Great Western Coffee Shop

The Government has announced the end of franchising, interim emergency agreements with the train operators, and will be publishing a white paper to look ahead to a system for the medium and longer term, based on advise from the Williams report.

Two questions.
This thread is what would you like to see as basic objectives of the new system?
Another thread - what do you expect the government to have as priorities in the new system? See http://www.passenger.chat/24041

I will run these two polls for 10 days ... members are allowed during that time to come back and change their votes if their vies change based on discussions.

Aside from all the above, somewhat woolly, options I am of the opinion that our government must not countenance under any circumstances a return to the nationalised British Rail scenario which would allow the calling of the much loved national rail strike.

I voted for simplified fares, and for increasing revenue from first class, catering, cycles and luggage.

The carrying of heavy luggage, cycles, and surfboards could in my view be charged for, especially on busy services. Carrying such items does cost money and could reasonably be charged for IMHO.
Any such charges need to be simple and easy to understand. A flat rate of say 5 pounds per oversize item, might be reasonable ? Applicable to anything within reason, that the owner can handle. Any item needing staff to assist could reasonably be charged at a much higher rate, perhaps 25 pounds.

I am not convinced that catering will ever be hugely profitable, but provision is an important part of running a railway service, and encouraging better provision, and better use of that provision would reduce the total costs.

First class accommodation is sometimes little used in the off peak, and off peak first class fares should arguably be considered.

I also voted for encouraging use of trains rather than flying or driving. If we are serious about climate change, we need to fly and drive A LOT less.

There is already provision for a GBP5 charge for oversized items, but it is seldom, if ever charged.

The AAA Supplement has been abolished, so cannot be charged any more.

The poll options are mainly about a new fares system - but the topic title doesn't specify that so I'd like to add:

• a joined-up decarbonisation strategy combining a rolling programme of electrification with neatly aranged rolling stock cascades to minimise the purchase of new diesel trains (inc. minimising the purchase of any bi/tri/quad-mode units fitted with diesel engines) and minimise running of diesel engines on electrified routes
• mandatory rolling stock quality standards based on the Rail Delivery Group Key Train Requirements with hard seats and limited legroom etc. restricted to short distance routes

Parts of the two previous posts read almost like a broadgage complaint about IETs.

"hard seats" (and undesirability thereof for long distance services)
"buffets being a basic amenity for inter city services"
"ability to walk through the whole train"
"better first class offering" with implied criticism of the present little or no catering. And not due to the pandemic, it was pretty rubbish before the pandemic.

The poll options are/were intended to look forward far more to what you (or the government in the sister poll at http://www.passenger.chat/24041 ) want to achieve in the medium to long term - outcomes rather than how those outcomes are reached.  How those goals are best reached is for further discussion, with each of the strategies adopted leading to some intermediate operational tactics to help achieve them - vital elements but there to help reach the objectives.  For example, I don't see "softer seats" being a DfT goal, but as part of "maximising income" via getting more passengers on a better-enjoyed service, and charging each of them a higher price for a more expensive product, it's a logical consideration.

Good idea! I suggest a pantograph and electric motors.


As a minimum, a sufficiency of port.

Good thing for GWR as they can ban Surfboards then.

I think there's more chance of Concorde coming out of retirement and flying from Paddington to Penzance but I live in hope. [/list]

And yet ... there are elements where these are of have been worked towards

For longer distance expresses, new trains are pretty much A300 derivatives these days - whether you call them Javalins, Azumas, IETs, Paragons, Novas or Pip and Emma.  I would expect as the next generation of retirements comes - Adelantes, Castles, Voyagers, Pendelinos, and Meridians  - there to be builds to a new family, but consistent builds, bearing in mind progress made since the A300 was designed and the desire to balance up-to-date design against a single fleet.

We have seen retrofits over the years - re-engineering the Class 43 power cars away from Valenta engines, and we have also seen or are seeing refits of D76 and class 319 stock, and others may follow.

I believe there are already standards for seat pitch, etc;   part of the issue there is that some of the older, softer seats conform less to modern safety standards ... privacy (an in particular keeping one's breath to oneself) may be here sooner than we would have imagined.

I am in favour of standardised designs of new trains for the reasons given, at least as regards the mechanical design, IETs and variants thereof are the future.
One might however hope for internal improvements as suggested by many people in order that they become more suited to inter city operation.

I support the PRINCIPLE of bi-mode operation since it permits of through service to branches not yet electrified, I would hope for more electrification so as to reduce diesel operation.
I also support the fitting of limited diesel power to nominally electric trains for when the wires come down (or when the conductor rail ices up, remember Lewisham)

It should in my view be a statutory requirement that ALL new trains should be able to couple to each other, and to haul or propel each other in case of breakdown etc.
If IETs and variants thereof are to become even more widespread, a close watch needs to be kept to ensure  that ALL variants can couple to and haul each other.

Me might be closer to a standardised mainline stock but the suburban/regional stock is still quite messy. Excluding Southern/Gatwick Express. This is likely to change as the 150s are nearing 30 years old.

We might have seen the Class 43s have new engines, but what about the Class 150s? 165/166s especially are known for having knackered engines, surely now would be a good time to look a re-engine them with more modern diesel engines, hybrids or looking a fitting exhaust emission reduction technology.

Yet the modern rolling stock such as IETs, Electrostars are often complained for being too hard? We need a standard set across all services, minimum leg room, seat comfort, lighting brightness.

I believe Chiltern are to trial replacement of engines on a 165 soon (or it may have been a 168). If I recall correctly, the new engine raft would include batteries making it a hybrid similar to the batch of hybrid class 230s for Wrexham-Bidston. Something similar was proposed for the class 175s by the ROSCO who were keen to get them retained by the Wales & Borders franchise.

Not sure about seat pitch (I believe that's coming in the next version) but the Rail Delivery Group's Key Train Requirements (KTR) document does offer standards for things like coupling to other units and provision of toilets. However, it is so often ignored that I wonder whether it's worth the paper it is written on. For example Northern's class 195 CAF Civity DMUs apparently are unable to couple to anything else with the gangway-fitted class 196s requiring a different coupling due to the end gangways. I'm not sure if the TfW 197s will be able to couple to 196s or not. Also, the KTR spec for inter-urban and intercity services is a maximum of 85 seats per toilet, the 2-car TfW class 197s (which TfW intend to use on long-distance journeys, including some over 5hrs) will have 116 seats with just one toilet. We have some of the standards but they are ignored, which is why I said that they need to be mandatory standards rather than advisory as the KTR is.

I believe leg room is treated as a component of seat comfort in the new standard being developed which gives a single numeric score telling operators, politicians etc. exactly how comfortable the train is. At present, this new system is just a research paper, but it's findings are apparently going to be incorporated in version 6 of the KTR when it is published.