Published on: Thursday, 26 January 2017
Last updated: Thursday, 26 January 2017
Improvements to the reliability of Greater Anglia’s train fleet have been recognised at the rail industry’s coveted Golden Spanners Awards.
The region’s train operator received a ‘Golden Spanner’ award for its Intercity fleet, which operates on the Norwich – London mainline, with a 98.43% improvement in reliability based on the number of miles per technical incident (which is measured as a technical fault that causes a delay of 3 minutes or more), making them the most reliable and also the most improved train fleet in the country.
Last year miles per incident on the Norwich – London mainline were recorded at 24,251 miles and are now 48,122, representing an improvement of 98.43%.
Six further fleets operated by Greater Anglia also showed improvements in reliability compared to the previous year.
The Class 321 fleet, which serves commuter routes in Essex, saw an improvement of 54%, going from 17,553 miles per technical incident to 27,030.
On Greater Anglia’s regional routes in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, the reliability of the Class 153 trains was up 20.5% and Class170 trains up 14.1%.
On Greater Anglia’s West Anglia route, the Class 317/8 trains showed an improvement of 45.1% and the Class 317/5 train showed an improvement of 34.3%.
Greater Anglia’s Class 379 trains which operate the Stansted Express service between London Liverpool Street and Stansted Airport showed an improvement of 10.8%.
The huge improvements in reliability are due to improvements in the quality of day to day maintenance processes, including a ‘back to basics’ approach with a sustained focus on attention to detail implemented by the teams at Greater Anglia’s Ilford, Clacton and Crown Point maintenance depots, as well as better monitoring processes of trains while they are in service so that problems can be picked up and corrected earlier.
Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia’s Managing Director, said: “I am delighted that the improvement in performance has been recognised at the Golden Spanners Awards and would like to congratulate our depot and fleet teams on their hard work. As part of the new franchise, Greater Anglia is investing £5 million in further reliability improvements to provide the consistent and improving levels of train service performance that our customers expect.”
Modern Railways' Industry & Technology Editor, Roger Ford, who is responsible for the Golden Spanner awards said, “Crown Point Depot's Golden Spanner for its locomotive hauled Intercity fleet, beating the more modern runner up by nearly 10,000 miles, showed that it is the quality of the engineering team rather than the age of the rolling stock that matters when it comes to reliability. Greater Anglia also holds seventh place in the Top 10 most reliable electric multiple units on the UK network.”