Not so Greater Anglia

[F Great Eastern]

However, whoever took over the Greater Anglia franchise was going to be handicapped when it came to traincare. Before the franchise had been let, First Group closed Clacton depot.

That happened before the time of First Great Eastern who did not start operating until 1997. It happened in 1995 when Network South East were looking to cut costs as the depot was previously used to house the class 309's before they were withdrawn in 1994.

First Great Eastern then re-opened the depot in 2003 when the Class 360's were delivered. Sometime thereafter it closed before National Express opened it in July 2010. They did to their credit invest in this depot at this time and they did invest here towards the end of the franchise.

In any case the new franchise is still early days and we'll see how they go but I do agree that we have so many units now that Clacton did need to be re-opened because as has been said with the number of units that have came in recently there was far too much for Illford to cope. Do we know how many units we had at the start of the franchise and at the end?

The information desks on the concourses at Liverpool Street were a good idea and hopefully Greater Anglia will keep these going and what would be a major improvement would be to try and get rid of dedicated Stansted Express ticketing systems and get them to use standard ones, it must save in IT infrastructure as well as making things far simpler.

Being objective I will never be NXEA's biggest fan, but for me at least in hindsight most of the damage was done between mid 2005 and 2009 when they were poor. The last couple of years or so they improved and I'd consider their performance average and acceptable.

What I think we all agree is that the next big franchise needs to be the department specifying one and selecting a bid which promises some much needed investment in rolling stock to a high standard. The last thing we need is a long contract for an operator with huge premiums and little in the way of investment.

 

[O L Leigh]

Well, prior to the start of the franchise the WA fleet of Cl315 and Cl317 EMUs were cared for by Hornsey, so Ilford gained the entire WA fleet straight away. This would have been about 20 Cl315s and 59 Cl317s. Then you have 30 Cl379s and however many Cl321s cascaded from LM. With no units leaving the fleet prior to GA taking over, that has to be a net increase of around 130 4 car EMUs compared to FGE days, all of which call Ilford home.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to correct my figures.

O L Leigh

 

[jon0844]

I always heard bad things about Ilford, but it's good to know some of the reasoning rather than just assuming they were incompetent.

For as long as I can remember having an interest, I've heard some crazy stories about the shortcuts made at Ilford to get trains back out (and, presumably, almost straight back in!).

Ignoring the operator for a minute, surely the DfT should be pressured to ensure sufficient facilities exist to maintain and handle more rolling stock. It's pretty basic, and would soon be considered important if there was ever an incident that was identified as being down to poor maintenance facilities.

 

[tunster]

What I think we all agree is that the next big franchise needs to be the department specifying one and selecting a bid which promises some much needed investment in rolling stock to a high standard. The last thing we need is a long contract for an operator with huge premiums and little in the way of investment.

Let's hope the Olympics cheers up the miserable economy and encourages banks to get some money flowing by 2013.

Admittedly, Abellio have got a huge task in front of them if they want to stay top of the crop for consideration when the next lease is due in 18 months time. New trains, huge investment in station regeneration, line improvement, better customer service, increased reliability and punctuation. I think this is a huge ask for anyone wanting to regenerate an ageing package which goes back 20+ years.

Again, it's also down to Abellio or whoever to get National Rail into gear. One cannot make improvements without the other. The period during the Olympics will be one where we'll see whether they can cope with an increase in traffic and demands for trains on time being a core route into Stratford/London.

You'd think it would in the Government's interests to have done something about the Great Eastern line when we knew the Olympics were coming. :roll:

 

[Eagle]

Again, it's also down to Abellio or whoever to get National Rail into gear.

You mean Network Rail, surely?

 

[tunster]

You mean Network Rail, surely?

Yes I do . I know that typo will stick out like a sore thumb here. Just to add to that point, Abellio need to tighten the SLAs for repairs and maintenance work affecting their services. Surely this was something NX was poor at?

 

[knight2004]

when visitors arrive they'll see how rubbish the trains really are

 

[jopsuk]

Going by what you say then Ol Leigh, would you say that the investment that's most needed is bigger, better, depot facilities? That if there was the space, facilities and people (and perhaps a little more slack in the fleet) to better service more units each night, that things would be rather better?

Can't really fault that...

 

[Uzair]

Silly question. But as there are engineering works on the Greater Anglia network almost every weekend, why are things not improving, with incessant delays caused from issues with the OHLE?

 

[lm321412]

I always heard bad things about Ilford, but it's good to know some of the reasoning rather than just assuming they were incompetent.

Incompetent?

Far, far from it - the staff there work effortlessly and there is some great people associated with that depot who manage what can sometimes be a difficult fleet of trains and do a very good job in managing those fleets.

Be quite interested in these "bad things" that you have "always heard"

 

[jon0844]

It goes back years (as in back to 2003/4) and I am sure it's all out there on newsgroups and other forums.. Most, if not all, was down to bodged repairs to get trains back out quickly.

I can't detail them all here, as I didn't make a diary!

That's why I am all ears on what the reasons are behind it, although at the end of the day, if they're overworked and can't cope - then there's still the same result; trains that aren't as reliable as they should be, which will cause obvious problems in addition to the many problems caused by Network Rail/infrastructure.

I like to know the reasons behind things, but Joe Public doesn't give a damn.

 

[O L Leigh]

Incompetent?

Far, far from it - the staff there work effortlessly and there is some great people associated with that depot who manage what can sometimes be a difficult fleet of trains and do a very good job in managing those fleets.

Yes indeed there are, and I would never like to denigrate them. However, there has been difficulty in retaining trained staff at Ilford depot due in large part to the limited facilities and the high workload which has had an effect on morale, problems which go back decades.

Admittedly things have improved over the years, with fewer trains going out of Ilford empty to Liv St only to be failed on arrival and have to go straight back again. Likewise there aren't the sorts of lurid problems that some of my more experienced colleagues remember well. Some of these things are to do with systems and fleet modifications put into place by NX.

But that does not get away from the problems of an expanding fleet being squeezed into an ever more congested maintenance facility. There just isn't the space with the number of covered shed roads and yard roads available to cater for the entire fleet and that has a knock-on effect on the ability of the operator to carry out even minor maintenance, clean the units properly and tank the toilets. As I say over and over, any operator would have been faced with precisely the same challenges. To lay blame squarely at NX for their impact is a tad unfair.

O L Leigh

 

[jon0844]

It was National Express that fitted the wrong thermostats on the 313s (at Hornsey, pre-2006), which meant the heating didn't work properly (can't remember if it meant the heating didn't come on, or stayed on!) which FCC had to fix by replacing them again - but I don't think they even knew which thermostats had been changed, so it was a bit of trial and error.

I wonder if the 315s had the same part, and if they had the same problems?

 

[A60K]

I guess some relief for Ilford will come with Crossrail, but presumably what is really needed in an ideal world is a proper maintainance and stabling facility somewhere else. Around Cheshunt might be ideal with it having two routes into London, but unrealistic because of space available, green belt and relatively low unemployment making it difficult to keep staff. If there was somewhere suitable on the West Anglia route most of the 317 and 379 work, and some 315, could be done there.

 

[IanXC]

What strikes me as odd is that with the increase in fleet size described why another depot has not already been provided. Northern have opened Allerton on the back of a smaller increase in fleet size.

Have there been any failed proposals?

 

[Sleepy]

Norwich Crown point depot also has capacity issues at night - EMT 158 stock also has to go in !

 

[dk1]

Norwich Crown point depot also has capacity issues at night - EMT 158 stock also has to go in !

That has worked pretty well suprisingly even though EMT now stable a 4th unit.

 

[LAX54]

There are practically NO OHL problems N of Ipswich unless you include line side fires like that recently at Claydon & the type of these cannot ever be expected.

As far as I can recall there have been no major OHL faults c/s Ipswich to Norwich, ever since it was put up, there have been issues with the 'bar' that runs over Trowse Bridge a few times.

The service towards London may not be perfect ( from Colchester) but over the year, I suppose there are about 30 days or so that are really bad, not always NR's fault, compare that to the A12 and M25, where people don't seem to mind sitting in a lione traffic for hours on end, with not a murmour!

get a train 5 or 10 late and it's the end of the world !
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

when visitors arrive they'll see how rubbish the trains really are

I don't think they will see much difference!

Problem here is we run TOO MANY trains, they need to cut back, there si no room for any problems to be run out.

If you have a 15 min service made of 4 car units, would it not be be better to have an 8 car at 30 mins, or even an hourly 12 car?

This way any issues that arise, the service can get back on track quicker, at the moment it only needs 1 train to fail, run late, and that rebounds for hours after it's all solved.

From Liv St on the GEML you could run a 12 car to Colchester, then split, 4 for Clacton, 4 for Harwich and 4 for Ipswich, then run it reverse up rd, 3 trains taking the path of one on the most congested part.

The SR runs multi-divide trains well, ( very well) and always have done, yet on the GE, apart from a couple in the peak, it seems frowned on !

 

[Eagle]

The SR runs multi-divide trains well, ( very well) and always have done, yet on the GE, apart from a couple in the peak, it seems frowned on !

By SR do you mean Southern Region or Scotrail? (If the latter it's a ridiculous comparison, as that's loco-based shunting in a deserted station in the middle of the night, and it still takes a quarter of an hour minimum.)

 

[GB]

Think he means Southern Region.

 

[iphone76]

Problem here is we run TOO MANY trains, they need to cut back, there si no room for any problems to be run out.

If you have a 15 min service made of 4 car units, would it not be be better to have an 8 car at 30 mins, or even an hourly 12 car?

This way any issues that arise, the service can get back on track quicker, at the moment it only needs 1 train to fail, run late, and that rebounds for hours after it's all solved.

From Liv St on the GEML you could run a 12 car to Colchester, then split, 4 for Clacton, 4 for Harwich and 4 for Ipswich, then run it reverse up rd, 3 trains taking the path of one on the most congested part.

The SR runs multi-divide trains well, ( very well) and always have done, yet on the GE, apart from a couple in the peak, it seems frowned on !

I agree that there are too many trains with not enough slack, but have you actually travelled on the GEML during the rush hour? In the high peak there are full 12 carriage trains arriving and leaving Liverpool Street every 2-3 minutes. I cannot see how you can reduce the service now, as if even one train is cancelled in the current timetable, it is usually impossible to get on the next service. (Speaking in my experience from Wickford on the Southend Line).

The GE metro line service is also well patronised during the off-peak, (and at capacity during the peaks), so I cannot imagine reducing that from every 10 mins to 15 or 20 would go down that well, or fit in with the mayor's turn-up and go aspirations.

 

[tunster]

I agree that there are too many trains with not enough slack, but have you actually travelled on the GEML during the rush hour? In the high peak there are full 12 carriage trains arriving and leaving Liverpool Street every 2-3 minutes. I cannot see how you can reduce the service now, as if even one train is cancelled in the current timetable, it is usually impossible to get on the next service. (Speaking in my experience from Wickford on the Southend Line).

The GE metro line service is also well patronised during the off-peak, (and at capacity during the peaks), so I cannot imagine reducing that from every 10 mins to 15 or 20 would go down that well, or fit in with the mayor's turn-up and go aspirations.

Well, it looks like that Abellio have no clue on the main line. Today, we had the 07:40 (arrived at Chelmsford and going towards Liv St.) arrive with 8-cars (instead of the normal 12). Anyone who knows Chelmsford station at peak knows a platform worth of people can fill every seat almost on a 12-car.

Well, we got no prior warning of the 07:40 going to 8 car this morning. I thought this might of been down to the 4 car being problematic, but that's not the case. The twitter account confirmed it's permenant as a set of 4 cars has been returned to NXEA. How? Surely they didn't loan these on a short-term or are taking them to another NX service? There are supposedly units in the work shop to "strengthen" the 8 car services which will come back into service when ready.

This is a poor poor decision which will make this journey more painful in the mornings (knock on effect on later trains and so-forth).

To improve, you can only increase train lengths (impossible), add new lines (impossible north of Chelmsford) or increase frequency with a little dent in train lengths. Just got a twitter reply saying they can't change timetables to help ease congestion in reaction to this. How silly that is when this is a drastic change to peak services. Surely train lengths should be fixed in the timetable so this can't happen? Affecting one, affects the other.

 

[dk1]

The GE metro line service is also well patronised during the off-peak, (and at capacity during the peaks), so I cannot imagine reducing that from every 10 mins to 15 or 20 would go down that well, or fit in with the mayor's turn-up and go aspirations.

Things have got worse since Westfield with weekends like an all day peak from Stratford. I notice 4-car 315s on this route are a thing of the past.

 

[TheBigD]

Are GA struggling with 170 availability? There's been a 156 out all day on the Norwich-Cambridge run today as well as a 153 yesterday evening.

 

[SprinterMan]

Well, it looks like that Abellio have no clue on the main line. Today, we had the 07:40 (arrived at Chelmsford and going towards Liv St.) arrive with 8-cars (instead of the normal 12). Anyone who knows Chelmsford station at peak knows a platform worth of people can fill every seat almost on a 12-car.

Well, we got no prior warning of the 07:40 going to 8 car this morning. I thought this might of been down to the 4 car being problematic, but that's not the case. The twitter account confirmed it's permenant as a set of 4 cars has been returned to NXEA. How? Surely they didn't loan these on a short-term or are taking them to another NX service? There are supposedly units in the work shop to "strengthen" the 8 car services which will come back into service when ready.

This is a poor poor decision which will make this journey more painful in the mornings (knock on effect on later trains and so-forth).

To improve, you can only increase train lengths (impossible), add new lines (impossible north of Chelmsford) or increase frequency with a little dent in train lengths. Just got a twitter reply saying they can't change timetables to help ease congestion in reaction to this. How silly that is when this is a drastic change to peak services. Surely train lengths should be fixed in the timetable so this can't happen? Affecting one, affects the other.

This is due to GA not taking over NXEA's lease on the 9 Class 317/7s due to them being totally unsuitable for commuter work. A 12 car 317/7 formation has less seats than an 8 car 321 formation so the 12 car 317/7 peak workings have been replaced by 8 car 321s, 321s that have been taken off 12 car workings like yours. A simple re-jig of the seats and removal of massive 1st class sections and those stupid inter-carriage doors would have done wonders for the 317/7s, but Abellio took the cheapest and easiest way out (however unpleasent your journey is, can you blame them) and sent them off-lease. Although there is now slightly lower capacity at peak times and 1 NRW run is 321 worked, fleet leasing costs are lower so maybe ticket prices won't/haven't gone up by as much. VT/ATW have put theirs up since the timetable change but GA are still using NXEA old rates. Just one of those things though I suppose, like SOU withdrawing 460s and replacing them with 442s.

 

[jopsuk]

um, NXEA did put the prices up at the start of January. At the same rate as everyone else. GA haven't done so because they can't yet. They'll put them up by the maximum they're allowed when they're allowed too.

 

[dk1]

Are GA struggling with 170 availability? There's been a 156 out all day on the Norwich-Cambridge run today as well as a 153 yesterday evening.

Just a mix of cracked windscreen on one, low coolant on another & infrastructure probs causing late running on the Thetford route & substitution with another unit to allow a right time start.

 

[NLC1072]

Well, it looks like that Abellio have no clue on the main line. Today, we had the 07:40 (arrived at Chelmsford and going towards Liv St.) arrive with 8-cars (instead of the normal 12). Anyone who knows Chelmsford station at peak knows a platform worth of people can fill every seat almost on a 12-car.

Well, we got no prior warning of the 07:40 going to 8 car this morning. I thought this might of been down to the 4 car being problematic, but that's not the case. The twitter account confirmed it's permenant as a set of 4 cars has been returned to NXEA. How? Surely they didn't loan these on a short-term or are taking them to another NX service? There are supposedly units in the work shop to "strengthen" the 8 car services which will come back into service when ready.

This is a poor poor decision which will make this journey more painful in the mornings (knock on effect on later trains and so-forth).

To improve, you can only increase train lengths (impossible), add new lines (impossible north of Chelmsford) or increase frequency with a little dent in train lengths. Just got a twitter reply saying they can't change timetables to help ease congestion in reaction to this. How silly that is when this is a drastic change to peak services. Surely train lengths should be fixed in the timetable so this can't happen? Affecting one, affects the other.

To change the timetable would include altering all the trains that connect/would get in the way of/would need to overtake said train, as well as re-timing a load of freight that would use the line around that time to fit around the timetable change which is ran by another operator, and then that freights times would need altering when it reaches another main line/ their services on the other main line would need altering to accommodate the new times the freight would reach their line say the WCML via the NLL where there may be no available slot for it... huge can of worms opened, just by truing to re-timetable one service... worth it? nope.

 

[jopsuk]

This is due to GA not taking over NXEA's lease on the 9 Class 317/7s due to them being totally unsuitable for commuter work. A 12 car 317/7 formation has less seats than an 8 car 321 formation so the 12 car 317/7 peak workings have been replaced by 8 car 321s, 321s that have been taken off 12 car workings like yours. A simple re-jig of the seats and removal of massive 1st class sections and those stupid inter-carriage doors would have done wonders for the 317/7s, .

Really, the entire Greater Anglia 317 and 321 fleet could do with having a single identical carriage layout, similar to the current 317/6 setup but with a disabled loo to replace the two grotty cupboards.

 

[87015]

Really, the entire Greater Anglia 317 and 321 fleet could do with having a single identical carriage layout, similar to the current 317/6 setup but with a disabled loo to replace the two grotty cupboards.

But the massive loss of seating capacity would be a huge own goal, and the service probably couldn't cope with more standees and less seated passengers due to increased station time. There isn't the empty middle seats to be taken out, they vast majority of 3+3s are occupied in the GE peak and anywhere even Shenfield is beyond the limit for the higher 'acceptable' level of standees.