april 2014 rail announcement

Rail AnnouncementAnnouncing all the news from the rail industry

Higgins says speed up HS2 construction

Network Rail charity pull

Chiltern to take on 68s

April 2014

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Iconic images of the

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Welcome to the !rst issue of Rail Announcement.

Having worked in the rail industry I understand that sta" of all grades do not want to read a publication full of copy and pasted press releases , but want something that they can relate to.

#e aim of Rail Announcement is to give readers just that along , where possible, with photographs that have not been supplied as part of a press pack but are unique to Rail Announcement.

Without the costs of printing and a without a big team of sales people Rail Announcement is able to devote whole pages to news stories and o"er competative advertising rates.

#e rail industry faces many challenges over the next 12 months and Rail Announcement will be there to report on these and en-courage sta".

I hope you will join me.

Jonathan Webb Editor

[email protected]

Rail Announcement 2

DRS class 68 UKLight unveiled

News

Direct Rail Services has unveiled the !rst of its new class 68s to arrive in the UK from Vosslou’s Valencia works.

#e new $eet of loco-motives, of which DRS has ordered 15 in an order valued at around %45 million, are der-rived from the Vosslou EuroLight four-axle locomotive, with many components in common with the 20-22 tonne axle load Vosslou Euro series of locomotives.

#e reduction in weight has been achieved by the use of a lighter version of the C175 series engine from Caterpillar.

A number of adaptations have been made from

the EuroLight design in orderthat it can !t the more restricted loading gauge in the UK. #e UK version also has a higher top speed of 160 km/h, compared to 140 km/h, and its fuel capacity increased from 4,000 to 5,000 litres.

Installation of a C175 engine in a locomotive is a !rst for the UK, with the C175-16, the type nstalled in the class 68s, being a four-stroke en-gine with a 175mm bore and 220mm stroke able to produce 3,755 hp at 1,740 rpm.

#e engine also makes use of electronically controlled common rail fuel injection, allowing

the injection events to be tuned to the demands placed on the engine, in-cluding speed, load and temperature of fuel.

Although the class 68’s CAT engines , which meet European stage IIIA emission standards, could be modi!ed to meet the more strin-gent 2012 IIIB emission standards, this would involve signi!cant re-design as the exhaust silencer would have to be replaced by a diesel particulate !lter, some-thing made much harder by the UK’s restricted loading gauge.

It is envisaged that fuel consumption will be re-duced by the adoption of a stop start system that

shuts the engine down a&er a set period of inactivity, although thre driver has an overide facility and the engine will restart if the cool-ent temperature falls below a certain level.

Although the class will be used on charter trains it is envisgaed that these will be the longer distance runs, such as King’s Cross to Dundee, for the golf, where their 100mph ca-pability can be appreci-ated. #e !rst passenger run is expected to be on July 19 in connec-tion with Crewe Gresty Bridge open day.

All 15 class 68s should be in the UK by late summer.

Le&: 68002 at Crewe Gresty Bridge.

Photo: J Webb

News Rail Announcement 3

Higgins calls for HS2 construction to be

speeded up as McLoughin urges calm and

Tory MP is sacked for opposing schemeJust weeks a&er the new head of HS2 set out his vision for the high-speed line, the report by Sir Da-vid Higgins , who became HS2 chairman in January, has been overshadowed by claims that trains using the route should run at lower speeds and the sacking of a Conservative vice-chairman over his repeated criticism of the £50 billion scheme .

Sir David’s report rec-ommends that construc-tion of the line, that will eventually link London with Manchester, should be accelerated to keep costs down and that a new interchange should be built in Crewe allowing HS2 to link in with routes to Wales and the

Midlands.

If his recommendations become reality Crewe will see HS2 arrive in 2027, six years earlier than initially envisaged, with the rest of the route opening three years later. Phase one is currently planned to open in 2026 with phase two expected to !nish seven years later. #e report also says that scrapping the proposed link between HS1 and HS2 could save £700 million and that HS2 rolling stock could be built for £2 billion, a third cheaper than initial estimates.

Although the main objec-tive of HS2 is to increase capacity on an already overcrowded network, critics of HS2

say that the a new report by the House of Commons Environ-mental Audit Select Committee, recom-mending that trains should run at lower speeds, undermines the business case for the high-speed line. At present trains are scheduled to run at 350 km/h, but the report calls for trains to run at 300 km/h in order that the project can be greener. #e line itself may be future proofed to allow speeds of up to 400 km/h.

n face of increasing opposition transport secretary Patrick Mc-Loughlin has urged the rail industry to “keep calm” and drew par-allels with the issues faced by the London and Birmingham

Railway Bill when it was presented to Parliament in the 1830s. #e bill was thrown out at the !rst attempt, but the West Coast Main Line, of which the L and B was an early part, is now the busiest railway of its kind in Europe.

Following months of vociferously oppos-ing HS2 Conservative vice-chairman and Lich!eld MP Michael Fabricant was sacked by the Tory party that had become increasing-ly alarmed at his anti HS2 comments and his endorsement of the sacking of disgraced minister Maria Miller.

Patrick McLoughlin

David Higgins

Rail Announcement 4 News

£38 billion plan for CP5

Over the next !ve years £12 billion will be in-vested in capital projects such as new lines and modernised stations in addition to 1,200km of electri!cation which will see the Midland Main Line electri!ed between London and She'eld and the Great Western Main Line elec-tri!ed between Bristol and Swansea.

By the end of CP5 , if the current growth continues, the railway is expected to be carrying more passengers than at any time in its history. Stations that are to be

are to be modernised include Birmingham New Street, Manchester Victoria, London Bridge, and Glasgow Queen Street.

Mark Carne, the new chief executive of Net-work Rail, said: “We are good at delivering projects both great and small and at providing a safe and reliable rail-way but want to do even more for the people that rely on our railway network. #is invest-ment responds to the growth and demands being placed upon us by delivering bigger, better

stations, more trains and seats, reopened railway lines and fewer level crossings. We all want an improving, safer, suc-cessful and better value railway for everyone, and that is what we will do.”


Work starts on new Bromsgrove station

Work has commenced on the new four platformed station at Bromsgrove, which is being constructed to replace the two platformed current station.

#e new station, which is scheduled to open in May 2015, will not only be much more user friendly than the current un-sta"ed station, but

will allow longer trains to call there and enable electri!cation of the route from Barnt Green to Bromsgrove in 2016.

Before work on elec-trifying the route can begin the current station willl have to be demolished and its tracks slewed.

#e new station will have a sta"ed ticket o'ce, li&s, toilets and a

car park for 350 cars.

Preliminary works will continue to July, with main construction works beginning the following month.

Currently contractors Murphy are carrying out work which includes removal of redundant sidings, removal of 3 re-dundant ground frames, installation of new sig-nalling and track

realignment to ac-commodate the new island platform.

#e main contractor for the station work is Buckingham.

Le&: Work underway on the new station as a Voyager heads south through the current station.

Picture: Jonathan Webb

Right: A London Mid-land service for Bir-mingham New Street calls at Bromsgrove’s current station.

Picture: Jonathan Webb


Network Rail team pull together for charity

On March 19 a team of Network Rail’s Derby Delivery Unit pulled a 57 tonne DMU at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in aid of Sport Relief.

Cheered on by a large crowd of family and friends, including a family from Japan who had heard of the curious event and decided that they just had to watch, the team managed the amazing feet twice, albeit with an hour rest between the two at-tempts!

Iris, the name of the DMU chosen for the event, was, like the team themselves, a product of Derby having emerged from the works in 1954.

Above: Preparing for the pull into Wirksworth station.

Right: Approaching Wirksworth station.

Below: #e warm up prior to the pull.

#e challenge was the idea of Michael Nicoll, who is a member of NR’s Rapid Respons Team. He came up with the idea a&er watching a group of airport workers pulling a plane for charity.


Class 458/5s enter serviceTransport minister Stephen Hammond and South West Trains launched the !rst pair of its class 458/5s into passenger service during a ceremony at London Waterloo on March 7.

#e new trains are being converted by Wabtec atLoughborough and Doncaster from 64 former Gatwick Express class 460s with six eight-car class 460 sets being converted to class 458/5 !ve-car sets.

#e other 460 vehicles will be used to stregth-en the 30 class 458/0s already in service.

Four surplas class 460 driving trailers will be scrapped.

#e 458/5’s new front end uses Hübner gang-ways and Voith cou-plings.

Not only were the orig-inal class 458 gangways not approved for public use, as the have a step in them, but joining and uncoupling had become problematic.

South West Trains argued, as part of their business case to the DfT for 10-car trains, that the additional costs associ-ated with solving these problems was justi!ed on the grounds of opera-tional conveiniance.

Before Porterbrook is willing to take the trains on lease, each unit must complete 5,000 miles of fault free running and, unusually, only pairs of trains will be accepted at any one time.

#is is due to the fact that for the majority of their time in service the 458/5s will run as 10 car sets, although single 5 car sets will be common out of the peak periods.

Heavy delays to the project led SWT to go public on what the TOC believed to be shortcom-ings at both Alstom and Wabtec.

During the launch Mr Hammond announced that studies are taking place to increase plat-form lengths at Water-loo and that three for-mer Eurostar platforms will open in the next 12 months.

Driver Oscar Martin with 458531.


Leamington line improvementsTwo popular stations on the Birmingham Snow Hill to Leamington Spa route are receiving considerable investment to make travelling easier for the many passengers that use the line.

Dorridge station has had a store room converted into a Great

Western style waiting room, that will also be used for meettings by the local community in the evenings, at a cost of £16,000.

One of the platforms is also being resurfaced and there are plans to erect a GWR style cano-py at the front of the

station.

Acocks Green station will become step-freethis summer with the installation of li&s to assist passengers with mobility problems and those with push chairs or heavy luggage.

It is hoped that Stech-

ford station will also become step-free in the not too distant future.

Just days a&er the new Dorridge waiting room opened it was vandalised twice and is now closed until further notice.

Le&: A Chiltern service for London Marylebone arrives at Dorridge station.

Right: A London Mid-land service passes li& construction work at Acocks Green station.


New trains for London Overground

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DfT rejects plans for WM rail devolution#e DfT has rejected calls for devolution of the rail network in the West Midlands.

Following the an-nouncement Wolver-hampton City Council, which has been lead-ing the campaign for devolution on behalf of 14 authorities in the region, has written to transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin stating their

disappointment that the DfT prefer an incremental approach and that devolution will probably not happen until a&er 2017, when the LM franchise is due to end.

#e proposal by West Midlands Rail would have seen local services currently operated by London Midland from Northampton and Stratford-upon-Avon in the east to Shrewsbury

and Hereford in the west and from Redditch in the south to Rugeley, Lich!eld and Nuneaton in the north devolved to them, with the DfT retaining control of the longer distance elements.

Mr McLoughlin said that a phased approach to handing over responsi-bility to a devolved body is preferable to a West Midlands body taking full responsibility from day one.

Transport for London has announced that it is inviting expressions of interest in a contract to supply 39 four-car EMUs. #e London Liv-erpool Street to En!eld Town, Chesnut (via Sev-en Sisters) and Ching-ford routes, which will transfer from Greater Anglia to TfL on May 31 2015, will bene!t from 30 new trains.

Eight new trains will be required for the electri!ed Gospel oak to Barking route, due for completion in 2017, and the remaining unit will be used for a shuttle service on the Romford to Upminster route, which will also transfer to TfL.

#e contract for the new trains, which will have many features of the Bombardier built class 378s such as air conditioning and walk through carriages, is ex-pected to be announced early next year with the new $eet coming into passenger service between the middle

of 2017 and the end of 2018.

Fierce competition is envisaged for this new contract with TfL saying that it is expecting inter-est from train builders from around the world.

#e current West Anglia $eet that the new trains

will replace will under-go deep cleaning and rebranding.

from day one.

#e LM franchise will expire in June 2017.


EMT recieves franchise extension

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Direct award for Northern Rail

East Midlands Trains has been granted a franchise extensions by the DfT.

Stagecoache’s agreement with the DfT means that the company will now continue to operate services along the Mid-land Main Line until at least October next year, although discussions are underway with the DfT on a planned direct award agreement that would allow Stagecoach to operate the EMT franchise until October 2017

#e EMT franchise was scheduled to end in April next year, but the agree-ment, which commenced in November 2007, in-cluded a pre-contracted

extension until October 2015.

#e DfT has agreed terms. which have been co-signed by the !ve Passenger Transport Executives in Northern Rail’s area, on a new direct award to Abellio and Serco, allowing the Northern franchise to be extended until Feb-ruary 2016.

Northern Rail manag-ing director Alex Hynes said: “#e next 22 months is about being more e'cient and more e"ective, seeking and delivering new ways of working. #at doesn’t

mean taking short cuts or risks. It’s about achieving a balance: delivering a safe and improved ser-vice in a new way: doing more with less.

It was expected that when Northern was created a decade ago that the DfT would reduce the size of the operator’s network in order to make !nancial savings, but numbers have risen by 47%, with 2013 seeing 94 million journeys made.


DRS supply Virgin with class 90

Turn up and go at LO

DRS has comenced a two year contract with Virgin Trains to supply a DBS class 90 for use on the TOCs Mk3 set of carriages, which are o&en used on #ursday and Friday evenings on 1G40 19.03 London Euston to Birmingham New Street and 1B94 return.

Dedicated locomotive 90034 has been repaint-ed into DRS livery at

Toton depot and the Virgin logo is expected to be applied to the lo-comotive’s nose ends in due course.

Serviced and maintained by DRS !tters , the loco-motive is crewed by Vir-gin sta" and, apart from its regular VT diagram, is available as a standby locomotive and for use on charters.

London Overgound has followed the lead of London Underground by launching a turn up and go service for dias-abled passengers.

Previously passengers requiring assistance had to notify rail sta" at least 24 hours in

advance in order to guarentee that help would be available.

Campaign group Access for All welcomed the move saying that having to book in advance was one of the main chal-lenges facing disabled people wanting to use

the rail network.

Although half of the stations on the London Overground are still not step-free, by making 46 stations accessiable it is hoped that disabled pas-sengers will not feel so marginalised and be able to make rail journeys

on the spur of the mo-ment, such as if a friend wants to meet for lunch or attend a business meeting etc, without having to make alterna-tive travel arrangements.


Job losses at London Midland

Chiltern to receive TPE class 170s_____________________________________________________________________________________

In the face of rising costs London Midland has announced that 150 sta", including 75 reve-nue protection inspec-tors, are to lose their jobs as part of the train operator’s restructuring plan.

#e latest news comes a&er problems in 2012 and 2013 saw hundreds of services cancelled due to lack of drivers, forcing it to recruit 53

new drivers and result-ing in LM passengers being given a £7 million package of bene!ts to compensate for poor service.

London Midland MD Patrick Verwer defended the move by saying that the job losses will have no impact on passengers and that e'ciency would be increased at the same time as costs being re-duced.

#e London Midland franchise runs until June 2017.

Smith, MP for Penis-tone and Stocksbridge, saying that “ the north would su"er” because of a series of “terrible deci-sions made by the DfT”.

Transport minister Ste-phen Hammond admit-ted that the DfT knew about the decision last October and saw a lease

Chiltern Railways has reached an agreement with leasing company Porterbrook to take up to nine 2-car class 170s from TransPennine Express once the lease expires next April.

#e move has caused considerably criticism of the DfT with Angela

October and saw a lease in February: “the De-partment was aware of the lease, but we cannot unreasonably withhold consent for it, so it was given”.

Mr Hammond also said: “Discussions are taking place between Chil-tern Railways and First

TransPennine Express to allow TransPennine to retain the trains until May 2015. Discussions are taking place about how many of those trains Chiltern will need in 2015, and an opportu-nity will exist for Tran-sPennine to retain some of the units until March 2016.

“Commercial negotia-tions are taking place between the Depart-ment, Chiltern and others in the industry that will allow medium and long-term solutions to be found.”


Crossrail to reach Reading

Colas buys class 60s from DBS______________________________________________________________________________________

#e prolonged saga of the stored DBS class 60s at Toton reached a conclusion in March when Colas Rail pur-chased 10 examples for future use.

A number of parties were known to be interested in the Toton 60s , including Wabtec which sent one of its senior engineers to the depot to examine 19 of the class.

#e locomotives pur-chased are: 60002, 21, 26, 47, 56, 76, 85, 87, 95 and 96.

Crossrail is to be ex-tended to Reading re-sulting in the east-west rail line serving two additional stations, a total of 40 along the route, at Twyford and Reading.

#e route is expected to be fully open in 2019 and Reading will be served by two trains an hour, enabling

passengers to travel into and beyond Lon-don without having to change at Paddington.


Chiltern to lease 68s from DRS

New stations for Bedworth line_____________________________________________________________________________________

A £13.6 million scheme to construct two new stations on the Coventry to Nu-neaton line and extend the platforms of the ex-isting Bedworth station has been given the go ahead by the DfT.

Work is expected to commence in May, with new stations be-ing provided at Ricoh Arena and Bermuda Park.

#e DfT is investing £4.7 million in the

project with Centro and Coventry and Warwick-shire councils making up the ballance.

#e stations are expect-ed to be constructed in time for the May 2015 timetable change, but an increase in services

along the route will not be possible until a bay platform is built at Cov-entry station.

Chiltern Railways has reached an agreement with Direct Rail Ser-vices to lease six class 68 locomotives for use on their West Midlands to London Mainline services from the December timetable change.

Locomotives 68010-68015 will receive Chiltern’s silver livery, with the !rst class 68 due to arrive for driver training this autumn. Servicing of the

locomotives will take place at Wembley and Stourbridge depots, with heavier maintenance be-ing carried out by DRS at Crewe or Carlisle.

Chiltern currently op-erate 4 loco hauled sets powered by DBS class 67s.

Right: 68002 at Crewe Gresty Bridge.Picture: J Webb


Passengers get first look at new tram

Midland Metro passen-gers were able to get a !rst glance of the new CAF ,trams that will re-place the current $eet, at Birmingham Snow Hill on April 5 when tram 20 went on static display for the day.

#e new trams will gradually enter service from June when four examples are expect-ed to enter passenger serviceallowing the withdraw-al of the current $eet to begin in earnest.

Work is already well

underway on the ex-tension to Birmingham New Street station, which should open next summer, by which

time all of the current $eet of trams will have been withdrawn.

#e extension will also see the current Birming-ham Snow Hill tram stop closed and revert back to heavy rail use, freeing up much needed capacity at Birmingham Snow Hill.

A new stop will open a short distance away at the base of the ramp that will take trams onto the streets of the city.

Initially the old $eet of trams will go to Long Marston for storage where the best examples will be put to one side for possible future use on a proposed extension to Merry Hill.

Scrapping is seen as a last resort, although

a number of vehicles have not seen service for a few years and have been gradually stripped of parts.

At present the CAF trams are undergoing night time testing, but itv is envisaged that day time testing will commence before too long.

NewsRail Announcement 16

Bombardier boss to join NR

______________________________________________________________________________________

Former King’s Cross shedmaster says goodbye to A4s

Dr Francis Paones-sa, the UK managing director of train build-er Bombardier, is to become the managing director for infrastruc-ture projects at Net-work Rail, replacing Simon Kirby who will take up the role of chief executive at HS2 Ltd, from June.

Joining Bombardier as president of UK rolling stock in 2010 Mr Pao-nessa was promoted to managing director and helped the Canadian company get through a very di'cult time in its history by buying a number of its main suppliers, that strug-gled to cope when

Bombardier wanted to ramp up production, and going on to win the Crossrail contract in addition to contracts to build new trains for Southern and TfL.

In his new £425,000 post Mr Paonessa will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of Network Rail’s £25 billion of infrastructure renewals and enhance-ments.

Former King’s Cross shedmaster Peter Townend made a 300 mile trip from his Tor-quay home to say good-bye to Dwight D Eisen-hower and Dominion of Canada at Locomotion, the National Railway Museum at Shildon be-fore they return to their home museums, and the National Railroad Muse-um, Green Bay, Wiscon-sin USA

and Exporail, the Cana-dian National Railway Museum in Montreal, Canada.

Now a sprightly 89 year old, Mr Townend was shedmaster between 1956 and 1961.


Thameslink 319s to be cascaded north

Northern Rail is to take delivery of 14 First Capital Connect class 319 units, 56 carriages in total, in time for the December timetable change.

#e !rst 319 unit will arrive at Allerton depot next month to allow driver training to commence, with two expected to enter passenger service on the Liverpool to man-chester route from remaining 12 to follow in 2015.

Numbered 319361-319378 the Porterbrook leased units will be modi!ed from DOO, as used by FCC, to doors operated by conductors as per all other North-ern Rail trains. Various options for refreshing the trains are being considered before they enter passenger service.

#eir arrival will allow class 142,150 and 156 diesel units to be re-leased for other ser-vices across the region including the new Todmorton curve, ex-pected to open in May, enabling faster journey times between Burnley and Manchester.

New class 377s, cur-

New class 377s, cur-rently under construc-tion at Bombardier’s Derby plant, will re-place some of the cas-caded class 319s . #e next few months will see the #ameslink route strengthened by six 4-car class 377/2s which are being released by Southern. #is cascade will see First Capital Connect able to release three 4-car class 319s.

With First TransPen-nine Express set to lose a number of its two-car class 170s to Chiltern there is speculation within the industry that some of the cascaded diesels may be redeployed to TPE.

Above: A FCC class 319.

Below: A class 377 under construction at Derby.


Strikes loom over LU job cuts

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Row rumbles on over Welsh electrification

Tensions have risen between the UK and Welsh governments over who will pay for electri!cation in South Wales.

#e Welsh government

claims that the UK government would fund the electri!cation of the London to Swansea main line , along with the Valley lines, the commuter lines that run in and out of Cardi",

but Westminster has hit back saying that it was agreed that the cost for electrifying the Valley lines would be bore by the Welsh government.

In 2003 Arriva,which is scheduled to operate the Wales and Borders fran-chise until 2018, entered a subsidy agreement with the Welsh govern-ment. #e !rst year saw this cost the government £138.5 m, with the cur-rent !nancial year seeing this payment rise to £157 m.

Arrivia’s Network Rail access charges be £16.8 million in 2017/8 but will double to £33.8 million for 2018/19, with the DfT looking to the Welsh Govern-ment to continue with this arrangement in the next franchise, allowing electri!cation costs to be met.

An outline business case, wriiten in 2012, for elec-trifying the Valley lines puts the cost of carrying out the work at between £309m to £463m

A series of strikes commencing on April 28 are set to go ahead following the collapse of talks to reverse plans of closing the majority of London Underground ticket o'ces.

#e RMT union claim that 1,793 positions will go in the cuts and that LU plan to create 900 new management posts, equating to one manager for every four sta".

LU argue that the introduction of Oyster and online technology has seen the number of

passengers using tick-et o'ces drop to just 3% of those using the London Underground and that closing o'ces is about modernisation and not just saving £50 million a year.

#e !rst proposed two-day strike in Feb-ruary was called o" at the last moment and unions given a two-month breathing space to discuss ticket o'ce closures on a station by station basis. Lit-tle progress has been made on this front over the last few weeks and

mayor Boris Johnson, who said in his 2007 transport manifesto that he would : “ Make trans-port more convenient by halting the proposed ticket o'ce closures and ensuring that there is a manned ticket o'ce at every station.” , has said “ It’s a great shame that

cool heads appear not to have prevailed among the RMT leadership. “

It is thought that many ticket o'ces will be converted into retail units or click and collect points.


Unions mount challenge over East Coast

Rail unions ASLEF,RMT and TSSA have agreed to adopt a united approach in launching an appli-cation for a judicial review into the Gov-ernment’s plans to reprivatise the East Coast franchise and current DfT policy of making direct awards to get the franchis-ing timetable back on track.

#e new East Coast franchise, which is currently at the invi-tation to tender stage, is scheduled to com-mence early next year prior to the general election in May.

Richard Brown’s review, ordered in the wake of the West Coast fran-chise !asco which ini-tially saw First awarded the contract before the decision was reversed following a legal chal-lenge from Virgin, recommended that the franchise procurement process should last for at least 24 months. #e privatisation of East Coast is being pushed through by the Govern-ment over a 15 month period, in the hope that a deal can be concluded by next February.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes added: “#e Tory led coalition knows only too well that rail franchising is not !t for purpose. #ey continue to ignore the recommendations of the Brown review which they commis-sioned following the West Coast debacle. Rail workers are at a loss to understand why the government in-sists on going forward with a broken system which threatens the interests of passengers and taxpayers. We can only conclude that the ideology which saw Royal Mail $ogged o" on the cheap continues to thrive.”

#e East Coast has had a chequered history with operator GNER having to give up the franchise in 2007 fol-

lowing !nancial di'-culties. #e route was then run by National Express for just under two years until Novem-ber 2009 when govern-ment controlled Directly Operated Railways took over following !nancial di'culties at National Express.

In January First Group, Keolis/Eurostar and Stagecoach/Virgin were announced as shortlist-ed bidders for the new franchise.


Access for All funding reduced

______________________________________________________________________________________

Funding to provide disabled access to rail-way stations, under the Access for All scheme, will be cut from £43 million to £25 million annually from next year until 2019, putting the legacy of a new era for disabled people, which the Paralympic Games were meant to herald, under threat.

Funding for AFA was £388 million between 2006 and 2015, but in January transport minister Robert Good-will made the remark

hat requests to him from charities for the disabled amounted to the “ sort of list that my children used to bring me to give to Santa”. #e government was no less dismissive when the Transport Select Committee raised con-cerns over disabled ac-cess to the rail network, replying : “We believe that if we were to seek the views of charities and disability groups at a national level, this would add little value to the process as most groups would simply

recommend their local station.”

Hitachi to open global HQ in UK

Hitachi is to move the global headquarters of its rail business from Japan to the UK in a development that sees Alistair Dormer, the present head of Hitachi Europe, promoted to global CEO for rail.

#e move will allow Hitachi, which is cur-rently constructing a train building plant in County Durham, to set up a base in the UK for entering Europe’s rolling stock market and compete head on with Bombardier !rst

and Siemens. #e !rst trains to emerge from the works will be roll-ing stock for the Brit-ish Intercity Express Programme which will begin to enter passenger service on the East Coast and Great Western Main Lines over the next 3 years or so.

Hitachi has a global turnover of £1.67 billion with an aim of increas-ing it to £2.5 billion over the coming years.

Kentaro Masai becomes president and CEO of

Hitachi’s Rail Systems Company and Shinya Mitsudomi has been appointed global CSO.

#e !rst locomotive to arrive in Japan was built in the UK. In 1865 #omas Glover brought

steam locomotive Iron Duke to Japan, where it worked along an 8 mile stretch of track in Nagasaki. It took until 2007 for the !rst Jap-anese built trains, the class 395s, to arrive in the UK.

Above: Loughborough station has had li&s installed. Prior to this disabled passengers had to use a barrow crossing at the end of the plat-form.


Shropshire and mid Wales to benefit from hourly service

______________________________________________________________________________________

Exeter to get new station

#e Welsh government has agreed to fund peak-hour hourly trains between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury, creating 20 new train crew and depot jobs , from May next year.

#e new services will be introduced on an initial three year trial basis and will result in four new return Mon-day to Saturday services between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury, with hourly services during peak times, along with two new return Sunday

services and improved evening services between Barmouth and Pwllheli.

Also included in the funding package are ad-ditional services over the Heart of wales line, with some services becoming more conveniently timed and the Heart of Wales Lone Forum receiving £150,000 to research what other improve-ments can be made.

A recent Heart of Wales Line survey highlight-ed how impractical it was to use the route for

was to use the route for commuting, especially to Swansea, with the current timetable.

A new station is to be built at Marsh Barton, just west of Exeter St #omas.

Consisting of two plat-forms , waiting shelters, cycle racks and CCTV the unsta"ed new sta-tion, the ninth in Exeter, should open in 2016.

#e new station will not only serve a new hous-ing estate at Harcourt, but those working at a busy trading estate.

A new steel footbridge across the railway will also be erected as part of the scheme, which is part of the Devon Metro project which aims to improve the rail network across Exeter.

Right: Nearby Exeter St Davids station.


Line reopens at Dawlish

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Work progresses at Norton Bridge

#e rail route through Dawlish reopened to trains on April 4, fol-lowing the storms that breached the sea wall and washed away the railway two months earlier.

#e breach, that was more than 90 metres in length, saw not only the formation and ballast washed out to sea but a retaining wall that sup-ported a local roadway and the roadway itself.

To allow work to com-mence 11 ship containers were brought in and placed in front of thre breach. #ey were then-welded together, !lled

with rocks and rubble, creating a metal barrier and protecting the area from further damage. However such was the hostility of a later storm that it split open two of the containers.

In addition to damage to the sea wall section of route, Dawlish station it-self su"ered at the hands of the weather, especially the down platform.

Prime minister David Cameron made the e"ort to visit Dawlish on the opening day and thank the sta" for their hard work.

Work is progressing well on the Norton Bridge $yover and a press visit in mid-April witnessed the ground works in preparation for laying of the !rst rails next summer.

#e current connection to the Stoke line will be retained, but reduced to a single track with no timetabled movements over it.

It will only be used during times of disrup-tion.

Below: A newt reserve has been created at Shallowford House for newts displaced during the works.

Above: Work on constructing the route of the new $yover.


JR East awarded HS2 contract

Fi&y years a&er the !rst Shinkansen entered passenger service in Ja-pan HS2 Ltd has signed a four month contract for consultancy services with Japan International Consultants for Trans-portation , of which East Japan Railway own 53%. #e contract runs from January 31 to May 31.

#e company will examine ways of reduc-ing pantograph noise, methods of cutting micro-pressure waves in tunnels, reliability anal-ysis of operations and maintenance, compar-isons between slab and ballasted track designs, asset management and station management. HS2 Ltd has already re-ceived an interim report on pantograph noise from the company.

#is latest news comes ahead of JR East coin-cides with JR East open-ing its !rst o'ce in the UK and HS2 Ltd’s Tech-nical Director, Professor Andrew McNaughton welcomed JR East’s involvement in the high-speed project by saying : “ JR-East is respected across the world, hav-ing been part of a high speed rail transport system connecting

Japan’s biggest cities. Its services have been run to the highest degrees of comfort, reliability and safety for 50 years. We are very pleased to be working with one of the world’s great experts.” Prof McNaughton said that JR East’s experience of running trains o" its high-speed rail network onto classic lines would be of great bene!t to HS2 and Network Rail in planning how towns and cities not directly on the planned ‘Y’ network could be served .

JR East Vice-Chairman Masaki Ogata said that the train operator is “very interested in fran-chises “ but that “ We must do further analysis and investigate the

market further”

#e agreement gives HS2 Ltd access to important knowledge of how to integrate high-speed rail with a conventional rail network, an ex-ample being JR East’s mini-Shinkansen ser-vices which operate over regauged routes to reach cities o" the high-speed network such as Yamaga-ta and Akita.

Above: Dating from 1964 the classic type O was the !rst Shinkan-sen to enter service in Japan.


Abellio to invest £20 million in Greater Anglia

#e DfT has announced that it has signed a 27 month direct award franchise agreement with Abellio for the operator to continue running the franchise until October 2016.

#e agreement will act as a stop gap measure pending the award of a longer term franchise.

It is intended that a ten-der notice for a 15 year contract, commencing in October 2016, will be published next March.

#is interim agreement with Abellio includes additional weekday o"-peak services between Cambridge and Stansted Airport along with the refurbishment of their Mk 3 carriages and !tting them with control emission toilets. A start will also be made on a programme to !t CET to the operator’s $eet of class 321s. In total the improvements represent an investment of £20 million.

#e news follows last November’s announce-ment by the government to establish a ‘Norwich in 90’ taskforce to speed up services between London and east Ang;ia.

Although the headline is about the end to end journey time, it is ac-tually about upgrading journey times along all the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) north of Shen!eld to bene!t pas-sengers in Essex, Su"olk and Norfolk. #ere are 91 crossings (ranging from foot crossing to full road crossings) between Shen!eld and Norwich. #e issue is not about closing all of them. It is about identifying which ones have the most impact on journey times and therefore should be targeted for upgrade or potential closure as part of reducing journey times.

Although the Class 90s are capable of running at 110mph, the maximum

line speed anywhere on the GEML is 100mph.


Passing of a rail legend

Although many did not share his political views, the death of RMT gen-eral secreatry Bob Crow has been mourned by railway sta" troughout the country.

Born in June 1961 , Bob joined the railway a&er leaving school at 16 and initially worked on track maintenance .

It was a&er a disagree-ment with a foreman, and the subsequent way in which the union dealt with it, that Bob decided to join the branch com-mittee and aged just 22 he became a representa-tive of the NUR.

A lifelong supporter of Millwall, Bob was a friendly and kind person, far removed from the

portrayal of him in much of the media.

He shrugged o" labels such as dinosaur, by re-plying that dinosaurs had been around a long time.

Under his leadership the RMT was able to nego-tiate better deals for its members and many rail sta" working in London were able to share in the economic success of the capital as it grew into a world !nancial centre.

A Eurosceptic and far from a fan of capital-ism, Bob Crow once remarked that he had more in common with a Chinese labourer than with Sir Fred Goodwin.

His legacy will be of in-creasing membership of

to 80,000 and in redi!n-ing the role of politics in creating a fairer environ-ment for rail workers.

Bob is survived by his four childrean and his partner Nicky.


Greater share of costs fall on passengers

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#e O'ce of Rail Reg-ulation has released !gures that show rail passengers are shoul-dering a greater share of costs, with farebox receipts totalling £7.7 million. #is !gure is 3.6% higher than 2011-2012 and 7.2% higher than in 2010-2011.

Government contribu-tions amounted to £4 billion towards a total expenditure of £12.3 billion, amounting to 30.9% of the rail indus-try’s income which is the lowest amount of sup-port in recent years.

#e ORR’s report high-lights the variation in government funding be-tween England, Scotland and Wales, with

journeys made in En-gland receiving funding of £2.19 for each journey compared to £7.60 in Scotland and £9.33 in Wales.

Passenger journeys have

increased by 10.4% over the last three years, with railfreight rising by 29.7% over the same period.

TfL invites tenders for new trains

Transport for London has issued a tender for the supply of additional trains on the Northern and Jubilee lines.

#e tender document outlines TfL’s requirment for between 11 and 63 6 or 7 car trains is as a result of upgrading the routes and extending the Northern line to Batter-sea.

#e current forecast is that the Northern line will require between 5 and 50 x 6 car trains (with the most like-ly number being 24). Similarly, the Jubilee line is forecast to require between 6 and 13 x 7 car trains (with the most likely number being 11).

TfL may also include certain upgrades to the existing $eet on the

existing $eet on the Jubilee and/or Northern Lines within the con-

tract.


ORR figures show nationlised East Coast performing well

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Finance in place for Hitachi IEP trains

Plans to reprivatise the East Coast Main Line are under fresh scrutiny following the O'ce for Rail Regulation’s recent report that the route, run by state-owned Directly Operated Railways, made a net payment of £16m to the government, returning £203m in franchise pay-ments against a £187m track subsidy.

#e only private rail operator to make a net contribution was South

West Trains which made a payment of £5m.

Virgin Trains, which paid £40m to its share-holders and is shortlist-ed for the East Coast franchise, said it could double East Coast’s payments to government if it did not have to pay so much to Network Rail and was running newer trains. A spokesman said: “ “It is a myth that public ownership of the railways would leave the taxpayer better o".

#e huge investment which has gone into the west coast means Vir-gin Trains paid £318m more than East Coast for

annual rolling stock and track charges.”

Financial close for the new East Coast Main Line $eet of 65 trains has been reached between the DfT and Agility

Trains East, a consor-tium led by Hitachi.

#e consortium is re-sponsible for the

!nancing , manufactur-ing, maintenance and daily provision of trains for the second part of the ECML project. As well as supplying the new trains Hitachi Rail Europe will create a new maintenance facility at Doncaster and maintain the $eet for the duration of the 27.5 year contract.

#e Hitachi factory in County Durham is due to be completed in mid-2015 with rolling stock production starting in 2016.

#e future for the displaced class 91s is uncertain, but transfer to the Anglia region, as a replacement for class 90s, has been mentioned as a possibility by rail bosses.

Rail Announcement 28 International News

Love on the line in Japan

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Bombardier donates $125,000 to rebuild damaged schoolsBombardier has donated $125,000 towards the re-building of three schools damaged by last year’s typhoon Haiyan which ripped across the Phil-ippines last November killing over 6,000.

#e schools are located in Tapilon, Kawit and San Remigio , commu-nities where the families of many Bombardieremployees live, and the work will be managed

by the non-pro!t organi-zation Habitat for Hu-manity Philippines.

Following the natural disaster, Bombardier Transportation issued a call for donations to all its employees. Manage-ment then matched the amount raised.

Evelyn Pantaleon, Prin-cipal of Kawit Elementa-ry School said : We

are grateful to the sup-port provided by Bom-bardier and Habitat for Humanity Philippines, which will change the lives of pupils in North-ern Cebu. #ey are cur-rently completing their semesters and studying in makeshi& temporary classrooms. #is contri-bution will enrich and rebuild local communi-ties and is welcomed and appreciated by the pupils and their families.”

For 25 years, HFHP has served over 60,000 families throughout the country. HFHP envisions that every Filipino family has a decent place to live. Visit www.habitat.org.ph or www.facebook.com/habitatphilippines for more details.

JR East is hoping to en-courage romance between passengers by installing a pair of heart shaped seats at Ekawasaki and Tsuboji-ri stations. #e idea being that , because the benches incline inwards, that any two people sat on the bench will soon be close together. Tsubojiri is an unusual choice for such a bench as the station only sees around two passen-gers a day.

Over in Japan’s Chiba prefecture train operator Ryutetsu has installed pri-ority seats for couples.

#e seats are on trains which run along the Nagareyama line, which connects Nagareyama and Mabashi.

Nagareyama is the location for a soon to be released romantic !lm called Momoso, Kochi wo Muite, which comes

out on May 10. Ryutetsu trains feature in many of the !lm’s scenes.

International News Rail Announcement 29

DB carried over 2 billion passengers in 2013

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FS Italiane sees profits rise by 20%

Deutsche Bahn saw passenger numbers leap by 42 million in 2013, taking the total number to over two billion.

Dr. Rüdiger Grube, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board pointed out that the sale of new cars and number of passengers choosing domestic $ights had declined and that : “ the general mobility trend is clearly leaning toward train travel.”

Despite the positive news Grube admitted that 2013 was a chal-

challenging year for the rail operator and: “Economic growth progressed worse than expected in many places – and that was re$ected in the demand for our transport and logistics services.”

Revenues during the 2013 !nancial year was, at EUR 39.1 billion, a little below that of 2012 (EUR 39.3 billion) with DB facing heavy pressure from rising costs, mainly in terms of sta" and en-ergy and having to deal with the consequences of natural disasters such as

disasters such as $oods and storms.

Last year DB took on over 11,000 employees in addition to 4,000 new vocational trainees and cooperative education students.

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS Italiane) has recorded a net prof-it of %460 million, an increase of 20% on the previous year.

#e state owned rail company saw its oper-ating costs fall by 0.2% to %6.3 billion last year, with its operating rev-enues climbing to %8.3 billion.

As part of its four-year business plan FS Italiane has announced that it will invest %24 billion in

new rolling stock and infrastructure improve-ments.

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