Great Western Coffee Shop

Lots of little bits, most of them not new:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/443232/50325_Summer_Budget_15_Web_Accessible.pdf
 
 Notable mentions:
 
 1.327 The government is upgrading domestic rail services to bring Ramsgate
 within an hour of London. The Department for Transport has asked the rail
 industry to include extending High Speed 1 services to Hastings and Rye in
 the forthcoming Kent Route Study. The outputs from this study will be
 presented to the government for consideration in 2016, with a view to this
 work being an option for funding after 2019.
 
 1.328 The government will extend the scope of the Lewes-Uckfield study to
 look at improving rail links between London and the south coast, including
 upgrades to existing routes, consideration of the Brighton Main Line
 corridor, and re-examination of the DfT^s feasibility study on BML2.
 
 2.191 Network Rail: devolving power to route managers ^ The government has
 asked Sir Peter Hendy and Mark Carne, Chief Executive of Network Rail, to
 continue with the work started in Network Rail to devolve more power to
 route managers closer to the front line, so that the railways are more
 focused on delivering what passengers need and to drive comparative
 benchmarking of the efficiency and effectiveness of individual routes ^ to
 drive up performance across the network.
 
 2.192 Network Rail: funding flows ^ The government will change the way it
 channels public money through the industry, directing it through the train
 operating companies, so that Network Rail focuses firmly on the needs of
 train operators and, through them, passengers. This will put the customers
 of the railway back in the driving seat in demanding efficiency and
 improvements that matter to them, making the best use of scarce capacity on
 the rail network.
 
 2.193 Network Rail: land and property ^ The government will establish a
 dedicated body to focus on pursuing opportunities to realise value from
 public land and property assets in the rail network to both maximise the
 benefit to local communities and reduce the burden of public debt
 
 New Stations Fund: The government will run a further round of the New
 Stations Fund with up to ^20 million in total available for projects, and
 consider proposals including any put forward for a new station between
 Castle Cary and Taunton. The extended round of the New Stations Fund will
 also be used to support a local bid for stations on the Robin Hood Line to
 Edwinstowe and Ollerton, subject to a business case.

HS1 to Hastings: The rail industry has been asked to explore options for extending HS1 services to Hastings and Rye in the forthcoming Kent Route Study, for presentation to Ministers in 2016 
   

Good news about the New Stations Fund.  The more successful station openings we get the better, and I'm very much looking forward to Kenilworth station re-opening together with an enhanced service between Leamington and Coventry.  The hourly XC service gets busy with what is a very local journey and they are long distance trains so hardly the most punctual.

Its about an hour twenty now, there are quite a few stops between Ashford and Ramsgate which a number could be capped a bit of line speed increase and some time tabling I think this is achievable.

The electrification of the line from Ashford to Hastings via Rye has been bouncing around for a long time.  The cost of third rail is quite high a couple of substations required and HV feeders, OLE would require an ac / dc interface near Ore and then there is the flat junction from HS1 to the Hastings line at Ashford but still do able


This could prove interesting where there are multiple TOC users on a route add in a FOC it could all get messy when NR want a possession to carry out a project for TOC A and TOC B says I need compensation for not running services



This is a concern, sounds to me like a bit of asset stripping now that the Government own NR and its assets

Just the one stop on a Javelin, Canterbury West

Been a while since I used the route, in fact before East Kent re-signalling phase ; from what I can remember it was a bit of a trundle at times and a reasonable dwell time at Ashford a bit of time tabling should be able to get it close to the hour

I still feel it would be a push getting from Ashford to Ramsgate in 22 or so minutes, especially only operating on 3rd rail. Missing out Stratford and Ebbsfleet would help a lot, especially if these two have additional services to Maidstone/Hastings to make up the missed calls in the future.

I'm a regular traveller to Thanet and would love to see every minute possible squeezed out of the service.

I read this as Uckfield-Lewes even less likely to re-open.