BGORUG

ANOTHER BUSY WEEK!
REMAINING DIESEL TRAINS
We now have reliable information that the sublease that London Overground holds on the six
remaining Class 172 2-car diesel trains from West Midlands Trains (WMT) expires in December and
that WMT needs these units in January. They all need postponed ‘C6’ heavy overhauls and universal
toilets to be fitted before WMT can use them. Transport for London (TfL) will only say that they are
still in negotiations with WMT to extend the sublease.

NEW TRAINS LATEST
There have been several hiccoughs in the Class 710 mileage accumulation trips, the latest being a few
days ago. More trips have been scheduled for Monday 26th November but experience shows that
does not mean a lot. 710 265/266/267 have been out on Network Rail tracks. Arriva Rail London
(ARL) driver trainers have just completed their own training on the Class 710 units that are still at
the Network Rail national test centre at Asfordby. When Bombardier can officially deliver a unit to
ARL, platform gauging trips (with step-plates fitted) and driver training will begin.

REDUCED WEEKEND SERVICE
To try and protect the weekday service, TfL have withdrawn two diesel units from weekend service
for additional maintenance time, cancelling their trains and providing half-hourly “supplementary bus
services” by way of replacement. On Saturdays, out of 139 scheduled trains, there are 45 planned
cancellations. On Sundays, out of 116 scheduled trains, there are 43 planned cancellations. TfL say
they are negotiating with Network Rail to introduce a temporary weekend timetable with a regular
20-minute frequency, to replace the current irregular intervals in service. While the weekday service
has performed better since these measures were introduced, with only a handful of cancellations on
average, on Wednesday 21st November there were 18 unplanned cancellations out of 140 scheduled
trains, all due a defective unit.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Last week, three Assembly Members submitted eleven questions to the Mayor who should answer
within a week. Also last week, BGORUG obtained coverage in three local papers and participated in
an ITV programme being made with Christian Wolmar.
On 21st November, a question about the service was asked at the TfL Board meeting. This was dealt
with by Mike Brown (Commissioner) and G Powell (Director of Surface Transport). See the webcast
on the London Assembly website https://t.co/cNV0Pg37Cz (from 41 mins 50 secs.). Draw your own
conclusions of the picture painted. An astonishing claim was made that 10-year old trains (actually
only 8-years old) are “very old”. None of the board members asked any questions to probe what
they were being told. They do not seem to understand what even one cancellation means on a 15-
minute frequency service. It might be on the tube map, but it is NOT the tube!
Within the papers of the same board meeting is the statement- "...rail income (to 15/09) is £5m
above budget owing to London Overground receiving contractual payments from Bombardier for
delayed delivery of trains." See http://content.tfl.gov.uk/board-20181121-agenda-papers-publicweb.
pdf … - Page 110. BGORUG would claim that that some of that money should be used to
compensate regular passengers for the last three years of near continuous disruption. Discussion of
the Class 710 issue was deferred to a panel meeting on 13th February!