end to cars being parked for free and also a staffing reduction (no checking of car windscreens, and less frequent need to top up stationery and emptying cashboxes in the TVMs). The selling point for customers is greater control over how and when they pay for their parking (which is ticketless), being able ot pay on arrival using a TVM (with cash or card) and allowed to pay for parking online (including with Google wallet and Apple Pay) anytime up until midnight the day after their visit on the Great Anglia Parking Portal (gaparking.co.uk). They can even pre-register their car and payment details online, allowing automatic payment to make parking completely hassle-free.
GA/NCP is not alone in using modern payment methods such as Google Pay for paperless tickets. Eurostar claims that it is the first international train operator selling train tickets via Google Pay.
Blue badge holders will continue to park for free, provided they register with NCP either online or by phone up within 24 hours of leaving the car park. They can do this online, by phone or by post and register more than one car if required.
Because the system monitors all cars that enter and exit, it is able to provide customers with real-time occupancy data (i.e. how many parking spaces are free) prior to arriving via the Greater Anglia website and Great Anglia Parking Portal.
Greater Anglia restores Attleborough and Thetford stations
Keywords: [AttleboroughStation] [ThetfordStation]
Greater Anglia (GA) has restored buildings at two stations on the Breckland line. At Attleborough, thanks to grant funding of £11lk from the Railway Heritage Trust (RHT), the listed station house building – previously used as a vets practice – has been restored to its former glory by GA, which started work in 2018 and has spent £177k on the scheme. Because of roof leaks that threatened to bring down the ceilings it has been declared unsafe but now GA hopes that it will be brought back into use for the local community.
The RHT has also awarded £19.2k to restore the four rare 130-year-old terracotta decorative brick panels and detailing on the front of the grade II listed former ticket office building at Thetford railway station. In addition, the now vacant Victorian flint building, which is also listed, will have its roof's gable end copings and parapet walls repaired to remove the risk of them falling into the public car park below. The work is programmed for summer 2019. Greater Anglia is funding the scheme by almost £57k.
WEBSITES AND APPS
Online interactive rail map introduced to help travellers identify if a station is suitable for them to use
Riil industry body, the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) has launched a new interactive map to make it easy for passengers to find out about stations accessibility, helping to boost the confidence of persons of reduced mobility (PRM) who want to travel by train. The new 'Access Map' has information about all national rail stations in Britain and allows people to identify whether a station is accessible.
The http://accessmap.nationalrail.co.uk/ site, which can be used on an iPhone, Android and desktop computers (eventually also available as an app), displays the following information:
The RDG says that from November 2019, people will be able to set up user profiles and therefore spend far less time on the phone booking assistance. Rail staff will start using the upgraded systems and by summer 2020 the customer app will go live. Several operators will be introducing new trains and these will have improved on-board passenger information systems that could – if the industry can get its act together – provide better audio-visual information about journeys.
Of course, the tool is only as good as the data that it uses. At Sheringham it is unambiguous stating "Assistance at this station is provided by an onboard member of staff but the station is unstaffed" whereas unstaffed Waterbeach station also has a tick against the "Staff available to help" category but says "We recommended pre-booking if possible. For journey advice or pre booking please contact our Assisted Travel team to ensure arrangements are in place on 0800 058 2844 or greatnorthernrail.com/assistedtravel". So what happens if a wheelchair has not booked assistance in advance?
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 313 - 30/04/2019
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