Perhaps then you can offer some reasons as to why mistrust of or hostility towards the government is the wrong approach? What, in your view, are such comments missing, or getting incorrect?Given the general distrust and, in some cases, hostility to the current government from various posters on this thread I'm surprised nobody has yet claimed that's their policy.
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Commuting 'not coming back': Harper
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bramling
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… and as I write this, a rare day having decided to take the train as a result of one of the cars being in for works, I am currently standing on London Bridge HL beneath the inadequate canopies getting wet, my chosen Thameslink train being cancelled. Hardly encouraging rail use, is it?!
The London - Heathrow / Reading and London - Shenfield demand which is now on EL was already with TfL Rail on 2019. However yes about a quarter of the rest has come from Southeastern, LU and DLR. Obviously there is lots of natural growth on top and the core is mostly new or extended journeys.
It is net new travellers to national rail, ie it excludes those already on the erstwhile services Shenfield - Liv St, Reading / Heathrow - Paddington, and Abbey Wood - London that have transferred.
Those that have migrated from the tube ar e counted as new to national rail.
if I were you, I’d have stayed downstairs. That’s what it’s for in such conditions. Rather better options than the previous London Bridge, that’s for sure.
Investment that can’t be recovered now, and in any case was being made for growth over many decades, not just a couple of years. Many parts of the railway were overcrowded beyond capacity in 2019 and parts of it are increasingly so again in 2023. The best thing to do now is to ensure further passenger growth. Yet you seem to favour the current government’s approach of cuts which make that less likely.
Perhaps you’d prefer we closed the railway down entirely, that way there won’t be any subsidies at all!
Not “nonsense”, £40bn was the budget allocation, with circa. £30bn actually spent. That’s alright then! £70bn on a furlough scheme paying people to sit on their backsides, and yet a £2bn railway revenue shortfall is apparently the end of the world? That sounds like nonsense to me.
A Thameslink has been cancelled? How unlike them!
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Thanks to both.
So London-Heathrow/Reading and London-Shenfield drop out of the National Rail figures in 201x(?) when they are transferred to TfL then come back in when the Elizabeth Line opens? Have I got that right?
But it means the cuts aren’t really as deep as it’s made out. Why is further passenger growth good if it just loses even more money?
I edited out my response too late. This isn’t the place for that argument, and I don’t think bringing it up is constructive (like mentioning the B word it just leads to fierce off topic arguments)
Not “nonsense”, £40bn was the budget allocation, with circa. £30bn actually spent. That’s alright then! £70bn on a furlough scheme paying people to sit on their backsides, and yet a £2bn railway revenue shortfall is apparently the end of the world? That sounds like nonsense to me.
The £2bn (actually £3bn, remember) is an annual figure though.
I’m not dismissing the money spent on Covid - it was a huge sum - but to compare a one off spend with annual ongoing figures is slightly disingenuous.
Anyway, the point is that we do need to encourage more rail use - where it can be provided for effectively and efficiently. With the budget constraint as it is, There’s no point encouraging £100m of revenue annually if it costs an extra £300m annually to provide. That why any service changes to come towards the end of this year or next (which are yet to be decided, AIUI) will be those where the cost saving is more than the revenue loss, or where new services are brought in, the revenue available is higher than the cost of provision.
No, they have always remained in the national rail figures. The extra 15% is essentially Paddington - Abbey Wood / Stratford passengers (or part journeys thereof), and newly generated journeys on the Paddington - Reading / Heathrow and Liv St - Shenfield sections.
Well, in England anyway. Such changes as have already happened in Scotland will stick but it is unlikely they will want to cut further. Wales and Northern Ireland by contrast doing rather well out of it all. One has to ask why exactly the public funding model we've chosen means that Wales and Northern Ireland can afford without difficulty to run more than 2019 levels of service but England has to face enormous cuts. Of course, that's a political question (Barnett etc.), not really a railway one.
Growth in passengers is the way to grow revenue, and the real reason for the railway being subsidised in the first place which is the economic benefits which are, on average, in excess of the cost of the subsidy.
Albeit you did (unless I misread) say the shortfall will be £1bn next year, so the it is being rapidly reversed. There ultimately needs to be an acceptance of “the new normal”, we can’t spend the next fifty years saying “if only Covid hadn’t happened, revenues would be X% higher”!
Well yes that’s all perfectly sensible, but do you get the impression the current approach is aimed at thoughtfully targeting resources to encourage more use, or is simply focussed on saving money?
Thanks again.
Apologies I could only see the bit of your previous message that I quoted when I wrote my previous response.
I did say that, but (crucially) qualified it by saying these are absolute prices, ie comparing 2019 actual with 2022 actuals, even though the latter has 9.5% of fare rises in it (and from now on, 16% compound, I did my maths wrong before
).It is entirely reasonable to compare with what revenue expectations were forecast to be, as that is what the cost profile was based on (and contracted). Assuming passenger numbers and journey types / distances now were the same as they were in 2019, revenue would have been £3bn higher than it is. Expected growth on top of that - from the new, higher capacity stock, more trains, etc etc would have added a further billion.
It’s both. I expect some initiatives to encourage more use (with a net financial benefit), and some to save cost (with minimal revenue loss). It will be interesting to see at micro level the revenue impacts of the changes made to date. I haven’t seen specifics, but I’m led to believe that where there have been service reductions, revenue has held up better than expected. That’s anecdotal though.
I did say that, but (crucially) qualified it by saying these are absolute prices, ie comparing 2019 actual with 2022 actuals, even though the latter has 9.5% of fare rises in it (and from now on, 16% compound, I did my maths wrong before
It is entirely reasonable to compare with what revenue expectations were forecast to be, as that is what the cost profile was based on (and contracted). Assuming passenger numbers and journey types / distances now were the same as they were in 2019, revenue would have been £3bn higher than it is. Expected growth on top of that - from the new, higher capacity stock, more trains, etc etc would have added a further billion.
It’s both. I expect some initiatives to encourage more use (with a net financial benefit), and some to save cost (with minimal revenue loss). It will be interesting to see at micro level the revenue impacts of the changes made to date. I haven’t seen specifics, but I’m led to believe that where there have been service reductions, revenue has held up better than expected. That’s anecdotal though.
Thanks - interesting points.
Nicholas Lewis
On Moderation
So the much vaunted savings that were required in May 23 haven't been implemented or there is need to continue to close the gap at every TT change?
The May 23 changes have long since been confirmed - you can see them on real time trains.
There will be more, unquestionably, this year and next.
Nicholas Lewis
On Moderation
Yup i understand that but my question is did that achieve the target that DfT was after? My take is other a few stock disposals there hasn't been that much of a change to service provision.
Oh I see. Well the target changes (relatively) each year.
The Elizabeth line was 1 in 6 of ALL rail journeys in the last 3 months. It is a huge factor, not to be understimated.
it was a little bit more than that!
The bigger question with the Elizabeth line is how much extra revenue it's pumped into the network - the direct fares may be going to TfL but there's plenty of potential additional or modified connecting journeys around it and it'd be wonderful to know what the impact had been of, say, SE commuters switching from London Bridge/Cannon Street to changing at Abbey Wood and onwards via EL trains.
Well Southeastern (publicly at least) claimed they were cutting back the timetable somewhat because people had switched to the Elizabeth line - personally I think it was a conveninent smokescreen for cuts that were imposed and they were happy to do.
Of course there is wider and perhaps harder to quantify benefits at connections such as with Thameslink at Farringdon or SWR at Waterloo (which is a quick change to Tottenham Court Road) as just some examples which might push people towards making journeys which are slightly quicker, easier with improved connectivity.
I expect the government will want to slash EL services and put some of the stock into storage. After all there’s an election coming and triple lock pensions and tax breaks for high earners will have to be paid for somehow
.It’s also notable how we have to pretend the EL doesn’t exist when considering passenger numbers, but pretend Covid never happened when considering the railway’s finances.
I’m almost starting to sound like a socialist!
And yet they don't think that restoring services/capacity will add revenue now ?
I expect the government will want to slash EL services and put some of the stock into storage. After all there’s an election coming and triple lock pensions and tax breaks for high earners will have to be paid for somehow
It’s also notable how we have to pretend the EL doesn’t exist when considering passenger numbers, but pretend Covid never happened when considering the railway’s finances.
I’m almost starting to sound like a socialist!
Well seeing as it's a TfL fconcession, they don't have much direct say (as much as it may pain them!) Also if its making money (and it is currently over the forecasts), I doubt they would.
Indeed, whatever mental arithmetic is required to justify the cuts !
Or that the Elizabeth line circumstances (a metro/regional/suburban new railway through the heart of London) doesn't reflect much of the rest of the railway in the country presently. That or it's boosting the finances of TfL, not the DfT.
And yet Thameslink, which does pretty much the same thing is part of the existing railway network !
And of course only the EL core is really new, most of it is over the existing network!
Whilst there is certainly an element of double standards here, unfortunately the Elizabeth line isn't contributing much to overall revenue due to the short nature of most of the journeys - not to mention the fact that the lion's share of that revenue is going straight to TfL.
So it's simultaneously increased industry operating costs, has masked fall in passenger use elsewhere and is not contributing much to the coffers. It's easy to see why a level comparison can only be made without including it.
Equally, the reason why hypothetical alternative 'non Covid' comparisons have to be made is that this is what investments and costs are based on. The industry would otherwise certainly not have grown or invested as much as it did immediately prior to Covid.
There is a key difference - the CCOS is owned by Rail for London (a TfL subsidiary)*, whereas the Thameslink Core is owned by Network Rail. So access payments from EL to NR are only charged for Stratford - Shenfield and West of Paddington.
* - The ELL between New Cross Gate and Dalston Junction (and possibly into Highbury & Islington) is also RfL infrastructure.
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