How might GBR work?

[weeklycommuter]

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...onths-from-31-aug.272451/page-11#post-6901411

LNER TPE and Northern are all OLR and all serve the North of England so perhaps they should be combined into one train operator with one management and a shared pool of train drivers.

What would that achieve? Except need to train several hundred drivers to cover all routes? And maintain that knowledge?

You’d also have to persuade TPE and Northern drivers that they should be happy to go drive one of those pointy train that go t’ London for 15-20K less a year than their LNER colleagues (appreciate the pointy train is available to TPE too).
Lord knows how an LNER driver would feel about all station stops Leeds to Pic either to be fair.

So how is Great British Railways going to work?

 

[12LDA28C]

So how is Great British Railways going to work?

It certainly isn't going to work by having every driver sign every kind of traction and every route in the UK. That's not how BR worked either, of course.

 

[Tezza1978]

It certainly isn't going to work by having every driver sign every kind of traction and every route in the UK. That's not how BR worked either, of course.

I'm a completely unqualified wally with no background in rail, but I assume everything will be regionalised and drivers at certain depots will learn /cover certain routes/traction as they do currently, with possibly a bit more flexibility to widen the areas they cover as there are no "competitor" companies crossing over into parts of their day to day routes/region. Open access excepted of course....and as a layperson I don't know how CrossCountry cover stuff like this.

 

[TreacleMiller]

I'm a completely unqualified wally with no background in rail, but I assume everything will be regionalised and drivers at certain depots will learn /cover certain routes/traction as they do currently, with possibly a bit more flexibility to widen the areas they cover as there are no "competitor" companies crossing over into parts of their day to day routes/region. Open access excepted of course....and as a layperson I don't know how CrossCountry cover stuff like this.

There is a practical limit to what you can learn. I know about 600 - 700 miles of track enough to drive it daily. You don't drive it or part of it for a few weeks and you'd be amazed at how fast you can forget detail like points speeds etc.

What might be better is having drivers for conduct around diversions at short notice or something similar.

 

[JonathanH]

It certainly isn't going to work by having every driver sign every kind of traction and every route in the UK. That's not how BR worked either, of course.

I have got the impression that there is an idea expressed by some that in time GBR will have fewer traction types and more standardisation such that drivers would know a greater percentage of the available traction and be able to work everything in their area.

 

[12LDA28C]

I have got the impression that there is an idea expressed by some that in time GBR will have fewer traction types and more standardisation such that drivers would know a greater percentage of the available traction and be able to work everything in their area.

Presumably that will take many years to achieve, hardly a quick fix.

 

[mike57]

Presumably that will take many years to achieve, hardly a quick fix.

Not a quick fix I agree, but something that should be built in from the start, so that over time the situation improves.

 

[irish_rail]

I have got the impression that there is an idea expressed by some that in time GBR will have fewer traction types and more standardisation such that drivers would know a greater percentage of the available traction and be able to work everything in their area.

This would be the sensible way forward and is already being seen to an extent with 80x as the Intercity fleet of Great Britain.

 

[irish_rail]

It certainly isn't going to work by having every driver sign every kind of traction and every route in the UK. That's not how BR worked either, of course.

Indeed you would have differing links with some signing some routes and some signing others. But the key is that everyone at a set location would sign certain core routes and traction. So at say Plymouth, everyone should sign Plymouth to Exeter , 80x and Voyagers. As now different links would also sign London or Birmingham, as well as Penzance etc. But the current nonsense where Plymouth GWR drivers can only drive Voyagers on depot confines would hopefully end, and similarly XC drivers would surely learn 80x over the core route (Plymouth to Exeter / Taunton and Bristol. ).
It will be different depending on location. Of course every driver at Manchester Piccadilly isn't going to sign London, it will all be link dependent.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

DfT has not yet said how GBR will be organised, though at the beginning it was supposed to align with Network Rail Regions (currently 5 of them).
It probably won't apply to devolved organisations (Scotrail, TfW, Merseyrail, TfL etc) though they may buy into some aspects of it.
It's back to the reverse of the 1994 dilemma of how to privatise BR: Big 4, BR plc, multiple franchises, business sectors etc - HMG chose franchises (and Railtrack).

It will also take several years to implement, and the starting point (DOLR) is not exactly an easy prototype to work on (LNER, NT, TPE, SE).
Nobody is quite sure how much autonomy will be given to the operating units (which will include the infrastructure elements from NR).
NR has been in the process of making its Regions independent, with their own budgets.
BR went through several phases of devolved and centralised control, starting with Regions based on the Big 4, then a centralised period, and ending up with the business sectors with considerable autonomy.

Peter Hendy will be able to sort the good business models from the bad, but how much authority will he get to do it?
He's been very quiet since starting as Rail Minister at DfT.
Maybe they are waiting until the Passenger Services Bill gets through parliament before declaring the start of GBR as a shadow operation.
Even then they still have to write the GBR Bill which will give it the necessary powers to run the railway, set fares and timetables and award contracts.

Practical problems with a Regional approach are how to handle XC, TPE and Northern which cross several NR regional boundaries, also GTR in the south.
DfT TOCs also run "cross-border" services into Wales and Scotland.
The structure must also allow access for non-GBR services (open access, freight, Eurostar etc) on a level playing field.
Then there's HS2...

 

[Manutd1999]

I think a split between InterCity and regions is likely.

Intercity franchises (Avanti etc.), or the long-distance parts of EMR/GWR etc. can be gradually merged into a re-branded LNER. It would also include XC and the inter-regional routes (Liverpool-Norwich etc.), potentially with separate branding to identify the faster/slower services. It would use a common driver pool and, over time, driver's route-knowledge could be increased to offer some efficiencies, although this wouldn't be needed initially as the services/depots could just transfer across.

Beyond that, there would be ~6 regions (Scotland, Northern, Central, Wales, South-West, South-East). These would be formed by merging existing TOCs (eg, merge Northern and Transpennine), ensuring the drivers/depots remain mostly as-is. Scotrail and TfW would remain devolved and some level of devolution to regions/mayors could be considered in England. Branding would be regional, with flexibility to offer different tickets/services etc.

Finally, freight and open-access would remain largely as today, with the exception that open-access is truly "open". Ie, no abstraction rules but also no ORCATS, no shared tickets etc. Open-access services pay a track access fee and are responsible for doing everything else themselves.

 

[signed]

It would also include XC and the inter-regional routes (Liverpool-Norwich etc.)

XC should stay a separate brand IMHO, like the InterRegio brands in CH/DE...

 

[Sad Sprinter]

XC should stay a separate brand IMHO, like the InterRegio brands in CH/DE...

You could easily put the Bournemouth route into the West Coast section, as well as the Cardiff to Nottingham one.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Modern Railways (September, p8) is reporting that the Shadow GBR management team is about to be announced.
The three names mentioned (all currently employed by DfT) are:
- Alex Hynes (DG DfT Rail Services, and ex-MD Scotland's Railway)
- Andrew Haines (CEO, NR)
- Robin Gisby (CEO of DOHL)
There will also be a separate Chair.