John Baron MP welcomes c2c new trains and timetable

MP says new carriages and timetable changes will help overcrowding

John Baron MP has today welcomed news that c2c have announced plans to bring in new carriages and the Department for Transport’s decision to relax the contractual requirements for c2c to stop 95% of trains at the three inner London stations. John Baron MP and Stephen Metcalfe MP have been pressing the Department of Transport about the contractual requirements and assistance with procuring additional carriages since February.

John said:

“I welcome the announcement by c2c that new carriages have been obtained and trust this and the timetable changes will relieve overcrowding for commuters. Stephen Metcalfe and I have been working with both c2c and the Department for Transport to bring these changes about and we will be monitoring progress carefully.”

Notes to Editors

Commuters using c2c are to benefit from 13,000 extra seats at peak times every week, thanks to a new deal that will deliver 24 brand-new additional carriages in 2016 – three years earlier than previously planned.

c2c and the Department for Transport have reached agreement for the 24 new carriages, being built by Bombardier in Derby, to operate on the c2c route for the next three years. The new carriages will start entering passenger service from October, subject to the final signing of contracts, with all the new trains delivered by the end of the year.
The new trains will be leased until 2019, and will increase the total size of c2c’s fleet to 320 carriages. This will address the unprecedented growth in local rail passengers in the past six months, with around 8% more passengers now travelling into London during the morning peak.

From 2019, c2c has existing plans to introduce 68 new carriages to the route. The formal procurement process for the first tranche of these new trains started earlier this month, with the manufacturer expected to be appointed in the summer.

As a further part of these changes, in the short term c2c will be making amendments to the timetable from Sunday 15 May, including:

– Some evening services combined, to provide longer trains and reduce the number of four-carriage services at peak times
– Changes to the stopping pattern for a number of services, including:
o Additional services to West Horndon in the morning peak
o Additional services to Upminster in the evening peak
o Additional free seats at Basildon and Laindon on the most crowded service of the day, which will now no longer stop at Benfleet or Barking
o Limited other peak services no longer stopping at Barking. While this is a result of overcrowding, c2c is still providing Barking passengers with a significant increase in the total number of peak services over the past six months

These timetable changes will be reviewed again in December once the additional carriages are in service.

The extra capacity provided by new carriages augment the existing extra capacity provided by c2c’s timetable changes in December and January, which increased the number of seats at peak times by 1,400 and provided room for 3,000 more passengers.