Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

Almost unbelievably the latest Transport Minister Grant Chapps, who succeeded ‘ Failing ’ Grayling, had threatened to divest Arriva Rail North of its franchise and bring it back into public ownership. They had recently announced that due to delays in the delivery of the new multiple units, the much maligned 142 ‘Pacer’ sets would not all be withdrawn by the end of 2019 instead up to 15 would still be required for service into the New Year. Quite surprisingly the railway press had come to the defence of the company by suggesting that they were not the architects of this situation but victims of the late delivery of these units from CAF. It seems ironic that this came as there was increasing evidence that things were about to improve even on the East Lancs Line. On Thursday the 17 th , unit 195:128 was noted on a driver familiarisation operation through Accrington, in preparation for the upgrading of the York to Blackpool North service due in December. Quite unusually the recent ‘Scarborough Spa Express’ operated by West Coast Railways had at its head the usual Class 47 number 804 as the train loco, but was piloted by Colas Rail’s Class 70:811 which is no stranger to the East Lancs Line, but normally employed on the bitumen tanks in its capacity as a freight engine. November It was now some time since Class 56 locomotives were deployed on the VTG bitumen tanker train, and this first week the engine noted was Colas Rail’s 70:814. The latest Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Chapps, had announced that the feasibility study on the reopening of the Skipton to Colne section was still “work in progress”. He had stated, “In principle I support the reopening of lines closed by the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, (although the 11½ miles was not one included in Beeching’s report, The Reshaping of Britain’s Railways). He continued, “We are investigating whether the proposed scheme is affordable, would attract enough traffic and is a long-term solution to ease the Trans-Penning congestion”. He has also hinted that Northern could be stripped of its franchise by passing it to an Operator Of Last Resort (OLR), another phrase to conceal what would be re nationalisation. In reply Northern’s Managing Director, David Brown, had said “It matters not who operates this franchise, for they would still be confronted by the same underlying problems”. Many of these problems he blamed on ‘pinch points’, where the infrastructure had not been upgraded to accommodate extra services and enhanced frequencies. A spokesperson for Transport for the North (TfN) commented, “Whilst we recognise that Northern and Trans-Pennine Express have faced a number of delays and challenges in delivery and enhancement, we would expect some changes if an Operator Of Last Resort were to be appointed, but it would be inappropriate to make any comment at this stage as Arriva, (the parent company), is currently up for sale”. It was stated that Northern were to withdraw the last Class 142 ‘ Pacers ’ by February the 17 th , 2020. However, this had prompted several politicians to demand that discounted tickets should be made available to passengers consigned to using them on any services. The latest figures painted a disappointing picture for trains recorded at less than five minutes late. o In April 2016 when Arriva took over 93·8% of trains were recorded as ‘on time’. o In April 2019 this figure had fallen to 88·9%. o In October 2019 this figure was 76·5%. The latest unit to receive Arriva Rail North’s livery was 150:133 which was formerly in First Northern’s colours. On Monday the 11 th , the locomotive in change of the VTG bitumen tankers was 70:817. Just when it was thought that things could only get better, the figures for punctuality on Arriva Rail North from mid-October to mid-November had slumped to an all-time low of 45%, whilst Trans Pennine Express had fared little better at 65%, All this had come before the extensive flooding had been taken fully into consideration, with cancellations due to track damage in Yorkshire. Arriva had given the reason, that having introduced hundreds of new services, there was insufficient capacity on the network with which to operate them, the Ordsall Curve being one particular bottleneck. For whatever reasons coaches were again operating rail replacement services on Sunday the 17 th . Despite speculation as to its future, Arriva Rail North had continued to re-livery incoming units. The latest to receive the scheme were 150:106 and 150:228 ex-Northern Rail and 150:109 ex-Central Trains and from Scotland’s Railways 158:789 and 158:871. Colas Rail’s 70:802 was on duty on the VTG tanker train on Thursday the 21 st .

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