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News archive January/February 2005

National Network
Heritage, Narrow-Gauge and Miniature
Away from the tracks



National Network

40145 whistles in to Norwich
The golden years of English Electric power on the Great Eastern line were revived on Saturday January 22. Rail enthusiasts mingled with football fans at Norwich station as Class 40 “Whistler” no. 40145 (D345) arrived on a Pathfinder Tours return trip from York. The special – one of three that weekend – marked 25 years of the Class 40 Preservation Society. 40145 clocked up a new Class 40 Liverpool St - Norwich record: 103 mins 25 seconds. At Norwich one’s 08809 released the stock, allowing 40145 to refuel at Crown Point. The special then returned to York via Ely.

The football crowds had just come from Carrow Road after an entertaining 4-4 draw against Middlesborough, and seemed bemused by the array of cameras and tripods at the station. Given the trying circumstances, railfans were grateful that one staff still allowed photography.


Farewell to the Class 86s – but they’re back!
Two months after breaking the Norwich – London rail speed record (NRS Newsletter December 2004) , no. 86235 Crown Point was given the honour of powering the “last scheduled duty” for a Class 86 – the 17.00 London – Norwich on December 31. Among its passengers was one’s Head of Corporate Affairs Jonathan Denby, who photographed the loco upon arrival at Norwich.

one had announced that on December 31 it would complete the move to Class 90s by withdrawing all the Class 86s from scheduled use. However no. 86235 continued to work trains in January, to the irritation of enthusiasts who had made special arrangements to travel on the “last train”. one was said to have renewed its lease on a power-by-the-hour basis until the end of March, and on January 11 it was joined by no. 86232 Norfolk and Norwich Festival. As recently as February 3 86235 was observed on the 14.00 Norwich – London service.

Should one have made its bold claim about withdrawing the class? The key, it appears, lay in the use of the word “scheduled”.


New timetable brings off-peak regularity, but not everyone’s delighted
New rail timetables came into operation throughout the UK on December 12. In our area, the service pattern was thoroughly redrawn. From Norwich there are now peak-time journeys to the capital every 15 minutes, and off-peak service patterns have a welcome ‘clock-face’ regularity. Norwich’s off-peak arrival and departure patterns are shown in these tables.

Dep.

 Operator Destination notes
xx:00 one London Liverpool Street calls at Shenfield
xx:30 one London Liverpool Street calls at Chelmsford and Stratford
xx:37 one Great Yarmouth most via Acle
xx:40 one Cambridge alternate trains call at Brandon
xx:45 one Sheringham alternate trains miss Worstead and Roughton Road OR Salhouse and Gunton
xx:57 Central Liverpool Lime Street only Norfolk stop is Thetford
xx:57 one Lowestoft alternate trains run fast to Oulton Broad North


Arr.

 Operator Origin notes
xx:10 (or 08/09) Central Liverpool Lime Street only Norfolk stop is Thetford
xx:24(or 25) one Lowestoft alternate trains run fast from Oulton Broad North
xx:27 one London Liverpool Street (dep. xx:30) calls at Stratford and Chelmsford
xx:29 one Cambridge alternate trains call at Brandon
xx:40 one Sheringham alternate trains miss Roughton Road andWorstead OR Gunton and Salhouse
xx:48 one Great Yarmouth most via Acle
xx:52 one London Liverpool Street (dep. xx:00) calls at Shenfield


Although the new schedules have generally been well received, the inevitable complaints have rolled in. Longer journey times between Norwich and London are one bugbear, but new stops at Chelmsford and Shenfield have created more journey possibilities. Some overcrowding has been noted. Regular commuters on the two-carriage 07.43 Lowestoft – Norwich claim that as many as 60 people have to stand between Oulton Broad North and Norwich, but one has since undertaken to add a third carriage when possible. Stock availability seemed to be behind a large number of cancelled trains. In December a notice apologised for the problems and cited vandalism, bridge bashes, fatalities and “difficulties at Crown Point” as the reasons.

Some children who use the Bittern line to get to and from school are unhappy. The 1545 Norwich – Sheringham, which calls at Hoveton & Wroxham at 1559, was timetabled not to call at Worstead; however appeals reinstated the stop. Pupils travelling from North Walsham and villages around Gunton to Cromer High School found that their train, the 0717 from Norwich had been abolished.

The East Suffolk line too has a regular-interval service. Between 0900 and 1700 trains leave Lowestoft for Ipswich every two hours. As promised, most now continue through to London Liverpool Street.

After a few weeks observing passengers’ reactions, one adjusted the new schedule from February 7 by providing extra station stops to certain trains.

Central Trains’ Norwich – Liverpool service pattern has also become more uniform. CT trains no longer call at Wymondham or Attleborough, as these stations are served by the hourly Norwich – Cambridge dmus.

On WAGN’s Fen Line, King’s Lynn’s hourly departure and arrival times have remained the same.


Tell us your views on the changes, urges RPC
As part of a campaign to gather the views of one’s passengers following the timetable change, the Rail Passengers Committee Eastern England is running a series of station and on-train events throughout February. At a “meet the passengers” day at Norwich station on February 1, RPC members and staff listened to passengers’ concerns and handed out questionnaires to over 3,000 people. Three issues were identified as causing cause most concern:
* overcrowding on the Norwich – Lowestoft line
* travellers from north Norfolk being unable to reach London before 9.30am
* the 17.30 from Norwich no longer calling at Stowmarket.
Central Trains’ drivers call off strike – but overtime ban stays
Central Trains has managed to avert a threatened strike by drivers. On January 19, Aslef announced that a majority of its CT members had voted in favour of strike, following the downgrading of two Cambridge drivers over safety issues. The union proposed holding 24-hour strikes on three consecutive Saturdays from February 12. However, discussions between CT and Aslef nine days later found “a way forward” and the planned strikes were called off.

It is the second dispute between CT and Aslef in recent weeks. A special timetable had to be introduced on January 1 following the breakdown of agreements on voluntary overtime. Many services (but few Norwich – Liverpool trains) are being cut until further notice.

CT employs 693 qualified drivers, and another 78 are in training.


Starting gun fired for Thameslink/Great Northern
The Government has announced the start of the competition for the Thameslink/Great Northern franchise. TLGN will see Great Northern services from Kings Cross to Peterborough, Cambridge and King's Lynn combined with Thameslink, whose dual-voltage units operate a cross-London service between Bedford and Brighton as well as some south London trains via Wimbledon.

TLGN will begin in April 2006 and will last up to nine years. Years five and six will depend on performance, and the last three years will hinge on the progress of the Thameslink 2000 project.

The award of this franchise, as well as all future ones, will take more account of the competing companies’ track record. Among the bidders is National Express group, whose WAGN arm currently operates the Great Northern route. To support its bid. NatEx has published a brochure entitled Thameslink/Great Northern franchise…a new rail franchise for the future as well as a special web page: www.nationalexpressgroup.com/tlgn/


May Gurney wins NR contract
Construction services giant May Gurney has secured a major contract with Network Rail. Under the deal, worth an estimated £25m in the first year, the Norfolk company will maintain structures and earthworks between King's Cross and Berwick-on-Tweed as well as the MML St Pancras - Sheffield route. May Gurney, whose first major ECML contract began in 1997, is based at Trowse, near Norwich.


Grosvenor House resumes rail role
In the days when BR’s regions were subdivided geographically, Grosvenor House, close to Norwich station in Prince of Wales Road, was the headquarters of the Eastern Region’s Norwich division. Now the building is to house one’s £2.5m customer service centre. Due to open in February, the centre will handle telesales, customer relations and service inquiries. The company estimates that it may receive as many as a million calls a year.


156s to replace 150s
Substituting nine 2-car Class 156 units for the same number of its Class 150s will, according to one, “upgrade the service” on a number of local routes in East Anglia. The Class 156s, which provide 148 seats instead of 140, and enjoy 2 + 2 seating layout instead of 2 + 3, will be introduced over the next eight months. They will be equipped with new seat covers and carpets, and repainted into one livery by the middle of 2006. Routes to benefit will be: Norwich - Sheringham, Norwich - Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, Ipswich - Lowestoft, Ipswich - Felixstowe, Ipswich - Cambridge and Marks Tey - Sudbury.


Wagn: by royal appointment
In the week when Prince Andrew’s extravagant use of planes and helicopters came in for widespread criticism, the Queen showed how it should be done. On January 27 she travelled from Sandringham to the Holocaust Day Memorial service on a regular Wagn King’s Lynn – King’s Cross train.


The name’s the same for 90006
In a ceremony at Norwich station on the afternoon of December 20, loco no. 90006 was re-named Modern Railways/Roger Ford. The eponymous journalist was among the Modern Railways party who witnessed the naming ceremony. No. 90006, which had previously borne the same names during its stint with Virgin Trains, then worked the 17.00 Norwich – Liverpool Street.


Goodbye Anglia?
When it began operations last April, National Express announced that it would retain, as suffixes to ‘one’, the local identities: Anglia, Great Eastern, West Anglia and Stansted Express. This plan now looks short-lived, not to say cynical. The company’s website has recently scrapped separate news pages for each area, and the latest pocket timetables have dropped the sub-branding. How long before the rolling stock loses it too?


90009 “sandbagged” by hooligans
“An irresponsible act of vandalism” – that was how one responded to news that a bag of builders’ sand had been thrown on to one of its trains on December 13. It appears that the missile was tossed from a road overbridge between Needham Market and Stowmarket as the 15.30 Liverpool Street-Norwich train passed below. It damaged loco no. 90009’s pantograph as well as power lines, causing severe delays to thousands of passengers. Lines in the Stowmarket area were closed for two hours while Network Rail engineers carried out ohl repairs, and train services did not get back to normal until 22.30.


one’s punctuality on the up
In the SRA’s National Rail Trends report for July – September 2004, one ’s Norwich – London main line service was the best performing long-distance operation in the UK, recording a punctuality figure of 88% against a sector average of 79%. The result was a marked improvement on the same quarter in 2003 when under Anglia Railways the figure was just 76.6%. Since the start of 2005 main-line punctuality has even managed to creep over over 90%.

one’s other services – West Anglia, Great Eastern, Metro and local services – collectively recorded 89.3% punctuality against a sector average of 84.4%. This put it fourth out of the ten London and South East sector TOCs, just behind WAGN whose figure of 90.7% was nearly eight points better than in 2003. In the Regional Operators table, Central Trains remained bottom of the heap. Its 73% punctuality figure was virtually unchanged from last year.


Heritage, Narrow-Gauge and Miniature

Gatwick Express stock destined for Bramleyline
The Wisbech & March Bramleyline has agreed to buy five BR MK2f (Class 488) coaches from Porterbrook Leasing. The vehicles have recently come out of service with Gatwick Express, whose “Executive” livery will be retained and re-branded with the Bramleyline logo.

The coaches were due to be hauled from Stewarts Lane at EWS’s March depot on February 2. The move costs £2,500, which the Bramleyline Committee hopes to recover through sponsorship.


Green Arrow draws the crowds at the NNR
Boxing Day saw the NRM’s V2 2-6-2 60800 Green Arrow haul the first in a series of Minced Pie Specials on the North Norfolk Railway. The loco, which had spent the summer at Bressingham and arrived at the NNR on December 8, went on to star in a well-attended steam gala over the New Year weekend. Green Arrow, regarded by the NNR’s Geoff Gowing as the most prestigious engine to have visited the line, will return to the NRM in March for main line excursions.

Bulleid 4-6-2 no. 34081 92 Squadron is planned to remain on the NNR throughout 2005. Another arrival is ex-NER Y7 0-4-0T tank no 68088, a loco which regularly visited the railway in the 1990s. At Holt, the new station building opened on Boxing Day to coincide with Green Arrow ’s arrival. To commemorate the man regarded as synonymous with the M&GN, the museum building under construction will be known as the “William Marriot Museum”.


Layout change at Carlton Colville
A major track-relaying programme is under way at the East Anglian Transport Museum’s 2ft-gauge railway. The top half of the quarter-mile long line has been lifted and relaid away from the site perimeter to allow room for a new road. The exercise necessitated shifting the EATM’s fragile Southwold Railway van, thought to be the only surviving piece of Southwold rolling-stock. Fortunately it survived the move. The station and platform too will need rebuilding in due course.

Motive power on the Carlton Colville line is provided by two ex-MOD 4-wheel diesels, built in 1964 and previously at Duxford. Three more locos are stored out of use.


Leaf-fall training seen as an annual fixture
The last issue reported the Mid-Norfolk Railway’s week of low-adhesion training when railcar no.153 335 Michael Palin was used to enable newly-appointed one drivers to practise the techniques required during leaf-fall months.

This was the third year that the main-line company has trained its drivers on the MNR. With one about to offer the facility to other TOCs, the MNR is hopeful that it can become an annual contract.

Another “foreign” vehicle seen on the MNR is Balfour Beatty Plasser & Theurer ballast regulator no. DR77315. The unit ploughs and sweeps track before it is tamped, and visited the Wymondham - Dereham line for two weeks in mid-January.


NNR takes a small step towards Cromer
The North Norfolk Railway has begun to extend its run-round at Sheringham station over Ottendorf Green. As there has been some confusion about what exactly the NNR has bought, the railway states that it will now own the whole of Ottendorf Green apart from the Tourist Information Centre, the bus shelter and the pavement. The public will still be allowed on the Green, as only the track extension will be enclosed – with M&GN-style wooden fencing of course.


Brockford return for Little Barford
There will be once steam again this year at Brockford. After its success at several events last year, Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST Little Barford will return for the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway Museum’s public steaming days. Dates currently planned are: Sun 29/Mon 30 May; Sun 3 July; Sun 7,14,21,28/Mon 29 Aug. July 3 will be further enlivened by the MSLR’s “Rail ‘n’ Ale” event.


WWLR’s Maid of Tynne to be rebuilt
Among the winter projects on the Wells & Walsingham Light Railway is the rebuilding of Bo-Bo diesel-hydraulic Maid of Tynne. Bought by the railway’s founder Lt Cdr Roy Francis from the Ferry Meadows line near Peterborough, the loco arrived in time to haul some of last summer’s services. The WWLR plans to to enlarge the cab and lower the remainder of the bodywork. As Maid of Tynne’s diesel engine was designed for farm machinery, it will be renamed Norfolk Harvester.


Cromer box may become a museum
The last operational M&GNJR signal box was at Cromer, which finally closed when the entire Bittern Line line was resignalled in June 2000. It still retains its 36-lever frame which dates from 1954, and there have been several attempts to preserve it. Now a successful bid under the Cromer Community Economic Package means that money could become available to restore it and convert it to a museum.


Away from the tracks

From Titfield to Sheringham
“When British Railways announce the closure of the Titfield to Mallingford branch line, a group of residents try to run it themselves, with a wealthy backer who is attracted by the lack of licensing restrictions on trains....” – yes, most readers will recognise this as the plot of The Titfield Thunderbolt . Released in 1953, the film remains a firm favourite with rail enthusiasts. Among its stars was Wisbech & Upwell coach no.7, built by the GER in 1884 and now undergoing restoration at Appleby for the the M&GN Society. The Society is now selling the film in VHS (£9.99) and DVD (£15.99) formats, with all sales proceeds going towards its coach restoration programme.


Signal box for sale for £450,000 (with house attached)
When it became redundant, Dereham North signal box – one of four at this once important junction – was moved to the nearby village of Mattishall. For the last 30 years it has served as a summer house and store room. Now the 18th-century Middleton House in whose garden it stands is for sale, along with the “delightful souvenir of the old railway era”. Selling agent, Noel Alexander Property (01362 858833), is asking £450,000 for Middleton House. It says the signal box could be used as an office, sun room or additional family accommodation, being equipped with power, broadband access and heating.


Historic County School house on the market
£325,000 is the asking price for the station master’s house at County School. Sited next to the station which the Mid-Norfolk Railway now uses as an operational base, the building began life as the lodge to the now-demolished County School before passing to the GER. It was sold by BR in the 1960s.

Sowerby’s (01328 730340) describe the four-bedroomed house as situated down a long private drive, with several rooms said to have “views across the surrounding countryside, old railway line and platform”. However no mention is made of the weekend working parties at the station, nor of the MNR’s aim to extend train services there from Dereham.





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