What's the point of the Harrogate-London LNER service?

[jamiearmley]

There's also the question though as to what the reverse flow is like - Harrogate to London in the morning, return in the afternoon or evening, for business meetings or leisure. Maybe that's actually the greater flow and justifies the service?

It might well do.

£196 million pa lease cost Azuma fleet of 487 carriages.

Becomes £402,464 per carriage per year.

Divide by 365 days, 24 hours, results in £46 per carriage per hour lease cost.

(Crude, I know).

9 carriages, just over two hours up and back with layover, so say one hour associated with the one leg. So a crude figure of £414 lease cost for one single Harrogate Leeds journey for LNER.

36 pax in standard at £4.90
6 in first at £13.40

Est fare income at full open single price £256.80.

Does not cover lease costs, let alone track access, fuel, staffing, staff training and management, route retention, etc.

It's easy to argue for and against this one, without accurate figures we will never know. I still reckon, however, that knocking HGT/BDQ/SKI on the head would free up fleet for use elsewhere. Perhaps to strengthen the newly lucrative (stealth fare rises) Edinburgh - Kings Cross route?

 

[JonathanH]

So a crude figure of £414 lease cost for one single Harrogate Leeds journey for LNER.

One whole Azuma is being leased effectively just to provide Harrogate with its all day service, as it would otherwise go straight back to London, from Leeds, so the cost of extending to Harrogate would appear to be £3.6m a year just for the rolling stock. The peak working is easier to account for, as it has always been in marginal time.

These are the kind of equations that BR used to do, and reallocate stock when something didn't make sense. For example, the cancellation of the Cleethorpes HST in BR days in 1993 allowed one HST to be reallocated to the Western Region, where it could be more gainfully employed.

 

[quantinghome]

Well obviously, but there are plenty of other places with far higher populations in Yorkshire (Barnsley, Huddersfield etc) with no such connection. It just seems like an odd service to exist

Apologies if this is repeating any of the above posts.

Aside from Harrogate being a bigger draw for conferences, tourism, work etc. the reason LNER goes there rather than other larger Yorkshire towns is... because it can! The Harrogate line is one of (or if not) the only routes out of Leeds that actually has space for more trains.

 

[Notabene]

BR also cut the off-peak services to/from Hull. It was deeply resented.
Then along came Hull trains.

Good marketing and attractive fares can create new markets and revive old ones.
At one time HT was even considering running a Harrogate service via York.

 

[507020]

One whole Azuma is being leased effectively just to provide Harrogate with its all day service, as it would otherwise go straight back to London, from Leeds, so the cost of extending to Harrogate would appear to be £3.6m a year just for the rolling stock. The peak working is easier to account for, as it has always been in marginal time.

These are the kind of equations that BR used to do, and reallocate stock when something didn't make sense. For example, the cancellation of the Cleethorpes HST in BR days in 1993 allowed one HST to be reallocated to the Western Region, where it could be more gainfully employed.

You’re saying these are the kind of equations BR used to do, but for them the rolling stock leasing charge was zero, the HSTs were bought and paid for, track access was zero with vertical integration, oil prices were lower, there was no minimum wage for staff and route retention was theoretically cheaper without fragmentation between multiple operators (Northern and LNER both having to learn Harrogate, rather than just a Leeds depot signing Azumas and 170s)

This would suggest that 1. BR should have been able to run more such services more cheaply, which doesn’t explain why more exist now than did in the past and 2. Most of the costs the LNER service is being criticised for incurring are artificial, do not need to be paid and it has been proved that a train service can be run more efficiently without them. What proposals are there to eliminate these unnecessary costs without imposing a change of trains at Leeds, which due to capacity constraints will always result in missed connections and people driving from Harrogate to London instead?

 

[johntea]

Something mildly pleasing I noticed this morning is the Azuma seems to actually have a destination of ‘Sidings’ programmed in to the destination screens