THE NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY NOTICE
BOARD
Rheilffordd Arfordir Gogledd Cymru Bwrdd
hysbyseb
Two classic views from 21 August by Andy Williams: top,
Llandudno Junction with 47 851 Traction Magazine,
bottom Rhyl with 47 853 Rail Express. More 47s
below.... and we believe the festival is to continue for a while
longer - see item below.
This site is dedicated to all our regular contributors and
supporters, and especially the rail staff of North Wales.
Edition of 24 August 2004
Books going cheap
On 28-30
August, Welsh Highland Railway (Porthmadog) - www.whr.co.uk - are
having a 'Bank Holiday Booksale' at Porthmadog (WHR)
station, opposite the Arriva Trains Wales station. 'Ten per cent
off all railway titles in one of the UK's
best stocked railway bookshops' they tell us. - 24 August
Arriva 47s to continue
News reaches us that Arriva Trains Wales have signed a contract for
a further two weeks' hire of a locomotive-hauled set for North Wales,
which will take it on to 10 September, with the option for a further
extension. It has been reported that Central Trains were to hire two
Class 158 sets to Arriva, but this does not appear to have
materialised. - 24 August
Railtour news
David Hennessey writes: 'I would like to inform you and all
regular contributors and visitors to Page 27, that 45 112 will be
appearing again on Saturday 18 September, at the head of a Pathfinder
Tours charter to Edinburgh. It starts at Newtown (05:30) and calls at
Welshpool (05:50), Shrewsbury (06:20), Gobowen (06:40), Ruabon (06:55),
Wrexham General (07:10), Chester (07:35, return at 21:25),
Frodsham (07:55) and Warrington Bank Quay ((08:05). The trip to
Edinburgh includes an optional visit to the Falkirk Wheel (please see www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk
for further details). More information can be found on the Pathfinder
Tours website .
For those interested in steam charters, there are now steam runs to
Holyhead organised for Holiday Monday 30 August (71000) and Saturday 11
September (6233). See our Calendar page for
links to booking details. Rob Latham's picture above
shows 71000
Duke of Gloucester out on the main line: the Crewe - Chester
line in fact - on test, pictured from the North Junction signalbox, now
part of The Railway Age. - 23 August
Shipping news
A familiar landmark for Coast passengers and users of the North Wales
Coast cycleway is the stone-loading jetty at Llanddulas. Cycliing
contributor Greg Mape sends these pictures of the
jetty in use, with the ship Marja being loaded. In the
foreground are some of the 22,000 'Dolos units', each weighing 5
tonnes, laid down in the 1980s and forming the primary sea defence for
the A55 road along this part of the coast. These were manufactured in a
special casting yard adjacent to the site: one unit can be seen on
display on a plinth outside Colwyn Bay station.
The 220 metre-long Raynes Quarry jetty we see today was also built in
the 1980s to replace the previous one which was demolished to make way
for the new road. The approaches are constructed in steel and
concrete while the main jetty consists of 3.5m timber spans supported
by eighty 430mm square greenheart piles 15m in length. The jetty will
accommodate ships of 3,000 tonnes carrying capacity. - 23 August
175 at BNS
This interesting picture by 'Concrete Bob' shows 175 108 standing at
Birmingham New Street station; there are only two trains a day
utilising these units that visit 'BNS', both Holyhead services.
Illustrated is 1D99, the 22:54 departure. They are the only Arriva
Trains Wales services that employ the full 100mph capability of the
175, and only if the fast lines between Crewe and Stafford are used. -
23 August
Yes, Minister
A number of people expressed concern about the way the North Wales
Coast railway services and staff were transferred between companies
twice in a period of weeks in 2003 - first from FirstGroup to National
Express Group and then to Arriva, with new uniforms each time,
publicity material to be printed and legal procedures to be carried out
under TUPE - The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of
Employment) Regulations 1981 - regarding the transfer of the
staff between employers. Our contributor John Murray felt
sufficiently concerned to refer the matter to the National Audit Office
which exists to guard against waste of taxpayers' money. We
present below for your entertainment the results of their
deliberations, as reported by their Director of Value for Money Studies
(Transport):
The SRA's aim was to rationalise train services under a
new, single integrated franchise
The SRA created the new Wales and Borders franchise in accordance with
the aspirations of the Welsh Assembly to provide, for the first time, a
single structure for operating all local and regional train services in
Wales and the border counties. The new franchise agreement includes all
local and regional passenger rail services within Wales, services from
Cardiff to Hereford, Shrewsbury and Manchester, and those from Wales to
Birmingham, North West England and the West Country.
Before the new franchise agreement was put in place, local and regional
train services in Wales and the border counties were provided by four
Train Operating Companies (TOCs) that had separate franchise agreements
with the SRA. A fifth TOC operated six stations in South Wales. Between
October 2001 and April 2002, the SRA brought together the train and
station services from four of these TOCs. Following these mergers,
National Express Group plc operated these services under the name of
"Wales and Borders". The final element of rail services in Wales -
services in North Wales that were part of the North Western franchise
operated by First Group plc - were transferred into the new Wales and
Borders franchise in September 2003. National Express Group proceeded
to operate all services under the fully integrated franchise until
December 2003, when Arriva Trains Ltd took over the running of the
combined franchise following a competitive tendering exercise.
The SRA considered that its approach provided financial benefits
to the taxpayer
The SRA considered that its two-staged approach of merging the North
Western rail services into the Wales and Borders franchise before
Arriva Trains Ltd then assumed responsibility as the new operator of
the integrated franchise saved money compared with the alternative of
merging the services and appointing the new operator at the same time:
· The chosen approach provided bidders for the
new integrated franchise with greater clarity over what they would
inherit. In particular, it gave them assurance that they would inherit
a train operator that was already in operation - albeit for a short
space of time - rather than two separate franchises that they would
then need to merge together, with all of the difficulties such mergers
can bring. The SRA considered that in the absence of this two-staged
approach bidders would have inflated their bids to reflect the risks
involved, particularly as most bidders had no previous experience of
merging services
· The chosen approach enabled Arriva Trains to
start operations more quickly than if the merger of the services had
been delayed until Arriva Trains had taken over the franchise.
Complicated safety approvals from the Health and Safety Executive for
the transfer of North Western services into the integrated franchise
took place before Arriva Trains took up the new franchise, allowing
Arriva to inherit the necessary approvals and make minimal changes
quickly before starting operations. This enabled Arriva to start the
new franchise within two months of franchise agreement. If the SRA had
delayed the franchise transfer until Arriva Trains had taken over the
running of the franchise, there would then have been a substantial
delay in obtaining the necessary safety approvals and Arriva starting
to operate the franchise. As the monthly subsidy payments from the SRA
to Arriva were significantly less than those under the then-existing
franchises, the sooner Arriva started the franchise the greater the
savings.
There were also savings to be gained from transferring North Western
services into the integrated franchise on the date of a change in the
national timetable - in this case, 28 September 2003 - because industry
systems have to be changed at that time anyway, savings that would not
have been available had the SRA delayed the transfer until Arriva
became the operator.
The SRA considered that these financial benefits far exceeded any
additional costs involved in the two-stage approach. The SRA told us
that the costs of applying TUPE were negligible, involving the
respective companies consulting with trade unions and informing members
of staff, and that the additional costs incurred on legal and
accountancy fees were insubstantial compared with the savings. Although
replacement uniforms were issued to North Western staff upon the
transfer of services into the Wales and Border franchise, these
uniforms were not new but were drawn from an existing stock that was
nearing the end of its useful life. The SRA also understands that no
fixed station signage was rebranded with the Wales and Borders logo and
that the publicity material for all TOCs changes when timetables change
anyway.
The SRA considered that its approach also provided operational
benefits to passengers
By merging the North Western services into the Wales and Borders
franchise in September 2003 rather than wait until Arriva Trains took
up the new franchise, the SRA established fully integrated rail
services across the whole of Wales as early as possible. Beyond
consideration of the practicalities and costs of rationalising and
re-letting the franchise in the short term, and rather than focusing on
operators' short-term ability to manage the merging of services, the
SRA sought to focus on operators' proposals for the long term
management of the franchise for the benefit of passengers. The SRA
considered that it was best placed to do so by separating the
rationalisation of services from the franchise bidding process,
allowing it to make a clearer comparison between competing bids.
Further, in view of the risk that once an incumbent TOC knows it has
not retained a franchise it has no long term interest in providing
services and that services might suffer as a result, the SRA wanted to
reduce the period between announcing the preferred bidder for the new
franchise and the operation of the new franchise. With Arriva starting
the new franchise within two months of franchise agreement, it was able
to concentrate on running the fully integrated rail services sooner
than it otherwise would have done.
To summarise, although the SRA's decision to transfer franchise
services and re-let the franchise on different dates raises questions
about the costs involved, the SRA has explained that there were several
financial and operational reasons for adopting this approach which more
than off-set any additional costs involved in the two-stage process.
These appear to have been to the benefit of taxpayers and passengers.
So there you are folks - It's interesting that the money-saving
procedure of combining lines under one existing company some time
before transferring the whole thing is not being followed in the case
of the creation of the new Northern Franchise which is planned for
October 2004. - 23 August
Class 47 pictorial
Time for some more views of the feats of Class 47s currently to be seen
along our line. Rowan Crawshaw reports:
'On 17 August I rode behind 47 853 Rail Express from
Bangor to Holyhead and returned with 47 828 Severn Valley
Railway. 47 853 stands in Platform 4 at Holyhead on arrival
with the 1D37 10:00 from Manchester.
'47 853 runs round at Holyhead.
'47 828 backs onto the 13:23 to London.'
17 August again, and Bob Lissaman took this view at
Llanfairfechan.
Ian Bowland writes: 'I went to Chester on 17 August to see the
confluence of 47's that now occurs each weekday at the County Town! Out
from Crewe on the 10.30 Crewe-Bangor, photograph three 47's in rapid
succession and back to Crewe on the 11.21. Crewe-Chester-Crewe plus
three 47's all in the space of 75 minutes - Phew! First in was 47 853
on the 10.00 Manchester-Holyhead. Next was 47 840 on the 09.20
Holyhead-London closely followed by 47 828 on the 08.35
London-Holyhead. Both sets of London stock were in reverse formation as
the photograph of 47 828 above shows. These diagrams must open up the
possibility of some serious coastal 47 bashing?'
Finally (for now - plenty still in the intray!) some notes and pictures
by driver 'Concrete Bob. ' Above, the 10:00 Manchester -
Holyhead calls at Manchester Oxford Road...
... and pauses at Earlestown's sharply-curved platform.
The notes with the above 'insider' picture from Longsight depot read
'On arrival from Bangor the train enters Longsight depot at the North
end, where it is met by the duty shunter and conducted to an empty
siding adjacent to the voyager / DMU fuel point. The shunter then
detaches the loco and escorts the engine clear of the siding, sets the
points and conducts the engine back through the fuel point to rear of
the train, changes the points and couples the engine on; he then does a
brake continuity test and authorises the train to leave at departure
time. There are units for Hadfield and Blackpool services leaving about
the same time, and it is a work of art for the signalman to weave these
trains across the busy main line in order that they may gain access to
the slow lines and Platform 14 at Piccadilly.' - 23 August
Rare views at Shotton -
by Joe Kelly
Here are three pictures that I've been chasing for ages: the
occasional foray of the Dee Marsh 08 shunter along the wobbly spur into
United Paper Mills, Shotton. I'm not sure how regular this run is, but
it seems to be a couple of times a week. At around 09:30 the class 08
makes its way out of Dee Marsh yard and along the main line towards
Wirral, passing under the Deeside Industrial. Estate bypass, to come to
a halt at what was the old coal sidings on the marsh near the Shotton
sailing club and shooting ranges. It then comes back again across
the points and off onto the single line spur, which is in pretty poor
condition and very weed infested. At slow pace it works its way
back under the bypass and over to the public access road that passes
along the front of Shotton Paper Mill. When it reaches the road and the
dilapidated Shotton Crossing, the guard hops out, fires up the warning
lights and unlocks the crossing gates, to allow the shunter to move
forward into the works.
The 08 returns about 10 minutes later hauling three or four closed
steel wagons and an ancient brake van as seen in the pictures.
It once again negotiates the spur and runs the brake van round the
other end of the wagons, before hooking up and returning to Dee Marsh
yard.- 23 August
Regional 125?
Larry Goddard writes: 'I saw this on a van at
Abergele &
Pensarn station on 10 August. Interestingly, the HST 125 in the neat
illustration appears to carry Regional Railways livery (similar to that
carried by Class 31s and 37s in the 1990s) rather than a livery
actually carried by HSTs.' - 23 August