Speed-up for the Stansted Slow

Stansted Airport has welcomed the Government announcement that Abellio East Anglia has won the franchise to operate the Stansted Express and other rail services between London, the airport and Cambridge from October 2016.  Abellio was the previous operator.

“The new franchise is certainly a step in the right direction and with further investment in track improvements, we could see even faster services to Stansted Airport”, said Andrew Cowan, the airport’s recently appointed chief executive.  “Stansted will grow by more than any London airport in the next 10 years so it’s important that passengers get an improved rail service which delivers new trains and a more reliable, more frequent and faster service”.
 
Often called the “Stansted Slow” the service suffers in that the routing has only two tracks in places, sharing line access with services to Cambridge.  The most recent timetable now notes that the Stansted Express stops at Tottenham Hale (for an interchange with TfL Victoria Line) and either Harlow or Bishop's Stortford with four services per hour.

Cambridge will get an hourly service for connections to the north with the new contract.

Abellio says that it plans to reduce train times by about 10 minutes with new rolling stock on order due in 2019.
www.abelliogreateranglia.co.uk  www.stanstedairport.com

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Andrew Sharp, United Kingdom

When the service started, it took 41 minutes with one intermediate stop (Tottenham Hale, for the Victoria Line connection). It used trains built in 1990.