News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, Edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 325 - 31/04/2020
- ROLLING STOCK [all issues]
- STATIONS [all issues]
- Fenland District Council consults on options to improve facilities at March station
- Greater Anglia temporarily closes ticket offices because of COVID-19
- RAIL FREIGHT [all issues]
The April 2020 edition of Rail Professional magazine included an article entitled "Our Friends in the South" about carrying rail freight on the Felixstowe to Nuneaton route: "North vs South is a false debate — The North needs F2N...". It was based on Phil Smart's report about upgrading thr Mid-Anglia line, which is on the Railfuture website.
In April the Rail Business Daily online newsletter carried a short article about Greater Anglia's Head of Performance and Planning, Keith Palmer, and his team, on how the operator modified its train services in just a few days to cope with the COVID-19 lockdown (during which the goverment has instructed that only 'key workers' should travel on trains) whereas such changes would normally take months to plan. It also had to ensure that its own staff complied with 'social distancing' and cope with staff absences. Read the article at: https://www.railbusinessdaily.com/how-greater-anglias-train-planning-team-rewrote-the-timetable-almost-overnight/.
Following the election on 4th April 2020 of Sir Keir Starmer as the new leader of the Labour Party, he appointed Jim McMahon named new Shadow Transport Secretary. Mr McMahon has served on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority with lead responsibility for Transport before moving to Parliament to become an MP in 2015. Tan Dhesi MP is the Shadow Minister for Railways and Mike Kane MP, is Shadow Minister for Regional Transport.
Bombardier Transportation UK restarted rolling stock production at Derby on Tuesday 14th April. It had been paused because of the Government's social distancing measures to tackle COVID-19, and because the virus had affected production at many of its suppliers. However, the company introduced new working practices that comply with social distancing requirements, including greater spacing, split shifts, additional safety requirements and washing facilities.
On 23rd April 2020 the 38th and final Class 755 arrived at Crown Point from Switzerland. It was a four-car train. By the end of April, 45 out of the 58 trains made by Swiss manufacturer Stadler for Greater Anglia were in passenger service.
Greater Anglia (GA) has announced significant improvement to its train performance figures owing to the reduction in the number of passengers travelling and the thinning out of train services, both because of the COVID-19 outbreak lockdown. The improvement is not surprising as congestion on the railway is a major cause of poor punctuality, and passengers alighting and boarding can also delay trains. GA achieved performance of 91.84% across its network during the whole of March 2020. The best results were on the Manningtree to Harwich line at 98.8%, the Norwich to Sheringham line at 96.7%, the Marks Tey to Sudbury line at 95.7%, and the Ipswich to Felixstowe line at 95.1%. The performance on all routes improved signficantly after the reduced timetable - designed to provide a core service for key workers - came into effect on 23rd March.
On 6th April 2020 the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP) was rebranded as the Community Rail Network. It has a growing membership of 70 community rail partnerships, including half a dozen in East Anglia.
The North Norfolk Railway sent out a letter (dated 18th April 2020) to its shareholders and asking for financial help during the government-imposed lockdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Many heritage railways face going out of business if the cannot recover from the almost total loss of income.
ROLLING STOCK
Greater Anglia upgrades Wi-Fi speeds on its Class 755 bi-mode trains
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
Greater Anglia has increased the Wi-Fi bandwidth on its Stadler Class 755 bi-mode trains, which operate on regional routes in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex, so that passengers can benefit from faster internet access. It will also reduce poor performance when there are many passengers connecting to the Wi-Fi, although this is not currently a problem as few passengers are travelling because of the coronavirus outbreak. The Wi-Fi access is free to use - an obligation as part of its franchise agreement with the government - although, like most train operators, it requires the user to sign in. The trains also have USB and plug power chargers for devices.
STATIONS
Fenland District Council consults on options to improve facilities at March station
Keywords: [MarchStation]
In mid-April 2020 Fenland District Council has started a public consultation to improve March station as part of its £9.5 million Fenland station regeneration project, which is funded by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and driven by Fenland District Council on behalf of the Hereward Community Rail Partnership. The project has recently seen the installation of new platform waiting shelters at Manea and Whittlesea stations. The aim at March is to make better use of the main station building on Platform 1, providing better toilets, shop, waiting area etc. Change is needed, because "The existing layout of buildings on Platform 1 does not make the best use of the available space. The rooms also look tired and are in need of improvement to meet the standard of a modern day railway station", according to the council.
There are three different layout design options. The main entrance to Platform 1 would remain the same in all cases but there are different options for the location and size of the waiting room, ticket office and toilets, as well as space for the creation of a new shop or business premises. Railfuture suggests that the shop should also have access from street as well as the waiting area, as it will be the only convenience shop within a wide area of a growing part of town other than that at the petrol garage 5/10 mins walk away. if accessible from the street it would attract people to the railway station making more of a community hub, and improving its viability.
Public consultation events are unable to go ahead due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic but people can have their say on the designs via an online survey at www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/marchstation, which shows the three proposed layouts. It runs until Saturday, 9th May 2020.
Greater Anglia temporarily closes ticket offices because of COVID-19
Keywords: [GreaterAnglia]
On Sunday 19th April Greater Anglia temporarily closed 34 ticket offices and reduced opening hours at a further seven. This was because of very low demand because of the COVID-19 outbreak — passenger numbers have dropped down by more than 90%. The closed ticket offcers were consistently selling fewer than 20 tickets per day, but any close to hospitals were kept open. Tickets can still be bought at machines, online or using a mobile app.
RAIL FREIGHT
Railfreight operators and Felixstowe Port call on government to upgrade East Angila's railway for 47 trains a day
Keywords: [FelixstowePort]
According to an article in the East Anglian Daily Times on 22nd April 2020, Britain's rail freight companies operating trains to and from the Port of Felixstowe are to step up lobbying the government and Network Rail to improve the Felixstowe to Nuneaton cross-country route, via Ely and Peterborough. Thanks to the second track added in 2019 in the Trimley area on the Felixstowe branch, it is possible to carry 47 freight trains a day in each direction from the port to Ipswich and beyond. However, there is not capacity on the wider rail network to support these trains, especially if the number of passenger trains increases as planned. Currently there are 36 scheduled freight trains a day running in each direction from Felixstowe, of which 19, use the cross-country link.
One of the most problematic bottlenecks is Ely North Junction, which Railfuture East Anglia considers as its top campaign for 2020, with work also needed to strengthen bridges north of Ely to remove speed restrictions. Railfuture also wants Haughley Junction to be upgraded from the current single-lead junction back to a double junction, and for the Soham to Ely route to be redoubled. Railfuture also proposes freight loops at Bury St Edmunds. Most of these were mentioned in the article, which suggests that the "simple" work at Haughley Junction could be done by 2024.
News: https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/better-track-needed-for-freight-trains-1-6617173/.
Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 325 - 31/04/2020
[Prev Issue (324)] [Snippets Issues] [Next Issue (326)] [Category List] [Keyword List] [People List] [Story List] [Branch Dashboard]