May 2002 Newsletter

Cambridge Heath Chaos

Wednesday 24th April saw major disruption to services on the West Anglia lines after fire broke out in an arch underneath the line at Cambridge Heath. Gas cylinders stored under the arches were at risk of exploding during the incident.

During incidents like this, disruption is only to be expected, but how did WAGN cope with providing alternative arrangements and passing information to the travelling public? If you have any opinions on this, use the web forum to express your satisfaction or dissatisfaction with how things went.

New Greater Anglia Franchise

Starting from 2004, the Great Eastern, Anglia and West Anglia franchises will be merged into one super franchise, with the aim of simplifying operations at Liverpool Street and reducing the amount of friction over allocation of capacity at the terminus.

The SRA are currently consulting rail passenger groups through the Rail Passengers� Council. If you would like to raise a potential opportunity or express concerns arising from the action of merging the three franchises into one, then write to the Rail Passengers� Council at the address below.

Guy Dangerfield, Secretary,
Rail Passengers Council for Eastern England
3rd Floor, Stuart House,
City Road,
Peterborough,
PE1 1QF

Some facts to bear in mind...

� WAGN have one of the best records for modest fare increases, but currently the worst record for punctuality of the London & South East operators.
� National Express would like to see the Stansted Express separated from the

WAGN franchise and transferred into �Airport Express�.
� Anglia have recently introduced free reservations for season ticket holders. Of course, Anglia�s season tickets are considerably more expensive than WAGN�s season tickets, due to the longer distances involved.
� First Great Eastern were one of the four operators pressing for the recent change to the terms and conditions of the Network Railcard and gold-card partner discount card, have a poor record on fare increases but a good record on customer satisfaction.
� Anglia and first Great Eastern, showing vision, have both doubled service frequency between Ipswich and Liverpool Street.
� Do you work in the Docklands area? Use this opportunity to query why there are no direct services from Harlow Town to Stratford during the peaks.

Network Railcard Protest Continues

MPs from both Labour and Conservative parties have been expressing their concerns about the decision by ATOC to end Network Railcard discounts for weekday journeys costing less than �10.

A recent demonstration in London�s Victoria station saw MP Jane Griffiths symbolically cutting up a network railcard. Gordon Brown�s Competition Minister was quoted by Modern Railways as saying �This is a most retrograde step. It will do nothing to encourage more people to use the railways�

It would appear that our rail industry is so paralysed that it cannot rise to the challenge of expanding rush hour capacity to avoid overcrowding. Instead, it has resorted to the tired old mechanism of pricing customers off the service. And they say the private sector has more vision? Humbug!

If you�re not happy about this ATOC action, why not write to your MP and raise the issue. See here for some ideas for your letter. Oh, and don�t forget that if you renew your Network Railcard before 18th May, you�ll continue to get weekday discounts until August 2003.