I can understand splitting the backend of tickets such that through journeys would look like 1 ticket and have connection protection etc, but actually be a ticket for the GBR section and a ticket for OA section. Interavaliable tickets would still work but revenue would default to GBR unless specifically scanned by an OA.
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Removing open access operators from the network by 2029
- Thread starter weeklycommuter
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Shot across DfT's bows that me learned friends are ready and watching. I wonder what the views of Government Legal Department and DfT's in-house legal advisers were about that letter.... I seriously doubt that they were keen....
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That last para shows a complete ignorance of public sector finances and the way that HMT operates.... No one, but no one, gets a blank cheque....
Sonik
Member
Anything less, would be politically untenable (and that's likely the reason why DfT do everything they can now, to block or delay new applications)
OTOH, cheaper walk-up tickets for everyone (becoming possible because there is no revenue sharing with OA) is likely to be extremely popular.
Assuming that GBR won't easily find many ways to deliver better value, than a bunch of micromanaging accountants at the DfT.
Look what Chris Green did with NSE, and basically no budget.
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Oh he had a budget alright.
Clarence Yard
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Oh, Chris Green had plenty of money to spend - those were the years of plenty. After years of scrimping and saving, when the money taps were turned on again in the mid 1980’s, everyone took advantage. The amount of money we had to spend at NSE was positively obscene.
And in each financial year, if NSE hadn’t spent enough by February, it was “quick spend” time with even more money for us to buy kit with or paint things.
And in each financial year, if NSE hadn’t spent enough by February, it was “quick spend” time with even more money for us to buy kit with or paint things.
weeklycommuter
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A lot of electrification was done around that time, including 25kV AC overhead for the West Anglia and Fen Lines all the way to Kings Lynn and 750V dc third rail for Bournemouth to Weymouth and for Southampton and Eastleigh to Portsmouth including a new station at Hedge End enabling the hourly London Waterloo to Portsmouth via Eastleigh train service.
Now it is next to impossible to get money for anything which is why open access applications are getting a lot of support including from MPs. The open access application to run a passenger service on the Waterside Line is a result of the Government not funding the Restoring Your Railway application for a Hythe-Marchwood-Totton-Southampton train service. This open access application is getting a lot of support because people have given up on getting funding from the Government.
There is no point in anyone in the DfT complaining about open access because they do not have the funds to provide the services offered by open access passenger train operators. The Prime Minister's visit to the Hitachi factory to celebrate train orders from open access passenger train operators makes this point very clearly.
That proposal is abstraction funded investment- quite a substantial investment in terms of the new station at Marchwood and the restoration of passenger services, in return for 7 years of abstraction on London-Southampton flows.
The economics seem really odd. How is it feasible for abstraction to fund investment on the line to Marchwood? What happens if the plug is pulled in 2029 on any operation that gets established between London and Marchwood. Why would the open access operator be able to secure funding for work on the Marchwood station and hiring rolling stock if the 2029 changes loom over it?
weeklycommuter
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The Government refused to reinstate the hourly semi-fast London Waterloo to Southampton Central service which was promised for December 2022. The Government clearly has no intention of reinstating this service for the foreseeable future. The only service Eastleigh to London Waterloo is the hourly service from Portsmouth via Eastleigh.
There is no train service Marchwood to Southampton, London Waterloo or any other station so there is nothing to abstract there. Clearly the proposal is funded by extending the hourly Marchwood-Totton-Southampton service every two hours to and from London Waterloo but the Government has refused to restore the semi-fast hourly service that used to run between Southampton and London Waterloo that would have used the paths, carried the passengers and collected their fare revenue.
The DfT is complaining that open access train services abstract revenue but the Government never provided these train services and I see no prospect of the Government providing these train services at present.
Even proponents of removing Open Access in this thread can't agree on what the end state should look like. Some think GBR should just take over the operation largely as is (but with minor modifications to service patterns to fit better with the overall infrastructure); some want Hull and Sunderland to lose their direct services with trunk ECML paths diverted to serve Scotland; some think the services should just be terminated with white space restored to improve performance. We don't even agree on whether the government should be profit maximising or providing a break-even service for maximum social value. And I suspect within the political quarters that wield the power similar is true, and that highlights the danger of political hubris taking hold.
The existing public sector parts of the industry have instruments at their disposal - Network Rail's Part J and declaring Congested Infrastructure. For the SoS to undermine the ORR's independence isn't just incompetent but also worrying - it's China Communist Party stuff.
The existing public sector parts of the industry have instruments at their disposal - Network Rail's Part J and declaring Congested Infrastructure. For the SoS to undermine the ORR's independence isn't just incompetent but also worrying - it's China Communist Party stuff.
weeklycommuter
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ORR press release rejecting the three WCML open access applications (WSMR, Lumo Rochdale, Virgin). This is due to lack of capacity on the WCML and nothing to do with any of the letters from the DfT.
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It is now clear that the only way to get more train services on the West Coast Mainline is to complete and open HS2 from London to Birmingham.
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There is more information on the rejection of the three applications to run open access services on the WCML in the following letter on the ORR website.
Rail regulator rejects West Coast Main Line applications due to insufficient capacity | Office of Rail and Road
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has rejected applications from three companies seeking track access contracts with Network Rail to run services on the West Coast Main Line (WCML).www.orr.gov.uk
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It is now clear that the only way to get more train services on the West Coast Mainline is to complete and open HS2 from London to Birmingham.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
There is more information on the rejection of the three applications to run open access services on the WCML in the following letter on the ORR website.
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That is the reason it's being built, so no shock there really.
Hyperbole aside (but the Daily Mail would love it) the SoS is, at worst, possibly over-reaching in trying to effect future policy or legislation before it comes into effect.
Politically, like so many other issues involving this government, there were more finessed routes to their aims. For example, a stated policy of taking all new OAOs into public ownership by (date) without compensation would have served notice on time limitations.
Over to the courts.
This kind of over-reaching is something a competent government respecting due process should not go anywhere near.
This kind of explicit policy announcement would probably land the government in very hot waters, and send a very start message to the private sector on what kind of business environment we want this country to be.
I don’t see how giving finite life expectancy to new OAOs would cause that. It’s a logical extension of taking franchises back into public control. In reverse, the current flurry of OAO applications appear to be TOC owners’ attempts to cream off lucrative flows before their franchised estate disappears.
For a start it is effectively a way of circumventing the current legislation by guaranteeing that there are no new OAOs as they would be economically unviable. Secondly it is the function of ORR under the current legislation to set time bounds on OAOs. Any HMG attempts to cut across that would rightly be litigated.
There was nothing to stop Labour announcing a policy for a passenger OAO end point and associated compensation (or otherwise) with the aim of legislating for that subsequently. Nobody can litigate against a stated government policy so far as I am aware?
So long as the new legislation doesn't conflict with other stuff on the statue book (or repeals anything it does) then they'd probably be fine.
The message it would send though is another matter.
The message it surely sends is that the railway network is almost uniquely a finite resource and that it is for a central organisation to plan the services, fares and development that operate on it, without outside influences looking to make that central planning more difficult.
It is then for local politicians and other strategic organisations to put a business case to the central organisation to ensure the right places are served within the funding provided from government.
It recognises the circumstances of the railway, and doesnt really feed to other areas of the economy.
Dr Hoo
Established Member
Well, that’s definitely the last nail in the freight growth coffin then.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
There absolutely can't be freight growth involving the WCML until the relevant piece of HS2 is in place, no. That's one key reason for it.
HSTEd
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I'd expect it is because the operator expects to be able to use the threat of abandoning the Marchwood line to obtain ongoing abstraction.
Dr Hoo
Established Member
I wasn’t talking solely about the WCML. The post to which I was responding referred to (presumably all) “outside influences” on network planning and development. That would seem to apply to stone trains from Tunstead or steel to and from Port Talbot, etc. as much as intermodal trains on the WCML.
(New and additional trains have just started serving the new Northampton Gateway strategic rail freight interchange by the way.
How realistic would it be for councils to set up their own open-access operators? I know that local government finances aren't in the best of shapes, but if e.g. Hull Trains were stopped from running whilst being profitable and LNER / GBR didn't fill the gap, could (should they be allowed to) Hull, East Riding etc. councils fund an alternative? London Overground, Elizabeth Line, Merseyrail, TfW and ScotRail will already exist as public non-GBR operators.
The Planner
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They might have the aspiration, but they would be outsourcing everything to do with it.
Why would a public organisation want to do that, rather than contract the railway to do it directly (as many councils have over the years).
Hence the "if... LNER / GBR didn't fill the gap".
There's no practical way of distinguishing between different types of Open Access operators.
If people want to allow freight, services from devolved authorities or local councils, and charters, but not allow private commercial Open Access operators, then I don't see a 'good law' way of doing it.