Drop in passenger numbers sees train services cut

https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/18352844.coronavirus-no-wmr-trains-hereford-worcester-next-week/

No trains between Hereford and Worcester for the foreseeable future. That's bad .

trainophile said:

https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/18352844.coronavirus-no-wmr-trains-hereford-worcester-next-week/

No trains between Hereford and Worcester for the foreseeable future. That's bad .

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Is GWR not running their service between Paddington and Hereford?

My company who was anti working from home has over half its employees working at home, many in the 'impossible' to work from home category.

Now they say wow, everything is still working perhaps we could make this permanent!

Thomas31 said:

Is GWR not running their service between Paddington and Hereford?

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Not according to this:

WEST Midlands Railway services between Hereford and Worcester will cease next week.

The change comes with the operator set to begin running to a new timetable from next week as part of the rail industry’s commitment to operate regular train services during the coronavirus outbreak.

The company said the changes will come into effect as passenger numbers continue to fall and increased numbers of rail staff are self-isolating, and have been designed to keep as many services running as possible if part of the network has to close due to the increased impact of Covid-19.

Julian Edwards, managing director of West Midlands Railway, said:

“The rail industry is facing our biggest challenge in peacetime. We are working together to operate a regular service for our key workers and those making only the most essential journeys.

“With increased numbers of rail workers entering self-isolation due to coronavirus and a big drop in passenger numbers, now is the right time to make further changes to our service. As the government has made clear, people should only use the train for essential journeys.


“I would like to pay special tribute to our front-line staff, including drivers, conductors, dispatchers, station teams, engineers, cleaners and those in our control centres. Their hard work and dedication to keeping the trains running are helping key workers save lives.”

The new timetable, which will be available to view at www.wmr.uk/coronavirus from tomorrow (Friday), has been built in ‘chunks’ to reduce the length of journeys taken by an individual train.

The frequency of trains has been reduced on some routes. All journeys between Birmingham New Street and London Euston will now involve a change at Northampton.

Some routes will no longer receive a West Midlands Railway service, including:

• Worcester to Hereford (no alternative direct operator)

• No trains will call at Bearley and Claverdon (served by Chiltern Railways)

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trainophile said:

Not according to this:

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Also taking into account Network Rail could have issues with staffing signal boxes

Bletchleyite said:

Are LNR the first to withdraw a route or stations entirely? There will be no replacement service on the Marston Vale or the Abbey Flyer nor any service via the "wobble" from next week.

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No, northern have withdrawn a couple of routes, including Barton upon Humber.

Bald Rick said:

No, northern have withdrawn a couple of routes, including Barton upon Humber.

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And no-body noticed a difference...

I can't believe Scotrail are still sending 6 Carriage Trains between Dunblane and Edinburgh via Falkirk Grahamston in order for me to get to work. Very kind of them, but how long can they continue to convey thin air ?

Can't understand why they have not changed it to 2 or 3 Carriage Units.

I don't know if any of the post 0623 services have a decent loading but the 1725 into Edinburgh certainly has half a dozen at the most.

Butts said:

I can't believe Scotrail are still sending 6 Carriage Trains between Dunblane and Edinburgh via Falkirk Grahamston in order for me to get to work. Very kind of them, but how long can they continue to convey thin air ?

Can't understand why they have not changed it to 2 or 3 Carriage Units.

I don't know if any of the post 0623 services have a decent loading but the 1725 into Edinburgh certainly has half a dozen at the most.

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In the interests of social distancing you want 6 car formations surely?

Mag_seven said:

In the interests of social distancing you want 6 car formations surely?

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Indeed. Train lengths should be maxed out at the moment.

Well that and a) there isn't going to be that much room to spare on depots and b) every train that's running around coupled up is one fewer that anyone needs to worry about bringing back into service after a period laid up.

Killingworth said:

I said 20% medium term decline. Medium term I'd possibly define as 2-5 years. In the short term, up to 2 years, I can see rail use decline by 50% with big variations across the country. The recovery will be gradual as confidence is restored, and it will be uneven.

The longer we manage without trains the more we'll get used to it. Partly that will be due to the inevitable major downturn in jobs. Partly because we discover that home working is easier than we thought, tested by months rather than an odd day doing it. In the short term it will be because leisure users won't want to risk being in crowds of any sort and money will be short. We've been told not to travel unless we have to and the vast majority have obeyed the call.

There will be many bad effects, but there will be good. In 10 years time we'll better see the results. In the shorter term we'll be able to reassess what has worked with the emergency timetables. I feel sure the regular timetables in 5 years time will reflect changed needs and travel patterns.

I'm afraid the airports are in for a lean time so, as an example, rail services to Manchester Airport will not need the priority they've recently had.

It's far too early to predict details, but recent fears about rolling stock shortages can probably be set to one side. Earlier scrapping is more likely. What a difference a month has made!

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Whilst I agree with much of what you say, there's a few things which could result in rail being not that much below the current overall level in (say) 4 years time.

Firstly all of this is going to have a much larger impact on car usage and air travel than rail. Whilst rail travel to Manchester Airport would likely fall significantly that travel is likely to be offset (at least partly) by those then using rail to travel within the UK.

Whilst a lot of WFH is likely to reduce the number of people traveling everyday by rail it could also, through impacting car use for the same reasons, result in many using rail for occasional travel. In part due to reduced numbers of cars in households, this would likely mean more user of public transport for other trips when there's a need for family members going to different things.

If we work on the basis that 10% of travel is by rail and 80% is by car, then a 25% drop in rail use (2.5% of all travel) could be mostly offset in a 3% change (2.4% of all travel) from car to rail. As such what may look like a small change to car usage could have a big impact on rail travel.

It's why I've been highlighting that there's likely to be changes to the way people travel, which may not be that useful for a lot of people, which would probably be enough to create enough rail travel to bring rail use (but probably not all at peak time) back to an overall level similar (maybe in km traveled rather than actual passengers) level to what we've got now.

It probably wouldn't take much for it to be higher than it currently is (at least in km traveled, but maybe even in overall passenger numbers). A noticeable drop in car ownership (and there's going to be quite a few for whom the lease payments on their cars are going to be a big cost which they'd rather not be paying, for whom a tie in to a 3 year lease would likely be something that they'd think much more carefully about doing again) is a fairly likely outcome. Even if that's only going to result in each car which is removed resulting in an extra couple of trips by rail a week a 1% drop could (2.5 trips per week) result in an extra 40 million rail trips (2.44% of 2016 rail usage).

Also, depending on the eventual outcome of all this, a significant number of the "senior railcard" brigade will have fallen by the wayside. I include myself in that, before anyone accuses me of being ageist.

It's not just frontline staff are that are the issue.

Trains have exam and maintenance regimes to go through - if the engineering side of the TOCs are seeing the same levels of sickness as the ops side is, then that will severely hamper the ability to undertake planned exams and essential maintenance. Running services doubled up or at max length as much as doubles their workload. If more of your fleet is out burning through exam miles then you need to undertake exams at a higher frequency.

If you reduce the service to protect against ops staff shortages and minimise costs to the public purse that is now paying for every penny all of this (that's what these reduced timetables are about, nothing to do with fewer passengers travelling, although the two are intrinsically linked), the operators would be shooting themselves in both feet and their left elbow if they then pressed all the freed up rolling stock into service for strengthening in the name of social distancing. You have to strike a pragmatic middle ground.

Butts said:

I can't believe Scotrail are still sending 6 Carriage Trains between Dunblane and Edinburgh via Falkirk Grahamston in order for me to get to work. Very kind of them, but how long can they continue to convey thin air ?

Can't understand why they have not changed it to 2 or 3 Carriage Units.

I don't know if any of the post 0623 services have a decent loading but the 1725 into Edinburgh certainly has half a dozen at the most.

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Of the services I've seen in Edinburgh I think the most passengers I have seen was 14 on a HST ex Aberdeen arriving at Haymarket, a fair chunk of those rig workers.
Most other services seemed to carry between 3and 8 which seemed to be the norm in the daytime.


Good to see people are staying in but when you see Edinburgh deserted it hits home just how awful the situation is.

Bletchleyite said:

Indeed. Train lengths should be maxed out at the moment.

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They really shouldn’t. Passenger numbers are down 90-95%. Even with, on average, half a service in place, there’s plenty of space for social distancing even with train running at half length or less. The trains I see going past near me on the MML at peak time are essentially empty.

ainsworth74 said:

Well that and a) there isn't going to be that much room to spare on depots and b) every train that's running around coupled up is one fewer that anyone needs to worry about bringing back into service after a period laid up.

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There’s plenty of siding space, and trains are being cycled through to ‘keep warm’.

PTR 444 said:

And in that case, will there be enough public transport for the people who can't afford to buy a car or learn to drive?

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Why would there not be "enough" public transport? Maybe less frequent services and less convenient routes than pre-virus, but not none.

Philip said:

The Spanish flu was the same strain of virus that caused swine flu! The H1N1 virus.

As for being very contagious - so was swine flu! This virus isn't any different in that it can be caught by either getting droplets from someone who coughs/sneezes, or by touching an infected surface and then handling food or touching your eyes/mouth.

I know this virus is worse than swine flu in the seriousness of it, but even during the peak of the swine flu pandemic, I don't remember any cuts to rail services, at least not in my area.

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You've failed to grasp the point - it's how contagious it is! Swine Flu in 2009 killed less than 400 people. Covid-19 killed nearly 600 again today alone.

2009 swine flu on average for every person who caught it passed it onto 1.4 to 1.6 people.
Normal flu on average for everyone who has it passes it onto 1.3 to 1.4 people.
Covid-19 on average for those who have it pass it onto 3 people.

Ten layers in that means: 40 people get normal flu (assuming 1.4), 170 people get swine flu (assuming 1.6), 59,000 get Covid-19.

So, no, nobody is overstating the timescales. 6 to 7 weeks this won't all blow over. And the railway will not get back to normal for months. It's truly astonishing how many don't grasp the severity of this situation and aren't listening to advice.

I work on the railway and the belief is 12 weeks from the introduction of the reduced timetable at least, which takes us into June. Close friends who work in the NHS actually believe the peak will be in June if the government continues to pursue their herd immunity strategy and don't test people (10,000 still not being test daily as was promised). I tend to believe a medical professional on medical issues, and their belief is August/September is when things will start getting back to normal and they're praying for a crap summer so that the idiots who've still being going out as normal stay in.

The Ham said:

Firstly all of this is going to have a much larger impact on car usage and air travel than rail.e

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I can understand air travel seeing a bigger impact because I would expect international travel to be restricted for considerablly longer than domestic.

But I would expect until the covid-19 situation is thoroughly dealt with for those who have the option of train or car to choose to travel by car.

plugwash said:

I can understand air travel seeing a bigger impact because I would expect international travel to be restricted for considerablly longer than domestic.

But I would expect until the covid-19 situation is thoroughly dealt with for those who have the option of train or car to choose to travel by car.

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There's two things which will impact on car use.

Firstly there's going to be an impact on car ownership due to the economic impact of the virus. Anyone with a lease car with a lease up for renewal during this time is going to consider whether it's worth renewing at this point in time, chances are many will not (especially if finances are tight). In fact there's probably some who are looking to end their leases early.

Secondly there's going to be a lot of people who are more likely to be working from home going forwards, that's going to mean that people will find that they can do without multiple cars in a household more easily.

These two points could be linked, in that households may be more cautious about taking out leases in the future, in that their cars have been sat doing not a lot during this time costing quite a lot of money, whilst those using rail have had refunds. As such, especially if money is a little tight and there's a way to make it so that they can cope with one car rather than two cars, then we could see a drop in cars. However in doing so it's likely that those household will use rail a little more than currently.

Mag_seven said:

In the interests of social distancing you want 6 car formations surely?

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A carriage to myself is just about acceptable !!

I can't understand why they don't make it free with such light loadings. Some of us are not sitting at home doing SFA and getting paid 80-100% of our wages. Would be a nice gesture for us Key Workers !! Seriously i'm so glad I can still go to work and not go stir crazy at home.

No one is checking tickets and the barriers are often open apart from Haymarket/Waverley.

The Ham said:

Secondly there's going to be a lot of people who are more likely to be working from home going forwards, that's going to mean that people will find that they can do without multiple cars in a household more easily.

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You are taking the view that people are assured of their home working jobs, indeed that the labour market basically stops. As people lose these jobs (or want to change employer) and have to seek new employment, they may well have to travel.

plugwash said:

I can understand air travel seeing a bigger impact because I would expect international travel to be restricted for considerablly longer than domestic.

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Your comment implies that long distance travel by any means will also be restricted for longer than local travel. As restrictions are relaxed I could see a limit on the distance people are allowed to travel from their own homes to continue to restrict the spread.

The long distance railway is dead and isn't coming back.

JonathanH said:

The long distance railway is dead and isn't coming back.

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Given that even the Spanish flu didn't manage to kill off the long distance railway, I'm sceptical of that as a long term outcome.

yorksrob said:

Given that even the Spanish flu didn't manage to kill off the long distance railway, I'm sceptical of that as a long term outcome.

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Agree entirely!

The two weeks after the stay at home advice is lifted are going to be absolute bedlam on long distance routes (road, rail and air). And people will fairly quickly get back to normal travel patterns.

It’s worth remembering that the significant majority of long distance travel in this country is not for business reasons. And whilst people have been using Zoom etc to catch up with friends, they will still want to see them in real life.

70% of petrol stations are expected to go bust, mostly rural so car drivers might be in for a shock when things are over! That shifts the balance too for rail.

Many will be bought & and reopen, but certainly many will not.

Bald Rick said:

The two weeks after the stay at home advice is lifted are going to be absolute bedlam on long distance routes (road, rail and air). And people will fairly quickly get back to normal travel patterns.

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I think restrictions are going to be lifted on a local basis first. The last thing that anyone wants is the virus being spread to areas where it hasn't taken hold.

JonathanH said:

I think restrictions are going to be lifted on a local basis first. The last thing that anyone wants is the virus being spread to areas where it hasn't taken hold.

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The problem with that is that you'd need roadblocks at the M25 bridges, and I don't think that is something people will accept in the UK even in the circumstances. That I think is why they didn't just do a "London lockdown" but the same for everyone even in places like Hull where there are almost no cases.

Bletchleyite said:

The problem with that is that you'd need roadblocks at the M25 bridges, and I don't think that is something people will accept in the UK even in the circumstances. That I think is why they didn't just do a "London lockdown" but the same for everyone even in places like Hull where there are almost no cases.

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Exactly.

JonathanH said:

I think restrictions are going to be lifted on a local basis first. The last thing that anyone wants is the virus being spread to areas where it hasn't taken hold.

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Even if they do, people still have friends and relatives they will want to see in different parts of the country.