July 2019 •The Railway Magazine•89East Suffolk line
gains in popularity
PASSENGER journeys increased
by 4% on Greater Anglia’s
Ipswich to Lowestoft line in
2018/19 – the equivalent
of 14,000 additional people
travelling on the line. More than
725,000 journeys were made, an
increase of 110% compared to
a decade ago before the hourly
off-peak service was introduced
between 2010 and 2012.£1million for better
GWR stations
PASSENGERS atLondon
Paddington, Reading and Bristol
Temple Meads will benefit
from a £1million investment
by Network Rail in improved
facilities over the coming
months. At Paddington, new
seating will be installed in
the‘Lawn’area and charging
points will be installed.
Improved signage, seating and
information screens will be
added at Reading, with Bristol
Temple Meads having recently
benefited from a new water
fountain as well as two new sets
of ticket gates.Upgrade means better
access at Cadoxton
CADOXTON station, near Barry,
will be upgraded with step-free
access for all passengers at a
cost of £3million. Funded by
the Department forTransport’s
‘Access for All’programme,
the work includes installation
of a new footbridge with two
passenger lifts. For the first time,
a fully accessible route will be
available to platform 2 for
Barry-bound trains.Work will
continue throughout 2019.ScotRail app for
deaf passengers
SCOTRAIL has teamed up with
InterpreterNow to introduce a
new British Sign Language (BSL)
smartphone app that delivers
immediate access to online
interpreting, enabling deaf and
hearing people to communicate
with each other.The app can be
used on both ScotRail staff and
customer smartphones and is
designed to allow ScotRail to
provide deaf customers with
information on trains, at stations
or ticket offices.Horden station
construction starts
CONSTRUCTION work
has started on the new
£10.55million station at Horden,
near Peterlee, in County
Durham. Expected to open in
spring 2020, the two-platform
station is being funded by
Durham County Council,
assisted by £4.4m from the
Department forTransport’s New
Stations Fund and a grant from
the North East Local Enterprise
Partnership LEP.The project will
also see the creation of a new
road, footpath and cycleway.c2c station revamps
project underway
REFURBISHMENT workis
underway at c2c’s Upminster
and Chafford Hundred stations.
The work to modernise booking
halls and waiting areas follows
recent upgrades at Grays
and Ockendon as part of a
£17million plan to transform all
c2c stations.SIDELINES
MerseyrailtopofpunctualitychartsMERSEYRAIL was the UK’smost
punctual passenger train operator
in 2018/19 with an average of
95.51% of trains running on time- well above the national average
of 86.3%.
Overall national punctuality
during March was steady at 89%,
but Merseyrail topped the charts
with an impressive 98.1%. Close
behind in March wasTfL Rail with
96.9%, c2c at 96.6%,Transport for
Wales on 93.3% and Heathrow
Express at 93.2%.
In April, 93.07% of Greater
Anglia trains ran‘on time’– the
fifth consecutive month
of improvements.The best
performance was achieved on the
MarksTey-Sudbury branch, with
98.1% of trains on time, Norwich-
Sheringham line with 97.6%,
London-Harwich with 96.5%,
Norwich-Lowestoft with 95.9%,
London-Colchester/Clacton-on-
Sea/Walton-on-the-Naze with
95.8%, and the Norwich-Great
Yarmouth line with 95.3%.
GA reported its best punctuality
figures for 20 years on some
routes, with more than 95% of
Great Eastern Main Line services
running to time.
In Scotland, performance
continued to improve over the
last few weeks, with 89.9% of
ScotRail trains arriving within five
minutes of their scheduled time
in April and 90.5% in May.This
was the Abellio company’s best
performance since September
2018.There have been significant
improvements in western
Scotland which is recording its
best performance for 18 months.
The first week after the
introduction of the new timetable
on May 19 saw 92.2% of trains
meet their punctuality target- also a nine-month high for a
single week.
ScotRail is crediting some of
its recent improvement to the
recruitment of 140 extra front-line
London’sneweststation
opensatMeridianWater
MERIDIANWater station in
north-east London opened
on June 3, serving a huge
regeneration scheme on
former industrial land.
The £46million, three-
platform interchange will be
served by Greater Anglia trains
on the LeaValley route, and
replaces nearby Angel Road,
one of inner London’s
least-used stations.
A 5.5km third track has been
laid between Stratford and
MeridianWater to provide
additional capacity and relievecongestion on the Liverpool-
Street-Cambridge route.This
will allow GA to operate two
extra trains per hour in each
direction at peak times.
Enfield Council has provided
£40m towards the cost
of MeridianWater as part
of the proposed £6billion
redevelopment of the
area, which it is hoped will
eventually provide 10,000 new
homes and 6,000 jobs.
Construction of the first 725
homes starts in 2020 and will
be complete in 2022.Meridian Water station in north-east London opened to the
public on June 3. Also see pic on p112.NETWORK RAILPASSENGERS at London Bridge
were faced with the unusual
sight of a full-size Supermarine
Spitfire on the station concourse
in early June. The replica Second
World War fighter was on
display as part of a joint effort
between Network Rail and
Imperial War Museums to mark
the 75th anniversary of the
D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.
NETWORK RAILLONDON Overground’s Hackney
Wick station, which reopened
after extensive redevelopment
and expansion in May 2018,
has won a prestigious design
award from the Institute of Civil
Engineers (ICE).
The ambitious redesign, which
transformed the North London
Line station from a neglected
site into a modern and
attractive transport interchange,
won the Community Benefitcategory ahead of nine
other projects celebrating
outstanding civil engineering
achievement, innovation and
ingenuity in London.
Designed by architects
Landolt Brown, the station
reflects the industrial heritage
and waterways of the area while
providing passengers with a
light and airy ticket hall with
new stairs and lifts to improve
station access.CONTRACTORS working to
strengthen Snow HillTunnel
in Birmingham city centre
discovered an underground
entrance to the city’s branch of
the Bank of England in April.
The work, carried out by
Story Contracting on behalf of
Network Rail, involved spraying
eight tonnes of concrete onto
the walls over three weekends
and construction of a 120-yearshaft cap to reduce stress,
brickwork repairs, pinning and
grouting.
However, within the 635-yard
tunnel, staff also discovered
evidence of sidings that were
once used for transporting
milk and mail.The siding was
apparently used to transport
cash and bullion by train but
was last used in the 1960s and
is now sealed.Tunnel workers discover hidden
secrets under Birmingham
customer service staff as part
of the Service Quality Incentive
Regime (SQUIRE). Performance
problems caused by staffing issues
dropped from 33% in early 2018
to 10% of the total in the same
period of 2019. Abellio ScotRail
paid out £1,544,931 in fines to theSQUIRE investment fund between
December 2017 and March 31,
2018, but during the same period
of 2018/19 the total was down
42% to £895,378. All money
raised through the SQUIRE fund
is reinvested into projects across
Scotland’s railway.Prestigious design award
forHackneyWickproject
London Bridge
Spitfire surprise
THE UK’s latest Community Rail
Partnership (CRP) went‘live’on
June 3, bringing together local
authorities, train operators, rail user
groups and other key stakeholders
in Solihull andWarwickshire.
The Heart of England CRP was
initiated by the Shakespeare
Line Promotion Group (SLPG)
and Solihull & Leamington Spa Rail
Users Association (SALRUA).
It will enable local rail users
to participate in a range of
activities, from station adoption
and restoration, planting flowers
to brighten up stations and
influencing the development of
rail services on their routes.
There are now 64 CRPs across the
UK, but this is the first in theWest
Midlands region.HeartofEngland
partnership ‘live’
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