With most of the Virgin West Coast services they are very lucrative routes for Virgin but a lot of passengers using them rely on London Underground and commuter services around the likes of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Preston to connect to and from the Virgin West Coast services. I think this is common with Intercity routes, they're very lucrative but without connecting services (which may or may be lucrative) that wouldn't be the case. Is this something people generally agree with or disagree with?
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Do lucrative routes rely on other routes?
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Short answer: yes. This is the economics of a network, and it's why (to a certain limit, clearly) unprofitable branchlines require funding/subsidy/support.
The assumption of the Beeching Report(s) was that people would happily accept bus connections or drive to stations instead. However what was revealed was that people perfer to enter the singular network and travel within that instead.
The point being that a network needs to maintain a certain optimal size to have maximal use and economic return.
The assumption of the Beeching Report(s) was that people would happily accept bus connections or drive to stations instead. However what was revealed was that people perfer to enter the singular network and travel within that instead.
The point being that a network needs to maintain a certain optimal size to have maximal use and economic return.
This is why the notion of railway companies competing with each other (except in limited cases) is such a non starter.
Just as Virgin will carry passengers who are brought to and from their services by the likes of Northern, TPE, ATW and LM, so will East Coast, and FGW rely on other TOC's on connectional services.
Obviously, it's not just the TOC's on flagship routes, either. I have used ATW to connect with Northern and TPE services.
The rail system is a network, and it's in competition with other modes of transport, not itself!
Just as Virgin will carry passengers who are brought to and from their services by the likes of Northern, TPE, ATW and LM, so will East Coast, and FGW rely on other TOC's on connectional services.
Obviously, it's not just the TOC's on flagship routes, either. I have used ATW to connect with Northern and TPE services.
The rail system is a network, and it's in competition with other modes of transport, not itself!
In the case of journeys like Altrincham/Knutsford/Buxton to London people seem to prefer to travel all the way on the train via Stockport rather than travelling a shorter distance to Wilmslow/Macclesfield by bus and catching a direct London train from there.
Western Lord
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Yes, all lines to a greater or lesser degree are interdependent. This is one of the major problems with HS2, with it's separate stations. If it supposed to be a capacity enhancer (which is the currently preferred raison d'etre) it should be linked to the existing network in the same way that many TGV routes are.
telstarbox
Established Member
Possibly because the times and fares for trains are all available in one place (NRE / TheTrainLine etc) which are better publicised than Transport Direct. Also, if you miss the last bus home there's no obligation on the operator to get you home.
Agreed on those points. Plus:
1. On an outbound Advance ticket Virgin don't have to accept it because of a delayed bus but do if there's a delayed connecting train.
2. It's normally cheaper to use the train all the way.
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dvboy
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£1 in the swear box please.
Leylandlad
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The Withered Arm principle
Something Serpell just never understood. (Swear box again....)
Cut out the branch lines and the main lines loose traffic to the extent they too become loss makers. Which is why we have a railway network...
Be interesting to see the exact figures though...just don't tell the Accountants :roll:
deltic
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while network connections are important they should not be exaggerated, the vast majority of passengers do not make connecting rail journeys (putting aside London and connections to and from the Underground) - I cant find the figures now but seem to recall on London to Manchester flow around 20% of passengers connect to and from rail/metrolink at Manchester Piccadilly and broadly the same numbers for London to Leeds.
On some Manchester-London services the number boarding at Stockport is higher than the number boarding at Piccadilly and I'm sure Stockport must have a much higher number proportion of passengers making connections than at Piccadilly.
What also should be noted is someone travelling from London to somewhere like MediaCity is able to buy a through ticket, while someone making the reverse journey isn't able to, so does your 'roughly 20% figure' take this in to account?
Also does it take in to account people who split tickets? E.g. for Buxton to London (boarding a Virgin service at Stockport) it can be cheaper to split at Stoke.
That may well be true when you look at termini, usually in major conurbations. But that may itself be because of lack of provision (chicken and egg, really). For instance, there is a whole hinterland in North Leeds (between the Pudsey line and the Garforth line) that has one poorly served line. Naturally, those travellers from London wishing to go there do not go on by train
LateThanNever
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Plus £5 booking charge surely?
I did a whole university study on this. What we found was that it was unrealistic to take a part of a "network" which relies on integration, and say that there were bits that were "profitable", and other bits that were not.
Given that it was in the aftermath of Beeching, we developed, much as it was never fashionable (and still isn't), a considerable regard for what Beeching, and in particular his Chief Economist Stewart Joy, wrote about all this. They tipped us off on several issues. One example was Edinburgh Waverley station, huge number of staff, expensive to run. Proposals to withdraw "loss making" services from there showed they were being hit with big costs from running the station, which would not really be obviated if the branch was withdrawn. Trouble was pretty much all the services there were like this, the only one "profitable" was the main ECML, and if you stuck that with all the costs of Waverley (and Newcastle, etc) that too would show a loss.
But the fact was that the network factor on costs (like this big station) were much more embedded than the revenue. I paid particular attention to what they said about Taunton, where the branches to Minehead and Barnstaple were down for closure. Feeders to the main line services? Well, actually, when you looked at the numbers, they weren't, certainly not enough to justify their costs. Nor were there local passengers either. The fact was that by the early 1960s the bulk of these branch trains did nothing more than convey fresh air - and by all accounts the Barnstaple line had mainly done that ever since it was built. Yes, there were one or two of the about eight services a day that maybe arrived with 50 passengers, or the Minehead in August, but they were overwhelmed by the majority that were just empty.
Given that it was in the aftermath of Beeching, we developed, much as it was never fashionable (and still isn't), a considerable regard for what Beeching, and in particular his Chief Economist Stewart Joy, wrote about all this. They tipped us off on several issues. One example was Edinburgh Waverley station, huge number of staff, expensive to run. Proposals to withdraw "loss making" services from there showed they were being hit with big costs from running the station, which would not really be obviated if the branch was withdrawn. Trouble was pretty much all the services there were like this, the only one "profitable" was the main ECML, and if you stuck that with all the costs of Waverley (and Newcastle, etc) that too would show a loss.
But the fact was that the network factor on costs (like this big station) were much more embedded than the revenue. I paid particular attention to what they said about Taunton, where the branches to Minehead and Barnstaple were down for closure. Feeders to the main line services? Well, actually, when you looked at the numbers, they weren't, certainly not enough to justify their costs. Nor were there local passengers either. The fact was that by the early 1960s the bulk of these branch trains did nothing more than convey fresh air - and by all accounts the Barnstaple line had mainly done that ever since it was built. Yes, there were one or two of the about eight services a day that maybe arrived with 50 passengers, or the Minehead in August, but they were overwhelmed by the majority that were just empty.
Going by your pseudonym, I assume you are local there. Do you think that at least Minehead line is a goer in this age? The reason I ask is because there would be uproar if the Exmouth or Barnstaple line to Exeter, for instance, was proposed for closure; indeed new stations are being opened. Also Okehampton is on the cusp of re-opening.
It would certainly be wrong to state that all branch lines effectively support mainlines, of course, and I think the above commentators are correct to identify that this will have significant variation based upon local industries, travel to works areas etc (especially from Taunton's very informative post).
Of course, none of these are inherent to an area: particularly good connections, for example, or a small number of attractive through trains, might well be enough to boost a branch line from inefficient to supportive of a mainline.
Of course, none of these are inherent to an area: particularly good connections, for example, or a small number of attractive through trains, might well be enough to boost a branch line from inefficient to supportive of a mainline.
20ish years ago I did an on train(s) survey for InterCity West Coast on the Anglo Scots. For nearly a month I was on Euston - Glasgow services morning noon and night, and travelled on every timetabled service SX, SO and SuO, checking the origin and departure point of everyone travelling the whole way Euston - Glasgow / Motherwell. Rather tiresome in the end.
Results were that fewer than 20% of tickets involved a rail journey beyond Euston and/or Glasgow (not including the tube).
Results were that fewer than 20% of tickets involved a rail journey beyond Euston and/or Glasgow (not including the tube).
One other aspect we identified in that study (I wonder if it's still in the university library, and indeed if anyone's read it since) was that the detailed location of the station to where people lived, worked and shopped, and to some extent arrived on local city buses, was far more significant than is often credited. Edinburgh Waverley succeeded brilliantly in this, we found.
Not so much anything touched by Brunel (I'm embarrassed to admit), who started off from Paddington with the worst located station in London and followed this pattern westwards. Bristol has to have the worst located major city station in the country. Even those station buildings down the Taunton to Barnstaple line were often the furthest building in the town/village from the centre (Taunton itself is tediously distant from the town centre), being provided it seems more for operational convenience. When buses came along they drove along the various High Streets and grabbed much of the local regular traffic, and then later people just drove along the same roads.
Bald Rick above is interesting, I've always found that not a lot of people continue from Glasgow by local rail, most dissipated (certainly in the days when there was a comprehensive city bus service at all hours) by bus. Liverpool, on the other hand, has always had a lot of feed from the local rail services to Wirral (in particular) and Southport. But don't just believe what the tickets say, because even in integrated BR days we Wirral (where I moved on to from Somerset) residents always bought fresh tickets for the local leg.
Not so much anything touched by Brunel (I'm embarrassed to admit), who started off from Paddington with the worst located station in London and followed this pattern westwards. Bristol has to have the worst located major city station in the country. Even those station buildings down the Taunton to Barnstaple line were often the furthest building in the town/village from the centre (Taunton itself is tediously distant from the town centre), being provided it seems more for operational convenience. When buses came along they drove along the various High Streets and grabbed much of the local regular traffic, and then later people just drove along the same roads.
Bald Rick above is interesting, I've always found that not a lot of people continue from Glasgow by local rail, most dissipated (certainly in the days when there was a comprehensive city bus service at all hours) by bus. Liverpool, on the other hand, has always had a lot of feed from the local rail services to Wirral (in particular) and Southport. But don't just believe what the tickets say, because even in integrated BR days we Wirral (where I moved on to from Somerset) residents always bought fresh tickets for the local leg.
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tbtc
Veteran Member
Impossible to say with much certainty, other than we know that enthusiasts will want to justify (unprofitable) branches as being essential to maintain (profitable) main lines, which will skew a lot of the anecdotal 'evidence' being brought up.
There's certainly been a trend towards certain main line stations becoming "railheads" for the surrounding area, rather than people relying on irregular/ infrequent "branches" - e.g. people from Lincolnshire drive to Newark Northgate in relatively large numbers rather than relying on the awkward EMT connections on a 153. But then this gets turned into an argument for *more* services on "branchlines"... (e.g. if 80% of people from London arriving at Manchester Piccadilly aren't taking a train/tram beyond Pic then does that make a case for more/improved/new through trains to local populations beyond central Manchester, or does that mean that we should focus on the 80% instead of obsessing with the minority?).
I'm guessing that the people behind HS2 have access to the accurate ticketing information (LENNON and whatnot), and they are basing their business model on "city to city" traffic, rather than connecting with every branch.
One question not raised (yet) on this thread is about the fare allocation of the "ticket box" between the "branch" and "mainline". For example, if I spend a nice round £100 on a return from Darnall (local station in Sheffield) to London then does Northern Rail (who run Darnall services) get a fair share of that £100? If you share the ticket revenue based on distance then it may get about fifty pence (of the £100) - is that what it actually gets? Should it get a larger share? Should we split the revenue differently between the two trains you'd take in such an example, so that the "branch" gets a bigger slice? (genuine question - I don't know)
There's certainly been a trend towards certain main line stations becoming "railheads" for the surrounding area, rather than people relying on irregular/ infrequent "branches" - e.g. people from Lincolnshire drive to Newark Northgate in relatively large numbers rather than relying on the awkward EMT connections on a 153. But then this gets turned into an argument for *more* services on "branchlines"... (e.g. if 80% of people from London arriving at Manchester Piccadilly aren't taking a train/tram beyond Pic then does that make a case for more/improved/new through trains to local populations beyond central Manchester, or does that mean that we should focus on the 80% instead of obsessing with the minority?).
I'm guessing that the people behind HS2 have access to the accurate ticketing information (LENNON and whatnot), and they are basing their business model on "city to city" traffic, rather than connecting with every branch.
One question not raised (yet) on this thread is about the fare allocation of the "ticket box" between the "branch" and "mainline". For example, if I spend a nice round £100 on a return from Darnall (local station in Sheffield) to London then does Northern Rail (who run Darnall services) get a fair share of that £100? If you share the ticket revenue based on distance then it may get about fifty pence (of the £100) - is that what it actually gets? Should it get a larger share? Should we split the revenue differently between the two trains you'd take in such an example, so that the "branch" gets a bigger slice? (genuine question - I don't know)
dcsprior
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I'd agree that the location of a station can indeed make the difference, and I think Edinburgh does indeed score well in this regard. The fact that I can get to Waverley on a bus in time for the 05:40 to Kings Cross every week is what tips it for me between rail/air (I'd have to take a £25 taxi to get to the airport early in the morning)
I reckon 90% of bus routes must pass Waverley - though I've just realised our wonderful new tram system won't quite (it won't exactly be far, but it may be enough to deter people travelling with luggage)
BR was probably right about the Taunton to Barnstaple line. It doesn‘t appear to serve anywhere particularly large along the way. Out of interest, did their chief economist have anything to say about Exeter - Barnstaple, which by all accounts carried a decent number of passengers but was still slated for closure ?
This whole issue of passenger numbers versus individual route profitability seems to be the key to judging the closure programme. Certainly, the worked examples in the report didn‘t pay much attention to their respective routes contributions to through journeys. Not much help for Taunton - Barnstaple perhaps, but certainly may have made a difference to more marginal routes such as York - Beverly via Market Weighton.
Beeching‘s findings, whatever their reliability, are sixty years old and probably not particularly relevant today.
Thinking of branchlines in Cornwall, for example, it‘s hard to imagine that the majority of people who entrain or detrain branch trains at Par or St Erth are going from or to those locations in particular, therefore it‘s reasonable to assume that a fair proportion of those travellers will be completing their journey by train.
With Leeds, the issues around parking in the City centre make it highly likely that a lot of people will have a journey to or from the hinterland by public transport. The convenience of West Yorkshire‘s local trains to InterCity travellers (as opposed to the bus services which are concentrated on a bus station a long way away) suggest that a lot of those onward travellers will use the train.
I agree absolutely that ticket data won‘t tell the whole story. I regularly travel by train between West Yorkshire and Kent and it has been years since I‘ve bought a through ticket for this journey. That doesn‘t mean it‘s not a through journey.
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What interesting about the closed branches or branches with practically no service is a lot of them have stations which aren't 1 change away from central London but most of the lines open with a regular service are 1 change away from London.
Could 20%+ less passenger numbers on Manchester-London or Birmingham-London have meant the recent increase in service frequencies wouldn't have gone ahead?
With HS2 I imagine they're also looking at how many internal flights are made to/from the London airports.
That's an interesting question and I'd add to that what happens about Advances?
I can get a £14 Knutsford-London Advance on selected services via Chester. An Off-Peak Day Single for Knutsford-Chester is £10.40, does that mean Virgin only make £3.60 off you or does it mean Northern get significantly less than £10.40 off a passenger travelling onwards to London? I suspect the latter.
I don't see how revenue can be shared based on distance, since distance based pricing was abolished almost fifty years ago, but I do believe that on a ticket such as Middlesbrough to Newquay, a very small amount of revenue gets allocated to the Par to Newquay section, certainly far less than a local fare between the two.
Interestingly, that line is probably a good example of one that doesn't generate a lot of local traffic, and relies on its main line connections for almost all of its business.
My question, though, is does the allocation fo revenue matter? In my example, FGW will receive a certain percentage of the fare, based on the likely usage of the ticket, not on the nominal operator of the branch. If we change the destination to Falmouth, then the complication of through services is removed, does this make a difference?
From what I have read about South Wales Valleys operations, Beeching and his team used certain criteria to determine whether a line or station should be closed. If a line or station took a certain amount in revenue, then it would survive, and these figures seemed to be applied across the board.
If what I have read is correct, then the three daily passenger trains between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen were expected to contribute as much through the farebox as a shorter line with a more frequent service. This all seems rather arbitrary to me, and took no account of operating costs at all. It certainly didn't account for journeys made into the line's area, which were paid for elsewhere!
Yes, as I said the Par to Newquay line is probably a bit of an extreme example!
Absolutely. It is far more likely these days that people will be using a split ticket. Or even a season for part of their journey if they are like me!
Quite.
As tbtc says, you could concentrate on the "80%", however, as the network becomes less and less useful, it just ends up in a cycle of diminishing returns with that 80% becoming smaller and smaller (as happened with the railway in Britain up until 1982).
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Indeed. I strongly suspect that there was a deliberate attempt by the powers that be to muddy the waters in the public mind between services without passengers and "loss" making services (based purely on revenue taken along the route).
Likely scenario - management points to a line with very low passenger numbers and intimates that the closure programme is based entirely around passenger numbers, when in reality the programme is based entirely on receipts from stations. This of course works against routes which have a lot of people travelling relatively short distances and those which receive more traffic than they generate.
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Good discussion guys; my only "point" would be that railways in general do not make money. Exception is freight-only across long distances a la USA. Even profitable TOCs only show a Net Profit of c. 3% which would be judged totally unacceptable against most other business sectors. The only bidders for franchises in the U.K. are the "usual suspects" tethered to the sector. There isn't a queue of successful businesses wanting to get involved! Better off punting your money on the equities market with no hassle/complaining customers/interfering politicians etc.....
Many people would like to know why it has always been expected that the railwys make a profit, and why more recognition is not given to the social and environmental benefits they provide.
Actually, there is probably more recognition of the latetr than at any time previously. Which makes our pseudo private sector franchising system, with its inherent lack of risk and transparency, even more ridiculous in my view.
It really is a not for profit system that is pretending to be in the private sector. But it is a system, which means that the sum of the whole is more effective than its individual parts.
Actually, there is probably more recognition of the latetr than at any time previously. Which makes our pseudo private sector franchising system, with its inherent lack of risk and transparency, even more ridiculous in my view.
It really is a not for profit system that is pretending to be in the private sector. But it is a system, which means that the sum of the whole is more effective than its individual parts.
Or indeed the allocation of costs.
Say you have a secondary route, you could rationalise the track, remove all signalling, institute a less intense maintenance regime, yet the track access charge presumably remains the same. As a consequence, the route costs a lot less to run, but the people funding the train service don't see any of this saving. End result, the branch looks a lot more expensive to operate than it actually is.
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Indeed. Infact, I think there still needs to be a lot more work on the economic benefits that a railway passenger service brings to local areas as well as the social and environmental benefits. Too often in the debate, secondary routes are only viewed in terms of the subsidy they require, rather than the benefits they bring.
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Freight trains have the added benefit of less lorries on the roads which means less congested roads and roads wearing out less quickly.
I would disagree slightly as the Harrogate line is very well used and has a pretty frequent service. Horsforth is quite a busy station all day for both commuting into Leeds and for onward connections.
I think it depends upon the specific location. Some main routes/stations rely more on connecting traffic than others. An example of the former imo would be places like Darlington, York and Doncaster on the ECML.
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