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Any ideas what the Government is going to suggest?

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tbtc

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Any ideas what the Government is going to suggest?

It won't be the structural change that we need, it'll basically be an excuse to shift more of the burden from the Government to <s>customers</s> passengers.

I have a fair few ideas, as I'm sure do many on here (look at the escalating costs of infrastructure, the escalating costs of new stock, the escalating costs of hiring old stock...), but this will be fairly cosmetic - the Government won't dare take on the banks who milk billions out of the railways in ROSCO charges etc
 

HSTEd

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I'm afraid I'm with tbtc and Bob Crow on this one.


Probably closing branch lines or somesuch.
 

Z12XE

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They'll probably suggest to deregulate everything, fares, ticket office opening hours, timetables, minimum service requirements etc to allow railways to follow that ever so successful bus industry model.

Last one out turn off the lights.....
 

wintonian

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I know reducing the railcard discount to 20% has been suggested and I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

If they did I wouldn't travel ny rail nearly as much and might even spend less than I do now, so it wouldn't work on me.

Some way of increasing tick prices is bound to feature, a one off RPI Plus 5% or something ridiculous.

Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk
 

DXMachina

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allowing operators to own their own stock rather than lease it might help, a right to acquire any unit thats been consistently used solely by that operator for a certain establishing period of time.....
 

WatcherZero

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Its been mooted they will propose graduated peaks, super peaks (e.g. busiest hour of the morning/evening) to try and spread loading, ticket office closures because the number of passengers using them has massivley declined with online/mobile purchases and Oyster.

There will also be fare cuts to offset some of the fare rises.
 

merlodlliw

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Railways: Government to announce cost cut plans
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17295718

Or any good suggestions from those who appreciate the railway network more than the politicians?

I presume due to devolution, this is England only? as WG control the all Wales franchise etc. Probably the same in Scotia.

Any excuse to cut jobs & train for other jobs that don't exist,

Bob
 

Masboroughlad

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They need to do something a bit more radical.

One idea I see as workable is to have larger TOCs with mixed fleets of small / big trains. I am sort of thinking how EMT use HSTs to Skeg in the summer, Meridians on race days at Aintree etc, but on a daily basis. (Hope I am making sense!).

For example, we see full length, fixed formation trains running around at tail ends of the day and off peak times with few people on them. I know we are never likely to go to coaches and locos again, but surely a more flexible option could be done?

In BR days, early / late trains to and from London for example from Yorkshire could be 3 or 4 coaches, but 10+ at peaks. Makes sense!

Match capacity with demand -almost impossible with fixed formation trains.

Trying to think how we could do it now - any ideas? I am thinking things like TPE and East / West Coast working together - early/late, low demand trains to and from the capital made up of a 185.... Any other suggestions?

I guess the real problem is just not enough stock available at peaks! It would need someone to bite the bullet and concede the fact that sometimes in the day, trains will be sitting doing nothing. Some would argue not cost effective - I would disagree as they would cater for demand, give people a comfortable journey and encourage new/repeat custom. Chicken and egg......

In reality, I think the review will be poorer customer service as there will be less staff, deteriorating conditions on stations and trains, people choose alternatives.....ever decreasing circles (in a bad way!).
 

Wath Yard

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In BR days, early / late trains to and from London for example from Yorkshire could be 3 or 4 coaches, but 10+ at peaks. Makes sense!

Match capacity with demand -almost impossible with fixed formation trains.

Trying to think how we could do it now - any ideas? I am thinking things like TPE and East / West Coast working together - early/late, low demand trains to and from the capital made up of a 185.... Any other suggestions?

No it doesn't make sense at all. If there is only demand for a 3 or 4 coach train from London - Yorkshire that means there isn't sufficient demand to run the train, not make it smaller.

The way BR ran small demand trains on longer distance routes late at night was to attach a couple of passenger coaches to a parcel train. That was virtually zero cost as the train would have run anyway. There are no comparable services today.
 

Schnellzug

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No it doesn't make sense at all. If there is only demand for a 3 or 4 coach train from London - Yorkshire that means there isn't sufficient demand to run the train, not make it smaller.

The way BR ran small demand trains on longer distance routes late at night was to attach a couple of passenger coaches to a parcel train. That was virtually zero cost as the train would have run anyway. There are no comparable services today.

The 3 or 4 coaches would have been a portion off another train, to Newcastle or somewhere, to/from Doncaster, probably. That's a more economical use of resources. I do think that the Railways need to get away from this "we must have fixed formations, we must have short trains, we must have more frequent services than are really necessary [either because our Trains are too short or because it enables us to rake in more revenue since it's allocated on the basis of how many Trains are run, not how many people are actually on them]" school of thought. All those are just in order to make it more convenient for the Railways themselves.
 

Greenback

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Whatever they suggest, I'll be surprised if it's good news for the railway, it's staff or it's passengers.

I agree with tbtc, post 2!
 

Hydro

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Whatever plan is issued, it'll be shallow and superficial, without addressing the overly complex and inefficient core of way the railway is managed.
 

reapz

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Whatever they suggest, I'll be surprised if it's good news for the railway, it's staff or it's passengers.

I agree with tbtc, post 2!

Which ever party comes out with" we want Br" will win the elcetion the public is starting to realize that its greedy share holders and excs who are putting the price of tickets up not staff.

And mcnumpty is just a joke i really dont think any mp will take his report serioulsy , they are still reaping the epic fail of beaching so will they make a same mistake twice .?
 

Schnellzug

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I think the Government not wanting to control absolutely everything would surely save them a packet, and probably improve services through making the Operators able to respond much more quickly & flexibly.

Theoretically, I do think that the Railways, like all forms of national infrastructure, ought to be provided by the Government for the benefit of the People, but since we don't and have never had (except arguably for 1945-51) that ideal form of government, and they've all been incompetent to a greater or lesser degree, then i'd much rather they kept their hands well off, thank you very much.
 

Yew

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I still don't understand roscos.... They seem to be a way to take money away from the railways and into the pockets of private investors. Surely there is a saving there?
 

Greenback

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Which ever party comes out with" we want Br" will win the elcetion the public is starting to realize that its greedy share holders and excs who are putting the price of tickets up not staff.

And mcnumpty is just a joke i really dont think any mp will take his report serioulsy , they are still reaping the epic fail of beaching so will they make a same mistake twice .?

I agree about McNulty. There were far too many errors, omissions and examples of a lack of understanding of the industry in the report to make it endorsable.

What worries me though is that some of the core assumptions, although erroneous, will be carried forward.

I think the Government not wanting to control absolutely everything would surely save them a packet, and probably improve services through making the Operators able to respond much more quickly & flexibly.

Theoretically, I do think that the Railways, like all forms of national infrastructure, ought to be provided by the Government for the benefit of the People, but since we don't and have never had (except arguably for 1945-51) that ideal form of government, and they've all been incompetent to a greater or lesser degree, then i'd much rather they kept their hands well off, thank you very much.

I think that this government is more likely to give the private operators more freedom than to move back towards greater control by the state. I don't agree with that, as I share your belief that such infrastructure is best provided by the state for the benefit of society as a whole. But for that to happen we will need a recognition that the private sector is not the answer to everything, and is not automatically better than the public sector in every situation.
 

pemma

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No it doesn't make sense at all. If there is only demand for a 3 or 4 coach train from London - Yorkshire that means there isn't sufficient demand to run the train, not make it smaller.

I don't know too much about the East Coast flows. However, with Virgin I know off-peak that you could have the current London-Crewe-Manchester service as a portion working with an additional Liverpool service or the existing Chester service but 9 car Pendolinos don't exactly allow portion working.
 

Masboroughlad

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No it doesn't make sense at all. If there is only demand for a 3 or 4 coach train from London - Yorkshire that means there isn't sufficient demand to run the train, not make it smaller.

The way BR ran small demand trains on longer distance routes late at night was to attach a couple of passenger coaches to a parcel train. That was virtually zero cost as the train would have run anyway. There are no comparable services today.

Not at all. If there is a demand for a 3 or 4 coach train - you run a 3 or 4 coach train! The clue being the word demand.

And it wasn't always to parcel trains. Quite often, afternoon Yorks to London trains would be 4 or 5 mark 1s or 2s - no parcels carriages in sight!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Any ideas what the Government is going to suggest?
That they're going to resign, hopefully.

That would be the best! :D

Sadly, we have them for too much longer....:cry:
 

pemma

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Not at all. If there is a demand for a 3 or 4 coach train - you run a 3 or 4 coach train! The clue being the word demand.

Indeed. As I hinted at my previous post, the problem is fixed formation trains.

Off-Peak Manchester-Alderley Edge services should be a single carriage, not a high capacity 3 car 323. While the 2 car DMUs Northern have are too small for a number of services in the North West on their own but doubled up the capacity is a bit excessive.
 

mailman

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Well what ever happens you can be guaranteed its the passengers who will end up paying the biggest price! Allowing train companies greater leeway in ticket pricing will only lead to higher prices!

Either way, this will end in tears I tells you...TEARS! :D

Regards

Mailman
 

Greenback

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Not at all. If there is a demand for a 3 or 4 coach train - you run a 3 or 4 coach train! The clue being the word demand.

And it wasn't always to parcel trains. Quite often, afternoon Yorks to London trains would be 4 or 5 mark 1s or 2s - no parcels carriages in sight!

Since portion working went out of fashion, the current wisdom is to run fixed formation trains and use yield management to extract maximum revenue. Sometimes, this may mean that revenue is maximised by only filling the equivalent of 3 carriages of a 9 car train!

Looking at things from the point of view of Virign or EC, what benefits are there in moving away from fixed formations and back to portion working or loco and coaches? All I can see is additional costs and time in attaching and detaching carriages!
 

Hydro

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I'm sure the country will save stacks by more DOO and less manned ticket offices. We'll just gloss over the stupidity of allowing millions per year to be spent on rolling stock assets that had been bought and paid for in full by the State 20 years ago.

May as well get used to it. Government is as much a business as any private company out there. Rail travel in the UK will in future be a vast DOO commuter network of limited stop, airline seated, pre-booked networks between major cities. The only criteria will be slashing end to end journey times, cramming as many customers in as possible on each train, and providing the bare minimum for the most profit.
 
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pemma

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Looking at things from the point of view of Virign or EC, what benefits are there in moving away from fixed formations and back to portion working or loco and coaches? All I can see is additional costs and time in attaching and detaching carriages!

Using my earlier example of London-Crewe you could have a 6 car 390 + 5 car dual powered Pendolino running London-Crewe, then the 6 car portion going to Manchester and the 5 car portion going to Chester. That would be cheaper than a 9 car Pendolino doing London-Manchester and a 5 car Voyager doing London-Chester separately.

Timings are more political than anything else. Would anyone really be put off doing Manchester-London because the time was 2 hr 6 minutes instead of 1 hr 58 minutes?

Portion working hasn't gone out of fashion in all areas of the country, indeed TPE have introduced more of it in recent years.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I'm sure the country will save stacks by more DOO and less manned ticket offices.

Or will they? If there's no ticket offices and no conductors on trains then less people will have the chance to buy a ticket.
 

Ferret

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I believe McNumpty was planning on putting an honesty box outside each station......
 

Hydro

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Or will they? If there's no ticket offices and no conductors on trains then less people will have the chance to buy a ticket.

..and DOO infrastructure will cost millions to install and maintain. So will TVM's. And ticket barriers, which require manning anyway (maybe that's a job for all the displaced booking office clerks? Net saving: sweet FA). Nationwide Smartcard ticketing development will run on for years, pouring millions down the drain before some halfway house of an arsed up system is implemented that doesn't work properly.

Cynical? Nope.
 

Greenback

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Using my earlier example of London-Crewe you could have a 6 car 390 + 5 car dual powered Pendolino running London-Crewe, then the 6 car portion going to Manchester and the 5 car portion going to Chester. That would be cheaper than a 9 car Pendolino doing London-Manchester and a 5 car Voyager doing London-Chester separately.

Timings are more political than anything else. Would anyone really be put off doing Manchester-London because the time was 2 hr 6 minutes instead of 1 hr 58 minutes?

Sorry, I didn't make myself very clear! I was only referring to portion working in connection with locos and coaches. I agree that there are some routes where splitting units makes sense.

I believe that the timings are important in marketing terms. Like saying £9.99 is supposed received more positively than £10, even though there is hardly any difference really! I don't know how this translates into actual figures, but I'm sure some people will be attracted by journey times of 1 hour 58 minutes who wouldn't go for the 2 hours 6 minutes ad!
 

starrymarkb

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SWT manage it well with the 159 fleet. But the blunt ends limit speeds (and are not compliant with the latest impact protection regs). Other disadvantages are that you can have 3 or 4 separate first class compartments and that any buffet counters will be duplicated.

Another interesting example is where Danish IC3 DMMUs are combined with a 4 car EMU, so the busy wired part has 10 coaches. Then the EMU is detached and the DMMUs run forward. (The DMMUs also go like manure on a shovel so easily cope with the EMUs acceleration)
 
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