Great Western Coffee Shop

Some new purposes away from London commuting and intercity business trips ...

Are the railways fit for purpose?  (1)

I was seated at dinner next to Jim and Jemima (not their real names) last night - from Norfolk, on a two week cruise from Southampton.  On Saturday morning, they had driven from their home near Norwich to Southampton, where their car is parked up for a fortnight. On hearing that Lisa and I had travelled by train, Jim commented "it's not practical for us - trains from Norwich arrive into Liverpool Street, and with our cases for two weeks, it's an impractically awkward tube journeys across London"

Are the railways fit for purpose? (2)

From a correspondent, quoted with permission

My daughter has had problems getting to Bruton this week. On her first day her trains were late in both directions. The morning train was a few minutes late but not good on your first day in a new job. Her train on the way home was 25 minutes late not to good after a full day's work and you just want to get home. Yesterday's train in the morning got cancelled. She got a taxi to work which she paid for herself as she didn't want to be late again. Luckily one of her colleagues was going through Frome last night and dropped her home. She is looking at a flat in Bruton  on Monday and after her nightmare commute I would take it.

[snip]

She is meant to start at 9am.  She would have to get up at 4 - 5 am in order to catch the 7am train. Which would arrive in Bruton well ahead of 9am. Her bosses at [redacted] have been very good and are allowing her to start at 10 because of the train issue.

Hi G if you want more her train yesterday morning was 10 minutes late. If she had got the train back it was 12 minutes late. [redacted] have after work drinks on a Friday so staff can get together so her friend dropped her home. Not to sure if the trains are running late because of works on the line between Yoevil and Weymouth and Bristol and Bath

My daughter is loving her new job. The only thing she hates is her commute. She panics if her train is late as they have been good to allow her to start late. For her this situation isn't ideal long term as it adds to her anxiety. If she has any sense she will take the flat she is going to see on Monday. She will get home at 1810 instead of 1930

[snip]

More issues with this morning's train she is getting another taxi to work

Are the railways fit for purpose?  (3)

Coming from London to Southampton on Saturday, Dennis from Hertforshire took the train into St Pancras, the tube to Waterloo, and SWR onwards on a train scheduled to call at Southampton Central. They got as far as Eastleigh, where an on-train announcement told them that their onward driver was stuck on a bus in a traffic jam, but would be with them soon.  Half an hour later, they were told he had transferred to a taxi but to sit tight. And after a further half hour, they were told to get off the train and wait on the platform as plans had changed and this one was going back to London.

Are the railways fit for purpose?  (4)

On Saturday, Lisa and I travelled from Melksham - also headed for Southampton, but we chose to route via Reading as we didn't fancy getting our cases on and off the rail replacement buses running from Salisbury to Southampton.

For no clear reason, our initial train was 8 minutes late (following back the path pointed to a tardy ECS from Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury), but the train manager advised us that we would make the connection into our advance ticket "this train only" connection on to Reading.  Turns out he was wrong - we stopped just before Thingley Junction to let our connecting train through, then stopped again just outside Chippenham, presumably to let it do station duties ahead of us.

From 8 late at Melksham, we rolled into Swindon 18 minutes late, with another London train at the next platform.  A dash up to that, but the train manager was intent on dispatch and the people who were connecting through from the TransWilts were left standing on the platform while he himself boarded.  We all piled on to a very "well" loaded IET from Swansea, 2 wrongs making a better-but-not-quite-right as we only got that because it, too, was significantly late.  We arrived into Reading at 10:03, as against the 09:41 scheduled.  Fortunately, we had a substantial layover there awaiting the two-hourly service to Southampton.

Are the railways fit for purpose?

With changed travel requirements, what is the purpose of the railways these days? With the exception of my experiences (no. 4), these are all relative newcomers put off or hindered by the system which really needs to be updated in terms of scheduling and actually running services when and where they are wanted.

1. Services such as the now-withdrawn trains from the Great Eastern main line to Basingstoke would have provided Jim and Jemima with a 2 (or perhaps 1) easy change route through (and they would have preferred that to driving, which was the lesser of 2 evils for them).

2. Services running at the times they are meant to run (not significnalty late nor cancelled) would help people who are still travelling daily, and that's especially important on lines where the timetable is infrequent

3. When things go wrong, providing accurate information would really help - or if there's no accurate and certain information, making people aware of that would help in customer relations.  Holding people for an hour before saying that the promised onward journey is cancelled after all seems almost designed to enrage

4. Dispatching a train while people are running up to it from a late-running connection may help the TOC's contract compliance - but it certainly doesn't help in the eyes of the passengers who, already delayed, see the train to their destination pull away with them left on the platform.

Cue the explanations of why this sort of thing which puts the customer off is a necessary part of rail travel? ... There will always be the occasional hiccough, but these things seem to be almost the routine challenge of rail travel these days.

This reminded me of an old BTF film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AbK_zqauzU

Your point 3 could be summed up as railways being unfit for purpose as a result of roads being unfit for purpose.

As a semi-related but illustrative note, Pacific National, an Australian freight carrier, this year introduced crew cabs in its freight trains to take off-duty crew back to base. Their main motive was safety – it seems they were losing crew to road crashes when driving across the country – but cost and predictability also factors.

It comes down to organisation to some extent, though.   I'm not sure how much truth there is in the story of the GWR driver who lives near to Stoke Gifford / Bristol Parkway driving down to his clocking in point at Bristol Temple Meads, to be sent back in a taxi to Stoke Gifford from where, perhaps, he'll drive an empty IET to Bristol Temple Meads.

A new depot has recently opened at Bristol Parkway to help reduce unnecessary travel such as that.  It has just over 40 drivers IIRC, many (all?) of whom transferred from the main Bristol depot.

Are railways fit for purpose (5)

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59213173)


Sad thing is - the argument seems to be only between flying and driving - rail not even getting a second thought.

I expect that with Premier League sides (not FGR!) security might be an issue if travelling by train. Not that the team coach is always secure; I've seen one mobbed by opposition fans (broken windows but I don't think anyone on board was hurt) and that was only a League One match.

Manchester Utd certainly used to take the train to London for matches. I saw them travelling regularly from Wilmslow.

With Premier League sides, is it just the players and one or two managers travelling or is there a large entourage with them? In the latter case, they could charter an entire train.

That post reminded me of the trains that Portsmouth fans used to charter to take them to away games when I was a kid, in a manner that would these days certainly have members such as broadgage beaming with approval  ;D

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/northstand-nostalgia-martys-trains-really-were-special-1178126

Not interested in football, but I would support rail travel over road for fans.
Would never be allowed these days !

Guard's van ? no way.
Buffet no way.
Specially chartered train, most unlikely since firstly there would be no stock available, and secondly todays railway simply cant cope with sporting events when the venue and teams participating are unknown until the previous matches have been played.

Obviously they must have various physios and so on with them, not to mention executives to fill the boxes, but I doubt if it's an entire train load. Even if it is, as Broadgage points out, chartering a train probably isn't so easy nowadays.

There is a prayer which goes

O Lord
Please help me to change the things I can change
Accept the things I can’t change
And to know the f@*$£/g difference...

A rail journey from Norwich to Southampton with suitcases is not going to be easy, and I doubt that there would ever be sufficient demand to provide a regular though through service. It would be possible to avoid central London by using the North London line Stratford to Clapham Jcn, but the easiest way to shift two people plus suitcases from Liverpool Street to Waterloo would be in the back of a taxi.

On a commute from Frome to Bruton it was be reasonable to expect a few minutes delay on some trains. They are after all mainly running a much longer route such as Bristol to Weymouth, and out of course delays can and will occur.

Cancellations should only be an exceptional occurrence and ideally should not happen at all. GWRs track record with this is a disgrace; they are letting their passengers down; they are letting themselves down. How soon would you stop going to Sainsbury’s if they only opened if enough staff turned up and offered you an as-required replacement bus service to Sainsbury’s in Chippenham instead? I think I already know the answer.

I have much the same view on your point 3 about people being turfed off a train at Eastleigh. Once upon a time Eastleigh used to have a shedful of drivers. If SWR can’t find a spare driver to work that train forward then someone in senior management should get it in the neck.

They can only get away with it because they have a virtual monopoly on rail services in their area. I can’t see renationalisation, in whatever form it takes, sorting that out. Senior management in GWR should be being hauled over the coals on a regular basis about it and if things didn’t improve they should be awarded the DCM (Don’t come Monday). This has got to stop – last week.

I am less agitated about delaying late running trains even more. You have to take into account that that connection was not a booked one, and also that there are other people in that train who are already delayed, and it could be argued that to delay them still further whilst the train waits for connecting passengers who shouldn’t have had to connect into it anyway could be seen as a little selfish

Taking a step back, we should understand what would benefit from change in the first place before we can either help change or accept them as they are.

A few things occurred to me having read the OP and the above response; the level of demand for a through Norwich>Southampton service might be doubted by most people but I would be very interested to know if the DfT or any of their agents has ever looked at the (ticket) data to form a quantitative view. Probably not?

Would it be beyond the capabilities of the relevant cruise ship company(ies) to provide taxi or, if customer numbers rendered it appropriate, minibus (with plenty of room for luggage, obviously) connections between the arrival station and London Waterloo as part of the package?

If it becomes apparent that demand does exist EWR (East-West Rail) could in the future be used to provide a more direct service but in the meantime, since it already covers the route from Southampton to Ely, albeit not continuously, XC could do the job.

Too much to hope for I guess.

I'm not sure how commonplace it is, but the cruise company we are travelling with offers a "free" coach service from across the UK to Southampton to connect with their sailings.  These coaches call at various motorway services along the way, and passengers can then get friends, family, or taxi drivers to drop them off there.   They seem to be well used as an alternative to "free" car parking at Southampton.  We tend to take our cruise operator up on the third "freebie" that' offered - you can take any one - which is on-board spending credit, then catch the train to Southampton - but noting that there is not the co-operation between RDG, AToC, National Rail, DfT or whoever it might be to offer a packaged rail option.


I was considering too the direct Basingstoke to Colchester / Ipswich service that's tried out a few years ago.   Agreed this is not an easily solved one ... and indeed the flow volumes may be such that it's not "worth" solving.   Lisa and I will continue to take the train from Melksham and grab a taxi (under a tenner) in Southampton in preference to getting a lift to Leigh Delamere and losing far more than our train fare in on-board spend.

On Sainsbury's only opening if sufficient staff turn up: what would they do if one morning only the manager and one till operator were there? Probably they have a bank of supply staff they could call up at short notice. But till operating and shelf stacking are low skill jobs that almost anyone can do with ten minutes' training and it costs nothing to have that reserve unused. Train drivers need a lot of training and need to be paid even if you did keep them on effectively a zero-hours usage contract.

That wasn’t really the point I was making.

Any business that sets itself up to provide a service to the public has an obligation to provide that service whether it is a grocery chain store, a leisure centre, a railway or indeed anything else. And one of the most crucial factors in that process is having sufficient staff available to provide the service.

The railway has pared its staff to the bone in recent years. There is very little if any spare capacity. I can see the financial drivers for that approach but it does mean that the travelling public are let down, time and time again.

Yes I accept that the alternative is carrying “surplus” staff; staff sitting around in the mess room drinking tea and playing cards all day if not required, but if the railway wishes to fully fulfil its obligations to its passengers then it should have those staff available.

Organisations like the supermarkets are not only aware of that, but are also aware that if they do not provide the service that say they will provide, their customers will go to their competitors instead. In many parts of the country, the local TOC has no effective rail competition so they can believe they can provide a sub-standard service in far too many occasions and get away with it. The trouble is they are right.

Yes, I agree with all that^^ and understood your point. But what is to be done about it? AFAIK there has never really been competition in railways – even pre-grouping different companies ran different lines, which might at best have had similar endpoints but served different intermediate stations – and even where multiple operators run on the same line, there is only limited competition, because the services will run at different times. It's simply not like a supermarket where I can just go to Tesco's if Sainsbury's is closed. There might be a way of introducing that competition but I don't know what it would be?

There *are* alternatives to sitting in the mess room, drinking tea and playing cards - important but not time critical tasks that need to be undertaken. At least there were when we had a business where it was critical for us to have someone available at a couple of minutes notice.  And in the market we were in, failing to provide for customers would soon have got us a bad name, lost most of our business to others, and resulted in additional unpleasant work for our team dealing with unhappy people who had booked with us.

You see this at work in the supermarkets and corners stores too - with staff at "other tasks" called to the checkouts when they get busy - the supermarkets do not let huge queues build, nor routinely (to my knowldege) have extra staff dinking tea (or coffee) and playing cards (or mahjong) in the mess room.

You can tell a lot about a business by its attitude towards its customers. A fundamental cultural shift in this area by the railways would go a long way in making them more fit for future purpose, but cultural change is always the hardest to achieve, and the railways, together with many who operate them, are very set in their ways and attitudes....and of course the lack of competition helps them to get away with it.

To get a cultural shift you need all stakeholders on board.  At the moment the DfT is calling the shots, based on the record of governments (especially this one) in customer service, I am not sure they will be on board.  Suspicion and doubt is certainly the hallmark of HMRC, DWP, Home Office on when dealing with 'customers', why should DfT be any different?

Competition is the best way to guarantee/ enforce good service, but it can also be done by the correct cultural attitude of staff and management

But I seem to recall that that one of one of the motivators for privatisation. That, I thought, was the idea behind getting rid of the old dinosaurs that were running the railway prior to 1994; to generally clear out the staff and the deadwood who couldn’t adapt to the new ways. What happened there then? Did those Customer Care staff recruited via ads on “The Grocer” not stay? Did they turn into the Porters and Leading Porters and TTIs of old? Did the New Guard who replaced the Old Guard simply become younger versions of the Old Guard? It’s all a mystery to me...

But one element of Customer service I have seen change, and I dare say some in management would use the letters in “improve” to mean “dealing with the peripherals.” We see millions spent on new liveries for coaching stock when franchises change hands – even LNER, a state-owned operator, couldn’t resist painting its rattlers white when it got hold of them. We see multi-million pound station refurbishment schemes that, other than a new lift, provide exactly the same facilities as the old station but just in different parts of the building. We see new coats of paint going on all over the shop. 

In Chippenham we now appear to have a full time cleaner who spends all day sweeping the floor and polishing the handrails (and this was also before Covid, not just since). I am sure all those people who turn up on the station to find their next London cancelled are gratified to know that they won’t get dust on their shoes as they wait for the next ironing-board-on-wheels to come in and take them onwards. I am sure that those who turn up to find the entire afternoon service to Melksham has been caped because the driver stubbed his toe, are over the moon when they find that they can sit on a clean seat to wait for the bus replacement to amble along.

Is there anybody else out there ho, when observing this “fur coat and no knickers” approach to customer service, think of the marketing executives on the Golgafrinchan B Ark smugly informing that they haven’t the research back yet to finally conclude what shape a wheel should be, or what is the best colour for fire?

Not sure.

Fertile ground for COVID

16:33 London Paddington to Plymouth due 20:03

Facilities on the 16:33 London Paddington to Plymouth due 20:03.

Service full and standing from London Paddington. First class is declassified. There are no reservations on this service throughout.

Flexible train length, or something else.

Real Time Trains tells us it's 5 carriages - which feels a little short for a late Sunday afternoon service on the main line to the South West - really needs 9 or 10 to help with social distancing, customer expectations of comfort, and in developing the leisure market which is, I understand, so important to the future of the railways in the UK.

There may also be a clue in

Normally you’d get away with a five car for the 1633 semi fast, but as Graham points out, the 1604 started at Reading owing to the inbound running very late leaving the five car 1633 to carry way more passengers than it normally would.

Are the railways fit for purpose (5)

Our plan was to dock at Southampton on Saturday morning, grab a taxi to Southampton Central and train (change at Westbury) to Melksham.  Later in the day, our friend, looking after our dogs and house while we're away, would return to Somerset by train with his dog.

Well - it didn't work out like that.  Storm Arwen kept us in the Bay of Biscay and English Channel for a further 24 hours, and we docked not at 06:00 Saturday but at 06:00 Sunday.  Simples? Push back plans 24 hours?  No, sadly not. I have this thread running - "Are the railways fit for their (future) purpose?" and the answer yesterday was "no" - at least they weren't fit for our Sunday purpose, even though they worked on Saturday.

The problem

Southampton to Salisbury was "bustituted".  On the first alternative route, trains across Basingstoke were bustitued (Winchester to Reading). On the second alternative, trains Upwey / Dorchester to Yeovil Pen Mill were bustituted too.  The third possibility was Cross Country, running a diverted service from Southampton via Havant and Guildford to Reading - three scheduled trains at 08:15, 09:15 or 11:15. But then there were three incoming boats ships - Iona with around 4,000 passengers, plus two Cunarders - Queen Mary II and Queen Elizabeth - which probably doubled that number.  We were concerned at the capacity of these trains, and also their reliability based on Cross Country's significant further service reductions from this weekend, taking out trains shown in the timetables. Even overcoming those issues / if all worked well, there would have been over an hour at interchanges on the way. Buses were ruled out any part of this specific journey for reasons particular to us on this journey. ^{(* (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/25712))}

Now, let's take a look at Melksham to Taunton for our friend.  A train every 2 hours from Melksham (and he would have been catching - at the earliest - the next train in the 'cycle' 2 hours after we arrived in Melksham. And then a two hourl train Westbury to Taunton - with a consistent wait of aroud 90 minutes there on every cycle.  The Melksham to Trowbridge bus - a substitute for the train where there are gaps in service - runs every 30 minutes during the morning ann earlyu afternoon on Monday to Friday, every hour on Saturday and - oops - not at all on Sundays, which as I understand it are now one of the busiest days for travel.

On my own, without having mobility and time limits, I suspect I would have take the trains the long way round, enjoyed the route via Rowland's Castle and North Camp, and sat patiently with a cup of coffee at Reading and later Westbury composing parts of the Advent quiz.  But I was not alone!

The Chosen Solution

We still have a c-a-r though I'm now limited as to how far I will drive - I find it tiring and place a conservative limit on myself of a couple of hours in a day.  Fortunately, our good friend drives too and was able to arrange extended insurance to drive to Southampton, pick us up, and drive us all to his final destination in Somerset.  From where I was within my limit to drive home.  The whole operation completed five hours ahead of the best (im)practical rail alternative, and at an incremental running cost (as we have the car anyway) well below the rail fares.

Oh dear!  I'm a huge advocate of public transport, but there are times that it is not fit for [my] purpose.  I will put myself out considerably, I will put others out a little.  But yesterday - Sunday 28th October - was beyond the pale, espcecially with a loss already of a day ane a need to get back into normal life.  On Saturday, the trains might have worked, on Sunday for the same travel plans they were found unfit for purpose.  I will leave you with questions - are we expecting too much of public transport in thinking it should have worked for us in this case? and if it didn't work for us, are we the exception and it works for most people?

The previous few posts suggests that the railways are NOT fit for their PRESENT purposes, let alone for future purposes.
Half length trains.
Cancelled trains.
Trains that run for only a small part of the route.
General discomfort and lack of facilities.
And on a Sunday, lucky to get a train at all.

But never mind, the new covid variant can be used to justify reduced capacity, for a few years at least. Overcrowding is not due to half length trains/fewer trains, but can be re-branded as being due to people making non essential journeys.

Agreed. They are not fit for purpose because they are run for profit not people. Private public transport folds at the first sign of any difficulty and getting services back is much harder than getting rid of them in the first place. Cross country is the largest operator that doesn’t serve the capital and as I’ve stated before our railways are run for London not for connecting the country.

I seem to remember under BR they were not fit for purpose either for a similar reason, namely how much money the Treasury was willing to fork out!

On many routes, trains on Sunday mornings were as rare as hen’s teeth in BR days - perhaps that’s the reason there weren’t so many RRB’s back then!

The behaviour of society was also different on a Sunday in the BR days. Times have changed. My point was not so much that BR did a better job, more that the unfashionable routes had options where cross subsidy was available. Public run services can run a more cohesive network over TOC’s that favour the busiest routes and full capacity as often as possible. Do we look at transport networks as a financial situation or a societal one? I would always choose quality of life over the price it may cost.

Railways in the UK whether privately run or government run, have in my view suffered from successive dogmas, under which it was admitted that there might be certain problems, all of which would be solved by some huge scheme.

The first example "once we have got rid of steam, and introduced more modern traction, a new age will dawn" This was not a complete success as many of the BR modernisation plan diesels had problems at least for the first few years.
Steam should have been kept, not forever of course but for perhaps another 5 years or until the more modern machines worked reliably.

The next example was "once we have got rid of loco hauled passenger trains, everything will be wonderful, no more coupling and uncoupling, no more running the engine around, think of the greater efficiency" This was also not a complete success, with both reliability and overcrowding issues as the DMUs were seldom available in working order in sufficient numbers. Again loco hauled passenger trains should have been kept, at least until the DMUs were reliably available in sufficient numbers, and perhaps for longer.

The latest example is "far too many different types of not inter operable multiple units, a new age dawns when we standardise on one basic design, with minor differences in internal fit out" Think of the savings, the same design for many routes, and all interchangeable. Best to lease them in order that faults and failures are a supplier problem, supplier to supply agreed numbers each day.
Well, we have seen the failure of that project.

Unlike steam and locos, I don't think that last dogma has actually been introduced by the rail industry. While we have seen standardisation across LNER and GWR with the Intercity Express Programme (IEP), the same doesn't seem to apply elsewhere. I'm not sure whether the class 196 and 197 Civity DMUs are inter-operable and have certainly read that they are NOT inter-operable with class 195 DMUs despite the class 197 design appearing very similar to the class 195s except for the addition of unit-end gangways on the 197s. I'm not sure if the Hitachi class 385s at ScotRail are inter-operable with anything else either.

There is an element of choosing a speech to appeal to the audience (in this case the Smart Transport Conference)...




If you think I made that all up, the source is https://www.smarttransport.org.uk/news/latest-news/Transport-minister-says-the-post-pandemic-recovery-will-not-be-car-led (https://www.smarttransport.org.uk/news/latest-news/Transport-minister-says-the-post-pandemic-recovery-will-not-be-car-led)

That SOUNDS splendid, but actions speak louder than words.
Actual recent actions have included;

Holding down petrol/diesel prices to those prevailing about 10 years ago in order to encourage more driving.

Increasing rail fares every year to discourage more use of rail.

Withdrawing long distance services from Waterloo to Bristol and the West country.

Subsidies for regional airports to encourage more flying.

Introducing new trains without space for cycles, surfboards, holiday luggage and the like, best to drive if you wish to take holiday luggage on holiday. 

No real urgency in dealing with the failed IET project. Simply accepting that reduced numbers of trains are the new normal, rather than saying to the supplier "you built them, you fix them, or replace them"

I don’t have much faith in things with a ‘seamless user experience’. I’m not keen on a railway which requires a charged battery, an app and the latest operating system to be used. Embrace technology yes, but keep options open and simple to make things easy for anyone to use. I don’t particularly want to see a book ahead railway nor passengers competing for space on trains.

Well the Union Connectivity Report forecasts a 51% increase in road traffic from 2015 to 2050 and 63% for domestic air travel over the same period. That's in a big friendly graphic on page 15. No forecast for rail use though.

I agree, there seems to be growing interest in apps, mobile communications, and various forms of priority boarding.

And not in getting the basics right.
Publish a printed timetable and keep to it, not an ever changing and electronically "updated" timetable that changes after you have purchased tickets or made other plans.

Simple to understand fares with no need to "search for the best deal" simply buy a ticket. Paper tickets not reliant on any portable electronics.

And of course proper trains, with enough seats for all, perhaps even padded ones.

No amount of electronic complications compensates for a train that is half length or cancelled.

Thanks again for this, it's very illuminating and shows the need either to platform these people with a right of response, or perhaps avoid platforming them if it's going to lend the weight of your organisation to their stance. In this case, good to let the light in...

I took that conference speech to Twitter, which prompted a supportive response from one Stephen Joseph as well as an immediate challenge as to why anyone would campaign for secondary services between Bristol and London.

Now, Twitter for the most part has low traction but can be good for getting the right people thinking. (Off topic for this thread, concerning the Bristol to Waterloo trains, getting them thinking hasn't worked of course.)

Did that question include hint on the viewpoint of its author?

I checked and the question was sincere - it's an understandable initial impression to wonder what the value is of a secondary service that has the same start and end points. Once there's the realisation that the two services from Bristol to 'London' serve discreet destinations, and then all the intermediate stops come into consideration, and then add the 'Network benefits' in terms of easier connections - that are often ignored so as to minimise the significance of line reopenings, their initial position will have shifted on this.

it's been the case that a reopening coming to be known as, say, 'Lewes to Uckfield' - joining two minor Sussex towns - when it would be better to name it in a way that throws light on the substantial network gains from turning a branch that's 30 or so miles long into a through route allowing multiple journeys between nodes as well as increased resilience in the form of a diversionary route.

Or something that should at least be known as Derby - Chinley but is referred to as 'Matlock to Buxton', where the Derbyshire County Council study proposed reopening a slew of intermediate stations and ran traffic forecasts for passenger numbers between those stations, and from either end onto the line - but omitted to include predictions for passenger traffic between the small villages of Leicester, Nottingham, Derby at one end and the hamlet of Greater Manchester at the other - population sums of c.4 million and 7 million.

Despite the artificial restrictions on the passenger estimates, the numbers were so good that the Peak national park authority got nervous, to the extent that they quickly bit-flipped on their previous opposition to opening the line's tunnels for foot and cycle traffic, and from a standing start put the current continuous shared use path in place, the users of which they will hope is an insurmountable guard against the rails ever returning to the route.

It might be that the project to complete the route round the north of Dartmoor will escape being known as 'Okehampton to Bere Alston' and from the start have a name that reflects the stature of its future contribution. (Putting this here for Andy Roden, who I think occasionally lurks on these forums.)

I suspect it might well end up being called plain old "Tavistock" when the government propel reopening the line from Bere Alston to there up to the top of their reopening list - Tavistock being a major town in the Torridge and West Devon constituency, where a by-election at some point is both highly likely and "must-win" for the Conservatives.

The honourable member for the British Virgin Islands, yes?

Personally the fragmentation of the industry has been damaging with idiotic decisions like effectively outsourcing the maintenance under Railtrack. Network Rail taking it all back in house is much better. Are we running something that keeps the country running efficiently and the public good or something done for profit? If it's just for profit and nothing else then you kill off the unprofitable bits. Then people are forced to use other more carbon intensive means of reaching their destination or take massively longer. I used the Manchester - Brighton Cross Country service at least once a week return and was horrified when it was removed. The alternative route added extra time to my journey but I suspect despite the usefulness of the service it wasn't very profitable.

The issue with competition is you can't really have competition on the same lines to the same destinations at the same time. Yes you can have two or more operators but if you need to arrive there for a particular time you can't just get the later train with another company. Look at Thames Trains and FGW where it was possible to get a train with both companies to the Cotswolds. You could get either depending on your itinerary but it wasn't like you had a choice of trains departing at the same time and arriving at the same time.   

What I find odd is where you have this government private sector hybrid, where the DFT stick their oar into what should be TOC decisions. When that happens you don't get the best results. The LNER routes for example have a lot of customers who travel with luggage. Speaking to somebody at LNER after the Azuma was launched they said it was chaos on a lot of these services because of the lack of luggage space. The reason because "the DFT has a one size fits all policy and hadn't looked at how the existing services were used."   


Taking an outsiders point of view in all this......I have a relative who isn't a UK resident any more but makes periodic returns to Blighty. When he last came back pre pandemic, he had to travel by train to Bristol. He took my advice and bought food and drink before the journey in case the trolley didn't make it. His thoughts on his return trip were interesting given his last trip was shortly after privatisation. He liked Paddington and how that had been smartened up although not where the taxis are now supposed to stop. He loved having an M&S at the station and if it was better stocked it would be brilliant. The ticket gates are a faff, not wide enough for luggage and then the ticket is checked again on board the train too. The trains (assume he meant seats) are uncomfortable, the announcements too loud and the lighting too bright. What really annoyed him though was when there was a problem. His original train back was delayed and then cancelled. He caught the next train which was smaller so therefore full and standing. There were no seat reservations as a result and despite having a reservation had to stand. He had GWR claiming that the problem was outside their control and he said he had no idea if that was true. He said in the BR days you had one organisation who were "responsible for the whole shebang" and if it went wrong you knew who to blame.

A really good write up, 1st fan - please excuse me picking up on just one element for starters.


Passenger numbers "now" are back down to the levels they were at the time of the Serpell report of 1983 - see http://www/passenger.chat/17797 (report mirrored ((here)) (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/DoT_Serpell001.pdf)) and that drew up a map of a "commercial" network:

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/serpell_a.jpg)

Which would, of course, almost solve the electrification question once and for all - just the spur into Bristol Temple Meads to be electrified to have 100% coverage.

There were other options falling short of being "commercial" ....

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/serpell_b.jpg)

and ...

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/serpell_c3.jpg)

Now I would not expect our current government to "get away" with trying to reduce the network to any of the above, but the the rhetoric (and we heard in from SWR in our meeting last week on "The Waterloos") is that each service must pay for itself - and that would be even worse that the top example which was a commercial network as a whole, with some individual loss making lines retained to be subsidised by the profit from other lines.

The original question on this thread was "Are the railways fit for their (future) purpose?" and that has become "what is there purpose". If SWR's responses (which have made me so livid it has taken time to write them up) are to be believed, then anyone who has a service NOT shown on the maps above should, perhaps, have eyes open to the potential need to defend it.

A few points regarding Graham’s post

Firstly, to make such a statement as “each service must pay for itself” is demonstrable nonsense. Every transport operator – rail, bus or airline – has to accept that some routes are busier than others, and some individual services will be busier than others. Take an example from some time ago (that got a lot of people hot under the collar both in this forum and elsewhere!) was National Express offering a stupidly cheap fare between Bristol and London in the peak, and then comparing it with the peak railway fare. The reason they were doing that – quite simply – was that they would otherwise have been running a half-empty bus on the outward leg, which much better loadings to be had on the way back. That’s economics.

Secondly, it has been accepted since the Transport Act 1968 that some services are there because they are a public service and are subsidised. I wonder how many round trips for a DMU on the Central Wales line “pays for itself,” or between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh. I am not suggesting that this is a factor you could sensibly apply to the Bristol to Waterloo service; indeed I would susoect that each DMU working on that route does actually pay for itself in terms of revenue exceeding expenditure. In this case – no matter what SWR may say publicly – the real reasons for withdrawal are a balance of how many passengers stay on each train at Salisbury and whether it is worthwhile catering for them, and operational convenience.

Thirdly and finally, I don’t think that republishing the Serpell maps, which were widely discredited at the time, is particularly helpful. They were in essence a continuation of the Beeching/ Marples philosophy which may have had some traction in government at the time, but things have moved on. We have just had COP26 – the world is at least paying lip service to reducing emissions and going green; what western developed country could possibly get away with wholesale rail closures and forcing people on to the roads at this time, whether or not they need to raise a few quid to pay for the pandemic.

Service reductions such as reducing frequency between half-empty trains I can envisage; a “New Beeching” I cannot.

Only time will tell if I’ve read those runes correctly.

I am going to follow up your points, Robin


I agree the nonsense element - but it was what we were told, with a straight face, by SWR. We can argue as to whether they believed the words, whether they originate the words, and whether they knew we would pick up the nonsense element on the basis of "you can fool some of the people all the time".

I don't totally buy your "every transport operator has to accept ...", I'm afraid. I can show you examples local to us where one operator had provided a service to meet the needs of the community, and a second operator brought in extra services at the times he could make a profit, admittedly on whole round trips and there will be elements within the round trips where the operation is not bringing in the £££.   I would strongly suspect that the same thing might apply to airlines.


But just because it has been accepted for over 50 years in the past does not mean it will necessarily be accepted now and into the future by a politician with a record such as (this) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Shapps) and no historical significant involvement with public transport prior to arriving at the DfT.

Fifty years ago, it was (and had been for a long time) generally accepted that slide rules and log tables were a necessary part of education, that telephones were connected with wires, and that you went out to shops to buy your groceries.   That you went out to work five days a week in a location away from your home, and that you did not wear a mask when you entered a bank!


Yes, things have moved on.  But perhaps we need to learn from history and have an eye open to make sure they don't move back?

Let's see how it goes, Robin ...

On learning from history, it is worth remembering that last time we had a significant Treasury-led effort to slash the amount of money the railways were costing back in 2006, a public report was published advocating mass closures and service withdrawals in the North, at the same time as significant service cuts were being proposed in what is now our GWR area. Furthermore, grahame and I found out through FOI that internal reports existed that indicated that the proposed service cuts in our area were just the tip of the iceberg, and that detailed business case assessments had been prepared for line & station closures and service withdrawals in our area too. Indeed, the DfT even went so far as to publicly advertise for a Closures Manager.

During this period, a very similar proposal to withdraw the Bristol-Waterloo services was put forward, and the hugely successful campaign that prevented this was widely seen as a catalyst that helped cause the DfT to think twice about going forward with the negative agenda above.

Fast forward to 2021, and hopes of a positive rail future for the North have been severely dented, and the modern-day campaign to save the Bristol-Waterloo service has been ignored and rode roughshod over. Therefore, I strongly suspect that no forum member - not even Robin - would bet the farm on there not being similar internal closure/service withdrawal reports in existence regarding today's rail network, or that those who may consider that they have "won" the battle of Waterloo might not be emboldened to act upon those reports.

Obviously I get that there are differing views among forum members as to exactly where the balance of overall blame should lie, but I think we are largely agreed that - as was the case in 2006 - we are once again witnessing a significant Treasury-led effort to slash the amount of money the railways are costing. And as I said elsewhere, the year prior to the Serpell Report saw the lowest number of passenger journeys of the second half of the 20th century, the lowest level of passenger miles, and the lowest level of passenger revenue for 14 years - coincidentally nearly the same time as has now passed since these kind of measures were last proposed in 2006.

Serpell also cut his teeth as a Treasury mandarin, moving to the Ministry of Transport, ultimately becoming Permanent Secretary, and being around to implement some of the Beeching cuts.

He therefore would have had much the same background, experience and attitude as those who currently wield ultimate decision-making power over today's rail network.

In my view then, it is helpful of grahame to republish the Serpell maps, as it serves as a invaluable reminder to us all of the lessons of history, and as he says, of the need to ensure the things do indeed move forward rather than back.

Of course, it may be that they do think again about crossing one too many red lines in this respect, but what has happened with the "Waterloos" this time round does make the prospect of them going further more likely than back in 2006, and several members on here will remember only too well that that was a close enough run thing.

I guess there is simply no way of calculating how railways contribute to an economy beyond the profit or loss they make. I should imagine that the London Underground has enormously played its part in contributing to the economy of London while at the same time not turned a profit for long periods in the past (recent developments aside of course, which I see as a bargaining tool). How is the National network not seen as a benefit to the economy, regardless of which services are making a profit or a loss, when it’s clear it is seen like this in other European countries?  It’s not just lines that need protecting but frequency of service particularly at a time when it should be encouraged to use the train. This switch cannot be done with a market led system as use for many types of journeys will never be encouraged if the network is poorly integrated, expensive and vehicles lack capacity. Skeleton services do not encourage use. Surely standard retail economics cannot be applied to (perceived) public transport?

I see I need a follow-up post after contributions from Graham and Lee, both of which make some good points. However, no-one appears to be taking into account the wider political dimension.

I have already said that whether I have read the runes correctly remains to be seen. Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom, and that certainly includes me! I will start by explaining where it appears that more was read into my words than I wrote.

I do not doubt what SWR said in a meeting. What I am querying is whether they meant it and/or whether the statement was made in an attempt to close down debate. This latter point is especially important if, as appears to be suggested, these SWR chaps or chapesses were simply the mouthpieces of the DfT, who in turn have a politician as their boss. Politicians are masters of the art of trying to close down debate when they are on shaky ground – and they know they are on shaky ground. See the recent debacle with Owen Patterson as a recent example, or perhaps a Downing Street Christmas party...

I was not suggesting that rail subsidies “invented” in 1968 were now set in tablets of stone – nothing is (except stone tablets...) All I am saying is that the principle was established at the time. It may need to be fought for again, but that is another argument for another day if and when it arises.

My most important point in that post was the current political situation. Think back to 2014 when the SNP were going to fund Independence with “Scotland’s oil” – only 7 years ago, but the next independence campaign will have very different foundations. The government has faced huge opposition in its plans for a new coal mine in Cumbria and a new oil field off Shetland. The list is quite long.

In the current political climate, the Treasury and/or the DfT will simply not get away with a raft of rail closures, transferring the demand go roads, no matter how electric the cars are and no matter how electric National Express might become at some indeterminate point in the future. What the DfT or the Treasury could get away with in 1963 or 1981 or 2006 is not necessarily what they can get away with in 2021

There's an article in "The Conversation" that picks out some of the contrasts between support for rail here and elsewhere and for roads.
https://theconversation.com/government-must-back-uk-train-travel-or-risk-long-term-retreat-to-cars-172667

I would agree that there is a slow shift towards the kind of longer-termist Climate Emergency focused political view that Robin describes, as evidenced by impressive recent local election results for the Green Party in places like Bristol, London, Sheffield and Suffolk, and by the fact that the Conservative government have felt a clear need to focus on the messaging around COP26. However, I also feel that he is in danger of placing too much emphasis on this at the expense of the far more overriding short-term political imperatives that Central Office tends to focus on. The fact is that when the majority of people come to decide how to cast their all-important Westminster parliamentary votes, environmental issues simply aren't yet high enough up people's priority list. This is evidenced by the fact that, in the 2019 General Election, the Green Party only managed to get more than 10% of the vote in just 5 constituencies, which are their long-held solitary parliamentary seat of Brighton Pavilion, plus the constituencies of Bristol West, Bury St Edmunds, Dulwich & West Norwood, and Isle of Wight, all of which are situated in relatively strong concentrated pockets of Green Party support. In terms of Parliamentary By-Elections, they have never managed more than 10% of the vote, and it has been over a decade since they last managed more than 5% of the vote in a Parliamentary By-Election.

Similarly, the public perception of the extent to which the "Red Wall" seats are a preoccupation for Central Office - while obviously important to them - is generally overplayed somewhat. This is because the reasons for voters turning away from Labour in those areas are deep-seated and long-standing, and therefore they wont simply turn back to Labour just because Boris and the government have periods of poor performance, particularly given that the current Labour leader is for many of them the "metropolitan elite" poster boy for all the reasons they turned away from Labour in the first place. It is also the case that voters in these areas are far more likely to stick with the principle of Brexit - a clear Conservative electoral pillar - while polls show a clear shift towards dissatisfaction with the way Brexit has turned out among voters in the rest of the country. Were this not the case, then the Conservatives would not have been able to gain Hartlepool in that By-Election.

It is also the case that Conservative short-term political strategy in these areas is far more carefully calculated than people give them credit for. For example, the general media and public narrative was that the recent Integrated Rail Plan would prove a disaster for the government in "Red Wall" terms. However, this ignores the fact that the focus on the Western half of HS2 was calibrated to show they look out for the "Red Wall" seats in the Midlands and North West, while the binning of the Eastern leg of HS2 was calibrated to "punish" those areas that had the temerity to vote Labour in 2019 - see here. (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=5138.msg310558#msg310558)

Also, despite the current broadly negative Treasury-led approach to rail, Central Office is not above using rail policy levers for political purposes. An obvious "Red Wall" example is the "dead cert" reopening of the Northumberland Line, which is a key part of a wider strategy to turn precarious parliamentary majorities such as Blyth Valley's 712 votes into more secure electoral footholds next time round. It is not just happening in "Red Wall" areas either - More on that later in the post.

What really keeps Central Office inhabitants up at night though is the recent trend in By-Elections for either Labour or the Liberal Democrats to basically not turn up in campaigning terms if the other party has a better chance. This mirrors the undeclared tactic deployed by Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown in the run-up to and during the 1997 General Election, two men who were close enough in political terms to facilitate that kind of understanding. Today, Keir Starmer and Ed Davey are similarly close enough in political terms to facilitate that kind of understanding, in a way that would never have been possible with, say, Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson. The modern day understanding between the two parties is directly responsible for the Lib Dem Chesham and Amersham By-Election win, for Labour holding Batley and Spen in that By-Election, and for the Labour vote jumping by 7.4% while the Lib Dem similarly plummeted by 5.3% in the Old Bexley & Sidcup By-Election. It therefore doesn't take a genius to work out what could be made possible if similar tactics are deployed in the upcoming North Shropshire By-Election.

The Conservatives know that it only takes a combination of negative electoral factors - such as sleaze and changing attitudes towards Brexit for example - to shave off a few percentage points from their vote, along with the above understanding between Labour and the Lib Dems, to bring what currently look on paper to be very safe Conservative seats back into the play as the marginals they often used to be again. Indeed, their ultimate fear is that Geoffrey Cox will either be forced out or call it a day as Torridge and West Devon MP, ushering in a Lib Dem By-Election victory that would be seen as a "turning point" moment which opens the door for them to ultimately regain their former seats across the South West. Such an outcome would be a political catastrophe for the Conservatives - For example, people often forget that it was less than a decade ago that 4 out of the 5 Somerset constituencies were Lib-Dem held.

This is why if you look, you can see the "Red Wall" tactic of using rail policy levers for political purposes creeping in further south as well. The future passenger potential of Okehampton comes largely from surrounding areas that used to be Conservative/Lib Dem marginals. Tavistock is a major town in Geoffrey Cox's Torridge and West Devon constituency. The recently-approved Edginswell railway station is in the traditional bellweather constituency of Torbay, which is also benefitting from significant government regeneration money. New Forest East was in play during the Blair years, and the potential Labour and Lib Dem voters are concentrated in the Waterside area of the constituency, while the incumbent Conservative MP is one of the most dedicated Brexit Spartans. I could go on, but you get the drift.

However, the above are very much specific political initiatives to serve specific political purposes - the "Okehampton misdirection" as Mark A puts it - and not indicative of any desire for a wider, more enlightened rail policy, whether based on the need to combat the Climate Emergency or not, largely because in general terms the government simply doesn't feel the political/electoral pressure on environmental issues to the extent that Robin believes that it does. This is why I believe that The Conversation article that Bmblbzzz posted is bang on the money when comparing the government's rail strategy with the other countries mentioned, and why when Robin asks the question "What western developed country could possibly get away with wholesale rail closures and forcing people on to the roads at this time?", unfortunately my answer has to be "Potentially the UK".

This is also why I would endorse grahame's call for people to keep their eyes open to the potential need to defend their rail service.

Ironically, the main factor "directly responsible" for the Lib Dems overturning a huge Conservative majority in Chesham and Amersham into a large majority of their own was Conservative voters changing sides in a protest about HS2 tearing up the Green Belt in their area along with other planning issues.

Labour had 12% of the vote in the 2019 General Election which went down to 1% of the vote in the 2021 By-Election. Had they bothered to campaign seriously, then there is every chance that the Lib Dems wouldn't have made it to victory.

My bolding.  A week is a long time in politics; the concern is "what can they get away with in 2022?" - political climate can change. Look back to 6th December 2019.  Who would have expected that The Government would have been able to implement all the changes it did in March 2020 (and indeed some say it did too little too late).

 

Thank you, Lee.  I have no crystal ball, but we should be prepared for the potential - and perhaps in this current age of great change we should be looking early on to inform the agenda. 

Times have changed already - the Railfuture line of "campaigning for a bigger, better railway" looks to me outdated by its use of the term "bigger". From Bradford-on-Avon to Beeston and Barrow Haven, services in the lead up to Christmas 2021 are down on the lead up to Christmas 2019; were that capacity reduction with adequate alternatives provided, that might well be "better". But it's not better - it's serious enough at Bradford-on-Avon to displace people back onto the roads, at Beeston to give severe overcrowding even in the time of depressed covid travel numbers, and at Barrow Haven to leave a station and line without a morning commuter hour train.

Source: The Guardian

I think the embarrassment at Dawlish today answers this question.

Not just Barrow Haven, the two 'Fishguard' stations have lost both their morning and evening 'commuter hour' services to COVID. I'm sure they aren't the only other stations to have lost their commuter-time services.


On the Fishguard branch, I've been told that the full pre-COVID service will be restored in the May 2022 timetable, but I've since been told that even then it will be six trains per day (back in 2011 it was increased from 2 to 7 trains per day, so there's still a cut although I think the overnight 'train', latterly advertised as a replacement bus I think, was probably useless and may have gone before COVID). In fact, it doesn't look like there will be any AM services at Fishguard at all until well into 2022, between 23:00 and noon the next day there is currently nothing, although the evening commuter service looks like it's being restored in the Dec 2021 timetable change the morning remains empty.

You go on to use election results as evidence to support your point. I would suggest that stronger evidence for your argument is that the UK Government have cut Air Passenger Duty, don't appear to be following Wales in looking into cancelling major road building projects and haven't given a clear signal that they are going to implement Network Rail's recommendations on rail decarbonisation (the TDNS). The Climate Emergency is clearly not all that close to the top of the UK Government's agenda.

"What western developed country could possibly get away with wholesale rail closures"? I would answer that question 'None of them', but I think you asked the wrong question. Now, if you asked "What Government could possibly get away with wholesale rail closures"? then, electorally speaking, the current UK Government might very well get away with it, especially if they manage to bring in measures such as compulsory voter ID.

What is the connection between "wholesale rail closures" and the introduction of "compulsory voter identification"

I'm aware of Fishguard (took a look on our National Rail timetable mirror at http://www.passenger.chat/nrt/ ) - but my post was examples and to make it a good soundbite, I chose just three places rather than a long list, and all starting with "B" to help it roll off the tongue.  If I could find three "Bs" there are lots more elsewhere in the alphabet.  You have Fs ... and there are more than just the BFs around, even if there are (in my view) some BFs making decisions to cut morning services but leave afternoon ones ... similar pattern seen elsewhere are not just in West Wales.   It seems odd to remove all practical get-to-work trains from people but leave the get-them-home services at the end of the day.

The government purpose (as conveyed by by SWR last week, confirmed by FOI) seems to be to look at the bottom line of cost and not at the balance sheet. The talk is all of the cost of running the service with no allowance made for the fare box income generated by the extra journeys it generates.  It counts track access charges against the service, where in reality the track maintenance has to continue and Network Rail will need almost all of that money from another source. 

I have a question about the Serpell maps posted earlier. Were they proposed services or proposed track? Would some lines have remained open freight-only?

Full report at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/mirror/DoT_Serpell001.pdf - looking at the "reference case" network, some lines such as Torrington / Meeth, and to Claydon, to Looe, in Ayrshire, the Waterside line were shown - indicting that it was considering the full network at the point.    Some such as option C2 clearly include freight only lines - Looe and Claydon again (and some wonders like Aylesbury served via Princes Risborough but not via Amersham ... and I have to wonder if that was freight only)

Thanks Grahame. That's a lot of reading and it pre-dates "executive summaries"!

No connection with "wholesale rail closures" specifically, but "compulsory voter identification" is predicted by some organisations to effectively disenfranchise fewer Conservative Party voters than voters who favour other parties. Not everyone holds an acceptable form of ID, for example I don't have a driving license and for a good few years my Passport was invalid (it had expired and I hadn't had sufficient reason to renew it). If those people who have ID are those more inclined to vote Conservative...

Thus, the introduction of compulsory voter identification would increase the likelyhood of the UK Government being able to "get away with" controversial actions in general.

No-one is going to be disenfranchised.

Expired IDs will still be acceptable as long as the photo is still a good likeness

Local authorities will be required, by law, to provide a Voter Card free of charge where an elector does not have one of the approved forms of photo identification.

Yes but you would actually have to apply for such a card beforehand, it puts up an additional barrier to voting.  Experience elsewhere suggests this significantly affects voter turnout.  Of course in countries where everyone has a national ID card - like most European Countries - it is no problem. 

I'd be genuinely interested in the data from elsewhere showing that having to apply for such a card significantly affects voter turnout - can you provide a reference to back up the assertion?

Putting up barriers to voter registration in many US states has been found to significantly reduce voter registration by poor, predominantly black voters. 

That's a general anecdote rather than a reference/data referring to the effect of providing voter ID cards which was the question - I'd challenge the assertion that providing such ID represents a "barrier", notwithstanding the need to apply for it which I'd imagine is a pretty simple process, but I suggest we agree to differ given the thread drift.

I am certainly now hearing reports of formerly just sleepless nights turning into outright panic at Central Office at the loss of North Shropshire.

On a more directly relevant note to some members of the forum, they might want to start thinking about what a post-Johnson premiership might bring without his trademark stamp and interest on certain policy areas, such as buses for example.

Excellent (if lengthy!) tweet from Nigel Harris of Rail Magazine in response to an article about "people friendly trains", greater seat pitch, more wheelchair/bike space etc;

Railway needs to completely change its mindset and become customer focussed in a way it literally has never had to be before.

Pax need to be wooed, attracted, treated well and delighted so they wish to return. Not given what they're given and put up with it. Those days are gone. So all of those things Rog, but it's also about things that cost nothing: approach and attitude of ALL staff. You've said yourself that LNER understand this and they do - and have done since GNER days. But many others do not - and I include Treasury and DfT.

YES!

We are at a time of great opportunity - but also of great risk ...

Who is going to pay for all these modifications to existing stock, and to purchase new stock to deal with the extra passengers generated with a much larger seasonal and day of the week bias?  Not to mention the extra staff that would be needed.

It all sounds lovely in principle.  Extremely hard to achieve in practice.  Though that’s not to say we shouldn’t try…

But what does that mean? I suspect most of those working in the railways sincerely believe they are customer focused - within the constraints they face. And a lot of those constraints are inherent to its being a railway, as well as the extra ones we all know about (limited subsidy levels, political control of what is in effect a nationalised system).

Oh - I grant you there are extras ... but it's not just a one way thing and there are savings and efficiencies too.

I recall whole loads of talk about how inefficient it was "x" years ago (where x > 3) to have trains busy just twice a day for single direction journeys into a city in the morning and back in the opposite direction in the evening, all at a season ticket price which was far too high to be liked by people, but far lower than other fares on that same train.  I recall talk of how many people are involved in blame attribution, in sharing fares out between franchises, of (!) how much money is paid to overseas governmental train operators running in this country, and so forth.   How perverse other elements of ...

Politically, should things like the freeze on fuel duty over many years still be there and making private road travel progressively more attractive?  Should travel costs all across the board be allowed to rise, jogging people towards public transport or asking "is the journey really necessary" or should taxation support of public transport make for a more European balance than the current British one it terms of where the income comes from?

I would agree that it is very hard to achieve in practice. But that, never the less, we should try. 


Funnily enough, I think I was starting to address that while you wrote ... I wrote on the opportunity. The risk is a cost based railway where trains become a means of travel of last resort, used by so few that more services are removed, leaving shared fixed infrastructure costs between fewer people, and a less attractive service because of a greatly-tinned frequency.

I can’t see any other option apart from a large increase in taxpayer spending to achieve what was suggested earlier, apart from removing the ‘turn up and go’ principle for longer distance trains and make them reservation compulsory.

Will the taxpayer be able to shoulder that burden, or want to, given the huge pressures from most other industries and services following the pandemic who now also find themselves struggling.

Nobody's sure what post-Covid patronage will be, but (say) 70% of pre-Covid would put the passenger numbers back to around 2006 (depends on which part of the country you look at). Revenue would be comparable to some years earlier, given an expected loss of business travel.

Some pretty awful things happened around 2006 (like the planning for the new GW franchise, which led to shorter trains...overcrowding...and this forum  ;) . I recall much anger,  but little of the pessimism that exists now.

When one thinks about this it s one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but rapidly turns into a very bad one when it hits the wall of practicality. Some “for instances” appear below.

Firstly the term “long journey” has to be defined. How long is long? 50 miles? 100 miles?  200 miles? Whatever threshold you set it at, you run the risk of the press finding an example where the journey is one mile too long pr one mile too short and turning the railway into a laughing stock in the process

Secondly you have yo bear in mind that most long-distance trains in the UK tend to be what used to be called semi-fasts in reality, making multiple stops along the route.  There may well be some long-distance passengers on an XC Plymouth to Edinburgh, but there will be larger numbers of passengers going from Plymouth to Newton Abbot, or Exeter to Taunton, or Cheltenham to Brum and so on. What are you going to do bout them? Make them get other trains? What if the long-distance trakns are the only services between two points, like Wigan to Warrington?

And if a scheme is designed so that 2local” passengers can use these long distance trains, them at a stroke you would have introduced a whole new reason for split ticketing.

On Saturday 5th March my flight from Cape Town is booked to land at Heathrow at 0715.  It might be on time and it might not. I hope tp be in Paddington in time for the 0902 Bristol but I can’t guarantee it. I therefore cannot commit myself to any particular train, because when I turn up at Paddington I then want to go home – there and then. But perhaps Chippenham isn’t “long distance.” But perhaps going to Bath or Bristol might be.

Finally, I don’t know of anybody being told by a close relative that they were going to have a heart attack and die a week next Thursday,  so as to give the sufficient notice to reserve a place on a train. Unthinking blighters, some relatives...