First Capital Connect MD, Elaine Holt.
AFTER two and a half hectic years merging two very different routes into one railway company, Elaine Holt is facing the most exciting time of her career. The First Capital Connect MD talked to Paul Whiting about the vital part FCC
will play in the £5.5 billion Thameslink Programme.
WHEN Elaine Holt took over the helm of the new First Capital Connect train company two and a half years ago she faced a plethora of issues that kept her in-tray overflowing for months.
Not only did Elaine and her top team have the task of merging two major London commuter routes, Thameslink and Great Northern, but Thameslink was suffering serious performance difficulties, with trains failing and cancellations rife. Only 84 per cent of trains were arriving right time on what was a showpiece route.
In addition, overcrowding on trains was causing headaches while train maintenance was largely outsourced and reliability was patchy.
Two and a half years on it is a very different story. The challenges are still there but in a vastly different form.
Elaine, 41, says performance on both routes have improved dramatically – and there is an even greater story enfolding.
FCC is the lead train operator involved in one of the biggest railway route investment programmes currently being tackled by Network Rail – the long awaited £5.5 billion Thameslink Programme. Now underway, by 2015 it will bring a whole raft of new destinations, together with a new £1.4 billion fleet of trains.
In addition to the main programme, Network Rail is planning to spend £40 million on the Midland route, including junction work and recruitment of people to deal with fault response.
“I think this is the most exciting franchise to be working for in the whole of the UK at the moment,” says Elaine, who held senior executive position with First Great Western before being appointed MD of FCC.
“We are getting £5.5 billion of network investment. It will be fantastic for the customers who have waited so long for this.
“ Thameslink 2000, as it was called, had been running so long that staff were asking ‘ is this ever going to happen’. Well, it is happening now.
“For us, communication with passengers and staff is going to be vitally important in the next seven years as the programme is gradually completed. We will need to let people know what is going on all the time.”
Elaine says passengers will start to see a major difference on the Thames-link route from next March. From then the number of train services through the two-track central section of the route will increase by 150 per cent, with new Class 377 Electrostar trains being introduced.
Already a Class 377 from Southern is being used for driver familiarisation on the route and from early next year the first of the 23 four-car, dual voltage sets being built by Bombardier Transportation in Derby will be introduced.
These new trains will be operated by both FCC and Southeastern drivers via Blackfriars station and will be used on the core Bedford to Brighton services, displacing the mid-life Class 319s on some routes.
Some of the new services will be from Bromley South, Orpington and other Kent stations and will travel into the northern part of the Thameslink route.
Meanwhile, FCC is working closely with the DfT on the specifications of a £1.4 billion fleet of new trains for what will be the fully extended Thameslink network from 2015.
Elaine says: “Invitations to tender are expected to go out to four companies next week, with bids in next year. These will be super-duper, very special trains, and the fleet is expected to be introduced at the end of the Thameslink programme, when 24 trains an hour will go through the central London area.
“They will need to have very short dwell times, serve long distance services and shorter metro services and have environmental features. There will have to be a balance.”
Meanwhile, until the new trains start to be brought in, the daily battle is to maintain performance levels.
Thameslink route trains are now showing “really good levels” with the Moving Annual Average at 88.92 per cent of all trains arriving on time and the Public Performance Measure at 90.19. In train reliability, Class 319s are showing just under 16,000 miles per casualty compared with 7,000 mpc in 2006.
On the Great Northern Route the figures are even better – and at record levels. The routes between London King’s Cross, Peterborough, Cambridge and Kings Lynn are currently 94.29 MAA – the best for nine years.
Delays caused by the train company are 27 per cent better than target.
“People didn’t think we would come into Great Northern and improve it, which we have,” says Elaine. “When we started there were quite a few issues with the East Midlands route and a lot of effort has been put into this by Network Rail. This has really turned it around and made a lot of difference.
“A whole raft of infrastructure issues have been addressed and many things have been changed.”
FCC have now brought all train servicing and heavy maintenance in-house with two main depots – Hornsey on the East Coast main line and Bedford Cauldwell Street, which is to be extended for the new Class 377s.
“Our fleet people have done a great job,” adds Elaine
Meanwhile major moves are afoot to deal with overcrowding on some Great Northern services. Next May, for the new summer timetable, five Class 321s will be introduced onto the Peterborough route, allowing Class 365s to be switched to the Cambridge route to lengthen some trains to 12-car units. Also from May, the timetable is being recast to ensure best use is made of track capacity on the East Coast main line.
“These moves will give us an extra 1,779 seats in the morning peak and 2,490 seats in the evening peak. A programme of lengthening platforms and upgrading the power supply has started on the Cambridge route where we run the heavily used Cambridge Flyer service.”
The improving performance on both routes is vital to FCC because of the franchise deal the company has with the Department for Transport.
The company has three break clauses to take it up to 2015, with the first one providing an extension of two years after the first four years if performance targets are met.
Elaine says: “The point is, everyone in the company will have gone through this massive transformation with the Thameslink Programme and it would be really fantastic to be able to run the franchise the next time around.”
On the opening of the new St Pancras International sub-level station for Thameslink passengers, Elaine says there has been ‘great feedback’ and 15 stations have been fitted with gatelines, cutting fare-dodging and making ‘substantial’ differences to income.
Also welcome has been the appointment of 24 PCSO – Police Community Support Officers – working closely with BT Police. “This is costing us £1 million, but it is a big benefit to stations and trains.”
Elaine is constantly aware of the importance of effective staff training – the company has recently opened a new training academy at Kentish Town – and staff are encouraged to take NVQs.
On passenger growth, Elaine says Great Northern is still growing while Thameslink has slowed. “We serve the City of London where there have been quite a few redundancies, so the economic situation will have an effect.
“But 42 per cent of our business is commuters, the rest is leisure travel. Our business is good when the sun shines, but there was not much of that in August so that month will have been tough.”
The demands of the job means she lives in a London flat five minutes from her Hertford House headquarters, returning home to Oxfordshire and her husband most weekends.
Horse riding is her main leisure outlet, along with keeping fit, and the theatre and shows when time allows in London – “it’s a fantastic city,” she says.
Elaine also tries to get out onto her big railway ‘patch’ as much as possible. But, she adds with a smile: “It’s always good to turn up unexpectedly. I don’t like the staff to know I am coming.
“I like to see it how it really is.”