Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

envy, but I can see there is a good argument against spending so much money on a new facility to serve a business park, especially when some of the stations in the Borough especially the ones at Rishton and Accrington are crying out for refurbishment. There was even talk of a ‘shuttle’ bus connecting with arrivals and departures from the new station to ferry customers, and more likely employees, around the expanding commercial and retail complex”. October There were ‘contractual problems’ holding up the transfer of services to the new Northern Franchise’, which was due to take place on Sunday, the 17 th . The Strategic Rail Authority had said that due to problems in the negotiations with the preferred bidder, UK Rail/Serco Ned Rail, the date would have to be put back. In the meantime the two operators working services through East Lancashire, First North Western & Arriva Trains Northern would continue to work them. The details of the hold-up had not been made public, but the bad news was that the new operators were not contemplating introducing any new rolling stock onto the services. ( I wondered if this is the sticking point?) There can’t be many occasions when our area’s railways came first, and when they did it was for less than the best reasons. On this occasion it was leaf-fall. The East Lancs Line had the worst record in the North West for delays to trains caused by leaves on the line. Not surprising really when you considered that between Bamber Bridge and Mill Hill the line cuts through expanses of woodland. In Hyndburn stations designated as ‘hot-spots’ were Rishton and Church & Oswaldtwistle, whereas Huncoat had achieved ‘double hot-spot’ status. A spokesperson for First North Western said, “It is a very serious matter, as it affects how we can run trains”. Apparently drivers were put through rigorous training to learn just how to deal with these situations. This involved them braking much earlier to avoid overshooting platforms, and accelerating with extra care. Some stations as previously reported, were being cut out of the timetables at certain times in order for trains to keep to their booked times. Even though it was in the centre of town, Accrington Station had also been listed as ‘potentially hazardous’, as trains had over-run there in recent times. Whereas in autumn there was undoubtedly a problem, it was not helped by the type of Diesel Multiple Units used on the East Lancashire Line. The 142’s were no more than rail-buses, lightweight in construction and with only two of the four axles transmitting power to the track, although the occasional use of class 150’s did help to overcome the problem. If units were heavier and have four powered wheels on each of two motorised bogies, then the problem was reduced and might be eliminated altogether. This observation was based on the observation that Arriva Trains, who ran the Trans-Pennine (so called) Express services over a considerable proportion of the same track using mainly 158 Units, did not make the same protestations! The date when the new train operating company (TOC), took over the ‘local’ East Lancashire Line services had now been set for Sunday, December 12 th . It had been postponed until the negotiations between First North Western and the latest operator Serco/Ned Rail had been completed. The new TOC would run the service for up to nine years, and would receive the substantial subsidy from the public purse of £2.4 billion. Despite this, the undertaking thrashed out between Serco/Ned Rail and the Strategic Rail Authority in order to secure the franchise, did not include any plans to replace the ‘Pacer’ units, or introduce new or cascaded rolling stock. The only commitments made were, to improve punctuality, reliability and the overall performance of the services. At least one Member of Parliament, the Ribble Valley representative, had said this would leave us with what he describes as, “A third world railway service, when the lease expires”. He based this on the fact that the 142 or ‘Pacer’ units will be almost thirty years old in 2013. The facts were, these units had already undergone at least one internal refurbishment, but had still been criticised by independent scrutineers “for poor ride quality and lack of comfort”. Worse than this, to use a popular buzzword, they were not ‘disabled friendly’ as they fell short of the standards expected for accommodating the disabled. No matter how well they were maintained they were bound, as with all things mechanical and electrical, to deteriorate with age therefore exacerbating the problem of reliability. Faced with these arguments even before they had commenced operations, a spokesperson for Serco/Ned Rail had said, “We will be speaking to our suppliers to see if there is a business case for any improvements”. In other words the accountants would have the final say! This news came as a double blow to the East Lancashire Line, as the downgrading of the Blackpool North  York/Scarborough service from the Trans-Pennine Express franchise, meant it too would miss out on the £100 millions set aside to upgrade the cross country services with some brand new units.

416