Wrexham and Shropshire

[Shrop]

These are well made points and no doubt reflect the business reality of the situation. However, from the passengers' perspective, the W&S proposition was simply wonderful. I shall never forget my first trip (to see a client in Telford), heading out from Marylebone the evening before, being cosseted in a real train, with a real loco, travelling first class in a real carriage with seats lined up with the windows, a totally unanticipated and excellent meal served by charming staff, a fascinating route and all for a price less than a standard ticket would have cost via WCML. Naturally I continued to use the service whenever I needed to go to Telford - whilst it lasted. To be recognised and be known by name when boarding the train was remarkable too. Sadly if course this was only possible with low user volumes so clearly this couldn't go on for ever, but my goodness, as a passenger, it was truly exceptional whilst it lasted.

It's sad that passenger interests aren't more of a focus. Not all passengers are happy being treated like cattle on the trains, and with general disrespect when information about delays is wanted.
The mindset of many is to resort to their cars instead, although I have to concede that comfort and courtesy on trains, when given (as it often is on many trains) is wasted on a fair few of the passengers that also lurk on them.

 

[Bald Rick]

It's sad that passenger interests aren't more of a focus. Not all passengers are happy being treated like cattle on the trains, and with general disrespect when information about delays is wanted.
The mindset of many is to resort to their cars instead, although I have to concede that comfort and courtesy on trains, when given (as it often is on many trains) is wasted on a fair few of the passengers that also lurk on them.

I agree with the sentiment, nevertheless those passengers who prefer the more relaxed / generous / well appointed type of travel need to be prepared to pay the true cost of them. Or at least, more of the cost.

 

[Shrop]

I agree with the sentiment, nevertheless those passengers who prefer the more relaxed / generous / well appointed type of travel need to be prepared to pay the true cost of them. Or at least, more of the cost.

Two things about that, even though I don't disagree. Firstly the facility to pay for first class doesn't exist on a good many routes, and secondly it doesn't matter what the fares are, if the reliability isn't there then anything extra you might pay for is lost.

 

[Rescars]

These comments are all very fair and I can't disagree with any of them. But aside from the day to day realism and operational practicalities, the W&S experience offered a very romantic version of train travel. There was a sense that, once aboard, the timetable became a matter of little relevance. The train would simply get you to your destination in due course and you would be very well looked after until you arrived. A charming fantasy of course, but whilst experiencing it you could almost believe it might be true!

 

[frodshamfella]

No, but to play Devil’s advocate, why shouldn’t the heavily publicly subsidised operator, which paid the largest track access charges and which was charged with returning the largest sum back to the exchequer, compete with the entirely private Wrexham and Shropshire?

Wrexham and Shropshire never made a profit because the service could not command enough interest, and was always likely to be a short lived operation. Its purchase by Deutsche Bahn extended a necrotic operation because the company was interested in its assets, which now ply the Chiltern route.


On-track competition wasn’t really an aim of privatisation. The intent was to drive competition at the tender stage to get competent franchisees which could return proceeds to the government, and to outsource and fragment capital risk onto multiple parties.


Also stupidly cheap. £29 one way on a railcard with restaurant-standard lunch thrown in. Was dead as a business model from the moment it started. Should have been a low-frills operation with DMUs.

Id not had used it then. The first class made it worth the slow trip.

These are well made points and no doubt reflect the business reality of the situation. However, from the passengers' perspective, the W&S proposition was simply wonderful. I shall never forget my first trip (to see a client in Telford), heading out from Marylebone the evening before, being cosseted in a real train, with a real loco, travelling first class in a real carriage with seats lined up with the windows, a totally unanticipated and excellent meal served by charming staff, a fascinating route and all for a price less than a standard ticket would have cost via WCML. Naturally I continued to use the service whenever I needed to go to Telford - whilst it lasted. To be recognised and be known by name when boarding the train was remarkable too. Sadly if course this was only possible with low user volumes so clearly this couldn't go on for ever, but my goodness, as a passenger, it was truly exceptional whilst it lasted.

It was indeed.

 

[falcon]

Surely they - or the Regulator - did? HT cannot call at Peterborough (or Newark) and GC run non-stop over that section.

GNER did not want GC stopping at York and Doncaster. GC took a massive amount of money out of the pot without even selling a single ticket. It was reported as a seven figure sum for stopping at York alone.

 

[Clarence Yard]

HT didn’t want to stop at Peterborough or Newark - there was not enough generation to justify it and Peterborough would have crowded off more valuable down road punters for places further north. There was only one stop between Peterborough and Doncaster they could regularly stop at with a cl.170 without stitching the job up and they chose Grantham, where they could generate.

Although the W&S promoters were the same as HT, the architects of the scheme were not and there was a big difference between the two teams. Hull was done by the same (very!) small Anglia Railways team who also raided the RPP fund to put on extra services in East Anglia, most notably the then “Holy Grail” for East Anglia - the Norwich-Cambridge services.

The Hull business planning process was far more robust and generated the revenue it said it would - indeed the ORR, when it came to granting them additional paths, were amazed at the accuracy of their original predictions for each of the main flows.

W&S didn’t seem to get off to achieve the same level of generation as HT achieved and that became a big problem. HT tapped into a lot of suppressed demand but it really wasn’t there for W&S.

 

[mmh]

I agree with the sentiment, nevertheless those passengers who prefer the more relaxed / generous / well appointed type of travel need to be prepared to pay the true cost of them. Or at least, more of the cost.

Ouch, those forthcoming Crossrail fares will be expensive then!

 

[Bald Rick]

Ouch, those forthcoming Crossrail fares will be expensive then!

I wouldn’t say Crossrail services will be relaxed or well appointed! And on a per mile basis, their fares may be quite high…

 

[Dr Hoo]

GNER did not want GC stopping at York and Doncaster. GC took a massive amount of money out of the pot without even selling a single ticket. It was reported as a seven figure sum for stopping at York alone.

Could you explain this concept (which to some extent would be applicable to W&S, e.g. in relation to Shrewsbury-London tickets).

Grand Central sold lots of tickets from York, not to mention tickets for the many genuine additional journeys from all of the stations that they called at.

(I am well aware of how ORCATS works.)

 

[krus_aragon]

A recent thread in this forum reminded me of just how good the Wrexham and Shropshire service was. The staff were always friendly and helpful, including going the extra mile when there were problems.

I travelled with WSMR around the time I joined this forum, when I took a day-trip from North Wales to London with friends. We took a faster Virgin service down in the morning, but came home as far as Wrexham with WSMR. Given their acceptance of railcards toward first class fares, we more than saved the cost of supper in London by having a leisurely meal on the way home.

They were still using their unrefurbished stock back then, so the interior and seating was a little dated. But the food and the service was excellent, and time passed very pleasantly as we ate and chatted around a table on our way home.

The only hitch was after arriving at Wrexham, where we waited for the following ATW service to take us to Chester, for the last train down the coast. This was sadly running late, and as the expected departure time slipped further, we started to doubt whether the connection in Chester would be held for us.

In the meantime, the WSMR rake had shunted into the bay platforms, and the driver was leaving the station when he noticed us still lingering on the platform. Having enquired about our predicament, he offered to give us a lift to in his car to Chester on his way home.

We made it to Chester station in good time to catch the coast train, and avoided a lengthy taxi ride that would have seriously soured the day out.

So in our case, the WSMR staff went the extra 15 miles!

 

[Shrop]

I travelled with WSMR around the time I joined this forum, when I took a day-trip from North Wales to London with friends. We took a faster Virgin service down in the morning, but came home as far as Wrexham with WSMR. Given their acceptance of railcards toward first class fares, we more than saved the cost of supper in London by having a leisurely meal on the way home.

They were still using their unrefurbished stock back then, so the interior and seating was a little dated. But the food and the service was excellent, and time passed very pleasantly as we ate and chatted around a table on our way home.

The only hitch was after arriving at Wrexham, where we waited for the following ATW service to take us to Chester, for the last train down the coast. This was sadly running late, and as the expected departure time slipped further, we started to doubt whether the connection in Chester would be held for us.

In the meantime, the WSMR rake had shunted into the bay platforms, and the driver was leaving the station when he noticed us still lingering on the platform. Having enquired about our predicament, he offered to give us a lift to in his car to Chester on his way home.

We made it to Chester station in good time to catch the coast train, and avoided a lengthy taxi ride that would have seriously soured the day out.

So in our case, the WSMR staff went the extra 15 miles!

Lovely to hear of such old fashioned helpfulness from that driver. When you think the more normal thing today would probably be that the driver dare not offer a lift like that for fear of some jobsworth rule being invoked resulting in him being disciplined .

Yes, I admit I do think times were better when this sort of decency was exercised and appreciated. Glad you got home okay!

 

[LowLevel]

Lovely to hear of such old fashioned helpfulness from that driver. When you think the more normal thing today would probably be that the driver dare not offer a lift like that for fear of some jobsworth rule being invoked resulting in him being disciplined .

Yes, I admit I do think times were better when this sort of decency was exercised and appreciated. Glad you got home okay!

It still happens and whilst not officially sanctioned I've never heard of anyone getting into trouble over it provided you're sensible and nothing goes wrong.

I know of a particular station where the staff don't think twice about giving stranded people a ride home, if need be, when the service is up the spout.

I've done it myself before.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Good job the law is there to protect the big boys. Heaven forbid that those pesky passengers might actually like the little guys, best snuff them all out and send people back to their cars. Then the big boys can carry on with their well practiced habits.

Those "Virgin" restrictions ended with their initial franchise in 2012, so W&S gave up a year or so early.
Every open access operator has to pass ORR rules to get access, and the impact of new services on the franchised operator is a key element in the process.
More recently, Alliance/GC had rights approved for WCML access from Blackpool, but cancelled their plans when covid arrived.
(The trains they planned to use will instead work through Shrewsbury for TfW).
There was also cross-ownership of W&S and some other OA firms by Arriva/DB, who are also franchised operators, so they are not really "little guys".
There's nothing to stop another W&S setting up and getting paths to London, like Lumo has just done on the ECML.
But the financial returns from the Marches won't be anything like those from Edinburgh.

 

[paul1609]

I only made one return trip on WSMR, a day trip to the Llangothlen Railway from Sussex. It was fun but on the Up train after Wolverhampton there were only 4 of us and nobody got on or off at North Birmingham Wasteland Parkway (not sure what it was actually called) in either direction. I don't think you needed to be a financial genius to work out it wasn't going to last.