January 2011

Station Investment

• Because of contractual matters and the bad weather in December, the start date for NSIP schemes at Shoeburyness, Southend East and Chafford Hundred has now been delayed until the first week in February. Customer leaflets have been produced and distributed at each station to promote the works, and ongoing communications with customers will now be managed by the Group Station Managers, in conjunction with the Contractor's Site Manager at each station.
• We are now in discussions with Network Rail on the specifications for tranche 2 NSIP schemes at Chalkwell, Ockendon and Limehouse, with the intention that these works will be delivered by Network Rail before March 2012.
• Southend Borough Council have funded new cycle racks at Southend East, which were launched in December. Their next installation will be at Leigh-on-Sea.
• Network Rail are progressing the footbridge and lift scheme at Pitsea. The critical period for this project occurs in February, when the bridge spans are lifted into place during a weekend possession.
• The similar scheme for Laindon is progressing through the design stage, and we expect Essex County Council to be funding some improvements on the station forecourt at the same time.
• Network Rail have announced a major scheme of platform improvements at Barking station as part of their renewals programme. Our concern at the moment is that this favours the LUL and LOROL platforms, and we are trying to secure similar improvements for the c2c platforms as part of the same package.

Rolling Incident Review

• Operations Director explained the various disruption incidents which have occurred in December, 20 of them were significant. KF confirmed his disappointment in the period performance
• Signals covered in snow
• Overheads tripped
• ADD activation
• Cable Theft (people have been arrested)
• Fatality x 2
• Cable bitten through by rats.
• Head of Operations confirmed that the rail industry had problems with the snow and c2c actually did run a normal service and were the only TOC that did run a normal service, however we did experience trouble with Network Rail which had forgotten to turn on the points heater which caused the signals to freeze up, this issue has been taken up with Network Rail and a closer relationship has been formed between both parties.
• The powdery snow caused major problems to the fleet of trains 46 ACM s were blown Head of Operations explained what an ACM is and the fact that once it fails the results are reduced lighting and reduced heating in the train. He also confirmed that nearly all the ACM s have now been changed and within approximately two weeks all trains will be back to normal.