Future routes for Open Access operators

[zwk500]

I thought it was cos XC's poor management of rolling stock (4 or 5 car units quickly overcrowding) forcing them to run it to the ground? Liverpool was an example, other options could be Manchester or Preston, the latter being a connecting point for the Lakes and Scotland.

Long-distance stuff to Brighton isn't going to happen again without 1. Quadrupling the southern end of the Brighton ML, 2. A substantial tax on cheap flights to spanish holiday resorts and 3. Rebuilding Clapham Junction to a 2-level station.

 

[Bald Rick]

You know how pricing managers allegedly lurk on the fares advice forum looking for "Good Value" Fares to abolish?
I cant help but feel the CEO of BlackAdder Trains is lurking on here looking for enthusiasts ideas of suitably lucrative open access routes for him to unleash his fleet of battery conversion Class 379s on.

Ha! No. The OA people (including all the prospective new entrants) are being very, very predictable.

it's quite strange how they aren't connected but I guess there's reasons I don't know about

Well there’s one main reason - and that’s that there are very few people who make the journey from Wales to Scotland. Have a look at other direct public transport options - there’s one, and it’s a 50 seater Loganair flight once a day.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 May 2023 ==

I thought it was cos XC's poor management of rolling stock (4 or 5 car units quickly overcrowding) forcing them to run it to the ground? Liverpool was an example, other options could be Manchester or Preston, the latter being a connecting point for the Lakes and Scotland.

No, it was taken out to standardise the Brighton Main Line, and save a wedge of cash (very low demand and very high operating costs).

 

[Trainguy34]

Probably VERY unrealistic, but hey its not called Speculative for nothing:
A sleeper Service Cross Country Style with 2 Portions:
Portion 1: Penzance - BTM - Oxford
Portion 2: Faversham - Deal - Tonbridge - Redhill - Reading - Oxford
And a Potential Phase 3 - Nightstar style joining phase 2 at Ashford Intl
These join up then go:
Coventry - Leeds - Newcastle - Edinburgh - Glasgow
More stops across the route, only main ones / route changing ones here for simplicity

 

[Bald Rick]

Probably VERY unrealistic, but hey its not called Speculative for nothing:
A sleeper Service Cross Country Style with 2 Portions:
Portion 1: Penzance - BTM - Oxford
Portion 2: Faversham - Deal - Tonbridge - Redhill - Reading - Oxford
These join up then go:
Coventry - Leeds - Newcastle - Edinburgh - Glasgow
More stops across the route, only main ones / route changing ones here for simplicity

That would be a brilliant way to lose a shedload of money, and provide the worst possible environmental result for travelling on that transport corridor.

 

[Trainguy34]

That would be a brilliant way to lose a shedload of money, and provide the worst possible environmental result for travelling on that transport corridor.

Phase 1 might be good as it would just replicate the XC services in the day

 

[zwk500]

Phase 1 might be good as it would just replicate the XC services in the day

For how many passengers?

 

[Ayman Ilham]

Well there’s one main reason - and that’s that there are very few people who make the journey from Wales to Scotland. Have a look at other direct public transport options - there’s one, and it’s a 50 seater Loganair flight once a day.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 May 2023 ==

For how many passengers?

Why not induce the demand and provide a more reliable service that people would actually use? I'm guessing it's been tried and failed? How else are we to break the London-centric cycle that the intercity rail infrastructure in the UK is trapped in? Look at Germany for example; they have excellent transport links between every city without any Berlin-centrism. There is far better balance given that it's not all being funneled into Berlin, but spread out towards Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Nuremburg, Dresden, Leipzig, etc. Why can't we have the same for Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Plymouth, Brighton, Southampton, etc. Because at present, everything goes into London with diddly-squat left for anything outside of the LSE commuter zone and there's barely any incentive to try and break this cycle!

 

[zwk500]

Why not induce the demand and provide a more reliable service that people would actually use? I'm guessing it's been tried and failed? How else are we to break the London-centric cycle that the intercity rail infrastructure in the UK is trapped in? Look at Germany for example; they have excellent transport links between every city without any Berlin-centrism. There is far better balance given that it's not all being funneled into Berlin, but spread out towards Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Nuremburg, Dresden, Leipzig, etc. Why can't we have the same for Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Plymouth, Brighton, Southampton, etc. Because at present, everything goes into London with diddly-squat left for anything outside of the LSE commuter zone and there's barely any incentive to try and break this cycle!

Look at a map of Germany and a Map of the UK - London is geographically in the prime location to dominate UK economic activity. Berlin is actually really badly located in Germany, and it has other big centres that spread it's population around - Hamburg, the Ruhrgebeit and Munich, to name but 3. Also, look at a history book. Germany isn't Berlin centric because for the first 45 years of rebuilding it's network Berlin was surrounded by enemy territory.

Great Britain (the island) has a population of 60 million, London has something like 9 million people, Manchester and Birmingham are the next largest at 1 million each. Germany has a population of 84 million, Berlin has a population of 3.6million, Hamburg 2 million and the Rhine-Ruhr area 11m (Ruhr region 5m, Dusseldorf region 3m and Cologne region 3m). Although the Rhine-Ruhr area is a bit like the West Midlands in that lots of distinct cities have grown big enough to kind of merge into one continuous urban area but with distinct centres along the way.

You won't break the cycle because 1. In the UK, the dominant demand is to/from London for business and economics regions. 2. This means the greatest return on any investment is on things that involve London.
You especially won't break the cycle with a 1tph max Intercity train service. Maybe if you moved the high court to Brighton and the Treasury to Liverpool you might get something changing.

 

[Trainguy34]

For how many passengers?

It would be a sleeper if mark 5s like CS, 16 car Glasgow - Oxford, 10 car to Penzance, 6 Car to Faversham
277 to Oxford, 178 Penzance 99 Faversham

 

[Ayman Ilham]

Look at a map of Germany and a Map of the UK - London is geographically in the prime location to dominate UK economic activity. Berlin is actually really badly located in Germany, and it has other big centres that spread it's population around - Hamburg, the Ruhrgebeit and Munich, to name but 3. Also, look at a history book. Germany isn't Berlin centric because for the first 45 years of rebuilding it's network Berlin was surrounded by enemy territory.

Fair enough, but even France (which is heavily Paris-centric the same way UK is London-centric) manages to have low-cost TGV services between non-Paris cities across the country, such as Marseille to Lille (comparable in populations and distance with Edinburgh to Plymouth) bypassing Paris city centre.

 

[zwk500]

It would be a sleeper if mark 5s like CS, 16 car Glasgow - Oxford, 10 car to Penzance, 6 Car to Faversham
277 to Oxford, 178 Penzance 99 Faversham

Are that there many passengers in Penzance and Bristol wanting to travel to Glasgow or Edinburgh every night for a vast sum of money?

 

[Bald Rick]

Why not induce the demand and provide a more reliable service that people would actually use?

at what cost and benefit, compared to alternative uses for the resources required?

Fair enough, but even France (which is heavily Paris-centric the same way UK is London-centric) manages to have low-cost TGV services between non-Paris cities across the country, such as Marseille to Lille (comparable in populations and distance with Edinburgh to Plymouth) bypassing Paris city centre.

which is why we have Cross Country.

 

[zwk500]

Fair enough, but even France (which is heavily Paris-centric the same way UK is London-centric) manages to have low-cost TGV services between non-Paris cities across the country, such as Marseille to Lille (comparable in populations and distance with Edinburgh to Plymouth) bypassing Paris city centre.

Indeed they do, although most French TGV services that do not terminate in Paris call at Charles De Gaulle Airport. Paris is comparably dominant to London but importantly London is not very far from the cost on the southern flank. Lille is a lot further away from Paris than Dover or Brighton is from London.

 

[Bartsimho]

Look at a map of Germany and a Map of the UK - London is geographically in the prime location to dominate UK economic activity. Berlin is actually really badly located in Germany, and it has other big centres that spread it's population around - Hamburg, the Ruhrgebeit and Munich, to name but 3. Also, look at a history book. Germany isn't Berlin centric because for the first 45 years of rebuilding it's network Berlin was surrounded by enemy territory.

Great Britain (the island) has a population of 60 million, London has something like 9 million people, Manchester and Birmingham are the next largest at 1 million each. Germany has a population of 84 million, Berlin has a population of 3.6million, Hamburg 2 million and the Rhine-Ruhr area 11m (Ruhr region 5m, Dusseldorf region 3m and Cologne region 3m). Although the Rhine-Ruhr area is a bit like the West Midlands in that lots of distinct cities have grown big enough to kind of merge into one continuous urban area but with distinct centres along the way.

You won't break the cycle because 1. In the UK, the dominant demand is to/from London for business and economics regions. 2. This means the greatest return on any investment is on things that involve London.
You especially won't break the cycle with a 1tph max Intercity train service. Maybe if you moved the high court to Brighton and the Treasury to Liverpool you might get something changing.

I would have thought Birmingham would be. The centre of Great Britain is in Lancashire. The Geographical centre point of England is in Leicestershire. The population centre point of Great Britain in 1990 was found to be Appleby Parva in Leicestershire. The best ports are on the South Coast not round in the North Sea.

The railways were built to join the industrial economic centre in the North of England to the service economic centre in London with lines to the south coast ports. Now due to the 80's there is no more industrial economic centre which has driven all investment to London and created a vicious cycle of investment based on pure returns and not percentage growth of the local economy. We need to break this cycle and rail investment can create this.

 

[JonathanH]

We need to break this cycle and rail investment can create this.

Isn't that what the Interpreted Rail Plan is about? Other than HS2, what significant rail investment is due in the South East?

How does rail investment link back to open access anyway? Running CrossCountry trains to Brighton and Portsmouth or having services from Wales to Scotland is not 'rail investment', it is a poor use of funds, whether by open access operators or the mainstream railway.

 

[Ayman Ilham]

which is why we have Cross Country.

Which doesn't have a patch on OUIGO:
Plymouth to Edinburgh - 10 hours in 4 or 5 carriages (if you're lucky, 7 car HST or 8/9 car double voyager, both will be a thing of the past with the DfT/Treasury deliberately running it to the ground by withdrawing HSTs without replacement forcing the already lacking Voyager fleet to thin out even more - to add more insult to injury, they let ex-Avanti Voyagers that could help are sitting off-lease in storage instead cos DfT/Treasury CBA to fund new lease contracts) - if you're really lucky, maybe £100 off-peak with a railcard, but otherwise closer to £200 with cheaper advance fares non-existent due to the worsening capacity issues forcing them to drive down demand.
Marseille to Lille - 4.5 hours in 8 carriages (equivalent capacity to 16 cars which is a pipe dream in the UK domestic market due to short platforms and unsuitable loading gauge for double-decker trains) - less than £20.
If anything, it really shows you how poor our transport infrastructure is compared to how it could be.

 

[zwk500]

I would have thought Birmingham would be. The centre of Great Britain is in Lancashire. The Geographical centre point of England is in Leicestershire. The population centre point of Great Britain in 1990 was found to be Appleby Parva in Leicestershire. The best ports are on the South Coast not round in the North Sea.

Assuming you are talking about geographic dominance, London is at the lowest (historic) bridging point of the southernmost major river in the UK, and therefore was the most suitable port for the import and export with the largest trading market - Europe. The sea crossing from Kent to Calais is 20 miles, allowing boats to hug the coast, and avoid the mudflats of the Solent ports. As you get further west the fine deepwater ports of the West country get further away from potential trading ports, although they were well-used in Roman times as they were close to the mineral mines and could get to the Med quicker.

The railways were built to join the industrial economic centre in the North of England to the service economic centre in London with lines to the south coast ports. Now due to the 80's there is no more industrial economic centre which has driven all investment to London and created a vicious cycle of investment based on pure returns and not percentage growth of the local economy. We need to break this cycle and rail investment can create this.

The railways were built to move minerals from the deposits in the midlands and North to ports or manufacturing, and then to move as much goods as possible to either markets or ports for exports. But they reflected an economic geography that has seen London dominate trade for the thick end of 2 millenia (it is 1,980 years since Britannia became a Roman province).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 May 2023 ==

Which doesn't have a patch on OUIGO:

But Ouigo operates on infrastructure put in place for the Paris radial TGV network. LGV interconnection est (apologies for spelling, I know it's wrong) was an obvious move to make when you have 1hr travel time by fast train from Lille to Paris and so can skirt the edge, serving CDG airport, and then head off into southern France. But Lille is 200km from Paris and Brighton is 80km from London, so the need to provide an Intercity standard journey just isn't as pressing. Lille is also close to Brussels, the capital of another country and of the EU, as well as the connecting hub to the Netherlands and Northern/Western Germany.

There's just a fundamental shift in geography that makes this very specific concept of Intercity trains to Kent and Sussex unviable for a commercial operation, which is what an OAO is. If we were to abandon the pretence that the railway should aim for commercial viability, and also to cut back London commuter services heavily or invest mightily in new infrastructure, then there may be some call for running Brighton/Ashford trains to the West Mids and North west. But as it is the scant capacity at Wembley, Clapham and Balham just isn't well used by a handful of Voyagers over a fully electrified route per day.

 

[cle]

No the trick is to locate the uncovered revenue. That usually requires London being in the mix somehow.

Notably the only OAO operations have been on the ECML, with approval given for one further on the WCML. Neither are routes you would normally consider to have an awful lot of spare capacity.

Clearly they had the capacity or they wouldn’t have been approved! Also, Wrexham / Shropshire.

How do you recommend we civilians / enthusiasts (like many in this casual discussion thread) locate the uncovered revenue? Or is the thread moot without confidential data and associated analysis?

 

[Bald Rick]

Which doesn't have a patch on OUIGO:
Plymouth to Edinburgh - 10 hours in 4 or 5 carriages (if you're lucky, 7 car HST or 8/9 car double voyager, both will be a thing of the past with the DfT/Treasury deliberately running it to the ground by withdrawing HSTs without replacement forcing the already lacking Voyager fleet to thin out even more - to add more insult to injury, they let ex-Avanti Voyagers that could help are sitting off-lease in storage instead cos DfT/Treasury CBA to fund new lease contracts) - if you're really lucky, maybe £100 off-peak with a railcard, but otherwise closer to £200 with cheaper advance fares non-existent due to the worsening capacity issues forcing them to drive down demand.
Marseille to Lille - 4.5 hours in 8 carriages (equivalent capacity to 16 cars which is a pipe dream in the UK domestic market due to short platforms and unsuitable loading gauge for double-decker trains) - less than £20.
If anything, it really shows you how poor our transport infrastructure is compared to how it could be.

Compare the number of OUIGO trains from Marseille to Lille with Cross Country from Plymouth toEdinburgh…


Now try Marseille to Nantes.

 

[zwk500]

Clearly they had the capacity or they wouldn’t have been approved!

exactly my point. A lot.of proposals on this thread are looking at lines with spare capacity and then trying to work out how they might justify running a traon over them, rsther than identifying a market and then solving the capacity issue.

Also, Wrexham / Shropshire.

Had forgotten W&S, partly because they died quite quickly, perhaps due to lack of revenue.

How do you recommend we civilians / enthusiasts (like many in this casual discussion thread) locate the uncovered revenue? Or is the thread moot without confidential data and associated analysis?

This thread obviously is never going to be submitting anything to the DfT because we don't have the data (and I should point that I am not in the industry at this time).
However we can start looking at cities without a direct London service. The see where it might be possible to call on a.reasonably fast route to London to make a revenue case.

 

[Iskra]

exactly my point. A lot.of proposals on this thread are looking at lines with spare capacity and then trying to work out how they might justify running a traon over them, rsther than identifying a market and then solving the capacity issue.

Had forgotten W&S, partly because they died quite quickly, perhaps due to lack of revenue.

This thread obviously is never going to be submitting anything to the DfT because we don't have the data (and I should point that I am not in the industry at this time).
However we can start looking at cities without a direct London service. The see where it might be possible to call on a.reasonably fast route to London to make a revenue case.

Weren’t W&S killed off, ironically by competition from Virgin deciding to go after the same market after previously not being overly bothered? You could argue that W&S served their purpose by getting an improved service for the area, but not perhaps in the way they expected. They perhaps proved the market existed, being something of a pathfinder for Virgin.

 

[JonathanH]

Weren’t W&S killed off

Not really. They were made uncompetitive by not being able to tap into potential revenue at Wolverhampton and other stations in the West Midlands for journeys to London, but effectively couldn't compete on journey times at the prices they could charge.

Tame Bridge didn't turn out to be a money spinner regarding journeys to London.

They perhaps proved the market existed

The problem was that the market didn't exist.

 

[zwk500]

Weren’t W&S killed off, ironically by competition from Virgin deciding to go after the same market after previously not being overly bothered? You could argue that W&S served their purpose by getting an improved service for the area, but not perhaps in the way they expected. They perhaps proved the market existed, being something of a pathfinder for Virgin.

The primary problem of passenger numbers was attributed to the 2008 financial downturn, not to Virgin. I think there's an argument that W&S prompted Virgin to look at the smaller extensions (Shrewsbury and Blackpool are also in this pot), but Virgin competition of 1 up and 1 down train a day was not what killed the W&S operation. The far bigger issue for them was the revenue abstraction rules, as they weren't allowed to carry London-Banbury traffic, and didn't call at Coventry or Birmingham, using Tame Bridge instead.

 

[Bartsimho]

The primary problem of passenger numbers was attributed to the 2008 financial downturn, not to Virgin. I think there's an argument that W&S prompted Virgin to look at the smaller extensions (Shrewsbury and Blackpool are also in this pot), but Virgin competition of 1 up and 1 down train a day was not what killed the W&S operation. The far bigger issue for them was the revenue abstraction rules, as they weren't allowed to carry London-Banbury traffic, and didn't call at Coventry or Birmingham, using Tame Bridge instead.

As revenue abstraction is an issue could a system of Open Competition allow that to be bypassed a bit more? It would require some better ticketing systems though.

 

[zwk500]

As revenue abstraction is an issue could a system of Open Competition allow that to be bypassed a bit more? It would require some better ticketing systems though.

Not without a serious change of DfT & Treasury policy - any revenue diverted from Franchise TOCs to OAOs means there is less money coming back to the government and therefore the requirement for public subsidy will increase (it's not a 1:1 relationship but it is correlated in Treasury theory). Otherwise TOC-specific tickets could be used reasonable effectively.

But a big problem is that it seems that the role of OAOs and their relation to franchised TOCs has never quite been fully defined, they're just there to allow private competition for ideological reasons.

 

[JonathanH]

But a big problem is that it seems that the role of OAOs and their relation to franchised TOCs has never quite been fully defined, they're just there to allow private competition for ideological reasons.

Indeed, there is a big question as to why the franchised / concession operator doesn't just take over Hull Trains, Grand Central and Lumo at the expiry of their access rights, given the market has been proven and the operators seem to be viable, with consolidation of those operations into everything else.

Why wouldn't GBR just operate trains to Hull from 2032 instead of further rights being given to Hull Trains?

 

[Bartsimho]

Not without a serious change of DfT & Treasury policy - any revenue diverted from Franchise TOCs to OAOs means there is less money coming back to the government and therefore the requirement for public subsidy will increase (it's not a 1:1 relationship but it is correlated in Treasury theory). Otherwise TOC-specific tickets could be used reasonable effectively.

But a big problem is that it seems that the role of OAOs and their relation to franchised TOCs has never quite been fully defined, they're just there to allow private competition for ideological reasons.

I mean even if the OAO's are ideological it seems to work for passengers with then running tomorrow still meaning if you can get to the ECML you can get to London still. The ability to negotiate with Unions separately works for the Unions and the Staff as loss of revenue is actually a big threat to them.

 

[zwk500]

I mean even if the OAO's are ideological it seems to work for passengers with then running tomorrow still meaning if you can get to the ECML you can get to London still. The ability to negotiate with Unions separately works for the Unions and the Staff as loss of revenue is actually a big threat to them.

I'm not denying the OAOs are useful, it's just that the potential for new operators/routes is limited because they don't have a clear place in the rail strategy. Are they there to cover gaps in the franchise, or are they there to prove new markets, or are they there to go toe-to-toe with the franchises?

 

[Bartsimho]

I'm not denying the OAOs are useful, it's just that the potential for new operators/routes is limited because they don't have a clear place in the rail strategy. Are they there to cover gaps in the franchise, or are they there to prove new markets, or are they there to go toe-to-toe with the franchises?

Personally I'd like for them to be able to submit ideas for independent routes not relying on bidding for prescribed routes which aren't covered by a franchise. (Although I'd also like the franchises to be nationalised as well. So OAO's would be free to run whatever route they want they just need to submit the route and frequency wanted to Network Rail Timetabling while there is 1 large Nationalised operator as well providing Transport as a service and not fully money making)

 

[JonathanH]

Although I'd also like the franchises to be nationalised as well. So OAO's would be free to run whatever route they want they just need to submit the route and frequency wanted to Network Rail Timetabling while there is 1 large Nationalised operator as well providing Transport as a service and not fully money making

How does that work? If the OAO is money making, and the nationalised operator isn't, isn't that just a subsidy from the taxpayer to a private operation?