Could red star ever be resurrected?

[renegademaster]

Seems like either one of the food delivery companies like Uber, Deliveroo or similar companies would be the best to bring it back for the modern era. Do any countries abroad have anything similar left?

 

[JonathanH]

Passenger trains don't have brake vans or space to carry parcels any more.

 

[HSTEd]

I doubt it, red star could only exist because it was essentially utilising marginal space on trains to move parcels around with, largely, existing staff.

The internal pricing and contract infrastructure necessary to make that work on the modern railway would be so onerous to kill it before you even get to the need for spare volume or the staffing requirements.

 

[furnessvale]

I doubt it, red star could only exist because it was essentially utilising marginal space on trains to move parcels around with, largely, existing staff.

The internal pricing and contract infrastructure necessary to make that work on the modern railway would be so onerous to kill it before you even get to the need for spare volume or the staffing requirements.

Indeed. Red Star used pre existing empty space on trains. The slippery slope started when they started hiring in vans to shuttle parcels around cities, rather than letting customers bring them to the station. They completely lost the plot when they started hiring in AIRCRAFT to mix it with the big boys.

The only way a new Red Star could work would be a consortium of TOCs taking advantage of unused spare space on existing trains, or even better only provide a premium station to station no connections service by single TOCs so all profits are retained internally.