Chiltern Evergreen 3 - Further new Track Access Agreement Application

[whole diary]

[Btline]

Sorry, why is all this being treated by the media as if it is new? The proposals have been in place for years!

[Chafford1]

Sorry, why is all this being treated by the media as if it is new? The proposals have been in place for years!

Because they were just that - i.e. proposals. The scheme is now guaranteed to go ahead.

[Chafford1]

Moor Street station expansion and faster trains to London announced
Jan 14 2010 by Christina Savvas, Birmingham Post


A dramatic expansion of Moor Street station will give Birmingham a second major rail terminal with high-quality and faster trains to London, Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has announced.

The ^250 million investment will create the first new rail link from the capital to any major British city for over 100 years.

Journey times to London on the Chiltern line will be cut by a fifth to one hour 40 minutes, giving passengers a real choice between services from Moor Street and Virgin Trains services from New Street, which have been criticised for being too expensive.

The ambitious project to entice motorists onto trains was unveiled by Transport Secretary Lord Adonis and Chiltern Railways chairman Adrian Shooter.

Lord Adonis said the ^250 million upgrade would ^transform^ links between Birmingham and London.

He announced the improvements during a visit to Birmingham to meet business leaders and city council leader Mike Whitby.

Lord Adonis said: ^I am announcing the extension of the Chiltern franchise in return for ^250 million of investment, which Chiltern will put in to transform the line.

^It will ensure journey times to London are cut to one hour 40 minutes.

^This is very good news for Birmingham passengers and businesses, giving them a greatly enhanced service through the Chilterns and on to London and Marylebone. And it comes on top of the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line.

^These two projects taken together have transformed the quality of transport links between London and Birmingham.

^Part of the package is a big expansion of Birmingham Moor Street, which will now be the most significant second hub for trains from Birmingham to London.^

The upgrade, which is scheduled for completion in December, will be supported by a ^13.5 million project to open extra platforms, doubling capacity at Moor Street, where new ticketing technology will also be introduced.

There will be new trains with better acceleration, and new carriages.

Chiltern Railways, which holds the franchise to run services from Moor Street to Marylebone station in London, agreed to pay for the improvements after striking a deal with the Department for Transport.

Its franchise has been extended for seven and a half years, which means it will now run trains until at least 2021 if it provides a good service.

Although Chiltern already runs trains to London, the long journey time has meant they can be seen as a second-class option compared to Virgin^s services from New Street to London Euston, which use modern Pendolino trains on the West Coast Main Line.

Chiltern Railways chairman Adrian Shooter, said: ^Evergreen 3 is the biggest passenger rail project for several generations not to call on the taxpayer for support. Working closely with Network Rail, we are going to create a new main line railway for the people of Oxfordshire and the Midlands.

^This deal demonstrates that real improvements to rail services can be paid for without public subsidy by attracting people out of their cars and onto trains.^

Robin Gisby from Network Rail, said: ^This is a great scheme that will deliver huge benefits to hundreds of thousands of passengers.^

The new investment will give Birmingham two high quality services at major stations, added Lord Adonis.

The Moor Street expansion also raises questions about plans to bring high speed rail services into the city - providing a third option for passengers commuting to London.

New Street does not have the capacity to cope with new high speed services, even once a ^600 million refurbishment is completed. It means another city centre station is likely to be used, and Moor Street could be the obvious choice.

Lord Adonis would not comment on whether Moor Street would also be used for high speed rail services. The detailed proposals would be published in March, he said.

^The Government is looking at a number of options for how High Speed Rail can access Birmingham.^

[devon_metro]

And how many of these trains will take 1h40? The fact that Chiltern doesn't have First Class probably means the West Coast has a larger slice of the key business market and it will stay that way, people want a place to work - a standard class airline seat isn't really the place to spend time working. I'm sure FallenAngel will agree!

[RailCornwall]

Reference is made to new rolling stock, so First could easily be re-introduced in that.

[Btline]

And how many of these trains will take 1h40?

About half will take a few minutes less if I remember correctly.

New Street does not have the capacity to cope with new high speed services, even once a ^600 million refurbishment is completed. It means another city centre station is likely to be used, and Moor Street could be the obvious choice.

Are they having a laugh? There is NO way Moor Street could take the HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) service along with the CH terminating in platforms 3&4, and with the intensive LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) commuter trains taking up 1&2!

[Btline]

Reference is made to new rolling stock, so First could easily be re-introduced in that.

That's a lie in the article. The new stock (172s) will be used for Marylebone to Gerrards Cross services. Chiltern is a standard only railway. (well, First Class only railway really!)

a standard class airline seat isn't really the place to spend time working.

The 168s have plenty of tables. All seats line up with windows whether they are tables or not. The windows are big. The airline seats have lots of legroom.

[devon_metro]

The 168s have plenty of tables. All seats line up with windows whether they are tables or not. The windows are big. The airline seats have lots of legroom.

Even so, the First Class interior of a Pendolino is better suited for working. The one thing I like about First Class is the fact that I get a table to myself to can spread stuff out without being worried about getting in the way, or the plebs in standard ( ) reading what i'm doing, not to mention the peace and quiet and distinct lack of screaming children.

I'm sure the services will be good, however does Birmingham need so much investement on rail lines to Birmingham? Could this money not be spent elsewhere - electrifying the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) for example, thus cascading stock to various parts of the country - perhaps even Chiltern.

At the same time - if HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) becomes a reality, the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) and CHML won't be carrying many people between Birmingham and London so a limited stop service is thus obsolete.

[paul7575]

Moor St?  Why not - a new terminus for HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) could very easily be built alongside (on the north of) the approaches to New St, with the buffer stops at the western extremity of the site - that could be called Moor St.

[That's in a world where station locations can be decided on with about 30 seconds on Google Earth, of course... ]

Regarding HS2 meaning the work isn't needed anyway, instead of looking at the end to end flows (as is usual), what about journeys such as Banbury to Birmingham, or Banbury to London, or even Bicester to Leamington etc?

Paul

[paul7575]

And how many of these trains will take 1h40?

One each hour, 1 hr 38 min. It is all dissected in the first few posts on page 1 of this thread, with a link to the proposed timetable in the first post.

Edit:  That link in the first post went stale, NR^» (Network Rail - home page) moved the stuff to a different location once consultation was completed - http://tinyurl.com/ydf6rty

Paul

[Btline]

Regarding HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) meaning the work isn't needed anyway, instead of looking at the end to end flows (as is usual), what about journeys such as Banbury to Birmingham, or Banbury to London, or even Bicester to Leamington etc?

Paul

Exactly, that is another major reason why the Chiltern upgrade is needed. Warwick Parkway to London will be about 1 hour 15 minutes from London - terrific - they'd better expand the car park!

The one weakness of the proposals is the loss of HW calls. But as Chiltern don't have 4 tracks to play with, the cutting of certain stops is inevitable. EG3's benefits will more than overcome any losses by cutting HW stops.

[Chris from Nailsea]

An update, from the FT, is at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8d1196e-0161-11df-8c54-00144feabdc0.html

(I'm reluctant to actually quote it here, in view of their copyright terms. )

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Oxford Mail:

Chiltern Trains' Oxford link seals franchise extension

Chiltern Railways has won the right to run trains between Oxfordshire and London until 2021 after the Government yesterday backed the firm^s plans to create a second route from Oxford to London.

As previously reported in the Oxford Mail, the firm plans to spend ^250m on creating the new route from Oxford to London Marylebone, via Bicester, along with track improvements to speed up its services between London, Banbury and Birmingham.

The Oxford service is due to start running in 2013.

Improvements to the Oxford-Bicester line will cut Rail journey times from 25 minutes now to just 14 minutes from 2013.

Oxford-London Marylebone journey times should be 66 minutes once the new line is open, compared with about 55 minutes on First Great Western^s express services to London Paddington.

A new parkway station will also be built at Water Eaton park-and-ride, near Kidlington, while Bicester Town station is set to be closed for up to seven months to be rebuilt.

Chiltern^s investment plans were praised by Transport Secretary Lord Adonis yesterday, as he announced a seven-and-a-half year extension to the franchise, until December 31, 2021, in return for the improvements.

The decision means the Chiltern franchise will run the full 20 years projected when it began in 2002.

Lord Adonis said: ^Today we gave the go-ahead to Chiltern Railways to take forward plans for a completely new service from Oxford to Marylebone, including a new parkway station. These will be huge improvements in the transport infrastructure for Oxford, not only providing alternative routes from Oxford to London, but providing a station serving north Oxford and the area around Oxford, by providing regular fast trains to London. It will particularly benefit residents of North Oxford and areas of Oxford who have not had good rail connections in the past. It will also help to get cars off the road and people on to trains.^

The new link line in Bicester and the other improvements to the route will be funded by a ^250m loan from Network Rail, which will be paid back over 30 years.

Chiltern^s chairman Adrian Shooter, who led the firm into the private sector in 1996 when British Rail was broken up, pledged there would be no fare increases to pay for the scheme.

He claimed it would be paid for by extra revenue generated by more people travelling by rail, including customers of Oxford-London coach services, who would be attracted by the quicker journeys by train.

Mr Shooter said the work would be carried out in two phases, with speed improvements on the existing route, allowing more 100mph running, being completed before work starts on the Oxford link.

Lord Adonis will decide in the spring whether to hold a public inquiry into the Oxford-Bicester scheme.

Any inquiry would take place by the autumn.

Chris Bates, of the Cherwell Rail Users^ Group, welcomed the franchise extension. He said: ^It^s good news for rail users and for Chiltern it^s well deserved. Hopefully, any new Government will see longer franchises work better than short-term ones.^

[IndustryInsider]

Great news for the railway industry and its passengers - even if some of the articles in the press are riddled with inaccuracies.

As I posted on the first page of this thread though, Chiltern have an almighty amount of work to do to get this all ready in time for the December timetable - and they should be forced to add a High Wycombe call (in their phase 2 timetable) to one of their 2tph between London and Birmingham in order to provide an adequate service north from Gerrards Cross, Beaconsfield and High Wycombe area stations. ChrisB - do you know whether there's been any developments on that one?

[Btline]

I agree, even 1tp2h would be ok.