News Desk

Big Cities to receive Integrated Smartcard Funding

Experience is indicating that the need to buy a new ticket each time a passenger changes travel mode provides another barrier to travelling by public transport at all. In addition, modern transport users require increased flexibility, increasing approaching that perceived as being offered by the car. It was the London travelcard scheme that initially set minds racing, but the highly successful introduction of the Oyster card, with its pay as you go facility, that showed what could really be done to give people choice and convenience.

But London was different. London retained tight regulation of bus services whilst retaining many of the benefits of tendering. It has an integrated fares structure with the transport authority (London Transport and now Transport for London) setting fares and carrying the revenue risk. Introduction of new technology was therefore straightforward. Outside London there is a free for all situation promoted by those hoping that competition would stimulate travel. The down side of this is that there is in practice nobody ‘in charge’ and very little incentive for operators to co-operate. Some co-operation is achieved by local authorities who subsidize bus services, but passengers still find many places where a ticket bought on one bus cannot be used for a through journey involving a change of bus (often with different operators on each ‘leg’) and in some cases a season ticket bought for use on one route cannot be used on the buses of a different operator travelling along the same route. With an eye to what is happening in London, passengers find this lack of progress frustrating. Operators argue that they have no difficulties with the principles of improving ticketing but with present technology they are exposed to huge risk; the issue is that ticket sharing requires some or all revenue to be pooled and then reallocated on a fair basis. They argue that it is difficult to reconcile revenue allocation against actual passenger usage, which at the margins can increase costs if extra vehicles have to be run. Alternative views are that modern ticketing would increase passengers overall and improve revenue for everyone, but those in favour don’t have bottom line responsibility for the cash. The result is that very little has happened.

The advantage of Oyster is that the technology records the actual usage of all journeys made on inter-available tickets, which allows a precise revenue allocation to be made. Operators would therefore share in the benefits of introducing a scheme, with very little risk. The main issue is the provision of the necessary equipment and the identification of a scheme manager, possibly the local authority or Integrated Transport Authority in the big cities. As it is, The Oyster smartcard is technically restricted, while the government favours a ticket that can ultimately be used around the country and on rail, which London-based Oyster cannot do (Oyster will need a major technical upgrade at some point).

Government frustration has finally resulted in bribery. On 15th December the government announced that England's nine largest urban areas will receive £20m to bring smart and integrated ticketing to the greatest number of people most quickly through the ‘Smart and Integrated Ticketing Strategy’. The strategy also sets out the government's goal for every area of England to have access to smart ticketing by 2020 and contains nearly 30 Government commitments to help make this happen. The government estimates that the benefits of 'integrated smart' ticketing, that allows travel across operators and across modes, could be worth over £1 billion per year. To incentivise bus operators to install smart ticketing systems, the Government has also announced an eight per cent increase in the Bus Service Operator Grant (BSOG) if they have ITSO smartcard infrastructure on their buses (ITSO is a standard set by the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organization). The fund is worth about £2.2m each to the various authorities in the major cities who are expected to take the lead in managing local ticketing schemes and helping to provide equipment (these are the six Integrated Transport Authorities plus Bristol, Leicester and Nottingham).

There is a real risk that an Oyster-like system will be introduced, and once started is likely to be further extended. It should, at last, be a real contribution to developing an integrated transport system, and we hope that similar innovation might be possible in respect of integrated information provision which in all too many cases is absolutely dire.

National Express Group Loses East Anglia Rail Franchise

As reported in our main news pages, National Express Group lost the troubled East Coast franchise on 13th November this year, the day before the reference date by which fitness to receive an automatic renewal of the East Anglia franchise for three years was to have been made. It has been the practice to award recent franchises on the basis of a fixed term plus an automatic extension for a certain period if the franchise has performed adequately.

By taking the action it did, the Department is able to argue that the Group reneged on its commitment to East Coast, which is regarded as an adequate reason to refuse renewal of East Anglia, a difficult franchise that actually National Express Group has operated reasonably well. It was announced on 1st December that the franchise will now come to an end in Spring 2011, the same time as its c2c franchise was expected to finish. It is unlikely that National Express (once the largest UK train operator) will get much encouragement to bid in the next round.

With a year and a half to run, this will be a very demoralizing and unsettling period for the staff and managers who broadly do a good job. One hopes this will not impair performance too much and that with all the other things the rail industry has to focus on this setback will be taken in the industry's stride.

London Midland Difficulties

It is a curious by product of rail privatization that railways are more immediately under government influence than they were under British Rail. This is because the government has taken upon itself the responsibility for service specification and its subsequent delivery as this is part of the contractualization process. Although it is not common, when services are being delivered to a standard so far below that required it is possible for the Minister to issue a Remedial Plan Notice, though this has to relate to one of quite a small number of particular triggers. In extreme cases a franchise can be taken away.

The DfT announced on 10th November that such a notice had been served upon London Midland following an excessive number of cancellations earlier in the summer. London Midland is a new franchise carved out of the West Midland part of former Central Trains coupled up with the former Silverlink franchise. Curiously the issues derive from difficulties in forging together the various conditions of service which were quite different even though they were both former National Express railways. The were several problems that flared up under new ownership by Govia, but the main issue was that some staff were not obliged to work on Sundays, it being a great railway tradition to treat Sundays as overtime. Matters came to a head and without proper resolution staff refused to work Sundays giving rise to the railway stopping completely one Sunday and the company being pilloried in the press. Needless to say there have now been management changes and a more vigorous attempt to address the underlying problem. This wasn't the only issue, but it is a warning that when franchises are broken up and staff mixed and matched then all sorts of difficulties creep out of the woodwork. It is not a popular view and may in practice no longer be deliverable, but there are actually advantages to having national agreements for certain key factors, as existed by the way on the pre-BR privately run networks.

The remedial plan, while the responsibility of the train operator, is actually a negotiated settlement comprising a plausible plan to extract the train operator from the difficulties it has identified coupled with a number of sweeteners to restore confidence and return something to the passenger; some might regard it as a fine, by any other name. The plan is in due course contractualized and becomes part of the franchise agreement.

The additional benefits that London Midland has agreed includes a commitment to invest in new high-quality information equipment, spending no less than £4.4 million over the life of the franchise in addition to the investment that has already committed in the franchise agreement. More short term, there will be a promotion for 50,000 day rover tickets for travel over the Christmas period and London Midland will also make available an additional 400,000 Advance Purchase tickets over the next two years on some of the most popular routes.

Network Rail produces options favouring new high speed line (HS2)

The government has set up a company to examine options for new high speed lines in the UK but Network Rail has already undertaken a study into the business case for a new trunk route. Published on 26th August the study indicates there is a significant business case for certain options.

The thrust of the report is that on the basis of current forecasts (and despite the recession) the existing West Coast route will be full by 2020. On capacity grounds alone it will be necessary to have options developed to address this issue, and it is urgent given how long it takes to get things done. Of course, it is always possible to undertake piecemeal remedial upgrading nearer the time, but with the recent West Coast upgrade still fresh in people’s minds there is no enthusiasm for further endless weekend closures and speed restrictions. In any case as the railway fills up such an approach becomes progressively less acceptable anyway. It is against such a challenge that construction of an entirely new railway looks more inviting.

A new railway would sensibly be built as a high speed route as it is entirely new and need not carry slower freight which can use the capacity released on the old route; speeds up to 200 mph are expected. Notwithstanding the pressing need for relief to the West Coast line, four routes were examined. These were London to Yorkshire and the North East thence Scotland, London to East Midlands and Sheffield, London to West Midlands, the North West and Scotland, London to Bristol and Cardiff. In all cases it is entirely feasible to run trains to destinations beyond the high speed route itself on the ‘old’ railway. All in all over a dozen options were examined based on the four themes described.

Network Rail studied the impact that new high speed lines have had abroad and concluded that high speed lines a highly revenue generative and take very significant amounts of traffic off the roads; they have the potential to eradicate domestic air travel given their city centre to city centre capability and absence of requirement to book in and hang around enjoying bland departure lounges, blander shops, security facilities and baggage reclaim.

Of the options examined the best one was a new route from central London to Scotland (splitting into Glasgow and Edinburgh destinations), routed via Manchester and Preston and with branches to Liverpool and Birmingham, the latter having a north as well as a south facing connection. The route could operate at up to 16 trains an hour frequency. Journey time improvements could hardly avoid being dramatic. London-Birmingham down to 46 minutes, Manchester to 66 minutes, Liverpool 83 minutes, Edinburgh 2 hours 9 minutes and Glasgow 2 hours 16 minutes.

The cost of the new line is estimated at £34 billion, including government-required uplifts to reflect project delivery experience (optimism bias). The project in its raw form delivers 31.4 billion of cash benefits (over 60 years) and this includes netting off the revenue transferred (in effect) from the existing route. This does not include wider regeneration benefits. The total benefits (including economic benefits) should exceed £55bn over 60 years, against total costs (including operating costs) over the same period of £41.3 billion. Given the need to do something on capacity grounds alone, the economic case begins to look promising.

The review did not favour diverting the line out of London via Heathrow because the time penalty of 15 minutes severely dented the business case. Heathrow would be served by a branch line leading into the high speed network. Detailed route identification has not been undertaken at this stage.

DfT Mobilizes new East Coast company

The name ‘Abbey Rail Ltd’ may not be familiar to many people but it is about to become a big player in the UK rail industry. It is one of the suite of companies owned by the Department for Transport as potential ‘operators of last resort’, intended to fill a gap if a franchised train operating company fails. Each one is capable of immediate activation and comes with a shadow team of experienced directors who can step in pretty much immediately, if such an extreme measure were necessary.

The future of Abbey Rail is to run the East Coast main line as and when National Express funding runs out, thought likely to be late autumn. Anticipating the event, previously dormant Abbey was renamed East Coast Main Line Company Ltd on 15th July and Elaine Holt was appointed a director on 30th July. There are presently two other directors (civil servants who were there previously) and a single share held by the Secretary of State. Activity is in hand to identify others to join the management team in due course. There is also an entirely new DfT Company (Directly Operated Railways) created on 2nd July, and to which Board Elaine Holt was appointed on 16th July, which appears to be some kind of holding company.

There are currently seven other ‘operator of last resort’ companies waiting in the wings: Broadway Rail, Golding’s Rail, Hay’s Rail, OQS Rail, Orchard Rail, Strutton Rail and Westminster Rail. The ones redolent of the Westminster area have their origins in the Victoria Street based Strategic Rail Authority. The other names go back to the days of the Franchising Director, based in Golding’s House, Hay’s Lane. There are also two Scottish companies (SOLR1 Ltd and SOLR2 Ltd) kept on ice in Edinburgh, the names being fairly obvious abbreviations.

South Eastern Trains Ltd (previously 'operator of last resort' Tower Rail) was the company used by the Strategic Rail Authority when it took control of the franchise previously run by Connex South Eastern, in 2003. The franchise has been relet to Govia since then and while the company might be thought notionally available it is unlikely to see further service and is currently being managed by BRB Residuary Ltd who carry and manage the risk associated with previously public sector rail operations. A similar situation related to South Eastern Trains (Holdings) Ltd (previously Bridge Rail) but BRB Residually dissolved the company in February this year.

UK Rail travel set to grow: the question is, by how much?

Rail privatization was taken against the gloomy background that the rail mode was in decline and that franchisees had merely to concern themselves with reducing costs and maintaining demand and service levels as best they could. There can be few people, now, that do not consider that growth is here to stay and is giving rise to huge problems as the existing pared down network either can't cope already or won't be able to cope in the future without huge investment.

Network Rail, as infrastructure owner, will be responsible for the necessary upgrades and as part of its leadership of the Route Utilization strategy process has commissioned some research to take a 30-year view of where the stresses will need to be relieved, looking at the main inter-city routes. This has recently been published.

Four scenarios have been examined, though each one predicts huge growth. The lowest scenario is based on low economic growth with rail marginalized and little interest in addressing a socially responsible agenda. Even this predicts rail growth exceeding a third. The better economic performance and socially responsible option broadly sees growth exceeding two thirds, mainly falling into a range being three quarters again what is carried now.

Expected pressure does depend on route, each of which has been evaluated separately to identify where work will be needed. The lines under most pressure will be Cross-Country and West Coast, though under most scenarios Western comes next. London-Southampton is generally near the bottom of the list (but will still be under a lot of pressure).

The report will be used to inform long term rail planning studies. Network Rail warns that growth may nevertheless be understated in practice as the regional RUSs would also be taking into account local rail improvements that are considered desirable which won't get picked up in national strategies. It seems reasonable to work on the basis that taken in the round a 30-year outlook could see rail usage double.

Attitudes to bus usage remain poor, at least outside London

Outside London, one might suspect that many people think twice before making a decision to use a bus, even where that option would be a reasonable choice. Bus usage has tended to decline and car usage has tended to increase.

A DfT sponsored survey conducted earlier this year found that the key bus market was those people under 25 (half of whom use buses at least once a week) and people over the age of 75 (over a third of whom use buses at least once a week). Between those ranges it is becoming harder to persuade travellers to use the bus with over half 25-54 year olds never using buses at all. Of all people asked, only around a quarter were regular bus users.

Barriers to use were stated to be lack of information about fares (before boarding), perceived high fares and perceived personal safety concerns. Perhaps more relevantly (and honestly) getting on for half the non-bus users stated that the convenience of the car (especially for short journeys) meant they could not foresee any improvement to bus services that would cause them to switch. They did acknowledge that making car use increasingly difficult might cause them to consider using buses. By inference, the age ranges that were actually using buses were less likely to be car owners.

The research is interesting, if unsurprising and a tad depressing as modern buses are quite advanced, efficient and increasingly carbon-friendly vehicles. Some basic shortcomings can be addressed. Peter Hendy, London's Transport Commissioner, speaking recently to young bus professionals, was clear that many people simply didn't understand graduated fares and thought the future was in an Oyster-like system where people didn't have to worry about what fare to pay. Transport security remains a huge issue in that perceptions remain that levels of crime (or threatened crime) are much higher than they actually are and lots of measures have already been taken to reduce this perception. Unruly children (and the mess they make) was identified as an as-yet unresolved problem. Information is patchy in quality and provision, and best practice is slow to make itself felt.

There is more to do, but it will probably require more government leadership and better deployment of industry expertise to get an unregulated industry to do more and to do it faster.

Contractor appointed to design last link of London Overground's 'London Orbital' network

The quest for an 'outer circle' railway line allowing people to get around London without having to trudge through the central area is not a new one. Indeed, even in Victorian times an Outer Circle operated between Broad Street and Mansion House using the North London Line and the District Line. Electrification of the Underground section put paid to this but the idea has never gone away and in the 1970s a 'RingRail' concept was felt sufficiently useful for a transport pressure group to be set up, though transport operators were sceptical.

How things have changed. Transport for London now controls a rail franchise operating services from Clapham Junction in south west London, via Willesden Junction to Highbury and shortly to be supported by extension over the old Broad Street formation to New Cross via the former East London Line. The last link of 'RingRail' is to incorporate part of the old London, Brighton & South Coast Railway network to bridge the gap between Surrey Quays and Clapham Junction. This involves bringing into use for passenger trains existing lines at Clapham but at the Surrey Quays end there is no direct connection. The answer is to reinvigorate part of a long-disused railway formation (largely intact) near Surrey Quays and to build a very short section of entirely new railway.

Authority was granted to proceed with the works on 12th February 2009 when Transport Minister (Geoff Hoon) gave his approval. Approval was not without controversy as the new services will require withdrawal of the century old London Bridge-Victoria service (the first main line rail electrification scheme in London, coming into use in 1909). Hopes for adequate alternative services appear to have been dashed by diversion of funds to the TfL scheme, and London Travelwatch (the passenger transport watchdog for London) is unhappy with the way this has come about.

TfL has recently asked Parsons Brinkerhoff to draw up preliminary designs for the 1.3km link, budgeted at £75m. The new line will follow an old railway from a junction south of Surrey Quays, pass under several existing Network Rail lines and rise to meet the South London Line near Old Kent Road. The new line will carry four trains per hour and is expected to open in May 2012.

The route for the London Overground orbital line is pretty much as promoted by the proponents of RingRail, the main difference being in East London. The present route will use the former East London Line to make the north-south connection and cross beneath the river. RingRail proposed in 1973 (A New RingRail for London) using the North London Line and North Woolwich branch to West Ham and a new tunnel under the river to meet existing rail lines at Westcombe Park, thence to the South London Line via Brockley. The present route, substantially using existing infrastructure, will be a cheaper option but leaves the outer ring a bit lopsided. Nor is it actually a ring as trains must reverse at Clapham Junction. Other matters perhaps remaining to be resolved in the future are the absence of connecting stations from London radial routes at Mitre Bridge (for services between Paddington and Ealing) and Vale Royal (for services between Kings Cross and Finsbury Park, though the interchange at Highbury substantial mitigates this shortcoming). The proposed lack of a continuous service around the whole route is probably a more serious issue to tackle first.

Traction current (on the 3-rail 750 V system) was switched on to the Dalston - New Cross section in late summer to allow testing to begin prior to next year's opening.

More stations to transfer from main line train operators to Transport for London

The East London Line project will see the operation of trains from Dalston, in north London, to Crystal Palace and West Croydon south of the River. As part of this project it has been agreed between TfL and the DfT that ten stations along the route will transfer from Southern to London Overground control.

The transfer will take effect from 20 September 2009 and will involve New Cross Gate, Brockley, Honor Oak Park, Forest Hill, Sydenham, Crystal Palace, Penge West, Anerley, Norwood Junction and West Croydon. London Overground will undertake a programme of improvements, raising their quality to meet London Overground standards. The East London Line extension services will operate from these stations in 2010.

TfL has started its programme to refurbish and renew 44 London Overground stations (including the 10 Southern Stations mentioned above) in the next eighteen months. This £40 million project will see all stations undergo an upgrade programme which includes: new floors and platform surfaces; the installation of entrance canopies and new signage; new PA systems; improved information systems; the installation of Passenger Help Points; and improved lighting. New CCTV equipment covering at least 90 per cent of all publicly accessible space in the stations will also be introduced. On the Gospel Oak-Barking line there will be permanent staff accommodation at all stations.

London Overground is managed by London Overground Operations Ltd but TfL takes a close interest in specifying service levels and provision of financial support required to raise and maintain standards.

A new station is due to open (earlier than planned) on the West London Line at Imperial Wharf by the end of 2009.

iBus

The operation of bus services is complicated by the instability of bus timetables and the need to make real time corrections to the service without adequate knowledge of where all the buses are from minute to minute. by extension it is hard to give passengers accurate information in these circumstances and today's passengers are ever more demanding of accurate and up to date information.

TfL is addressing this by means of a project called iBus. London Buses completed its roll out the iBus project - a state-of-the-art Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), radio and an on-bus passenger information display and announcement system - to every bus and garage across London on 21st April, that's 8256 buses and 90 garages. iBus not only allows route controllers to know where buses are, but feeds into on-bus equipment that keeps passengers informed about bus location and next stopping points. iBus works by combining technologies, including enhanced Global Positioning System satellite technology and information about the schedule, route, and bus stop locations to pinpoint the location of the bus.

iBus also means passengers get a better idea of when the next buses are due at each stop as it makes Countdown predictions more accurate. Countdown is the 'next bus' information at bus stops. At the moment The current system that supports Countdown is being replaced with a new system - Countdown II - to bring greater benefits to passengers and replace obsolete equipment. Countdown II will provide new options for the delivery of bus arrival information for passengers via the internet, mobile phones and on-street displays. The mobile phone option will allow passengers to text their bus stop number and bus route to a central telephone number to receive real-time bus arrival times for that stop and route directly to their mobile phones.

New Trains for London Overground

The London Overground rail franchise is managed by Transport for London rather than the DfT, and is managed in a rather more hands on way. The franchise, run by London Overground Operations Ltd, includes the former Silverlink Metro network (Euston-Watford local lines and Richmond-Stratford) together with the East London Line and its northward and southward extensions; the line is presently closed for reconstruction. The former Silverlink lines are presently run by aging in inadequate 3-car sets of class 313 dual voltage stock.

Train service frequencies need to be increased and more suitable rolling stock provided. To meet this requirement TfL has ordered 54 trains from Bombardier in Derby, worth £223 million. The first 24 trains will be 3-car dual voltage trains, and the remainder of the fleet 4-car single voltage sets designed for the 3-rail network. The 3-car sets will be extended to 4-cars when platform extension works has been undertaken. The trains are denoted class 378 and nicknamed 'Capitalstars'. They have been procured and are owned by QW Rail Leasing Ltd and are made available to TfL under a leasing arrangement. It is noteworthy the QW is not one of the three leasing companies created by the DfT as part of rail privatization; it was established only in 2008 and is a joint venture of National Australia Bank and SMBC Leasing and Finance.

The first of the new trains has just been delivered and was displayed at Willesden Junction on 13th July. In response to the recent news that a further extension of the East London Line has just been authorized (Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction), a further three 4-car dc sets has just been ordered. It was expected the first train would enter passenger service during week beginning 20th July.

Freight operators are nervous about the slight loss of freight capacity resulting from improvements in passenger services. Attempts are being made to reroute certain east-west traffic via Peterborough and Nuneaton; unfortunately there are very few lateral rail connections but bringing back into use the mothballed Bletchley-Oxford line will be helpful.

Aylesbury Vale Parkway station opens officially

Aylesbury Vale Parkway quietly opened for business on 14th December 2008. The station lies a few miles north of Aylesbury on a freight line heading towards Calvert and was needed to serve large new housing developments at Berryfields and Weedon Hill. The line to Aylesbury Parkway has been upgraded for 60 mph running and the new station comprises a single platform on a new reversing road.

When opened the new station lacked a permanent station building until 1st June when construction was completed. This was felt a sufficiently noteworthy event to warrant an official opening on 3rd July by Lord Adonis, Transport Minister, who travelled to the station on a Chiltern Railways train.

New Victoria Line Train enters service

Delivery of the new 2009 stock for the Victoria Line has now begun. Getting the trains into service is even more challenging than usual because they are only equipped to use the new signalling and ATO system being installed on the Victoria Line; existing trains can only operate on the old system. It has therefore been necessary to install part of the new system as an overlay on the old system until such time as all the old trains have been withdrawn. The new system can then be upgraded to its full capability.

An important milestone was reached when the first of the new trains tentatively entered passenger service on the late evening of 21st July. It is the intention to gain service experience with the new train (and signalling) by operating it on a few late night trips each day, and then to extend the window of operation.

The train currently being tested is one of the pre-production batch used for training, testing and gaining approval. The first production train is expected in October.

High Speed Kent services begin and are immediate success

Although the full high speed Kent service is not scheduled to start until the timetable change on 13th December, a provisional service began on 29th June and was an immediate success.

The new service uses the so-called High Speed One line between St Pancras and Ashford, sharing tracks with Eurostar. Journey times are reduced from about an hour (Ashford to Charing Cross) to 37 minutes (Ashford to St Pancras). Unless passengers actually want Charing Cross itself most passengers to London will benefit from journey time reduction.

The provisional service operates at basic half-hour intervals between St Pancras and Ebbsfleet, but in the rush hours there are three Ashford-St Pancras trains in the morning, returning during evening peak. Fares for the new services are higher. The normal walk on single fare is £23.70 for ordinary trains at similar times, and £26.60 via HS1. Nevertheless, within the first week, one Ashford service in each direction had to be increased from 6-cars to 12 to handle the traffic.

The new electric trains are dedicated to the new service and are built by Hitachi. Each train consists of one or two 6-car sets and are scheduled to operate at speeds up to 140 mph. It is likely that some freight services will also begin sharing the HS1 route from next year, mainly at night. The line was built with freight in mind and some freight loops have been built as part of the scheme. Some locomotives will need adapting by having cab signalling installed suitable for use with HS1 signalling. The HS1 link is operated by Network Rail but is not, incidentally, part of the UK's regulated rail network and track access is determined by the government as part of the 80-year long concession arrangement with London & Continental Railways, who built the line.

Victoria Interchange Approved

On 30th July TfL announced that the Minister has sanctioned the construction of a new transport interchange at Victoria; a Transport and Works Act Order will be made in September after which the main works can begin. Work is entirely funded by TfL and sits outside the PPP process. Authority follows a Public Inquiry into the scheme which ended in January.

The works will see enlargement of the existing Victoria Line ticket hall and construction of an entirely new ticket hall in the area north of Victoria Street. This will connect with new escalators at the extreme north end of the Victoria Line platforms, and greatly reduce the current congestion at the south end of the platforms.

Nine new escalators will be provided (adding to the existing six), together with seven lifts which will make the whole station fully accessible. Construction will begin in 2010 and will take seven years to complete.

London Underground tenders signalling contract for whole of sub-surface network

The responsibility for signalling on the subsurface network had been entirely the responsibility of PPP contractor Metronet, at least until it went into PPP Administration. The PPP contracts were structured in a way intended to deliver various outputs required by the Underground, but did not specify what had to happen to the assets in order to deliver those outputs. One output was a function called Journey Time Capability (JTC), a factor intended to reduce overall passenger journey time notwithstanding rising levels of traffic. Metronet responded to this requirement with a combination of new high-performance trains and a new signalling system that would allow the trains to provide the high performance required at more demanding headways. Orders for the trains and signalling went to Bombardier (a Metronet shareholder), although Bombardier chose to subcontract the signalling element to Westinghouse (even though Bombardier also provides signalling systems). After Metronet went into administration (in 2007) and London Underground was able to influence events, the order for the signalling, but not the trains, was effectively cancelled. The value of the cancelled order was of the order of £550m. The mechanics are that the work was descoped by Bombardier to do the minimum required to allow the new trains to operate using the existing signalling (this required compensation totalling £95 million). At the same time the signalling contract was novated from Bombardier to Metronet.

There were several reasons for cancelling the signalling. One was apparent excess cost and another was that the system was quite different from that chosen for the Tubelines signalling system with which the sub surface network has to interwork. In particular tracks are shared between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge, Barons Court and Ealing Common, Finchley Road and Wembley Park, and in the depots and sidings at Uxbridge, Acton/Ealing and Neasden. LUL wanted a system that would not present so many difficulties for interworking.

The Westinghouse system was originally intended to use cutting-edge 'distance to go' technology where train positions are known to the control system much more precisely than at present, allowing headways to be significantly reduced, much increasing capacity. It is questionable whether some of the capacity increases (up to 34 trains an hour) were possible with all the junction work and speed restrictions that exist. In any event the existing signalling cannot handle many more trains, especially as some signals have been removed or reconfigured to deal with modern safety standards.

Signalling cannot simply be cancelled without there being implications. For a start it is impossible to achieve the improved journey time capability. Then the existing systems are largely life expired. In addition existing signalling was not designed to work with the advanced traction system used on the new trains. LUL therefore respecified what was wanted and went out to prequalification earlier this year. Six suppliers were shortlisted and tenders for delivery and installation of a new system were issued towards the end of July. Rumours exist about the possibility of medium-term increases to services to 30 trains an hour, but this will hardly deal with capacity issues and are likely to increase journey times because services tend to bunch in congested areas.

In the meantime the new trains are on way and a fairly substantial programme of interim works has proved necessary to immunise the existing system and alter quite a few signal positions to make them visible from the new trains. These works sit outside the new signalling project and will only have a short working life.

Network Rail launches new Test Facility

A problem faced by railway operators managing a busy network is finding suitable locations to test new equipment without the risk of interfering with traffic.

Network rail has bitten the bullet on this and developed its own test facility comprising 10 miles of restored track along the former Great Central route between High Marnham and Thoresby colliery junction. The facility will help develop rail vehicles, technology and equipment to enable Network Rail to gear up for the future. The newly-restored track, a former colliery line, will be used to carry out development work as well as acceptance trials which have to be completed whenever new equipment is introduced to the network. Network Rail is investing over £100m in new, more efficient machinery and engineering technologies to help minimise passenger disruption caused by renewals and maintenance work.

The facility includes many common characteristics found on the rail network: a signalling system, calibrated curves and has a maximum line speed of 50mph. The track is mostly single line railway with three miles of double track, and has the potential to be upgraded to a higher line speed of up to 75mph.

The rail vehicle development centre is available for use by the rail industry at cost rates. Although Network Rail is not a commercial train operator, it does own a fleet of over 2,200 rail vehicles worth approximately £750m. These are an essential part of the kit required to maintain and renew the rail network.

Full service to Corby begins

Until recently Corby (population around £50,000) was one of the largest places in Europe without a railway station. Until 1950 Corby had grown into a small but industrial town, but in that year was designated a New Town, likely to increase its population several times over from the prevailing 12,000. Like many other places it once had a station but despite new town status (favouring motor vehicles) it closed in 1966 when passenger services along the Kettering-Nottingham line were withdrawn between Melton Mowbray and Kettering. With Corby's growth a half hearted attempt to introduce a Kettering-Corby service was made in 1987 with a DMU shuttle service, but it was withdrawn three years later, the not-very-attractive service having failed to generate adequate traffic. The actual railway line remained open (though largely reduced to single track) as a freight and diversionary route.

From 2003 Corby stakeholders were applying pressure for a station and when the East Midlands rail franchise was retendered in 2007-8 an option for a Corby service was included. Network Rail had money available and when the DfT announced that Stagecoach had run the bid the Corby option was accepted, the intention being to operate an approximately hourly service. There is also the odd train via Corby the Melton Mowbray direction. A London service was clearly an important factor.

Corby is actually a new station even though it is only yards from the site of the former location, and it is the second station to be constructed to Network Rail's new modular design principles. It first opened on 23rd February 2009 but with only one train a day as the new rolling stock was not yet available. The full service was introduced on 27th April 2009.