Getting Your Money Back On Oyster
I don’t use my Oyster card much on London’s transport system, as I have a Freedom Pass.
But I do appreciate how difficult it could be to get a refund on a journey that has gone wrong. So this story about getting refunds on-line through Oyster is to be welcomed. Here’s an extract.
Whilst the system for taking your money is very slick – automatic Oyster top-up, contactless payment – getting it back has been a laborious process, with a lengthy online or even pen-and-paper form.
Sigh no more, commuters. From today, TfL are making it easier to get a refund for late Underground and Overground trains.
Now, instead of entering all of your personal information every time your Underground or DLR train is 15 minutes late (or 30 minutes if you’re on the Overground), you can set up an account that holds it all, so you only have to put in the details of your late journey.
This does show how the way public transport ticketing is going.
With only a few days now before London’s buses go cashless and as it looks like the Underground and Overground will go the same way soon, London is eliminating the hassle from public transport.
As Oyster can now be topped-up automatically, I wonder how many companies now give employees an Oyster card, that the company tops up automatically? Take say a bit employer like University College Hospital, where there is no staff parking, would a company Oyster card be a simple perk to recruit and retain staff.
Transport for London seems to be becoming a giant computer system, with large numbers of ride-on terminals. Wouldn’t it be nice if black taxis and the bikes were able to be charged to Oyster?
Did Manchester Railways Ever Have A Plot?
What are the two odd ones out of these British cities?
Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield
It’s actually, Glasgow and Manchester, as they are only cities other than London with two main stations. The pedantic could argue that Birmingham has more than one, but New Street is very much larger than the others.
Glasgow’s two station; Central and Queen Street, split their services geographically, but at least they could be connected by Crossrail Glasgow, which is summed up like this.
The proposed Crossrail initiative involves electrifying and reopening the City Union Line for regular passenger use in conjunction with new filler sections of track which will connect the North Clyde, Ayrshire, and Kilmarnock and East Kilbride suburban routes together, therefore allowing through running of services through the centre of Glasgow in a North-South axis.
The scheme never saw fruition however. Will any Glaswegian tell me why, as on paper it looks sensible?
Manchester has a similar problem with two stations at Piccadilly and Victoria. If I’m going to say Burnley or Blackburn, as I often have and want to have lunch at Carluccio’s in Piccadilly, I find I have to traipse across Manchester, usually in the rain, to get the train out of Victoria.
There was a plan in the 1970s for the Picc-Vicc Tunnel, but like the Crossrail Glasgow it has been cancelled.
So now the Ordsall Chord is being built to allow trains to cross Manchester city centre.
It may work well in the end, but it has a touch of the old answer of “I wouldn’t start from here!” to the question of how to get to X.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but it doesn’t seem to be a concept that can catch the imagination of the public, like some public transport schemes do.
Crossrail Of The North
Is it farther between Liverpool and Hull or from London to Norwich?
Actually, they are about the same being around two hundred kilometres for both.
But compare the train times between the two city pairs.
Liverpool to Hull takes three and a quarter hours, with at least one change, whereas London to Norwich takes five minutes under two hours.
Actually, the London to Norwich service hasn’t improved much since the 1960s, as British Rail’s aspiration then had the catchy phrase of a two-hour, two-stop service.
Since then the line has been electrified and a typical train stops up to six times on the route, with eight coach services running twice every hour.
You might think, that being that the line runs across the flat East Anglian countryside that it is a railway on which high speeds of the order of two hundred kilometres per hour are possible.
But you’d be wrong, as the line isn’t straight and the maximum speed is only a hundred and sixty!
Even so, plans are afoot to do the London to Norwich trip in ninety minutes, probably using the current trains, albeit with perhaps some new locomotives.
All this shows what a disgrace the rail routes across the North of England are.
Few are electrified and trains are often scrapyard specials. There are some new trains, but these are seriously overcrowded.
Politicians should hang their heads in shame.
At least George Osborne seems to be thinking about it, judging by reports on the BBC this morning.
The North of England needs a high frequency and high capacity, world-class railway linking the main cities together. As with London to Norwich, Liverpool to Hull should be at least twice an hour in ninety minutes or less. It should all be possible with good 1980s, let alone the best modern, technology.
The Future Of Railways In East Anglia
There are several major drivers of growth in the usage of the railways in East Anglia, which for the purpose of this analysis is the four eastern counties of Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Freight
The Port of Felixstowe and to a certain extent those of Harwich, Great Yarmouth and London Gateway are going to add considerably to the number of trains trundling around the railways of East Anglia. The interim destinations of these trains for onward journeys to the rest of the country will be London and Peterborough, using either the Great Eastern Main Line, the Ipswich to Ely Line or the London, Tilbury and Southend Line.
The LTS is mentioned as it is being connected to the London Gateway Port by a rail link and not all traffic will be directed through London.
Tourism
East Anglia has always earned a lot of income from a wide variety of tourism, from birdwatching to food and real ale and sailing to horse racing.
Many of the tourism hot-spots for East Anglia like Norwich and Cambridge already have a good rail service, although much of it is London-centric. Other places like Newmarket, Bury St. Edmunds and Great Yarmouth have the rail links, but don’t have frequent trains, but there are tourism hot-spots that are difficult to get to by public transport.
High Technology
Driven by Cambridge, high technology will be a big driver of growth in the area, but how will it effect the railways?
It already has.in that a station is being built at Cambridge Science Park, although I didn’t see any sign of construction, as I passed through yesterday. But the station is scheduled to open in 2016.
Just as with tourism everywhere, the high-technology sector in Cambridge, will generate increased passenger traffic. Just as London uses every place it can find in the South East of England as a dormitory, Cambridge will draw in workers from all the nearby towns.
But the high-technology itself will spill out from Cambridge into the surrounding towns, further increasing demand for rail services in places like Norwich, Peterborough, Newmarket and Bury St. Edmunds and possibly even unfashionable towns like Haverhill and Ipswich.
Thameslink
When Thameslink opens to Cambridge in 2018, it will be a massive feeder of passengers into the western side of East Anglia. The provisional timetable shows four semi-fast 12-car Class 700 trains to Cambridge every hour, as opposed to the two 8-car Class 365 trains at present. This will go a long way to reversing the dominant commuter flow from into London to out of London.
Incidentally, no plans have been published about what happens to the Kings Cross-Cambridge-Kings Lynn service using Class 365 trains after Thameslink opens.
If it is assumed that the current trains still go into Kings Cross, then that would mean about a quadrupling of the number of seats between Kings Cross/St. Pancras and Cambridge in each hour. If they don’t it’ll be a tripling of seats.
I know the line is crowded, but this does seem a hell of a lot of seats.
Crossrail
You might say that an east-west cross-London link won’t have any effect on East Anglia! But it will! And in ways we just don’t expect!
A fellow Ipswich supporter drives up to every home match from near Tonbridge over the Dartford Crossing and up the A12. He has stated that after Crossrail, he’ll drive to Abbey Wood and get the train to Liverpool Street for a fast train to Ipswich. I suspect Crossrail with its direct access to Liverpool Street, Heathrow and Reading will alter the travel habits of many travellers, going to and from East Anglia.
Improved Electrification
To my untrained eye, the overhead electrification being erected in the Liverpool-Preston-Manchester triangle is going up a lot faster and more robustly, than we would have expected a few years ago.
We’re just getting much better at it!
Remember too, that one of the major costs f railway electrification is getting the power to the track. Where electrification is tacked on to an existing system, it is a lot easier and more affordable.
Improved Signalling
Over the next decade signalling will move into the cabs of trains. It is a massive hidden project being undertaken by Network Rail, as is described here. This first two paragraphs say it all.
This tried and tested system will replace traditional railway signals with a computer display inside every train cab, reducing the costs of maintaining the railway, improving performance and enhancing safety.
It will offer a host of benefits to the railway and the application of its cab signalling component, the European Train Control System, ETCS, will spell the end for traditional signalling.
Who’s to say what difference this will make.
If it does nothing else, improved signalling will help slot all those freight trains between the passenger trains.
No More New Diesel Trains
I think it is very unlikely any new diesel trains will be built, although refurbished ones might come available, as lines are electrified.
Are any actually on order at the moment for any line in the UK? There are some Class 66, Class 68 and Class 88 diesel locomotives, but I can’t think of any diesel multiple units in the pipeline.
On the other hand, Thameslink, Crossrail and the London Overground will release a lot of electric multiple units, that will be very good candidates for a full refurbishment.
So what do I think will happen to railways in East Anglia in the near future?
Service Expectations
There are five major stations in East Anglia; Cambridge, Ely, Ipswich, Norwich and Peterborough. The service frequency between Ipswich and Norwich is one train every half hour, so it is probably a reasonable expectation that this is the frequency between any pair of stations
Outlying stations such as Felixstowe, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft generally get an approximately hourly service from the nearest main town, so this should be maintained.
If we insist on half hour service frequency between Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich, then this means that important stations like Bury St. Edmunds, Diss, Newmarket, Stowmarket and Thetford would get a half hour service frequency too.
This would mean that journeys like I did once from Newmarket to Great Yarmouth changing at Stowmarket and Norwich would be a lot easier.
Norwich in Ninety?
I’ve talked about this before here, and so has the BBC.
With the completion of the Bacon Factory Curve, one of the first projects to achieve the Norwich in Ninety goal has been completed. It will be interesting to see if London to Norwich on-time statistics improve, just as I feel they have on the Felixstowe branch.
I’ve just found this Network Rail press release, about improving the track at Colchester, which is work that is going on now. Will be see a lot more of these smaller engineering-led projects over the next few years to achieve Norwich in Ninety?
I think the answer is yes!
Network Rail’s Great Eastern Main Line engineers have lived off table scraps for years. But now that there is a political will to get something done, the fag packets and used envelopes will be retrieved from the bin and over pints of real ale in country pubs, they will be turned into viable projects.
My only question on Norwich in Ninety is that it is a typical project title chosen to ring well in the press. I wonder what is the minimum time, that has been revealed by the envelopes.
It certainly won’t be ninety!
You do have to wonder if there is anything more to come from the nearly forty-year-old Class 90 locomotives that push and pull the trains to and from Norwich. The engineers have won awards for the most improved trains, so there can’t be much improvement left. Hopefully any chances in the deterioration of the engines has been minimised.
I certainly look forward to my first sub sixty minute run to Ipswich.
Electrification Of Ipswich To Ely
I would assume, as this line all the way to Peterborough and eventually to Nuneaton has been recently cleared to take the larger freight containers that the line also has sufficient clearance to allow overhead lines to be erected.
So as the number of freight trains on this route is large, this line must be a prime candidate for electrification all the way to Nuneaton. Especially, as it crosses numerous electrifed lines, which would mean getting the power to the line won’t be too difficult.
I also found this article on Railfuture. They say this about creating an East-West electric spine.
Similarly to the already planned Freight Spine from Southampton, one from East to West would also be strategically beneficial. This would involve electrification of the whole line from Felixstowe to Birmingham, already being upgraded to take more freight trains by, for example, the new chord at Nuneaton. Broken down, Felixstowe to Ipswich would also facilitate through electric haulage for freight trains to/through London. Ipswich to Peterborough would gain access to the East Coast Mainline. Peterborough to Leicester (Syston) would do the same in respect of the Midland Main Line. Leicester (Wigston) to Nuneaton for the West Coast Mainline, and Nuneaton to Birmingham for all its freight terminals. A most useful bi-product would be for the Cross Country passenger service from Birmingham to Stansted Airport to convert to electric trains.
That all seems very sensible. Note the bi-product of releasing some much needed diesel multiple units, which would probably be replaced by larger electric units.
Electrification Of The Felixstowe Branch
As Railfuture said in the extract I used above, if you electrify to Nuneaton, you might as well electrify the Felixstowe branch, as that would virtually make the line electric freight only.
Electrification Of Ipswich To Cambridge
If the main Ipswich to Ely line is electrified, it may seem logical to also electrify the single track Cambridge branch of the line. But this may not be that easy, as there is a tunnel under Warren Hill at Newmarket and the line loading guage of the line hasn’t been updated.
But obviously, if the whole Ipswich to Ely and Cambridge system, it would make it easier to increase passenger capacity due to the easier availability of electric multiple units.
Electrification Of Ely To Norwich
There are no freight reasons to electrify the Breckland Line, but it is effectively fill-in electrification between two electrified lines, which should make it easier.
It is not cleared to a big loading gauge except around Ely, but many of the bridges are new, so I would suspect there wouldn’t be that much expensive bridgework to make the line suitable for electrification.
Unfortunately, the long distance service from Norwich to Liverpool couldn’t be converted to an electric traction, as it will still use non-electrified lines in the Sheffield area, but Nottingham trains could go electric if Nottingham to Grantham was electrified.
Consequences Of Electrification Of Ely To Peterborough
If Ely to Peterborough is electrified and the passenger trains were to run say every thirty minutes, then there would be less need for the diesel trains from Birmingham, Liverpool and Nottingham, to travel to Ipswich or Norwich, as there would just be a simple change to or from an electric train at Peterborough.
Electric services such as Cambridge to Peterborough via Ely could also be as traffic dictated, rather than infrequent as they are now! Peterborough to Cambridge services are important, as many in Cambridge feel that Peterborough could be a high-technology satellite to Cambridge. There have been proposals to extend the Cambridge Guided Busway to Peterborough, but I suspect a rail link might be preferable to passengers. The current rail service takes fifty minutes and runs once an hour, which isn’t good enough for a lot of people.
Would a frequent service between Cambridge and Peterborough, also improve employment prospects in the area?
Electrification Of The Great Yarmouth Branch
When I first moved back to near Ipswich in the 1970s, the London to Norwich trains went on to Great Yarmouth. Even in the 1980s, I can remember taking a direct train to Great Yarmouth from London to see a horse run at the racecourse there. But now, there are no direct services, except in the summer.
If the line was electrified, it would surely make it easier to more services to the town and possibly direct services to London.
Perhaps if the Breckland Line was electrified and running at the oreferred half-hour service, then every other train could be extended to Great Yarmouth. Or perhaps all of them?
The possibilities are endless.
One benefit of an electrified railway is that it might breathe new life into the outer harbour, which seems to suffer from white elephant syndrome.
Further Electrification
I don’t think any of the other branches would be worth electrifying.
Last year the electried Braintree branch carried about 800,000 passengers, whereas the Sudbury branch carried about 328,000. Felixstowe incidentally carried about 210,000, but whether that branch gets electrified depends on the freight traffic.
New Stations
East Anglia is already getting one new station at Cambridge Science Park, with another proposed for Great Blakenham, if the SnOasis gets built.
A couple of new stations have been added in East Anglia in recent years and I suspect that in the next few years several could open, especially where new housing or other developments are concerned.
New And Reopened Lines
As I said in the post about the North Norfolk Railway, most schemes for new lines have connotations with pie and sky.
Although, there will be conversion of some lines from single to double track and there could be the odd curve to allow trains to go a better route.
The only line which has been mentioned seriously for reopening, is a freight line between Spalding and March. I can’t find much detail, but I suspect it would allow freight trains from Felixstowe to the North to bypass Peterborough and join up with the GNGE, which I talked about here.
Conclusion
After reading this again in the cold light of day, the key is to electrify the main lines and this gives frequent at least half-hourly services between the major towns and cities.
Isn’t this what Essex has got into Liverpool Street? So we’re only continuing what was started after the Second World War and applying to the rest of East Anglia. If we can have a half hour service between Norwich and Ipswich, surely everyone is entitled to at least that.
The North Norfolk Railway
The North Norfolk Railway runs from Sheringham to Holt and is connected by a short stretch of line to the Bittern Line at Sheringham.
As the pictures show, they were showing off their Stanier Class 5 named George Stephenson.
One of the most interesting developments in rail in this area is the proposal for the Norfolk Orbital Railway, which would extend the route of the North Norfolk Railway onwards from Holt to the Ely to Norwich Line at Wymondham.
I do think sometimes, that if Doctor Beeching had seen the society we have today, he would have come to some different conclusions on the lines to be closed down. Sometimes though, as with the Varsity Line and the lines around Kings Lynn, he was for keeping lines open, but British Rail managers and politicians thought otherwise.
I have no view about whether the Norfolk Orbital Railway should be built, as I’m not privy to the true economics of the reinstatement. The railway does have a web site.
On the other hand if it was built my ranging around Norfolk and Suffolk could have been completed by going from Sheringham to Wymnondham, to get a train to Cambridge for return to London.
If we assume that the big drivers of the East Anglian economy in the next decades are going to be high technology and tourism, the pendulum must be swinging towards building the Norfolk Orbital Railway.
Ranging Around Suffolk And Norfolk
I took the 09:30 Mark 3 express out of Liverpool Street station to Ipswich, buying a Day Ranger ticket for East Anglia north of Ipswich and Cambridge on the way from the conductor on the train for £11.40.
I hadn’t really decided on a route, but I started by taking the single coach Class 153 to Felixstowe and back.
The service between Ipswich and Felixstowe is now nearly twenty trains each way in the day and it seems to be more reliable since the Bacon Factory Curve has opened, which means that the service doesn’t have to thread its way through freight movements in Ipswich yard. Hopefully incidents like the one I suffered here, will happen less often.
When I lived in the town in the early 1960s, there were just a handful of services each way. It did wonders for a teenager’s social life when you didn’t have a car. The train I took wasn’t full, but it was pretty busy, with lots of families and tourists with buggies and bikes.
I wonder how long it will be, before the Felixstowe branch will be generating enough traffic for a two-car train? As it is, because of the length of the line, where a journey takes just twenty-five minutes or so, it means that an hourly service can be achieved with just one train.
There have been calls to reopen Felixstowe Beach station, but this simple schedule would be broken and two trains and some clever train operating would be required. So I’d be surprised, if it ever opened. It would probably be a lot cheaper to fund a bus, that met the train and distributed and collected the passengers all over Felixstowe.
The only way it will open, is if they electrify the line and the Port of Felixstowe encourages staff to come to work by train to a rebuilt Felixstowe Beach/Port station. But again, a bus from Felixstowe station would probably be better and more affordable.
Unfortunately, from Felixstowe I had to return to Ipswich to get the train to Lowestoft, as there is no easy train connection at Westerfield any more between the Lowestoft and Felixstowe branches .
At Ipswich, I was treated to a passing through of one of Mark 3 expresses in Greater Anglia’s new livery. These coaches just refuse to go quietly.
On the trip to Lowestoft, I used the new disabled toilet, that as I reported had been recently installed in the Class 156. The most remarkable thing about using the toilet was that I didn’t realise it was the new design. It was different and slightly more compact, but you didn’t have to think about how you used the door or the flush. But then that is the test of good design. If your target users don’t immediately know how to use something, then it is a bad design.
At Lowestoft I walked across the platforms to take another Class 156 on the Wherry Line to Norwich, where I stayed on the train to take the Bittern Line to Sheringham, where I intended to have lunch.
I did make a mistake in that my train back from Sheringham to Norwich, didn’t connect with a direct Cambridge train, as many do. So I had to go to Ely on a Nottingham service, before buying a ticket from there to London on First Capital Connect. My Ranger ticket covered the journey to Ely and I spent another £12.50 to get home.
Greater Anglia’s scheduling of the trains I took was excellent, as I didn’t wait more than a few minutes at either change of train or service. Looking at the timetables, it would appear that some journeys like say Beccles to Sheringham use these quick changes to minimise journey times. With a few more trains, it might even be possible to tie all these services together on an hourly basis. After all, if you knew that if you turned up at Lowestoft, Ipswich or Norwich and that in a few minutes your next train would be leaving, it would be a great incentive to travel by train.
Judging by the people, I saw on these busy trains, Greater Anglia will find that their services around Norfolk and Suffolk will see an increasing patronage.
Doddle To Expand
According to this article, the parcel shops at rail stations called Doddle is in for a big expansion.
The sooner they open at Dalston Junction station the better.
Virgin To Introduce Free Wi-Fi For All Passengers
Virgin Trains have retained their franchise to run West Coast Main Line services, according to this article from Modern Railways.
What I particularly like is this announcement.
All 76 Pendolino and Super Voyager trains will be equipped with superfast WiFi, which Network Rail intends to support by providing track-side infrastructure, said Virgin: ‘This would be the first major intercity deployment of 4G technology on the UK rail network and provide free WiFi to all customers.”
So they are following Chiltern Railways in making wi-fi free and accessible to all.
This will mean that if say I’m going to somewhere like Huddersfield, where I could use another company, I will travel on a Virgin!
Untangling The Knitting
I said in this post that due to good project management, I don’t believe that Crossrail 2 will get built as the planners think it should be now.
On the Great Northern branch, it is not just a question of choosing between New Southgate and Alexandra Palace as the terminus.
This branch will also be shared with two other services; Thameslink to the South of the Thames and the Northern City line into Moorgate.
Not only do you have the East Coast Main Line, but you have the Hertford Loop, going to Stevenage and the North.
To further complicate matters, you have the problem of the Digswell Viaduct and the possibility of the East West Rail Link going through the area.
I think the only certainty is that Crossrail 2 will be the catalyst that pushes the engineers to find a brilliant but unexpected solution.
In fact, I think from a logical point of view the problem of the Digswell Viaduct and the associated double-track section should be solved first, as it could be the key key that unlocks everything.
After all, if the line was four tracks all the way to Stevenage ans possibly even Peterborough, it would give the train companies all sorts of options about where to terminate suburban services out of London.
If there was more capacity on this section of the East Cosast Main Line, I’m sure that the train companies would find plenty of innovating ways to use it.
Should Crossrail 2 Go To Alexandra Palace Or New Southgate?
It looks like the planned terminus of the Great Northern branch of Crossrail 2 is going to be New Southgate rather than Alexandra Park.
I knew that area well fifty years ago, but looking at a recent map, there still seems to be plenty of space for a depot for the trains.
So at a first glance it would seem that the choice is probably down to engineering, operational and architectural reasons.
The Anonymous Widower 