Scotrail, Abellio and April

[D6130]

Wouldn't be a problem if there was only one station called Edinburgh, but there's Waverley and Park.

....not to mention Gateway.

 

[Davester50]

....not to mention Gateway.

Well, yeah. It is a forgotten station by passengers too!

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

Consuming booze doesn't necessarily mean an unsafe noisy journey.
And the fact the other operation they control positivity encourages it (Hello Cally Sleeper!), it's a bit hypocritical.

What needs curbed is antisocial behaviour. Plenty sober eejits cause bother.

Yes but there is a huge link between booze and anti social behaviour and violence and anything that reduces it is a good thing you also get a different type of traveler on the sleeper

 

[PG]

Wouldn't be a problem if there was only one station called Edinburgh, but there's Waverley and Park.

Shame they couldn't have followed Glasgow practice and put (Edinburgh) after Park and Gateway!

 

[Glaswegian]

I see from the BBC news website that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon unveiled a plaque on a Class 385 EMU at Glasgow Queen Street on 1st April to mark the transition into public ownership. Does anyone know which 385 it was?

ScotRail goes back into public ownership

An arms-length Scottish government company takes over running the rail franchise from Abellio.

www.bbc.co.uk

"ScotRail goes back into public ownership

ScotRail is back in public ownership for the first time in 25 years.
The train operator will now be run by a company owned by the Scottish government.
The previous operator, Abellio, had its franchise ended early amid criticism of the quality of the service.
The UK's rail network was privatised in the 90s by John Major's Conservative government. Before Abellio, ScotRail was run by National Express and First Group."

I think the plaque is on 385 103.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

I've been on 12 Scotrail services so far this week, a return trip with a £12 club 50 card from Tweebank to Stranraer (4 services each way) and another £12 return trip Tweedbank to Perth (2 services each way). These were all off peak services.
Three of them, all on the Borders railway, had standing passengers with one of those being completely rammed. Two of those services arrived or departed from unbarriered platforms at Waverley and had no on board ticket checks.

Is it that they don't care how much revenue they're losing or are they trying to avoid re-instating the half-hour timetable?

 

[Wynd]

I've been on 12 Scotrail services so far this week, a return trip with a £12 club 50 card from Tweebank to Stranraer (4 services each way) and another £12 return trip Tweedbank to Perth (2 services each way). These were all off peak services.
Three of them, all on the Borders railway, had standing passengers with one of those being completely rammed. Two of those services arrived or departed from unbarriered platforms at Waverley and had no on board ticket checks.

Is it that they don't care how much revenue they're losing or are they trying to avoid re-instating the half-hour timetable?

How does one check tickets when the corridors are rammed?

Its great to hear the borders line is busy. What i want to know is, what is the cost of just having 6 car sets permanently dedicated to ensure no overcrowding and that tickets can be checked?

Would the revenue protection offset the additional cost incurred?

What is the cost differential of 1 v 2 170s? Its difficult to imagine its going to be double.....

 

[Chris999999]

Issue with the human rights argument is that you putting the right of the individual to consume booze over the right of the rest to enjoy a safe quite train journey. There's also the issue around accidents as I can imagine dealing with drunks in an accident would be a night especially a serious accident as the drink impairs there cognitive function and also thins the blood so they bleed like a bigger

So you expect there to be more accidents now ScotRail is being run by the Scottish Government?

 

[Hagbard Celine]

How does one check tickets when the corridors are rammed?

Its great to hear the borders line is busy. What i want to know is, what is the cost of just having 6 car sets permanently dedicated to ensure no overcrowding and that tickets can be checked?

Would the revenue protection offset the additional cost incurred?

What is the cost differential of 1 v 2 170s? Its difficult to imagine its going to be double.....

Well for a start they could run the trains into or out of a barriered platform at Waverley, instead of using platform 1 half the time which is a PITA to get to or from.
A 4 car 158 would have done or better still go back to the half hour timetable with either 2 car 158s or 3 car 170s.
It didn't generally need 6 cars an hour off peak pre- pandemic except for the Friday and Saturday late evening services.

 

[Davester50]

Yes but there is a huge link between booze and anti social behaviour and violence and anything that reduces it is a good thing you also get a different type of traveler on the sleeper

The different type of traveller causing antisocial behaviour doesn't care about bans. They're on the electric soup no matter what the law says.
The booze ban primarily affects the law-abiding social drinkers.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Something that perhaps borders passengers and maybe even staff who are as affected by this as we are should be doing is holding ScotRail management and ultimately the Scottish government to account on there promise that borders trains would be longer in light of the 50% reduction in service that's been in place since the pandemic and the despite usage being at pre-pandemic levels they refuse to reinstate. I suspect that the the revenue issue could well be to do with them trying to justify this service cut being made permanent. But I'm no doubt overly cynical and someone will shoot me

 

[Clansman]

The booze ban primarily affects the law-abiding social drinkers.

Not really, it just means that everyone has to waste a minute or two nipping into a Costa or Burger King!

 

[ajrm]

Don't think so.

It happened at the December 2008 timetable change. See Modern Railways, December 2008, p.50: 'The vacant path over the Forth Bridge will be taken by a new hourly Edinburgh-Dundee service, which will… allow Edinburgh-Aberdeen trains to run non-stop from Haymarket to Leuchars'.

 

[Clansman]

It seems that ScotRail has forgotten that the name of the main station in the capital is Edinburgh Waverley. They seem to have dropped the Waverley part in all automated announcements both on trains and in station PAs, as well as on the departure boards. Very odd.

Which trains are you referring to?

158/170/HSTs all use Waverley automatically since they use the old 1998 recorded announcements - from which 'Edinburgh' would have to be re-recorded and inserted since the 'Edinburgh' in 'Edinburgh Waverley' is inflected to precede 'Waverley'.

Not sure it's worth the faff.

 

[scotraildriver]

Something that perhaps borders passengers and maybe even staff who are as affected by this as we are should be doing is holding ScotRail management and ultimately the Scottish government to account on there promise that borders trains would be longer in light of the 50% reduction in service that's been in place since the pandemic and the despite usage being at pre-pandemic levels they refuse to reinstate. I suspect that the the revenue issue could well be to do with them trying to justify this service cut being made permanent. But I'm no doubt overly cynical and someone will shoot me

Borders line goes to half hourly all day from May. It was reinstated following feedback on the draft timetable proposals on a "use it or lose it" basis.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I don't think there's any doubt that it will be used. It's whether they actually want it to be

 

[Ex-controller]

Shame they couldn't have followed Glasgow practice and put (Edinburgh) after Park and Gateway!

That doesn’t happen in Glasgow

How does one check tickets when the corridors are rammed?

Its great to hear the borders line is busy. What i want to know is, what is the cost of just having 6 car sets permanently dedicated to ensure no overcrowding and that tickets can be checked?

Would the revenue protection offset the additional cost incurred?

What is the cost differential of 1 v 2 170s? Its difficult to imagine its going to be double.....

it won’t be as it only takes the same amount of traincrew, but it’ll add double the amount of unit miles covered (assuming it’s 2x170 instead of one). Basically get the mileage for a class 170 doing return journeys between Edinburgh and tweedbqnk then double it. This all adds to the mileage clock which determines how frequently they need to go in for Exams - which itself impacts on the number of staff on duty to perform the exams of more of them are needed on any given day/night.

There are other issues like capacity at Edinburgh Waverley throughout the day, and where the units need to finish the day to get in position for the following days work, and the potential need for a driver to split the units at some stage.

On the face of it, it shouldn’t be too difficult, but the other side of this coin is having enough train planning staff with the time to look into changes like this as opposed to other ones and the time required to work on it.

 

[PG]

That doesn’t happen in Glasgow

I was going by station names from BRtimes e.g. High Street & Charing Cross both have the (Glasgow) suffix.

 

[D6130]

I was going by station names from BRtimes e.g. High Street & Charing Cross both have the (Glasgow) suffix.

They may have had in the timetable, but not on the station and platform signs, IIRC.

 

[PG]

They may have had in the timetable, but not on the station and platform signs, IIRC.

Thanks, I can't say as I haven't been to either of them. Anyway couldn't the Edinburgh one's just be called Park and Gateway 'on the ground' with an (Edinburgh) suffix used for the timetable?

 

[Ex-controller]

Thanks, I can't say as I haven't been to either of them. Anyway couldn't the Edinburgh one's just be called Park and Gateway 'on the ground' with an (Edinburgh) suffix used for the timetable?

Edinburgh Park is the name of the business park served by the station.

Edinburgh Gateway is the interchange for Edinburgh Airport via the trams, and is a reference to its proximity to the airport (albeit not a very good one).

So in short, no.

 

[Clansman]

Anyway couldn't the Edinburgh one's just be called Park and Gateway 'on the ground' with an (Edinburgh) suffix used for the timetable?

It wouldn't make sense since the cited examples of Queen's Park and Charing Cross are areas of Glasgow, known to most. Park and Gateway in Edinburgh do not denote a known area or suburb, but instead are merely constructs to denote a new business park and airport interchange respectively.

(albeit not a very good one).

I'm a bit surprised it wasn't called Edinburgh Airport Interchange or something along those lines. Gateway is just a meaningless non-name.

 

[ejstubbs]

It was the SNP government that vetoed the plan to run trains to the actual airport. Perhaps someone wanted to avoid Edinburgh Gateway being given a name which would rather too obviously highlight the fact that you can't get a train all the way to Scotland's busiest airport by far - in terms of passenger numbers - and instead have to change on to a tram at an interchange station which was cobbled together pretty much as an afterthought, in order to cover the last 2½ miles.

One might almost be reminded of the "Pilrig muddle" that was a factor in the NBR building its Leith Central Branch...

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

So you expect there to be more accidents now ScotRail is being run by the Scottish Government?

I am not expecting more accidents but I am making the point why drinking on trains is a bad idea , there's also the fact that drinking is becoming less socially acceptable on public transport it's already banned on TFL services , Glasgow underground ,most local bus services and most inter city buses

 

[takno]

I am not expecting more accidents but I am making the point why drinking on trains is a bad idea , there's also the fact that drinking is becoming less socially acceptable on public transport it's already banned on TFL services , Glasgow underground ,most local bus services and most inter city buses

It's been banned on TFL services, although it's questionable whether there's been any reduction in people doing it. Either way, the fact that the rules have changed doesn't for a moment suggest that there's been any change at all to the social acceptability of it.

 

[thin_richmond]

It was the SNP government that vetoed the plan to run trains to the actual airport. Perhaps someone wanted to avoid Edinburgh Gateway being given a name which would rather too obviously highlight the fact that you can't get a train all the way to Scotland's busiest airport by far - in terms of passenger numbers - and instead have to change on to a tram at an interchange station which was cobbled together pretty much as an afterthought, in order to cover the last 2½ miles.

One might almost be reminded of the "Pilrig muddle" that was a factor in the NBR building its Leith Central Branch...

Edinburgh Gateway will be a slow burn. The SAICA packaging plant which sits next to it has planning applications in and there will be a good few thousand new homes going in there, not to mention that the old East/West runway at Edinburgh airport is also slated for residential development as well. As a station it will eventually make sense.

Agree generally though that the failure to get some kind of dedicated rail link into the Airport is somewhat embarrassing, however that need and aspect will diminish somewhat when the tram-link down to Newhaven is completed and the full rolling stock for Edinburgh Trams can be deployed. There is also the main question/problem preventing any future rail-link from the Airport into Edinburgh needing to be addressed, i.e capacity at Waverley, presently, it simply isn't there.

 

[Deltic1961]

The tram fares to the airport are a rip-off, plain and simple. Especially if you're only going from Gyle Centre for example.

A zoned system for a certain distance would make more sense.

 

[takno]

The tram fares to the airport are a rip-off, plain and simple. Especially if you're only going from Gyle Centre for example.

A zoned system for a certain distance would make more sense.

There isn't really any getting around the fact that the airport charges a fortune for the tram to go there. If they charged less from the Gyle they would lose money on Gyle passengers

 

[Bald Rick]

Edinburgh Gateway will be a slow burn.

There’s slow, and then there’s glacial. It’s been open five years already!

 

[PG]

There’s slow, and then there’s glacial. It’s been open five years already!

"Build it and they will come"
​

There's always the exception that proves the rule...