McNulty: Train services should be axed to bring down cost of railways

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Problem with here at times is all the Pedants...

For Example "Birmingham New Street (BNS) is a Train Station in Birmingham"




*I bet some readers are already twitching "Must... Correct...

I was shouting Barnes as soon as I saw the code in that statement. Mind you, I am a regular on the Station Codes quiz..

 

[tbtc]

I have a far smaller scale thing to suggest....
Northern supposedly have an oversupply of Cl158s compared to other stock so run them on runs at far lower speeds....

What about swapping them for the Cl156s/153s used on the Nottingham-Skegness trains for 158s, then extending the other pair of carriages used on Liverpool-Norwich west of Nottingham to Grantham and split the train there.

So you get through coaches between Skegness and Liverpool and eliminate the superfluous second train between Grantham and Nottingham. The express train timetable is so full of slack it could probably make the intermediate stops and still keep the existing timetabled journey time.

The two trains and hour are only 15 minutes apart anyway, so its no like its truly two-per-hour

Four coaches/hour from Liverpool to Grantham, with two coaches/hour splitting to Norwich and two coaches/hour to Skegness? That'd give Sheffield a direct link to Skegvegas, where a large number of Sheffielders have caravans, so I'm sure you'd get some direct demand.

Plus Sleaford/ Boston get a longer distance service too. Yeah, good suggestion

 

[yorksrob]

That brings up an interesting possibility. Assuming their MU connections are compatible, will we see EDMU+EMU formations? I think we've seen Thumper+VEP formations before (please correct me if I'm wrong).

If we have, it would only have been the experimentally refurbished 205 unit currently at the Epping-Ongar railway.

Never saw it anywhere other than the Marshlink myself (although I'm sure I read in an article somewhere that the trailer ended up in an EPB, though that's not the same thing of course).

 

[Scotty]

Four coaches/hour from Liverpool to Grantham, with two coaches/hour splitting to Norwich and two coaches/hour to Skegness? That'd give Sheffield a direct link to Skegvegas, where a large number of Sheffielders have caravans, so I'm sure you'd get some direct demand.

Plus Sleaford/ Boston get a longer distance service too. Yeah, good suggestion

I would love a direct train to Manchester from here (Boston).

 

[island]

True - H&S is often used as an excuse not to do things (same with Data Protection) - there's a genuine need for H&S though, and the infantile Daily Mail handwringing about it demeans the genuine improvements made in reducing industrial accidents/ deaths etc.

For example, look at the recent death on a preserved railway of a volunteer and the "why wasn't something done" reaction to the situation that he was in. Easy to mock though...

Agreed. Even the Health & Safety Executive is now making this point. A vast amount of things that companies claim they can't do because of H&S are in fact conditions placed on their public liability insurance. If they would just make it clear that it is insurance and not health and safety requirements, it would be by helpful!

As for data protection, don't get me started on the school that cited the DPA as a reason photographs weren't permitted at the school sports day...

They were against the idea of welfare benefits so would not expect to be paying anything extra for these people. As far as they were concerned, if you can't get a job then it's your own problem and not down to the taxpayer to support you.

I cautiously agree with this. I pay an amount of tax which I consider substantial and I find it very annoying that it benefits the work-shy.

JSA is makes up very little of public spending, it's about £5bn a year out of a budget of £700 odd billion, though I'd doubt they'd know that either. Most of the welfare state goes on the over 60s in terms of pensions, healthcare and social services. I assume they would approve of turning old ladies onto the street?

I'll have to call cherry-picking there. You haven't accounted for incapacity benefit, disability living allowance, housing benefit, or the other out-of-work benefits forked over on a regular basis to many, many people. I am by no means tarring everyone with the same brush but it is clear that a decent number of people choose not to work because they like their life on the sick or on jobseeker's better.

You can't assume what I do. It is not a case of jealosy but a consideration of the real possibility that in the future less people will have a car and so an alternative is needed.

Change the record please. Your hysterical insistence that you are not going to tell anyone whether or not you drive and that it's irrelevant anyway is just about tolerable, but whingeing at everyone who makes an assumption is annoying.

Problem with here at times is all the Pedants...

For Example "Birmingham New Street (BNS) is a Train Station in Birmingham"




*I bet some readers are already twitching "Must... Correct...

BNS is in south-west London!!!!!

 

[tbtc]

Agreed. Even the Health & Safety Executive is now making this point. A vast amount of things that companies claim they can't do because of H&S are in fact conditions placed on their public liability insurance. If they would just make it clear that it is insurance and not health and safety requirements, it would be by helpful!

As for data protection, don't get me started on the school that cited the DPA as a reason photographs weren't permitted at the school sports day...

Its so frustrating - H&S and Data Protection should be seen as Good Things. However they are a convenient excuse not to do things, an easy scapegoat.

Sort out the "no win no fee" lawyers and the ridiculously high compensation costs and you'll make a big improvement here. If only some politicians would grasp this nettle...

 

[Aictos]

Just wondering can anyone explain why the Brighton to Hove shuttles run, surely the rolling stock used could be used to increase capacity on the Littlehampton, Portsmouth, Southampton services?

Similarly could not the West Worthing services be extended to a destination further along the line?

If possible then this would mean the Portsmouth and Southampton services running every 20 to 30 mins rather then hourly, would this not be better for the locals?

The former services would be catered by the increase of services available to both Portsmouth and Southampton so win win all round.

 

[tbtc]

Just wondering can anyone explain why the Brighton to Hove shuttles run, surely the rolling stock used could be used to increase capacity on the Littlehampton, Portsmouth, Southampton services?

IIRC it provides a pretty good connection onto the (London - Gatwick) Hove - Bognor trains

 

[JonathanH]

Brighton to Hove shuttles connect into the Victoria to Littlehampton services. West Worthing has a reversing siding and is the sensible place for the slowest service from Brighton to terminate because the Victoria to Littlehampton services become the stopper after that point westward.

A train calling at all stations every 20 minutes between Brighton and Portsmouth or Southampton is not going to be as attractive as the current service because it would be too slow. It already isn't that quick.

Southern's services from Victoria to Portsmouth and Southampton are just quick enough to compete on price with the direct routes.

I await with fear what will happen with fares to the South Coast once the Southern and FCC franchises are combined. It would appear likely that many of the current offers would be withdrawn since the economic case for these appears to rest solely on the fact that Southern only get half of the revenue from many of the any permitted flows.

 

[Aictos]

That being the case why not extend the Hove services to West Worthing then?

 

[JonathanH]

That being the case why not extend the Hove services to West Worthing then?

The path west from Hove is used by the Victoria to Littlehampton service.

 

[Aictos]

IIRC it provides a pretty good connection onto the (London - Gatwick) Hove - Bognor trains

Okay but you have the following trains departing from Brighton which call at Hove;

XX:03 to Portsmouth Harbour (Arrives at Hove at XX:07)
XX:14 to Hove (Arrives at Hove at XX:18)
XX:23 to West Worthing (Arrives at Hove at 10:27)
XX:33 to Southampton Central (Arrives at Hove at XX:37)
XX:44 to Hove (Arrives at Hove at XX:48)
XX:53 to West Worthing (Arrives at Hove at XX:57)

The following Victoria to Littlehampton services call at Hove;

XX:53 to Littlehampton
XX:23 to Littlehampton

Now from the view of a non user, the only good connecting service for a connection to Littlehampton is the Hove terminator BUT what if you had to use one of the other services - I still say the other 4 services could easily be used to cater for connections at Hove between Littlehampton and Brighton.

What would be better then to speed up the services on the route and still have a decent service?

 

[tbtc]

Okay but you have the following trains departing from Brighton which call at Hove;

XX:03 to Portsmouth Harbour (Arrives at Hove at XX:07)
XX:14 to Hove (Arrives at Hove at XX:18)
XX:23 to West Worthing (Arrives at Hove at 10:27)
XX:33 to Southampton Central (Arrives at Hove at XX:37)
XX:44 to Hove (Arrives at Hove at XX:48)
XX:53 to West Worthing (Arrives at Hove at XX:57)

The following Victoria to Littlehampton services call at Hove;

XX:53 to Littlehampton
XX:23 to Littlehampton

Now from the view of a non user, the only good connecting service for a connection to Littlehampton is the Hove terminator BUT what if you had to use one of the other services - I still say the other 4 services could easily be used to cater for connections at Hove between Littlehampton and Brighton.

What would be better then to speed up the services on the route and still have a decent service?

Sorry, I said Bognor in my previous post - it was the Littlehampton services that the Hove "shorts" connect with (with a five minute connection time)

Simply there aren't enough paths on the west coastway to give everywhere a regular/ fast/ direct service to both Brighton and to Gatwick/Croydon/London. So a connection to the Littlehampton service appears to be the best way to fit things in.

Plus having six trains an hour from Brighton to Hove allows Southern to cater for local demand (as well as presumably giving Hove passengers additional travel opportunities by changing at Brighton for London services?)

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I appreciate and enjoy the sarcasm and humour on this forum as much as anyone else, but . . .

But it is absolutely essential that there is a direct train for all of the 1 or 2 passengers a year who want to travel from Inverness to Hitchin, or Pitlochry to Moorgate

I'm not persuaded that you have travelled regularly on the Highland Chieftan and discussed origins and destinations with passengers.

That service can regularly become much more heavily loaded north of Perth than many of EC's services arriving/leavng at Kings Cross. Passengers tend to have a very wide range of origins and destinations within southern England, requiring changes at all the ECML stations possible from the Chieftan.

In short, it is an exceptional and rather unique service, very heavily used, whose strength appears to be its unique calling pattern.

With the sole exception of travel during times of disruption, I have found the Chieftan to be among the small number of EC's services which are the busiest.

 

[LE Greys]

I appreciate and enjoy the sarcasm and humour on this forum as much as anyone else, but . . . I'm not persuaded that you have travelled regularly on the Highland Chieftan and discussed origins and destinations with passengers.

That service can regularly become much more heavily loaded north of Perth than many of EC's services arriving/leavng at Kings Cross. Passengers tend to have a very wide range of origins and destinations within southern England, requiring changes at all the ECML stations possible from the Chieftan.

In short, it is an exceptional and rather unique service, very heavily used, whose strength appears to be its unique calling pattern.

With the sole exception of travel during times of disruption, I have found the Chieftan to be among the small number of EC's services which are the busiest.

Same goes for the Northern Lights and the unnamed Aberdeen expresses, I speak from experience.

 

[ainsworth74]

And yet they seem to be the services that EC would most like to drop for their portfolio (and is often the first go AWOL during service disruption).

 

[LE Greys]

And yet they seem to be the services that EC would most like to drop for their portfolio (and is often the first go AWOL during service disruption).

The Scottish Government certainly want to drop them, I was part of the campaign to keep them going. They do tend to get through though (probably thanks to being HST-operated). I've travelled via Leeds or Carlisle on several occasions (Leeds and Carlisle once, would the S&C have been quicker?), via Perth on a couple, via the Edinburgh Suburban twice and via Cumbernauld once.

 

[tbtc]

And yet they seem to be the services that EC would most like to drop for their portfolio (and is often the first go AWOL during service disruption).

Yup - it's a busy service (as the plum timings ought to make it - whether it ran from one side of Edinburgh to the other or not), but its a complicated one (both in terms of pathing and staffing) and prone to disruption.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Scottish Government certainly want to drop them

It was a suggestion but was it really Holyrood policy to cut the Chieftain?

 

[LE Greys]

It was a suggestion but was it really Holyrood policy to cut the Chieftain?

The way they publicised it, they wanted to stop 'English' companies running 'internal Scottish' services. Instead, the idea was to use Waverley as a 'connecting hub'. I objected to it in the consultation, and there were some rather scathing letters in the Press and Journal from various Aberdeen business people, especially the oil managers who often had personnel coming from Newcastle or Hull. The SNP quietly dropped the proposal.

 

[tbtc]

The way they publicised it, they wanted to stop 'English' companies running 'internal Scottish' services. Instead, the idea was to use Waverley as a 'connecting hub'. I objected to it in the consultation, and there were some rather scathing letters in the Press and Journal from various Aberdeen business people, especially the oil managers who often had personnel coming from Newcastle or Hull. The SNP quietly dropped the proposal.

It was suggested (mainly AIUI to allow the ECML services from London to Edinburgh to be wholly electric and avoid the need for diesels running 400 miles under the wires or bi-mode IEP, rather than any hostility to Sassenachs...). It has some merit, it has some drawbacks, but it was only a suggestion.

That's not the same as saying that Holyrood certainly wants it to happen though.