Greater Anglia has won two rail industry awards for the reliability of its trains in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.
The train operator’s engineering teams received ‘Golden Spanners’ for the Norwich – Ipswich – Colchester – London Intercity and Stansted Express services – which beat other train fleets in their class to clock up the most miles before developing faults that needed fixing.
As a result, Greater Anglia’s Intercity fleet, with 58,323 miles between faults, is the most reliable in the UK.
Its Class 379 trains which operate the Stansted Express service achieved 76,898 miles before developing faults that needed fixing.
The awards are given based on independent industry-accredited statistics using the Rail Delivery Group’s moving annual average data for the 12 months ending mid-October 2018.
Roger Ford, Industry & Technology Editor of the trade magazine Modern Railways which organises the Golden Spanner Awards commented, “For Greater Anglia to win Golden Spanners in the categories covering former British Rail trains and the latest electric trains is a tribute to the engineering teams at Crown Point and Ilford maintenance Depots.
“The team at Crown Point Depot has now won the ex-BR Intercity category three years in a row.”
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 which has had a big impact on train reliability, leading to better service for customers.
“This is even more impressive considering that it has been achieved during the major redevelopment of Norwich Crown Point Depot so that it can accommodate the longer new trains, which has meant a period of significant transition, upheaval and logistical issues for both Crown Point and Ilford depots in maintaining the existing fleet while this work is being carried out.”
“We are replacing every single train with brand new trains from 2019, but until then we will continue to make our existing trains as reliable as possible, which is why we have invested over £23 million in reliability improvements to provide the consistent and improving levels of train service performance that our customers expect.”
The Golden Spanners awards – in which the trophies feature that archetypal element of train maintenance, a spanner – celebrate the best of rolling stock maintenance and are handed out to train companies who make the greatest strides in train reliability.
