Rail accounts for only 2% of all trips made

[yorksrob]

There's a lot to be said for a locomotive with driving trailer capable of adding 1, 2, 3 or 4 carriages as needed. Fixed formations of 2, 3 or 4 cars make fine tuning to match demand more difficult.

Surely units of 4-5 carriages which can be attached and detatched are far easier and quicker to strengthen ?

If you have a loco, you have to shunt around with the extra carriages, rather than just driving them onto the other unit.

 

[Killingworth]

Surely units of 4-5 carriages which can be attached and detatched are far easier and quicker to strengthen ?

If you have a loco, you have to shunt around with the extra carriages, rather than just driving them onto the other unit.

Whichever solution chosen relies on siding or platform space to hold the unused stock until needed. That can be during the day, specific days in the week, or peak periods during the year.

Before Beeching we had thousands of extra coaches stashed away in obscure sidings or in central roads through major stations waiting to be attached by the station pilot. I doubt the former could happen today. In the 1950s they'd come out for Saturday specials to Blackpool or Scarborough taking the back routes and often avoiding congested mainlines. I recall a musty smell and collapsing threadbare seats! Some were used for football specials.

Today we haven't the handy sidings for much of this, even if the rolling stock existed. I can't easily imagine 7 coach trains from Newcastle and Bradford being joined at Sheffield to head for the South-West again as they used to do in the 1970s, or did I imagine that?

 

[Ken H]

...

Today we haven't the handy sidings for much of this, even if the rolling stock existed. I can't easily imagine 7 coach trains from Newcastle and Bradford being joined at Sheffield to head for the South-West again as they used to do in the 1970s, or did I imagine that?

I remember getting a train to Paignton from Leeds when i was a kid, so late 60's early 70's

A steam train brought in a few carriages from Bradford (Exchange I think) and went through Leeds City and shunted them onto some carriages already in the station. they stuck a diesel on the fromt and off we went for the scenic route through Woodlesford, Wakefield Kirkgate then on to Sheffield.
A shunter (08?) then added a buffet/restaurant and another carriage on the back. I remember passing this on the way in in a siding to the north of Sheffield Midland.
I dont think a portion from anywhere else was added

If you want complicated portion working the old Liverpool/Manchester to Glasgow and Edinburgh trains were that.
4 coaches from mancester Vic, and 4 from liverpool were joined at preston. the 2 diesels were put in a siding and an electric put on. At Carstairs the rear 2 coaches came off to go to Edinburgh, while the 6 went to Glasgow.
Then they did that all in reverse on the way back, making sure the right bits went to the Liverpool or Manchester ready for the next day. I think the Manchester-Glasgow portion had a catering vehicle.
Think I have that right.
Oh, all Mk1's.

 

[Ken H]

Surely units of 4-5 carriages which can be attached and detatched are far easier and quicker to strengthen ?

If you have a loco, you have to shunt around with the extra carriages, rather than just driving them onto the other unit.

I dont think DB change the formation of their push pull regional trains much. Its just if they decide that these trains need an extra vehicle from now on its a simple matter to add one.
Compare to the major works when adding vehicles to Pendolinos.

 

[underbank]

How many pairs of sprinters can be joined? With the new stock coming into use in the next year or two, presumably there'll be scope to lengthen/split longer chains of Sprinters. I've seen two pairs to make 4, but could they go to 6 or 8? Pretty sure I saw some fairly long first generation DMU formations of 6 maybe 8 cars?

 

[yorksrob]

Whichever solution chosen relies on siding or platform space to hold the unused stock until needed. That can be during the day, specific days in the week, or peak periods during the year.

Before Beeching we had thousands of extra coaches stashed away in obscure sidings or in central roads through major stations waiting to be attached by the station pilot. I doubt the former could happen today. In the 1950s they'd come out for Saturday specials to Blackpool or Scarborough taking the back routes and often avoiding congested mainlines. I recall a musty smell and collapsing threadbare seats! Some were used for football specials.

Today we haven't the handy sidings for much of this, even if the rolling stock existed. I can't easily imagine 7 coach trains from Newcastle and Bradford being joined at Sheffield to head for the South-West again as they used to do in the 1970s, or did I imagine that?

Thinking specifically of trans-pennine, you have four routes to the East, funnelling into two major routes to the West. You could have four long trains from the West, splitting into half hourly services to the East.

XC is a bit different. It just needs longer trains full stop.

I dont think DB change the formation of their push pull regional trains much. Its just if they decide that these trains need an extra vehicle from now on its a simple matter to add one.
Compare to the major works when adding vehicles to Pendolinos.

Much like our Mk4 sets. Really any loco and coaches set is likely to find itself in a semi-permanent formation these days.

 

[Ken H]

Thinking specifically of trans-pennine, you have four routes to the East, funnelling into two major routes to the West. You could have four long trains from the West, splitting into half hourly services to the East.

XC is a bit different. It just needs longer trains full stop.



Much like our Mk4 sets. Really any loco and coaches set is likely to find itself in a semi-permanent formation these days.

well its like the old Mk2/3 + DVT sets with an 87, 86 or 90 on one end. They were supposed to be fixed formation but they swapped vehicles all the time to get trains into service. same as HST.

with DVT + coaches + loco, you could take a coach out for July and August for deep maintenance when demand is lower. Can't do that with modern trains.

 

[yorksrob]

well its like the old Mk2/3 + DVT sets with an 87, 86 or 90 on one end. They were supposed to be fixed formation but they swapped vehicles all the time to get trains into service. same as HST.

with DVT + coaches + loco, you could take a coach out for July and August for deep maintenance when demand is lower. Can't do that with modern trains.

You could do that with the old Southern units as well, take a middle carriage out of a thumper or a CEP. In practice it used to be more or less permanent.

 

[Killingworth]

Memories! Back in May 1969 I took Canadian Pacific's Canadian from Winnipeg to Toronto. We stopped at Sudbury to await the train from Sault St Marie which was split, as was ours. It was all joined up again, half went to Montreal and we went to Toronto. Somewhere I may have a timetable. There was an airline strike that month so the trains were unusually busy. The shunting took quite some time and we were able to wander across the road to see a little of the town.

Sorry, digressing too far from the subject in hand! However, I note the average user of the Canadian today may be subsidised by nearly $600 a journey. We aren't the only ones with controversy on that score. It's mostly used by tourists.

 

[edwin_m]

Whichever solution chosen relies on siding or platform space to hold the unused stock until needed. That can be during the day, specific days in the week, or peak periods during the year.

Before Beeching we had thousands of extra coaches stashed away in obscure sidings or in central roads through major stations waiting to be attached by the station pilot. I doubt the former could happen today. In the 1950s they'd come out for Saturday specials to Blackpool or Scarborough taking the back routes and often avoiding congested mainlines. I recall a musty smell and collapsing threadbare seats! Some were used for football specials.

Today we haven't the handy sidings for much of this, even if the rolling stock existed. I can't easily imagine 7 coach trains from Newcastle and Bradford being joined at Sheffield to head for the South-West again as they used to do in the 1970s, or did I imagine that?

And it's worth remembering that the amount of train travel now is only a bit more than it was in that era. There has been a huge increase in travel over the past 50 years and cars account for almost all of it (plus gaining some from buses). Availability of affordable and reliable car transport has facilitated many social developments such as people living further from work, couples both having jobs and increases in leisure travel and visiting friends and relatives. These have in common that they are a far more dispersed travel pattern which a rail network serving mainly city centres and the larger towns struggles to cope with. Rail actually has a good share of many centre-to-centre flows.

Hence my view that the only scope to reverse the trend of car travel is to cater for some of those journeys by providing a properly integrated network, with the rail routes as the main trunks but with buses and other modes acting as feeders.

 

[MarkyT]

And it's worth remembering that the amount of train travel now is only a bit more than it was in that era. There has been a huge increase in travel over the past 50 years and cars account for almost all of it (plus gaining some from buses). Availability of affordable and reliable car transport has facilitated many social developments such as people living further from work, couples both having jobs and increases in leisure travel and visiting friends and relatives. These have in common that they are a far more dispersed travel pattern which a rail network serving mainly city centres and the larger towns struggles to cope with. Rail actually has a good share of many centre-to-centre flows.

Hence my view that the only scope to reverse the trend of car travel is to cater for some of those journeys by providing a properly integrated network, with the rail routes as the main trunks but with buses and other modes acting as feeders.

Very good points. An averaged national percentage is fairly meaningless on its own. In some places the percentage of journeys might be a tiny fraction of 1%, mainly because there are sometimes no railway stations for tens of miles in rural areas. If you categorise for work, education and leisure travel to a small number of major city centres, the rail proportion could be much larger, even for travel from rural areas, although often via quite lengthy private car feeder legs to a main line rail head. Another area where travel requirements have increased markedly is in education with much more choice available for school and college places. To be more attractive, especially at a local and regional level, public transport must work better together across modes, as it does already in many major mainland European economies with local transport authorities coordinating and specifying services and setting fares etc. Much of what we have in UK is good individually, but lacks coordination. Often local buses in urban areas are adequate but to rely on a bus for a lengthy run along a major arterial is often too time consuming and unreliable to rely on for work due to traffic congestion, yet trying to couple the local bus with a time saving rail leg can become unfeasibly expensive unless a combined fare is available in a PTE area for example.

 

[Master29]

I wonder who really produces these figures and around the accuracy given too them?

 

[Eccles1983]

How many pairs of sprinters can be joined? With the new stock coming into use in the next year or two, presumably there'll be scope to lengthen/split longer chains of Sprinters. I've seen two pairs to make 4, but could they go to 6 or 8? Pretty sure I saw some fairly long first generation DMU formations of 6 maybe 8 cars?

12 car max. It is all to do with brake units. No more than 12 brake units in multiple for 15X. Anymore and you are likely to end up with a swinger at the end of the formation.

No more than 10 if a 153 is involved.

 

[atraindriver]

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[Killingworth]

Rumour central: Management grapevine in my bit of the world is saying that noises are emanating from EMT about trying to get hold of Anglia 170s as soon as they're released, as a short-term fix for 153s not being economically DDA-able and permitting a cascade (170s to drop into current 158 circuits, allowing some 158s to drop down to current 156 circuits and 156 to current 153 circuits, the whole thing allowing an increase in overall capacity as well as solving the DDA problem).

Two big caveats are that whilst it's management grapevine, it's still grapevine (so quite likely to be complete horse manure) and also, even if true, Anglia's well known issues mean that they probably won't be able to release their 170s any time soon.

A 170 would not be a good substitute for 2 x 158 on Liverpool - Norwich, splitting at Nottingham, with a catering trolley able to work through all 4 coaches. 2 x 3 car 170s with two trolleys? But that's really a subject for at least one other thread

 

[atraindriver]

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[Bletchleyite]

Indeed. Is that just the lack of gangways (which can be overcome) or are there computer issues ?

With the Mk5 sets you'd have to couple them manually, requiring a shunter. The others should theoretically be able to work in multiple but may be too long to do so. I can't help but think that 4x23m trains with gangways (basically a diesel or bi-mode Class 444 would be perfect) and an assumption that they will always run in pairs through the main busy sections (but split to different destinations, potentially) may have been a better model. Indeed I've long said there were basically only two things wrong with Class 185s - they are one coach too short and they don't have gangways.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How many pairs of sprinters can be joined? With the new stock coming into use in the next year or two, presumably there'll be scope to lengthen/split longer chains of Sprinters. I've seen two pairs to make 4, but could they go to 6 or 8? Pretty sure I saw some fairly long first generation DMU formations of 6 maybe 8 cars?

I half recall that it's 6 cabs. Certainly 9 car formations of Class 159s are used darn Sarf.

 

[Killingworth]

I assume that in the context of 170 dropping into current 158 diagrams, it would mean each 158 being replaced by a 170, so 2x158 would be replaced by 2x170. But as you say it's a subject for another thread and in any case I have no information, only that bit off the management grapevine.

However it illustrates a point I've made before. Two fixed units of 2, 3 or 4 carriages, or combinations of such, is of less help to alleviate overcrowding when there is no corridor connection between the units. One section can be crammed while the other has space, but there's no way to spread the load when between stations, and limited opportunity at platforms.

That can be observed when a 2 x 185 arrives at my 4 car station each morning with, say, 100 to board, many with booked seats. 50 can board 3 carriages reasonably well at the front. The other 50 are all trying to get in 2 doors at the back for the rear 3 - so some give up and cram in the front half. Train takes 2-3 minutes to load instead of booked one minute. If that were 3 x 158 there'd be ability to walk down the train from any doors.

Come to that, when a 6 car train stops at a full length platform it causes confusion when folks get in the wrong half. That applies to many classes without gangway connections, including XC when overseas visitors join at York for Edinburgh and can't find their seats - wrong half. Try explaining that in Chinese!

 

[squizzler]

The 8% modal share by milage seems a bit dubious, given that the most recent share to my knowledge is a smidge under 10%, and that is a five year old statistic that takes no amount of further growth since. The UK also does quite well compared to most other countries in rail usage. And of course a further spurt of growth is locked in by the infrastructure and rolling stock upgrades only starting to bear fruit, and the HS2 programme.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Passenger_modal_share_for_rail

That said, we still got some way to go before we get to Switzerland where over a sixth of passenger miles is made by rail. Almost a third of passenger miles is by train in Japan.

I have great hopes for the Rail Delivery Group's "Easier Fares for All" proposal of reform and liberalisation. A more dynamic way of buying train journeys ought to get more bums on seats without even having to build more stuff! Consider the success of the rail business in the USA following the liberalisation enacted by the Staggers Act; their network is geared around freight of course but I think the results are instructive nonetheless.

 

[RLBH]

And it's worth remembering that the amount of train travel now is only a bit more than it was in that era. There has been a huge increase in travel over the past 50 years and cars account for almost all of it (plus gaining some from buses). Availability of affordable and reliable car transport has facilitated many social developments such as people living further from work, couples both having jobs and increases in leisure travel and visiting friends and relatives. These have in common that they are a far more dispersed travel pattern which a rail network serving mainly city centres and the larger towns struggles to cope with. Rail actually has a good share of many centre-to-centre flows.

If you look at it in terms of passenger miles per capita, the average Briton is travelling more miles by rail now than at any time since before the Second World War. Only, it's rising now, and it was falling then. You have to go back to the 1910s to get the same amount of rail travel and an increasing trend.

Hence my view that the only scope to reverse the trend of car travel is to cater for some of those journeys by providing a properly integrated network, with the rail routes as the main trunks but with buses and other modes acting as feeders.

It's also important not to demonise the car. Even with the best cycle routes and bus services in the world, sometimes the only way to get Granny on the train with two large suitcases is to drive her to the station. Making public transport facilities hostile to cars is more likely to see Granny driven all the way across the country than to see her getting the bus to the station.

I half recall that it's 6 cabs. Certainly 9 car formations of Class 159s are used darn Sarf.

Twelve cabs for six units, I believe - there are some 10-car services made of two 2-car and two 3-car units.

 

[The Ham]

Twelve cabs for six units, I believe - there are some 10-car services made of two 2-car and two 3-car units.

Indeed there are 10 coach trains formed of 2x159's (3 coaches each) and 2x158's (2 coaches each). Although it is more common to see 9 coach trains (3x159's).

Someone suggested a 4 coach bimodal akin to a 444, these would also be useful for replacing the 159's on the SWR services, add it could allow all full length trains to be 10 coaches, if there was a 5 coach version.

 

[yorksrob]

With the Mk5 sets you'd have to couple them manually, requiring a shunter. The others should theoretically be able to work in multiple but may be too long to do so. I can't help but think that 4x23m trains with gangways (basically a diesel or bi-mode Class 444 would be perfect) and an assumption that they will always run in pairs through the main busy sections (but split to different destinations, potentially) may have been a better model. Indeed I've long said there were basically only two things wrong with Class 185s - they are one coach too short and they don't have gangways.

Yes, that and they're not electric.

 

[edwin_m]

If you look at it in terms of passenger miles per capita, the average Briton is travelling more miles by rail now than at any time since before the Second World War. Only, it's rising now, and it was falling then. You have to go back to the 1910s to get the same amount of rail travel and an increasing trend.

But in comparison with the growth in car traffic, any rise or fall in train useage is effectively negligible.

It's also important not to demonise the car. Even with the best cycle routes and bus services in the world, sometimes the only way to get Granny on the train with two large suitcases is to drive her to the station. Making public transport facilities hostile to cars is more likely to see Granny driven all the way across the country than to see her getting the bus to the station.

My point was that the train can't replace the car. An integrated public transport network would go further towards replacing the car but even that wouldn't fully succeed. We need policies that minimise car use while recognising it is sometimes necessary, such as shifting car taxes from ownership to mileage and encouraging car clubs. There is also a big issue around ride-hailing, which is proving to be parasitic of public transport in many cases rather than supporting it as some have suggested.

 

[The Ham]

My point was that the train can't replace the car. An integrated public transport network would go further towards replacing the car but even that wouldn't fully succeed. We need policies that minimise car use while recognising it is sometimes necessary, such as shifting car taxes from ownership to mileage and encouraging car clubs. There is also a big issue around ride-hailing, which is proving to be parasitic of public transport in many cases rather than supporting it as some have suggested.

Car clubs would mean that those who could use public transport or walking for 90% of their trips wouldn't need a car for the last 10%. In doing so there's less of a problem with people needing a car for some trips so using it for more of them.

As an example people justify a large car for occasional trips, yet mostly just use it for short trips to and from school which could easily be walked.

 

[quantinghome]

The 2% figure is rather misleading. The % distance travelled is much higher, 11%, and by purpose it breaks down as follows:

Commuting 20%
Business 23%
Education / escort education 9%
Shopping 3%
Other escort 2%
Personal business 6%
Leisure 9%
Other including just walk 0%
All purposes 11%

Source: https://assets.publishing.service.g...loads/attachment_data/file/729538/nts0410.ods

As expected, rail has a larger share of commuting and business travel. But even this doesn't take into account the lack of availability of rail travel for large parts of the country. If there's no station nearby, you're not going to use the train to commute. The question should be, if you stop subsidising rail, what alternative are you going to put in place? Bear in mind this isn't just about branch lines; pretty much the entire passenger network exists only due to government support, including commuter routes.

 

[Taunton]

I wonder if the "Rail" figure includes London Underground, it would make a significant difference.

There will be very many other detailed and nonsensical situations across the nation that cry out for early attention if punctuality and comfort are to be improved.

Regarding train size, and noting you write from Sheffield, I was there recently. At 3pm in the afternoon there were plenty of passengers waiting at Meadowhall to go into Sheffield, in came the train - a single car 153, already full. Stood into Sheffield, where as we all alighted there was what seemed a well-rehearsed jostling starting on the platform of returning college students, and others, for its next working, which I think was to Lincoln. I would guess about 150 passengers. It was worse than morning peak northbound on the Victoria Line at Victoria. I stood and watched, they didn't all get in, 10 minutes before departure.

Now I'm long in the tooth enough to remember Sheffield a generation ago. There seemed less passengers about in those days but the local services I used on these lines were mainly 4-car coupled Class 114 dmus. Quite how train provision has been allowed to be one QUARTER of what it was then, yet patronage (and ticket revenue) has gone way up, defies all logic.

I used to travel from Taunton to York, when it was an 11-coach express you always got a seat. Nowadays it's a 4-car Voyager which can come into Taunton already with standing passengers. Enough of that, guess what, especially when with others in the family, we now drive.

As an example people justify a large car for occasional trips, yet mostly just use it for short trips to and from school which could easily be walked.

That's because families have just one car.

In passing, the general public (including me) get a little hacked at this constant reference (TfL especially) that we can "easily" walk or cycle some journey. If it was easy we would do it. Our school (nowadays inner London) is 9 minutes away by car. Walking? Probably 1.5 hours. And do we have to walk home the same afterwards, and walk it again in the afternoon to collect them? Have those suggesting this ever walked such distances with young children?

 

[modernrail]

I sold my car when I moved to London and have never looked back. I joined a car club but hardly use it. I hire cars where it makes sense, usually for trips to places like Devon, but that us rare. I must clock thousands and thousands of miles on rail across the UK and Europe, either for work or to visit family and friends. I use my bike and city transport a lot in London. The massive weak link is city transport outside London. We don't have a blind clue how to implement integrated public transport in this country. Even in London I consider the system to be integrated because it is high frequency rather than particularly planned that way.

The really interesting stat would be what the sweet spot might be between money spent and modal shift. We will never get there in this country because we do not have the people, expertise, powers or drive to think about more than 1 form of transport at the same time. Maybe that will change over time as many young people are keen to stay out of cars where possible, but some of those young people will also need to step up as political leaders to push that side of things. The current generation of political leaders at national local level has on the whole proven itself to be completely unfit for purpose.

It also doesn't help that we keep getting stuck in Tory Governments v Labour councils controlling cities that have the most potential for modal shift. The Tories could not be more obvious in not being that interested because there are few votes in it for them. Labour councils could not be worse at building local cross party consensus. Let's hope some of the new devolution structures move the needle a bit.

 

[WelshBluebird]

In passing, the general public (including me) get a little hacked at this constant reference (TfL especially) that we can "easily" walk or cycle some journey. If it was easy we would do it. Our school (nowadays inner London) is 9 minutes away by car. Walking? Probably 1.5 hours. And do we have to walk home the same afterwards, and walk it again in the afternoon to collect them? Have those suggesting this ever walked such distances with young children?

I don't think anyone is talking about walking 1.5 hours each way though.
What we are talking about is that for most trips "down the road" to pick up a pint of milk or whatever, the car is just overkill. To give an example my friend lives 10 mins walk away from the local shop yet he still drives there when needing to pick up something. That kind of thing is what people are talking about when they say needless car journeys.
And whilst kids cycling in inner London may not be wise, the same distance is easily cyclable in parts of the country where the roads are quieter and thus safer for cycling - and it would be good exersize for them!

 

[Lucan]

Our school (nowadays inner London) is 9 minutes away by car. Walking? Probably 1.5 hours.

That amazes me. How far is that? 4 miles? Your car trip must average nearly 30mph! In Inner London? At school time? You manage to find ~4 miles of Inner London roads with all the traffic lights at green?