What actually happens if parliamentary services aren't run?

[MadMac]

Stations such as Filey and Heads of Ayr Holiday Camps, Cheltenham Racecourse and The Hawthorns, never had regular weekly services throughout the year. I suspect that if a hostile legal challenge was mounted, the railway could get away with surprisingly little service (once on every 29 Feb, permanently substituted by a bus.)

When there was talk of withdrawing the Fort William sleeper, which was the only scheduled passenger service over the Cowlairs North Curve, ScotRail initially wanted to run a late night Westerton-Bishopbriggs service on Bank Holidays only to maintain the “obligation“, but were told that this would be, at a minimum, “outwith the spirit of the law”.

 

[flitwickbeds]

Redcar British Steel when from being 2 trains a day in each direction to nothing (it randomly gained extra trains in May 2018 as before it was 1 train a day in each direction)

It was IBM which had pretty much everything calling before it got mothballed.

Sorry, yes you're right.

 

[RT4038]

When there was talk of withdrawing the Fort William sleeper, which was the only scheduled passenger service over the Cowlairs North Curve, ScotRail initially wanted to run a late night Westerton-Bishopbriggs service on Bank Holidays only to maintain the “obligation“, but were told that this would be, at a minimum, “outwith the spirit of the law”.

Told by whom?

 

[The Quincunx]

Told by whom?

I believe this was a Scottish court, therefore not a precedent for the (UK) 1993 Railways Act.

 

[RT4038]

Seems a little unlikely! If the service had never actually stopped running, what cause would a court have got involved?

 

[Cletus]

This video I'd never seen before came up in my Youtube recommendations, back when the train was hourly.

 

[tspaul26]

I believe this was a Scottish court, therefore not a precedent for the (UK) 1993 Railways Act.

If it were an interlocutor of the Scots courts on a piece of UK legislation then it would as a minimum be ‘persuasive’ for courts in England also. If it was a Court of Session cause then it would be ‘highly persuasive’.

 

[domcoop7]

If it were an interlocutor of the Scots courts on a piece of UK legislation then it would as a minimum be ‘persuasive’ for courts in England also. If it was a Court of Session cause then it would be ‘highly persuasive’.

Absolutely!

Going back to the thread topic, I've searched case law databases, I've trawled through Railways legislation back to the Victorian times, I've read closure consultation processes on the ORR website, and we have numerous examples listed in this thread of services that are closed without a replacement, or are put on a Parliamentary services, and all sorts in between.

SO my view is that answer the question "what actually happens in Parliamentary services aren't run" is ... nothing!

Whoever has written the legislation that is in force today as opposed to Victorian times (mainly the 1993 Act and the 2000 Act) has clearly not considered that a railway undertaking in receipt of public subsidy and reliant on patronage from the Department for Transport would try to chance their arm and not run a service if required to. So they simply haven't included any expressly set out provision to cover for it. The authors of the legislation trust that the government will run any services they are required to run and trust that the government will make sure any private operators run any services the private operators are required to run. And that's it.

Now if the DfT started ignoring the law and allowing services to close without following the closure procedure AND if a pressure group came along who were sufficiently interested to do something about it took the DfT or the defaulting operators to court, then the Powers That Be may choose to update the legislation and set out the consequences more clearly (as the government would much rather have a written procedure any day of the week than leaving it for a High Court Judge to decide what to do!). But even then, it's going to be a one-off situation if it ever were to happen. And in English law (I don't know about Scots law), there is no concept of compensation for government breach.

[This is something that does exist in EU law and in US Federal jurisdiction, so if the State of California ignores the Feds, a Federal Court can order the state to pay out cash to people affected, and likewise if a member state of the EU doesn't properly follow EU law, anybody affected can sue the country concerned for what they call "Francovich" damages.]

So the most likely outcome is an order of the High Court to the Secretary of State for Transport saying "you have 28 / 56 / however-many days to make efforts to run a train service between x and y again, or go through the closure procedure properly". But no compo would be payable and so it's not really going to cause the government to lose that much sleep. And I'd bet a fair whack that miraculously, just before the service was re-instated, they'd find some mysterious "safety issue" at a critical switch or signal or bridge, meaning it has to be a bus substitution.

In conclusion, to mis-quote Depeche Mode, it's a question of trust. We just trust and expect the relevant people follow their legal obligations.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Absolutely!

Going back to the thread topic, I've searched case law databases, I've trawled through Railways legislation back to the Victorian times, I've read closure consultation processes on the ORR website, and we have numerous examples listed in this thread of services that are closed without a replacement, or are put on a Parliamentary services, and all sorts in between.

SO my view is that answer the question "what actually happens in Parliamentary services aren't run" is ... nothing!

Whoever has written the legislation that is in force today as opposed to Victorian times (mainly the 1993 Act and the 2000 Act) has clearly not considered that a railway undertaking in receipt of public subsidy and reliant on patronage from the Department for Transport would try to chance their arm and not run a service if required to. So they simply haven't included any expressly set out provision to cover for it. The authors of the legislation trust that the government will run any services they are required to run and trust that the government will make sure any private operators run any services the private operators are required to run. And that's it.

Now if the DfT started ignoring the law and allowing services to close without following the closure procedure AND if a pressure group came along who were sufficiently interested to do something about it took the DfT or the defaulting operators to court, then the Powers That Be may choose to update the legislation and set out the consequences more clearly (as the government would much rather have a written procedure any day of the week than leaving it for a High Court Judge to decide what to do!). But even then, it's going to be a one-off situation if it ever were to happen. And in English law (I don't know about Scots law), there is no concept of compensation for government breach.

[This is something that does exist in EU law and in US Federal jurisdiction, so if the State of California ignores the Feds, a Federal Court can order the state to pay out cash to people affected, and likewise if a member state of the EU doesn't properly follow EU law, anybody affected can sue the country concerned for what they call "Francovich" damages.]

So the most likely outcome is an order of the High Court to the Secretary of State for Transport saying "you have 28 / 56 / however-many days to make efforts to run a train service between x and y again, or go through the closure procedure properly". But no compo would be payable and so it's not really going to cause the government to lose that much sleep. And I'd bet a fair whack that miraculously, just before the service was re-instated, they'd find some mysterious "safety issue" at a critical switch or signal or bridge, meaning it has to be a bus substitution.

In conclusion, to mis-quote Depeche Mode, it's a question of trust. We just trust and expect the relevant people follow their legal obligations.

Interesting and illuminating - thanks.

At the risk of going off at a tangent, do franchises specify what services a given TOC should run? I appreciate that this isn't the same as a requirement that the railway as whole should run a service from A to B - but from a passenger point of view, if TOC1 plc is required to run a train from A to B at a specified frequency then the practical upshot is much the same.

And if franchises as currently written require this, will the new style contracts (sorry, can't remember what they'll be called) also require it? Presumably the new style contracts will be more prescriptive so will specify what services should operate.

 

[zwk500]

Interesting and illuminating - thanks.

At the risk of going off at a tangent, do franchises specify what services a given TOC should run? I appreciate that this isn't the same as a requirement that the railway as whole should run a service from A to B - but from a passenger point of view, if TOC1 plc is required to run a train from A to B at a specified frequency then the practical upshot is much the same.

And if franchises as currently written require this, will the new style contracts (sorry, can't remember what they'll be called) also require it? Presumabl the new style contracts will be more prescriptive so will specify what services should operate.

In short - yes. I suspect it varies from TOC to TOC, but a Train Service Specification is part of the contract, and can include items such as '1 train calling at Station A and Station B in each direction on Sundays'.

 

[Watershed]

Interesting and illuminating - thanks.

At the risk of going off at a tangent, do franchises specify what services a given TOC should run? I appreciate that this isn't the same as a requirement that the railway as whole should run a service from A to B - but from a passenger point of view, if TOC1 plc is required to run a train from A to B at a specified frequency then the practical upshot is much the same.

And if franchises as currently written require this, will the new style contracts (sorry, can't remember what they'll be called) also require it? Presumabl the new style contracts will be more prescriptive so will specify what services should operate.

Before Covid, franchises would have a Train Service Requirement (TSR, not to be confused with a Temporary Speed Restriction!) which dictated the essence of the timetable, for example requiring 14 trains a day from A to B calling at certain intermediate stations on weekdays, with 3 arrivals into a certain station before 9am and 3 departures from 5pm to 7pm.

If anything, the new National Rail Contracts are likely to be more prescriptive, as they are effectively management contracts rather than franchises.

 

[tspaul26]

And in English law (I don't know about Scots law), there is no concept of compensation for government breach.

There are certain limited instances in which damages could be awarded in an English case, but I am not aware of this having been done in the past century at least.

As to Scots law, one would probably petition the nobile officium and ask the Court of Session to create a remedy. There would have to be some clearly pleaded loss arising from the breach though - quite what that might be and how one might evidence it...

 

[MadMac]

I believe this was a Scottish court, therefore not a precedent for the (UK) 1993 Railways Act.

The story, as I recall, was that ScotRail took some advice as to what they could get away with, which is where the “outwith the spirit” arose.

 

[flitwickbeds]

I note with interest that neither the Stockport <> Stalybridge service, nor the Kirton Lindsey/Brigg/Gainsborough Central services this Saturday, are anywhere to be seen in RealTimeTrains. No replacement bus service listed either...

 

[175001]

That's because its still the Covid Timetable this Saturday.

It will be back on the 22nd

 

[Cletus]

That's because its still the Covid Timetable this Saturday.

It will be back on the 22nd

The Denton flyers are running?
That's good, I'm in Manchester that day and I've managed to get off at Reddish South twice and not Denton!