WCML Open Access Applications Rejected

[Bald Rick]

It was always close, both in time and price, between air and rail for Edinburgh and Newcastle to London. Aviation has got worse and, at the same time, the rail service has got better.

It's great to see such a modal shift, and Lumo have obviously added c.2500 seats a day in each direction to the route, in addition to LNER's frequency increases. I'm just sceptical about how much of this modal shift is actually down to Lumo, i.e. would all these people have switched from air to rail anyway. I rather suspect they would, I think the modal shift has been due to push factors from aviation rather than any pull factors on rail, but it can only ever be an opinion.

I'm not vehemently against OA, I just don't see the point of issuing licences/permits to OA operators which are directly competing against the state-subsidised incumbent. I genuinely don't understand what Lumo bring to the table- they stop at the same stations as LNER operating an (almost) identical types of train as LNER.

You think its coincidence that there was a significant modal shift from air to rail on a passenger flow after an OA launched based on a business model of taking airline passengers? The more likely explanation is Lumo did what it promised it would do.

No doubt that there has been a big shift from air to rail on the London - Edinburgh market.

Also no doubt that Lumo has played a part in that, as have the airlines taking capacity out (before the rail growth).

There’s another factor, which seems to be forgotten. LNER have introduced a brand new fleet of trains, with substantially more capacity. And, whilst this is not an opinion you will see on these pages very often, most passengers actually quite like the ‘new’ trains compared to what they replaced. It is only really post Covid that this new fleet has been given the chance to grow the market. And it has.

 

[A S Leib]

Could another factor be a shift from business to leisure travel being particularly strong for routes like Edinburgh to London post-Covid, with the latter being less willing to fly unless it's clearly cheaper or easier?

 

[Zomboid]

It'll be interesting to see how the lumo model fares on routes that either don't (Carmarthen) or can't (Stirling) compete with air. It's undeniable that rail has grown a lot on the Edinburgh - London route, but by an awful lot more than the additional capacity that the lumo service provides.

I can imagine that between Edinburgh and London there's a market for the kind of "tells you it's cheap but actually isn't" travel that "low cost carriers" offer. What's the actual market they're going for with Carmarthen & Stirling though? Bristol & East Glasgow?

 

[Bald Rick]

Could another factor be a shift from business to leisure travel being particularly strong for routes like Edinburgh to London post-Covid, with the latter being less willing to fly unless it's clearly cheaper or easier?

Possibly, the Edinbugh to London City air route is down by about 35% since 2019, and that is largely business.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Not really, split between ScotRail and Lumo (Stirling) services, there is unlikely to be enough left to form a sufficient fleet for anyone else.

However, it does possibly give EMR a bit more breathing space, as ScotRail aren't likely to need all of them immediately.

He said Voyagers, not Meridians.

 

[Megafuss]

Re the ECML and how it feeds in to the discussion of OA on the WCML...

I appreciate this is rhetorical....if the Lumo paths were always there, waiting for somebody to exploit them.... then why didn't an enterprising TOC like LNER seek to use them to begin with? The dark hand of the DfT preventing scheduling teams from exploring options? or are companies just not being enterprising enough?

Given the current discourse re OA, I also wonder what the reaction would be to Northern running services to and from Euston, FNW style.
....

 

[duffield]

It's also commented on the letter's impact on the upcoming ECML decisions: https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/2025-07-03-open-access-letter-to-dft.pdf

This bit is interesting (my added emphasis):

We therefore intend to proceed with decision making on the East Coast Main Line in line with our published policy unless you write by Monday 7 July to ask us to delay the process.

I wonder if that letter has been written?

 

[Chester1]

Given the current discourse re OA, I also wonder what the reaction would be to Northern running services to and from Euston, FNW style.
....

Last year LNWR proposed extending Crewe services to Manchester Victoria via Warrington Bank Quay. Any non LNWR proposals will face the same the same block as the OAs.

 

[geoffk]

Shrewsbury to London services have failed on three occasions in three decades. Until a means is found of making through trains faster than railheading at Stafford, the definition of insanity is available for testing for a fourth time.

Makes more sense to electrify Oxley to Shrewsbury, or would have done when there was an hourly fast service terminating at/starting from Wolverhampton.

 

[Bradford1]

Are lumo still doing 60% of tickets advertised at £30 as they said they would be

 

[Bletchleyite]

Given the current discourse re OA, I also wonder what the reaction would be to Northern running services to and from Euston, FNW style.
....

It's quite hard to imagine now the idea of 2 car 90mph DMUs eating paths on the WCML fasts, is it not?

 

[Clarence Yard]

As you say the rail share of London - Edinburgh is higher than it has ever been, but somehow before Covid the InterCity East Coast operation regularly made profits, whereas today it makes losses. Its interesting to draw the trend lines forward, where you will discover that this missing ICEC profit is a very similar number to First Group OAO profits...

There are two reasons for this. One is the large increase in FTAC and the other is the IEP contract. GWR has also suffered with the latter. They really are an expensive train which has ruined the overt economics of the two businesses, given the caveat that the wild fluctuations in VTAC make profitability comparisons all a bit futile anyway.

LNER (with the Jacobs report) are alleging abstraction through lack of opportunity as well as competitive transfer but, like many other reports on OA, has some dodgy assumptions in it. 2024 assumptions have been used to back work to 2005 which is kinda like producing a 1950’s Miss Marple where the police arrive at the murder scene in a jam sandwich Ford Focus with flashing blue lights! You have to work forwards, year by year, from 1999 to capture all the variables. Jacobs obviously didn’t have that knowledge so went for a (unwise) short cut

Another big error is in the OA revenue for each year. HT have all their station by station revenue (period by period) going back to the start so it was easy for them to compare what Jacobs said for them in 2005/6, the last year they were the sole OA operator on the ECML. They were 30% out (too high) which suggests Jacobs have included other franchises revenue in as OA! That is a major error, if (as seems likely) they have done it for subsequent years.

Getting back to the WCML, two out of the three applicants won’t be coming back. The unknown one is WSMR but I can’t see the grounds for going for an expensive JR. Maybe time for a more robust operating plan, if they want to bother with continuing to seek paths via a fresh application.

 

[The Ham]

Stop the hate because it isn’t persuading anyone.

Lumo has grabbed quite a bit of the London-Edinburgh air market, according to air analysts who study the domestic air market. Rail market share of the total London-Edinburgh transport market has risen in greater % numbers than on other comparable flows. Total rail revenue is up.

Lumo seems to earning very decent average journey yields from that market too because it seems, headline figures apart, it isn’t really competing seriously with LNER. It appears to be price pointing the bulk of its tickets against air.

Something is happening here which needs some serious industry analysis because it could become a pricing/yield model for similar IC flows, especially those that have gone for bums on seats rather than yield per journey.

If it was just that Lumo are brilliantly amazing at marketing to airline passengers then LNER wouldn’t be getting record passenger numbers too.

It’s not like Lumo are noticeably different to LNER, either on price or on service, other than the lack of first class and a buffet car.

Looking at a random Tuesday in August, the lunchtime Lumo is £47 from Newcastle to London and the following LNER is £50. The difference is negligible.

As I’ve repeatedly said, It’s got much more to do with push factors away from aviation than anything else, in my opinion. Two hour queues to get through security tend to push people away from flying. Ryanair’s increasingly erratic ancillary charges do too. They switched then didn’t go back.

It’s great they did switch but the idea that a bright blue IET instead of a bright red one persuaded people to switch is fanciful, in my opinion.

It's quite likely that once people have tried Lumo (as it's tickets are a similar price to flying) they then question why they are using Lumo at a fixed time when there's another train (LNER) which runs at a better time for them which is only a few pounds more.

Then having found that rail is better than flying (at least comparable end to end journey times, able to take more luggage, able to work on the train, and so on) and so have stayed.

That then results in airlines cutting frequency making rail more attractive.

Could LNER have done that without Lumo? Maybe, maybe not, however we are where we are.

Does that mean that OAO are always the best thing to do?

Maybe, in that they create new routes.

Maybe not, if there was more ability for TOC's to be allowed to run more services (where they could show a reasonable business case) then OAO would be less in need.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Neither of those are quite so surprising: aviation still beats rail hands down for Glasgow to London, and there's no aviation alternative for Plymouth to London.

Typical Edinburgh-King's Cross journey time is 4h22m.
Typical Glasgow-Euston journey time is 4h32m.
Admittedly the frequency on LNER is double that of Avanti (plus Lumo), but there's the slower Avanti via Birmingham service as well.
Why does the Edinburgh service beat the Glasgow service "hands down", when it's only 10 minutes slower (and could easily be faster by omitting some stops north of Crewe).

 

[YorkshireBear]

The word "hate" here seems to be trying to imply anyone who criticises Lumo is talking from feelings rather than facts.

As you say the rail share of London - Edinburgh is higher than it has ever been, but somehow before Covid the InterCity East Coast operation regularly made profits, whereas today it makes losses. Its interesting to draw the trend lines forward, where you will discover that this missing ICEC profit is a very similar number to First Group OAO profits...

Nationalised railway faces £1bn blow from cheaper private rivals

Taxpayers will have to bail out state-run operator struggling to compete on ticket prices, report finds

www.telegraph.co.uk

And thats before we get to the fact that Lumo especially, often because of their own choice of rolling stock, often give up on running a service in disruption and expect LNER to transport their passengers. Network Rail even allow for OAO trains to run through disruption which restricts train capacity; as a result you find LNER cancelling 9 and 10 coach trains so that Lumo's 5 cars can run. Where is the systemwide logic in that?

One of the reasons ICEC now makes losses is the fairly huge cost of the Hitachi fleet I suspect compared to the previous fleets.

 

[Zomboid]

Typical Edinburgh-King's Cross journey time is 4h22m.
Typical Glasgow-Euston journey time is 4h32m.
Admittedly the frequency on LNER is double that of Avanti (plus Lumo), but there's the slower Avanti via Birmingham service as well.
Why does the Edinburgh service beat the Glasgow service "hands down", when it's only 10 minutes slower (and could easily be faster by omitting some stops north of Crewe).

Frequency is one of the biggest drivers of demand that there is.

How do the alternatives compare? Is the flying option from Glasgow comparatively more attractive for any reason?

And with business travel having been reduced, Edinburgh is a much bigger leisure destination than Glasgow is.

 

[A S Leib]

Frequency is one of the biggest drivers of demand that there is.

How do the alternatives compare? Is the flying option from Glasgow comparatively more attractive for any reason?

And with business travel having been reduced, Edinburgh is a much bigger leisure destination than Glasgow is.

There's nine flights from London (no more than three from one airport) to Glasgow next Saturday, so the hourly fast service would be enough to be more attractive from a frequency perspective.

 

[Zomboid]

There's nine flights from London (no more than three from one airport) to Glasgow next Saturday, so the hourly fast service would be enough to be more attractive from a frequency perspective.

I wonder how much more traffic the railway would take if (ignoring for a minute the impossibility of doing so...) there were an Edinburgh level of service. e.g. Keep the existing train and add a second hourly service that runs faster, maybe Carlisle, Preston, Crewe, Euston.

I guess we might find out the other side of HS2...

 

[Adrian1980uk]

It's always an interesting question about extraction costs Vs competition, extraction will always happen as if the open Access operator runs a train at a better price / better time every passenger is going to take it and begs the question if it's profitable why the existing operator isn't running it. Always the constant is network capacity and that's going to become a bigger and bigger problem as rail is growing, set back by COVID but now more or less will grow above pre COVID assuming continued 3 to 4 % growth.

Currently I think a lot of decision makers are ignoring crunch time will come in the next decade across multiple lines and only the west coast mainline has some plan.

 

[Starmill]

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but ‘via Wolves’ has already failed at least three times.

Wolves to Euston through trains are incredibly slow, typically 1h49 to 2h09, about the same as Warrington or Wigan to London!

Little wonder that so many Shropshire commuters drive to Stafford for a 1hr20 journey to London.

Worth noting that despite the premium price applied to it, those using Shrewsbury itself can purchase Shrewsbury - London tickets with a change at Crewe. This option guts a direct train via Coventry or parking at Stafford for speed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Saturday at 13:13 ==

Then go and look at some other IC flows to see their growth figures over the same period.

There aren't exactly a large number of comparators who had unreliable, life expired trains, which were entirety replaced by faster and higher-capacity ones.

 

[30907]

The ORR shows a distinct lack of imagination in not considering the option of reducing the paths utilised by existing WCML operators to create the pathway for these new innovative services which would significantly enhance passenger experience through greater choice and pricing, too much political pressure perhaps.

Which WCML service are you suggesting should be reduced? Birmingham? Manchester? LNW Crewe?

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

Which WCML service are you suggesting should be reduced? Birmingham? Manchester? LNW Crewe?

The WCML stopper from Crewe to Euston really ought to be extended to somewhere else. I'd argue it should head somewhere via Winsford, Hartford and Warrington and then either round to Manchester or even towards St Helens/ Liverpool or towards Wigan and Preston.

The existing legacy TOCs have absolutely no inclination to progressively develop their existing networks, and the DfT isn't interested in doing so either. This is the problem with people who opposed open access - the DfT or legacy TOCs are not waiting eagerly to enhance what's already there, if anything, they're looking to make it even more cost effective and efficient.

West Midlands Trains are in absolutely no position to extend any of their services to either Manchester Airport or Manchester city centre - and won't be for years. That idea will eventually just fade away. I suspect their announcement that they would look at this was little more than a PR exercise during a time Abellio/Transport UK were still hoping to apply pressure to keep TOCs in private hands.

 

[A S Leib]

Which WCML service are you suggesting should be reduced? Birmingham? Manchester? LNW Crewe?

If you were going off of changes to passenger numbers since Covid, the clearer cuts would be to the LNR suburban services. The most common flows from Euston (passenger numbers for 2023-4 vs 2018-9) are:

Milton Keynes Central (-18%)
Manchester Piccadilly (-14%)
Watford Junction (-27%)
Birmingham New Street (-21%)
Liverpool Lime Street (-0.4%)
Coventry (-20%)
Northampton (-28%)
Hemel Hempstead (-28%)
Harrow & Wealdstone (-19%)
Leighton Buzzard (-28%)

The problems are that 2tph isn't enough for London to Hemel or Northampton, especially given how urgently HS2 was – is – needed, I don't think replacing slow path services is appropriate for a London to Welsh Borders route, and I don't know if that would cut enough for capacity not to be an issue past Rugby anyway.

Sidenote: Euston to Chester is 28% lower and I think only 2tph LNR called at Harrow & Wealdstone in 2019 compared to 4tph now, which probably accounts for Liverpool's and Wealdstone's relatively strong performance.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sidenote: Euston to Chester is 28% lower and I think only 2tph LNR called at Harrow & Wealdstone in 2019 compared to 4tph now, which probably accounts for Liverpool's and Wealdstone's relatively strong performance.

Realistically, if you were going to cut something in order to make way for something else, I'd be tempted to cut Euston-Chester; Whenever I've been on one of those trains, they seem to have been pretty lightly used. Chester is not that big a destination by itself. If you made up the difference by - say - running the TfW Crewe-Chester shuttles every 20 minutes, you'd give Chester an even better local service with reasonable connections to London. My vote would then be to replace Euston-Chester with Euston-Preston, or maybe Euston-Lancaster, which would ease pressure on the frequently rammed Euston-Glasgow trains while avoiding the problems of no paths into Manchester or Liverpool.

The only problem is the hours when Euston-Chester continues to Holyhead. You probably wouldn't want to cut those trains, so you'd end up with whatever replaces Euston-Chester running most hours but skipping a few hours (when a Holyhead service runs).

 

[The Ham]

If you were going off of changes to passenger numbers since Covid, the clearer cuts would be to the LNR suburban services. The most common flows from Euston (passenger numbers for 2023-4 vs 2018-9) are:

Milton Keynes Central (-18%)
Manchester Piccadilly (-14%)
Watford Junction (-27%)
Birmingham New Street (-21%)
Liverpool Lime Street (-0.4%)
Coventry (-20%)
Northampton (-28%)
Hemel Hempstead (-28%)
Harrow & Wealdstone (-19%)
Leighton Buzzard (-28%)

The problems are that 2tph isn't enough for London to Hemel or Northampton, especially given how urgently HS2 was – is – needed, I don't think replacing slow path services is appropriate for a London to Welsh Borders route, and I don't know if that would cut enough for capacity not to be an issue past Rugby anyway.

Sidenote: Euston to Chester is 28% lower and I think only 2tph LNR called at Harrow & Wealdstone in 2019 compared to 4tph now, which probably accounts for Liverpool's and Wealdstone's relatively strong performance.

What's the train frequencies and if they are the same, when we're they restored?

If (for example) Manchester is still at 2tph or only was restored to 3tph within the last 12 months then it still being -14% is probably not too bad.

 

[A S Leib]

What's the train frequencies and if they are the same, when we're they restored?

If (for example) Manchester is still at 2tph or only was restored to 3tph within the last 12 months then it still being -14% is probably not too bad.

I'm not sure when exactly each change happened between December 2019 and this May, but

Milton Keynes: lost Southern (shouldn't really affect Euston numbers), Avanti calls switched from Scotland via West Midlands and Chester to Birmingham and Liverpool, I think LNR Euston to Birmingham cut from 3tph to 2tph but Milton Keynes terminators increased from 1tph to 2tph so no net change for Euston

Manchester: 3tph (same)

Watford: 5tph LNR and 4tph London Overground (I think that was the case in December 2019)

Birmingham, Coventry: 3tph Avanti in most hours compared to consistent 3tph, 2tph LNR rather than 3tph

Liverpool: 1tph Avanti and 2tph in some hours, hourly LNR split at Birmingham (and I don't think Birmingham – Liverpool is yet back to all-day 2tph)

Northampton: 2tph down from 3tph

Hemel Hempstead: still 4tph but with 2tph to Milton Keynes rather than 1tph through to Birmingham, lost Southern

Harrow & Wealdstone: kept 2tph to Tring, gained 2tph to Milton Keynes, still 4tph London Overground (edit: Bakerloo line services were cut from 6tph to 4tph in May 2021, which might have pushed more passengers to Euston)

Leighton Buzzard: I think up from 3tph to 4tph, lost Southern

 

[weeklycommuter]

I'm not sure when exactly each change happened between December 2019 and this May, but

Milton Keynes: lost Southern (shouldn't really affect Euston numbers), Avanti calls switched from Scotland via West Midlands and Chester to Birmingham and Liverpool, I think LNR Euston to Birmingham cut from 3tph to 2tph but Milton Keynes terminators increased from 1tph to 2tph so no net change for Euston

Manchester: 3tph (same)

Watford: 5tph LNR and 4tph London Overground (I think that was the case in December 2019)

Birmingham, Coventry: 3tph Avanti in most hours compared to consistent 3tph, 2tph LNR rather than 3tph

Liverpool: 1tph Avanti and 2tph in some hours, hourly LNR split at Birmingham (and I don't think Birmingham – Liverpool is yet back to all-day 2tph)

Northampton: 2tph down from 3tph

Hemel Hempstead: still 4tph but with 2tph to Milton Keynes rather than 1tph through to Birmingham, lost Southern

Harrow & Wealdstone: kept 2tph to Tring, gained 2tph to Milton Keynes, still 4tph London Overground (edit: Bakerloo line services were cut from 6tph to 4tph in May 2021, which might have pushed more passengers to Euston)

Leighton Buzzard: I think up from 3tph to 4tph, lost Southern

The hourly Southern service Watford Junction to East Croydon needs to be Milton Keynes to Gatwick Airport again to encourage more people to travel to and from Gatwick Airport by train.

 

[Zomboid]

I'm not sure the stopping train down the WCML followed by a glacial trundle round the WLL will attract many people to get to Gatwick that way.

 

[A S Leib]

The hourly Southern service Watford Junction to East Croydon needs to be Milton Keynes to Gatwick Airport again to encourage more people to travel to and from Gatwick Airport by train.

As attractive as direct services might be for passengers with lots of luggage, I suspect it would be more worthwhile to make the connection from Euston to St. Pancras more welcoming and have a far more frequent service that way than it would be by making enough capacity on the Brighton Main Line. Passengers living far enough away from WCML stations not to walk there could also get a bus or taxi to St Albans, Luton etc. for a more frequent Gatwick service as well.

Going back to the topic of this thread, I don't think it helps open-access proposals that so many secondary routes are congested as well as mainlines having little capacity to spare.

 

[Zomboid]

Passengers living far enough away from WCML stations not to walk there could also get a bus or taxi to St Albans, Luton etc. for a more frequent Gatwick service as well

By the time they're in the taxi, chances are they'd be just as well to stay in it all the way to Gatwick, especially if they're in a group.