Grand Union approved for Cardiff to London open access by ORR from December 2024

[43066]

No-one complains about Ryanair paying their staff low wages, especially not the 150+ million people that use them each year because of their low fares.

This isn’t true, actually. They pay market rates for cabin crew and pilots. Pilots typically get promoted to captain quicker than at “legacy” airlines, so can earn more money more quickly at Ryanair.

The railway will always pay better than most other industries, but something has got to give.

Many rail staff have already suffered a real terms pay cut, no increase for three years at my operator. Staff costs also aren’t the only cost facing the industry. Rolling stock is another key one.

 

[mrmartin]

My hypothesis is that fares on the SWML are too high (to London). GWR aren't collecting the maximal revenue (I guess because they don't care now?) - if prices were a fair bit lower, they would get a lot more passengers, more than enough to offset the lower per ticket price. I know a lot of people who do hotel + off peak train vs peak train for work, which is nearly always significantly cheaper. This is just revenue GWR is wasting.

So I think if Grand Union comes in, they will cut prices to attract customers, massively increase ridership on the line (especially if they have a train that gets into London for ~9am), GWR will have to cut prices, but with the lower prices that will induce even more demand, and more revenue.

 

[heathrowrail]

My hypothesis is that fares on the SWML are too high (to London). GWR aren't collecting the maximal revenue (I guess because they don't care now?) - if prices were a fair bit lower, they would get a lot more passengers, more than enough to offset the lower per ticket price. I know a lot of people who do hotel + off peak train vs peak train for work, which is nearly always significantly cheaper. This is just revenue GWR is wasting.

So I think if Grand Union comes in, they will cut prices to attract customers, massively increase ridership on the line (especially if they have a train that gets into London for ~9am), GWR will have to cut prices, but with the lower prices that will induce even more demand, and more revenue.

That only works to a point, it get's to a tipping point where cheap fares don't pay the bills and the company goes bust. Besides that GWR can't just lower fares as it's all controlled by the DFT, only selected routes could a TOC control fares back in the franchise system.

 

[popeter45]

The proposal is for a new parkway station at Felindre, adjacent to the DVLC park and ride site on the old timplate works. The track access application notes that it is a four mile drive into Swansea city centre, with limited parking when you get there. The proposed new station will be adjacent to the M4. Thus the new station will be far more attractive to the wider area (or at least those who drive). Reading the approval letter, Felindre has been removed from the approved track access application, but is to come back as an amendment to the application. In the meantime Gowerton will serve the purpose of Felindre.

sorry but Felindre is 100% a downgrade for majority of people who need to go to swansea, vast majority live south of the city center and nowhere near the M4, a "4 mile drive" is pointless if you arrive by train and dont have a car and just adds to already long drives to areas like the Gower

its like saying a train stopping at watford serves london

 

[mrmartin]

That only works to a point, it get's to a tipping point where cheap fares don't pay the bills and the company goes bust. Besides that GWR can't just lower fares as it's all controlled by the DFT, only selected routes could a TOC control fares back in the franchise system.

GWR though can release a lot more reasonably priced advance tickets to compete though. Of course you can't just have 1p fares for everyone, but my guess is there is a tonne of demand that is supressed from S Wales by prices being too high, just as Lumo is showing on the ECML.

 

[Envoy]

sorry but Felindre is 100% a downgrade for majority of people who need to go to swansea, vast majority live south of the city center and nowhere near the M4, a "4 mile drive" is pointless if you arrive by train and dont have a car and just adds to already long drives to areas like the Gower

its like saying a train stopping at watford serves london

Swansea will still be served by GWR and TfW. Someone mentioned earlier that a lot of people from west Wales drive to Port Talbot Parkway to catch trains as it is slow going via Swansea. A speed up in services to Carmarthen will also benefit Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion.

 

[Horizon22]

Port Talbot would be much better than Briton Ferry.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2022 ==


You could say that the new station creates opportunities for a new catchment, as well as providing options for people in the West and North of Swansea that don't want to go into the City Centre, especially if parking options are good at the new station.

Oh I don’t disagree, but new stations aren’t built all that quickly and even though the local authorities are apparently on board, I foresee much wrangling.

 

[robert thomas]

GWR though can release a lot more reasonably priced advance tickets to compete though. Of course you can't just have 1p fares for everyone, but my guess is there is a tonne of demand that is supressed from S Wales by prices being too high, just as Lumo is showing on the ECML.

I don't know where you would put the extra passengers as in my experience many South Wales and Bristol services are already full and standing particularly at weekends

 

[paul1609]

My hypothesis is that fares on the SWML are too high (to London). GWR aren't collecting the maximal revenue (I guess because they don't care now?) - if prices were a fair bit lower, they would get a lot more passengers, more than enough to offset the lower per ticket price. I know a lot of people who do hotel + off peak train vs peak train for work, which is nearly always significantly cheaper. This is just revenue GWR is wasting.

So I think if Grand Union comes in, they will cut prices to attract customers, massively increase ridership on the line (especially if they have a train that gets into London for ~9am), GWR will have to cut prices, but with the lower prices that will induce even more demand, and more revenue.

If you compare prices from Cardiff to London (145 miles) to Doncaster (155 miles) Great Western are already competitive with most of the competition at Doncaster (Grand Central and Hull). With new trains to lease I cant see Grand Union significantly under cutting GWRs fares other than short term loss leaders to buy market share.

 

[Bald Rick]

With new trains to lease I cant see Grand Union significantly under cutting GWRs fares other than short term loss leaders to buy market share.

and with much higher access charges….

 

[Llanigraham]

sorry but Felindre is 100% a downgrade for majority of and nowhere near the M4, a "4 mile drive" is pointless if you arrive by train and dont have a car and just adds to already long drives to areas like the Gower

its like saying a train stopping at watford serves london

I would query the "people who need to go to swansea, vast majority live south of the city center ". Looking at a map the area south is the Maritime Quarter and Marina, and then Swansea Bay. Population densities are very low there.
As I know all too well car and public transport access to the current Swansea station is diabolical, plus there is no-where to park in the vicinity You have the "problem" that all trains need to change ends there, so increasing lay-over times. Certainly I know that my friends from Killay or Penllegaer drive onto the M4 and park at Port Talbot, even if they are going just to Cardiff on the train.

 

[CapitalStar378]

GWR though can release a lot more reasonably priced advance tickets to compete though. Of course you can't just have 1p fares for everyone, but my guess is there is a tonne of demand that is supressed from S Wales by prices being too high, just as Lumo is showing on the ECML.

They can definitely charge less that the current £89 standard off peak return, for a 1h50 journey this is daylight robbery. Very few decent priced advance singles available and they are becoming fewer and fewer over time. I live in London and am from Cardiff and if I can get 2 singes for less than £60 it's a good day.

Amazing that most off peak trains are pretty empty, you'd think that GWR would prefer to have busier services at a lower price, but maybe now it's a management contract they don't really care.

And the anytime return price of £264.80...good grief!

Will be very interested to see the Grand Union fares when they're published, and comfy seats and a buffet, very excited!

 

[fandroid]

Is there a buslink opportunity from Felindre? After all, Swansea station itself is a longish walk from the city centre, so doesn't serve very well those who live in the south of the city.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2022 ==

My hypothesis is that fares on the SWML are too high (to London). GWR aren't collecting the maximal revenue (I guess because they don't care now?) - if prices were a fair bit lower, they would get a lot more passengers, more than enough to offset the lower per ticket price.

I'm finding your SWML reference here a bit distracting, living as I do on the real SWML at Basingstoke. Normal convention is to name the GWR mainline the GWML, especially if you're referring to services to South Wales!

 

[Watershed]

They can definitely charge less that the current £89 standard off peak return, for a 1h50 journey this is daylight robbery

It's not necessarily cheap but for 290 miles' travel, it's not outrageous. 30.7p a mile isn't much more than it costs to drive and park & ride near London (which is the only realistic alternative). Obviously for the non-London flows it's not nearly as competitive. If you have a Railcard, 20.3p a mile isn't bad at all.

If price is the most important consideration, remember that there's also a route Warminster-Salisbury Off-Peak Return for £67.30. Obviously quite a slow and inconvenient route, but the time restrictions are much less onerous than those on the GWR priced fares (essentially it's just 'not into London before 10am', with no evening peak from Waterloo).

 

[paul1609]

They can definitely charge less that the current £89 standard off peak return, for a 1h50 journey this is daylight robbery. Very few decent priced advance singles available and they are becoming fewer and fewer over time. I live in London and am from Cardiff and if I can get 2 singes for less than £60 it's a good day.

Think you are very likely to be disappointed. Grand Centrals cheapest walk up fare for off peak return London to Doncaster (10 miles further than Cardiff) is £88.
That's with somewhat older DMU trains, the buffet car is basically tea, coffee, Bacon or sausage roll or Sandwiches and beer.

 

[mrmartin]

If you compare prices from Cardiff to London (145 miles) to Doncaster (155 miles) Great Western are already competitive with most of the competition at Doncaster (Grand Central and Hull). With new trains to lease I cant see Grand Union significantly under cutting GWRs fares other than short term loss leaders to buy market share.

I really don't know where you are getting that from. Next week there are plenty of advances for £15ish throughout the week London to Doncaster at reasonable times. On GWR to Cardiff the cheapest advance next week is £37.60, which gets into cardiff after midnight, on one day. Nearly all of the advances are £47.50 or £50.80 (which are actually more expensive than getting a super off peak return per leg). I haven't seen post covid any advances on that route on GWR which make sense unless you book really far in the future, at most you'd save a tenner, which isn't worth it for the lack of flexibility.

It's not necessarily cheap but for 290 miles' travel, it's not outrageous. 30.7p a mile isn't much more than it costs to drive and park & ride near London (which is the only realistic alternative). Obviously for the non-London flows it's not nearly as competitive. If you have a Railcard, 20.3p a mile isn't bad at all.

If price is the most important consideration, remember that there's also a route Warminster-Salisbury Off-Peak Return for £67.30. Obviously quite a slow and inconvenient route, but the time restrictions are much less onerous than those on the GWR priced fares (essentially it's just 'not into London before 10am', with no evening peak from Waterloo).

Need to stop thinking purely competitively of mode vs mode. Many people will not drive to London (and vv), they will just not go if the train is too expensive. It's a bit like pre LCC in the airline industry saying the £500 flight to Rome is good value because otherwise you'd need to spend 24 hours travelling on a coach. It's true, but most people just won't bother.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2022 ==

Think you are very likely to be disappointed. Grand Centrals cheapest walk up fare for off peak return London to Doncaster (10 miles further than Cardiff) is £88.
That's with somewhat older DMU trains, the buffet car is basically tea, coffee, Bacon or sausage roll or Sandwiches and beer.

That's true but there is a huge differential in advance tickets. I'm not suggesting that we should just suddenly have half price walk up tickets (though I'd love it personally!) as would cause serious overcrowding. What I'm wanting and I think is reassonable is shifting empty seats via cheaper advances. GWR has totally given up with this post covid, and I think another operator would force them into this.

 

[Watershed]

Think you are very likely to be disappointed. Grand Centrals cheapest walk up fare for off peak return London to Doncaster (10 miles further than Cardiff) is £88.
That's with somewhat older DMU trains, the buffet car is basically tea, coffee, Bacon or sausage roll or Sandwiches and beer.

That has to be put into the context of the equivalent Any Permitted walkup fare of £105.20 - which, as with other ECML fares, is around 15-20% more expensive per mile than typical long-distance fares, due to BR's 1990s policy of sharply increasing ECML fares following electrification.

I imagine you might see a Grand Central walkup fare from Cardiff of circa £70.

 

[paul1609]

That's true but there is a huge differential in advance tickets. I'm not suggesting that we should just suddenly have half price walk up tickets (though I'd love it personally!) as would cause serious overcrowding. What I'm wanting and I think is reassonable is shifting empty seats via cheaper advances. GWR has totally given up with this post covid, and I think another operator would force them into this.

I don't think it will force them to do it. Grand Unions costs on London - Cardiff will be a lot higher than on the ECML.
As a private operator their priority will be to maximise overall revenue not to necessarily fill every seat.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2022 ==

That has to be put into the context of the equivalent Any Permitted walkup fare of £105.20 - which, as with other ECML fares, is around 15-20% more expensive per mile than typical long-distance fares, due to BR's 1990s policy of sharply increasing ECML fares following electrification.

I imagine you might see a Grand Central walkup fare from Cardiff of circa £70.

My moneys on £79.99

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Not mentioned as far as I can see is that the Grand Union project is supported financially by Renfe of Spain, plus another Spanish investor.
So just as Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Abellio) looks to exit the UK, another European state railway investor arrives, very quietly.
Their stated intention is to gain UK experience with local partners.
DfT might be annoyed with another route having open access competition, but they have been seeking new entrants to the railway for some time.

 

[Bletchleyite]

DfT might be annoyed with another route having open access competition, but they have been seeking new entrants to the railway for some time.

They might also be interested in potential other high speed partners for HS2 in case Avanti (First/Trenitalia) does totally collapse and hand back the keys.

 

[david1212]

They can definitely charge less that the current £89 standard off peak return, for a 1h50 journey this is daylight robbery. ...

And the anytime return price of £264.80...good grief!

Will be very interested to see the Grand Union fares when they're published, and comfy seats and a buffet, very excited!

It's not necessarily cheap but for 290 miles' travel, it's not outrageous. 30.7p a mile isn't much more than it costs to drive and park & ride near London (which is the only realistic alternative). Obviously for the non-London flows it's not nearly as competitive. If you have a Railcard, 20.3p a mile isn't bad at all.

Think you are very likely to be disappointed. Grand Centrals cheapest walk up fare for off peak return London to Doncaster (10 miles further than Cardiff) is £88.
That's with somewhat older DMU trains, the buffet car is basically tea, coffee, Bacon or sausage roll or Sandwiches and beer.

Looking at https://www.brfares.com for walk-on fares I am seeing £89 is super off-peak return and £118 off-peak return. Given the 1hr 50m journey time if it was £89 off-peak and ~£65 super-off peak ( still including all of the weekend ) then not so bad given the 1hr 50 journey time. Like so many anytime fares £264 return is far too high. For singles £51.80 super off-peak, £70.20 off-peak and £132.40 anytime.

If Grand Union do offer ~£90 as their base return fare and ~£60 quieter weekday times and all weekend together with a superior journey experience they ought to be successful.

 

[Coolzac]

Is there a buslink opportunity from Felindre? After all, Swansea station itself is a longish walk from the city centre, so doesn't serve very well those who live in the south of the city.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2022 ==


I'm finding your SWML reference here a bit distracting, living as I do on the real SWML at Basingstoke. Normal convention is to name the GWR mainline the GWML, especially if you're referring to services to South Wales!

I would think so. It's a direct road to the centre of Swansea, and there appears to already be a bus route there (35) so all you would need to do is expand the timetable, and try to link it in with train times.

If they could co-operate with TFW for timings to connect with more local services west of Carmarthen and also local stations around Swansea, even the Heart of Wales Line, it would be a fantastic addition to trains in the area. I know this won't be easy but where there's a will!

 

[Class 170101]

It wasn’t a DfT decision, it was the ORR. I expect the DfT are hopping mad.

Thats as may be but I doubt many outside (and even some inside) the industry will be bothered that the DfT (and HMT) are hopping mad. Services being cut to save money without consulting people about the changes, see South Eastern) may actually be glad to see a competitor in the hope that the Government will raise its game and respect passengers rather than just the taxpayer.

If the DfT / HMT wants passengers to pay 75% of costs going forward it should be prepared to accept those passengers having a 75% say rather than being ignored.

In terms of GUT I'm afraid GWR only has itself (maybe also DfT / HMT) to blame for not bringing the Superfast Bristols in as promised so GUT have spotted an opportunity. Perhaps the prvate sector should be allowed to take market share on some routes if the DfT just wants franchised operators to cut services without regard for revenue growth.

 

[popeter45]

I would query the "people who need to go to swansea, vast majority live south of the city center ". Looking at a map the area south is the Maritime Quarter and Marina, and then Swansea Bay. Population densities are very low there.
As I know all too well car and public transport access to the current Swansea station is diabolical, plus there is no-where to park in the vicinity You have the "problem" that all trains need to change ends there, so increasing lay-over times. Certainly I know that my friends from Killay or Penllegaer drive onto the M4 and park at Port Talbot, even if they are going just to Cardiff on the train.

i agree swansea station is a pain but taking the worst route for anybody wanting to actually go to swansea feels so short sighted especally with no ability to connect to any services west of cardiff, a stop at Port Talbot or alike would go along way but they seem to not care and not bother, it just seems like going out of their way just to screw the Gower over

 

[paul1609]

i agree swansea station is a pain but taking the worst route for anybody wanting to actually go to swansea feels so short sighted especally with no ability to connect to any services west of cardiff, a stop at Port Talbot or alike would go along way but they seem to not care and not bother, it just seems like going out of their way just to screw the Gower over

I rather imagine that they had no choice. If they'd gone via Swansea 5 trains a day would have abstracted so much income from GWRs revenue the application would have been declined.

 

[StephenHunter]

Weren't these the people who were trying to do 442s to Southampton pre-pandemic?

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Weren't these the people who were trying to do 442s to Southampton pre-pandemic?

That was sister crayonista Richard McClean over at Alliance Rail Holdings.

 

[Clarence Yard]

That was sister crayonista Richard McClean over at Alliance Rail Holdings.

Alliance, like Grand Central, was originally an Ian Yeowart vehicle. Arriva took them over, put in their own people to “assist” and Richard McLean eventually took over Grand Central when Arriva dispensed with Ian Yeowart’s services.

Arriva have blown hot and cold on OA services, depending on who was in charge at the time, both here and in Berlin. They eventually decided to do the Blackpool operation under the GC banner and the late cancellation was not something that Richard wanted. Richard retired from Arriva last year.

After Arriva, Ian Yeowart went solo and has being promoting OA schemes under his Grand Union banner. These are not connected to Grand Central in any way. GC remains with Arriva.

 

[Bald Rick]

Richard retired from Arriva last year.

This year, and he’s still around.

 

[popeter45]

I rather imagine that they had no choice. If they'd gone via Swansea 5 trains a day would have abstracted so much income from GWRs revenue the application would have been declined.

im not saying go via swansea, im saying give a meaningful connection for people wanting to go to swansea