08.02.17
Greater Anglia to lobby government for investment in 10-point upgrade plea
Greater Anglia has laid out 10 key rail infrastructure priorities that need to be made within the next decade in order for the planned benefits of its own franchise commitments to be “fully realised”.
In a statement, the operator, owned by Abellio with Mitsui as a 40% shareholder, said it is currently writing to regional partners – including MPs, councils, LEPs, rail user groups and chambers of commerce – to seek their support in lobbying the government for more investment.
It is arguing that ministers need to adequately resource Network Rail so that it can implement vital schemes within the next decade, most of which are clustered on the Great Eastern Main Line – although improvements to the West Anglia Main Line and the Felixstowe to Peterborough route were also requested.
Although the new Greater Anglia franchise includes “transformative upgrades” for regional services – such as replacing the entire existing rolling stock with new trains by 2020 – the operator said benefits to timetable and capacity relied on infrastructure improvements outside their reach.
Jamie Burles, the operator’s managing director, emphasised that Network Rail had to implement these changes in parallel with Greater Anglia’s own improvements.
“The business case is strong for such investment in a region which contributes positively to national GDP and where financial premiums from operating East Anglia’s train services help finance the operation of other rail services across the rest of the UK rail network,” he added.
“We have set out a targeted list of priorities, which will make a major difference to reliability, connectivity, journey times and service development.
“The collective effort of ourselves and stakeholders across the region helped secure a fantastic outcome to the franchise renewal process with the biggest investment ever agreed for trains in East Anglia. We now need to maintain that sustained, collaborative, constructive approach to secure a similarly positive outcome for rail infrastructure investment over the next 10 years and thereby enable Network Rail to upgrade the network and maximise the benefits for customers, communities and wider stakeholders across the region.”
The full list of requested upgrades, which includes four-tracking of the West Anglia route from Copper Mill Junction to Broxbourne and increasing capacity at London Liverpool Street, is as follows:
- Felixstowe – Peterborough (and Nuneaton)
- Haughley Junction upgrade (to enable more frequent and reliable services)
- Ely area upgrades (including Ely North Junction, Queen Adelaide level crossings, re-signalling and bridge strengthening, to enable more frequent and reliable services)
- Ely – Soham double tracking project (to enable more frequent freight and passenger services)
- Great Eastern Main Line (Norwich – Ipswich – Colchester – Chelmsford – London)
- Trowse Swing Bridge replacement (with a fixed double track bridge, instead of the current single track swing bridge to enable more frequent and reliable services)
- Long loops between Colchester and Witham (to allow fast trains to overtake slower full length freight or passenger trains, helping to improve reliability and journey times)
- Digital re-signalling Colchester to London (to enable more frequent services)
- West Anglia Main Line
- Capacity upgrades to enable 4 trains an hour between Angel Road and Tottenham/Stratford
- Four-tracking of the West Anglia route from Copper Mill Junction to Broxbourne as the first stage of the Crossrail 2 scheme (to enable more frequent services, quicker journey times and better reliability)
- Other key projects
- Wider level crossing upgrade programme (to improve reliability and journey times)
- London Liverpool Street capacity increases (platform and concourse upgrades to accommodate increasing passenger numbers)
According to Greater Anglia, these priorities are consistent with the East Anglian Rail Prospectus and the aims of the Great Eastern Main Line, West Anglia and Ely taskforces, as well as the Felixstowe-Nuneaton strategic freight network project.
Network Rail’s five-year spending plan for CP6 has not yet been approved by the DfT, with representations currently being made to determine expenditure from 2019 to 2024.
However, the ORR’s annual assessment of Network Rail, published in August last year, estimated that the infrastructure owner will be “in a worse position financially” at the start of CP6 than initially expected, which is likely to exacerbate the economic pressure on planned upgrades.