London Midland to be broken up?

swt_passenger · 28 Nov 2014

Modern Railways readers will have seen this by now, but were people generally aware of the possibility of LM being divided up into a West Midlands local operator and a separate WCML(south) local operator, with Euston - Crewe and Birmingham - Liverpool being rolled up into the main West Coast franchise?

Of course further to that, the WCML stoppers could well end up with Crossrail eventually anyway.

Main point though, is that this seems to have rather sneaked in under the radar...

(MR December edition bottom of page 18 for anyone who skimmed past it first time...)

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Bletchleyite · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
Modern Railways readers will have seen this by now, but were people generally aware of the possibility of LM being divided up into a West Midlands local operator and a separate WCML(south) local operator, with Euston - Crewe and Birmingham - Liverpool being rolled up into the main West Coast franchise?

The latter wasn't how I read it. What I read was that the residual LM south WCML operator might be called "West Coast Connect" and would encompass all current LM services with the exception of the WM locals.

Neil

swt_passenger · 28 Nov 2014

Neil Williams said:
The latter wasn't how I read it. What I read was that the residual LM south WCML operator might be called "West Coast Connect" and would encompass all current LM services with the exception of the WM locals.

Neil

"The proposals under consideration would also see the London-Crewe semi-fast and Birmingham-Liverpool services currently operated by London Midland transferring to the West Coast franchise"

That's a direct quote...

Bletchleyite · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
"The proposals under consideration would also see the London-Crewe semi-fast and Birmingham-Liverpool services currently operated by London Midland transferring to the West Coast franchise"

That's a direct quote...

Ah sorry, I read it wrong then.

Unless it meant "to the West Coast part of the separated LM franchise" rather than "to InterCity West Coast".

Neil

General Zod · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
"The proposals under consideration would also see the London-Crewe semi-fast and Birmingham-Liverpool services currently operated by London Midland transferring to the West Coast franchise"

Would the services utilise the existing LM rolling stock which is used on the current diagrams ?

swt_passenger · 28 Nov 2014

Neil Williams said:
Ah sorry, I read it wrong then.

Unless it meant "to the West Coast part of the separated LM franchise" rather than "to InterCity West Coast".

Neil

But as someone who keeps his ear to the ground on that part of the network, had you heard of any of this before?

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

General Zod said:
Would the services utilise the existing LM rolling stock which is used on the current diagrams ?

Doesn't mention stock at all, just the consideration of splitting LM into two business units at this stage. Author is Tony Miles.

87015 · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
But as someone who keeps his ear to the ground on that part of the network, had you heard of any of this before?

Its been going around for at least a few months as "on the table", we have lots of ex-WCML staff and it has been discussed across the office.

Anything that gets rid of Govia is the leading opinion. Bring back Silverlink, all is forgiven - and thats saying something.

WatcherZero · 28 Nov 2014

Its like 2017 they are talking not imminent. I read it as a local birmingham centered network under control of centro and essentially run as a metro with services to liverpool given to west coast and main birmingham london commuter services with a new franchise.

Bletchleyite · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
But as someone who keeps his ear to the ground on that part of the network, had you heard of any of this before?

Can't honestly say I have, no. It seems to be more driven by the West Midlands than LM south.

Neil
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

87015 said:
Anything that gets rid of Govia is the leading opinion. Bring back Silverlink, all is forgiven - and thats saying something.

From a passenger's point of view I find LM south offers a decent service. But then so did latter-day Silverlink.

Neil

bb21 · 28 Nov 2014

If Euston - Crewe goes to InterCity West Coast then say bye to affordable walk-on fares.

Bletchleyite · 28 Nov 2014

bb21 said:
If Euston - Crewe goes to InterCity West Coast then say bye to affordable walk-on fares.

TBH I think the current problems with that service being seriously overcrowded is *caused* by the very low fares, causing people to cram onto a 4-car hourly local train who should be on 11-car Pendolinos. There is no reason why anyone should be using these services for non-local journeys (i.e. any journey that doesn't include at one end one of the stations not otherwise regularly served by VT), and them doing so is causing wasteful overprovision to be needed.

I think 4 cars will be sufficient for many or most WCML locals were those super-low fares to be dropped.

Neil

thenorthern · 28 Nov 2014

I hope they don't merge London Midland Trent Valley services with the InterCity West Coast Franchise. It currently give competition between the two companies for passengers at Stoke-on-Trent, Stafford Birmingham and others which I would miss if the two were merged.

A Birmingham Overground service based on the London Overground would be a nice idea.

swt_passenger · 28 Nov 2014

thenorthern said:
A Birmingham Overground service based on the London Overground would be a nice idea.

There isn't a Birmingham underground yet though, so what would be the point of such a daft name..

DarloRich · 28 Nov 2014

Neil Williams said:
TBH I think the current problems with that service being seriously overcrowded is *caused* by the very low fares, causing people to cram onto a 4-car hourly local train who should be on 11-car Pendolinos. There is no reason why anyone should be using these services for non-local journeys (i.e. any journey that doesn't include at one end one of the stations not otherwise regularly served by VT), and them doing so is causing wasteful overprovision to be needed.

I think 4 cars will be sufficient for many or most WCML locals were those super-low fares to be dropped.

Neil

So: You should not be allowed to travel between London and Crewe/stafford/Stoke etc unless you are prepared or are able to pay Virgins eye wateringly high prices?

Surely privatisation is all about offering competition? This kind of situation is the closet we can get.

fgwrich · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
There isn't a Birmingham underground yet though, so what would be the point of such a daft name..

That said, so was the original Overground brands used on the south London network lines before London Overground and First Bus too.

I wonder if this could lead to what Chiltern were calling for several years ago, whereby the LM franchise would have been split off with the NWM DMU lines transferring to Chiltern.

the sniper · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
Modern Railways readers will have seen this by now, but were people generally aware of the possibility of LM being divided up into a West Midlands local operator and a separate WCML(south) local operator, with Euston - Crewe and Birmingham - Liverpool being rolled up into the main West Coast franchise?

It regularly talked about by rail staff in the West Midlands. It'd be interesting to know if this story just comes from that or there's some serious thinking going on behind it now.

This is essentially the group said to be pushing the idea, presumably led by the WMPTE: http://www.westmidlandsrail.com/

Those proposals that have appeared in Modern Railways are even more of a mess than the previous thinking we've had 'on the shop floor'. It's regularly rumoured by staff that the West Coast South/avoiding BHM local stuff will go to the main WCML franchise, which when HS2 comes along will surely cease to be the 'glamorous' Intercity franchise that it is now anyway. The Liverpool's would go to Cross Country (worked by their SNR Conductors, as opposed to TMs) or WCML (with all the other West Coast local 350 stuff). The remnants of LM would become the new 'West Mids' franchise, which would inevitably be a problem child for its duration, as it'd be like LM but with all its biggest problems exacerbated by a further split.

Sadly these proposals are the dreams of local politicians, folks who have little knowledge of or interest in understanding how the railway actually works in reality. It's all ideological.

FGW_Lad · 28 Nov 2014

Neil Williams said:
TBH I think the current problems with that service being seriously overcrowded is *caused* by the very low fares, causing people to cram onto a 4-car hourly local train who should be on 11-car Pendolinos. There is no reason why anyone should be using these services for non-local journeys (i.e. any journey that doesn't include at one end one of the stations not otherwise regularly served by VT), and them doing so is causing wasteful overprovision to be needed.

I think 4 cars will be sufficient for many or most WCML locals were those super-low fares to be dropped.

Neil

So what you are saying is that everyone should pay VT's high prices? I don't think that would go down too well with the passengers who are already paying over inflated prices!!!

The 4 car services are being lengthened to 8 cars in the current LM franchise am I right? Surely this should be a feature in the new WC franchise too?

Bald Rick · 28 Nov 2014

DarloRich said:
So: You should not be allowed to travel between London and Crewe/stafford/Stoke etc unless you are prepared or are able to pay Virgins eye wateringly high prices?

Surely privatisation is all about offering competition? This kind of situation is the closet we can get.

One assumes that the Dft position is : why subsidise LM to provide cheap fares from London-Birmingham/Crewe etc, which then abstracts revenue from West coast, causing the latter to be less valuable in terms of premium?

Especially with HS2 on the starting blocks.

the sniper · 28 Nov 2014

fgwrich said:
I wonder if this could lead to what Chiltern were calling for several years ago, whereby the LM franchise would have been split off with the NWM DMU lines transferring to Chiltern.

I've always been led to believe that Chiltern turned down the opportunity to run the Snow Hill local stuff when they had the chance a few years ago.

Without a doubt I think the idea of a West Midlands local franchise kills any idea that Chiltern will run the local stuff out of Snow Hill in the foreseeable, if anything they might loose some of what they run now...

Stats · 28 Nov 2014

Bald Rick said:
One assumes that the Dft position is : why subsidise LM to provide cheap fares from London-Birmingham/Crewe etc

I would have thought the DfTs thinking on this matter would be with major redevelopment at Euston planned to have all Euston services (except LO) be under one management team so that the reduced capacity at Euston could be utilised in the most efficient way. It would also be more effective to have one combined franchise holder work with Network Rail and DfT in planning for the major service revision when HS2 opens.

DiscoStu · 28 Nov 2014

Neil Williams said:
From a passenger's point of view I find LM south offers a decent service. But then so did latter-day Silverlink.

Neil

Me too ... I can't recall ever having a single complaint against London Midland, and I'm a regular passenger. The service from Northampton to Euston is the best it has ever been in my opinion (although I did used to prefer it when they used the Cobbler rakes

)

The Planner · 28 Nov 2014

the sniper said:
Without a doubt I think the idea of a West Midlands local franchise kills any idea that Chiltern will run the local stuff out of Snow Hill in the foreseeable, if anything they might loose some of what they run now...

I would suggest the opposite, they may get more as the Herefords and Worcesters may get hived off the West Mids as they wouldnt fit with a metro style franchise.

rdeez · 28 Nov 2014

Neil Williams said:
TBH I think the current problems with that service being seriously overcrowded is *caused* by the very low fares, causing people to cram onto a 4-car hourly local train who should be on 11-car Pendolinos. There is no reason why anyone should be using these services for non-local journeys (i.e. any journey that doesn't include at one end one of the stations not otherwise regularly served by VT), and them doing so is causing wasteful overprovision to be needed.

I think 4 cars will be sufficient for many or most WCML locals were those super-low fares to be dropped.

Neil

Seriously? The problem is that people want to save money?

A few days ago I travelled to Stafford from Euston. I hadn't booked in advance. My basic options were Virgin (£39), London Midland (£16). I was tired and eager to get home, so I opted with Virgin. But had I more time and been less fatigued, almost certainly I would have gone with the LM option.

I had a choice, which is important. I don't think anyone can argue that is a bad thing in this context.

daikilo · 28 Nov 2014

rdeez said:
Seriously? The problem is that people want to save money?

A few days ago I travelled to Stafford from Euston. I hadn't booked in advance. My basic options were Virgin (£39), London Midland (£16). I was tired and eager to get home, so I opted with Virgin. But had I more time and been less fatigued, almost certainly I would have gone with the LM option.

I had a choice, which is important. I don't think anyone can argue that is a bad thing in this context.

It is not, and "Europe" may well decide to have an opinion on the subject.

Xenophon PCDGS · 28 Nov 2014

swt_passenger said:
Modern Railways readers will have seen this by now, but were people generally aware of the possibility of LM being divided up into a West Midlands local operator and a separate WCML(south) local operator, with Euston - Crewe and Birmingham - Liverpool being rolled up into the main West Coast franchise?

I just thought that I would mention this, since Modern Railways is mentioned, that I still await the December 2014 issue arriving in the post from Key Publishing, as I have a 2-year subscription with them for the magazine. Has any other "subscription" forum member still not received their copy also?

It normally arrives about three days before it is on the shelves of W H Smith in Macclesfield.

Techniquest · 28 Nov 2014

The choice is excellent in that case, and I also have choice from Hereford to London fortunately. Roughly £67 with ATW/FGW for a Super Off Peak Return, £54 for a Route Evesham Off Peak Return, £25 for a LM Only Super Off Peak Return. I can also book Advances for just £6 each way with LM to do Hereford to London Euston, which for the distance is amazing.

Yes it takes a while to get there with LM but my homeward journey is normally booked 4h4m (this does include about 32 minutes connection time in Birmingham), which is not bad at all. The journey via Evesham is rather slow, around 3h20m I think. Via Newport with ATW then FGW is the quickest, with connection times varying I'd say on average it takes a little over 3 hours.

So I can save a fortune but only have up to an hour of extra time added to my journey, which is reasonable all things considered. So I really don't want LM to lose their cheap fares as I'd travel far less often by rail and go with National Express instead!

As for the main topic, I can't currently see the benefits of majorly dismantling the LM network. All I'm seeing is a bit less paperwork when it comes to organising the capacity at Euston.

Instead of benefitting passengers, it's going to add a lot of confusion to the mix and create more problems.

As for bringing back Silverlink, really? No things weren't as good then as they are now and much as Silverlink brings up a lot of pleasant memories I'd rather not go back to the dark old days of that era!

al.currie93 · 28 Nov 2014

Neil Williams said:
TBH I think the current problems with that service being seriously overcrowded is *caused* by the very low fares, causing people to cram onto a 4-car hourly local train who should be on 11-car Pendolinos. There is no reason why anyone should be using these services for non-local journeys (i.e. any journey that doesn't include at one end one of the stations not otherwise regularly served by VT), and them doing so is causing wasteful overprovision to be needed.

I think 4 cars will be sufficient for many or most WCML locals were those super-low fares to be dropped.

Neil

DarloRich said:
So: You should not be allowed to travel between London and Crewe/stafford/Stoke etc unless you are prepared or are able to pay Virgins eye wateringly high prices?

Surely privatisation is all about offering competition? This kind of situation is the closet we can get.

I was about to say this myself; surely this is a result of the "competition" that the majority of people seem to want from the railway?

This overcrowding because of more people choosing the stopping trains for journeys that should ideally be taken on express trains will only be negated by either making stopping train (London Midland) tickets more expensive or express train (Virgin) tickets cheaper; both of which hinder or destroy the only "competition" seen on the railway.

tbtc · 28 Nov 2014

bb21 said:
If Euston - Crewe goes to InterCity West Coast then say bye to affordable walk-on fares.

Neil Williams said:
TBH I think the current problems with that service being seriously overcrowded is *caused* by the very low fares, causing people to cram onto a 4-car hourly local train who should be on 11-car Pendolinos. There is no reason why anyone should be using these services for non-local journeys (i.e. any journey that doesn't include at one end one of the stations not otherwise regularly served by VT), and them doing so is causing wasteful overprovision to be needed.

I think 4 cars will be sufficient for many or most WCML locals were those super-low fares to be dropped.

Neil

thenorthern said:
I hope they don't merge London Midland Trent Valley services with the InterCity West Coast Franchise. It currently give competition between the two companies for passengers at Stoke-on-Trent

DarloRich said:
So: You should not be allowed to travel between London and Crewe/stafford/Stoke etc unless you are prepared or are able to pay Virgins eye wateringly high prices?

Surely privatisation is all about offering competition? This kind of situation is the closet we can get.

FGW_Lad said:
So what you are saying is that everyone should pay VT's high prices? I don't think that would go down too well with the passengers who are already paying over inflated prices!!!

We cope with one TOC running all services from London to Nottingham and London to Derby - what's so special about London to Stoke that it needs to have two operators competing for the trade?

As I said on the EC thread (re Stagecoach/ Virgin running two parallel franchises), we've just merged all Brighton - London services into one franchise, and that's a much bigger market than flows like Stoke - London.

Competition on Birmingham - London, I can understand, as it's a big market for one TOC to dominate, but I'm struggling to worry about Stoke, sorry.

Bald Rick said:
One assumes that the Dft position is : why subsidise LM to provide cheap fares from London-Birmingham/Crewe etc, which then abstracts revenue from West coast, causing the latter to be less valuable in terms of premium?

That makes sense.

At the moment we have people complaining about overcrowding on the LM services...

...and plenty of people complained about the "35% seat occupancy" average that Virgin when the WCML franchise was tendered a couple of years go (think that was the figure?)...

...can anyone else put two and two together?

If Virgin were given the Trent Valley stoppers then they'd have an incentive to sell cheaper tickets restricted to the slow services (in the way that EMT encourage people to travel on the slower services from London to Nottingham/Sheffield by discounting tickets and using Megabusplus.

Stats said:
I would have thought the DfTs thinking on this matter would be with major redevelopment at Euston planned to have all Euston services (except LO) be under one management team so that the reduced capacity at Euston could be utilised in the most efficient way. It would also be more effective to have one combined franchise holder work with Network Rail and DfT in planning for the major service revision when HS2 opens.

I think you are right - we are going to have to deal with a reduction in Euston services for a few years (due to lack of platforms space), so it makes sense to combine certain services - which one long distance operator would permit.

the sniper · 28 Nov 2014

The Planner said:
I would suggest the opposite, they may get more as the Herefords and Worcesters may get hived off the West Mids as they wouldnt fit with a metro style franchise.

They're one of the few things the proposer wants to keep as part of their vision, along with Shrewsbury: http://www.westmidlandsrail.com/media/1035/proposed-franchise-map-june-2017.pdf Herefordshire Council and Worcestershire County Council are part of the 'West Midlands Rail' partnership.

I can't see them splitting the Snow Hill local stuff from the Herefords/Worcesters. The local Snow Hill stuff will definitely be in the West Mids franchise if it happens. With that happening, why would Chiltern run Herefords/Worcesters into New Street as a stand alone service? I don't think even the DfT would be that silly.

Cherry_Picker · 28 Nov 2014

the sniper said:
I've always been led to believe that Chiltern turned down the opportunity to run the Snow Hill local stuff when they had the chance a few years ago.

Without a doubt I think the idea of a West Midlands local franchise kills any idea that Chiltern will run the local stuff out of Snow Hill in the foreseeable, if anything they might loose some of what they run now...

The company has changed hands since then. During the Shooter days Chiltern were very interested in taking over the Snow Hill line locals, mostly so they could run a Marylebone - Worcester service. I'm not sure why it didn't happen but I do know for a fact that the level of interest did reach a point where Chiltern management were having close looks at Leamington, Snow Hill and Worcester depots. Obviously DB/Arriva are calling the shots these days and they might have different priorities to what M40 trains/Laing Rail did.

London Midland to be broken up?

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