Midland Mainline Chaos

Last night northbound commuters and travelers were greeted by chaos just before 9pm due to a train fire with an East Midlands Trains (EMT) heading for London St Pancras. The service was the 1928 Nottingham to St Pancras service when shortly before 2100 reports came in that the rear power car was smoking and flames were seen. The train came to a halt just south of Leagrave station at 2057 when all railway lines in the area were blocked as a safety measure. Just after this came reports that the OverHead Line Equipment (OHLE) power was lost between Sanridge and Sundon trapping four FCC services.

The local Fire Brigade arrived on scene around 9pm and managed to put the fire out within 20mins. The train was finally moved to Luton station at 2210 after the Fire Brigade deemed it safe. However the railway lines weren't handed back until 2230 and the 2030 St Pancras to Nottingham service was allowed through under slow speeds to assess the damage. The driver reported that the contact wire on the OHLE was down meaning repairs were necessary.

The four trapped trains in the area were evacuated around midnight with one EMT train being used to pick up passengers off two stranded FCC services. Meanwhile arrangements were being made for buses replace all trains between Bedford and St Albans with approximately 40 buses being involved at its height.

The lines were open again for trains (on the slow lines) by 0230 and a full service between St Albans and Leagrave was possible at 0300 after Network Rail fixed the OHLE. But due to the several hours of cancellations the morning peak was one of delays southbound but FCC managed to run an almost full service. Both FCC and EMT are now running a full service although Friday will see EMT hit by industrial strike affecting services.

NXEA gets Electrostars

As reported last month, National Express East Anglia (NXEA) have officially announced that they are getting Electrostar to increase capacity on their routes. The new for car units will be used mainly on the Stansted Express route from London Liverpool Street. These will then display Class 321 EMU's to increase train length across the NXEA network. Longer trains will operate on routes from Norwich, Ipswich, Clacton, Colchester, Chelmsford and Southend to London with two 'Metro' services from Gidea Park to Liverpool Street on the Great Eastern routes. On the West Anglia routes longer trains will be provided on the West Anglia routes from London to Cambridge, Bishops Stortford, Harlow, Cheshunt, Enfield and Chingford. Stansted Airport Limited is also going to lengthen the platforms at Stansted Airport station to cope with longer trains with Network Rail doing other station and infrastructure works.

The trains were orders with the view that the peak would see 10,600 passengers arrive at Liverpool Street with a seating capacity of 10,913 in the three peak hours from 7am until 10am. The peak hour from 8am to 9am sees 4,900 commuters arrive with 3,229 seats on offer. NXEA is going to publish more details this month about how it is going to address this issue and the changes the new trains will bring. NXEA is looking at changing services on the Suffolk line (this runs from Lowestoft and Peterborough to Ipswich) that will require a change to the Service Level Commitment (SLC) in the NXEA franchise which is going to be consulting the affected stakeholders.

The full Bombardier press release

Bombardier Wins a 188 Million Euro Order from National Express in the UK for the Supply and Maintenance of 120 ELECTROSTAR Vehicles

April 2, 2009 — Berlin
Transportation

The Award-winning ELECTROSTAR Train, One of the Most Successful EMU's in the UK Market, Enables Even More People to Travel in Comfort and in an Environmentally-friendly Manner

Bombardier Transportation has signed an order with Lloyds TSB and London Eastern Railways, a subsidiary of National Express, for 30 four-car BOMBARDIER ELECTROSTAR Electrical Multiple Unit (EMU) trains plus a three year maintenance agreement. The order value is approximately 188 million euros ($249 million US, £173 million). The new EMUs will operate on the Stansted Express services between Stansted Airport and London city. The award of the contract is part of the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) campaign to ease over-crowding on the rail network in the south of England.

The new ELECTROSTAR trains are designed for service speeds of up to 160 km/h and are equipped with large luggage racks, saloon air conditioning, comprehensive CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) coverage for greater passenger security, and a WiFi system to enhance the level of passenger communication and information to and from the trains. The units will also feature the renowned and sophisticated BOMBARDIER MITRAC propulsion and controls system to recover and feed back energy while breaking.

All 120 coaches will be delivered between March and June 2011. The new ELECTROSTAR fleet will replace the older Class 317 fleet. Bombardier will maintain the fleet using the operator’s Maintenance Depot at Ilford.

Commenting on the order, Colin Walton, Chairman and Chief Country Representative, Bombardier Transportation UK, said: "We are extremely pleased that our ELECTROSTAR trains have been chosen to welcome visitors arriving into the UK via Stansted Airport. The award-winning ELECTROSTAR is the ideal EMU choice for UK customers, a product with a proven pedigree of high reliability, low maintenance requirements and all round train performance. This order further helps cement our successful, long-term relationship with our customer, National Express.”

Bombardier’s Derby site will be responsible for the vehicle manufacture, project management, engineering and testing.

The award winning ELECTROSTAR train is a well proven product with over 1,600 cars already in service with three UK operators, c2c, Southeastern and Southern. ELECTROSTAR units were also ordered in 2006 by Transport for London for the ’London Overground’ services. The new Gautrain railway in South Africa will also operate ELECTROSTAR trains. L

TLP Month

March 2009 might as well be called Thameslink Programme (TLP) month from all the changes happening with the staged introduction of Key Output Zero (KO0). This basically is when the Moorgate branch closes and trains from Sevenoaks are (re)added into the Thameslink network due to lack of terminating bays at Blackfriars come the end of the month. The key dates are different to the 'official' dates but I have used the actually changes rather than the basic timetable changes as weekend services as you know is non existence at the moment.

27th Febuary 2009

The final time you'll be able to use Blackfriars Tube station until late (IE nov/dec) 2011. This is due to Network Rail (NR) rebuilding the whole station to provide a proper interchange with the Thameslink station and will have step free access. Please not that although they say it closes on the 2nd Febuary there is engineering work that weekend meaning you can't access the station on the 28th Febuary/1st March.

20th March 2009

This is the final day of services into Moorgate from the north Thameslink route before closure to allow Farringdon's platforms to be extended over the branch's junction to cope with the 12 car trains coming from 2012. The final service should be the 1906 to Bedford calling at Farringdon, St Pancras International, St Albans, Harpenden, Luton, Leagrave and Bedford arriving at 2012.

23rd March 2009

Customer living on the Sevenoaks to Blackfriars via Catford line will come under the Thameslink/First Capital Network with all trains running through the Central London Core to at least as far as Kentish Town. The service will be run by 4 car 319s and in the peaks will be extended to as far as Bedford. The current services from Beckenham Junction, Gillingham, Rochester and Ashford International into Blackfrairs will also be a joint effort with First Capital Connect and SouthEastern. The trains are due to be run by dual voltage 377/5 and are planned to be 8 units if enough 377/5's are delivered for this date.

As you can see the next month sees a lot of changes to both First Capital Connect services as well as SouthEastern services from late March. This is all part of providing more seats for customers using these services. There is still a danger that these keys dates are not meet. As of writing we are a 4 weeks away from the latest date and yet we have only had two 377/5's delivered with the first 377501 expected to be in service this week according to the latest dates. The second unit 377504 was delivered last week and has under gone some testing, neither have been on the Thameslink Core as of yet. Something that will have to change very soon. Work on the bridge at Farringdon is also behind but Network rail is stepping up efforts there and beginning to make real effort to meet the deadline. If enough 377's and the bridge at Farringdon isn't ready in time then the whole programme could slip. There is only a few months 'spare' in the time scale before the Olympics hit in 2012. Hopefully FCC, DfT, SouthEastern, NR and Bombardier will have all the problems solved or minimised by the time KO0 kicks in.

West Coast's Full Timetable

Chasing trains
Originally uploaded by MackenzieBlu

Good news for travelling using West Coast services from Euston and Southern's West London Line as Network rail have announced today that as from monday the full West Coast timetable will be in operation. This comes after Southern's ex Brighton - Watford Junction service was due to be changed in december's timetable change to become Milton Keynes - East Croydon. Due to Virginn West Coast invoking its protected access for the West Coast Main Line (WCML) as part if that lines £9bn upgrade. This lead to the ORR (Office of Rail Regulation) getting invloved in wording in West Coast track access right which saw it having to define what "calls at" and "starts or terminates" actually mean in a legal sense when applied to the railways. Finally the matter has been sorted and now the following enhancements can be made

Virgin Trains - 16 extra services a day

London Midland - 6 extra services a day

Southern - Extending all 32 services from Watford Junction to Milton Keynes

Chris Burchell, managing director of Southern said: "I’m very pleased we can now put in place the final pieces of our timetable. Southern’s hourly service will provide direct trains for people travelling between towns along the West Coast main line and locations in west and south London, including Wembley, Shepherd’s Bush and Kensington Olympia. With connections to many other destinations at Clapham Junction and East Croydon I am sure these trains will prove very popular."

Robin Gisby, Network Rail’s director of operations and customer service said: "Passengers have already seen the massive benefits that the £9bn investment in the west coast route has delivered with much more frequent, faster trains. With the new timetable now bedded in, we can introduce the final few services that complete the picture of improved services along the West Coast main line."

Boris Opens Woolwich Arsenal

Boris Opens Woolwich Arsenal (DLR)
Originally uploaded by MackenzieBlu

Today was the offical opening of the latest DLR extension to Woolwich Arsenal. I got a press invite to the show and will be releasing my images tomorrow (sadly other commitments mean I can do them today). Oh and the extension opened SEVEN weeks early.

While I was there I got to speak with London Rail's MD Ian Brown. London Rail is basically incharge of the DLR and Overground as well as supporting TOC in the London area.

I asked him what happened with the new Overground platforms at Stratford over christmas and when were they going to be opened?

Basically it seems that Network Rail didnt have the signalling testing to complete the work there and at the moment TfL is awaiting a new possesion to try again and commission the link.

On the subject of the new 378 fleet for the Overground I was told that the first is expected in service by March this year so a little wait longer.

As for the Oyster on National Rail within zones 1-6, ATOC is meeting this week and this will be discussed and hopefully sorted for a deadline!

Now for The East London Line (ELLX) Phase Two to Clapham Junction. It seems the DfT have made an offer for this and TfL have responded with a counter offer thats currently with the DfT. Lets hope they don't wait too long. Ian also told me he was very keen to see this progress quickly as he feels its extremely important to have this up and running as soon as possible. And with Thameslink Programme affecting the stations this will serve Im not surprised.

Thats it for the exciting news. Tomorrow I will be adding images taken from day including Boris failing to open the gates with his Oyster and explaining why he said the sooner TfL take over SouthEastern the better. All will be revealed.

FCC network in 2015

FCC network in 2015
Originally uploaded by MackenzieBlu

Here is a map of the propsed FCC network once the completed network is fully operational. Not the new links in the south deep into Southern's and Southeastern's terriories. The stations served aren't 100% fixed yet and aren't due to be confirmed offically until 2013. For now this is the most complete map.