Thoughts for 2022. How have they panned out?

[squizzler]

I hope the 70% drop in riders hip does not mean a 60% drop in farebox income bit I fear it might. A business like public transport, that has high fixed coats and lowish variable costs is at risk in a reducing market. The railway may live to regret recent splurging on new leased trains. And some enhancements. Does Leeds now need platform 0, for example?

I think you will find that there has not been a 70% drop in ridership, what previous posters mean is that there is even now 70% of previous traffic. (the glass is 70% full not 70% empty if you prefer).

I think your being way too negative here. While the current situation is an unprecedented crisis, I really don't think its as bad as many people on the forum are making it out to be, a lot of people here are overreacting massively.

Indeed. There is so much opportunity for the taking. The political and environmental factors are lined up, all that is required is for the industry to seize the moment.

 

[backontrack]

I really hate to say this, and I still don't entirely think that I should.

But I have a feeling that this year something on our railways is going to go catastrophically wrong.

We've come dangerously close to a major incident a couple of times in the past few years. We've had Wootton Bassett, Salisbury, NYMR, the wagon a GWR train struck, a few derailments, buffer strikes, and - very tragically - Carmont, which was a catastrophic tragedy at a time when passenger numbers were very low.

There has been so much to manage on the railway recently. New stock, line maintenance, new timetable patterns, mass industrial action, the switch to Great British Railways. New lines and stations are continuing to open. I welcome the development but it's also concerning. Yes, I understand how these days, you have to line up more and more ducks in a row before something goes dangerously wrong, but all it takes is one SPAD at the wrong time. These are fine margins.

Let's hope that my feeling is out of order and, instead, we see a year of boom on the railways (a distant hope, but let's hope indeed). I think we'll see a few old EMU classes go to the scrapheap as new stock is introduced, there'll be a bit of dicing over lowly-used lines (particularly on Northern) and a stir that may ultimately come to nothing, and maybe CrossRail will even open - who knows? Things don't look good at the moment - and if that plonker Sunak comes in, I'll amend my thoughts to include a second Beeching - but until then, I think - things being as they are - we're probably looking at continued stagnation with perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[YorksLad12]

Does Leeds now need platform 0, for example?

Yes. You would have to cut services considerably for it not to be needed; and it should allow P5 to be used for London trains (assuming it was extended in the work that is almost finished) which will mean through platform 8 doesn't need to be blocked for 30 minutes every hours, by pushing the stoppers down one platform. It's for operational flexibility as much as capacity.

 

[The Ham]

The drop is because of the amount of working from home that's been introduced which is not going to suddenly stop and the government messaging that public transport is a health hazard that could kill you.

While leisure undoubtedly will recover I don't see any scenario in which commuting will ever get back to where it was.

I think that we aren't all that far apart on what we think as I didn't say that it wasn't due to working from home, I said PART of the drop was due to a reduction in the number of people working due to a higher number than normal retiring.

WFH is likely to be an ongoing change to travel patterns, however in the medium term that could also reduce the number of cars owned (i.e. why have 2 cars with the high upfront costs of both cars when both in a couple only do to the office 3 days a week). That may or may not change rail use.

Leisure had recovered, as whilst commuting had fallen by 50%, however at circa 70% of all rail use that would indicate a 35% fall in overall rail use. As this is about the same as the overall fall (or slightly higher given that we'd seen overall falls of about 30%) it is therefore likely that leisure is likely to have reached circa 100% of pre Covid levels.

The area where it's been hit hard is in the SE, which I also said would take the longest to recover.

Never getting back to pre Covid levels is a long time. With a policy of net zero, which is increasing the number of places cars have to pay to enter, it may well be that areas which used to be suitable to drive to become areas where more people use rail for getting into major towns rather than paying for a fairly short drive (there'll still be many who don't, but rail doesn't need everyone to use it all the time to get back to pre Covid levels).

If you're spending £2,500 on a car which you use (at most) 5 days a week (3 for three office and 2 for the weekend), with extra daily charges if your office is in a low emission zone, there's likely to be some who think that car ownership in those situations isn't that great.

Not owning a car doesn't mean not having access to a car, with car clubs (or even hire cars) being able to cater for those times when a car is needed for those things which are argued are the reason a car is needed.

Whilst not a lot will change between autumn 2021 and 2022 in terms of rail use, unless rail is to be eradicated the cost to the country in subsidy is going to be hard to reduce by a significant amount (reduce services, reduces income and reduces the ease to connect between services, reducing incoming further). Whilst there would be many who would be pleased with such a policy, it would be fairly politically dangerous to try, not least in that although not many use rail a lot of young people do (which can impact on their parents or even grand parents in having to transport them instead).

 

[QSK19]

My predictions below. Admittedly, some of them have little or no real logic; however, my justification for putting them down is that plenty of things that make much less sense have happened before.

1. Decision is made for the 158s to stay with EMR in view of retaining Nottingham-Liverpool . They get the EMR permanent livery. No refurbishment save for a deep clean.
2. WMT 196 introduction into service delayed until 2023/24.
3. WMT takes back some of EMR’s existing 170s to boost capacity on their network to mitigate the extended delay to the 196s. EMR holds on 156s not going to Northern as a consequence.
4. No refurbishment granted for EMR’s 170s save for a deep clean.
5. Only a light internal refurbishment granted for the 360s: they will stay in a 2+3 standard class formation, albeit with new seat covers. The declassified first class area stripped out and converted to 2+3.
6. The IRP is looked at again and watered down. Two things to change are to scrap the HS2 spur to East Midlands Parkway and not to proceed with electrification of the whole MML: to go as far north as Market Harborough (or possibly Wigston) only.
7. It is officially confirmed that XC will get 222s when the 810s come into service.
8. A decision is made for GC to receive 802s to replace their 180s.
9. It is officially decided that the Hydrogen Aventras will serve Teeside.

I appreciate it’s a very pessimistic prediction in terms of EMR and the MML; but it would come as no surprise if any of 1-7 happen given the various disappointments that the East Midlands rail network has suffered over the past few years (eg Grayling scrapping MML electrification, chronic issues with the cancelled and short-formed Regional services, rolling stock plans being disrupted by other TOCs’ new train introduction issues, the botched cascade of the ex-LNER HSTs into EMR, etc).

 

[Goldfish62]

My predictions below. Admittedly, some of them have little or no real logic; however, my justification for putting them down is that plenty of things that make much less sense have happened before.

1. Decision is made for the 158s to stay with EMR in view of retaining Nottingham-Liverpool . They get the EMR permanent livery. No refurbishment save for a deep clean.
2. WMT 196 introduction into service delayed until 2023/24.
3. WMT takes back some of EMR’s existing 170s to boost capacity on their network to mitigate the extended delay to the 196s. EMR holds on 156s not going to Northern as a consequence.
4. No refurbishment granted for EMR’s 170s save for a deep clean.
5. Only a light internal refurbishment granted for the 360s: they will stay in a 2+3 standard class formation, albeit with new seat covers. The declassified first class area stripped out and converted to 2+3.
6. The IRP is looked at again and watered down. Two things to change are to scrap the HS2 spur to East Midlands Parkway and not to proceed with electrification of the whole MML: to go as far north as Market Harborough (or possibly Wigston) only.
7. It is officially confirmed that XC will get 222s when the 810s come into service.
8. A decision is made for GC to receive 802s to replace their 180s.
9. It is officially decided that the Hydrogen Aventras will serve Teeside.

I appreciate it’s a very pessimistic prediction in terms of EMR and the MML; but it would come as no surprise if any of 1-7 happen given the various disappointments that the East Midlands rail network has suffered over the past few years (eg Grayling scrapping MML electrification, chronic issues with the cancelled and short-formed Regional services, rolling stock plans being disrupted by other TOCs’ new train introduction issues, the botched cascade of the ex-LNER HSTs into EMR, etc).

I think that sounds pretty realistic.

 

[YorksLad12]

[*]A decision is made for GC to receive 802s to replace their 180s.

Good list, and quite possible on all counts (sadly). However, I'd pedantically quibble with this point as GC are open access. They can decide to buy/lease 802s, or 810s as a follow-on order while EMR's are being built; you've made it sound as if they are part of the DfT's rolling stock moves that the DfT say they don't do.

It would mean 800-series trains on all of the long distance services on the East Coast (apart from the 91s running to Leeds/York) so I'd imagine it would get the thumbs up from many people.

 

[backontrack]

Good list, and quite possible on all counts (sadly). However, I'd pedantically quibble with this point as GC are open access. They can decide to buy/lease 802s, or 810s as a follow-on order while EMR's are being built; you've made it sound as if they are part of the DfT's rolling stock moves that the DfT say they don't do.

It would mean 800-series trains on all of the long distance services on the East Coast (apart from the 91s running to Leeds/York) so I'd imagine it would get the thumbs up from many people.

Maybe LNER will acquire some 180s to replace those IC225 rakes. After all, it sounds like there's going to be a lot of them knocking around...

 

[MattRat]

Maybe LNER will acquire some 180s to replace those IC225 rakes. After all, it sounds like there's going to be a lot of them knocking around...

Why replace an electric train with a diesel train? Surely we should be moving away from diesels and making all trains electric.

 

[JonathanH]

Maybe LNER will acquire some 180s to replace those IC225 rakes. After all, it sounds like there's going to be a lot of them knocking around...

Why? That doesn't follow at all. In an ideal world (for LNER), they would ditch the IC225 rakes by getting better availability out of the 80x fleet, but with regular 5-car workings to Leeds that doesn't seem likely.

I think that sounds pretty realistic.

Er, this one is totally unrealistic.

It is officially confirmed that XC will get 222s when the 810s come into service.

I expect that XC won't see any change in its train fleet at all during 2022 other than withdrawal of the HSTs without replacement.

 

[backontrack]

Why replace an electric train with a diesel train? Surely we should be moving away from diesels and making all trains electric.

Forgive me, I've just woken up like an hour ago. Yeah, there's no way they're taking on the 180s.

 

[MattRat]

I expect that XC won't see any change in its train fleet at all during 2022 other than withdrawal of the HSTs without replacement.

If that happens, expect the government to end up taking over due to all the complaints, and then watch as they magically fix all the problems with ease.....

 

[QSK19]

you've made it sound as if they are part of the DfT's rolling stock moves that the DfT say they don't do.

Ah yes, on re-reading my post, it did indeed come cross that way! I did bear in mind their open-access status when writing my post; but I appreciate that those who aren’t completely au fait with open-access may not have know what I meant!

 

[Goldfish62]

Er, this one is totally unrealistic.

Agreed! I didn't read that one properly!

Ah yes, on re-reading my post, it did indeed come cross that way! I did bear in mind their open-access status when writing my post; but I appreciate that those who aren’t completely au fait with open-access may not have know what I meant!

Grand Central made a £40m (260%) pre-tax loss in 2020 (2019: £5m profit) so new rolling stock may not be their top priority.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think you will find that there has not been a 70% drop in ridership, what previous posters mean is that there is even now 70% of previous traffic. (the glass is 70% full not 70% empty if you prefer).

Actually, now, a 70% drop in traffic is much closer to the mark, ie 30% ridership. (It’s a little above that, but not much).

 

[Ken H]

Actually, now, a 70% drop in traffic is much closer to the mark, ie 30% ridership. (It’s a little above that, but not much).

and ticket revenue?

 

[quantinghome]

I think business travel will be hit too. Now zoom/teams/Skype is in daily use, I can see widespread bans on travel in businesses.

It will change but there is a longstanding paradox that improved remote communication encourages more travel. Back in the day everyone in an organisation needed to be in the same office, or the organisation was set up with fairly autonomous regions. That doesn't need to happen any more - we have more people collaborating at a distance, using zoom, shared servers etc. But that in itself encourages more travel because it turns out people need to meet face to face now and then. You may see less commuting, but you will see increased long distance travel. This trend was observed prior to covid, which may accelerate it.

 

[Ken H]

It will change but there is a longstanding paradox that improved remote communication encourages more travel. Back in the day everyone in an organisation needed to be in the same office, or the organisation was set up with fairly autonomous regions. That doesn't need to happen any more - we have more people collaborating at a distance, using zoom, shared servers etc. But that in itself encourages more travel because it turns out people need to meet face to face now and then. You may see less commuting, but you will see increased long distance travel. This trend was observed prior to covid, which may accelerate it.

Hmm. I am working on a project with staff in Ukraine, Netherlands and 2 locations in the UK, plus those who WFH. We have never met. Its all by email, shared online stuff and teams. I dont see how the company would ever pay for me to travel to any of the locations.

 

[quantinghome]

Hmm. I am working on a project with staff in Ukraine, Netherlands and 2 locations in the UK, plus those who WFH. We have never met. Its all by email, shared online stuff and teams. I dont see how the company would ever pay for me to travel to any of the locations.

It's horses for courses. My OH used to work in an international team and only very occasionally travelled - I think maybe twice in a few years.

Meanwhile, I've worked on numerous projects all over the UK from my home office, but have often had to travel, even with all the online tools available to businesses.

 

[philosopher]

It will change but there is a longstanding paradox that improved remote communication encourages more travel. Back in the day everyone in an organisation needed to be in the same office, or the organisation was set up with fairly autonomous regions. That doesn't need to happen any more - we have more people collaborating at a distance, using zoom, shared servers etc. But that in itself encourages more travel because it turns out people need to meet face to face now and then. You may see less commuting, but you will see increased long distance travel. This trend was observed prior to covid, which may accelerate it.

Outside of work, I can see how better remote communication encourages travel. For example online dating allows people to form long distance relationships fairly easily which would significantly increase travel for those involved. If you stick to more traditional means of dating, it is more likely potential partners will live close by.

Similarly friendships that are geographically far apart can be maintained more easily, resulting in long distance travel to visit face to face, whereas previously such friendships may have fizzled out.

 

[The Ham]

Hmm. I am working on a project with staff in Ukraine, Netherlands and 2 locations in the UK, plus those who WFH. We have never met. Its all by email, shared online stuff and teams. I dont see how the company would ever pay for me to travel to any of the locations.

It does of course depend on a number of factors, however remote working could fairly easily increase long distance travel.

For instance if someone lived 20 miles from work and now lives 200 miles from work if they go to the office/meetings once a month they do 1/2 the milage that they did before, just ask at once rather than spread out and likely at a much higher speed, so overall they'll spend less time traveling.

The other factor is that with the ability to work anywhere people may go to see (say) family for a 10 days working from the family's home for (say) 3 days and taking a few days leave. That makes going and seeing them twice possible for the same amount of leave as going for one week.

 

[Bald Rick]

and ticket revenue?

Revenue is in much the same position as ridership.

 

[Mamorin]

The Class 730s aren't expected into service until 2023 (Modern Railways, Dec 21).
I'd be surprised if the 701s and 769s enter service this year either.
I agree with the rest on your list.

730/0s should enter service late this year. No date for the 730/1 or 730/2.

New British train fleets to enter service two years late

Two new British fleets that were due to enter traffic in 2020 will start carrying passengers from next year, two years later than planned.

www.railjournal.com

 

[Liam L]

730/0s should enter service late this year. No date for the 730/1 or 730/2.

New British train fleets to enter service two years late

Two new British fleets that were due to enter traffic in 2020 will start carrying passengers from next year, two years later than planned.

www.railjournal.com

Hopefully this year will be the year for 730/0. If not early 2023 fingers crossed

 

[Goldfish62]

730/0s should enter service late this year. No date for the 730/1 or 730/2.

New British train fleets to enter service two years late

Two new British fleets that were due to enter traffic in 2020 will start carrying passengers from next year, two years later than planned.

www.railjournal.com

701s were expected to enter service in late 2020/early 2021...

 

[43096]

701s were expected to enter service in late 2020/early 2021...

Originally they were due in service in December 2019.

 

[Bevan Price]

I wonder if DfT might try to encourage stock owners to try and sell some surplus trains to overseas railways (e.g. Class 350/2) ?

 

[Bald Rick]

I wonder if DfT might try to encourage stock owners to try and sell some surplus trains to overseas railways (e.g. Class 350/2) ?

If they are off lease, it makes no difference to the DfT.

 

[JonathanH]

If they are off lease, it makes no difference to the DfT.

Other than the extent to which they spread their losses over the other units in their fleet but I assume that every train has a market value not directly linked to the profit and loss of the leasing companies.

However, I agree that it is not a particular concern of the DfT as to whether leasing companies want to sell rolling stock abroad.

 

[Bevan Price]

Other than the extent to which they spread their losses over the other units in their fleet but I assume that every train has a market value not directly linked to the profit and loss of the leasing companies.

However, I agree that it is not a particular concern of the DfT as to whether leasing companies want to sell rolling stock abroad.

Well it might reduce the "operating" costs of the leasing companies, and reduce the probability of them trying to increase leasing charges.
(Stock not in use still incurs some costs for storage and presumably, some basic care & maintenance.)