Burles pledges operational improvements

The £3.7 billion premium Abellio must pay Government over the length of the East Anglia franchise is “scary”, admits Abellio Greater Anglia Managing Director Jamie Burles, but he says it will be unlocked by growth created by improvements to the service.

“Our priorities 1, 2 and 3 were new trains,” he said. “We are introducing 1,000 new services. We need the extra capacity, absolutely. We are about giving people seats. We need performance to improve so that it is not all jam tomorrow, we need some jam today.”

Burles said of the new trains: “Bi-mode is huge for us. There will be a true transformation for many routes. A lot of our diesels run under the wires, and if you think some regional trains have one coach, then our new minimum will be three coaches. It is long overdue, but welcome.”

He also confirmed that along with Network Rail, he was looking at a ‘road map’ to build upon, to enable more trains to run between Norwich and London in 90 minutes. So far two are planned to run off-peak from 2019.

Looking at the present, he said: “It cannot be all jam tomorrow. We are working with Network Rail regarding faults and failures. We need 93% Public Performance Measure (PPM) by the end of the franchise, and we are just under 90%. That lift may not sound big, but it is huge.”

Burles is hopeful that the new train fleets will help the PPM, explaining that AGA’s newest trains (the Class 379s) operate at around 70,000 to 80,000 miles per failure, compared with the least reliable trains that run at around 10,000 miles per failure.

“We cause 30% delays, Network Rail brings 60% and others are 10%. We will bring change with the new trains, but we need everyone achieving improvements,” he added.

Burles added that Norwich Crown Point depot will be upgraded. It is also planned to build a new depot at Manningtree, where a permanent wheel lathe will also be housed.