Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Another new speculative thread on GBR.
It is suggested the Government wants considerable cost savings. How might these be achieved, ideally without significant* line and station closures?
There are the obvious options like (ssh) DOO (please don't turn this into a DOO debate, this has been done to death already, and it'll just end up with the thread getting locked), removal of dispatchers and ticket office closures.
But are there other perhaps less controversial and more positive savings to be had?
Within boundaries. I think excessive frequencies could be pared back a bit - 6tph on the TPE core is not needed, 4 would be fine. I also don't think it would be entirely out of order to drop Southport to 1tph with a couple of peak extras as it was for years, for example, if you compensated by it being to Castlefield and being 5 or 6-car 195 formations, nor particularly so to close New Lane, Bescar Lane and Hoscar to enable that as they really are utterly useless (though you could just serve each every 3 hours plus with the peak extras and keep them open, I suppose). Add to that that there will be routes where a bit of thought about the utility of an infrequent service might actually allow a round trip to be lopped out while making the service more useful, but I wouldn't take anything that is presently hourly or better below hourly.
I have elsewhere on the Forum (so won't do it again) come up with a suggested Conwy Valley timetable that would have 4 return trips rather than 5 but actually be more useful than the pre-COVID 5 round trip timetable (or the present temporary 4 round trip one that just lops the early round trip without looking at the others) because it would time each journey for a specific demand (e.g. schools, after work etc)*. Though that one looks like it will be fixed another way by introducing a combined train-and-electric-bus hourly frequency, hopefully with ticket interavailability. That might save in another way - lunchtime is a natural gap so your traincrew diagramming can be simpler.
* The present Marston Vale single-diagram service on a weekday appears to be timed in that way - there are fewer services than a "simple" two hourly timetable, but they are timed to work for schools etc, and my observation is that people are (to the extent they ever do) using those trains and largely the buses making up the rest of the hourly service are running empty or near to it.
That hasn't really worked well for Merseyrail, having essentially been a combination of a not-very-good convenience store and a not-very-good ticket office. But using Merseyrail as an example, I really don't see the need for all those booking offices churning out returns to Liverpool. I think most users would happily trade them for e-tickets and contactless, and possibly a toppable-up child smartcard as children travelling unsupervised are a considerable number of the passengers. They don't even really provide a personal safety benefit as quite a lot of them are a long way from the platforms - security staff on patrol (doing what security staff should do, i.e. providing security only and not getting involved in ticketing and the likes) would provide that better.
Actually, talking of security, here's an idea - a national railway security provision like the German BSG* and the Swiss whatever-it's-called? Could improve quality as well as save money.
* Bahn-Sicherheits-something-or-other - Railway Security something.
It is suggested the Government wants considerable cost savings. How might these be achieved, ideally without significant* line and station closures?
There are the obvious options like (ssh) DOO (please don't turn this into a DOO debate, this has been done to death already, and it'll just end up with the thread getting locked), removal of dispatchers and ticket office closures.
But are there other perhaps less controversial and more positive savings to be had?
- Do the platform/ASDO work to allow longer trains? For example, I would drop to 4tph on the TPE core, but start looking at how to operate 10 car trains at busy times. The further upsides of this concept are that they make the railway more punctual and reliable. I would not however take anything below hourly that isn't already?
- All new stock orders to be low-floor and stations to have better accessibility features, reducing the need for staffed assistance? (And where high floor stock has just been ordered and is the only stock used on a given platform, Harrington humps to achieve the same as per Thameslink - reducing frequencies might also allow for more consistent platforming to enable this).
- Only one national booking and ticketing platform and associated equipment and a single TVM UI. Obviously this could have some sort of API so like with airlines commercial operations like Trainline and Trainsplit could still continue if they wished.
- Look at conversions to light rail and devolution of responsibility on various local lines.
- More centralisation of back-office functions.
- Any more?
Indeed. I'm talking specifically about the service frequency and day length that needs to be maintained.
Within boundaries. I think excessive frequencies could be pared back a bit - 6tph on the TPE core is not needed, 4 would be fine. I also don't think it would be entirely out of order to drop Southport to 1tph with a couple of peak extras as it was for years, for example, if you compensated by it being to Castlefield and being 5 or 6-car 195 formations, nor particularly so to close New Lane, Bescar Lane and Hoscar to enable that as they really are utterly useless (though you could just serve each every 3 hours plus with the peak extras and keep them open, I suppose). Add to that that there will be routes where a bit of thought about the utility of an infrequent service might actually allow a round trip to be lopped out while making the service more useful, but I wouldn't take anything that is presently hourly or better below hourly.
I have elsewhere on the Forum (so won't do it again) come up with a suggested Conwy Valley timetable that would have 4 return trips rather than 5 but actually be more useful than the pre-COVID 5 round trip timetable (or the present temporary 4 round trip one that just lops the early round trip without looking at the others) because it would time each journey for a specific demand (e.g. schools, after work etc)*. Though that one looks like it will be fixed another way by introducing a combined train-and-electric-bus hourly frequency, hopefully with ticket interavailability. That might save in another way - lunchtime is a natural gap so your traincrew diagramming can be simpler.
* The present Marston Vale single-diagram service on a weekday appears to be timed in that way - there are fewer services than a "simple" two hourly timetable, but they are timed to work for schools etc, and my observation is that people are (to the extent they ever do) using those trains and largely the buses making up the rest of the hourly service are running empty or near to it.
Ticket offices is an interesting one. Some of the smaller stations, I'd rather go down the road of combining with a shop or something, as Merseyrail do if possible, than closing.
That hasn't really worked well for Merseyrail, having essentially been a combination of a not-very-good convenience store and a not-very-good ticket office. But using Merseyrail as an example, I really don't see the need for all those booking offices churning out returns to Liverpool. I think most users would happily trade them for e-tickets and contactless, and possibly a toppable-up child smartcard as children travelling unsupervised are a considerable number of the passengers. They don't even really provide a personal safety benefit as quite a lot of them are a long way from the platforms - security staff on patrol (doing what security staff should do, i.e. providing security only and not getting involved in ticketing and the likes) would provide that better.
Actually, talking of security, here's an idea - a national railway security provision like the German BSG* and the Swiss whatever-it's-called? Could improve quality as well as save money.
* Bahn-Sicherheits-something-or-other - Railway Security something.
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