Open Letter to Norfolk Chamber of Commerce from Jonathan Denby, Head of Corporate Affairs, Abellio Greater Anglia
Dear All
I’m pleased to confirm that, as of today, we are now back to operating the full normal timetable on all the local lines radiating out of Ipswich and Norwich across Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire (plus the Marks Tey to Sudbury route), that had been affected by the diesel unit availability problems (caused by poor railhead conditions).
We did, as we committed in my email of last Friday, restore the normal timetable on the Marks Tey to Sudbury, Ipswich to Felixstowe and Norwich to Great Yarmouth lines from Monday (23 November). However, as had been outlined, the ongoing challenges of wheel damage on the trains meant that all Ipswich to Peterborough services were cancelled on Monday. From then on progress has been better than we had suggested, so that yesterday half of the Ipswich to Peterborough services ran and from today we have been able to restore the full timetable on that route, in addition to the other local lines. We now expect to provide the full timetable on all the routes in question from now on.
We are extremely sorry for the disruption and inconvenience caused to everyone affected by the extensive recent cancellations on a number of the local lines. We did all we could to minimise the impact by providing a full planned bus replacement service on some routes, rather than ending up with short notice, ad hoc cancellations which would have been even more disruptive for passengers. We have also worked hard to get trains repaired as quickly as possible, sending them to both Ilford and Derby, the two nearest locations with the appropriate equipment (wheel lathes) to repair the damaged wheels. In addition, further actions were taken by Network Rail to try and improve railhead conditions.
We are providing special compensation arrangements for passengers on the Marks Tey to Sudbury, Ipswich to Felixstowe and Norwich to Great Yarmouth lines, who will be refunded for their daily rail travel cost for all the days that the rail services were suspended and substituted with a bus replacement service. They can claim via our website or pick up a form at stations or from on-train colleagues.
Clearly this has been a very unsatisfactory episode and we are acutely aware of the frustration and problems it has caused. We will be conducting a full review of the issues in partnership with Network Rail to improve the situation for future years. As outlined on Friday, the two core issues which need to be reviewed are as follows :
- Network Rail’s railhead treatment programme, as the railhead conditions are what cause the wheel damage and self-evidently the conditions have been far worse than ever before and the preventative railhead treatment programme has not been effective enough
- What additional preventative and contingency train fleet arrangements can be put in place to try and prevent such damage to trains, enable quicker repairs and have quicker access to additional trains in the event that major problems occurred again
We have also discussed the issues with the Department for Transport and emphasised the need to ensure that actions identified are delivered regardless of the timing and outcome of the franchise renewal process.
Finally, we apologise again for these problems. You can be assured we are doing all we can to prevent a repetition.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan
Jonathan Denby Head of Corporate Affairs Abellio Greater Angliawww.abelliogreateranglia.co.uk
