General Updates

No Week Review this week, as Andy's off. However, I'll provide a summary of the main news stories, mainly regarding the Annual Timetable changes. 

Firstly to Abellio GreaterAnglia. It is alleged that new LED screens have been installed at Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and a number of other stations too (these works were planned, we reported them earlier this year) Also, to cater for the increased amount of travellers, Abellio Greater Anglia are increasing Stansted Express trains to 8-car formations on Saturday 5th, 12th and 19th December.

Timetable changes at Arriva Wales from Sunday 13th are stated here. 

C2C are making a few changes to their timetables from the 13th December. Also, as of today, 2 trains an hour are going to Westfield Stratford City and Liverpool Street, to benefit Christmas shoppers.

When GWR was FirstGreatWestern. Blog Archive (C)
At Great Western Railway, their Human Resources (HR) team are celebrating aftet being awarded a number of awards. Tracey Coleman, the Head of Learning and Development, won 'Silver in the L+D Professional of the Year category at the Training Journal Awards. Tracey narrowly lost out to her counterpart at Marks + Spencer'. Sourced from GWR.
Their second award was for Best Corporate Recruitment Team, winning against companies such as Boots and Coca-Cola, at the In-House Recruitment Awards.
Sharon Johnston, the HR Director said: “I am extremely proud of my team and they deserve these awards, which recognise their hard work to improve how we recruit, welcome and support GWR colleagues."

Due to the Bath Christmas Market this weekend, GWR have also scheduled 33 additional trains, adding over 11,000 seats! These trains will run between Bath and Swindon/Westbury and between Bath and Bristol.  Bath Rugby fans and Christmas shoppers are being advised to allow plenty of time for their journey as a queuing system may be necessary to help passengers board trains in safety.

ScotRail will be having additional services and more carriages on some routes over the festive period. These Christmastime updates are here. 

(C) Liam. SouthWestTrains Class 444
South West Trains introduce their new timetable from Sunday 13th December, which will mean increased frequency to stations in Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Wiltshire. Other significant changes include:
  • Direct services to London Waterloo from Bruton and Frome for the first time;
  • An extra 8,000 seats each week (due to more units from the fleet in service);
  • Services to the brand new Cranbrook station;
  • Half-hourly services from Waterloo to Tisbury, Gillingham, Templecombe, Sherborne and Yeovil Junction between 15:20 and 19:20; and 
  • Two trains an hour from Exeter to Honiton from 16:00 to 18:00. 
Tim Shoveller, Managing Director for South West Trains, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be introducing a much improved timetable for the West of England. It includes extra services for the vast majority of stations with improved links to London, a significantly increased frequency of services as well as extra seats at weekends. We are also refurbishing our Class 159 trains which run on these services. The first of these are now in service and the rest will follow shortly. 

PLANS FOR 2016: There will be approximately 12 319s transferring from GTR (who gain new 700s, and 20 of the 387/1s from Thameslink go to Great Northern) to Northern Rail. Then in 2017, 13 Govia Great Northern 321s come off-lease due to the arrival of 700s at GTR, as do 10 TPE 350/4s which are cascaded due to the arrival. 

Harry and Liam
Regards:

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