Which line/station has seen the biggest improvements purely due to privatisation?

[Starmill]

How much of the Chiltern upgrade was actually planned new from the private sector? As I understand that most of the route underwent 'total route modernisation', i.e. colour light signalling controlled by signalling centres, in the end of the 80s, and the introduction of the 165s was done under NSE.

The following possibly could do with a few corrections here and there, but...

The Chiltern Railways franchise began in 1996. They redoubled Princes Risborough to Bicester North, reconstructed a station at Haddenham & Thame Parkway, and raised some of the permissible speeds to 100 miles / hour. Then, they opened Warwick Parkway. It was also during this time that the fleet of 'Clubman' DMUs was ordered and entered service - they ended up building 19 sets in a variety of 3 and 4 car formations.

Then, there is the current franchise which runs 2002 - 2022. This involved taking the double track further north from Bicester North station to Anynho Junction, and some work was done to upgrade the line's speed and signalling between Banbury and Leamington Spa. Then the famous 'Evergreen 2' project which realinged or added a very significant few bits of track (including at build-out at Bicester North, trunback at Gerrards Cross, straightening at Beaconsfield, Neasden, Northold etc, the through line at Princes Risborough) to allow higher speeds. Work was done to add new platforms at London Marylebone and at Birmingham Moor Street, and the new Wembley LMD was opened.

Then came 'Evergreen 3', the project to build a completely new 100 miles per hour line branching off the mainline, with construction of all new stations at Bicester Village, Islip and Oxford Parkway.

Now, exactly how much of this was private-sector led I can't say for sure. However, certainly a very significant amount of the work done since 2002 has been done on the basis of money from the franchisee. It's unclear to me what the situation was before the 2002 award, but it is apparently the case that a significant amount of the infrastructure that has been built since 1996 continues to be owned by the franchisee, including stations. If a new incoming franchisee were appointed, presumably they would need to buy these, unless the government steps in to do so first.

However, no matter how you look at it, the line has been completey transformed since the first franchise was awarded - it now looks nothing like it did then. A significant amount of other new rolling stock was also taken on, with the 4 new class 172s, the 9 converted class 170s and of course the story of the locomotive hauled trains.

 

[Carlisle]

C2C would surely be a candidate, completely new fleet, refurbished stations, longer trains, line resignalled etc .

 

[NorthernSpirit]

I'd say Brighouse, as in 1992/1993 BR in conjunction with the then WYPTE was looking at reopening the station that shut in 1970, basically errecting new lighting columns, signs and a couple of shelters on the platforms. No idea what ther services would have been (as the line between Greetland and Dryclough Junctions and between Bradley Wood and Bradley Junctions had already been lifted), one can only guess and I'm thinking Leeds to Hebden Bridge or a "Melksham" style service.

The only evidence of this is shown on the 1992 WYPTE MetroTrain map which show both Mirfield and Deighton placed to the right hand side of the Huddersfield Line, which more or less stated that Brighouse was projected to reopen sometime in the early to mid 90's.

Brighouse eventually reopened on a new site slightly east of the previous station under MTL owned Northern Spirit on the 28th May 2000 with a basic hourly Leeds to Huddersfield service, in '08 a new Leeds to Hebden Bridge service was introduced which opened up an extra service to Leeds this service was later extended to Manchester Victoria. Then in 2010, the station recieves services to London provided by Grand Central.

 

[greyman42]

Peterborough to Norwich seems to be a big improvement.

 

[HullRailMan]

Surely the ECML must feature with the two open access operators that run on it: these services wouldn’t be running if it wasn’t for privatisation.

Grand Central run multiple services each day to destinations that weren’t connected to London under BR.

Hull Trains (under normal circumstances) run 7 trips each way to/from Hull and London. BR ran 1, as do LNER today. Beverley, Cottingham, Howden and Selby weren’t connected to London under BR.

 

[Ianno87]

C2C would surely be a candidate, completely new fleet, refurbished stations, longer trains, line resignalled etc .

Resignalling was in the latter days of BR, wasn't it?

 

[Deepgreen]

It's impossible to say, as there is no way to know what would have happened under continued public ownership, whether BR had plans in the pipeline or not. Privatisation happened, and therefore this was the only scenario that can be evaluated. It's akin to asking whether a person would have recovered without medication, when they actually took medication and recovered.

 

[Andrew1395]

The North London Line and the Euston DC lines. Really run down, and now transformed by London Overground

 

[tbtc]

True to an extent. However, I think we should be careful to distinguish between (a) improvements that have been originated and/or funded by private operators and (b) improvements proposed by (various) transport authorities, funded by the public sector, and implemented by private operators. Given the ...ahem... unique way our railways are funded, distinguishing between (a) and (b) is often difficult.

I dunno... I read @ForTheLoveOf 's OP as a discussion about which line/station has had the biggest improvement since the mid'90s, ignoring things that BR had already *committed* to funding (not just "published a glossy prospectus for" or "would probably have got round to if they'd had the money").

If the thread is about "which line/station has had the biggest improvement since the mid'90s that the private sector can take credit for, then that's a very different question/ thread.

Since we have a privatised world where franchises are only set up to last roughly seven years (some keep getting extensions upon extensions, Chiltern was obviously set up for longer than seven years, but in the main I think seven years is a reasonable benchmark for how long franchises were initially let for?), there's not going to be a lot of speculative spending on trains with forty year life spans - the infrastructure has been publicly owned for the majority of privatisation (sixteen years of Network Rail versus six years of Railtrack?) - so, whilst it's easy to criticise the lack of speculative private spending, the system isn't set up for those kind of risks to be taken.

There have been a few examples - Midland Mainline speculatively ordered nine coach 222s, but the Government turned down the service that they hoped to use them on. FirstGroup purchased some trains outright, and seemed to annoy the DfT etc in the process (so possibly a false economy if you end up antagonising the people who control the awarding of future franchises!). Porterbrook ordered a handful of 170s over and above guaranteed for TOCs in the hope that they'd be snapped up by TOCs(they were).

Open Access are certainly "private" (although the Welsh Assembly spent a lot of money tarting up the station in Wrexham, only for Wrexham, Shropshire & Marylebone to quit). Hull Trains are the only Open Access to actually invest in new trains (the 170s, the 222s and the 802s), but then they are in the luxury position of being able to cherry-pick on one of the most lucrative lines in the UK..

But this is one of the big problems with "nationalisation" debates. People who complain the most about privatisation tend to be the people who also complain that privatisation doesn't go far enough. For example, the frequent criticism that privatisation hasn't seen much innovation in ticketing (compared to all of the changes that BR were able to implement). BR could certainly be innovative, but private TOCs have their hands tied by having to honour all of the complicated ticketing types/ terms that they inherit, so there's not much they can do.

Similarly, the criticism of private TOCs (with seven year contracts) for not buying new trains outright (that are expected to last forty years) or building new infrastructure (expected to last fifty or a hundred years) tends to be from people who wouldn't want to give TOCs the long term contracts/ freedom to take on all of those risks. Most trains run at a loss so how much do we expect private companies to spend without public subsidy?

So we end up with a "privatised" railway where things are controlled much tighter by government than ever before - you can criticise private companies for not taking on the risk of such long term spending but if you were running an average TOC (say the new East Midlands Rail), would you be going significantly above and beyond the franchise obligations?

But the fact that pretty much all "investment" is either paid for by central Government, local Government or backed/guaranteed by Government shouldn't be a stick to beat private companies with.

 

[Bertie the bus]

The lines which have almost certainly seen the biggest improvement since privatisation are GOBLIN and the North London Line, though I'm not going to suggest it is due to privatisation.

 

[thejuggler]

Skipton to Leeds Airedale line. Apperley Bridge station in particular. 5 year useage forecast reached in about 6 months of opening.

Just a shame the rolling stock hasn't kept up. The 333 is still modern and a pleasure to use, it is now supplemented by much older miserable stock.

 

[Bald Rick]

Resignalling was in the latter days of BR, wasn't it?

Now then dear chap, check your Peter Kay book.

It was installed and commissioned in Railtrack times, the actual commissioning was over the Easter and August BHs in 1996. Indeed I’m reasonably sure that the authority for it to be delivered was one of the first that went through the Railtrack Investment Panel. (Allegedly because the then Anglia Signalling Engineer threatened to sign Fenchurch St box out of use if it wasn’t!)

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I dunno... I read @ForTheLoveOf 's OP as a discussion about which line/station has had the biggest improvement since the mid'90s, ignoring things that BR had already *committed* to funding (not just "published a glossy prospectus for" or "would probably have got round to if they'd had the money").

If the thread is about "which line/station has had the biggest improvement since the mid'90s that the private sector can take credit for, then that's a very different question/ thread.

Since we have a privatised world where franchises are only set up to last roughly seven years (some keep getting extensions upon extensions, Chiltern was obviously set up for longer than seven years, but in the main I think seven years is a reasonable benchmark for how long franchises were initially let for?), there's not going to be a lot of speculative spending on trains with forty year life spans - the infrastructure has been publicly owned for the majority of privatisation (sixteen years of Network Rail versus six years of Railtrack?) - so, whilst it's easy to criticise the lack of speculative private spending, the system isn't set up for those kind of risks to be taken.

There have been a few examples - Midland Mainline speculatively ordered nine coach 222s, but the Government turned down the service that they hoped to use them on. FirstGroup purchased some trains outright, and seemed to annoy the DfT etc in the process (so possibly a false economy if you end up antagonising the people who control the awarding of future franchises!). Porterbrook ordered a handful of 170s over and above guaranteed for TOCs in the hope that they'd be snapped up by TOCs(they were).

Open Access are certainly "private" (although the Welsh Assembly spent a lot of money tarting up the station in Wrexham, only for Wrexham, Shropshire & Marylebone to quit). Hull Trains are the only Open Access to actually invest in new trains (the 170s, the 222s and the 802s), but then they are in the luxury position of being able to cherry-pick on one of the most lucrative lines in the UK..

But this is one of the big problems with "nationalisation" debates. People who complain the most about privatisation tend to be the people who also complain that privatisation doesn't go far enough. For example, the frequent criticism that privatisation hasn't seen much innovation in ticketing (compared to all of the changes that BR were able to implement). BR could certainly be innovative, but private TOCs have their hands tied by having to honour all of the complicated ticketing types/ terms that they inherit, so there's not much they can do.

Similarly, the criticism of private TOCs (with seven year contracts) for not buying new trains outright (that are expected to last forty years) or building new infrastructure (expected to last fifty or a hundred years) tends to be from people who wouldn't want to give TOCs the long term contracts/ freedom to take on all of those risks. Most trains run at a loss so how much do we expect private companies to spend without public subsidy?

So we end up with a "privatised" railway where things are controlled much tighter by government than ever before - you can criticise private companies for not taking on the risk of such long term spending but if you were running an average TOC (say the new East Midlands Rail), would you be going significantly above and beyond the franchise obligations?

But the fact that pretty much all "investment" is either paid for by central Government, local Government or backed/guaranteed by Government shouldn't be a stick to beat private companies with.

Yes, indeed I am interested in the things that we know for a fact were actually given the effective "go ahead" by the private sector. It is quite possible that a number of these improvements would have happened under BR either way - and in some cases earlier than they have happened under privatisation - but ultimately we can only really deal with what actually happened!

 

[B&I]

I dunno... I read @ForTheLoveOf 's OP as a discussion about which line/station has had the biggest improvement since the mid'90s, ignoring things that BR had already *committed* to funding (not just "published a glossy prospectus for" or "would probably have got round to if they'd had the money").

If the thread is about "which line/station has had the biggest improvement since the mid'90s that the private sector can take credit for, then that's a very different question/ thread.

Since we have a privatised world where franchises are only set up to last roughly seven years (some keep getting extensions upon extensions, Chiltern was obviously set up for longer than seven years, but in the main I think seven years is a reasonable benchmark for how long franchises were initially let for?), there's not going to be a lot of speculative spending on trains with forty year life spans - the infrastructure has been publicly owned for the majority of privatisation (sixteen years of Network Rail versus six years of Railtrack?) - so, whilst it's easy to criticise the lack of speculative private spending, the system isn't set up for those kind of risks to be taken.

There have been a few examples - Midland Mainline speculatively ordered nine coach 222s, but the Government turned down the service that they hoped to use them on. FirstGroup purchased some trains outright, and seemed to annoy the DfT etc in the process (so possibly a false economy if you end up antagonising the people who control the awarding of future franchises!). Porterbrook ordered a handful of 170s over and above guaranteed for TOCs in the hope that they'd be snapped up by TOCs(they were).

Open Access are certainly "private" (although the Welsh Assembly spent a lot of money tarting up the station in Wrexham, only for Wrexham, Shropshire & Marylebone to quit). Hull Trains are the only Open Access to actually invest in new trains (the 170s, the 222s and the 802s), but then they are in the luxury position of being able to cherry-pick on one of the most lucrative lines in the UK..

But this is one of the big problems with "nationalisation" debates. People who complain the most about privatisation tend to be the people who also complain that privatisation doesn't go far enough. For example, the frequent criticism that privatisation hasn't seen much innovation in ticketing (compared to all of the changes that BR were able to implement). BR could certainly be innovative, but private TOCs have their hands tied by having to honour all of the complicated ticketing types/ terms that they inherit, so there's not much they can do.

Similarly, the criticism of private TOCs (with seven year contracts) for not buying new trains outright (that are expected to last forty years) or building new infrastructure (expected to last fifty or a hundred years) tends to be from people who wouldn't want to give TOCs the long term contracts/ freedom to take on all of those risks. Most trains run at a loss so how much do we expect private companies to spend without public subsidy?

So we end up with a "privatised" railway where things are controlled much tighter by government than ever before - you can criticise private companies for not taking on the risk of such long term spending but if you were running an average TOC (say the new East Midlands Rail), would you be going significantly above and beyond the franchise obligations?

But the fact that pretty much all "investment" is either paid for by central Government, local Government or backed/guaranteed by Government shouldn't be a stick to beat private companies with.

As you now seem to be saying that private TOCs have made few improvements (albeit the system is not geared to them doing so, which us a fair point), and that almost everything has been planned and / or funded by the public sector, the time has surely come to rename this thread to something like 'Which line/station has seen the biggest improvements since 1996'

 

[cactustwirly]

I'd say it's the MML.
Under BR I believe it was 1tph fast to Sheffield, and 1tph slow to Nottingham.
Now it's got 5tph:
1tph Sheffield fast
1tph Sheffield Semi fast
1tph Nottingham fast
1tph Nottingham slow
1tph Corby slow.
The line speed has been increased up to 125mph on some sections.

Plus a load of new intercity trains.

 

[Chrisgr31]

I'd say the Uckfield Line is a candidate. Prior to Southern coming along it was widely anticipated the line would close, 1 or 2 through trains a day, an hourly service at best, first train at 6, last train at 9. Impossible to have an evening out in London. Most trains changing at Oxted, frequent cancellations etc.

Since Southern came along they provided brand new rolling stock, the first train up is now 5ish, the last train down at 11, all trains (except Sunday) are through trains. The service has proved so popular they even had to go and find more rolling stock. A decision that rather backfired on them!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Were the improvements not already planned under BR? How much of the upgrades would you say were actually due to privatisation?

WCRM was part and parcel of the privatisation of Railtrack - so was Thameslink 2000.
The government's side of the bargain was to fund those upgrades.
Virgin were then able to bid on top of that for PUG1 and PUG2 incremental upgrades on the WCML to 125/140mph.
Part of it was to give Railtrack funding certainty for 7 years or so, enabling its floating on the stock market.

Neither WCRM or Thameslink actually turned out as expected.
The WCML plan was despecced to 125mph, and Thameslink has only just finished 20 years later.
The government would not have released the large funds for these projects without the parallel privatisation/franchising of Railtrack and the TOCs.

Most of the initial 15-year franchises also allowed complete fleet replacement.
Apart from VTWC and VTXC, that also covered LT&S (c2c) and South Eastern.
Very little of that would have happened without privatisation.
The other mostly 7-year franchises soldiered on with existing BR stock, although most have now been re-equipped, or are in the process.
South Central also had a 15-year franchise but did not re-equip with new trains.
Connex lost both SE and SC franchises mid-term.

Another feature of privatisation was the Rail Regulator and 5-year control periods for Railtrack/NR.
The semi-independent nature of the Regulator meant that the government had to agree funds for 5 years rather than the 1-year hand-to-mouth that BR had to put up with.
Several times since, the Treasury has had to cough up money for the railway, when with BR it could just have said "no", or even demanded cuts as it did around 1990.

 

[Edders23]

The service on the East Suffolk Line has increased 100%, as has passenger usage roughly speaking.

Norwich-Cambridge hourly service was another success, along with hourly Ipswich-Cambridge. Both now require 3 car DMUs at peak times rather than the original 2 car units.

what about the previous Norwich to Birmingham service that this replaced ?

 

[dk1]

what about the previous Norwich to Birmingham service that this replaced ?

I don't understand what you mean about Norwich-Birmingham. It had nothing to do with Norwich-Cambridge reintroduced by the SRA & Anglia Railways.

 

[dk1]

Peterborough to Norwich seems to be a big improvement.

It's basically no different to 1988.

 

[306024]

what about the previous Norwich to Birmingham service that this replaced ?

Not sure what you mean. Norwich to Peterborough doesn't go through Cambridge, so they didn't replace those.

 

[70014IronDuke]

what about the previous Norwich to Birmingham service that this replaced ?

I think you are a bit confused here. The Norwich - Cambridge service introduced in ... I forget, 2010 or so? ... this service was basically new.
IIFC, there used to be Birmingham - Norwich and Birmingham - Cambridge trains. I'm talking 1960s and 1970s. (And the North Country Continental - Liverpool to Harwich PQ.)

These slowly developed and intertwined with Liverpool - Manchester - East Anglian services in the 1990s.

As far as I remember, in order to privatise these trains, these mish-mash of services were rationalised to what we have today: ie Liverpool - Sheffield - Nottingham - Norwich (EMT today), Birmingham - Cambridge -Stansted (XC today) and Peterborough - Ipswich - Colchester (LE today).

 

[dk1]

I think you are a bit confused here. The Norwich - Cambridge service introduced in ... I forget, 2010 or so? ... this service was basically new.
IIFC, there used to be Birmingham - Norwich and Birmingham - Cambridge trains. I'm talking 1960s and 1970s. (And the North Country Continental - Liverpool to Harwich PQ.)

These slowly developed and intertwined with Liverpool - Manchester - East Anglian services in the 1990s.

As far as I remember, in order to privatise these trains, these mish-mash of services were rationalised to what we have today: ie Liverpool - Sheffield - Nottingham - Norwich (EMT today), Birmingham - Cambridge -Stansted (XC today) and Peterborough - Ipswich - Colchester (LE today).

The infrequent loco-hauled services where sprinterized in the May 1988 timetable with the huge upsurge in frequencies offered on the East Anglia-Midlands/North West axis.

Anglias Norwich-Cambridge was launched in 2002 with the purchase of 4 2-car 170s 270-3.

Further change came in 2007 when Central Trains was split to become what we know today.

 

[70014IronDuke]

The Trent Valley stations currently have their just about best service ever too; hourly all day (originallt DfT specified of course). But the London Midland initiative of diverting them via Weedon at 110mph has been popular.

"just about" their best service ever? Surely there is no "just about" about it.

Although Nuneaton passengers might moan that they had a regular 1 TPH fast to Euston slightly devalued in terms of spee to Euston - ther overall connectivity between Trent Valley stations to Euston and elsewhere has been transformed beyond the wildest imagination since the London Midland services were inaugurated.

 

[Master29]

Peterborough to Norwich seems to be a big improvement.

Really? Are you serious? You obviously have never used it recently.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

WCRM was part and parcel of the privatisation of Railtrack - so was Thameslink 2000.
The government's side of the bargain was to fund those upgrades.
Virgin were then able to bid on top of that for PUG1 and PUG2 incremental upgrades on the WCML to 125/140mph.
Part of it was to give Railtrack funding certainty for 7 years or so, enabling its floating on the stock market.

Neither WCRM or Thameslink actually turned out as expected.
The WCML plan was despecced to 125mph, and Thameslink has only just finished 20 years later.
The government would not have released the large funds for these projects without the parallel privatisation/franchising of Railtrack and the TOCs.

Most of the initial 15-year franchises also allowed complete fleet replacement.
Apart from VTWC and VTXC, that also covered LT&S (c2c) and South Eastern.
Very little of that would have happened without privatisation.
The other mostly 7-year franchises soldiered on with existing BR stock, although most have now been re-equipped, or are in the process.
South Central also had a 15-year franchise but did not re-equip with new trains.
Connex lost both SE and SC franchises mid-term.

Another feature of privatisation was the Rail Regulator and 5-year control periods for Railtrack/NR.
The semi-independent nature of the Regulator meant that the government had to agree funds for 5 years rather than the 1-year hand-to-mouth that BR had to put up with.
Several times since, the Treasury has had to cough up money for the railway, when with BR it could just have said "no", or even demanded cuts as it did around 1990.

The money allocated for Thameslink 2000 basically part of the deal to sell of Railtrack disappeared in the haze of confusion - bar some timetabling work (which actually bears no resemblance to today's "plan")

In terms of West Coast - the costs cold have been done for about £2 Billion by BR standards / resources. The cost was then estimated in 2000 or o at around £13 billion + reduced to around £8 billion after a hard won battle led by the SRA. The Treasury coughed up of course.

The Treasury therefore coughed up for both , which could have been done better and for considerably less money. Hardly a triumph. Neither was the totally disastrous shambles on PFI for London Underground. However most people have forgotten about this , certainly the (wo)man on the street.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The infrequent loco-hauled services where sprinterized in the May 1988 timetable with the huge upsurge in frequencies offered on the East Anglia-Midlands/North West axis.

Anglias Norwich-Cambridge was launched in 2002 with the purchase of 4 2-car 170s 270-3.

Further change came in 2007 when Central Trains was split to become what we know today.

Once a year I ride on the Norwich - Cambridge to reassure myself we did a good job at the SRA in funding it. Huge success and a credit to the operators in coming up with the plan. One of Anglia's great ideas. My personal view , apart from the obvious connectivity - was that it put some use onto an underused line. Would never have happened without the Rail Partnership Project funding to kick start it. There were some other great successes - dare I say it because the review members of the fund knew just a bit about the network etc. Shame it got binned when the funding got very tight.

 

[dk1]

Once a year I ride on the Norwich - Cambridge to reassure myself we did a good job at the SRA in funding it. Huge success and a credit to the operators in coming up with the plan. One of Anglia's great ideas. My personal view , apart from the obvious connectivity - was that it put some use onto an underused line. Would never have happened without the Rail Partnership Project funding to kick start it. There were some other great successes - dare I say it because the review members of the fund knew just a bit about the network etc. Shame it got binned when the funding got very tight.

My claim to fame was getting asked to come in & work my free day just to start & remain with one of those funded 170s whilst Richard Bowker & co where entertained by Anglia's top brass & catering dept. I was asked to get the stations to Cambridge scrolling across the onboard PIS but our IT guys hadn't yet input it into the system. We where also supposed to go for a short ride but there was no guard available to accompany us so we just sat for an hour or so scoffing away on the Royal Dock.

 

[Edders23]

Not sure what you mean. Norwich to Peterborough doesn't go through Cambridge, so they didn't replace those.

perhaps my comment was misunderstood the original Norwich to Birmingham service provided a lot of the trains on that route just you needed to change at Ely but is the service frequency and capacity any better than when regular 6 coach trains ran on the line ?

 

[dk1]

perhaps my comment was misunderstood the original Norwich to Birmingham service provided a lot of the trains on that route just you needed to change at Ely but is the service frequency and capacity any better than when regular 6 coach trains ran on the line ?

The 6 coach class 31 hauled trains where less than regular. Departures from Norwich where 07:30, 09:30, 13:20 & 16:42. All avoided Ely by using the West curve.