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Is rail REALLY that bad in the North?

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AndrewE

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Think that is a bit of a nonsense quite frankly, on the main TPE route there will hardly be any local trains between Leeds and Manchester when TPE take over with the semi fast service, and we already have the evening peak restriction introduced by Northern a few years ago..

That's a catastrophe then. I wonder how many users of lines /services in the South-east would just sit back and accept that situation?

My point is that when there are 5 trains an hour westbound out of Leeds it is completely unacceptable that long-distance passengers get left behind and miss onward connections when just 1 an hour in the evening peak (maybe only 3 trains between 1600 and 1800) could be "not for local traffic Leeds to Huddersfield."
 
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AndrewE

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There are difference between arguing that there should be more investment in the railway in other regions and saying that London has messed up the rest of the country by loosing people's pension fund by betting it at a casino.

I said that we are being told that transport investment is justified in London because that is mainly where taxes are collected from, so by implication the rest of us don't deserve any investment. The Financial Services Sector may be mainly in London, but they undoubtedly live the champagne lifestyle playing with the money in my unit trusts and, (until it was taken in house,) the money in the pension fund I paid into all my working life.

Have you ever seen what it's like around Liverpool St on a Friday evening?
 

Robertj21a

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I said that we are being told that transport investment is justified in London because that is mainly where taxes are collected from, so by implication the rest of us don't deserve any investment. The Financial Services Sector may be mainly in London, but they undoubtedly live the champagne lifestyle playing with the money in my unit trusts and, (until it was taken in house,) the money in the pension fund I paid into all my working life.

Have you ever seen what it's like around Liverpool St on a Friday evening?

Is that when the staff who have been out of the house since 5am eventually get a break ?
 

Ayman Ilham

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Northern trains are actually alright when 1) it's not a pacer and 2) it's not packed! Some seats are actually more comfortable than Transpennine Express, especially on most of their 158s! But I agree that the main problem that needs to be sorted out is the capacity! 2 or 3 carriages is certainly not enough for peak times in Manchester! However, I normally travel off peak anyway since, as well as being cheaper, the trains are less likely to be packed so I always get a seat! I'm certainly looking forward to 195's running through my uni and getting a 170 to Southport really beats a 150 or 142! Transpennine Express trains are currently more like regional trains than intercity trains with seats not good enough for the longer journeys like Manchester to Glasgow or Newcastle (although they're fine for most medium journeys like Manchester to Leeds or Sheffield) and obviously the shortage of carriages so I hope the new trains for TPE fix all that!
 
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The Ham

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An investment gap of £59bn according to the IPPR think tank. That's having it your own way.

As I have pointed out before, the full value of Crossrail is counted in that yet a significant percentage of that project is funded by local taxes (i.e. taxes which are only levied on businesses in London).

Also any project that has public support is counted to the full value, so if a local council funds part of a road and the developer funds most of it all of that money is included. Even though most money is from the developer and the rest is funded by a local council (so wouldn't be spent elsewhere if it wasn't spent on that project).

Their analysis also doesn't take into account the spending on government support in the form of subsidies which would rebalance that figure a bit as well.

Tell me what answer you want and someone will find the numbers to support your views, with by omitting bits of data or by adding in other bits.
 

The Ham

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I said that we are being told that transport investment is justified in London because that is mainly where taxes are collected from, so by implication the rest of us don't deserve any investment. The Financial Services Sector may be mainly in London, but they undoubtedly live the champagne lifestyle playing with the money in my unit trusts and, (until it was taken in house,) the money in the pension fund I paid into all my working life.

Have you ever seen what it's like around Liverpool St on a Friday evening?

I didn't say that, infact most people if they have said anything it is that due to extra tax income from London then spending should be higher than other areas. I don't recall any posts that said the North doesn't deserve ANY investment.

As such people are saying that the reason that there is more investment is because there is more tax, which is very different to the should be no investment because there is less tax paid in an area.

The thing is there are a number of factors, which means that there's more money spent on London rather than other areas.
 

The Ham

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Let's say I have 19 year old twins and one has a full time job whilst the other has part time work and is studying.

The one with a full time job needs to buy a new car to get to work and so I pay a deposit of £4000 to enable them to buy the car, otherwise they can cover the cost of the rest of the £10,000 value of the car and it's running costs.

Now the one with a part time job whilst studying full time at a nearby college and needs help with getting to work and to college, yet their finances wouldn't allow them to cover the same costs as their sibling and so I purchase a cycle and accessories for £200 and pay for a train season ticket at £100 per month.

At face value the cost of the purchases, £10,000 and £200, are vastly different. However over a three year period the amount of money given to one by me is £4,000 whilst to the other I give £3,800 and so the difference is much more negligible.

Yes there could also be complaints from one that their journey takes longer as they have to cycle and use the train rather than drive, but if I brought them a £10,000 car then my monthly costs would also be about £200 to cover their fuel, insurance, servicing, etc. Potentially resulting in giving them £17,200 over a three year period. Even if I brought a £4,000 car (the amount I spent on the deposit for the other) it would be £11,200 or getting on for three times the amount.

In reality, what does the child with a part time job need? In time, maybe a car. Yet whilst studying a cycle and a train season ticket are fine.

Given they have different requirements they are given different things, does that mean that I favour one over the other? Does it mean that I am not willing to give more to one than the other? Does it mean that when circumstances change and the one with a part time job then needs a car to get to their new full time job that I won't help them out?

However, does it also mean (as their new full time job doesn't pay as well) that they will be getting a £10,000 car? Maybe not, it could well be that they get a £3,000 car which I pay £2,000 towards. As if only one child understands the value of what they have whilst I give the other exactly the same to be fair try don't teach them the value of what they have then their expectations in life will be skewed.

This could lead to the one who originally having their own full time job buying their own new car without any support from me other than to underwrite their loan and the other then still demanding that I then buy them the same car.

Although that is a very simplistic example, it does illustrate the problem with using the headline "purchase cost" figures given in some reports when trying to compare two siblings, I mean two areas of the country.
 

backontrack

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Totally agree the north is a unique diverse part of England as indeed is the south east and west .But the polaticians and the press class them ashomogenoius areas.The north has been starved of investment indeed the franchise was let as a no growth one but has prospered no thanks to DAFT.If I lived in one of the areas affected by curtailment of electrification I would be very upset.Even in the seventies rail was a poor relation with regard to new trains and as the decades passed it has got worse..Northern Powerhouses will by the need to benefit the highest numbers of people hence Manchester Leeds are the main areas tasked.Looking at HLO6 from NR not much is going to be done overall in the UK expect more roads and new houses infrustrcture is a long way down the list.Welcome to Britain in the 21st century!

And this is the perspective we need to be seeing things from.

Not the rail nerd's perspective. Not the trainspotter perspective. This is the only way we will ever change things - if we can see all perspectives rather than just the rail nerd's.
 

Wolfie

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Yes, agree with that. The answer is to shut Whitehall, sell off the offices for housing and disperse civil servants around the country. Sir Humphrey would love travelling to work on a Pacer.

A wonderful rant from someone who clearly knows sweet FA about the Civil Service. Quite a proportion of the Civil Service has been moved out of London (perhaps I should say central London as some has moved to areas such as Croydon and Stratford) However those who have moved out are generally "doers" and relatively low graded. The real Sir Humphrey's have and will stay in "Whitehall" (Westminster would be more accurate) because they need to be close to Ministers (and guess where they are). Many Government buildings in London (eg Old War Office Building) have been sold off - in general they have been turned into 5* hotels with a few multimillion pound apartments....

That is suggesting that only politics(Westminster) is to blame... I think that the problem is probably more with Whitehall. How many of the London-based civil servants have any knowledge of (let alone interest in) places outside their and their colleagues' travel-to work area?

Really what underlies it all is Management Accounting and the short-sighted focus on "the bottom-line" in the absence of any national transport policy. As has been said by a few people before now (including me a few years ago), we need a TaktFahrPlan for the whole country. Forget business cases that somehow only seem to support services to and from London, there needs to be a national infrastructure network that helps us all.

In the absence of a Transport policy we suffer the consequences of no consideration of nation-wide connectivity, no desire to see how far public transport can contribute to de-carbonising the economy, no real concern for the prosperity of the provinces...

Rail franchises are one of the worst outcomes of this mindset, legally requiring the Directors to look after shareholder interests and ignoring the passengers' needs except where the franchise remit included it at the outset. (and that was set by the Westminster-based DafT.)

Wonderful! Policy is set by Ministers (albeit that policy options are indeed generated by the Civil Service). Your posting essentially has a major pop at the Civil Service for following Government policy, which is exactly what should happen in a democracy. Blame those who make the policy not those who implement it!
 
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Wolfie

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Let's say I have 19 year old twins and one has a full time job whilst the other has part time work and is studying.

The one with a full time job needs to buy a new car to get to work and so I pay a deposit of £4000 to enable them to buy the car, otherwise they can cover the cost of the rest of the £10,000 value of the car and it's running costs.

Now the one with a part time job whilst studying full time at a nearby college and needs help with getting to work and to college, yet their finances wouldn't allow them to cover the same costs as their sibling and so I purchase a cycle and accessories for £200 and pay for a train season ticket at £100 per month.

At face value the cost of the purchases, £10,000 and £200, are vastly different. However over a three year period the amount of money given to one by me is £4,000 whilst to the other I give £3,800 and so the difference is much more negligible.

Yes there could also be complaints from one that their journey takes longer as they have to cycle and use the train rather than drive, but if I brought them a £10,000 car then my monthly costs would also be about £200 to cover their fuel, insurance, servicing, etc. Potentially resulting in giving them £17,200 over a three year period. Even if I brought a £4,000 car (the amount I spent on the deposit for the other) it would be £11,200 or getting on for three times the amount.

In reality, what does the child with a part time job need? In time, maybe a car. Yet whilst studying a cycle and a train season ticket are fine.

Given they have different requirements they are given different things, does that mean that I favour one over the other? Does it mean that I am not willing to give more to one than the other? Does it mean that when circumstances change and the one with a part time job then needs a car to get to their new full time job that I won't help them out?

However, does it also mean (as their new full time job doesn't pay as well) that they will be getting a £10,000 car? Maybe not, it could well be that they get a £3,000 car which I pay £2,000 towards. As if only one child understands the value of what they have whilst I give the other exactly the same to be fair try don't teach them the value of what they have then their expectations in life will be skewed.

This could lead to the one who originally having their own full time job buying their own new car without any support from me other than to underwrite their loan and the other then still demanding that I then buy them the same car.

Although that is a very simplistic example, it does illustrate the problem with using the headline "purchase cost" figures given in some reports when trying to compare two siblings, I mean two areas of the country.

A nice analogy. Despite protests about profits being creamed off the truth is that, even if subsidies actually decline as is planned, way too much money is spent at Northern on funding current operations rather than investment. The total spent is not actually as different as the investment figures alone suggest.

As I have pointed out before, the full value of Crossrail is counted in that yet a significant percentage of that project is funded by local taxes (i.e. taxes which are only levied on businesses in London).

Also any project that has public support is counted to the full value, so if a local council funds part of a road and the developer funds most of it all of that money is included. Even though most money is from the developer and the rest is funded by a local council (so wouldn't be spent elsewhere if it wasn't spent on that project).

Their analysis also doesn't take into account the spending on government support in the form of subsidies which would rebalance that figure a bit as well.

Tell me what answer you want and someone will find the numbers to support your views, with by omitting bits of data or by adding in other bits.

Yup, London pays for the bulk of the investment there. Our "friends" up north want the same investment but funded by the same source!
 
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HSTEd

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It would be entirely possible to generate a Taktfahrkartplan for the North.

But a lot of the 'fast' trains would probably get axed if we're honest.
 
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pemma

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A nice analogy. Despite protests about profits being creamed off the truth is that, even if subsidies actually decline as is planned, way too much money is spent at Northern on funding current operations rather than investment. The total spent is not actually as different as the investment figures alone suggest.

One thing that is good to see is the plan to change useless token services in to services which can be useful for some people. Giving Ellesmere Port a commuter service to and from Manchester instead of a few return Helsby workings at times which are useless for most, is one such example. Providing a Chester-Runcorn-Liverpool service instead of a summer Saturday Chester-Runcorn service is another such example. That thinking needs to continue and something like a Hazel Grove to Denton to Victoria service should be provided, as well as other examples.
 

Bletchleyite

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It would be entirely possible to generate a Taktfahrkartplan for the North.

But a lot of the 'fast' trains would probably get axed if we're honest.

I don't see why they would. It would require some frequency reductions, but if you upped to Swiss/German train lengths (let's say 6x23m/8x20m as a minimum) there wouldn't be too much of a capacity issue.

The benefits, meanwhile, would be immense.
 

47802

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One thing that is good to see is the plan to change useless token services in to services which can be useful for some people. Giving Ellesmere Port a commuter service to and from Manchester instead of a few return Helsby workings at times which are useless for most, is one such example. Providing a Chester-Runcorn-Liverpool service instead of a summer Saturday Chester-Runcorn service is another such example. That thinking needs to continue and something like a Hazel Grove to Denton to Victoria service should be provided, as well as other examples.

Well I agree something needs to be done about token service routes and Stations, the question being as the whether or not they should improved or binned entirely.
 
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HSTEd

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I don't see why they would. It would require some frequency reductions, but if you upped to Swiss/German train lengths (let's say 6x23m/8x20m as a minimum) there wouldn't be too much of a capacity issue.

The benefits, meanwhile, would be immense.

Unless you want to cut frequencies to some destinations below 2tph (which is likely death for passenger numbers) some of the express services would have to be axed to hold down frequencies through various choke points.

Various lines would also have to be reduced to shuttles pending integration with things like Merseyrail (Ellesmere Port-Helsby, Ormskirk-Preston and Wigan-Kirkby).
 

Bletchleyite

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Ormskirk-Preston already is a shuttle, FWIW. I don't think Kirkby-Wigan being one into the bay (it has been in the past I think) would be that disastrous, particularly if compensated for with an evening service and/or a frequency increase. Same with Ellesmere Port to Helsby, if indeed it doesn't justify closure, being a bit of a pointless non-service.
 
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Ormskirk-Preston already is a shuttle, FWIW. I don't think Kirkby-Wigan being one into the bay (it has been in the past I think) would be that disastrous, particularly if compensated for with an evening service and/or a frequency increase. Same with Ellesmere Port to Helsby, if indeed it doesn't justify closure, being a bit of a pointless non-service.

Used to be half hourly from Helsby to Rock Ferry and well used. The downturn came when electrification only went as far as E Port. Then services were cut and surprise surprise usage fell off.
 

HSTEd

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Putting a two car multiple unit to run all day on a shuttle would probably not be a massive problem, until some sort of decision could be made about electrification.

You could run a partially refit Pacer with no toilets if you wanted to keep costs down, given the very short journey.
 

Bletchleyite

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Used to be half hourly from Helsby to Rock Ferry and well used. The downturn came when electrification only went as far as E Port. Then services were cut and surprise surprise usage fell off.

People don't necessarily mind shuttles, the Stourbridge town car does well enough. What killed usage is the drop from half hourly to 3-4tpd.
 

yorksrob

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A nice analogy. Despite protests about profits being creamed off the truth is that, even if subsidies actually decline as is planned, way too much money is spent at Northern on funding current operations rather than investment. The total spent is not actually as different as the investment figures alone suggest.

That is a nonsensical argument. The artificial divide between revenue which is supposedly bad, and investment which is good is a pointless distraction in somewhere like the North of England where both are required to run the necessary railway service. That is to say, the type and scale required to enable the areas economy to function properly.
 

Wolfie

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That is a nonsensical argument. The artificial divide between revenue which is supposedly bad, and investment which is good is a pointless distraction in somewhere like the North of England where both are required to run the necessary railway service. That is to say, the type and scale required to enable the areas economy to function properly.

Such an argument is only valid if you accept that there is an indefinite appetite for unlimited (in both duration and actual cost) subsidy. Based on 30+ years in Whitehall I can assure you that there isn't. Indeed plenty of "necessary services" in areas other than the railways have been axed in exactly such circumstances.

Were you to say, as posters such as jcollins has in the past, that upfront investment will lead to significantly reduced or ceased subsidy due to greater efficiencies and/or greater passenger numbers you might be onto a winner.
 

HSTEd

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The question is whether the funders would demand a reduction in absolute subsidy, or whether they would be willing to accept an increase in subsidy but with increased passengers such that subsidy per passenger-km drops significantly.
 

yorksrob

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Such an argument is only valid if you accept that there is an indefinite appetite for unlimited (in both duration and actual cost) subsidy. Based on 30+ years in Whitehall I can assure you that there isn't. Indeed plenty of "necessary services" in areas other than the railways have been axed in exactly such circumstances.

Were you to say, as posters such as jcollins has in the past, that upfront investment will lead to significantly reduced or ceased subsidy due to greater efficiencies and/or greater passenger numbers you might be onto a winner.

Well investment (and subsidy) in the railway will lead to significantly reduced subsidy in terms of unemployment benefits, health costs associated with urban pollution and social isolation etc, fines in terms of missed carbon targets etc. Its just that those savings won't manifest themselves on the railway.
 

Old Yard Dog

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Used to be half hourly from Helsby to Rock Ferry and well used. The downturn came when electrification only went as far as E Port. Then services were cut and surprise surprise usage fell off.

The franchise requirement is for 4 trains per day each way between Ellesmere Port and Helsby, 1 of which must be in the morning peak and 1 in the evening. This has been abused by Northern Rail who, for donkeys' years, have been running trains at 0619, 0653, 1534 and 1604 to optimize their stock utilization without a care in the world for passengers. The line is isolated from the rest of the franchise as some barmpot included it in Northern's franchise rather than Arriva Trains Wales.

In the new franchise, the requirement will I believe be for two trains per day from Ellesmere Port to Manchester and v.v., one in each peak. Thus the number of trains will be cut in half, but they will at least be more useful. And Northern will be running trains from Chester to Manchester and beyond via Helsby so the Ellesmere Port service will no longer be isolated from the rest of the franchise.
 

Bletchleyite

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What is the demand like for Ince and Elton, Stanlow and Thornton, Ellesmere Port, Little Sutton and t'other one I forget towards Manchester?

Under the old service people from other Wirral Line stations would have gone that way, now they'd go via Chester.
 

Old Yard Dog

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The Windsor and Eton 'Crossrail' is an idea being promoted by a local businessman. It aims to raise some funding by using existing railway sites for housing but is still dependent on funding from central Government. The chances of it happening in isolation within the next twenty years are very, very small.

It has a mention in the Hansford Review - and this is the critical issue - Bradford doesn't. This is because the Windsor people submitted comments to Hansford - Bradford obviously didn't, it's certainly not mentioned in the Review.

While Bradford, Windsor & Eton and Glasgow fight for their cross rail schemes, one little town in the East Midlands has beaten them all to it - Loughborough!

Work is now in progress to build a 500m link to join two heritage railways. This involves a number of major civil engineering projects reinstating a number of bridges and embankments.

And the Welsh Highland Railway managed to rebuild a 25-mile railway (approx.) between Porthmadog and Caernarfon.

These successes put our local and national politicians and rail industry leaders to shame.
 

6Gman

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What is the demand like for Ince and Elton, Stanlow and Thornton, Ellesmere Port, Little Sutton and t'other one I forget towards Manchester?

Under the old service people from other Wirral Line stations would have gone that way, now they'd go via Chester.

When I used Ince (or was it Stanlow?) some years ago I was the only passenger.

(Aren't there access restrictions at Stanlow?)
 
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I think you might be forgetting the North East, which seems to be doing worse!

becasue of TWM there is even less of an incentive to run heavy rail services in the evenings and the weekends, which means those areas not on the metro suffer .
 

backontrack

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What is the demand like for Ince and Elton, Stanlow and Thornton, Ellesmere Port, Little Sutton and Overpool I forget towards Manchester?

Under the old service people from other Wirral Line stations would have gone that way, now they'd go via Chester.

^^^^^ ;)
 
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