Southend Airport Row

[Rheilfordd]

This appeared on Southend PPRUNE Forum.

This letter from Abellio Greater Anglia to the Office for Rail Regulation claims that the railway station has been "much more successful" than envisaged:
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf...-aga-response-to-stobarts-representations.pdf

...12.1.15 (paragraph 13) AGA recognises that the airport's growth (and rail passenger patronage growth) has been much more successful than originally envisaged but whilst it may have originally been envisaged that only off-peak capacity would be utilised, this is very different to what is occuring in practice today. In addition, SLR's Revenue Share from the existing arrangement also includes revenue generated from peak time services;...

Interesting piece in Private Eye about a dispute over revenue between Network Rail, Stobart and Abellio Greater Anglia - station has been more successful than expected so Stobart get an "extravagant and unreasonable" share of the revenue according to AGA...

"A tussle over the privately-owned rail station at Southend airport should be a warning to Tories and mandarins who’d like Network Rail to be privatised or split up, or both. Airport owner Stobart Group opened the station (beside NR-owned tracks) in 2011, after rail regulators and the Department for Transport agreed it could keep most of the station’s fares revenue to recover building costs. DafT now moans that the station has been more successful than expected...

Section 9.4 starts to get into more detail in regard of the claim whereby AGA reckon that Stobarts are getting all the revenue, so no incentive for additional trains.

Might explain the lack of progress on early/late trains?!?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why on earth did GA agree to a revenue sharing agreement? The airport wanted a station, so GA could have insisted on whatever terms they wanted, else a station would not have been built[1], at the airport's loss.

Perhaps GA might do well to reduce fares from the next stop, ensure no BoJ restrictions and encourage a bit of stopping short

[1] Well, the airport might have built it, but it would have been an expensive white elephant.