C2c

Trenitalia C2c Limited, trading as C2c, is an English train operating company owned by Trenitalia that operates the Essex Thameside railway franchise. It manages 25 stations and its trains call at 28. C2c provides commuter services from its London terminus Fenchurch Street and from Liverpool Street to east London and parts of Essex along the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway.

The company began operating as LTS Rail in May 1996 under the ownership of Prism Rail, which had been awarded the London, Tilbury & Southend railway franchise as part of the privatisation of British Rail. LTS Rail rebranded as C2c in May 2000 and Prism Rail was bought by National Express in July that year. National Express sold c2c to the Italian operator Trenitalia in February 2017.

History
The London, Tilbury & Southend franchise was due to start in February 1996, but after the discovery of ticketing and settlement irregularities within hours of the scheduled handover with the preferred bidder, Enterprise Rail, it was re-tendered.

In May 1996, the franchise was awarded to Prism Rail by the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising for 15 years. It began operating as LTS Rail on 26 May 1996. In May 2000, the business was rebranded as C2c.

In July 2000, C2c was included in the sale of Prism Rail to National Express.

The franchise was originally due to conclude on 26 May 2011. In December 2010, the Department for Transport (DfT) granted National Express an extension until 26 May 2013 to allow DfT time to conduct a review of the franchising process. In March 2013 the Secretary of State for Transport announced the franchise would again be extended until 13 September 2014. A further delay saw this extended until 8 November 2014.

On 9 November 2014, National Express was awarded a new 15-year franchise, having successfully tendered against Abellio, FirstGroup and MTR Corporation. The new franchise retains the C2c brand, albeit operated through a new legal entity, NXET Trains Limited in lieu of c2c Limited.

In 2003, National Express operated nine UK rail franchises. By February 2012, C2c was their only remaining franchise. In February 2017 National Express sold C2c to Trenitalia.

Branding and marketing
The C2c name could be conceived to represent city to coast or capital to coast, reflecting the nature of the route, or commitment to customers.

The C2c website stated:

National Express also referred to the C2c route as City to Coast. C2c used the slogan way2go, but later used the Making travel simpler slogan also used by other National Express companies.

Services
C2c operates services on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway line from London Fenchurch Street to the northern Thames Gateway area of southern Essex, including Grays, Leigh-on-Sea and Southend-on-Sea. The main route from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness is 39 miles 40 chains (63.57 km), with a fastest timetabled journey time of 58 minutes giving an average speed of 40.7 mph, although the route can be done in 47 minutes, an average speed of 50 mph. The line has a speed limit of 75 mph (121 km/h), although the Class 357 Electrostar trains are capable of 100 mph (160 km/h).

All stations on the C2c route are managed by the company except West Ham and Stratford, which are managed by London Underground, and Barking and Liverpool Street, which are managed by Network Rail.

The typical off-peak service per hour consists of 8 trains arriving and departing Fenchurch Street: In the rush hour there are additional services, with a few services to/from London starting/terminating at Laindon, Pitsea and Leigh-on-Sea. In the morning, one peak-time service does not call at West Ham and Limehouse and one calls at West Ham, missing Limehouse. Other than this, all trains call at West Ham and Limehouse. In the evening, all trains stop at Limehouse and very few miss out West Ham. This was changed in the new December 2015 timetable. On Sundays, the non-stopping service to Shoeburyness does not run. Additionally some early-morning and late-evening weekday services to/from Shoeburyness and Grays terminate at Barking via Rainham.

As C2c is mainly a London commuter railway and the typical C2c journey is between 40 and 80 minutes, C2c does not offer first-class seating. Its Class 357s have standard high-density 3+2 seating to meet high demand at peak times, however 17 trains were converted into a "metro" style with 2+2 seating and grab handles.

London Underground's District Line connects with C2c indirectly at Tower Hill (for Fenchurch Street) and directly at West Ham, Barking and Upminster. Tickets are fully interchangeable between the two operators. There are also interchanges at Limehouse and West Ham with Docklands Light Railway and at Barking and Upminster with London Overground.

Some peak services do not call at West Ham due to signalling limitations. A peak timetable introduced on 11 December 2006, with the aim of improving services for the Thurrock and London Riverside sections of the Thames Gateway, was withdrawn on 8 January 2007 after a campaign by passengers as a result of delays and cancellations that affected other lines on the network.

In January 2005 it was announced that an on-train television service would be tried out, and one unit had television installed. In June 2006 the 360 On-Board Television service ran into financial difficulties when C2c's partner in the project, TNCI (UK), ceased trading, and the service was withdrawn. c2c indicated it would restart the roll-out should a suitable partner be found.

In June 2006 it was announced that portable X-ray machines and metal detectors would be randomly placed at stations and carried by officers on trains during summer 2006 to catch people carrying weapons, in a joint operation with Essex Police and British Transport Police, following trials at London Underground stations.

In October 2007 C2c announced that the first coach of each unit would be made a Quiet Zone, where passengers are asked not to use their mobile phones or play music out loud. The Quiet Zone was introduced in early 2008 and is indicated by magenta vinyl stickers on the doors of the coach.

On April 1st, 2017, C2c introduced a new on-board WiFi service free to all customers. Also, it has an on-board entertainment service called Vista. C2c has partnered with Now TV to provide free television shows available to stream for C2c passengers.

London terminus
As of December 2015 c2c runs two services an hour at weekends that have been diverted into London Liverpool Street instead of Fenchurch Street to/from Shoeburyness, primarily to serve Westfield Stratford City. These call at Stratford, Barking, then all stations to Shoeburyness via Basildon; additional early-morning and late-evening weekend services terminate at Southend Central and Grays. Also, when engineering work blocks access to Fenchurch Street, all services are diverted into Liverpool Street. This route runs over part of the London Overground Gospel Oak to Barking line; however, trains pass through Woodgrange Park station without stopping.

Ticketing
Tickets for trains between Fenchurch Street and Upminster are inter-available with London Underground services between Tower Hill and Upminster, at Transport for London fares. All other journeys are priced by C2c. Oyster card pay-as-you-go has been available since 2004 at stations between Fenchurch Street/Liverpool Street and Upminster. It was extended to Rainham in 2008 and beyond Travelcard Zone 6 to Grays in January 2010. Oyster cards may be purchased or topped up at some c2c stations that are not also London Underground stations, including Chafford Hundred, Grays, and Purfleet.

On 23 September 2019, C2c announced that they will be removing the First to Last staffing at some stations and running reduced ticket office opening hours.

Ticket Machines
C2c ticket machines in the Oyster PAYG area have been upgraded so they can read Oyster cards. On 23 September 2019 it was also announced that C2c had invested more than £10 million into a new self service ticketing system with a user friendly self service interface developed with Voodoo Park. The interface is completely web based and can be remotely repaired.

The ticket machines installed in 2019 are from the Italian company Sigma Spa.

Rolling stock
c2c passenger numbers 2011 – 2019 Q2 (rolling 12 month figure) c2c inherited a fleet of Class 302, Class 310 and Class 312s from Network SouthEast. To replace the Class 302s, seventeen Class 317s were hired from West Anglia Great Northern from 1996 until 1999 as Class 357s entered service.

A franchise commitment was the replacement of the entire fleet, resulting in c2c ordering a fleet of Class 357 Electrostars.

In 2003, C2c became the first train operating company to replace its entire fleet with new trains. In March 2007, after extensive trials, c2c began fitting regenerative braking to its fleet, becoming the first UK train operator to do so. On 3 June 2007, the eve of World Environment Day, 357010 was given an all-over green vinyl sticker livery with the slogan "All C2c trains are greener now – find out more at – www.c2c-online.co.uk – C2c – the greener way to go" to highlight the completion of the scheme, which the company says has enabled energy savings of up to 20%. In October 2007, C2c announced that it had switched to renewably-generated electricity in all its stations, maintenance facilities and offices in a contract with E.ON UK, said to be the largest of its kind in the transport sector. 357010 lost its green livery in March 2011 as part of the relivery project.

With a few Class 357s being out of service at the same time, from late 2006 two Class 321s were hired from Silverlink for three months for weekday peak-hour use between Fenchurch Street and Laindon, and Pitsea via Rainham, to cover for the unavailable units. The Class 321s were used with guards as they were incompatible with the positioning of C2c's Driver Only Operation mirrors.[citation needed]

In June 2009, Bombardier began repainting the Class 357 units. The vinyl wraps carrying the original purplish blue and magenta C2c livery were removed and the units reliveried in white with dark blue doors.

In late 2019, C2c adapted 20% of carriages into a "metro" style. These carriages have 2 seats either side of the aisle (2+2) compared to 3+2 seating. This increased the passenger capacity of these carriages, at the expense of seating capacity, by converting the space of the aisle seat on the "3" side into (more efficient) standing space.

This addressed the issue of the high volumes of passengers using C2c to travel to/from West Ham and Barking, which, with Upminster, are served by the parallel London Underground service. In the evening peak, these passengers can displace those eastbound passengers who use more easterly and less well-served stations.

In early 2016, C2c announced that it would lease additional trains to relieve overcrowding. This led to its leasing six Class 387s for three years from Porterbrook to increase capacity on the busiest services. The first entered service in November 2016.

As part of its new franchise, C2c has committed to leasing new trains to cope with rising passenger numbers, which were boosted especially by the opening of the Docklands Light Railway station at West Ham in 2011 and the rise of Canary Wharf as a financial centre.

In late 2019, the thermostats in carriages became unreliable making heating run when it was warm outside and vice versa. To fix this problem, C2c sent 1 train a week to Ilford Depot for a full HVAC overhaul. The program is expected to end in early 2020, taking about 80 weeks.

Future fleet
In December 2017, C2c announced an order with Porterbrook for six ten-car Class 720 Aventra electric multiple units. The new units are scheduled for delivery between mid and late 2021, meaning they will all be in service three years earlier than the initial planned phased introduction period.

These new units will replace the current allocation of six four-car Class 387 units, which C2c are currently operating on a short term lease. C2c also announced that the lease on these trains would be extended until the new trains arrived, and it would also seek further leases from December 2019.

Criticism
In late 2015, c2c introduced a new timetable to reflect long term changes in passenger numbers at stations on the line. c2c were criticised for putting the interests of “one stop hoppers” (passengers travelling between Barking and West Ham) above those that travel further on the line.

Depots
c2c's fleet is maintained at East Ham Depot, although there is also a depot at Shoeburyness.[citation needed]