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Other Bits and Pieces:
TravelWatch East Midlands
Corby railway station construction gets underway
Building contractor Dean & Dyball has begun construction of Corby's new £10.22m railway station.
Workers from the Balfour Beatty subsidiary have been setting up on site since Tuesday 29 July. The project is being funded by the East Midlands
Development Agency, which is injecting £5m into the scheme, with contributions from Network Rail,
East Midlands Trains, English Partnerships and North Northants Development Company making up the balance.
Corby is currently the largest town in Britain without a railway station. East Midlands Trains
will manage the station when it opens on 14th December this year.
The single-platform station will feature a modular building design.
Source Network Rail.
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Passengers using Nottingham’s tram system are overwhelmingly satisfied
with it and want it to be expanded, according to a new survey. A customer satisfaction showed that 93% of people using the
system are satisfied with it and 81% favour additional tram routes. They said the
system should be expanded to improve ease of use and convenience, help tackle
congestion and reduce cars on the roads and other environmental benefits. The year 2007 saw a 2.3% growth in use. (Source Nottingham City Council)
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Farewell to the Valenta engine - special train to York and Scarborough
East Midlands Trains has confirmed that it plans to run an additional special train to
Scarborough from Leicester, via Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield and York and on Saturday 26 July
to celebrate the last of the ‘Paxman Valenta’ high speed train engines in use on its route before
they leave service later this year.
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Network Rail has announced that it will commission a strategic review into the case for building
new rail lines across Great Britain. The review will look at five routes to the north and
west of London - Chiltern, East Coast, West Coast, Great Western and Midland Main Lines -
and will consider a range of options including 186mph high speed rail services.
information from Network Rail.
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From 16th June 2008, Nottingham City Council is introducing more Shoplink Buses to make shopping easier for residents in Nottingham. See
Nottingham City Council web-site for details.
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LONDON RAIL LINK UPGRADE
According to the BBC News web site train times between the East Midlands and London
are set to be cut by 20% after a £55m plan was approved.
See BBC News web site.
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£40 MILLION TO KEEP RAILWAYS MOVING IN NUNEATON
Network Rail has announced plans to invest more than £40 million to build a new rail
freight link in Nuneaton. Known as the Nuneaton North Chord, the new line – approximately
one mile long – will allow freight to cross from Peterborough to the West Coast Main Line
without disrupting passenger services.
This is a vital investment to help increase the amount of freight carried by rail in Britain
and is funded from the Department for Transport’s ‘Transport Innovation Fund’. Building the
chord could take as many as 225,000 lorries a year off the road and will also improve the
performance and reliability of passenger services locally and as far away as
London. More details available from Network Rail.
From Network Rail News Release of 06/05/2008.
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DEAL SIGNED TO REFURBISH HIGH SPEED TRAIN CARRIAGES
The multi-million pound contract to refurbish 40 High Speed Train (HST) carriages
for use on CrossCountry services has been awarded to Wabtec Rail, which
will carry out the work at its workshops in Doncaster.
The carriages will receive a complete overhaul, power sockets in every carriage,
WiFi and a catering home base from which an at-seat service of food and drink will be offered. They will be used on the
Edinburgh to Plymouth route to provide much needed extra capacity.
All the carriages will be repainted into CrossCountry’s distinctive livery
before being introduced to service, with the work scheduled to be completed
in time for the December 2008 timetable change. Each of the five HSTs will
provide some 550 seats. In service each train will run with two power cars
and eight carriages.
From Cross Country Trains News release of 22nd April 2008.
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Sunday service gets the green light for Robin Hood Line.
The Robin Hood Line train service, which runs from Nottingham to Worksop via Mansfield, will be
running on Sundays for the first time from this December.
See EMT news release of 08/04/2008.
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East Midlands Trains has unveiled the first of its re-branded Class 156
trains. The company will be re-branding all 11 of its Class 156 trains into
the new East Midlands Trains livery.
Commenting Tim Shoveller, Managing Director of East Midlands Trains said:
“Our priority for the start of the franchise was to ensure a smooth transition and to get punctuality and reliability off
to a good start. Now we’re confident these things have been achieved, it’s time to start focusing on the refurbishment of our trains, both inside and out."
The Meridian 222 fleet will follow the Class 156 re-branding.
In addition to the improvements listed above, the first of East Midlands Trains HST fleet is currently being re-painted at the company’s Neville Hill Depot in Leeds, and the contract is being finalised for the full refurbishment of the Class 158 fleet, which is due to start in the Summer.
From East Midlands Trains News release of 4th April 2008.
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Network Rail’s East Midlands Control Centre (EMCC) in Derby, a key element in providing control of train services in the East Midlands has been opened. The £250m, six-year investment programme to provide renewed signalling across the region, was
officially opened by Rt Hon Ruth Kelly MP, Secretary of State for Transport. See Network Rail
Press Release. Used with permission of Network Rail.
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Interesting Speculation! Glasgow Trains is a proposal by Renaissance Trains to operate passenger services between Glasgow and Liverpool, and Glasgow and Nottingham, from 2008. It would re-introduce direct services between these cities which were lost in the years after rail privatisation.
In October 2006 Renaissance Trains submitted a briefing note to the Office of Rail Regulation
concerning the Glasgow Trains proposal. See Renaissance Trains website from where this is copied.
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..and more interesting speculation! A new high speed East Coast mainline could pass through Nottingham,
according to a new report from Atkins consultancy.
See Atkins Press Release on this. (Used with permission of Atkins). More on the BBC news website
here. (BBC news website acknowledged.)
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A government minister has said the
possibility of reopening the trans-Pennine rail route through the Woodhead tunnel was being
considered. See BBC News website from where this is
copied & acknowledged. Although strictly speaking not in our area, it could have an impact on the East Midlands and would be much welcomed by TWEM.
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The Leicester Mercury published
this relating to our autumn 2007
"Charging or Choice Conference". (Used with permission of The Leicester Mercury).
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The DFT response to the
Local Transport Bill can
be found
here.
This concerns "our patch" among other things.
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