The Front Page - Copy 33 (LDLINES LATEST: Neighbourhood F: Gwyn Train push)
30 September 2009
LD LINES:
Major Change to
The much loved and striking Norman Arrow is being removed from the Boulogne route and replaced with the ship you see on the left. Quite a shock in a way to many of us, as it all looked to be going rather swimmingly with the Norman Arrow. It is and was always a pleasure to see this superb craft, biggest in the world in its class, as it cut its good looking daily dash to Boulogne.
I have a press release in from LD Lines explaining their reasons for doing this so rather than have me rabbit on here, I will, without further ado, get this release up on view....
LD LINES ANNOUNCE 2010 FLEET SWITCH
Ferry operator LD Lines has announced changes to its fleet route deployment for 2010 with a main feature being the introduction of a conventional ferry to the Dover - Boulogne service.
From early November 2009 the Norman Spirit will transfer from its current Western Channel Portsmouth - Le Havre route to commence operations on LD Lines' Dover - Boulogne service, considerably increasing freight and tourist traffic capacity.
The high speed catamaran Norman Arrow, which began operating across the Dover Straits in June 2009, will re-locate to the Portsmouth - Le Havre route, where she will begin a six month seasonal operation from Easter to September 2010.
Norman Spirit will operate four return sailings daily between Dover and Boulogne and provide a crossing time of one hour 45 minutes. The ship has capacity for 1850 passengers, 700 cars, 110 freight vehicles and the service will also carry coaches and foot passengers.
LD Lines' Managing Director, Christophe Santoni, said, "We have been very encouraged by both freight and tourist customer response and the growing popularity of the Dover - Boulogne service, since we re-established the route in February 2009. To be in the best possible commercial position to meet demand in 2010 and beyond, we have identified the need to now introduce the conventional ferry, Norman Spirit, to the service.
The decision to replace the Norman Arrow with a conventional ferry has been taken because the first of the present generation of fast ferries is not providing enough freight capacity and without double deck loading and unloading capabilities, will not enable us to develop the service as we would like. We also recognise that pre-requisites of providing a complete high speed service concept should include fast crossing times combined with fast berthing, loading and unloading of vehicles."
LD Lines' service now operates into Boulogne's new Hub Port terminal, whose new port facilities and infrastructure will also provide increased freight and tourist traffic capacity which the conventional ferry, Norman Spirit, is able to carry.
Christophe Santoni added : "We remain convinced that the freight and tourist traffic high speed ferry concept can ultimately work across the Dover Straits and we will be continuing a dialogue with the shipbuilders regarding the next generation of fast ferries, incorporating improvements that we see as vital."
See also the thread in the Members Club.
Neighbourhood
A kind of warming honeydew emolient eminated from the speakers last night, a feelgood mixture of ultra positives designed to re-assure the audience that here in depressed Dover we are doing very well despite our low resources. There was nothing terribly new at the meeting, most of the stuff we have already discussed at length here on Doverforum at various times. So to some of us, most of the content had the touch of the 'old hat' about it all. We are very often well ahead of the game here on Doverforum and last nights general chinwag proved it so. Subjects discussed were the seafront changes, the cable car, trucking concerns, the redesign of the marina, the loss of the pier and so on so forth.
Main speaker was Nadeem Aziz and he does a good show. He has a positive spin for everything, well versed as he is through answering the same questions oodles of times before, and he delivers it all with an easy charm. One recognises that he has a touch of the oul Blarney about him, but even so, one enjoys listening to it all....if not quite believing that we are quite in the 'position positive' he tells us we are in. He is certainly enthusiastic about Dover though and if you wanted anyone as a Chief Executive then he would be the man. But...was the audience buying all this positivety. Or was it all just a cosy warming Horlicks before all the ancients(everyone was over 50 at least!) trundled off home to curl up with their hot water bottles.
He was joined on the platform by Amanda Lumley KCC Project Manager and Sarah Lang Programming Officer from Dover Pride. Sarah was/is way under 50 and perhaps Amanda too, there is some life out there after all! Both were very good and interesting, telling us about their various inputs.
But back to Nadeem..he shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed a number of times with a deep felt sigh...
"If only I had £20million" or was that billion.
"Well" said Nadeem "we have made great strides forward..we have the new watersports centre, we have the high speed train..we have the new watersports centre and we have the new high speed train....and..."
Nadeem finished with
"There are plenty of positives in the pipeline!"
The floor was then opened up by Chair Jan Tranter, which brings me directly to the Doverforumite pictured above, he of local legend, yes Vic Matcham, (seen here on the right with fellow forumite Brian Dixon) who stood to his feet and delivered the best line of the night, when in direct response to Nadeem's last line he said
"This must be the longest pipeline in the world!!
Paul Boland
Train stops at Shepherdswell reinstated following pressure from MP Gwyn Prosser.
As part of the new timetable arrangements which take effect following the full introduction of the High Speed Trains from Dover, a number of stopping services on the Victoria line were removed and this prompted complaints from regular users, particularly in Shepherdswell.
Dover and Deal MP, Gwyn Prosser, raised his concerns with Ministers and took up constituents’ complaints directly with Southeastern bosses and following his most recent meeting with their Chief Executive, Charles Horton in Westminster
Gwyn said:
“I’m delighted to announce that the company has taken on board the most serious of our concerns and agreed to include additional stops in services from Faversham to Dover Priory from 13 December. These will be trains leaving Faversham at 15:15, 16:15, 17:19, 18:19, 20:15 and 21:15 and they will arrive at Shepherdswell 25 minutes after these departure times.
“I know these improvements won’t satisfy all of the concerns expressed but they will substantially reduce the gap in return services from London in the evening which was causing most alarm. I have also urged the Chief Executive to look again at up-line services and pressed him to link-in Deal to the High Speed network to London”
A spokesman for Southeastern said:
“We want to work with the local stakeholders – Gwyn Prosser was at the forefront of the campaign to bring the High Speed Train to Dover and his lobbying of Ministers helped us deliver the project. The preview services have proved very popular and we have already doubled the train length of the 06.42 to meet demand.
“However, we have also acknowledged the concerns raised by Gwyn and others about the impact of timetable changes on a number of his constituents and we have responded by modifying some of our standard services and by reinstating some stops at Shepherdswell. Once these new timetables bed-in we will look at the position of other stations between Dover and Faversham and then see what can be done to provide better connectivity between Deal / Walmer and Dover’s high speed service to London”
WE are making changes to this site. For now - only Members can post on this page. If you want to become
a member drop me PaulB an email saying who you are..to dover7@msn.com..that's all it takes to get onboard.
LD LINES:
Norman Spirit
replaces
Norman Arrow.
Major Change to
Boulogne Route.
The much loved and striking Norman Arrow is being removed from the Boulogne route and replaced with the ship you see on the left. Quite a shock in a way to many of us, as it all looked to be going rather swimmingly with the Norman Arrow. It is and was always a pleasure to see this superb craft, biggest in the world in its class, as it cut its good looking daily dash to Boulogne.
I have a press release in from LD Lines explaining their reasons for doing this so rather than have me rabbit on here, I will, without further ado, get this release up on view....
LD LINES ANNOUNCE 2010 FLEET SWITCH
Ferry operator LD Lines has announced changes to its fleet route deployment for 2010 with a main feature being the introduction of a conventional ferry to the Dover - Boulogne service.
From early November 2009 the Norman Spirit will transfer from its current Western Channel Portsmouth - Le Havre route to commence operations on LD Lines' Dover - Boulogne service, considerably increasing freight and tourist traffic capacity.
The high speed catamaran Norman Arrow, which began operating across the Dover Straits in June 2009, will re-locate to the Portsmouth - Le Havre route, where she will begin a six month seasonal operation from Easter to September 2010.
Norman Spirit will operate four return sailings daily between Dover and Boulogne and provide a crossing time of one hour 45 minutes. The ship has capacity for 1850 passengers, 700 cars, 110 freight vehicles and the service will also carry coaches and foot passengers.
LD Lines' Managing Director, Christophe Santoni, said, "We have been very encouraged by both freight and tourist customer response and the growing popularity of the Dover - Boulogne service, since we re-established the route in February 2009. To be in the best possible commercial position to meet demand in 2010 and beyond, we have identified the need to now introduce the conventional ferry, Norman Spirit, to the service.
The decision to replace the Norman Arrow with a conventional ferry has been taken because the first of the present generation of fast ferries is not providing enough freight capacity and without double deck loading and unloading capabilities, will not enable us to develop the service as we would like. We also recognise that pre-requisites of providing a complete high speed service concept should include fast crossing times combined with fast berthing, loading and unloading of vehicles."
LD Lines' service now operates into Boulogne's new Hub Port terminal, whose new port facilities and infrastructure will also provide increased freight and tourist traffic capacity which the conventional ferry, Norman Spirit, is able to carry.
Christophe Santoni added : "We remain convinced that the freight and tourist traffic high speed ferry concept can ultimately work across the Dover Straits and we will be continuing a dialogue with the shipbuilders regarding the next generation of fast ferries, incorporating improvements that we see as vital."
See also the thread in the Members Club.
Neighbourhood
Forum
SEA CHANGE:
at
Maison Dieu House.
A kind of warming honeydew emolient eminated from the speakers last night, a feelgood mixture of ultra positives designed to re-assure the audience that here in depressed Dover we are doing very well despite our low resources. There was nothing terribly new at the meeting, most of the stuff we have already discussed at length here on Doverforum at various times. So to some of us, most of the content had the touch of the 'old hat' about it all. We are very often well ahead of the game here on Doverforum and last nights general chinwag proved it so. Subjects discussed were the seafront changes, the cable car, trucking concerns, the redesign of the marina, the loss of the pier and so on so forth.
Main speaker was Nadeem Aziz and he does a good show. He has a positive spin for everything, well versed as he is through answering the same questions oodles of times before, and he delivers it all with an easy charm. One recognises that he has a touch of the oul Blarney about him, but even so, one enjoys listening to it all....if not quite believing that we are quite in the 'position positive' he tells us we are in. He is certainly enthusiastic about Dover though and if you wanted anyone as a Chief Executive then he would be the man. But...was the audience buying all this positivety. Or was it all just a cosy warming Horlicks before all the ancients(everyone was over 50 at least!) trundled off home to curl up with their hot water bottles.
He was joined on the platform by Amanda Lumley KCC Project Manager and Sarah Lang Programming Officer from Dover Pride. Sarah was/is way under 50 and perhaps Amanda too, there is some life out there after all! Both were very good and interesting, telling us about their various inputs.
But back to Nadeem..he shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed a number of times with a deep felt sigh...
"If only I had £20million" or was that billion.
"Well" said Nadeem "we have made great strides forward..we have the new watersports centre, we have the high speed train..we have the new watersports centre and we have the new high speed train....and..."
Nadeem finished with
"There are plenty of positives in the pipeline!"
The floor was then opened up by Chair Jan Tranter, which brings me directly to the Doverforumite pictured above, he of local legend, yes Vic Matcham, (seen here on the right with fellow forumite Brian Dixon) who stood to his feet and delivered the best line of the night, when in direct response to Nadeem's last line he said
"This must be the longest pipeline in the world!!
Paul Boland
Gwyn Shunts Shepherdswell onto Hi Speed Stop Schedule!
Train stops at Shepherdswell reinstated following pressure from MP Gwyn Prosser.
As part of the new timetable arrangements which take effect following the full introduction of the High Speed Trains from Dover, a number of stopping services on the Victoria line were removed and this prompted complaints from regular users, particularly in Shepherdswell.
Dover and Deal MP, Gwyn Prosser, raised his concerns with Ministers and took up constituents’ complaints directly with Southeastern bosses and following his most recent meeting with their Chief Executive, Charles Horton in Westminster
Gwyn said:
“I’m delighted to announce that the company has taken on board the most serious of our concerns and agreed to include additional stops in services from Faversham to Dover Priory from 13 December. These will be trains leaving Faversham at 15:15, 16:15, 17:19, 18:19, 20:15 and 21:15 and they will arrive at Shepherdswell 25 minutes after these departure times.
“I know these improvements won’t satisfy all of the concerns expressed but they will substantially reduce the gap in return services from London in the evening which was causing most alarm. I have also urged the Chief Executive to look again at up-line services and pressed him to link-in Deal to the High Speed network to London”
A spokesman for Southeastern said:
“We want to work with the local stakeholders – Gwyn Prosser was at the forefront of the campaign to bring the High Speed Train to Dover and his lobbying of Ministers helped us deliver the project. The preview services have proved very popular and we have already doubled the train length of the 06.42 to meet demand.
“However, we have also acknowledged the concerns raised by Gwyn and others about the impact of timetable changes on a number of his constituents and we have responded by modifying some of our standard services and by reinstating some stops at Shepherdswell. Once these new timetables bed-in we will look at the position of other stations between Dover and Faversham and then see what can be done to provide better connectivity between Deal / Walmer and Dover’s high speed service to London”
WE are making changes to this site. For now - only Members can post on this page. If you want to become
a member drop me PaulB an email saying who you are..to dover7@msn.com..that's all it takes to get onboard.