Indeed….
… and yours, it seems. If OA operators priced at the same as the Government contracted operators, how would your opinion change?
Existing OA operators have access rights, all of which have an end date.
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Removing open access operators from the network by 2029
- Thread starter weeklycommuter
- Start date
Indeed….
… and yours, it seems. If OA operators priced at the same as the Government contracted operators, how would your opinion change?
Existing OA operators have access rights, all of which have an end date.
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The Planner
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I must be missing the point here. So are you suggesting that if I buy a ticket a Coventry for example and want to go to Birmingham New St, I can only use an Avanti train as its "their" station and not XC or WMT? Where are you forced to buy a TOC specific ticket?
Kite159
Veteran Member
Journey time won't be extended, but LNER will certainly hike their prices due to the lack of competition.
It can already be cheaper to split a Leeds - London journey at Wakefield due to Wakefield having competition, with a Leeds - London advance being £10 more than Wakefield - London
Likewise with Newcastle - London before LNER decided to do away with the super off-peak fare, it was cheaper to book to Newcastle than it was to Darlington due to the competition from Lumo.
357
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Halifax adds 10-15 mins
Brighouse adds 15 minutes
Mirfield adds 15-20 minutes
Regarding Pontefract, the southbound services from there have a good number of passengers boarding, heading Northbound I assume the commercial people agree GC judged that there isn't the demand there at that time in the evening.
All far more than your quoted 2-4 minutes, ignoring the fact that it's highly unlikely that the 2-3 (sometimes 5) car Northern services could accommodate the extra passengers.
I've seen a GC cancelled before and the Northern with ticket acceptance to Leeds was leaving people behind.
Take a look at the passenger numbers and you'll see that this is a viable service that has been running for a decade and a half, and may have more trains operating on the route soon.
But what do I know - I only travel on this service ~350 times a year
stevieinselby
Member
Halifax to Kings Cross via Grand Central - dep 1502 - arr 1806 - journey time 3h04
Halifax to Kings Cross changing at Leeds - dep 1454 - arr 1800 - journey time 3h06 - 2 minutes longer
Brighouse to Kings Cross via Grand Central - dep 1512 - arr 1806 - journey time 2h54
Brighouse to Kings Cross changing at Leeds - dep 1432 - arr 1730 - journey time 2h58 - 4 minutes longer
Mirfield to Kings Cross via Grand Central - dep 1519 - arr 1806 - journey time 2h47
Mirfield to Kings Cross changing at Leeds - dep 1439 - arr 1730 - journey time 2h51 - 4 minutes longer
357
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I checked times compared to 1A59, one of the busiest of not the busiest southbound service
RailWonderer
Established Member
I would grade open access on how it offers a superior travelling experience to LNER. Since they are cheaper, it's a bonus Hull Trains is on par with LNER, but GC trains look scruffy and have poor reliability and Lumo has baggage allowances. In any case when my railcard expires when I'm 31 all of my travel outside the southeast will be by car.
Which suggests money (price) is your prime criteria.
The Middle
Member
It's funny you should use the word "simpler" seeing as every time the DFT operated LNER has "simplified" fares over the last couple of years it's been demonstrated to increase prices.
Of course! Rail doesn't exist in a vacuum where it can only possibly be competing with itself. If rail becomes unaffordable then passengers will absolutely be pushed onto the airlines, coaches, private cars.
You only need look at the price difference between the WCML and ECML for journeys of similar distance to see that competition has had a positive impact in those markets where it exists and created a modal shift back towards rail.
mike57
Established Member
I agree there is no 'magic threshold' but my view is that once subsidies are in 50% area it is not longer a viable business. My arguement to support that:
At 10% subsidy, if it was removed, there would be some economies, rural services may be thinned, but the operation could continue pretty much as it is now with good management.
At 25% subsidy, then removed there would be some tough decisions, but I think it would survive as an industry/network.
At the current level of subsidy, 50%+- if that was removed we would be looking at Serpell/Beeching Mk2 and the resulting business would look nothing like the current operation.
I am not sure if the currently profitable lines would remain profitable if the connecting feeders were removed, if people had drive further would they just do the whole journey by car for example? So in that scenario, where a future government pulls the plug (unlikely, I know) the current network is finished.
To me that meets one of the criteria for a 'public service'. Under the current system all capital expenditure has to be signed off by the DfT, thats another indicator for a 'public service'. All fare box revenue goes to DfT, another indicator, so to use the old phrase, "If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck it is a duck"
I think the whole ToC thing with respect to fares, ticketing and which trains you can use needs to be binned, its an additional complexity which doesn't not benefit the passenger in any way and causes friction with front line rail staff when people are caught out by the restrictions in some way or other. If you want encourage people to use less busy slower services for example then do that by offering competetive advance tickets which can be bought right up to time of departure, but are tied to that train. (Northern do this anyway on quite a few routes)
But people dont want to change... Passengers have learnt that changes increase greatly the risk of a disrupted journey, because in general we do not hold connections, and any journey involving more than one ToC comes with added riskes of complications. The less mobile also value through trains, as do those who have luggage and/or children. And a through journey is usually more pleasant.
Take Hull to London. assuming I have some degree of time flexibility I can get on a Hull Trains service in Hull and be taken all the way to Kings Cross. Because I get on at the start if I have a reserved seat I (probably) wont have to tip someone out of it. If unreserved I will be able to find an unused seat that suits me. The alternative, Northern to Doncaster, to change on to LNER. Journey time is a bit longer but at Doncaster I will joining an overcrowded LNER service, 50/50 there will be someone sat in my seat, and if there is disruption on the Northern leg you then have to convince a grumpy LNER revenue person that the reason you are on the wrong train when you are travelling on an advance ticket is because Northern delayed you. All additional avoidable stress, so next time you get the through service.
weeklycommuter
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The big problem at present is that more and more applications for paths to run open access passenger train services keep being made and all these applications continue to pile up. This has been dragging on for over a year now. The Office of Rail and Road really needs to make and announce decisions now without further delay on all the applications for paths on the East Coast Mainline and the West Coast Mainline for the December 2025 timetable change. This will greatly reduce the backlog of applications and send a clear message about the sorts of open access applications that are likely to be approved and what is likely to be rejected. I am very concerned that this is continuing to drag on as there is still no news about any decisions being made by the Office of Rail and Road.
My point is that Ryanair don’t run any domestic routes wholly within Britain. (Please correct me if I’m wrong).
Even removing 10% of the subsidy beyond current plans (let alone 10% of the cost) means closing routes. Which ones do you favour?
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The Planner
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Unless those OAO paths were in the Dec 25 offer which went out the other week (some may well be in) Im not sure how much re-writing would get done, if any, to introduce them.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
They do a few e.g. Edinburgh-Stansted.
RailWonderer
Established Member
There is a weekly Stansted to Newquay I am aware of.
With a car that isn't the most economical it's still cheaper, and more luxurious, it just takes longer and I don't see driving as a chore so I'm happy to drive.
But more to the point of open access, reducing consumer choice will demonstrate the governmnet is anti consumer or consumer-indifferent and is happy to run a monopoly that will breed a culture of do the minimum complacency. The one strong point of privatisation was accountability. If a private operator was not delivering, the franchise would be retendered when the contract ended, with the winning bidder held to account on delivering improvements to the service, but GBR won't be accountable to anybody. It won't even shrug its shoulders, it will just ignore any and all complaints (unless an MP is affected personally).
I recently took a Ryanair flight from Stansted to Edinburgh, was half the price of the train, even with a Railcard. Without Lumo it would be even worse so I can see the argument for keeping OA. If LNER priced trains to fill them I would be actively hostile to them but sadly they don't. If they were the "same" price as LNER, they would still exert some form of downward pressure.
mike57
Established Member
I am not advocating either, the point I was making was that once government subsidies are in the area of 50% of costs it is no longer a business in the sense that it is going to make a profit for shareholders or could stand alone. In that situation it becomes a public service, and operations need to reflect that fact.
As to what level of subsidy the pubic want to see / are prepared to accept, given that it is taxpayers money, thats a different and I suspect very contentious arguement. Maybe its a discussion that needs to take place, but somehow I cannot imagine any politician being brave enough to stand up and say:
"If we cut the subsidy by x% this will be the impact (lines close, reduce services, whatever) but we could then raise personal income tax allowances by y". I have no idea what the impact of the full ~50% subsidy is or how that would reflect into say personal tax allowances, but someone must have the numbers, and to be honest that is what the choice comes down to.
At a personal level I have no issues with subsidies as long as they are used wisely and are available to everyone, even if they choose not to take advantage, personally I rarely uses buses, but many services are subsidised, and I dont have a problem with that
Trainbike46
Established Member
Which is of course a route that competes with the railway for London/Stevenage/Peterborough to Edinburgh traffic. Both LNER and Lumo would ideally be upping their game to attract more passengers to rail. In Lumo's case, that would likely be more capacity (so more trains to run 10-car trains to Edinburgh instead of 5-cars), in LNER's case, it is reintroducing the super-off-peak single at the old rate and charging more normal fares across the board, as well as increasing capacity.
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Insider knowledge or wild assumptions?
The Planner
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So why do you use the train at all?
This is a massive issue with the attitude of the railway. The railway must make an effective proposition to drivers in order to achieve modal shift. I'd generally rather take the train, but if it's going to be far slower, more uncomfortable or more expensive, I'll just drive instead. I would much rather sit in my car for 5 hours than on a collapsed 80x seat for 4, especially if it costs double. On the other hand, I'd be happy to pay triple if it meant MK4 first class.
357
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The government also want to encourage modal shift onto trains - all the more reason to keep a subsidy
The Planner
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The other problem is how much modal shift can the railway absorb? Its not going to take much to overwhelm it.
HSTEd
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In rhetorical terms they do.
But they do not want to pay the money necessary for a meaningful modal shift to occur. The budgetary situation simply will not allow it.
The industry cannot expect significant increases in available state resources in the short to medium term.
It will likely have to fight hard to keep what it has now.
In that context, subsidising open access operations becomes a very expensive luxury that achieves little in passenger number terms.
357
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Indeed. This is what people don't consider when they propose putting a busy 5 car intercity train onto an already busy 2 car local train, to then make already busy interchanges even busier.... Because they don't like the colour of the intercity train.
Trainbike46
Established Member
That's why we need things like HS2 that massively increase railway capacity.
I genuinely think most of the places in question, so those places served by GC who don't have an equivalent LNER service, would be much better served with a regular (e.g. half-hourly) local service, that offers connections into the long-distance intercity compared to a small number of direct GC trains per day.
If the local service is only 2-cars they should be extended as needed.
Where capacity is limited, extending trains is by far the cheapest option for expanding it, especially where paths are limiting, such as on the ECML. Using paths on short 5-car trains, when it could be a 9, 10, 11, 12-car train is a waste of potential capacity.
aron2smith
Member
I would agree with you, but then I think Open Access should be paying towards improving the infrastructure. Eg Doubling Welwyn North Viaduct, as that is a major bottleneck on the East Coast. Any more open access than what exists now will cause huge reliability issues for sure. Also actively prevents a simple and easy to understand ticketing system coming into place. Hull Trains I would like to stay but the others not so much, would rather see Intercity come back.
stevieinselby
Member
Quite. If we were to unilaterally cancel all GC services then you wouldn't be looking at putting a 5-car trains' worth of passengers onto a local 2-car train, because (a) passengers will be spread more evenly across 3 hours rather than all travelling at the same time, and (ii) passengers for different stations will be travelling on different routes.
But also, we're not talking about just dropping those trains from the timetable without any form of replacement. We know that more capacity is needed on a lot of local services around West Yorkshire, and that would be part and parcel of any such change.
RailWonderer
Established Member
With my railcard a lot of journeys cost the same or a bit more, and I've always been an enthusiast since I was 5 years old. Without sentimentality it's a hard case to make.
Most of this forum is made up of enthusiasts, many of which have railcards presumably, business travellers and staff who travel free so it skews the perception of rail greatly.