Vision for the future of railways

Better services, improved passenger information, and cuts in the cost of running the railways have been outlined in future plans announced by rail chiefs.

Described as an initial industry plan, the programme covers the period 2014 to 2019, with the industry aiming to cut rail costs by £1.3 billion a year by the end of this decade.

Plans include £5.6 billion-worth of schemes, including the Northern Hub – a £560 million plan to deliver more than 700 extra services a day between Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield.

The rail chiefs’ vision also includes journey time improvements in the East Midlands, Yorkshire, Bristol and Oxford areas and electrification of the Midland main line, the north trans-Pennine line, and further electrification schemes in Scotland.

The plan also envisages improvements to a number of stations including Fenchurch Street in London and Liverpool Central, as well as a £200 million scheme to improve services between Inverness and Aberdeen in Scotland.

By better linking Britain’s major cities, an extra 180,000 peak-time seats could be provided, as well as accommodating a 30% increase in freight.

Rail chiefs also announced plans to move from 800 signal boxes to 14 modern signalling centres. The hoped-for schemes, which will need Government approval, are in addition to £4.9 billion-worth of ongoing projects such as the Thameslink and Crossrail schemes in London and already-announced electrification schemes such as the Great Western line.

The rail industry also spoke of trying to improve the passenger experience in key areas such as journey information, comfort and accessibility.

Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: “Rail has a bright future in supporting a successful green economy in the years ahead. This plan shows how we can do that by providing a better quality of service to growing numbers of passengers at a more affordable cost.

“We look forward to working with government to ensure the right framework is in place to make this possible.”

Government ‘should give up its control’ of £1bn Crossrail deal

From: Derby Telegraph

Labour MPs last night called for the Government to hand over control of plans to buy £1 billion worth of trains to another organisation.

Shadow Transport Secretary Maria Eagle made the demand while giving her speech to her party’s annual conference in Liverpool.

She argued that the Government had shown it could not be trusted to ensure British firms – like Derby trainmaker Bombardier – had a fair chance of winning state contracts.

Her comments came a day after Labour gave an award to campaigners from Derby, who are fighting to get the Government to change its decision to hand a £1.4 billion Thameslink contract to German firm Siemens, instead of Bombardier.

After the move was taken, the Litchurch Lane firm announced it would review its UK operations, raising the prospect of 1,400 job losses.

Now the Government is drawing up plans for its next big train order, Crossrail, valued at about £1 billion.

Ms Eagle told conference delegates: “I say to (Transport Secretary) Philip Hammond – there is no faith that your department will give British manufacturing a fair chance. So hand over responsibility for ordering the new Crossrail trains to Transport for London, which – thanks to Labour – has a track record of buying British.”

Ms Eagle pointed out that Prime Minister David Cameron had promised to support business when he took his Cabinet to Derby, shortly before naming Siemens as the preferred bidder for Thameslink.

Ministers have consistently said the way the tender for Thameslink was designed by the previous Labour administration meant they could only have given the contract to Siemens. They claim it would have been breaking EU law to do otherwise.

Ms Eagle called that “a lie” and said the Government could have scrapped the tender process and started again with one that gave the Derby firm a better chance of winning. She urged campaigners to keep fighting to get the Government to change its mind.

Last night ministers were defiant. Mr Hammond warned the consequences of further delaying Thameslink would be too severe for taxpayers to bear and said: “The project is already 16 years behind schedule – in its original iteration it was known as Thameslink 2000. It has already had very large amounts of capital investment sunk into it,” he said.

He argued that 3,000 construction jobs depending on the project moving forward could be put at risk if it was delayed.

On the Crossrail issue, a Government spokesman pointed out that it was Labour that had set up Crossrail Ltd – an arms-length body – to deliver the scheme, overseen by the Government and Transport for London. He said: “Is Labour seriously saying taxpayers in the rest of the country, outside London, should have no control over the billions of pounds they are putting into Crossrail?”

————————————————————————————————————————————–

It really beggars belief what Labour will do these days. Not only did they ‘make TfL buy British’, but they also award the people protesting about a loss of work in Derby, that the party’s own ineptitude in developing the procurement process caused in the first place.

Maria Eagle would of course have backed the Government if they had scrapped the procurement process to give Bombardier a chance.  Thus costing millions more pounds of taxpayers money to be wasted.

The above article also once again fails to mention that Bombardier were already considering up to 1200 job losses regardless of the Thameslink deal.  In the modern world, and including the findings of the McNulty report, rolling stock procurement MUST give serious value for money and not just be awarded on the basis of where the companies are based.  Let us not forget that even Bombardier is not a British company, they are Canadian.

8800 extra spaces for busy trains on key routes

Source: Department for Transport

Space for up to an extra 8,800 rail passengers is being created on key commuter services in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle, Rail Minister Theresa Villiers announced today.

Under a deal funded by the Government, passengers on Northern Rail are to benefit from an extra 22 train carriages. Separate agreements also deliver an extra 6 carriages to First Great Western and an additional 4 carriages to London Midland.

Theresa Villiers said:

“I am delighted we have been able to finalise these important deals which will make a real difference to passengers. Even at a time when we are tackling the huge deficit we inherited, we are determined to invest in Britain’s future. That is why we’re committed to a major investment programme in our railways to deliver a big increase in capacity to ease crowding and provide commuters with more comfortable journeys.”

“Today’s good news has been made possible by our plans to introduce 2,700 new rail carriages on to the network by May 2019.

“We are also committed to the completion of the vital Crossrail and Thameslink projects in London and we are investing £900m in rail electrification. In the longer term our plans for a high speed rail network will free up a huge amount of space on our current network for more commuter trains – with some towns potentially seeing a near doubling of services.”

“As well as improving life for passengers, these rail improvements will play an important role in strengthening economic growth.”

The extra carriages, which will be in service from December 2011, are becoming available as a result of the planned deployment of 69 new train carriages which are being delivered to London Midland for use in the Birmingham area. This then allows for the carriages currently being used by London Midland to serve passengers using Northern Rail and First Great Western services. Consequently some First Great Western trains are to be released to serve Northern Rail passengers.

Isn’t there anyone who has a good word about Crossrail?

From: Brentwood Gazette

TIRED-LOOKING rail company staff batted off a barrage of criticisms from residents at a Crossrail drop-in surgery in Shenfield.

Possibly concerned about the apparent backlash from residents living near Shenfield and Brentwood railway stations, Brentwood Borough Council asked representatives from Crossrail and Network Rail to attend a question-and-answer session at Shenfield Parish Hall.

But, by 6pm on Wednesday, one Network Rail employee was heard to mumble, “Is there anyone who isn’t being negative about this?”

The answer to that came from Andrew Johnson, a Shenfield resident who lives in Hutton Road.

His response to the endless complaints was: “It’s typical nimbyism (Not In My Back Yard). But this is a step forward for me.

“Is it really disruption? They are going to do the work at the weekends and maybe a bit at night.  “If you take that attitude, you will never get anything built.”

But it was the “no” camp that seemed to make up the majority of the hundreds of people turning out with their questions.

The team of three communications men from the railway firms had prepared themselves, but not for this.

The apparent frustration from visitors began to grow when it emerged that answers to what they saw as key questions were still unknown.

The development, due to start in 2015, will provide a direct train service from Shenfield and Brentwood through central London to Heathrow in about one and a quarter hours.

Marion Cork, from Herington Grove, in Hutton, is passionately anti-Crossrail.

Speaking at the event, she said: “One of my concerns is we back on to the railways and we asked if there is any compensation for us.  “They will be working 39 hours through the night over one and a half years and there will not be any compensation.

“I think it’s well-known that everyone in Shenfield is against it and it does not seem the powers that be have any answers to it.

“Some £2.6 million is being spent on this project but we have not got any money. We are closing hospitals and making people redundant. Can we really afford it?”

Referring to getting on the Underground, fellow Hutton resident Eileen Damsell, from Woodland Avenue, added: “We can get a train at Stratford already.

“Our argument is that we could pick it up at Stratford, so why come out this far?

“Build a new railway line across Brentwood and then what if people decide to come in from Ongar, where are they all going to park?”

Meanwhile, Jean Emmerson, from Normanhurst, also in Hutton, is concerned about the disruption to shops in Hutton Road in Shenfield while the work is going on.

She said: “The effect it will have on Shenfield while the work is going on will put a strain on the shops.What’s going to happen to them?”

And Mark Bratby, from Hunter Avenue in Shenfield, was frustrated he could not get specifics about when work on the new sidings next to his house were going to begin.

The rail teams had set up information boards presenting outline information about the project, but Nick Wilcox, from Network Rail, admitted precise details about how specific residents and businesses will be directly affected by the construction work is still being worked out and will not be available until the first quarter of 2012.

He added: “There is a lot of concern about car parking in the Shenfield area, clearly a big issue for residents around here.”

The team confirmed they will be returning to Shenfield or Brentwood for another drop-in session at a later date.

Comment: The first anti Crossrail comment sums the whole situation up for me.  A resident who already lives by the railway line asking if there is going to be any compensation because of work being carried out on a railway line that was probably already there when she moved into her house.  The comment about ‘Everyone in Shenfield” being against Crossrail is a convenient soundbite for the media but I seriously doubt if it is anywhere near the mark.

“Build a new railway line across Brentwood and then what if people decide to come in from Ongar, where are they all going to park?”  I wonder how many people from the Shenfield area do this in reverse?  Do they think about the people of Ongar and what they think about people parking in their town?  I think not.

If the level of Nimby-ism we are currently seeing toward much-needed improvements in our public transport system had existed in Victorian times, we would still be living in a country where everyone used horses and carts to get around and a trip to the next town over would take 2 days.

 

 

Bombardier to announce ‘substantial’ job losses

From: Guardian.co.uk

Fears 1,500 jobs at risk at Derby train factory after company loses £3bn Thameslink contract to Siemens of Germany

Bombardier, the Canadian engineering group, will announce major job losses at its Derby train factory on Tuesday, amid fears that 1,500 workers are at risk after the business lost a £3bn government contract to a European rival.

The company told trade union officials to expect “substantial” redundancies. Significant reductions appear to be inevitable after Bombardier warned the government privately in May that 1,200 posts were already at risk among the 3,000-strong workforce. It is thought that up to 350 more engineering jobs are under threat.

In a blow to the government’s plans for Britain to manufacture its way out of recession, Bombardier has placed its UK operations under review after the Department for Transport awarded a contract to make carriages on London’s Thameslink rail route to Siemens of Germany, bypassing Britain’s last remaining train factory.

In a recent letter to the transport secretary, Philip Hammond, Bombardier warned that 1,200 jobs could be at risk at Derby even if it won the Thameslink contract. However, it had hoped that winning a deal for more than 1,000 carriages on the rail route would allow the company to retain many of the jobs. If it lost the Thameslink deal, it said, more jobs could go by the end of the year, amid doubts over the 350-strong engineering unit.

It is understood that about 700 agency workers employed at Derby are most at risk, with the heaviest cuts expected to come from manufacturing staff. In a letter to David Cameron, Labour has claimed that up to 20,000 jobs could be hit by the Thameslink decision and looming cuts at Bombardier. Bombardier’s manufacturing lines will grind to a halt in 2014 when it finishes a contract for London Underground trains. Future orders for the as-yet unbuilt Crossrail and High Speed Two projects are years from being tendered.

Unite has written to two cabinet ministers in an effort to have the Thameslink decision reversed. Diana Holland, assistant general secretary of the UK’s largest trade union, said the move could be the “last straw” for Bombardier in the UK.

The RMT trade union, which also represents workers at Derby, said the effect of the Siemens decision would be “devastating.” Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, said: “This act of political sabotage to a key element of the remaining UK manufacturing base could leave the nation that gave the world the railways building nothing but a few basic components.”

The government believes its hands were tied over the Thameslink decision by European Union procurement rules, which state that any EU state must not allow a company’s location or nationality to influence contract awards. Nonetheless, Unite has pointed out that Germany’s state-owned rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, recently handed a €6bn (£5.4bn) high-speed train contract to Siemens.

Siemens, which employs 16,000 people in the UK, claims the contract will create up to 2,000 jobs in the UK supply chain. However, even though some components will be made in the UK the trains will be built in Germany.

I have highlighted some parts of this report that I believe need to be commented on.

There have been several reports in the media that Bombardier are being forced to cut jobs due to the loss of the Thameslink contract but, apparently in a letter to Philip Hammond, they were already considering the job losses EVEN IF they secured the contract.  This is completely at odds to what has already been reported.

Labour are claiming that 20,000 jobs will be hit by the decision.  Where exactly are the facts backing up those figures?  Siemens have already stated that some components for the fleet will be manufactured in the UK so I don’t see the jobs being lost in the supply chain and as Bombardier are looking to cut up to 15oo jobs, this leaves the Labour figures 18500 jobs short.

As usual, a gold plated opportunity arises and Bob Crow just has to put the boot in by claiming that the award to Siemens was “Political Sabotage”.  The European Union rules on Procurement basically state that contracts should not be awarded based on a company’s location or nationality so, by playing by the rules, the Government are wrong.  Perhaps Mr Crow should look at the figures used to decide on the best value for money and see how much the labour costs involved are.  I won’t place a bet that the German figure was cheaper.

 

All is not lost for Bombardier despite Thameslink setback

I found this statement from Heather Wheeler, the Conservative MP for South Derbyshire and thought it raised some valid points.

LIKE you, I was shocked and disappointed to hear that Bombardier had lost out to Siemens in its bid to build the new trains for Thameslink, and will be asking questions of ministers and in the House as to why this has happened, writes MP Heather Wheeler.

It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the Government intends to retain Bombardier Transportation UK Ltd with VeloCity as the reserve bidder in the event that contracts cannot be satisfactorily finalised with Siemens.

I am asking particularly if part of the tender can be subcontracted to any of the businesses which form the Derbyshire Rail Forum, including Bombardier.

Other members may be able to tender for work from Siemens and we hope they will be successful. ESG, which is already expanding its facilities in Bretby, is one of these, so hopefully some of this contract will come back here.

It is not all gloom and doom, as Bombardier has a number of active orders at its Derby plant, the largest of which is 1,300 carriages for the Sub-Surface lines, due for completion by 2014.

The company has employed a number of contract workers on short-term contracts to cope with this peak activity.

Bombardier is also one of the bidders who have pre-qualified for the Crossrail rolling stock order (around 600 carriages), with the contract award expected in late 2013, and is a potential bidders for the new LUL tube trains, which could total up to 3,400 carriages.

There has been a lot of anger and disbelief in both the railway and National press regarding the fact that the Thameslink rolling stock contract has gone to German company Siemens.  The fact of the matter is that, with the findings of the McNulty review, rolling stock procurement as well as other facets of railway life now have to offer value for money to the British taxpayer. 

As unfortunate as the loss of this contract is, the future for Bombardier could still be secured if they can gain the contract for either the Crossrail rolling stock or to continue producing tube stock for London Underground.  Work on the “S Stock” Underground trains for the Metropolitan, Circle, District & Hammersmith & City Lines should see work continue until 2014 which should give enough time to gain more work.

 

Government outlines requirements for Greater Anglia Franchisees

National Express East Anglia Class 315 EMU

The Government has set out the level of service it expects from companies bidding to run rail services in Greater Anglia, following today’s publication of the invitation to tender document for the short 17-month franchise.

The new operator will take over from February 2012 and would be responsible for delivering services to destinations from London and across Greater Anglia – including Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn, Southend, Ipswich and Cambridge – until at least July 2013.

Three firms – Abellio Greater Anglia, Eastern Railway and Stagecoach Anglia Trains – have been shortlisted for the Greater Anglia franchise, which is currently run by National Express East Anglia.

As one of the rail franchises serving Stratford and the Olympic stadium the new operator will be responsible for introducing longer and more frequent trains during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The Government has set out the following objectives for the franchise in the invitation to tender:

• Delivering a quality of service for passengers for the entire rail journey.
• Working with the Department and other stakeholders to ensure value for money.
• Managing and delivering changes required to accommodate Crossrail.
• Working effectively with Network Rail to maintain performance.
• Delivering longer and more frequent services to support the London 2012 Olympic Games.
• Controlling operational costs and maximising revenue.

As part of the bidding process each of the bidders will also need to set out how they intend to improve passenger satisfaction in the service they would provide.

The Government plans to reform rail franchising and to lengthen rail franchises to around 15 years.

This shorter franchise will allow time for reforms identified by Sir Roy McNulty’s review of the rail industry’s value for money to be properly considered and built into the terms of the subsequent Greater Anglia franchise.