My suggestion to combine all 4 main Intercity Franchises

[Elecman]

Is it time to seriously consider stop franchising the Intercity Routes separately and just combined all 4 (WCML without HS2, ECML, MML and GW) into 1 franchise ( let the wining bidder run them as 4 seperate business units if they want but cross subsidised by the parent group to prevent issues like EC repeated failure.

The timing is just about perfect with EC needing urgent attention WC having just got another short term extension EM not let and existing could be extended if necessary and GW in extension.

Your thoughts?

 

[55018ballymoss]

What about Cross Country?
Back in the old BR InterCity days, Cross Country was a more important business unit to InterCity than MML.

 

[Domh245]

No, I think the current system of geographical grouping (eg MML intercity services + East Midlands local services) is a far more sensible way of doing things, as it allows cross-subsidisation of loss making local routes with profitable express routes without having to send money to and from the DfT. If all services were to be taken under one umbrella BR style, then yes a combined intercity business unit subsidising the regional business unit would make sense, but as that is unlikely to happen, you just have to do it on a smaller, more local scale.

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

Why not combine all the franchises into one big train operating company called British Rail? Perhaps it could be owned and run by the state. Just thinking out loud here...

 

[8H]

Why not combine all the franchises into one big train operating company called British Rail? Perhaps it could be owned and run by the state. Just thinking out loud here...

Sounds good to me, really novel idea !!

 

[Kneedown]

No, I think the current system of geographical grouping (eg MML intercity services + East Midlands local services) is a far more sensible way of doing things, as it allows cross-subsidisation of loss making local routes with profitable express routes without having to send money to and from the DfT.

Agree 100%. One big Inter City franchise would result in ridiculous bids from the companies bidding, and a repeat of the VTEC debacle on a much greater scale. The local route franchises would receive less interest and services would deteriorate further due to economies being made to maximise profit.
My approach would be combining the Inter City routes with the local routes that serve it, so a chunk of the profits offset the losses.

 

[MarkyT]

No, I think the current system of geographical grouping (eg MML intercity services + East Midlands local services) is a far more sensible way of doing things, as it allows cross-subsidisation of loss making local routes with profitable express routes without having to send money to and from the DfT. If all services were to be taken under one umbrella BR style, then yes a combined intercity business unit subsidising the regional business unit would make sense, but as that is unlikely to happen, you just have to do it on a smaller, more local scale.

Not so much cross-subsidisation, but real cost saving by sharing resources in the peripheries. Depots, train crew pools, management and administration, purchasing, marketing, etc, etc. Clearly some TOCs do it more successfully than others but I'm generally very satisfied with the approach in the west country and I think people understand and appreciate the unified 'brand' in the area. The fact is once HSTs get past Taunton they become an integral part of the local service. We don't want separate maps timetables and all that nonsense again.

 

[Railsigns]

Is it time to seriously consider stop franchising

I agree 100%!

 

[Class465fan]

Why not combine all the franchises into one big train operating company called British Rail? Perhaps it could be owned and run by the state. Just thinking out loud here...

What like SNCF?

 

[8H]

Rail Franchising is having as much fun as outsourcing at the moment, it was always a shallow rooted over expensive fashion ill suited to foist on an integrated rail network. It is now bereft of purpose and is ripe for replacement. The practitioners of “magical” private enterprise have hoovered what public cash there is and are getting fed up. Sooner or later the curtains will be drawn on the current Conservative inspired ideological and dogmatic mess.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What like SNCF?

SNCF might look like a single company, but they have given up on the regional services (unless paid for by the locals).
Paris has its own setup, SNCF just run the trains to contract (like London Overground).
They are just a TGV company really.
And they are broke.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...d_list[]=sncf&sword_list[]=funding&no_cache=1

FRANCE: Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has appointed the former head of Air France-KLM Jean-Cyril Spinetta to draw up a fresh strategy for the rail sector. Announced by Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne on October 16, the Spinetta study is intended to inform transport legislation due to be published in the first half of next year. Spinetta is charged with putting forward proposals for a future model for national rail services that meet the requirements of a market open to competition but which retain the elements of a public service.

In a letter addressed to Spinetta on October 12, the Prime Minister draws attention to the low level of use of regional rail services outside Ile-de-France and to the ‘ongoing crisis’ of the freight sector, where traffic levels are 40% down on those in 2000. Philippe also highlights the financial disarray affecting the railway business, which threatens its future

 

[IainG81]

I've often thought that more flexibility needs to be brought in. There are times IMV when private companies is a good idea a relatively small operation like the Chiltern Line it works well and Marylebone is well used. But i would like to see the major routes publicly owned and run they don't make money and they probably should just be run by the British Rail (government)

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

Why strive to have a renationalised British railway like SNCF? Surely SBB-CFF-FFS should be the ultimate target?

 

[Marklund]

I've often thought that more flexibility needs to be brought in. There are times IMV when private companies is a good idea a relatively small operation like the Chiltern Line it works well and Marylebone is well used. But i would like to see the major routes publicly owned and run they don't make money and they probably should just be run by the British Rail (government)

The hard work for Chiltern was started by the Total Route Modernisation by Network South East. The private, and long term franchise holder has had stability to grow, much like BR.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why strive to have a renationalised British railway like SNCF? Surely SBB-CFF-FFS should be the ultimate target?

I dunno, SBB is a rather basic operation at times. DB AG is probably a style of operation that would be a good fit for the UK (well, it's very similar to the UK anyway, and adding HS2 will make it even *more* similar), give or take some tweaks for the London-centric nature of the South East.

I could see merit in a "Rail England". ATW and ScotRail may be better off remaining devolved, and Merseyrail and LO probably fully separating out to sit under a similar governance to Metrolink.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Swiss system has a sizeable element of private operation, and a huge local and regional influence on the operators, especially SBB.
The cantons and regions demand services and fund them, in a devolved way which is anathema to Westminster's control freakery.

 

[matt_world2004]

The Swiss system has a sizeable element of private operation, and a huge local and regional influence on the operators, especially SBB.
The cantons and regions demand services and fund them, in a devolved way which is anathema to Westminster's control freakery.

Isnt this what happens in london wales and scotland on devolved services?

 

[Mikey C]

I've often thought that more flexibility needs to be brought in. There are times IMV when private companies is a good idea a relatively small operation like the Chiltern Line it works well and Marylebone is well used. But i would like to see the major routes publicly owned and run they don't make money and they probably should just be run by the British Rail (government)

Many of the major routes DO make money, just not as much as the bidders may have expected...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Isnt this what happens in london wales and scotland on devolved services?

Not dissimilar to the way TfL works, and Scotland is pretty close. Wales is nowhere near that model.
But the Swiss model is like Croydon or Aberdeen having local tax funds which they can choose to spend on supporting central transport policy, or not.
Cantonal funding in CH (with local referendum backup) can veto central plans in a serious way.
Having said that, the Swiss are very rail oriented and the system seems to work well, but it does depend on road levies (especially on foreign trucks).
It also demands a high degree of political collaboration and compromise which we don't seem able to muster in our adversarial system.

 

[Clip]

Not so much cross-subsidisation, but real cost saving by sharing resources in the peripheries. Depots, train crew pools, management and administration, purchasing, marketing, etc, etc. Clearly some TOCs do it more successfully than others but I'm generally very satisfied with the approach in the west country and I think people understand and appreciate the unified 'brand' in the area. The fact is once HSTs get past Taunton they become an integral part of the local service. We don't want separate maps timetables and all that nonsense again.

How do you save on train crew pools and depots?

 

[backontrack]

Is it time to seriously consider stop franchising the Intercity Routes separately and just combined all 4 (WCML without HS2, ECML, MML and GW) into 1 franchise ( let the wining bidder run them as 4 seperate business units if they want but cross subsidised by the parent group to prevent issues like EC repeated failure.

The timing is just about perfect with EC needing urgent attention WC having just got another short term extension EM not let and existing could be extended if necessary and GW in extension.

Your thoughts?

There is probably some merit in combining MML services with those run by ECML, especially with the tunnel that is being constructed linking Finsbury Park with St Pancras adding dynamism. Hourly services from St Pancras to Leeds via Leicester and Sheffield should be an aspiration for the operator, who would be able to charge some lower fares among other things.

 

[mallard]

Personally, I think having overly large franchises is a very bad thing. It encourages the operator to focus almost entirely on the "glamourous" "high-profile" routes and leave the secondary/minor routes to rot.

We already have that problem with the abject failure that has been the policy of "integrating" local and intercity operations in the East Midlands and Westcountry; when you look at how the West Midlands has benefitted from having a proper locally-focussed operator, how ATW have made admirable efforts to provide quality service within their "no-growth" specification and how the new Northern franchise is (finally; the lateness is largely the fault of politicians) ordering quality new rolling stock. Even in East Anglia where there is an "integrated" operator, but the "Intercity" services are a much more minor part of the franchise, we have overs to replace the entire fleet with vastly improved trains. Meanwhile, the East Midlands and Westcountry local services have nothing to look forward to except some 30-ish-year-old cast-offs (although admittedly GWR's "HSTGTI" project is an improvement).

If all the IC franchises were combined, we'd get locally-focussed operators on the leftover local services, which is a win, but inevitably the new IC operator would focus on the WCML, ECML and GWML while the MML and XC operations would get fogotten and abandoned (no change there then...)

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Exact opposite of my experience I’m afraid. Integrating Great Western and Thames Trains here on the Cotswold Line has been an undoubted success (current operational meltdown notwithstanding), while as a semi-frequent traveller on the Marches I struggle to recognise any signs of “quality service”, let alone “admirable”.

But, yes, we could learn from the Swiss. FFS would be a very appropriate replacement brand for National Rail.

 

[mallard]

as a semi-frequent traveller on the Marches I struggle to recognise any signs of “quality service”, let alone “admirable”

Most of my experience with ATW has been on the Manchester/Crewe - North Wales axis, so I can't speak so much for the Marches/South Wales operations. However, I have seen a high-quality refresh/refurbishment of the 150 and 158 units, increased capacity (4x as many carriages on the Chester-Crewe shuttle as an extreme example), improved reliability (used to be a bit of a toss-up as to whether the 175s would turn up at all) and various station improvements. Given the constraints they operate under ("no-growth"), I struggle to come up with much else they could have achieved.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

while as a semi-frequent traveller on the Marches I struggle to recognise any signs of “quality service”, let alone “admirable”.
But, yes, we could learn from the Swiss. FFS would be a very appropriate replacement brand for National Rail.

A 3tp2h service, with most services modern 175s, is considerably better than left by BR.
BR, and the first franchise round (W&W) had I think 2 through trains from Cardiff to North Wales, via Crewe.
Now it's 8 trains a day, plus a couple of express services.
The 175s were purloined from the north (ex-FNW).

There's this morsel on the Wiki article on SBB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Railways

The corporation is led in an entrepreneurial manner. A performance agreement between Swiss Federal Railways and the Swiss Confederation defines the requirements and is updated every four years. At the same time the compensation rates per train and track-kilometre are defined

Note the terms "entrepreneurial" and "Federal/Confederation" - concepts not readily understood on nationalised UK railways.
[/quote]

 

[jimm]

Personally, I think having overly large franchises is a very bad thing. It encourages the operator to focus almost entirely on the "glamourous" "high-profile" routes and leave the secondary/minor routes to rot.

We already have that problem with the abject failure that has been the policy of "integrating" local and intercity operations in the East Midlands and Westcountry; when you look at how the West Midlands has benefitted from having a proper locally-focussed operator, how ATW have made admirable efforts to provide quality service within their "no-growth" specification and how the new Northern franchise is (finally; the lateness is largely the fault of politicians) ordering quality new rolling stock. Even in East Anglia where there is an "integrated" operator, but the "Intercity" services are a much more minor part of the franchise, we have overs to replace the entire fleet with vastly improved trains. Meanwhile, the East Midlands and Westcountry local services have nothing to look forward to except some 30-ish-year-old cast-offs (although admittedly GWR's "HSTGTI" project is an improvement).

If all the IC franchises were combined, we'd get locally-focussed operators on the leftover local services, which is a win, but inevitably the new IC operator would focus on the WCML, ECML and GWML while the MML and XC operations would get fogotten and abandoned (no change there then...)

How on earth can you say that FGW/GWR's management of the local services in the South West has been an "abject failure"? The general consensus is the exact opposite of that. Just as a single operator on the Cotswold Line has also been a distinct improvement, as Doctor Fegg notes.

From what I have heard about what was said at some of the recent consultation meetings on the DfT's GW franchise proposals, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the idea of splitting up the current version of GWR.

There hasn't been a franchise contest in the GW area since 2005-6, so no bidders have ever got to the point of being able to offer lots of shiny new trains - unlike other places you mention.

 

[B&I]

What's the best way to achieve the overall efficiency of a national system, combined with the responsiveness of a devolved one for local services? I suspect that the answer lies not wholly within the organisation of the railway network, and that the half-arsed and inconsistent approach to devolution generally in this country needs to be addressed.

 

[mallard]

How on earth can you say that FGW/GWR's management of the local services in the South West has been an "abject failure"?

What would you call the motley collection of 1980s 1/2-car DMUs that trundle around the area? Who was it that removed the 158s from Devon/Cornwall services? Sure, the fact that most of them are on branch lines means that they can hold connections and the like, but that's nothing more than one would expect. Last time I was down that way, many units were in dire need of a coat of paint (although a few had recently recieved the external green makeover) and all of them could do with attention to the interior (getting rid of that awful shade of mauve that FirstGroup are seeminlgy in love with for a start, although the carpets and seatcovers also needed replacement; most of which haven't been touched since Wessex Trains ran them). I can't recall one having an operational PIS and the PA system was mostly inaudible. All of that is within First GWR's want.

The general consensus is the exact opposite of that.

In my experience, "the general consensus" is usually wrong. It's easily influenced by the marketing departments of multi-million-pound bus companies.

 

[MarkyT]

How do you save on train crew pools and depots?

For crews probably not so much, but you might save a bit on spare crew numbers and have a lot more rostering flexibility, assuming cross traction training. Route knowledge will generally be the same. For a shared depot site there could be some savings in overhead such as management, admin, stores, workshop, etc. Applies especially in peripheries such as west country peninsula where services are fairly sparse so depots are smaller and combining them makes sense. In big city areas like London, local and express being a combined operation is less important, as depots are bigger anyway due to service levels hence fewer overhead savings can be made.

 

[jimm]

What would you call the motley collection of 1980s 1/2-car DMUs that trundle around the area? Who was it that removed the 158s from Devon/Cornwall services? Sure, the fact that most of them are on branch lines means that they can hold connections and the like, but that's nothing more than one would expect. Last time I was down that way, many units were in dire need of a coat of paint (although a few had recently recieved the external green makeover) and all of them could do with attention to the interior (getting rid of that awful shade of mauve that FirstGroup are seeminlgy in love with for a start, although the carpets and seatcovers also needed replacement; most of which haven't been touched since Wessex Trains ran them). I can't recall one having an operational PIS and the PA system was mostly inaudible. All of that is within First GWR's want.

Never mind all the extra passengers using the trains in the West Country now compared with 2006.

Never mind that the DfT told FGW it wouldn't need all of the Wessex Trains dmus when it took over its services - hence later 'motley' arrivals in the area to plug some of the gaps and meet rising demand.

And never mind that with the current cascade of rolling stock triggered by electrification, there will soon just be 150/2s and 158s in Devon and Cornwall, Turbos around Bristol and routes radiating from it, plus short HSTs on the main line linking it all up, along with IETs on London services - and the local rolling stock getting repaints and freshened-up interiors in a rolling programme.

In my experience, "the general consensus" is usually wrong. It's easily influenced by the marketing departments of multi-million-pound bus companies.

Ah yes, everyone has been fooled by First Group...