UK Rail Passenger Numbers Discussion

[Facing Back]

Bah! Engineering blockade right in the middle of our busiest route this weekend. Little commission for me - though I did intercept a couple of Open Returns being used multiple times so it wasn't entirely unproductive.

Out of interest, how do you intercept a return being used multiple times?

 

[modernrail]

An article in February Railnews, an interview with their latest CEO, post-Covid passenger numbers are down by 30%, usual scapegoat named and shamed ie "Brexit"
Eurostar cannot give a date for Ebbsfleet to be in their timetabling plans. Critics of Eurostar point to their high fares and lack of competition

I am not sure you bothered to read the article properly.

Eurostar have had to cut capacity by 30% because Brexit has meant they cannot physically get people through the terminals quickly enough because everybody needs to be stamped etc. This is incredibly obvious to anybody who has used the service recently. It is a bit of a slog to get through the queue and through the border controls at St Pancras and you have to turn up a lot earlier.

Really takes the shine off what was an excellent service. The UK Government of course has no intention to fund the extra border capacity that it’s oven ready deal now requires to put things right and return the border to its previous capacity. Just like it has no intention to refund the British business that has been saddled with huge extra cost and process to access markets they were previously able to access barrier free.

That has led to a need to raise fares to cover the revenue shortfall of having h less seats to sell.

The tragedy is that those seats are selling, telling you how much suppressed demand there is that eagerly wants that extra capacity (plus extra services and stops such as Ebbsfleet, and the South of France service etc).

 

[LowLevel]

I guessed thank you. For my 2023 UK/Europe trip, I'm seriously considering Nottingham-Mansfield-Worksop but will make sure I have a money belt on hehe. I rarely do as cumbersome. I assume this line is quite industrial/working class and hence 'boring' but it's 'the real England' so worth experiencing. I certainly don't spend every day travelling on 'The Jacobite' in your northerly neighbour.

It was a mix of Leicester and Worksop local services.

It's an interesting route. I don't believe it feels particularly unsafe as opposed to what you might find in South Eastern London, given the smaller trains which all have both driver and guard but there are certainly social issues.

There's plenty of railway interest - and the landscape is very mixed.

Urban out of Nottingham to Hucknall, running parallel with the trains from Wilkinson Street to Hucknall station. The line is single track with passing loops at Bestwood Park and Newstead until Kirkby Lane End. Quickly becoming rural through the former coal mining villages at Newstead and Annesley passing the locally well known Warren House livery stables.

Through Kirkby tunnel and back into urban post industrial decay through Ashfield, past the old Mansfield steam shed and Mansfield Town station until Mansfield Woodhouse, where control of the line passes after the station from the modern East Midlands Rail Operating Centre at Derby to the mechanical signalbox at Shirebrook Junction.

Back into largely rural settings through Shirebrook with it's derelict former coal concentration sidings and traction maintenance depot, and triangle junction to Clipstone and High Marnham test track, and the spur to Langwith Junction wagon works to Creswell, home of the globally significant Creswell Crags, some of the earliest human drawings etc are in caves there. The derelict original station buildings are on the up side of the railway in use by a motor repairs business and scrap dealer. All of the stations bar Nottingham and Worksop are a standard new build, though Mansfield uses it's old building and Shirebrook's original building is in use by a local business.

Past the mostly closed Elmton and Creswell Jn signalbox with it's impressive array of semaphore signals, due to be removed this year and through Whitwell tunnel and Whitwell villages to Worksop, with it's traction maintenance depot and formerly busy coal yards now used for storing rolling stock both old and new. One side of the station features the "new" 1990s Worksop panel signalbox, the other side the closed and listed Worksop East signalbox. The station is nicely restored into it's LNER colours of the 1930s.

As I say - plenty of interest if you're interested in railways!

 

[Krokodil]

Out of interest, how do you intercept a return being used multiple times?

One was an eTicket and had a scan on it despite the passenger having boarded at the origin point with no barriers. Passenger confessed to having used it a week before.

The other was a credit card-sized ticket. There was evidence of it having been marked in pen, and the background print around the mark faded as if he'd had a go at it with an eraser. Even if the pen wasn't evidence of use (maybe his grandchildren had been let loose on them) the ticket was now defaced and hence invalid.

 

[railfan99]

As I say - plenty of interest if you're interested in railways!

Let's not go OT for too long, but I viewed Mansfield's station buildings that look great and are heritage listed. Love the wonderful mix of sights that you outline. FYI in September 2022 I stayed at an hotel in Derby close to the station but have yet to visit Nottingham although I went to Crich Tramway Museum for half a day. I wrote all this up in my forum 'trip report'.

Annoyingly, only six minutes on weekdays for the turnaround at Worksop (little time to photograph) but perhaps I can go somewhere else from there.

Back to passenger numbers: how many cars are the railcars to Worksop and are you seeing reasonable to good numbers on weekdays as well as weekends, bearing in mind in many nations travelling to/from work has declined significantly, with Mondays being worst but Thursdays (in my faraway nation) best?

Huge thanks to Krokodil (no 'dill!') and you for 'protecting the revenue'. Perhaps a few next time might patronise the ticket machine before boarding.

 

[ChrisC]

It does make you wonder how many rail journeys are unrecorded because of ticketless travel?

Perhaps some operators should concentrate their efforts on collecting fares rather than selling cuddly toys!

Well done to @LowLevel for his diligence!

I also would say well done to @LowLevel. There needs to be more staff like that.

I’ve always found EMR regional staff very friendly and helpful but during these last few years, especially since the introduction of TVMs at most unstaffed stations and following Covid, there has certainly been a big reduction in the amount of ticket inspections on some routes. On Saturday I travelled from Alfreton to Warrington Central and returned from Manchester Piccadilly and never had my ticket inspected once on very busy EMR trains. There may have been a good reason for this but I presume the guard was probably in the back cab for most of the time as I never even saw him walk through the train.

On the Robin Hood Line there always used to be a full ticket inspection which took place immediately after departure from Nottingham, but this seems very hit and miss these days with sometimes no ticket inspections right through to Worksop. It’s quite obvious that many travel regularly without tickets from the large numbers of tickets a guard sells when they actually do a ticket inspection. Passenger numbers for EMR seem to have made quite a good recovery following following covid but are they actually even higher on local routes than being recorded due to inconsistent ticket inspections.

A bit off topic, but I would also add that the Robin Hood Line is an interesting route and is much more rural than many would at first think. Apart from Friday and Saturday evenings when it can get a bit lively I wouldn’t say it’s an unsafe line to travel on. The real good news is that according to Realtime Trains the half hourly service south of Mansfield is at last being restored from the May timetable but at the moment it looks as though it’s just on Saturdays. I’ve not used the line very often during these last few years because the reduced timetable does not fit in with my onward connections at Nottingham or the bus to the station from my home.

 

[Richardr]

Season ticket sales are through the floor:

They were in big decline pre-covid as many people were working from home 1 or 2 days a week.

Add in the acceleration of working from home due to covid.

Then add weekly capping on contactless/oyster into the mix which for many means a traditional season ticket simply isn’t needed or worth it.

Does that latter point - the weekly capping - affect season ticket sales? Doesn't that really impact within the London area, but not what I would have thought was the main market for season tickets, those travelling to London from outside the capital?

 

[kentrailman]

From my ridiculously frequent rail travel, much of it in and around the South East, carriages of fresh air are a bit of myth! I do agree things are far worse in the north capacity wise, though.

I found one the other week. Believe it or not this was the 0806 Ashford international to st Pancras ( arrives 0843 ) on a Wednesday the other week. Getting this and other peak trains over the years one day a week, it used to really annoy me they were jammed with season ticket holders paying per day a fraction of what I did for just one day. It seems now that as less people have season tickets many are avoiding peak hours .. Good news for those seeking quieter trains ! Travel in the peak most expensive trains to find more space !

I remember in the very first week of the high speed services they were also empty presumably because season ticket holders had not yet bought their new plus high speed season tickets.
Trains after 10am are of course usually packed !

 

[dk1]

Season ticket sales are through the floor:

They were in big decline pre-covid as many people were working from home 1 or 2 days a week.

Add in the acceleration of working from home due to covid.

Then add weekly capping on contactless/oyster into the mix which for many means a traditional season ticket simply isn’t needed or worth it.

The good thing was that sales of more expensive anytime day returns had increased.

 

[Trainbike46]

An article in February Railnews, an interview with their latest CEO, post-Covid passenger numbers are down by 30%, usual scapegoat named and shamed ie "Brexit"
Eurostar cannot give a date for Ebbsfleet to be in their timetabling plans. Critics of Eurostar point to their high fares and lack of competition

For eurostar, Brexit really isn't just a scapegoat, the increased border checks, which as I understand it were a big part of the motivation for Brexit, take more time and reduce terminal capacity. As I understand it there are a few things at work to increase terminal capacity again, but to pretend that eurostar isn't massively impacted by brexit is just wrong

And as others have pointed out, Eurostar has very fierce competition from airlines, ferries (both foot passengers and driving your own car), the tunnel shuttle, coach operators

 

[Bald Rick]

According to the BBC on a report about the fair increase, season ticket sales are less than a third of what they were. That seems very low have they got there facts wrong?

Their facts are correct.

The good thing was that sales of more expensive anytime day returns had increased.

This is not correct. Anytime / Peak tickets were about 10% down at best. Off peak is about the same, and advance has increased (a fraction).

 

[43066]

For eurostar, Brexit really isn't just a scapegoat, the increased border checks, which as I understand it were a big part of the motivation for Brexit, take more time and reduce terminal capacity. As I understand it there are a few things at work to increase terminal capacity again, but to pretend that eurostar isn't massively impacted by brexit is just wrong

And as others have pointed out, Eurostar has very fierce competition from airlines, ferries (both foot passengers and driving your own car), the tunnel shuttle, coach operators

If Brexit has affected Eurostar it follows that it will also have affected its competition. I’d also suggest ferries are not competition for Eurostar, and cater a completely different market from an (expensive) direct railway connection from central London to central Paris.

I don’t think increased border checks were ever a motivation for Brexit, per se?

 

[yorksrob]

Clearly Mondays and Fridays are now a dead horse as far as traditional commuting is concerned. The emphasis should now be on achieving these day's leisure potential.

 

[higthomas]

If Brexit has affected Eurostar it follows that it will also have affected its competition.

Yes, but airlines operate out of vast airports in the middle of nowhere have space for the larger number of border desks and larger queues post-brexit. St Pancras really does not. Having caught Eurostar a couple of time last year, the St. Pancras experience was horrible. They barely have enough capacity to handle their current loading, yet alone thinking about increasing them. And this chimes with statements from their CEO about how the only way they'll return to profitability is to raise their ticket prices rather than increase the number of trains.

 

[43066]

Yes, but airlines operate out of vast airports in the middle of nowhere have space for the larger number of border desks and larger queues post-brexit. St Pancras really does not. Having caught Eurostar a couple of time last year, the St. Pancras experience was horrible. They barely have enough capacity to handle their current loading, yet alone thinking about increasing them. And this chimes with statements from their CEO about how the only way they'll return to profitability is to raise their ticket prices rather than increase the number of trains.

To be fair I haven’t used it since Brexit. I will also concede that St Pancras visibly struggles with the numbers of Eurostar passengers using it at times.

Oh well, they will just have to adapt! Or, as you say, raise their prices.

 

[Trainbike46]

If Brexit has affected Eurostar it follows that it will also have affected its competition. I’d also suggest ferries are not competition for Eurostar, and cater a completely different market from an (expensive) direct railway connection from central London to central Paris.

I don’t think increased border checks were ever a motivation for Brexit, per se?

From what I can see, for quite a lot of people the desire to separate the UK from europe, and particularly to reduce the number of migrants - while maybe not the first thing people think of, border checks are an important part of that.

But of course there are lots of different reasons why people voted for brexit. One thing that is certain is that, with the type of brexit our government went for, that an increase in border formalities was inevitable

For airports, hightomas covers the different effects well. Airports tend to have the space required for the extra border checks. St Pancras doesn't (yet)


I think the St Pancras experience has improved a bit now covid is less of a factor. I was travelling on the last day France was letting in people before Christmas, and it was madness. At least now, while the queues are still bad, they are managable and managed reasonably well in my experience.

With regards to ferries, while there are definitely flows where Eurostar competes. An example would be Newcastle-Amsterdam, where believe it or not, before covid LNER+Eurostar beat the ferry (foot passenger) both on time and on price, and I suspect that is no longer true

 

[Meerkat]

Clearly Mondays and Fridays are now a dead horse as far as traditional commuting is concerned. The emphasis should now be on achieving these day's leisure potential.

I’d wait until it all shakes out.
At some point employers are going to want to reduce their office space and that will involve a forced spreading out of the WFH.

 

[Bald Rick]

Clearly Mondays and Fridays are now a dead horse as far as traditional commuting is concerned. The emphasis should now be on achieving these day's leisure potential.

Mondays are anything but a dead horse. Monday revenue is on average only a couple of % down compared to Tuesday - Thursday.

Friday commuting is down a lot, but then it always was down about 20-25% compared to the rest of the week Pre Covid. However, Friday pm leisure traffic is very strong. So the only ‘problem’ time is Friday mornings.

 

[mrmartin]

To be fair I haven’t used it since Brexit. I will also concede that St Pancras visibly struggles with the numbers of Eurostar passengers using it at times.

Oh well, they will just have to adapt! Or, as you say, raise their prices.

Sort of stupid how constrained the space is given the money spent refurbing st pancras. Even without brexit it would have been a constraint to more services (especially by DB etc). It was never particularly great pre brexit either.

You'd hope someone would see sense and remove the security from it, that would open up a bit space. Totally mad that a person is scanned but you can take a lorry/van through with no problems!

 

[OneOfThe48]

Sort of stupid how constrained the space is given the money spent refurbing st pancras. Even without brexit it would have been a constraint to more services (especially by DB etc). It was never particularly great pre brexit either.

You'd hope someone would see sense and remove the security from it, that would open up a bit space. Totally mad that a person is scanned but you can take a lorry/van through with no problems!

Exactly, if the Govt let them get rid of the pointless bag security checks, they would have more room for passport control, which is the main bottleneck at the moment.

 

[Trainbike46]

Sort of stupid how constrained the space is given the money spent refurbing st pancras. Even without brexit it would have been a constraint to more services (especially by DB etc). It was never particularly great pre brexit either.

You'd hope someone would see sense and remove the security from it, that would open up a bit space. Totally mad that a person is scanned but you can take a lorry/van through with no problems!

To keep on topic, I replied to the Eurostar post here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/eurostar-running-trains-with-empty-seats.242456/

 

[Facing Back]

One was an eTicket and had a scan on it despite the passenger having boarded at the origin point with no barriers. Passenger confessed to having used it a week before.

The other was a credit card-sized ticket. There was evidence of it having been marked in pen, and the background print around the mark faded as if he'd had a go at it with an eraser. Even if the pen wasn't evidence of use (maybe his grandchildren had been let loose on them) the ticket was now defaced and hence invalid.

Thanks.

The cardboard ticket I can understand, but using an eticket after it has been scanned sounds like a fairly obvious thing not to do...

 

[Meerkat]

Thanks.

The cardboard ticket I can understand, but using an eticket after it has been scanned sounds like a fairly obvious thing not to do...

Depends whether you realise that the scan is recorded, rather than just being ‘is this ticket a good’un?’
Until word gets out that people are getting nicked for it people will keep trying.

 

[Facing Back]

Depends whether you realise that the scan is recorded, rather than just being ‘is this ticket a good’un?’
Until word gets out that people are getting nicked for it people will keep trying.

Thinking about, I'm sure you are right. It never occured to me that people wouldn't assume that scans were recorded.

 

[Meerkat]

Thinking about, I'm sure you are right. It never occured to me that people wouldn't assume that scans were recorded.

TBH it surprised me that it was recorded (in a ‘oh yeah, I suppose it must be…’ way), but then I had never really thought about it (as I haven’t been considering using one more than once!)
I wonder how many people‘s first thought even considers that the scan is connected to the system, rather than being the hand held device doing what a guard does - check route, date, etc

 

[Facing Back]

TBH it surprised me that it was recorded (in a ‘oh yeah, I suppose it must be…’ way), but then I had never really thought about it (as I haven’t been considering using one more than once!)
I wonder how many people‘s first thought even considers that the scan is connected to the system, rather than being the hand held device doing what a guard does - check route, date, etc

I do a lot of work in IT. It never really occurred to me that it wouldn't be "connected to the system", recorded, analysed, mined - I hadn't really thought about it either. - funny how we all make different assumptions

 

[dk1]

This is not correct. Anytime / Peak tickets were about 10% down at best. Off peak is about the same, and advance has increased (a fraction).

I was referring to pre-pandemic when season ticket sales were falling quite sharply.

 

[yorksrob]

I’d wait until it all shakes out.
At some point employers are going to want to reduce their office space and that will involve a forced spreading out of the WFH.

I suppose there are mixed messages as to what employers want from returning employees. My suspicion is that most will have developed their policy/sold off any relevant assets by now (mine seems to have).

Mondays are anything but a dead horse. Monday revenue is on average only a couple of % down compared to Tuesday - Thursday.

Friday commuting is down a lot, but then it always was down about 20-25% compared to the rest of the week Pre Covid. However, Friday pm leisure traffic is very strong. So the only ‘problem’ time is Friday mornings.

Interesting, so Monday is now not far off from mid week.

It seems clear in that case that Friday is the big opportunity to grow leisure/longer distance travel.

 

[Snow1964]

The Ministers speech in Newcastle is now available, there is a reference to LNER as fastest recovering operator

Here in the North-East, we’re also delivering a better railway with services on the East Coast Mainline bouncing back after the pandemic, with LNER the fastest recovering operator over the last 18 months. We’ll soon roll out single-leg pricing for tickets across the LNER network, giving passengers more flexibility in how they travel.

Transforming transport in the North

Our plans to increase transport connectivity and devolve more power to the North.

www.gov.uk

 

[Bald Rick]

I was referring to pre-pandemic when season ticket sales were falling quite sharply.

Ah, sorry, I didn’t realise that.

Part of the Pre pandemic change to seasons was theoretical; it was always assumed that seasons were used 10/10.5 times a week, but in reality the average was about 9. When Londoners started switching to contactless, this had the double whammy of reducing season ticket sales and passenger numbers, as the real figures started to displace theoretical figures. But the trains didn’t get any less busy!

The assumptions on season tickets were therefore changed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Mar 2023 ==

Interesting, so Monday is now not far off from mid week.

It’s a bit of a railway myth that Mondays were down. Since passengers came back they have always been within a few % of the Tu-Th average.