And the new Greater Anglia Franchise goes to….

In a press release from the Department of Transport this morning, The Minister of State for Transport (Rt Hon Theresa Villiers) announced:

I can today announce that Abellio Greater Anglia Limited has been awarded the Greater Anglia (Short) franchise.

The new franchise will begin operation on Sunday 5 February 2012. It will operate for 29 months (32 rail industry periods).

Bids were received from Abellio Greater Anglia Limited (NV Nederlandse Spoorwegen), Eastern Railway Limited (Go-Ahead Group PLC), and Stagecoach Anglia Trains Limited (Stagecoach Group plc).

Abellio Greater Anglia Limited has been chosen to run trains on the network, which operates across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. The franchise will also play a significant role in transport for the London 2012 Games providing crucial services to the Olympic Park area.

The terms of the contract the Government has agreed with the winning bidder will deliver a series of improvements for passengers during the 29 month franchise.

These include providing better station and ticket facilities and measures to improve passenger information. A text messaging service to keep passengers informed if service disruption occurs will be introduced. New information desks will be provided at major stations including London Liverpool Street, Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Stansted Airport.

The new franchise will make it easier for passengers to buy tickets, including:

• extending Oyster Pay As You Go between London Liverpool Street and all stations to Shenfield, and stations to Hertford East
• improvements to ticket vending machines, and
• introducing mobile phone and print-at-home ticketing facilities.

Abellio Greater Anglia Limited has also committed to provide an additional 600 car park spaces (subject to planning approvals), more cycle storage facilities and deliver a number of other measures to improve the service to customers including deep cleaning of stations and trains.

The train company will take over station leases from Network Rail, taking on responsibility for all repairs and renewals at stations. This accords with the Government’s overall franchise reform programme which advocates transfer of more responsibility for stations to train operators as the passenger-facing side of the rail industry.

To date, only overall figures for the performance of the franchise as a whole have been published. From the start of the new franchise, Abellio Greater Anglia Limited will start publishing a break down of punctuality figures by route giving passengers more transparency over the performance of the lines they use. The reliability requirements for the new franchise are also more demanding than the previous one.

When the franchise is renewed again in July 2014, the contract is expected to be 15 years in length. This forthcoming franchise will provide the opportunity to seek further improvements for passengers. We also intend to draw on the work of Sir Roy McNulty in setting the terms of the franchise with the aim of reducing costs and improving efficiency.

 

All together now, Nah Nah Nah Nah, Nah Nah Nah Nah, National Express GOODBYE!!!

 

Fare Dodging Couple Who Defrauded The Railway Ordered To Pay £6K

A man and woman from Bishops Stortford who travelled on the railway using ‘short tickets’ have been ordered to pay back more than £6,000 to National Express East Anglia (NXEA) following a British Transport Police (BTP) investigation.

The couple, Stephanie Thorndycraft (23) and Liam Cox (26) of Clipped Hedge, Bishops Stortford, appeared at City of Westminster Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, 28 September 2011, after they pled guilty to fraud by false representation.

During proceedings, the court heard that Cox was stopped by a member of NXEA staff while sitting in a first class carriage at the beginning of July.

When asked for his ticket Cox said he didn’t have one because the ticket machines hadn’t been working, despite holding one in his hands. Cox continued to give feeble explanations, which the vigilant staff didn’t believe.

The train next arrived at Tottenham Hale station and soon after the member of staff cautioned Cox, he ran away.

BTP investigators worked with NXEA’s fraud unit and discovered that Cox had been travelling on ‘short tickets’ between Bethnal Green and Liverpool Street stations, despite logging down his home address as being in Sawbridgeworth

At the beginning of August, NXEA revenue protection officers covertly visited Cox’s home address, and saw a woman, later identified as Thorndycraft, walking out.

She then travelled on to Liverpool Street and when rail staff asked for her ticket they discovered that she had also been travelling on ‘short tickets’.

Constable Mandy Humphrey, the BTP investigating officer, said that during interview Cox admitted to travelling from Sawbridgeworth to London Liverpool Street five times a week since February 2010 in order to get to work:

“Cox went on to admit that he had been stopped before by rail staff on several occasions but would continue to travel fraudulently, despite being issued with fines.

“What’s worse is that Cox had freely told his girlfriend what he had been doing and Thorndycraft duly copied her boyfriend’s dishonest activities since the beginning of this year.”

BTP officers and National Express East Anglia calculated that in terms of compensation, Cox was responsible for £4,719.60 while Thorndycraft was responsible for £1,640.80

Constable Humphrey added: “Cox and Thorndycraft clearly enjoyed not paying their full rail fares, spending their excess money on expensive items.

“Although the couple made full and frank admissions, travel fraud is a serious crime and for this they thoroughly deserved to appear in front of the courts.

“Their sentence should serve as a warning to others that BTP, together with our railway colleagues, will continue to investigate and put a stop to prolific fraud offenders.”

Alan Perry,  National Express East Anglia’s Head of Revenue Protection said: “These successful prosecutions should act as a warning to those intent on defrauding the railway that their actions will not be tolerated.

“We will continue to work closely with the BTP to ensure that honest fare paying customers are not subsidising the rail travel of fare evaders.”

At court, both Cox and Thorndycraft also received 24-month conditional discharges and ordered to pay £85 in costs.

National Express East Anglia Launch New iPhone App.

National Express East Anglia (NXEA) today launched a new app for iPhone to show details of current service status.  Normally this wouldn’t make the news except for this screenshot

There are some times you have to feel sorry for NXEA, they do try and do their best.  Many thanks to Stuart for the image 😛

Train Services Cancelled Due To “Wrong Kind of Heat”.

National Express East Anglia services to Ipswich & Southend are currently suffering delays and cancellation due to the current hot weather.

Due to the design of Overhead Line Equipment, the current hot weather is causing speed restrictions to be imposed along stretches of the line to prevent damage being caused to both trains and equipment.

The National Express East Anglia hourly service from London to Ipswich will be cancelled from 1202 BST while others will terminate at Colchester.

The Southend to Liverpool Street line is also hit with a total of 35 trains affected.

The company has stated that it is their intention to run a full service in the evening peak.

A Network Rail spokeswoman said speeds were being reduced on the London to Norwich Great Eastern line from 90mph to 80mph and could be further reduced to 60mph “in the hottest part of the day”.

First we had problems with the wrong kind of snow, then it was the wrong kind of wind, now it’s the wrong kind of sun.  Is it ever going to be possible to run a published train service in this country with no issues?  Yes the weather can sometimes cause issues but it seems that whatever the weather is in the UK, it adversely affects our train services.

Railway Photography – Stratford (London)

Time for me to share another one of my hobbies – Railway Photography.

I was lucky enough that SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) wanted some new crockery so I duly volunteered to go shopping.  Needless to say that, instead of travelling to my local shopping centre, I took the opportunity to travel a bit further in pursuit of a few photos.

My travels took me to Stratford in East London, soon to be home of the 2012 London Olympic Games.  After purchasing the aforementioned crockery, I spent an hour and a half at this busy location capturing both passenger and freight workings.  Stratford is a busy interchange station and sees regular local and Intercity services run by National Express East Anglia from London Liverpool Street to Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich, Stowmarket, Southend & Shenfield alongside those of the Docklands Light Railway, London Underground and London Overground.  Stratford International sees regular Southeastern “Javelin” services from St Pancras as well as Eurostar services which do not stop here.

Freight workings are operated by DB Schenker (EWS), Direct Rail Services (DRS), Freightliner and Hanson.  Freight workings are mainly Container traffic, Aggregates & Building materials.

Stock Seen at Stratford

Locomotives: Class 59 Diesel, Class 66 Diesel, Class 86 Electric, Class 90 Electric
Multiple Units: Class 315 EMU, Class 317 EMU, Class 321 EMU, Class 357 EMU, Class 360 EMU, Class 378 EMU, Class 379 EMU

Photographs

To whet your appetite, here are a couple of the shots I managed to capture:-

London Overground Class 378 EMU 378201 at Stratford Station

Freightliner Class 86 Electric 86638 Double heads a container train through Stratford

To see the rest of the images I captured at Stratford, please visit my Photobucket album here.

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.