Definition Of How Long A Line Needs To Be To Require A Parliamentary Service (i.e what is a "line"?)

tbtc · 27 Jan 2020

There's been discussion on another thread (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/may-2020-timetable-changes.197667/page-5) about whether a section of line without a scheduled passengers service has to go through the procedures for "closure".

adrock1976 said:
According to the PSUL website, the 1N80 0712 Kirkcaldy - Glasgow Queen Street and the 1N79 1733 Glasgow Queen Street - Markinch that run on Mondays to Fridays will be withdrawn from 18 May.

Being as these are the only trains that are scheduled in passenger service to use the section of track between Winchburgh Junction and Dalmeny Junction, I am unsure if this is legal to withdraw these services or not.

Rather than drag that thread off-topic, I thought I'd ask the question here.

As far as I was aware, the minimum requirement was for one train per week (hence some "parliamentary" services to keep a line/station open - e.g. the days when Stockport - Stalybridge was a single northbound service on a Friday morning (no return journey).

(obviously some people use "Parliamentary" to define anything lightly used - e.g. stations with one train a day or lines like Knottingley - Goole that have much more than one per week - I think some people treat it interchangeable with "minimum service provision required in the franchise definition - it can get quite stretched!)

But what is a "line"? e.g. in the case of Stockport - Stalybridge, it must have been fine for no scheduled passenger trains to run southbound, so it's not as if every inch of track has to have a service - where is the line drawn?

We don't expect have to go through the closure paperwork every time a platform is taken out of use, or a passing loop goes unused - we don't run services over every set of points in every direction - there must be a definition somewhere.

Is it okay if a double track line only sees a service passing through in one direction each week? No requirements for passing loops, or sidings to be served? We don't send passenger trains into every headshunt just to tick a box! But maybe each chord at a "triangle" needs serving?

Is there a minimum length of line (before a bit of track requires serving)? Would it be allowed to remove a passenger service from a line on the understanding that there's a regular freight service?

I'm asking as, whilst people use the term "parliamentary" a lot, I've never seen a definition for exactly how long a section of line needs to be before it qualifies for this once-a-week token service.

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gordonthemoron · 27 Jan 2020

Isn't the Poleworth service a parli? 1 train a day northbound I think and it's on the WCML

Snow1964 · 27 Jan 2020

I thought the definition is route between two junctions, or from a junction to a terminus (end of line)

Not individual tracks, and it is to prevent finality of no service.
Complete withdrawal of service requires permission of Secretary of State (under Railways Act 1962), this has since been amended and allows an experimental service to be tried, which may be withdrawn without repeating closure process (Speller Act). And then new guidance came out in 2006

https://assets.publishing.service.g...data/file/266296/railwaysclosuresguidance.pdf

Years ago was a debate of what could be called a service, and one weekly train at 6am is a service (if diabolically poor service), but no trains is not a service.

Paul Kelly · 27 Jan 2020

Isn't it stations that must have at least a parliamentary service? I thought that trains that traverse rare track do so in order to maintain route knowledge, not to allow the passengers to bash the rare track! I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of different legal arrangements in force in different places, though.

pdeaves · 27 Jan 2020

Indigo2 said:
Isn't it stations that must have at least a parliamentary service? I thought that trains that traverse rare track do so in order to maintain route knowledge, not to allow the passengers to bash the rare track! I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of different legal arrangements in force in different places, though.

It's also track. That's why, when the XC service to Ramsgate (I think) was withdrawn and a bit of track somewhere near Acton lost its service, a road substitution was provided for a while between Acton and Kensington Olympia. It was a bit of a nonsense but was deemed to provide a service 'over' a bit of track, even though that actual journey would not have been possible on the original train withdrawn.

Kite159 · 27 Jan 2020

pdeaves said:
It's also track. That's why, when the XC service to Ramsgate (I think) was withdrawn and a bit of track somewhere near Acton lost its service, a road substitution was provided for a while between Acton and Kensington Olympia. It was a bit of a nonsense but was deemed to provide a service 'over' a bit of track, even though that actual journey would not have been possible on the original train withdrawn.

And wasn't there a random Southern service from Wandsworth Common to Kensington Olympia introduced when those XC services were dropped due to it covering a bit of track in the Clapham Junction area which otherwise would be uncovered?

Found this link to the ORR letter about the service being withdrawn via Wiki

(https://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/1859/ratification-ekw-orr-letter.pdf)

swt_passenger · 27 Jan 2020

Indigo2 said:
Isn't it stations that must have at least a parliamentary service? I thought that trains that traverse rare track do so in order to maintain route knowledge, not to allow the passengers to bash the rare track! I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of different legal arrangements in force in different places, though.

No, it’s both stations and routes. There are well documented cases where curves that only had a token passenger service had to go through long winded closure procedures, such as Sheepcote Lane curve (London Waterloo to/from the West London Line), or Maindee curve near Newport. In neither example were stations directly involved.

In the XC via Kensington and Acton case already mentioned, some Gatwick trains ran via Clapham Junction, and some via Wandsworth Town, only the Acton and Wandsworth sections of route had to be “closed”. But clearly SWR, SN and LO still provide the same passenger connectivity between stations (at the southern end of the area) with suitable changes...

30907 · 27 Jan 2020

swt_passenger said:
No, it’s both stations and routes. There are well documented cases where curves that only had a token passenger service had to go through long winded closure procedures, such as Sheepcote Lane curve (London Waterloo to/from the West London Line), or Maindee curve near Newport. In neither example were stations directly involved.

In the XC via Kensington and Acton case already mentioned, some Gatwick trains ran via Clapham Junction, and some via Wandsworth ~~Town~~ Road only the Acton and Wandsworth sections of route had to be “closed”. But clearly SWR, SN and LO still provide the same passenger connectivity between stations (at the southern end of the area) with suitable changes...

The Wandsworth Road case was interesting: IIRC NR didn't originally provide a service, as it was still possible to travel from Kensington Olympia to Bromley South and beyond via Clapham Jn and Beckenham Jn; someone objected, and we ended up with the service to Wandsworth Road, whence passengers could reach Bromley South with - guess what - a second change at Denmark Hill.
The bus to Acton ML arguably provided a faster connection from Kenny to Reading than via CLJ though.

swt_passenger · 27 Jan 2020

30907 said:
The Wandsworth Road case was interesting: IIRC NR didn't originally provide a service, as it was still possible to travel from Kensington Olympia to Bromley South and beyond via Clapham Jn and Beckenham Jn; someone objected, and we ended up with the service to Wandsworth Road, whence passengers could reach Bromley South with - guess what - a second change at Denmark Hill.

The other thing that always comes to mind especially in the London area, is how passenger flows between NR stations might just as easily be achieved by using a near parallel LU route, or with a nearby change eg at Shepherds Bush. There’s integrated ticketing so there should be integrated decision making. I’ve always thought that LU/NR interchange should be allowed for when balancing the pros and cons in such consultations...

Mag_seven · 27 Jan 2020

swt_passenger said:
No, it’s both stations and routes. There are well documented cases where curves that only had a token passenger service had to go through long winded closure procedures, such as Sheepcote Lane curve (London Waterloo to/from the West London Line), or Maindee curve near Newport. In neither example were stations directly involved.

Which is why we need some sort of minor closure procedure that will allow TOCs to withdraw services over short sections of route provided it can be demonstrated that reasonable alternative routes exist.

Paul Kelly · 27 Jan 2020

30907 said:
it was still possible to travel from Kensington Olympia to Bromley South and beyond via Clapham Jn and Beckenham Jn

Yes, this is the bit that interests me - suggests it's something to do with the service provided to the station rather than the specific track covered. I.e. if there's no longer any service at all from Kensington Olympia towards the Great Western main line then that perhaps constitutes some sort of serious withdrawal of passenger service and maybe that was the issue.

Another piece of rare track that has disappeared from scheduled service is the Didcot West Curve. Since the new timetable in December there are no passenger services over that line. But there are still direct trains from Didcot to Swindon and Oxford, getting from any of the stations between Didcot and Oxford to the Swindon direction is possible with an easy change at Didcot, and the latter parliamentary service from Reading to Oxford reversing at Foxhall Junction didn't add any additional service at any station that wasn't there before.

So I'm still arguing that it's the service provided to stations that is relevant, not the track covered!

swt_passenger · 27 Jan 2020

Indigo2 said:
Yes, this is the bit that interests me - suggests it's something to do with the service provided to the station rather than the specific track covered. I.e. if there's no longer any service at all from Kensington Olympia towards the Great Western main line then that perhaps constitutes some sort of serious withdrawal of passenger service and maybe that was the issue.

No, it can definitely be just the short sections of line, rather than the stations. In the WLL XC example, the consultation document clearly describes how it’s only the various short curves, rather than the stations they connect, as follows:

The sections left without scheduled passenger services comprise three short sections of track, no stations are involved. These sections are:
1. Factory Junction to Latchmere Junction no.1 (a short chord between Wandsworth Road and Imperial Wharf stations)
2. Willesden West London Junction to Acton Wells Junction (between Shepherd’s Bush and Acton Main Line stations)
3. Acton Wells Junction to Acton East Junction (between Shepherd’s Bush and Acton Main Line stations)

from: https://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/3666/closures-ekw-dft-consultation.pdf

Items 2 and 3 are parts of one route, but split by a section that still saw passenger services.

Ianno87 · 27 Jan 2020

swt_passenger said:
No, it can definitely be just the short sections of line, rather than the stations. In the WLL XC example, the consultation document clearly describes how it’s only the various short curves, rather than the stations they connect, as follows:

Items 2 and 3 are parts of one route, but split by a section that still saw passenger services.

But does show the complete nonsense of this whole process in that:

-The original service to Ramsgate permitted journeys between Kensington Olympia and Bromley South/Reading
-When this was withdrawn the Brighton services did not permit this (permitting instead Kensington Olympia to Reading/East Croydon)
-Then when that was withdrawn it's replacements permitted Ealing Broadway / Kensington Olympia and Kensington Olympia Wandsworth Road

i.e. the replacements weren't even replacing the thing being replaced!

swt_passenger · 27 Jan 2020

Ianno87 said:
But does show the complete nonsense of this whole process in that:

-The original service to Ramsgate permitted journeys between Kensington Olympia and Bromley South/Reading
-When this was withdrawn the Brighton services did not permit this (permitting instead Kensington Olympia to Reading/East Croydon)
-Then when that was withdrawn it's replacements permitted Ealing Broadway / Kensington Olympia and Kensington Olympia Wandsworth Road

i.e. the replacements weren't even replacing the thing being replaced!

But by the time the consultation was published it only mentioned the Brighton to Manchester XC service, Ramsgate seems to have been airbrushed from the overall picture. Is it possible the Ramsgate withdrawal pre-dates the 2005 procedures, so fell through the cracks?

Baxenden Bank · 27 Jan 2020

Indigo2 said:
Yes, this is the bit that interests me - suggests it's something to do with the service provided to the station rather than the specific track covered. I.e. if there's no longer any service at all from Kensington Olympia towards the Great Western main line then that perhaps constitutes some sort of serious withdrawal of passenger service and maybe that was the issue.

Another piece of rare track that has disappeared from scheduled service is the Didcot West Curve. Since the new timetable in December there are no passenger services over that line. But there are still direct trains from Didcot to Swindon and Oxford, getting from any of the stations between Didcot and Oxford to the Swindon direction is possible with an easy change at Didcot, and the latter parliamentary service from Reading to Oxford reversing at Foxhall Junction didn't add any additional service at any station that wasn't there before.

So I'm still arguing that it's the service provided to stations that is relevant, not the track covered!

Perhaps your argument is flawed.
You assume that the removal of the service over the west curve was properly considered and found acceptable and lawful, rather than it being an oversight. Perhaps it wasn't lawful, and like the Kensington Olympia example, is an error waiting to be found and a strange rail replacement service be operated in lieu!

Time for a freedom of information request to DfT?

A service was provided over the west curve. No service is provided now. A closure procedure is therefore required. Simples. Unless the west curve was operated under the Speller Amendment referred to above.

Bevan Price · 27 Jan 2020

And you don't even need one train per week, every week. The Halton Curve (Frodsham Jn to Halton Jn) just had one train per week - in summer only, with no service for the rest of the year (It sometimes ran as e.c.s. in Winter)

Mag_seven · 27 Jan 2020

Baxenden Bank said:
A service was provided over the west curve. No service is provided now. A closure procedure is therefore required. Simples

The suggestion that because the one train a day that used the Didcot West Curve now no longer does so requires a full closure procedure is absolutely ludicrous. The track is still there, the signalling is still there, the infrastructure is still there and the service concerned still links Reading with Oxford. As I suggested earlier some sort of minor "closure" procedure is what is needed here and even then in this case I don't think that should be necessary.

Baxenden Bank · 27 Jan 2020

Mag_seven said:
The suggestion that because the one train a day that used the Didcot West Curve now no longer does so requires a full closure procedure is absolutely ludicrous. The track is still there, the signalling is still there, the infrastructure is still there and the service concerned still links Reading with Oxford. As I suggested earlier some sort of minor "closure" procedure is what is needed here and even then in this case I don't think that should be necessary.

It may, or may not, be ludicrous.
But it is the law.
And as a country we respect the law, just as we respect democratic processes!

Paul Kelly · 27 Jan 2020

Baxenden Bank said:
Perhaps your argument is flawed.
You assume that the removal of the service over the west curve was properly considered and found acceptable and lawful, rather than it being an oversight. Perhaps it wasn't lawful, and like the Kensington Olympia example, is an error waiting to be found and a strange rail replacement service be operated in lieu!

Yes, I'm certainly open to that possibility and it would indeed void my argument... very interesting.

tbtc · 27 Jan 2020

Interesting examples - thanks. It's making me wonder about some of the routes around Wakefield/ Pontefract, where there are a number of chords and different ways to get between stations, various combinations of stations that have no direct service between them - but it seems that some of the "exceptions" listed above mean there may be no hard/fast rule, with each case being determined on its own merits (depending on which way the wind is blowing at the time)?

Given that there are a few avoiding routes that don't directly serve an intermediate station, there must be a few combinations of stations that it's okay to have no token service between, but woe betide anyone trying to remove such a service nowadays?

But then I'm not sure about "law" here - the idea that there's a legal requirement to run trains over every chord at a busy junction seems a strange use of the law (rather than it being a general railway practice).

Also, when was the first service created/diverted for this kind of box ticking exercise? e.g. I don't remember any ECML services that ran on the "old" Selby avoiding line (when the Temple Hurst - Hambleton line was built in the '80s) - unless there are regular LNER services diverted past the outskirts of Selby for this purpose?

Bevan Price said:
And you don't even need one train per week, every week. The Halton Curve (Frodsham Jn to Halton Jn) just had one train per week - in summer only, with no service for the rest of the year (It sometimes ran as e.c.s. in Winter)

I could never understand how they got away with just a summer service on that line (surely, if there has to be a token service each week, it would be all year round?)

Ianno87 · 27 Jan 2020

Baxenden Bank said:
It may, or may not, be ludicrous.
But it is the law.
And as a country we respect the law, just as we respect democratic processes!

But what's more important, the letter of the law, or the principle it is there to uphold?

In the Didcot West Curve example, no individual is (in my view) significantly disadvantaged by the absence of a passenger service via a fairly arbitrary piece of track, given that entirely reasonable alternatives are available by changing at Didcot.

paddington · 27 Jan 2020

Ianno87 said:
But what's more important, the letter of the law, or the principle it is there to uphold?

In the Didcot West Curve example, no individual is (in my view) significantly disadvantaged by the absence of a passenger service via a fairly arbitrary piece of track, given that entirely reasonable alternatives are available by changing at Didcot.

From a passenger point of view the use of that curve just made the journey slower. The services that used to operate on that curve still operate, and serve exactly the same stations. Passengers who boarded 1M79 to go to Oxford were frequently advised to get the later GWR service which arrived earlier (overtaking the XC train while it reversed past Didcot in order to travel on that curve).

The only passengers who would be disadvantaged by the removal of that part of the route are track bashers. And in my own experience, I had to take that train 4 times, as the first 3 times I tried it didn't even travel on that track due to delays. Furthermore there was only a short window in the middle of June when it was possible to see anything outside the windows (reduced further if it was cloudy), the rest of the year it was completely dark.

Ianno87 · 27 Jan 2020

paddington said:
From a passenger point of view the use of that curve just made the journey slower. The services that used to operate on that curve still operate, and serve exactly the same stations. Passengers who boarded 1M79 to go to Oxford were frequently advised to get the later GWR service which arrived earlier (overtaking the XC train while it reversed past Didcot in order to travel on that curve).

The only passengers who would be disadvantaged by the removal of that part of the route are track bashers. And in my own experience, I had to take that train 4 times, as the first 3 times I tried it didn't even travel on that track due to delays. Furthermore there was only a short window in the middle of June when it was possible to see anything outside the windows (reduced further if it was cloudy), the rest of the year it was completely dark.

I'd go further - it's morally wrong to waste taxpayers' money in maintaining such a service for the extra fuel and traincrew time it needs.

swt_passenger · 27 Jan 2020

If XC no longer running via Didcot West curve in the latest timetable is treated as a “closure”, then surely XC no longer running via Laverstock (NR Salisbury) for the last few years also counts as a ”closure”?

Where do you draw the line? If some odd move or other is done purely for gaining or maintaining diversionary route knowledge, sometimes with passengers, then IMHO it shouldn’t create a service that then needs to be closed.

JN114 · 27 Jan 2020

The Didcot West Curve is still used by the first stopper departure from Oxford towards Reading Tuesdays - Fridays.

tbtc · 27 Jan 2020

Ianno87 said:
I'd go further - it's morally wrong to waste taxpayers' money in maintaining such a service for the extra fuel and traincrew time it needs.

There's certainly an argument that, if we extol the environmental benefits of rail, it seems a bit odd to keep running various services via random routes (meaning passenger journeys take longer, more fuel burned) just to satisfy a "law" that says every chord must have a weekly passenger service?

swt_passenger said:
If XC no longer running via Didcot West curve in the latest timetable is treated as a “closure”, then surely XC no longer running via Laverstock (NR Salisbury) for the last few years also counts as a ”closure”?

Where do you draw the line? If some odd move or other is done purely for gaining or maintaining diversionary route knowledge, sometimes with passengers, then IMHO it shouldn’t create a service that then needs to be closed.

This is what puzzles me.

I appreciate that the operational benchmark for a Parliamentary service is one train per week but I can't see what criteria for deciding which bits of route require a parliamentary service - in an area home to lots of competing Victorian companies and an area with various "freight" routes, there must be a lot of routes that have no service (yet, if such a service did exist for driver training and was cancelled, there'd be a requirement for a replacement?)

For example, the route through Peak Forest is a "direct" (but long winded) route from Chinley and Edale to Dove Holes (passing outside Buxton station but not serving a platform) - that'd be a crazy route to take for any passenger service, so it surely can't be *any* combination of two stations... so is it something like "if it was running on the final week of British Rail then a service must be retained, but if there was no such service in that week then there's no requirement for one today"? Somebody somewhere must have drawn the line (though they are probably different to the somebody somewhere who is eating a Toffee Crisp!)

Ianno87 · 27 Jan 2020

swt_passenger said:
If XC no longer running via Didcot West curve in the latest timetable is treated as a “closure”, then surely XC no longer running via Laverstock (NR Salisbury) for the last few years also counts as a ”closure”?

Where do you draw the line? If some odd move or other is done purely for gaining or maintaining diversionary route knowledge, sometimes with passengers, then IMHO it shouldn’t create a service that then needs to be closed.

Even in the case of route knowledge, surely there must be a "smarter" way these days of retaining basic knowledge for relatively short routes via route-learning videos, simulators, etc.

How actually useful can route-learners that for most of the year operate in darkness actually be?

swt_passenger · 27 Jan 2020

Ianno87 said:
Even in the case of route knowledge, surely there must be a "smarter" way these days of retaining basic knowledge for relatively short routes via route-learning videos, simulators, etc.

How actually useful can route-learners that for most of the year operate in darkness actually be?

In the example of Laverstock curve, a XC driver told me a few years ago that it had been agreed that cab rides with other TOCs between Southampton and Salisbury, and between Salisbury and Basingstoke, were adequate. There was no need to actually drive or pass over the few hundred yards of the curve itself.

I expect someone will now post the opposite...

najaB · 27 Jan 2020

Ianno87 said:
How actually useful can route-learners that for most of the year operate in darkness actually be?

The signals and signs will still be visible.

Ianno87 · 27 Jan 2020

najaB said:
The signals and signs will still be visible.

I'm not a driver, but could learning only part of the story actually be worse or more misleading than the whole story?

For example, knowing that there's a signal, but not knowing there's a nearby hazard/drop on accessing the signal post telephone.

Definition Of How Long A Line Needs To Be To Require A Parliamentary Service (i.e what is a "line"?)

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