North franchises ‘will not deliver transformational infrastructure’

[pemma]

The railway across the north needs a “bigger, more expensive, and transformational” solution to fix its historical lack of investment, because what is committed now simply is not enough, rail bosses have said.

The leaders of Transport for the North (TfN) and Northern Rail, David Brown and Alex Hynes, agreed that the next 44 months of the new Northern and TransPennine Express franchises will address this lack of investment, but will not provide the “transformational transport infrastructure that we need to deliver to really make this one of the best regions in the world”.

Speaking at the Northern Powerhouse Conference yesterday, attended by RTM, Hynes added: “Someone described it to me the other day: all we want to do is travel across as fast as we can travel down.

“That implies a journey time between Leeds and Manchester of 30 minutes, which is not going to be delivered by any of the current rail schemes which are funded, which is why we have to work together and say: if we’re going to place a value on the gap in wealth and living standards between the north and the south, then we have to do something big and we have to do something different.”

Asked what this big solution would be, the Northern Rail MD said the north should focus on what outcomes it wants to deliver rather than concentrate on the specifics.

“We shouldn’t talk about tunnels and roads and if it’s 140mph trains or 225mph trains,” he said. “What we should be clear about is what we want the journey times to be, what we want the frequencies to be, and then clever people will design a solution.

“Let’s not fall into a trap, backing a technology or backing a route or backing a mode right now. Let’s decide what we want to deliver.”

While he acknowledged that the north needs to upgrade its current lines to provide better capacity, he said it’s essential to look beyond that to something much larger “so that we can separate the traffic by speed, and then get the best of both worlds”.

“At the moment, we have to compromise all the time,” Hynes added.
Agreeing with him, Brown, who is currently leading the development of a final plan for TfN, said: “We have a lot of full trains at the moment. We’re going to roll out some longer trains and some newer trains, which gives us some breathing space for seven to nine years. By the end of this franchise, they’ll probably be full again.

“You can keep making them a bit quicker and slightly longer, but at some point, that stops – and therefore, if you want to build more capacity between two key points, you’ll need a new line.

“But actually, you can’t pretend that you’re meeting people’s expectations by just taking a minute off of journey times and making trains better. You have to move to something which is bigger and more expensive, but is transformational.”

Freight ‘wedged in’ between passenger trains
The two leaders were speaking as part of a six-man panel comprised of bosses across rail and freight, including representatives from HS2 and Network Rail.

While the lion’s share of the debate focused on passenger services, those present also discussed the poor travel times for freight journeys due to a lack of capacity in the network.

Responding to these concerns, Hynes said: “The fact of the matter is that the network is so full that those freight trains we’re talking about have to be wedged in between passenger trains and take all sorts of ridiculous circuitous routes.
“I don’t think we should defend it – that’s just the reality. It shows the need to invest in more infrastructure. If you can’t move goods and people around your region, then that is going to throttle economic growth.”

Speaking of Northern Rail’s upcoming franchise, which is set to replace the “dreaded Pacer trains” and increase service frequency, Hynes commented: “I’m operating 2,000 more services a week, which is going to make it even more difficult to put more freight trains through.

“That is why despite all these good news in the short and medium terms, we have to help TfN make the case for more, because what’s committed is not enough.”

HS2 Ltd’s development director for phase 2, Paul Griffiths, also participating in the panel, said HS2 will be “all about fixing those problems, but also about starting to put in new infrastructure”.

He continued: “It will be new and modern infrastructure, rather than the old Victorian infrastructure we have now – and that starts to free up capacity and hopefully to provide room for trains and freight.

“HS2 frees up those paths. We start to have an impact on the most congested bits of the West Coast Main Line, for example, which is pretty much full as of today.”

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.c...l-not-deliver-transformational-infrastructure

George Osborne was warned you can't keep operating more services without infrastructure improvements back in 2007 when he was backing 3tph between London and Manchester when there weren't paths to allow it without local service cutbacks. It seems that he still hasn't taken that feedback on board.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.c...l-not-deliver-transformational-infrastructure
George Osborne was warned you can't keep operating more services without infrastructure improvements back in 2007 when he was backing 3tph between London and Manchester when there weren't paths to allow it without local service cutbacks. It seems that he still hasn't taken that feedback on board.

Isn't that what HS3 is about, which he is promoting?

 

[pemma]

Isn't that what HS3 is about, which he is promoting?

You mean that rough idea he got rushed through prior to the election so that they had a document of political spin when no proper preliminary work had been undertaken? It was really in response to criticism about HS2 being all about speeding up journeys to/from London and it's not clear how much new track would be allowed and how much existing track would need to be used.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

You mean that rough idea he got rushed through prior to the election so that they had a document of political spin when no proper preliminary work had been undertaken? It was really in response to criticism about HS2 being all about speeding up journeys to/from London and it's not clear how much new track would be allowed and how much existing track would need to be used.

That's not entirely correct.

The question was asked - how do we get 30 minute journey times across the North, between Leeds and Manchester, bearing in mind the distance is 41 miles.

That's almost entirely down to DfT and Treasury planners looking at the GWML electrification and noticing Pangbourne to Paddington is a 35 minute journey time for 41 miles, and that with 140mph running, it'll be around 30 minutes.

They spoke to a number of experts about how to achieve the same journey time between Leeds and Manchester and the answer, unsurprisingly, was to build an arrow straight 140mph railway line between the two cities, as that's all that's needed for 30 minute journey times.

There are plenty of people within the industry who have been asked about the project, plenty of people have seen some of the financial figures being discussed and plenty of people have a good idea what would be built for the sums being talked about.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think we need to look at priorities here. Before any "transformational infrastructure" we need some basic improvements to allow the required capacity to be provided, i.e. South East length platforms and longer trains.

The new Northern and TPE franchises are an improvement, but I'm unconvinced that they are *enough* of an improvement.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The new Northern and TPE franchises are an improvement, but I'm unconvinced that they are *enough* of an improvement.

I'm prepared to be persuaded otherwise, but it feels more like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic than anything else. The best that can be said for the changes is that it gets rid of the parasitic fraudsters at Serco.

There doesn't seem to be the real stepchange that's needed. The new trains are better than Pacers, but they're still only two or three carriages. There's still no catering on long-distance Northern services. As far as I see it, we'll still be just as overcrowded as before, just in a slightly nicer train.

 

[Taunton]

As I understand it the platforms are generally long enough, but are served by minimum-length trains, often shorter, and certainly with less seats, than in the distant past when usage, and indeed revenue (and subsidy as well!), was a fraction of what it is now. The greatest downside of Manchester to Leeds taking an hour instead of 30 minutes is not the journey time, but full-fare passengers having to (and being expected to, it seems) stand for that length of time.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes and no - newer stations are too short, and older ones have often had an area of the platform marked for use and the rest abandoned to rack and ruin.

 

[Polarbear]

The new Northern and TPE franchises are an improvement, but I'm unconvinced that they are *enough* of an improvement.

When I first saw the announcements regarding the new franchises for the north, that was my impression too. I'd say all the announced investment will do is bring both Northern and Trans Pennine up to the standard they really should have been at for the last few years.

It has to be remembered that both of the existing franchises were not able to develop their services due to a woeful lack of rolling stock. Northern was let on a "no growth" basis which seems strange in today's environment while TPE tried to get additional trailers for the 185's only to get rebuffed by the DFT.

As for the future, unless there is some investment in infrastructure, I doubt either franchise will be able to deal with any significant growth.

 

[Taunton]

Well there aren't that many new stations between Liverpool and Leeds that the main trains stop at, it seems the same set of stations that a plodding Class 46 plus 9 coaches managed to stop at for a couple of decades - with the same journey times as modern, high-powered units.

Regarding the overgrown/unusable platform ends, yes indeed. Why don't we have a group act of charity to Network Rail one weekend and go and pull all the weeds up, which they seem unable to afford a couple of labourers to do.

 

[Starmill]

I am pleased that the existence of the big dichotomy between inter-regional and local trains sharing the same unsegregated routes is being acknowledged.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am pleased that the existence of the big dichotomy between inter-regional and local trains sharing the same unsegregated routes is being acknowledged.

There wouldn't be a dichotomy if it was recognised that what is needed with TPE is not a continual increase in frequencies, but simply trains of a proper length, i.e. at least 6x23m/8x20m with space for further expansion.

The UK has this silly obsession with running mini trains at unnecessarily high frequencies, and it is wasteful of resources and inefficient.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There wouldn't be a dichotomy if it was recognised that what is needed with TPE is not a continual increase in frequencies, but simply trains of a proper length

Well quite.

There is absolutely no need for more than 4tph Leeds-Manchester express, which is basically a turn-up-and-go service anyway. What is needed is more seats on those four trains an hour.

4tph at six carriages is significantly better in terms of capacity than 6tph at three carriages.

 

[pemma]

Well quite.

There is absolutely no need for more than 4tph Leeds-Manchester express, which is basically a turn-up-and-go service anyway. What is needed is more seats on those four trains an hour.

4tph at six carriages is significantly better in terms of capacity than 6tph at three carriages.

The TPE plan from December 2017 is for 4 express services per hour between Victoria and Leeds most calling only at Huddersfield. The 2 services from Piccadilly only will be stopping services. The problem is one of the stopping services will be the Hull service to give a clockface service between Manchester and York.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The TPE plan from December 2017 is for 4 express services per hour between Victoria and Leeds most calling only at Huddersfield. The 2 services from Piccadilly only will be stopping services. The problem is one of the stopping services will be the Hull service to give a clockface service between Manchester and York.

I wouldn't even say that was necessary, TBH. 2 fast and 2 slow per hour, with a full length train on each, would do the job well with more ability to recover in disruption.

That is roughly what most south WCML commuter stations get, and I am largely happy with it.

 

[notlob.divad]

“Someone described it to me the other day: all we want to do is travel across as fast as we can travel down.

Couldn't have put it better. eg.
Carlisle - Crewe : 140ish miles ~ 1hr 45mins
Liverpool - Sheffield : 70ish miles ~ 1hr 41mins
1/2 the distance in the same time this should not be the case, and is not going to improve significantly with the current improvement program.

“That implies a journey time between Leeds and Manchester of 30 minutes, which is not going to be delivered by any of the current rail schemes which are funded

“What we should be clear about is what we want the journey times to be, what we want the frequencies to be, and then clever people will design a solution.

So taking my example above,
Liverpool - Sheffield would be ~ 52 Minutes
Preston to Leeds would be under 60 Minutes rather than the current 1:45

 

[pemma]

There wouldn't be a dichotomy if it was recognised that what is needed with TPE is not a continual increase in frequencies, but simply trains of a proper length, i.e. at least 6x23m/8x20m with space for further expansion.

The UK has this silly obsession with running mini trains at unnecessarily high frequencies, and it is wasteful of resources and inefficient.

How is North TPE going to be different to Manchester-Stoke? Manchester-Stoke gets 4tph - 2 to London and 2 to Birmingham, as well as a local stopper to Stoke and there will be a local stopper to Macclesfield as well from December 2017.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How is North TPE going to be different to Manchester-Stoke? Manchester-Stoke gets 4tph - 2 to London and 2 to Birmingham, as well as a local stopper to Stoke and there will be a local stopper to Macclesfield as well from December 2017.

The only reason Manchester-Stoke gets that is because of the demand for services to those two large conurbations. Operational convenience, essentially.

Were Manchester to London via Birmingham, say, I'm certain it would not. And the slow LM service, which is relevant only because of fares skew - were there no cheap fares on it, nobody would ever use it to go to London.

 

[Taunton]

The UK has this silly obsession with running mini trains at unnecessarily high frequencies, and it is wasteful of resources and inefficient.

One of the downsides of current generation rolling stock contracts. Traditionally we learned that outside the peak period, train provision was very much a marginal cost issue, on infrastructure and fleets sized to the peak service, and in the past all-day crowding was pretty unknown. The move to mileage-based rolling stock provision from the leasing companies means that every mile run for every vehicle at all times is now challenged by the accountants. To have a platform-full of passengers waiting at a terminus at 1830 for an incoming service which arrives as 6-car, only for three cars to be sent off to the sidings for the night, work done, and to then depart with substantial standing, is ludicrous.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One of the benefits of most of VTWC's fleet being long fixed-formation trains is that this particular piece of nonsense can't go on. Same for Thameslink's new fleet.

 

[pemma]

That is roughly what most south WCML commuter stations get, and I am largely happy with it.

Difference is on the southern WCML the majority of people are travelling south in the morning and north in the afternoon. On North TPE you get a mix of different travel with no real counter-peak flow.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Difference is on the southern WCML the majority of people are travelling south in the morning and north in the afternoon. On North TPE you get a mix of different travel with no real counter-peak flow.

I'm not clear what difference the actual journeys being made make, provided the capacity is sufficient.

 

[pemma]

I wouldn't even say that was necessary, TBH. 2 fast and 2 slow per hour, with a full length train on each, would do the job well with more ability to recover in disruption.

That is roughly what most south WCML commuter stations get, and I am largely happy with it.

Just looked at the Southern WCML timetable and I think that statement is very misleading.

Leighton Buzzard (smaller than Dewsbury) gets 3tph to London Euston and Hemel Hempstead (smaller than Huddersfield) gets 4tph to London Euston, while Milton Keynes (smaller than Liverpool, Manchester or Leeds) gets 7 or 8tph to London. Yet you're complaining about 4/6 being too many on North TPE and saying it should be the same as the southern WCML!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I'm not clear what difference the actual journeys being made make, provided the capacity is sufficient.

A more consistent flow where everyone goes towards one big city in the morning and away from it in the evening makes it easier to timetable and diagram strengthened services.

 

[notlob.divad]

There is absolutely no need for more than 4tph Leeds-Manchester express, which is basically a turn-up-and-go service anyway. What is needed is more seats on those four trains an hour.

Whilst that might be very true, Leeds - Manchester is pretty much the only crossing with any form of speed and that isn't great. Then you compare that with car journeys over the M62 and for every one who's destination is more than about 10 minutes from the station, it is often appears better to drive. What is needed is a fast crossing, Leeds Manchester in 50 minutes can barely even be called an express with modern trains. Whilst HS2 is supposed providing capacity for the WCML, what the north really needs is not capacity but a faster line a Transpennine mainline if you like.

Assuming your 4 tph, which I can fully understand and kind of agree with but believe it should be 30 minutes not the 50 minutes currently, where do you send them? Osbourne's powerhouse / hub call it what you like seems to be obsessed with the Airport for some reason. 36 of the 102tpd by TPE from Leeds go to the Airport, 21 of those go through York.

It seems like the extra 'expresses' are all going to be sent around the new chord and off to the airport. Bearing in mind all the other places that could do with an Airport path does it really make sense that 3-4 trains an hour will call at all 4 Manchester stations VIC MCO MAN MIA. There is making use of your new bit of railway and then there is excessive.

 

[pemma]

It seems like the extra 'expresses' are all going to be sent around the new chord and off to the airport.

What extra expresses to the Airport? There's 2tph now and they'll be 2tph after the changes. The differences will be they'll do Huddersfield-Ashton-Victoria-Piccadilly-Airport instead of Huddersfield-Guide Bridge-Piccadilly (reverse)-Airport, plus the York service will be extended to Newcastle.

will call at all 4 Manchester stations VIC MCO MAN MIA.

Manchester stations are Victoria, Deansgate, Oxford Rd and Piccadilly. The Airport is a long walk from Manchester!

 

[Taunton]

These are just selective journeys chosen. Crewe to Carlisle may be speedy but Chester to Workington, to take adjacent, comparably-sized urban areas at both ends, certainly isn't. Sheffield to Manchester by road is a travel nightmare, it can take longer to get through the traffic lights at Mottram than the entire rest of the journey.

Part of the issue with such rail journeys is the large number of stops along the way leads to different loadings. Wasn't the 0422 Glasgow to Manchester Airport the most overcrowded train in Britain? Well this wasn't due to many hundreds getting up at 3am in Glasgow to get morning flights from Manchester, I would think that from Glasgow you normally have a whole coach to yourself, but referred to the Bolton to Manchester sector. This is something for the rail companies to manage themselves by appropriate timetabling.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Part of the issue with such rail journeys is the large number of stops along the way leads to different loadings. Wasn't the 0422 Glasgow to Manchester Airport the most overcrowded train in Britain? Well this wasn't due to many hundreds getting up at 3am in Glasgow to get morning flights from Manchester, I would think that from Glasgow you normally have a whole coach to yourself, but referred to the Bolton to Manchester sector. This is something for the rail companies to manage themselves by appropriate timetabling.

Indeed. And that appropriate timetabling also to some extent requires commuters not to be on true-IC services, because the demand is different.

It all effectively comes back to the Reading problem. But unlike in the London commuter area where demand is massive and solving it with a separate local service is not necessarily viable, in the North it very much is - it just requires rolling stock and traincrew to do it, nothing more.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Have we forgotten this document (6.7MB): https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ile/414815/the-northern-powerhouse-tagged.pdf
The intention is to update this in "spring 2016", to inform the forward Control Period investments.
It isn't a commitment, certainly, but it shows willing.
The charts on p19 show aspirational journey times (eg 30 min Manchester-Leeds).

I think all Brown/Hynes are saying is that the new franchises and CP5 investment/electrification don't get us very far down the road.
I would have thought that an "HS2" approach would deliver a more radical solution than Network Rail salami-slicing its CP6 budget.
Hopefully Nicola Shaw will find a way of funding big projects like this, separate from all the other needs of the railway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

These are just selective journeys chosen. Crewe to Carlisle may be speedy but Chester to Workington, to take adjacent, comparably-sized urban areas at both ends, certainly isn't. Sheffield to Manchester by road is a travel nightmare, it can take longer to get through the traffic lights at Mottram than the entire rest of the journey.

And there we highlight somewhere the North very much differs from London and the South East, despite both having similarly dense railway networks.

The North, unlike the South East, is multi-centred, and as such for the railway to succeed, the Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool commuter lines aside, it needs to be connectional in an effective way. A proper connectional clockface timetable with trains of proper lengths and possibly even slower journey takes to facilitate those connections is going to be far more viable than just cramming in as many trains as possible.

It needs the Dutch or Swiss high-capacity, long-train connectional model, not the odd one being employed at present, and not French-style LGVs (not that a Swiss-style fill-in Neubaustrecke might not make sense somewhere, perhaps across the Pennines).

And TPE as a separate franchise did not and does not make sense.

 

[notlob.divad]

What extra expresses to the Airport? There's 2tph now and they'll be 2tph after the changes.

One of the current TPE is Sheffield - Stockport - Man Airport, that is staying, so that makes 3 all be it this one doesn't stop at VIC and MCO.

I am sure from the tender documents it was 4tph around the chord Newcastle, Middlesborough, Hull and Bradford plus the 5th from Sheffield. (Maybe the Bradford one is Northern not TPE

Manchester stations are Victoria, Deansgate, Oxford Rd and Piccadilly. The Airport is a long walk from Manchester!

I am aware of the Manchester stations Ive been stuck in them enough times, I didn't say it stopped at them all. (Most don't stop at Salford Central for that matter). We can start calling MIA - Ringway if you like but people tend to get a bit protective.