The problem is that GBR could use paths more effectively with a single planned timetable. Having other services in the mix prevents a single unified timetable structure.
That clearly depends on the track access charges. If they were charged their true share of the replacement cost of the infrastructure and a premium on top, there would be no chance of them making money.
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The decision to run additional train services or not depends on the marginal cost. Therefore they should be charged only the marginal cost of using the infrastructure, not the capital cost.
I am a fan of Lumo since it operates using a low-cost business model. The purpose of train travel for most passengers is only to get from A to B, and nothing else. Anything more than that is an unnecessary cost.
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"But there’s a threat: privatisation by the back door" on the We Own It website. Is this fair comment (the style is a bit tabloidy)?
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The Alliance Rail (Southern) application to run an hourly train service between Marchwood and Southampton Central for which Alliance Rail (Southern) will fund the infrastructure and trains is clearly dependent on running a service every two hours between Southampton Central and London Waterloo but I have to support this open access application because the Government refused to fund the Restoring Your Railway application for a Southampton-Totton-Marchwood-Hythe passenger train service. The open access application is therefore the only way to reopen the Waterside Line to passenger train services.
Agree here - abstraction funded infrastructure should be supported.
I want open access passenger train services and new applications to continue but I am very concerned that the current rate at which applications are being submitted will spook the Government into making the criteria to approve new open access passenger train services a lot more restrictive in the legislation for Great British Railways.To be honest I don't think they are trying to undermine anything, I would question whether FirstGroup are that competent
More likely they just want to keep their profitable finger in the pie - and so far Lumo has done quite well for them on the background of the fact that the main criticism of the railway is the price.
If this were true, all trains would be like the Seoul Metro. No seating, no toilets, nor indeed anything beyond bare floor space. There would certainly be no second member of staff or any catering availability on any trains. That would cost vastly less for London to Edinburgh than any of the current options, including by air or coach, and be perfectly lawful and safe. I do have to wonder how many people would travel on it though!
Having too many passengers and too much freight seeking to use the railway should never be considered a "problem"!
It would be far cheaper for the government to simply purchase Lumo, Hull Trains or Grand Central on the open market, and use new longer trains on their rights, than it would to actually build the infrastructure necessary to be able to run more long-distance services to and from London Kings Cross.
LNER has an order for 10 trains from CAF, which are only 230M, they could modify the order to be 12 coach trains, to function as crowdbusters on the busiest services.
As long as those same standards apply to the
Agree - GBR should be maximising train lengths whenever possible, to maximise the passenger carrying capacity of the railway. However this should not be required when a line is not at capacity. However if capacity is being used as an argument to deny OA applications or other service improvements, it is imperative that capacity is well used by both GBR, freight and OA. This includes performance standards for freight paths in some areas.
It includes performance across the piece. Its all fine when it does work, but chucking more trains in that "fit" doesn't mean its going to carry on like that with a minor delay that takes several hours to recover from.
The problem is, ultimately, that it is possible for the route to cost the GBR a substantial amount of money whilst still being profitable for a private operator.
The problem over the last year is that the ORR decision making process has ground to a halt because of the very large number of applications for train paths. The problem has been too many applications for paths not too many passengers or too much freight. It would help if the ORR could finally bring this gridlock in the decision making process to an end by making decisions without further delay on all these applications.
They could and I would argue should, but Network Rail have never taken the lead which is necessary to make it happen.
I suppose one solution for Grand Central could be to operate all services as double sets between London and Doncaster, where they split/join for services to/from Sunderland and Bradford. This would mean rewriting their timetables and adding a Doncaster stop to Sunderland services though.
