Abellio retain East Anglia Franchise

[Christopher125]

I still think for total fleet replacement and ERTMS it's a case of believe it when you see it to be honest

The ERTMS rollout will happen but inevitably slower and more expensive than hoped, but I see no reason whatsoever to doubt the fleet replacement.

[Ravenser]

It would have been better to spend most of the billion plus pounds on improving the infrastructure rather than replacing trains that in most cases don't warrant it.

Most of the delays on the GE are down to poor overcrowded infrastructure rather than train failures

 

The big gain from Crossrail is removing the bottleneck from Bethnal Green inward where 2 x 4 track mainlines join as a 6 track section, plus freeing up 2-3 platforms in the station. The GE has one of the oldest big fleets in the country - nothing apart from the 360s and 379s is less than 25 years old, and the 315s are nearing 35 years old. The stock hasn't exactly led a quiet life, and you can't defer replacement for ever.

 

When the new trains arrive the stock being replaced will be around 30 years old. Not much of Gresley and Stanier's stock -whether coaches or locos - lasted longer than that. We forget just how quickly time passes. It's now as long from the introduction of the HST as the introduction of the A4s and the Silver Jubilee was from the first squadron service of HSTs on the WR ......

 

Some of the 317s may end up rivalling Churchward's Stars and Toplights for longevity.

[SwissRailPassion]

The new regional Stadler units should provide a much better environment and much better acceleration than the mixed fleet of 156 and 170 units. The 170s are slow off the mark but will provide a useful improvement in standards at Northern or EMT. Northern have a shortfall of ex Scotrail 170s in the coming change around, perhaps this will be made good by Anglian cascades.

[Glorious NSE]

When the new trains arrive the stock being replaced will be around 30 years old. 

 

Some of the hauled coaches on the Norwich services are already 40 years old...

 

(That's deliberately ignoring the 37s and Mk2s )

['CHARD]

It would have been better to spend most of the billion plus pounds on improving the infrastructure rather than replacing trains that in most cases don't warrant it.

 

 

The choice doesn't exist though.

 

Infrastructure - Network Rail - on Government balance sheet.

 

New trains - Angel Trains etc - off balance sheet.

[SwissRailPassion]

The Wherry Lines ETMS scheme has been abandoned and common sense has prevailed. The resignalling will be with colour lights after all.

['CHARD]

Kindly disregard my earlier nonsense about Class 360 moving to Northern, I'd been on the mushrooms again I think 

 

I had conflated industry gossip with fact.  It happens.

[PM47079]

As a user and driver on the line I do have conflicting opinions. I am pleased that the new stock and especially an hourly Peterborough service is promised. But as a freightliner driver driving on the anglia region I am acutely aware of the fact there are not a huge amount of paths and I do think that any future growth in freight may be very difficult due to this fact,but we will see.

[Suzie]

Electrification of Stowmarket to Peterborough (and Ipswich to Felixstowe) for the Electric Spine and associated improvements will be needed to make room for more freight. Very little actually needs to go via London, especially given the flat crossing at Stratford to get to the NLL.

 

Electrification will allow better acceleration of freights to fit in more paths. Bacon Factory Chord has been done so the route must be considered key.

[Zomboid]

Isn't a lot of the freight that goes south at Ipswich heading for the WCML? There would need to be electrification to Nuneaton and probably Birmingham to make it really worth doing Felixstowe - Peterborough.

[PM47079]

Yes indeed there would. There are a lot of trains that go Birmingham way. I am in favour of electrification on these routes but I don't know if there are any firm plans in place for it. There isn't much reason to go via London other than the paths we have. But will there be enough capacity to send everything cross country that goes via London and provide extra capacity? The doubling of the Soham single branch would be great but it seems to have gone quiet on that score

[russ p]

A few years ago it seemed like Soham and the Ely loops were going to happen then it was all postponed.

I agree that it is vitally important to safeguard freight paths especially if Sizewell gets the go-ahead

[cheesysmith]

Didn`t there used to be a virtually dedicated freight route from Manchester via sheffield and it went all the way to march yard? What would this be worth now?

[PM47079]

Now that would be useful! Like Russ I hope that the freight paths are protected

[Ravenser]

Didn`t there used to be a virtually dedicated freight route from Manchester via sheffield and it went all the way to march yard? What would this be worth now?

 

In this case , not a lot. The bottleneck is the single track section between Soham and Ely - which is well south of March Yard, and from what I can make out, has always been single - the LNER never got round to doubling  that bit.

 

Additional capacity north of Ely will not help resolve a capacity constraint between Ely and Ipswich, and as far as I'm aware Peterborough is not currently seen as a bottleneck. The cross-country container route continues via Stamford and Leicester , so there is no need to cross the ECML between Peterborough and Werrington Jnc. Anything heading for Leeds (Stourton) could perfectly well be diverted via Sleaford and Lincoln along the Joint, but would be subject to a 60 mph speed limit

 

And capacity in the Doncaster area and between Doncaster and Rotherham would be a serious issue. Doncaster to Rotherham is a very busy bit of railway these days

[Lord-Claud-Hamilton]

Genuine question, as I'm not as knowledgeable on these matters as many of you, but is there a capacity issue between Ely and Ipswich....or is it more between Ely and Ely North Junction?

 

I estimate/guess that there are six paths an hour (?) through the single line section between Soham and Ely. But I cant see how all those paths are used at the moment.

 

Or is this for future growth on the line?

 

Apologies if I've missed summit obvious here.

[Zomboid]

Unless the block sections are really long, the other bottlenecks between Soham and Ipswich are likely to be the single lead junction just north of Stowmarket (Haughley Junction?), and between there and the new curve to the East Suffolk along the GEML, but those don't seem likely to be as serious as Soham - Ely North.

[definate maybe]

Its going to be interesting times around my area.There are a couple of things that seems strange to me though.

 

With 3 car units the minimum, which in itself seems weird on lines like Felixstowe which often have 3 people on them!, Can the current bay at Ipswich accept two of the new units? There is often a 153 and a 156 or 170 in there but I haven't seen anything longer.

 

I cant understand the logic of extending the Peterborough Ipswich services through to Colchester. With Ipswich Colchester already well covered and only Manningtree in between the two stations, where does this requirement come from?

 

With the additional passenger services, I'm not sure how the ever growing Felixstowe freightliners are going to be accommodated. Sudbury services are being extended to Colchester (again 3 car units???). The Peterboroughs being extended to Colchester as well and stock moves to the new depot at Manningtree means there are less paths when the GEML is reached. Cross country services have been discussed already.

 

Having read some of the new provisions I not sure whether we are futureproofing the area or have just gone mad for the sake of it.  

 

Mark

[phil-b259]

Its going to be interesting times around my area.There are a couple of things that seems strange to me though.

 

With 3 car units the minimum, which in itself seems weird on lines like Felixstowe which often have 3 people on them!, Can the current bay at Ipswich accept two of the new units? There is often a 153 and a 156 or 170 in there but I haven't seen anything longer.

 

I cant understand the logic of extending the Peterborough Ipswich services through to Colchester. With Ipswich Colchester already well covered and only Manningtree in between the two stations, where does this requirement come from?

 

With the additional passenger services, I'm not sure how the ever growing Felixstowe freightliners are going to be accommodated. Sudbury services are being extended to Colchester (again 3 car units???). The Peterboroughs being extended to Colchester as well and stock moves to the new depot at Manningtree means there are less paths when the GEML is reached. Cross country services have been discussed already.

 

Having read some of the new provisions I not sure whether we are futureproofing the area or have just gone mad for the sake of it.  

 

Mark

 

The Felixstowe container trains are pretty much all going to go via the Bacon Factory curve in future and head across via Ely - Crossrail has seen to that.

 

As such more passenger paths may become available, or it could be the new franchise are planning to do cleaver things with splitting and joining trains at Ipswich / Colchester. With the bulk of the regional fleet being Bi-mode and all from the same family of units there is lots of new flexibility which can be exploited.

Edited September 10, 2016 by phil-b259

[Ravenser]

I suspect capacity and connections are behind extending the Ipswich /Peterborough trains back to Colchester.

 

This means that you have connections into the Liverpool St /Clacton and /Harwich services as well as the Ipswich/Liverpool St trains - hence you relieve any pressure on the Ipswich train. (I assume that this won't be connecting into the through Lowestoft services - unless what is actually being proposed is a Liverpool St -Lowestoft/Peterborough train that divides at Colchester North rather than Ipswich. Colchester might be under less pressure than Ipswich , and hence be a more convenient place to divide)

 

The other modest gain is that Clacton , Walton, Harwich and Sudbury are only one change, not two from Peterborough, and Colchester is a through service . If you are trying to fill a 4 car unit instead of a 2 or 3 car one the potential traffic gain might be worth it.

 

The pressure on line capacity will be south of Colchester, so running two trains between Ipswich and Colchester should not be an issue

Edited September 11, 2016 by Ravenser

[Edwin_m]

Its going to be interesting times around my area.There are a couple of things that seems strange to me though.

 

With 3 car units the minimum, which in itself seems weird on lines like Felixstowe which often have 3 people on them!, Can the current bay at Ipswich accept two of the new units? There is often a 153 and a 156 or 170 in there but I haven't seen anything longer.

 

I cant understand the logic of extending the Peterborough Ipswich services through to Colchester. With Ipswich Colchester already well covered and only Manningtree in between the two stations, where does this requirement come from?

 

With the additional passenger services, I'm not sure how the ever growing Felixstowe freightliners are going to be accommodated. Sudbury services are being extended to Colchester (again 3 car units???). The Peterboroughs being extended to Colchester as well and stock moves to the new depot at Manningtree means there are less paths when the GEML is reached. Cross country services have been discussed already.

 

Having read some of the new provisions I not sure whether we are futureproofing the area or have just gone mad for the sake of it.  

 

Mark

In addition to other replies, I wonder if you may have answered your own question here.  Running the unit through to Colchester avoids having to fit it into a bay at Ipswich! 

[definate maybe]

Edwin, Felixstowe, Lowestoft and Cambridge services still terminate at Ipswich afaik. The through running to Colchester will help alleviate some issues with the Peterborough services though.  

[Christopher125]

The Felixstowe container trains are pretty much all going to go via the Bacon Factory curve in future and head across via Ely - Crossrail has seen to that.

In what way? Surely there's not much change between the GEML inners now and under Crossrail, it's the Overground putting the squeeze on freight using the NLL.

[lmsforever]

Siemens are going to court because they don't like the way rolling stock has been bought ie they did not get the contract so they are having a hissy fit!

[Christopher125]

Roger Ford mentions the legal challenge in his latest Informed Sources e-preview

 

 

 

Informed Sources were confident quite early in the bidding for the East Anglia franchise that Stadler was nailed down as the supplier of the electro-diesel regional multiple units, plus the long distance Stansted/Norwich EMUs. But with the suburban EMUs views were divided between Siemens and Bombardier.

When the contracts were announced Bombardier had turned out to be the winner. Siemens seemed genuinely shocked at the result and could only assume that Bombardier had snatched success with a killer Best & Final Offer.

But then  the recently appointed  Transport Secretary chose to announce the franchise award at Bombardier’s Litchurch Lane works at Derby, rather, than, say, Norwich.  To rub it in further the DfT press release headline read ‘Enhanced services and faster trains across East Anglia franchise including new trains from Bombardier’.  

There was also a reference in the release to ‘one of the biggest orders for British-built trains as part of a contract that will secure 1,000 jobs into the next decade’.  Stadler’s contribution was not mentioned.

So if Siemens was already feeling paranoid, the Government was not helping.  And on 25 August the company confirmed that it had issued a legal challenge in the High Court against Abellio’s decision to award the contract to Bombardier.

 According to Siemens’ formal statement, the company has ‘serious concerns about the procurement process’ and has been left with no option ‘but to commence legal proceedings to obtain transparency of how the evaluation of bids has been conducted’.