Greater Anglia 2019 - What could possibly go wrong?

[306024]

There will be plenty of other drivers diagram changes as a result of these evening peak alterations.

The new 18.48 from Liverpool St runs to Harwich International to form the up boat train (The Day Continental in old money). The down evening boat train, The Hook Continental is the 19.32 from Liverpool St which allows time to board the ship and dine in the restaurant, now that dinner is no longer available on the train.

 

[dk1]

There will be plenty of other drivers diagram changes as a result of these evening peak alterations.

The new 18.48 from Liverpool St runs to Harwich International to form the up boat train (The Day Continental in old money). The down evening boat train, The Hook Continental is the 19.32 from Liverpool St which allows time to board the ship and dine in the restaurant, now that dinner is no longer available on the train.

Dinner has not been available on a Harwich boat train for at least 25 years.

 

[306024]

Dinner has not been available on a Harwich boat train for at least 25 years.

Indeed, more's the pity. Hasn't been a 37 on load 11 with 2xBGs either for a similar time.

 

[dk1]

Indeed, more's the pity. Hasn't been a 37 on load 11 with 2xBGs either for a similar time.

Thrash!!

IC sets with buffet finally bit the dust in late 2004. Sad day for the international GEML.

 

[LAX54]

Then there was "The Loreley" now a lowly 156 or 153 !

 

[LAX54]

There will be plenty of other drivers diagram changes as a result of these evening peak alterations.

The new 18.48 from Liverpool St runs to Harwich International to form the up boat train (The Day Continental in old money). The down evening boat train, The Hook Continental is the 19.32 from Liverpool St which allows time to board the ship and dine in the restaurant, now that dinner is no longer available on the train.

Would it not be the 1932 that is the Boat Train ? arriving at 2049 and less stops ?

 

[306024]

Never did know what a Loreley was until someone pointed it out to me one day travelling down the Rhine. What's left of it is at least a 170.

Yes the 19.32 is the down boat train that Stena advertise as the connection.

 

[dk1]

Then there was "The Loreley" now a lowly 156 or 153 !

Ahh yes but that was cross country & only a 156/158. Never proper GEML from London.

 

[eastdyke]

Never did know what a Loreley was until someone pointed it out to me one day travelling down the Rhine.

Did your boat smash into the rocks?

 

[306024]

The North Country Continental. A fine train back in the day. Anyway back at what can possibly go wrong GA are getting a lot of flack for not introducing timetable promises but there is now such an onerous industry process to change anything it is remarkable anything is achieved.

 

[Pyromaniac]

The low passenger growth at Chelmsford and Colchester is interesting, I wonder whether Ipswich and Norwich are holding up better due to the improvements to their rural services over the years?

Colchester over the last 10 years has been England's fastest growing town in terms of population, (something like +20-25%), with many more thousands of houses being built at Severalls, Stanway and soon at Monkwick. That said peak hour road congestion is awful as the roads have not been expanded to meet the demands of the increased population and getting to or near North station is chaeelnging at peak times. Chelmsford similarily is enjoying massive growth so the demand is there but is it being tempered by other factors I wonder?

Short formations on the EMU fleet which are still on-going have probably impacted Chelmsford and Colchester commuters more than those travelling to London from Ipswich and Norwich on the hauled sets. I wonder if there will be a noticable 'new trains' effect when they come in?

Weekend engineering works; we're now into the 5th or 6th winter of limited or no weekend services to London plus the same on all Bank Holidays. Many around these parts don't consider using the train at weekends now and drive down the A12 towards London and pick up the tube or c2c at Upminster or the Central line or don't visit at all. All of this adds up to depressing demand combined with more flexible working must throw so doubt on the future predictions for this and other franchises.

Chelmsford is pretty much as capacity now, it has such a big catchment area (including Braintree as the branch line service is so poor) and with the new Beaulieu estates going up this demand will get ever bigger.

Colchester is the same with many housing estates shooting up, however I suspect poorer in terms of bus connections and getting between home and the station (in comparison Chelmsford bus station is next to the station). One of the ECC funded peak hour bus routes to Colchester station was changed to Marks Tey station a year or so back. Colchester P&R has recently been given a much needed operating hours increase (7-7 didn't help commuters much, now 5:30-9:30). I tried it out last month boarding the 6:15am from the P&R site...and was the only passenger!

I have found that the Intercity sets are sardined through Colchester in the AM, so rules them out in favour of EMU's which are rarely busy at Colchester. Chelmsford is the place that struggles with space, maybe the appearance of Beaulieu Park starters if/when the station opens will help?

As for weekends (and weekday leisure trips to London) I tend to drive from Colchester to Shenfield and get a train from there. A much higher choice of trains, much cheaper and can use contactless bank card for travel.

 

[dk1]

As for weekends (and weekday leisure trips to London) I tend to drive from Colchester to Shenfield and get a train from there. A much higher choice of trains, much cheaper and can use contactless bank card for travel.

Oh my goodness but that means you can't drink I doubt I could even be bothered to go then.

 

[eastdyke]

..... Colchester P&R has recently been given a much needed operating hours increase (7-7 didn't help commuters much, now 5:30-9:30). I tried it out last month boarding the 6:15am from the P&R site...and was the only passenger! .....

So perhaps not so much needed after all then?

 

[Pyromaniac]

So perhaps not so much needed after all then?

Good point, contradicted myself there!

I find it slightly ridiculous the early morning P&R services over the full route, a quick glace at the timetable suggests they could do P&R site to the station and back every 10 minutes with the same number of vehicles. Every 15 minutes is still a little high to tempt commuters away from Colchester station car park - although being 1/3rd of the price should help!

 

[Wivenswold]

Is there any news on the Aventra? The GA presentation seemed to breeze past the 111 brand new units that were supposed to be arriving for testing in Autumn 2018 like it's only a tiny part of the "plan".

As I've said before, the apparent news black-out is probably because Abellio, Mitsui, Bombardier, Bombardier's suppliers and the DfT are all named in Legal correspondence that's flying about at the moment. If, as it would seem, the issue is with Bombardier it could be a hammer blow to future of train building in Derby.

 

[samuelmorris]

No news is bad news, but we knew that - the fact they've made every effort to publicise each milestone in the Stadler deployment means that they're definitely making use of every opportunity to promote the new stock and correspondingly, probably means they're covering for lack of progress on the 720s. That none have been sent to a GA depot to start testing, or even to my knowledge been seen on Derby's own test track means they aren't ready yet, as an entity, never mind the individual units. That's most likely due to the software issues first experienced on the 710s. I'm fairly confident that when they're sorted on the 710s, the 720s will continue in earnest. As it stands though, there's no point in manufacturing units that you know will be of no functional value and sit gathering dust for months waiting for a usable software release. I'm sure a few issues may well be thrown up in testing of the 720s as they have already been with the 755s, but we aren't at that stage yet.

As soon as a 720 is released for testing, there will be plenty of fanfare about it from GA I'm sure. Currently though I don't expect the first unit to be sent out to GA for testing until the Summer, maybe June/July time if the 710 issue is actually dealt with fairly soon. If that drags on further, add the relevant number of months to that. In terms of revenue-earning service, it's pretty much guaranteed not to be until 2020 now. If the mainstay of your fleet is over a year late, you don't make a song and dance about it. You change the entry into service and keep quiet hoping nobody notices. That the Stadler fleet offer a means of delivering to a reduced extent on the 'new trains in 2019' statement is a real blessing.

This isn't an indictment of GA per se, it's what any TOC could be expected to do in this situation. Before too long the other TOCs that have ordered Aventras will need to start doing the same. It took a full 18 months for the Class 345 fleet to achieve a fleet-wide reliability level around that which is expected of a new unit's fault-free mileage testing.

The first class of a given product is bound to take longer than the others, but given the 720s have the newer, clearly even less stable software running on them, I don't anticipate the fault-free mileage period being very quick either. Certainly I'd be surprised if the full fleet was fully introduced by the end of 2020 as that'd give them about 10-11 months to deliver and commission all 111 units.

 

[lord rathmore]

Here's my five Penn'orth about Greater Anglia trains. In the past few weeks I've had a Lowestoft to Norwich cancelled with 2 x 153's immovable due to locked-on brakes, then today a Lowestoft to Ipswich 156 running late with one engine failed. I personally can't wait for the FLIRTs. The 153/6 family are tatty, noisy, cramped and ready for the scrap line.

 

[samuelmorris]

At about 5000-7000 MTIN for either fleet, it won't take much for reliability to be an improvement with the new units.

 

[MrPIC]

I reckon once the first 720 arrives in GA land for testing they'll start coming along thick and fast.

 

[HH]

Two points I'm going to make:

1. It's not just the 15xs that are suffering reliability problems at present; every GEML Evening Peak has numerous short forms.
2. MTINs for the newest rolling stock are worse than that of the last generation, even after bedding in. There is a suspicion that the software has gotten so complex that no-one really understands how eveything interacts any more.

 

[samuelmorris]

Two points I'm going to make:

1. It's not just the 15xs that are suffering reliability problems at present; every GEML Evening Peak has numerous short forms.
2. MTINs for the newest rolling stock are worse than that of the last generation, even after bedding in. There is a suspicion that the software has gotten so complex that no-one really understands how eveything interacts any more.

That remains to be seen for the Stadler fleet. At least after 2 years the Class 700 has exceeded the MTIN figures posted by a lot of old DMUs and that's for 8 and 12-car trains rather than 1 or 2-car units, so I don't think there'll be an issue with the 755s exceeding the reliability of the GA sprinters, the question is how quickly will it be achieved.

 

[Owen]

Any indications of the starting date of the Norwich to Stansted service and the timetable?

 

[387star]

Could 379s replace the non standard GN 365s?
Not sure if 387 compatible but would there be enough to replace those too?

GN 387s could be released to replace 313s on southern green interior at the ready

 

[bramling]

Could 379s replace the non standard GN 365s?
Not sure if 387 compatible but would there be enough to replace those too?

GN 387s could be released to replace 313s on southern green interior at the ready

No the 379s couldn’t replace the 365s + 387s. There’s 30x 379s, with 29x GN 387 and 19x GN 365 (actually 21 at the moment).

Also replacing the 365s with an Electrostar variant would cause issues as each 365 has about 40 more seats. On something like a 12-car peak Peterborough service this adds up to about 120 seats. To maintain seat capacity one would have to change to something like a 2+3 357-style layout, which wouldn’t be popular. The 365s are also more suitable due to their comparatively wide gangway.

One could replace the GN 387s with 379s and cascade the 387s to Southern perhaps to replace the 313s. The Kings Lynn commuters might appreciate losing the ironing boards!

 

[Ianno87]

No the 379s couldn’t replace the 365s + 387s. There’s 30x 379s, with 29x GN 387 and 19x GN 365 (actually 21 at the moment).

Also replacing the 365s with an Electrostar variant would cause issues as each 365 has about 40 more seats. On something like a 12-car peak Peterborough service this adds up to about 120 seats. To maintain seat capacity one would have to change to something like a 2+3 357-style layout, which wouldn’t be popular. The 365s are also more suitable due to their comparatively wide gangway.

One could replace the GN 387s with 379s and cascade the 387s to Southern perhaps to replace the 313s. The Kings Lynn commuters might appreciate losing the ironing boards!

Regularly travelling on both 379s and 387s, I find the 379s better.

365s aren't going to last forever. They'll need replacing by something in the next 5-10 years.

 

[dk1]

Any indications of the starting date of the Norwich to Stansted service and the timetable?

December is now looking decidedly iffy. My money is on May 2020. Looks like between 15-17 through services (some morning SX may terminate Cambridge due to pathing issues). Rumours of xx:04 departures from Norwich but nothing confirmed.

 

[Ianno87]

December is now looking decidedly iffy. My money is on May 2020. Looks like between 15-17 through services (some morning SX may terminate Cambridge due to pathing issues). Rumours of xx:04 departures from Norwich but nothing confirmed.

The xx04 departure would get it neatly to Cambridge on time to pick up the current xx30 Stansted departure path (and would also flight behind the xx57 Lime Street and xx00 Liverpool street departures from Norwich, before stopping its way to Ely)

 

[47421]

I tried to summarise all Train Service Requirements per Franchise Agreement at post 237 above. Norwich to Camb should be 17 TPD from May 19, 15 to/from Stansted Airport, rising to 18TPD from May 2020, 17 to/from Stansted Airport, but GA are delivering none of the required enhancements this May other than the 2 Norwich in 90 each way, and possibly the extra 2TPH Stratford to Meridan Water which is due to start May although GA just ignored me when I emailed them twice asking for confirmation of this.

xx04 from Norwich could work, but leaves Norwich to Thetford / Ely very unbalanced with the 2TPH within a few mins of each other, but I suppose uncomfortable compromises like this are inevitable if the service is to be enhanced overall. Shame they cant get the through services to Stansted up and running, I expect they will be very popular immediately, Stansted to Cambridge is a busy flow in itself and the through option / one change only at Norwich from Norfolk will be popular too

 

[samuelmorris]

I've seen nothing in any official literature to suggest Meridian Water is still going ahead in May. Not seeing anything makes me think that too isn't happening - anyone heard otherwise?

 

[47421]

No, I also assume not happening. I have asked TfL, GA and DfT, emailing all of them first week of Jan, and have only received holding responses. Last week started FoI-ing DfT and TfL on it. What was budget, £170m or something - why should taxpayers expect to be kept up to date on progress on how it is being spent!? And they wonder why people are skeptical about HS2...