Standing on long rail journeys to be banned under Virgin Trains plan for airline-style fare

[Bletchleyite]

The fact that we have fixed formation trains, and the fact that we can't just add carriages, are separate.

In any case, if you have different lengths of MU you can do it by way of the diagrams, like VTWC and Thameslink do.

 

[RLBH]

Which simply isn't an option. The day we do this is the day the economy starts to go pop.

Note the caveat 'at peak times'. There's some of that going on with companies working more flexibly (the staff don't always get the flexibility of course). It doesn't make much difference from a crowding point of view if someone uses a half-filled peak train to Nottingham, or a half-filled off-peak train to London, instead of an overcrowded peak train to London.

Although it should be noted that the British public does have form for demanding things which will make the economy go pop.

 

[185143]

On the journey I described where I had to stand from Birmiingham to Euston when the previous service was cancelled, with vestibules stuffed and about 15 people standing down the aisle of the coach, it was noticeable that those comfortably seated (quite a few of an age who could have possibly been my grandchildren) sat there all smugly, looked studiously at their phones, and seemed quite at peace with what was going on. Not one of them offered their seat to any of the women who were standing.

And why, exactly, is someone less capable of standing because they have a vagina...? (Pregnant and disabled females excepted of course)

 

[route101]

I'm not quite sure why they did that, because by moving it out of F there is now a reservable coach (F) that has a different layout in the two lengths of Pendolino. (The converted Fs are different from the 11-car Fs as the toilet is at the opposite end).

If they'd kept it as F and where applicable U, the reserved coaches would all have the same layout.

Quite often i go straight to U now from Glasgow as last few times seat reservations have not been shown from origin . Guard on a service last week wanted people with seat reservations to stick with them though never actually go you to move when he done the ticket check .

 

[The Ham]

Really? Haven't we got a new PM who has promised to review the whole project? In view of Brexit isn't HS2 a tempting target for a chancellor trying to plug the resultant hole in public finances?

The problem is that any review will need to look at facts, something that those opposed to HS2 tend to struggle with.

Facts like the number of passengers between London and the West Midlands, North West and Scotland have seen a 70% increase between 2009 (when HS2 was announced) and 2018 (latest data available). This compares with the expected 25% growth over the same time period, and the 52% growth until the opening of Phase 1 or the 56% growth until the opening of Phase 2a.

Now percentages are a bit ambiguous, so we can look at actual numbers. Given the fact that there's limited scope to travel between London and the North West (unlike the West Midlands and Scotland) we'll use those figures:
2009 (actual) - 6,576,000
2026 (predicted) - 10,006,000 - phase 1 opening
2027 (predicted) - 10,256,000 - phase 2a opening
2018 (actual) - 11,213,000

That's about 1,000,000 (1 million) more trips between London and the North West than were predicted to be happening at the opening of Phase 2a. That's before you take into account the 3.1% growth which Virgin Trains saw in the last year (which may be higher/lower on the London/North West flows, but is likely to be more growth).

With information like that it's going to be hard to justify canceling HS2 without a viable alternative. Even if there's extra costs (much of which is likely to be just allowances for inflation) it's likely that the extra passengers would fund much of the gap. Especially given that those extra passengers effectively wouldn't need to cover the running costs of the trains.

It (rail growth) is why I think that any experiment with only reserved seats on trains is likely to be short lived (even if that's 10 years) as, even with HS2, demand is likely to overtake supply fairly quickly.

 

[HH]

The question is where the growth is coming from. My guess would be trips to London and it's London that will be the big gainer from HS2. As proved by the M25 (etc. etc.) all increasing provision does is increase use.

No one seems to be questioning whether providing more trips to London is a good thing.

 

[pt_mad]

There wouldn't be any Anytime Any Permitted tickets. The only valid tickets would be TOC specific ones.

I get that if this were introduced as part of the West Coast TOC operation, it would likely come with an industry change where any permitted tickets would be removed from sale (would this have to be on all routes or just the WCML?).

However if this is to be potentially introduced only as part of any agreed Virgin Open Access operation, is the industry or the route as a whole going to remove any permitted tickets from sale just for one open access operators' benefit?

Also it's still not clear how they'd prevent masses from joining their trains during disruption, if for example the previous main franchise operated service was cancelled or perhaps the previous two or three?

 

[The Ham]

The question is where the growth is coming from. My guess would be trips to London and it's London that will be the big gainer from HS2. As proved by the M25 (etc. etc.) all increasing provision does is increase use.

No one seems to be questioning whether providing more trips to London is a good thing.

Given that road building is more or less paused, how do we cater for the expected 10% population growth expected in the next 15 years of not providing more rail capacity?

Since 2012 there's been very little done to increase capacity yet passenger capacity yet rail growth has been robust (yes showing a bit of late in London but even that's fairly flat).

Anyway, projects like HS2 and Reading remodeling do help areas outside the South East, for instance by removing 2 long distance trains from platform at Manchester Piccadilly you could lengthen up to 12 local services an hour.

2 platforms with a full length or near full length train can accommodate 4 x 6 coach (20m) trains those 4 services were taking up platform space elsewhere allowing 4 other services to be lengthened. Finally long distance trains require 30 minutes of platform space, local services 20 to turn around, adding 50% to the 8 services.

The talk of things like needing to retain 2tph to serve stations near to Manchester by services misses the point that in the peak there's up to 15 services which serve there, so reducing this to 13 (but with more capacity in each) isn't going to harm the numbers of passengers able to make that trip.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Quite often i go straight to U now from Glasgow as last few times seat reservations have not been shown from origin . Guard on a service last week wanted people with seat reservations to stick with them though never actually go you to move when he done the ticket check .

That was announced on mine last weekend too. I expect it probably caused a reduced takeup of Weekend First...

 

[Bletchleyite]

However if this is to be potentially introduced only as part of any agreed Virgin Open Access operation, is the industry or the route as a whole going to remove any permitted tickets from sale just for one open access operators' benefit?

Is an OAO mandated to take part in ORCATS? If not they are simply not valid, any more than they are on a National Express coach that happens to go from outside the station.

Also it's still not clear how they'd prevent masses from joining their trains during disruption, if for example the previous main franchise operated service was cancelled or perhaps the previous two or three?

Penalty Fares? Prosecutions? They would all have wilfully boarded without a valid ticket.

That said, the communication from VT said they would allow standing in disruption. It would just be that they would not "oversell" trains. (I know it's not really "overselling", but that's how many see it).

 

[pt_mad]

Penalty Fares? Prosecutions? They would all have wilfully boarded without a valid ticket.

That said, the communication from VT said they would allow standing in disruption. It would just be that they would not "oversell" trains. (I know it's not really "overselling", but that's how many see it).

Prosecutions sounds ok on paper but realistically if you have 50 people stuck on a platform and the open access train is running where they want to go, is it really practical to expect to prosecute all of them for boarding? Sounds like a potential PR nightmare.

Fair enough if they say they'd allow standing during disruption. Could be needed quite often though.

Unless the industry blocks these any permitted anytime tickets from sale on the WCML, any passenger who boarded the open access service without a booking would surely have a decent case anyway, that they believed they were permitted to use any operator in the route at anytime in that date? Announcements saying reservations mandatory are one thing, but what about foreign passengers who may not understand what that is getting at and board the first train from X Trent station to Liverpool?

 

[HH]

Given that road building is more or less paused, how do we cater for the expected 10% population growth expected in the next 15 years of not providing more rail capacity?

Maybe we'd do better with some policies to prevent that population growth?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Announcements saying reservations mandatory are one thing, but what about foreign passengers who may not understand what that is getting at and board the first train from X Trent station to Liverpool?

Around the world it is far more common that you need a ticket for the specific train for InterCity travel than that you have a flexible walk-up system like ours. It's pretty much only the Germanic countries that do have that kind of system (of which we are one in many ways). So tourists will generally be paying attention.

 

[pt_mad]

Given that road building is more or less paused, how do we cater for the expected 10% population growth expected in the next 15 years of not providing more rail capacity?

How has the 10% been calculated? Surely the figure wouldn't have a top limit while free movement remains in use as the numbers within the EU aren't capped? Or is the 10% based on the Boris proposed points system?

 

[Ianno87]

How has the 10% been calculated? Surely the figure wouldn't have a top limit while free movement remains in use as the numbers within the EU aren't capped? Or is the 10% based on the Boris proposed points system?

(From https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...ationprojections/2016basedstatisticalbulletin)

The 10% was forecast on 2016 (possibly before Brexit impacts fully understood):

-Of the 10% increase, that breaks down roughly half and half between Births outweighing deaths, and "Net International Migration".
-"Net International Migration" equates to a figure of about 1.9 million over 10 years, or 190,000 average per year
-According to https://fullfact.org/immigration/eu-migration-and-uk/ (don't know how reputable that is, let's assume it is), net EU migration last year was about 57,000.

So EU net migration represents about one third of total net migration. If that were to stop entirely (unlikely), that would still be about 130,000 net inward migration to Britain per year. Or ~8.5% population growth instead of 10% over 10 years.

So, despite popular belief, EU migration seems to be a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things....

 

[6Gman]

The question is where the growth is coming from. My guess would be trips to London and it's London that will be the big gainer from HS2. As proved by the M25 (etc. etc.) all increasing provision does is increase use.

No one seems to be questioning whether providing more trips to London is a good thing.

In a free society how do you stop people travelling?

 

[Bletchleyite]

In a free society how do you stop people travelling?

You don't, but you can stop spending money on subsidising rail fares and adding road capacity and it will self-manage when travel becomes a truly unpleasant experience. Spend that money instead on universal fibre-to-the-home Internet access, and give businesses tax breaks for home working instead.

 

[The Ham]

You don't, but you can stop spending money on subsidising rail fares and adding road capacity and it will self-manage when travel becomes a truly unpleasant experience. Spend that money instead on universal fibre-to-the-home Internet access, and give businesses tax breaks for home working instead.

Rail fares don't really receive that much in subsidy.

Of the NET contributions to the rail network from Government (~£6.2bn) less than £0.2bn is used to fund the day to running of the railways with £2bn used for HS2 and £4.1bn used by Network Rail on enhancements to the existing network (most of which will pay for themselves over time).

It should be noted that at least some of that subsidy comes from the likes of the Scottish Government, which sets it's own policy on transport.

Given the number of people who travel by train, if costs could be frozen, rail fares would only need to rise by about 15p per single equivalent to remove it altogether.

 

[6Gman]

You don't, but you can stop spending money on subsidising rail fares and adding road capacity and it will self-manage when travel becomes a truly unpleasant experience. Spend that money instead on universal fibre-to-the-home Internet access, and give businesses tax breaks for home working instead.

I've always liked the idea of government protecting me from "truly unpleasant experiences".

So: clean water, safe streets, and decent opportunities to travel.

(And I'd rather visit places, rather than view them on a screen.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've always liked the idea of government protecting me from "truly unpleasant experiences".

So: clean water, safe streets, and decent opportunities to travel.

(1) and (2), definitely. The latter, much less so when we need to seriously rein in travel for environmental reasons.

Daily commuting and short-haul air travel are probably the first sensible targets.

 

[RLBH]

Daily commuting and short-haul air travel are probably the first sensible targets.

Reducing or removing the need for commuting travel makes a massive difference to quality of life, too. Making working from home easier is part of that - but so is making it easier to live near work! That means tackling the issues around housing and education that mean people feel they have to live an hour's train journey from their workplace. Obviously some people will always choose to do so, but if the long-haul commuters can become short-haul commuters, and the short-haul commuters can walk ten minutes down the road, then that will make a big difference.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Reducing or removing the need for commuting travel makes a massive difference to quality of life, too. Making working from home easier is part of that - but so is making it easier to live near work! That means tackling the issues around housing and education that mean people feel they have to live an hour's train journey from their workplace. Obviously some people will always choose to do so, but if the long-haul commuters can become short-haul commuters, and the short-haul commuters can walk ten minutes down the road, then that will make a big difference.

I've put in a new thread to continue this:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-commuting-to-benefit-the-environment.186910/

 

[HSTEd]

(1) and (2), definitely. The latter, much less so when we need to seriously rein in travel for environmental reasons.

If decarbonisation of the electricity system is achieved the environmental cost of travelling on HS2 will become negligible.

Diesel railways on the other hand

 

[Starmill]

This is the result of banning people from standing:
Results show trains tomorrow morning form Paris Gare de Lyon to Nice Ville, with no availability at all on the first train, and then First Class tickets only, costing around 200 EUR one way!

A OUIGO train does run early in the morning, but their tickets are non-refundable and can only be exchanged for another OUIGO train (unlike TGVs), OUIGO conditions also require passengers to check-in 30 minutes before departure, restrict luggage and offer cheap interiors with no catering on a six hour journey. Not really the sort of experience fit for a long-distance rail journey, but if its cheap enough I can see why people value it. In this case the fare is 114 euros, so not a bargain.

Now admittedly this is Friday in August, to one of the most popular summer destinations in Europe. All the same.

I would be outraged if we were to adopt this sort of thing for the UK.

 

[Ianno87]

This is the result of banning people from standing: View attachment 66612
Results show trains tomorrow morning form Paris Gare de Lyon to Nice Ville, with no availability at all on the first train, and then First Class tickets only, costing around 200 EUR one way!

A OUIGO train does run early in the morning, but their tickets are non-refundable and can only be exchanged for another OUIGO train (unlike TGVs), OUIGO conditions also require passengers to check-in 30 minutes before departure, restrict luggage and offer cheap interiors with no catering on a six hour journey. Not really the sort of experience fit for a long-distance rail journey, but if its cheap enough I can see why people value it. In this case the fare is 114 euros, so not a bargain.

Now admittedly this is Friday in August, to one of the most popular summer destinations in Europe. All the same.

I would be outraged if we were to adopt this sort of thing for the UK.

How many people would *want* to stand for 6 hours from Paris to Nice?!

 

[AM9]

How many people would *want* to stand for 6 hours from Paris to Nice?!

Are all seats booked for the entire 6 hour journey or do some of them get vacated after the first or second stop out of Paris?

 

[al78]

Reducing or removing the need for commuting travel makes a massive difference to quality of life, too. Making working from home easier is part of that - but so is making it easier to live near work! That means tackling the issues around housing and education that mean people feel they have to live an hour's train journey from their workplace. Obviously some people will always choose to do so, but if the long-haul commuters can become short-haul commuters, and the short-haul commuters can walk ten minutes down the road, then that will make a big difference.

The problem is London is a very attractive place to look for work because the salaries are higher on average, but it also the least affordable place to live (on average), so people have to live an hour out to be able to work there, unless they live in a place that is regularly on fire. We need some way of encouraging companies to locate their primary places of work outside London.

 

[Starmill]

How many people would *want* to stand for 6 hours from Paris to Nice?!

Would you prefer to stand on the train on the way or on the platform going nowhere?

 

[Starmill]

Are all seats booked for the entire 6 hour journey or do some of them get vacated after the first or second stop out of Paris?

The first call on the 0907 is Marseille St Charles, 3 hours from Paris.

 

[Ianno87]

Would you prefer to stand on the train on the way or on the platform going nowhere?

I'd have made sure to book in advance, if its compulsory reservation. No reservation - don't turn up at the station and travel another day.