National Express East Anglia
National Express East Anglia is a train operating company and brand name of London Eastern Railway Ltd in the United Kingdom. It is part of the National Express Group and was branded as ‘one’ from 1 April 2004 to 26 February 2008. It provides local, suburban and express services from Liverpool Street station in the City of London to destinations in the railway franchise known as the Greater Anglia network, stretching from north and east Greater London to Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk in East Anglia. The current franchise is due to end on 31 March 2011, when National Express is due to be replaced with a new operator.
However, following the 2010 General Election, the new Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers, announced that the replacement process for the two remaining National Express franchises has been "put on hold" by the Department for Transport. This could result in the National Express franchise continuing to operate after 31 March 2011, the date the DfT initially stated that National Express would lose the franchise on.
History
The franchise began on 1 April 2004 and is due to run until 31 March 2011. It combined the services previously operated by Anglia Railways, First Great Eastern and the West Anglia (WA) division of WAGN. The large franchise was created in order to improve efficiency and reliability as part of a move to reduce the number of train operating companies providing services from a single London terminal. As a result of the new franchise, the number of operators on the Great Eastern Main Line was reduced, with the company operating most services on the line.
On 26 November 2009, the Department for Transport announced that National Express East Anglia were to lose their franchise in March 2011 rather than be granted an extension to operate it until 2014 which had previously been an option. The decision follows the failure of sister company National Express East Coast, even though National Express East Anglia had met all of their targets required for the franchise to be extended.
On 18th June 2010, following the 2010 General Election, the Department for Transport announced that the replacement process for the two remaining National Express franchises would be "put on hold". This could result in the National Express franchise continuing to operate after 31 March 2011, the date the DfT initially stated that National Express would lose the franchise on.
Brand Identity
The area names from the former franchises were initially retained by the new franchise. However, all services other than Stansted Express were later branded simply ‘one’, reflecting the union of the three smaller franchises into one single franchise. This led to passenger confusion as they were unable to establish for example whether the announcer was saying the 07:20 "one" service would be delayed, or the 07:21 service.On 12 November 2007 it was announced that, as part of a company-wide re-branding exercise, National Express would change the name of the company to National Express East Anglia on 27 February 2008. On 11 December 2007 the first Class 90 locomotive to be re-liveried was rolled out of Crown Point depot in Norwich and was pictured in service the next day.
Rollingstock
The company operates a fleet of Class 153, 156 and 170 DMUs for the local lines, with Class 315, 317, 321 and 360 EMUs for the mainline commuter services, and Class 90 locomotives with Mark 3 coaching stock for the intercity services.
The Class 170s are used predominantly on longer services, as they have slower acceleration than the Class 153 and 156 stock, meaning they cannot stick to the timetables of the many local lines.
Future Fleet
The Government's rolling stock plan will see the franchise take on 17 additional Class 321s from London Midland. National Express will also secure the order of new build EMUs for its services in West Anglia to Stansted Airport and Cambridge, which will allow the release of a number of Class 317 units. National Express East Anglia have ordered 30 brand new Class 379 Electrostars in a £155 million deal. Bombardier will build the Electrostars at its Derby Litchurch Lane with delivery due to commence between December 2010 and June 2011.
Performance
Infrastructure problems have impacted on performance. According to Network Rail, the main problems have been track circuit failures, broken rails, track faults, points failures and overhead line equipment (OLE) failures. Network Rail, who are responsible for the infrastructure, intended to improve performance by work carried out during a planned closure of London Liverpool Street station over Christmas and New Year 2007/8. This allowed much of the outer London overhead line equipment to be replaced by modern, self-tensioning lines. The work was carried out, but over-ran at short notice by some 24 hours, causing ridicule in the national press.
Detailed figures (from the January edition of Modern Railways) of the miles covered per 5-minute delay for the year ending October 2009 showed that the most reliable trains in the fleet were again the Class 360 Desiros (mainly Clacton-on-Sea - London Liverpool Street), which achieved over 38,000 miles per 5-minute delay. The 'workhorse' Class 321s by comparison returned some 21,500 miles per 5-minute delay, while the 'Inter-City' Class 90 locomotive-hauled Norwich - Liverpool Street trains came in at some 14,000 miles per 5-minute delay - this last figure being a 35% improvement on last year's 10,400. The Class 90 locomotives won the Silver Spanner award for InterCity rolling stock at the Annual National Rail Awards 2009.
For the 12 months to 8 December 2007, the average punctuality for all services was 89.6%. Where delays occur the company has paid compensation to those who request it as part of their Passengers' Charter.
The latest performance figures for the third quarter of the 2009-10 year released by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) were 89.3% for the public performance measure (PPM) for the quarter and 91.1% for the moving annual average (MAA) for the twelve months up to the end of the third quarter. Both of these measures are up slightly on the previous year.