Back to the bad old days’: swingeing rail cuts set alarm bells ringing

[43066]

I can’t say Ive necessarily found operational managers any harder to get hold of since covid kicked off. As drivers our managers tend to do office hours, with someone on call 24/7, and almost all communication when out and about would be by phone anyway. Communication on the railway is pretty poor generally - but that was the case before covid.

It’s a shame more frontline staff, especially TMs, don’t seem to be aware of websites like real-time trains which can be extremely useful and make the job easier! When stopped at reds it’s frustrating to often hear guards making exactly the same announcements as I used to when I was a DOO driver ie “we are being held at a red signal” and nothing further. Unlike me in the driving cab they’re in the position of being able to use a mobile device and simply checking RTT would usually show why we are being held and provide some proper insight to the situation. Waiting for me to do that via the signaller and pass on will take much longer, especially if there’s been a major incident involving many trains.

Equally when waiting to relieve a train I’ve several times been able to use it to realise when the train is going to be brought into a different platform than advertised and start to make my way over there before it is officially announced. Why more don’t do this (and some will still use things like national rail enquiries to find where their train is) is beyond me!

*OTT is as you say often even more useful for the live track diagrams - I use both that and RTT depending on situation.

 

[RT4038]

Prehaps its time for the decision makers to visit Swiss Railways. On my last visit to Filisur station which is a small station high up in the Alps. At the station there was a shop, Cafe, Bar and Tourist information all run by station staff. No problem buying tickets 7 days a week. It made the station such an attractive place to wait for your train.

Not sure how station dispatch is done though.

Could this be a way of keeping station staff? https://www.schmalspurbahn.ch/filisur/webcam/

The Rhaetian Railway made a profit before the pandemic. https://www.rhb.ch/en/company/key-figures/financial

Maybe someone can tell me why it cant be done in the UK

And what is 'Traffic Renumeration' and 'Infrastructure Renumeration and 'Reduction of non-repayable State Finance' ? Apart from other phrases for subsidy, that is?

 

[Tester]

Are those two services exceptionally quiet?

Personally I might phrase the question do we need to run x rather than why do we need to run x?

The Liverpool is exceptionally quiet; the Glasgow less so.

 

[Peterthegreat]

The Liverpool is exceptionally quiet; the Glasgow less so.

So cancel the Liverpool and put extra stops in the Glasgow if required.

 

[Tester]

So cancel the Liverpool and put extra stops in the Glasgow if required.

Perhaps, but as always one needs the wider view.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Perhaps, but as always one needs the wider view.

Of course and that is the problem.

 

[Starmill]

Of course and that is the problem.

Why is it? You'd have an enormous gap of 60 minutes from Crewe to Liverpool at a key time of day if that service were withdrawn, so you'd only end up with trying to use more rolling stock to back-fill. You'd have to replace it with something either way or you'd create a massive capacity crunch on the 0825 departure from Runcorn.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not early morning, but then few long distance routes are busy then now, unfortunately.

Part of the reason being the swingeing Anytime fares. Were they to reduce to say about 1.5 times the Off Peaks (the sort of multiplier you get in regulated-fares-land in the SE) they might get more takers.

 

[RT4038]

Why is it? You'd have an enormous gap of 60 minutes from Crewe to Liverpool at a key time of day if that service were withdrawn, so you'd only end up with trying to use more rolling stock to back-fill. You'd have to replace it with something either way or you'd create a massive capacity crunch on the 0825 departure from Runcorn.

Therein lies a root of inefficiency - run a 5.27am from Euston to Liverpool, which in turn needs an extra trip from Oxley to Euston to backfill for a later departure, in order to provide a Crewe-Liverpool service in the morning peak. So how about cancelling both London trips, run empty from Oxley to Crewe and use to run a Crewe-Liverpool connecting off the 5.31am Euston-Glasgow? No doubt there is a similar evening economy too.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Therein lies a root of inefficiency - run a 5.27am from Euston to Liverpool, which in turn needs an extra trip from Oxley to Euston to backfill for a later departure, in order to provide a Crewe-Liverpool service in the morning peak. So how about cancelling both London trips, run empty from Oxley to Crewe and use to run a Crewe-Liverpool connecting off the 5.31am Euston-Glasgow? No doubt there is a similar evening economy too.

You beat me to it!
The problem I was alluding to earlier was the whole timetable needs looking at to get the best mix of revenue potential and cost savings. Just cutting out services does not normally work to that effect.

 

[Taunton]

The XC capacity issue could be hidden with compulsory reservations. Overcrowding is very visible, people being turned away when booking much less so. The woeful implementation of demand responsive transport in MK is a good example - those unable to get journeys (I have a 1 in 7 success rate so far) are hidden behind people shouting about how good it is to get a cheap taxi.

A considerable proportion of the "overcrowding" is caused by the railways' own doing rather than too many passengers turning up. All the emphasis is given to overcrowded long distance departures from say the London terminus, but I have never encountered this. What has impacted me is previous service cancelled or grossly delayed, short forms, etc. The one time I had to stand out of London was after the long distance ECML services which stop at Stevenage in the evening peak, previously pick up only, were opened up to London-Stevenage commuters as well in an Orcats raid by the long distance operator on the commuter operator; more than half the train left at Stevenage.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Then cut some early morning trains out of Euston. Why do we need a 05.27 to Liverpool and a 05.31 to Glasgow both via the Trent Valley? Or a 06.43 to Edinburgh via Birmingham and a 06.59 to New St?

The first Glasgow is pretty busy from Crewe (0732) northwards, and the Liverpool becomes a commuter train there.
All these services go back to the VHF timetable and its 9tph day-long on the WCML (also providing gaps for WMT and freight).
I expect thinning/adding extra stops undermines the whole precept on which the timetable is based.
Avanti also have a fleet of 807s coming next year to increase the frequency to 10tph!

 

[Peterthegreat]

The first Glasgow is pretty busy from Crewe (0732) northwards, and the Liverpool becomes a commuter train there.
All these services go back to the VHF timetable and its 9tph day-long on the WCML (also providing gaps for WMT and freight).
I expect thinning/adding extra stops undermines the whole precept on which the timetable is based.
Avanti also have a fleet of 807s coming next year to increase the frequency to 10tph!

I don't disagree with what you say. However similar things can be said about many parts of the timetable. In which case where do you make cuts/savings?

 

[Domeyhead]

Exactly.

You can't hold on to all of them. THis never works. Yes in theory the employer can refuse certain key workers but across an entire program the calibre of the staff wanting to move on will in general be in the echelon of better performers and those younger highy motivated employees that are refused while seeing lesser performers pick up their large severance cheques - (especially those in their fifties who have been coasting ) with lose their motivation and see it as a kick in the teeth. This is no revelation; it happens every time and as I said before, other industry pundits are warning it will happen yet again with Network Rail.

 

[Starmill]

Part of the reason being the swingeing Anytime fares. Were they to reduce to say about 1.5 times the Off Peaks (the sort of multiplier you get in regulated-fares-land in the SE) they might get more takers.

It has to be said that a lot of them are going now. Nearly all LNER and Avanti West Coast set Off Peak tickets have had the AM time restrictions removed as well as the PM ones on Fridays. Even an Off Peak Day Return from Stamford to London is valid on any train on Friday!

 

[Mike Machin]

And de-carbonising? Or do they hope modal shift will be to electric cars? Or busses?

With only 2% of domestic travel being by rail in the England in 2019, I would imagine that electric road vehicles will be sen as the way to spearhead a green travel agenda. With such a low market share of overall travel, other than high-speed intercity services and commuter networks around a few major cities, passenger rail transportation could easily be dispensed with altogether in most areas.

 

[Starmill]

You beat me to it!
The problem I was alluding to earlier was the whole timetable needs looking at to get the best mix of revenue potential and cost savings. Just cutting out services does not normally work to that effect.

There are only very small gains to be made in this area however. This is one which I would expect to see more of in the future, converting that Avanti service into a Stafford to Liverpool Lime Street would probably be a good option.

 

[Horizon22]

In reality, I don't think the public are ready to accept cuts to network coverage, if fact I feel that British love their rail services a lot more than some forum "know-it-alls" would have us believe. This includes investment. We only need to look at the building grassroots pushback against the so-called Integrated Rail Plan for NPR - and that was a diluted investment programme not a cut.

Perhaps not but I do feel that it fits into that quirky British category of infrastructure that has people demanding that services / lines be kept but then doing absolutely nothing to support their existence (I.e not travelling by rail).

 

[Bletchleyite]

It has to be said that a lot of them are going now. Nearly all LNER and Avanti West Coast set Off Peak tickets have had the AM time restrictions removed as well as the PM ones on Fridays. Even an Off Peak Day Return from Stamford to London is valid on any train on Friday!

Which ones? Removal of Friday PM is the only one I've seen, and that had started pre COVID.

 

[Peterthegreat]

There are only very small gains to be made in this area however. This is one which I would expect to see more of in the future, converting that Avanti service into a Stafford to Liverpool Lime Street would probably be a good option.

But that will not be the way the treasury see it.

 

[Starmill]

I don't disagree with what you say. However similar things can be said about many parts of the timetable. In which case where do you make cuts/savings?

In the case of Avanti West Coast lots of small changes have been made over the past few years to help improve the load on late night or early morning trains by having them make more stops, or even converting the 0710 Crewe to Manchester Piccadilly into a passenger service. They also truncated the 2115 departure from Birmingham New Street at Crewe, a connection for Warrington Bank Quay, Wigan North Western and Preston is available at Stafford.

Which ones? Removal of Friday PM is the only one I've seen, and that had started pre COVID.

Nearly all of them. Indeed if you look at the 0527 from London to Liverpool this Friday you can use an Off Peak Return on it.

 

[quantinghome]

With only 2% of domestic travel being by rail in the England in 2019, I would imagine that electric road vehicles will be sen as the way to spearhead a green travel agenda. With such a low market share of overall travel, other than high-speed intercity services and commuter networks around a few major cities, passenger rail transportation could easily be dispensed with altogether in most areas.

Lies, damned lies and statistics...

The 2% value takes no account of the distance travelled on each journey. Once you do that, it's actually 10%. But even that's not a true valuation of rail travel because you're comparing it against travel that could never possibly be done by rail - bin collections, nipping to the shops, visiting your maiden aunt in a village with no railway. As soon as you narrow it down to journeys within areas that actually have a useful railway service and strip out the irrelevant road journeys, it turns out that railways are very useful indeed. And when you think about how inefficiently our railways are currently used, with mixed-use killing capacity, there is huge potential to increase the passenger-mile share to 20 or even 30%.

Of course there are many, many journeys which rail is not suited for, and those need electric road vehicles. But going "full Serpell" is not the answer.

 

[Bald Rick]

The Rhaetian Railway made a profit before the pandemic. https://www.rhb.ch/en/company/key-figures/financial

Maybe someone can tell me why it cant be done in the UK

Income from passengers, freight and the car transporter service CHF 94m, Expenditure of CHF 370m.

Doesn’t sound very profitable to me!

 

[HowardGWR]

With only 2% of domestic travel being by rail in the England in 2019, I would imagine that electric road vehicles will be sen as the way to spearhead a green travel agenda. With such a low market share of overall travel, other than high-speed intercity services and commuter networks around a few major cities, passenger rail transportation could easily be dispensed with altogether in most areas.

Just a note on such statistics about trips. One should probably exclude trips that could not be made by rail under any circumstances, e.g. like walking down the road to the newsagents and all trips by car and other methods in areas where there is no rail within miles, or an impossibility of rail to provide a remotely competitive travel experience. Then rail percentage goes up rapidly. I haven't done this but hopefully one can imagine the result having done that.

Then additionally consider what travellers who cannot drive will have to do.

 

[TravelDream]

Does any railway system in the world make a profit off just its transport businesses?

Obviously Hong Kong MTR is very profitable, but it is also one of Hong Kong's largest property developers and is a major commercial landlord.

 

[stuu]

Could this be a way of keeping station staff? https://www.schmalspurbahn.ch/filisur/webcam/

The Rhaetian Railway made a profit before the pandemic. https://www.rhb.ch/en/company/key-figures/financial

Maybe someone can tell me why it cant be done in the UK

It can be: the figures in the table for traffic and infrastructure remuneration are federal and provincial subsidies. They were over half the income for both years shown on that link, which is higher than the UK

 

[Bald Rick]

Does any railway system in the world make a profit off just its transport businesses?

Yes, but very few (if you exclude heritage / tourist operators!)

Depending how you ran the accounts, a couple of TOCs in Britain made profit including allowing for the infrastructure costs.

 

[matacaster]

Perhaps later evening trains from kings cross could all go via Leeds to Newcastle and Edinburgh once leeds to Colton junction electrified? Slower journey, but more likely to fill train.

 

[stuu]

Does any railway system in the world make a profit off just its transport businesses?

Obviously Hong Kong MTR is very profitable, but it is also one of Hong Kong's largest property developers and is a major commercial landlord.

Union Pacific?

 

[JonathanH]

Which ones? Removal of Friday PM is the only one I've seen, and that had started pre COVID.

I think the peak fares are removed all day on Friday (eg AM and PM) rather than on other mornings.