McNulty: Train services should be axed to bring down cost of railways

IanXC · 23 Jun 2012

HSTEd said:
How do you propose to solve this problem? Eviscerate the cross country network and have only East Coast running north of York on the ECML?

tbtc said:
Before Operation Princess there were only three XC services a day north of Newcastle - East Coast (GNER etc) dealt with those passengers.

I think the best resolution to the duplication north of York would be to send the Newcastle terminating XC services to Middlesbrough, and return XC frequencies to Scotland to something closer to previous levels. I'd then propose that more EC services operate north of Edinburgh - perhaps utilising a larger IEP order. This would (essentially) remove an operator from the northern ECML and Scotland, reducing conflict and duplification.

HSTEd said:
As the state would be taking on income streams that would by definition be able to cover the interest on the gilts issued to purchase the trains it should have no effect whatsoever on the confidence of the markets in the country's ability to service its debt.

Given that gilt prices for suitable maturities for such a project are currently negative on an inflation adjusted basis, if the state is going to once again become owner of rolling stock now is the time!

LE Greys said:
One company-one route, which worked fine up until 1948. You would still have plenty of competition, especially where routes cross each other. It would mean splitting Northern into three for example, and there is the question of what to do about XC.

I think there is a lot of merit in reducing the number of franchises further. It'll be interesting to see how the SWT-Network Rail partnership pilot goes, if successful I can see a strong case to move the franchise map to match the Network Rail route map (as shown here: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/711.aspx).

HSTEd said:
This is before we get into the fact that the Cl220 is able to take MU and HST differentials and would be able to run to Hull without much trouble, thus allowing for a more efficient uniform fleet with no Turbostars in sight.

Hull isn't a problem as such for the Cl185s, its just that given the addition of the Scottish routes TPE received Cl170s to bolster the fleet. Given that they are maintained at Crofton, and the opportunity to use the MU limits available on the Hull route it made most sense for them to be allocated there. There continue to be Cl185 diagrams to Hull.

Paul Sidorczuk said:
Are you saying that the Class 220 units were able to be offered at the time of allocation, in lieu of the Class 185 units ? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Arriva's bid for the TPE franchise included Voyager style "long distance" stock, rather than the Desiro "regional express" stock which we got via First.

RailUK Forums

Schnellzug · 23 Jun 2012

David said:
It's a start, but not enough. Ideally, I would have just 8 franchises.

1. Southern - Basically SWT, Southern and South East Trains with Thameslink service to/from Bedford, plus Gatwick Express if it is actually a seperate TOC.

2. Anglian - Greater Anglia and C2C

3. Scotrail - As it is now

4. Greater Western - As it is now, but with the inclusion of the Chiltern routes from Marylebone.

5. WCML - The current Virgin franchise, plus LM and local services around Birmingham and the North West. The Manchester - Sheffield local services would be placed in this franchise instead of the ECML franchise.

6. ECML - East Coast and MML, plus local services in the East Midlands, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and the North East, plus TPE services. I would possibly add the Liverpool - Norwich services to this as well.

7. Wales - Again, as it is now.

8. XC - Basically as it is now, but to be operated as a combined "sub franchise" by the ECML, WCML and Greater Western franchises.

My reasons for this are:

Less duplication of backroom roles (TOC control centers, etc)

A less confusing ticketing structure. While there will still be some complexity, some will be stripped out, such as TOC specific fares.

More coordinated timetables and better utilisation of stock. IE using trains where they are needed instead of using it to compete with other TOCs

While there will be a reduction in backroom staff, as there will be a huge reduction in administration needs, the affected staff can then be retrained and redeployed in customer facing roles, such as on train staff or ticket office clerks for example.

Overall staff costs will remain roughly the same, but with the intgrated timetables and better utilisation of stock, running costs will fall slightly, plus with more staff in customer facing roles and on revenue duties, income will rise, plus passenger satisfaction will rise as well.

It's an interesting suggestion, although it would seem once again to relegate CrossCountry to a poor cousin once again, if it was left to a committee of three or four companies to look after. And the trouble with

WCML - The current Virgin franchise, plus LM and local services around Birmingham and the North West

would surely be that would Virgin, who are all about Speed and Glamour, be interested in local services to Walsall or Redditch? Similarly, it would seem a shame to lose one of the more innovative companies (Chiltern) by merging it into GW. And if SWT was merged with Southern and SE, what direction would standards go in then?

Zoe · 23 Jun 2012

Schnellzug said:
Why should that be a problem if it was the private sector that bought them? Why should rolling stock be procured with public money? That's the whole problem, isn't it; because the Government insists of choosing everything and controlling everything. Let long distance operators buy their own, of their own choice.

It wasn't exactly a resounding success in the early days when OPRAF let the TOCs have more freedom over stock. Virgin Cross Country for example.

LE Greys · 23 Jun 2012

Schnellzug said:
It's an interesting suggestion, although it would seem once again to relegate CrossCountry to a poor cousin once again, if it was left to a committee of three or four companies to look after. And the trouble with would surely be that would Virgin, who are all about Speed and Glamour, be interested in local services to Walsall or Redditch? Similarly, it would seem a shame to lose one of the more innovative companies (Chiltern) by merging it into GW. And if SWT was merged with Southern and SE, what direction would standards go in then?

With the first, it would give Virgin or their successor control over the lines that feed their main lines, allowing them to compete with EMT (or just the Midland, since we would effectively recreate the LNWR) much more effectively. It also opens the possibility of using some of the paths freed by HS2 (which really is about speed and glamour) for something other than just more local trans to Birmingham, such as links from London to Shrewsbury and Leeds via Manchester. Similarly, the Midland could run 'Project Rio'-style services, to compete on price, at least until HS2b opens.

With the other two, I agree. Ideally, Chiltern would be able to extend right through Birmingham to Wolverhampton Low Level, but there's the small matter of Midland Metro being in the way. I'd also prefer to see some edge-competition on the Southern, for example around Portsmouth and by giving Southern a direct link to Reading (taking over from FGW, even though that was once an SER line).
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Zoe said:
It wasn't exactly a resounding success in the early days when OPRAF let the TOCs have more freedom over stock. Virgin Cross Country for example.

And who stopped Virgin from spending their own money to make their trains longer when they realised they had not allowed for growth?

Schnellzug · 23 Jun 2012

Zoe said:
It wasn't exactly a resounding success in the early days when OPRAF let the TOCs have more freedom over stock. Virgin Cross Country for example.

And if they'd had to face the commercial consequences, rather than being protected by all manner of acronymic government bodies, they'd have soon realised that they ought to do something to increase capacity, rather than just leaving it for their successor to inherit the problem.

Zoe · 23 Jun 2012

Schnellzug said:
And if they'd had to face the commercial consequences, rather than being protected by all manner of acronymic government bodies, they'd have soon realised that they ought to do something to increase capacity, rather than just leaving it for their successor to inherit the problem.

Would they really have done anything though if they'd had to pay for them to be extended themselves? Wouldn't they make more money by just having packed trains and saving on the cost of extending them?
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LE Greys said:
And who stopped Virgin from spending their own money to make their trains longer when they realised they had not allowed for growth?

I believe the Cross Country franchise relied on subsidy throughout the term and considering this was for the cost of operating the service, I doubt the SRA would have wanted it used to extend the trains.

HSTEd · 23 Jun 2012

Schnellzug said:
So replace HSTs with Turbostars? Where, would you envisage these hypothetical not-exactly-super-but-slightly-faster Turbostars running? All the way from Paddington to Penzance? Or would you insist that everyone have to change at Plymouth? That, then, would really improve the service for the customer in pursuit of this great ideal of cutting Costs, wouldn't it.

There are no speed limits higher than 110mph west of Reading going via the Berks and Hants, so they should be able to keep close to the existing timings while having lower maintenance costs and track access charges.

tbtc · 23 Jun 2012

IanXC said:
I think the best resolution to the duplication north of York would be to send the Newcastle terminating XC services to Middlesbrough, and return XC frequencies to Scotland to something closer to previous levels. I'd then propose that more EC services operate north of Edinburgh - perhaps utilising a larger IEP order. This would (essentially) remove an operator from the northern ECML and Scotland, reducing conflict and duplification.

That would make sense - at the moment we have lots of different TOCs competing for passengers on the York - Newcastle line rather than co-ordinating fewer longer services.

IF we want to reduce costs then I'd look here.

Same with the WCML. LM want a slice of the Birmingham - London market so their Northampton - Birmingham trains are all ones that come from Euston. Instead of trying to compete with Virgin, one of the Northampton - Birmingham services could be an extension of the South Croydon - Milton Keynes service, opening up different links (from south/west London to the West Midlands).

Same with TPE and Northern competing for the Manchester Airport "pie" - you end up with lots of services duplicating each other.

gordonthemoron · 23 Jun 2012

it would ofcourse help if McNumpty actually understood the structure British and foreign railway operations as it's quite clear that he hasn't got a a clue

Zoe · 23 Jun 2012

HSTEd said:
There are no speed limits higher than 110mph west of Reading going via the Berks and Hants, so they should be able to keep close to the existing timings while having lower maintenance costs and track access charges.

Maybe they wouldn't need to run all the way from Paddington though. Electifying to Exeter but not Plymouth has been suggested a few times on here and although I am not of the opinion that this would be a good idea, you could end the intercity network at Exeter and use 90 mph turbos from Exeter to Penzance. The only section where they would not be able to run at full line speed would be between Exeter and Exminster but improved acceleration could help negate any time penalty. As I say, I don't think it's a great idea but it could be done.

NXEA! · 23 Jun 2012

I think its ludicrous that McNulty is urging the railways to reduce costs yet we have the moronic IEP proposal which costs £20,000 per vehicle per year more to lease than a proposed Alstom 180 bodyshell EMU vehicle with Pendolino electrical gear. If the government is that hell-bent on saving money, maybe axing IEP and ordering the far cheaper Alstom alternative and saving the £258 million in gauge clearance costs, as well cheaper running costs due to no underfloor diesel engines and not using diesel, not to mention the cheaper track access charges and the money saved by not purchasing the diesel engines in the first place, as well as cheaper maintenance costs over the lifetime of each unit would be a good idea instead of cutting staff and services. Using that money you could electrify to Swansea, Newport via Cheltenham, extend the wires to Taunton also I suspect and maybe even the Cotswolds if it was done efficiently which would attract more passengers and maximise revenue. There is a constructive way to run the railways by encouraging growth instead of cutting back and cutting back and running things into the ground.

Also the proposed TPE and Northern franchise merge is silly as well. As far as I'm aware TPE is actually making a profit, and so by merging the two you're saddling money-making routes with the rest of a franchise which relies on subsidy. Maybe chop and change the routes served by the respective TOC's, but please if you are listening DfT, do not merge them together. The two franchises work well as they are now however Manchester-Scotland should be given back to Virgin or the future WC operator, but you get the point I'm making.

In addition to this, we have now the ludicrous situations where Virgin Trains 221's run some Birmingham-Scotland services completely under the wires and from Euston-Chester for the vast majority of the way, as well as DRS, DBS and Freightliner freights staggering up Shap and Beattock behind class 66's day in day out. If the DfT and respective TOC's and FOC's were to take a constructive and well thought out approach to maximising the use of OHLE and not running more expensive Diesel trains under the wires and we still had the same inefficiency and loss-making prevalent I may be more sympathetic to McNulty and co's cries for increased efficiency, but when you have such situations and the people up top are calling for branch line cuts and justifying expensive bi-mode multiple units it really doesn't make sense at all. :-x

IanXC · 23 Jun 2012

NXEA! said:
Also the proposed TPE and Northern franchise merge is silly as well. As far as I'm aware TPE is actually making a profit, and so by merging the two you're saddling money-making routes with the rest of a franchise which relies on subsidy. Maybe chop and change the routes served by the respective TOC's, but please if you are listening DfT, do not merge them together. The two franchises work well as they are now however Manchester-Scotland should be given back to Virgin or the future WC operator, but you get the point I'm making.

Northern have also made a "profit" for several years (see http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/busi...rail-puts-profits-up-by-34-per-cent-1-4114849), inverted commas because its only after receiving a subsidy.

I seem to recall that TPE's per mile subsidy is greater than Northern's?

Schnellzug · 23 Jun 2012

HSTEd said:
There are no speed limits higher than 110mph west of Reading going via the Berks and Hants, so they should be able to keep close to the existing timings while having lower maintenance costs and track access charges.

But comfort doesn't come into it, then (considering how long Paddington-Penzance is), everything must be made as Cheap as possible.

Isn't it funny how people never learn from the lessons of history.
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Zoe said:
Maybe they wouldn't need to run all the way from Paddington though. Electifying to Exeter but not Plymouth has been suggested a few times on here and although I am not of the opinion that this would be a good idea, you could end the intercity network at Exeter and use 90 mph turbos from Exeter to Penzance. The only section where they would not be able to run at full line speed would be between Exeter and Exminster but improved acceleration could help negate any time penalty. As I say, I don't think it's a great idea but it could be done.

An even worse idea that'd be; forcing everyone for Plymouth (a small and unimportant traffic centre) to change into a suburban DMU; not to mention that Penzance is a good three hours from Exeter.

sprinterguy · 23 Jun 2012

NXEA! said:
Also the proposed TPE and Northern franchise merge is silly as well. As far as I'm aware TPE is actually making a profit, and so by merging the two you're saddling money-making routes with the rest of a franchise which relies on subsidy. Maybe chop and change the routes served by the respective TOC's, but please if you are listening DfT, do not merge them together. The two franchises work well as they are now however Manchester-Scotland should be given back to Virgin or the future WC operator, but you get the point I'm making.

In which case it makes very good sense to me: Incorporating the more profitable inter-regional TPE services into the Northern franchise should therefore improve the financial profile of the whole franchise. Plus, if the form of the Transpennine Express franchise is given a shake up in the future in line with the Transpennine North electrification, so that perhaps TPE South services would be transferred to EMT as they would remain diesel operated and the Manchester - Scotland services would be transferred to the West Coast franchise as you suggest, then TPE North on it's own only constitutes a very small operation.

Not that I'm against the present arrangement at all: I feel that it is beneficial that the longer distance routes in the Northern area are given a preferential treatment and that they are the sole focus for the operator rather than being combined and potentially becoming lost in the sprawl of the wider Northern franchise.

HSTEd · 23 Jun 2012

Schnellzug said:
But comfort doesn't come into it, then (considering how long Paddington-Penzance is), everything must be made as Cheap as possible.

A Turbostar style DMU is not really significantly less comfortable than a HST.... and a eight carriage unit capable of SP differentials will have drastically lower running costs and track access charges, it would also have a shorter journey time on the low speed sections west of Plymouth.

The problem with draughts is entirely subjective and doesn't matter when for a large part of the journey the doors would stay closed.

Also to attack another sacred cow.... five carriage 110mph 'Express' Turbostars on the Chiltern route in place of the Loco hauled sets... it appears that the track access charges would be drastically reduced before we even consider fuel costs....

pemma · 23 Jun 2012

sprinterguy said:
Incorporating the more profitable inter-regional TPE services into the Northern franchise should therefore improve the financial profile of the whole franchise.

At present TPE's operating costs are very high so their finances aren't as good as the passenger numbers would make you believe. Switch the 185s for Turbostars and it would be a different story.
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IanXC said:
Northern have also made a "profit" for several years (see http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/busi...rail-puts-profits-up-by-34-per-cent-1-4114849), inverted commas because its only after receiving a subsidy.

The subsidy has been cut as a result of the finances exceeding expectations. The money released has then been indirectly used against the FGW and SWT finances not meeting expectations and the premiums paid by the operator being cut as a result.

I seem to recall that TPE's per mile subsidy is greater than Northern's?

It is down to them using the 185s.

Zoe · 23 Jun 2012

Schnellzug said:
An even worse idea that'd be; forcing everyone for Plymouth (a small and unimportant traffic centre) to change into a suburban DMU; not to mention that Penzance is a good three hours from Exeter.

If Plymouth is indeed small and unimportant then shouldn't a DMU service from Exeter be all that is needed?

HSTEd · 23 Jun 2012

jcollins said:
At present TPE's operating costs are very high so their finances aren't as good as the passenger numbers would make you believe. Switch the 185s for Turbostars and it would be a different story.

More 110mph re-geared Cl172s then.
Send the Class 185s to sit in sidings somewhere like all other non-standard DMUs like Cl175s.

ivanhoe · 23 Jun 2012

Why are 185's so expensive to run?

HSTEd · 23 Jun 2012

ivanhoe said:
Why are 185's so expensive to run?

They are solid blocks of metal on wheels.
They are so overweight its not even funny.

ivanhoe · 23 Jun 2012

Why were they procured in the first place then? Surely there must have been a reason?

HSTEd · 23 Jun 2012

ivanhoe said:
Why were they procured in the first place then? Surely there must have been a reason?

Because First won the TransPennine Express bid and ordered them.

TheWalrus · 23 Jun 2012

142094 said:
John55 said:

IMO the railways should be run on a commercial basis, but all revenue ploughed back into services. Unlike the current system where taxpayers take a hit twice through the fare box and subsidies, yet the TOCs are able to take a decent slice of the action as profit.

Click to expand...

Agree totally.
However I would like to see competition on the busiest sections to give lower fares which everyone seems to want.

Cliveblackpool · 23 Jun 2012

Zoe said:
If Plymouth is indeed small and unimportant then shouldn't a DMU service from Exeter be all that is needed?

Imo the whole route to Penzance should be electrified. Yes, expensive, but everything West of the scheme would be put at a serious disadvantage, with losing through trains. Plymouth is a huge city, and there is potential for a serious increase in business with improved services. The Dawlish bypass also needs be put on their list.

sprinterguy · 23 Jun 2012

HSTEd said:
More 110mph re-geared Cl172s then.
Send the Class 185s to sit in sidings somewhere like all other non-standard DMUs like Cl175s.

Restricted in fleet size they might be, but I think that withdrawing two of the best modern regional train designs and consigning them to sidings after ten or less years of service is a bit of a drastic step. Replacing 175s with 172s on Welsh inter-regional services would most certainly be a retrograde step.

starrymarkb · 23 Jun 2012

ivanhoe said:
Why were they procured in the first place then? Surely there must have been a reason?

Siemens stock is pretty weighty anyway. But when other option that complied with the spec was a twin engined Turbostar (which is going to be just as heavy and thirsty and much more complex!)

tbtc · 23 Jun 2012

Turbostars seem to cope okay with Lickey Incline etc, I'm still unconvinced that only a heavy 185 could deal with the Pennine routes (which 158s managed perfectly well before).

jones_bangor · 23 Jun 2012

HSTEd said:
More 110mph re-geared Cl172s then.
Send the Class 185s to sit in sidings somewhere like all other non-standard DMUs like Cl175s.

What have you got against 175s?

martinsh · 23 Jun 2012

tbtc said:
Turbostars seem to cope okay with Lickey Incline etc, I'm still unconvinced that only a heavy 185 could deal with the Pennine routes (which 158s managed perfectly well before).

Turbostars are not noted for their acceleration at the best of times - which is what is needed on the TPE "core" section Manchester - Leeds. Have you sampled a class 170 on that route ? Absolutely dire !

David · 23 Jun 2012

martinsh said:
Turbostars are not noted for their acceleration at the best of times - which is what is needed on the TPE "core" section Manchester - Leeds. Have you sampled a class 170 on that route ? Absolutely dire !

It's even worse on the South route. Between Totley East Jn and Cowburn tunnel, they can only just about manage to reach the normal line speed. I've never been on a 170 yet heading towards Manchester that has reached the MU differential speeds along the Hope Valley.

They are almost as bad between Swinton and Sheffield where there is a HST differential. Guess what they struggle to reach?

McNulty: Train services should be axed to bring down cost of railways

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