Great Western Coffee Shop

From the Daily Mail (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9089785/One-five-train-services-AXED-year-treasury-tightens-purse-strings.html)

Makes sense on commuter routes certainly as demand will be much lower going forward given the new working practices which have been/will continue to be adopted.

If the railway's future lies more in the leisure market however perhaps not such a good move.

Presumably it will have implications for job security/opportunities on the railways too.

Well, I guess it is quite likely that some services will be cut.

I guess it is not too bad if it is cutting some of the vast capacity into London for the peaks that is unlikely to be needed any time soon.  But very bad indeed if it is cutting some of the services completely on more rural routes.

It is an inevitability, it will come with risks though.

Whilst some morning and evening peak fasts could be culled, it will result in longer commuting times, midday service frequency reduced however the ticket price is unlikely to drop; the risk could be the industries ability to react if / when demand increases.  Cutting is swift to implement reversing it could be very slow especially if staff are made redundant and stock is mothballed or scrapped 

Look on the bright side - At least it will give the Marie Antoinette "Let Them Take Buses" muppets the opportunity to peddle their signature mix of suppressed population figures based on outdated census data, and long-discredited Beeching-era "contribution to the wider network" methodology for our entertainment.

I can hardly wait...

On the subject of census data, the 2021 Census is due in the Spring.  I wonder if that will be affected?

On questions such as this we can speculate all we like, but it is always best to base forecasts on observed and observable trend, and not crystal ball gazing.

I think we can safely say that any new normality will only arrive when we have seen the back of this pandemic. This will probably be lined to the roll-out of vaccines, and even trying to forecast that is currently difficult due to the practicalities of getting the stuff to the right place to put into people?s arms, and getting enough people to physically do the jabbing. At a guess (of the crystal ball gazing variety) we are probably looking at early next summer at the earliest, and possibly later.

The factors that will affect rail travel demand in future are many and various:

1 Many people have got used to working from home. Will they continue to do so?

2 Many people have got used to online shopping rather than wander shopping centres. Will they continue to do so?

3 The move toward discouraging car use in towns and cities will continue. It will become ever more difficult to drive in large urban areas and even harder to find parking space.

4 With the alternatives to the internal combustion engine that we currently have available, long distance motoring is likely to become less attractive. For example, even a car with a 300 mile battery range would need a long stop somewhere to recharge on a London to Glasgow run.

The answers to 1 and 2 cannot yet be predicted. We can speculate and we might think we know the answer, but right at this moment we don?t know we know. We will have to wait and see.

The answer to 3 is more predictable in the short to medium term, as the various policies adopted by the local authorities will be publicly available documents. The impact those policies will have on the local public transport infrastructure will vary quite substantially from place to place and should be forensic in that respect; what may suit Cardiff might not suit Bristol or may or may not suit Southampton and so on.

The changes due to 4 will probably see an increase in public transport use. The jury is out over whether rail, coach or air travel will reap the most benefit, as in essence that will involve individual choices to be made between cost, desire for speed and the reason for travel.


All that is a long way of saying that nobody realistically has a clue about the answer to the original question at the moment, and I suspect the TOCs and the government are thinking the same way too. That will not of course stop them doing anything daft in the short term, as that is one of the few things that virtually all governments down the years have been especially good at...

For these coming winter months, I'll predict very low passenger numbers on public transport - trains and buses, but with the longer distance journeys (i.e. biased towards trains) being harder hit.  But then, come "spring", with waves of people being vaccinated from the most vulnerable onwards, people are going to be coming out of their burrows and spreading their wings.  First journeys, and perhaps for the coming summer, may be tentative as we venture forth in our new world. So wouldn't it be a bit perverse to run a full train schedule through the winter, then switch to a cut-down one in the summer?

Of course, it's not as simple as that. The ways of the world / daily commute habits are changed at present and it's far from certain the metrics of the return of the commute.  And where the train service frequency is based on the need for capacity that isn't / won't be used, there is an argument for a trimming back. Journey time and convenience wise, 15 trains an hour at 4 minute headway on the Central Line rather than 30 an hour at 2 minute headway would be a minor inconvenience.  But taking the other extreme - a cut already made with the removal of the first train out of Oban into Glasgow, giving a first arrival at lunchtime rather than before 9 a.m. renders some journeys and commutes impractical by public transport.

Where it's services that are primarily there to provide capacity, their suspension is fair enough - provided that (and this is a massive proviso) that decisions are not made based on passenger levels during this winter for next summer; indeed some of the evidence from a thin summer of 2020 on certain leisure routes is that an increase and not a decrease in capacity would make sense.  I'm not suggesting extra rolling stock in the 'franchise' ... rather capacity reduction with no long distance services/journeys to become less that hourly, released IETs to run where they already run but on more local trains, and units released to be used to strengthen those services / destinations that were struggling with capacity even in summer 2020.

There is an opportunity to sort out some historic issues; sadly, there is also an opportunity to sweep away certain things which are inconvenient to operate, but key parts of the passenger's needs.

[Robin has posted while I am writing. I am posting anyway and may come back to him]

Yes - very much best to observe and look at trends rather than use a crystal ball.   However, where there is very little observed or observable trend, we are left having to use second best - which is either a crystal ball within the gaps, or doing nothing at all and then reacting to things very late in the day once we observe something.

I would agree the factors you listed; I might be slightly more optimistic on timing, based on spread being less of an issue one "all" the vulnerable people have been vaccinated - there is talk of herd immunity at two thirds of the population, but of lockdown being eased when just a third has been vaccinated.

Let's hope that nothing irreversibly daft is done!

My concern is how cost reductions would be applied.  The railways have a fixed cost base (trains on long term leases, unionised trained staff who are expensive to make redundant); this makes it difficult to reduce costs without making structural changes that would be expensive and time consuming to reverse.  We are also seeing that if Covid appears in the staff there is a significant reduction in capacity due to self-isolation.

The treasury may demand but the DfT may be unable to deliver.

As far as 1 and 2 are concerned things are more predictable than you might think.

Remote working/"Working from home" is now a reality for vast numbers of people, and in many ways very palatable to them, and to their employers, who in straitened times can downsize their Office accommodation and make huge savings, especially in the big cities. The concept is now proven.

When things do get back to "normal", office presence of 1 or at most 2 days a week is more likely - many large and medium sized businesses are gearing up for this already and flagging it in their job advertisements.

As for shopping - well if you're continuing working from home, why not continue to do your shopping online and have it delivered there?

Point 3 falls between business and leisure - possible opportunities for the railways in the latter however they will need to improve the offering.

As to point 4, this is really where the railways should position themselves as an alternative to the car, and/or plane. Whether they are able to do so is moot, but may help to decide whether the future means expansion or contraction.

Challenges and opportunities.

There is a lot of sense in there and my thoughts have been running along similar lines since I last posted.

Thinning or curtailing services will not actually save much money per individual train. There will be  no savings on labour costs unless the number of staff employed is reduced, and longer term it is far easier to make staff redundant than to train up their replacements at a later stage. That was found out the hard way immediately post privatisation.

Perhaps some track access charges would be saved which in itself would be a double edged sword as far as the Treasury is concerned because it would reduce NRs revenue stream. All the fixed costs would still be there.

There are also other factors to take into account. It does not make any economic sense now or in the future for the TOCs or the government to do anything that will potentially reduce the traffic that is still there. The suggestion put forward earlier of culling early and late services is a case in point; most journeys are of the return variety, and if a passenger finds one of their trains taken off they won?t be on the one that?s still running either. With hindsight that was actually one of the dafter pre-Beeching ideas in the 1950s which had the effect of reducing a line?s patronage rather than save much money.

We had an example locally around the time of privatisation when the last train from Bath to Chippenham on a Saturday was at 2132. Consequently if we wanted to go to Bath for a show or similar, Shell and BP made a lot more money out of me than the railway did...

There is also the issue that under normal circumstances the TOCs appear to have very little slack in their staff rostering as the number of trains cancelled through staff shortages bears witness. At this time with an increased absentee level due to COVID, reducing staff numbers appears to me to be at the utter lunacy end of the daft spectrum.

So for the time being let us hope for no knee jerk reactions to anything. Wait and see until we know more for certain.

With respect I think you are falling into the usual trap.

I agree that, at this moment, it looks like mass commuting as we have known it for decades has come to an end. But what we don?t know is the level to which it will return post pandemic, and if it will then remain at a new static position or increase again over time. In two, five or ten years time things may be very different again. So we think we can see the trends but we don?t know the long term situation.

For many and for many reasons working as a team in an office is preferable to working alone and isolated from colleagues. When we know for certain then that will be the time to look at recasting timetables, not now. And indeed you partially accept that by the use of terms like very likely ? even you won?t stick your neck out and say that it will happen that way!

I think you misunderstand the point I was naming under point 2, which specifically relates to railway demand. If people no longer descend in droves on Oxford Street on Queens Street Cardiff or anywhere else, this will not only have an impact on the retail sector but also the transport providers who have taken them there in the past.

Basically the answer is "we don't know" and nor does anyone else. It could be very different or it could drift back to the same.  Only a very small percentage modal shift from car to rail on business and leisure travel would more than make up for any lost commuter traffic. 

If you have genuine suspicions that something "irreversibly daft" might be in the offing, then i wouldnt necessarily wait and see what that might turn out to be.

In the mid-2000s, while the rail establishment were busy denouncing me and my compardres as conspiracy theorists for daring to suggest that a clandestine New Beeching might be afoot, we discovered through FOI that not only had the DfT and their consultants prepared numerous business cases to close various lines and stations, they had actually been doing so for around 2-3 years before we discovered the evidence. My point therefore, is that they might be preparing the "irreversibly daft" of tomorrow as we discuss this topic today, and the article might just have been thrown out there to gauge public reaction to the idea.

Just a thought.

Yes, it would be a fool who tries to predict things to any precise level yet.  There will clearly be a drop in commuting, it could quite possibly be a very significant one, but until we reach the promised land of next summer we won't know with any degree of certainty at all.  I have several friends who previously commuted (both by car and train), but are now working from home.  Roughly half are very happy never to go to back into the office again, and the other half are gagging to get back there to avoid going stir crazy.

I've mentioned it before, but the worst case scenario for the railways is that the majority of people go back into the office Tuesday-Thursday.  Fortunately for the railway, that is the worst case scenario for companies too as they still have to lease the majority of the current office space if that's the case.  

I think a 'good' outcome for the railway will be if commuting drops off by around a quarter to a third over all five days of the working week.  That way, lots of expensive to lease stock, and a few train paths that really test punctuality, can be gotten rid of and a much more balanced use of resources throughout the week and weekend can be achieved, but crucially the network (and the off peak service) can remain largely as is.

I can assure you, Lee, that my eyes (for what they're worth - they don't have the energy and clarity they perhaps once did) and other here and elsewhere are open.  There is much more than "wait and see" hope.  I am going to stop short of writing up a series of risks and daft ideas (certainly in public), since these seeds can fall into nutrient-rich ground and grow.

My bolding - and in that could (and perhaps should) lie an enormous marketing opportunity - the opportunity to adjust fares, routes and timetables and bring in more passengers on greener journeys. Perhaps we won't need 12 to 15 IETs out of Paddington to Reading in an hour; use released capacity (lots of indirect cascade stuff) to beef up lengthen leisure services and provide products such as very long distance; I am minded that a biMode could run all the way from Bromsgrove to Glasgow or Edinburgh on electric, and a 5+5 on that run could split at Stafford or Crewe. BUT it would need to be affordable; Sail Rail has managed "any station in a zone to any station in Ireland / Holland" type ticketing and I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of some people we know to come up with a similar product.  Then sell it and don't keep it as an embarrassing secret in case it gets over-subscribed.

Robin if you're going to prefix a response with "With respect", it's probably better that you don't then go on to misrepresent what you're responding to.

The phrase I used was "more likely", not "very likely", and I don't think reflecting what most informed commentators are suggesting (ie a significant reduction in working patterns and commuting) makes sticking one's neck out necessary.

On the contrary I'd suggest that in two, five or ten years time, given this catalyst, technology will have advanced to a place whereby remote working will become an even more efficient prospect for all concerned, with all the improvements in work/life balance and financial savings for all concerned - I think you'd be sticking your neck out to suggest otherwise - 20 years ago the whole concept of "working from home" in the way we do now barely existed- look at the world now.

This doesn't mean that people won't go into the office any more, of course human contact is very important simply that the time they spend there will be greatly reduced - many people in recent years have adopted a 4 days in/1 day at home pattern, I'd suggest that this will largely be reversed and the "office day" used for team meetings etc.

Fully understand your other points, thanks.

I have a concern that all the discussion on the benefits of WFH are around established workers.  My daughter commented that she has no problem but that her company are having major problems integrating and mentoring new joiners and graduate trainees without the functionality of an office.

That's a very good point, onboarding, induction etc is currently a real challenge and a colleague who has recently moved on to another role is experiencing that exact issue. He's gone to a large company who told him on "arrival" in November that he should expect to be WFH until June.

I agree with this, other than the necessity of working to put food on the table one key part of work is the social interaction working to a common goal etc.  We are social animals we need the human interaction.

Work patterns will change with more working from home with MS Teams, Zoom etc being a key part of work going forward perhaps reducing the long distance business travel.  Although the wider National team I work with still have the desire for face 2 face meetings, it is the meeting of collages socially that we get to know each other and ultimately improves the performance of a team.

Commuter travel patterns will change, but I sense a desire from colleges of wanting to spend some time in the office

Although there is an old saying about prefacing a statement with ?with respect? is code for no respect ay all, that was not my intention and I am sorry that I gave you the impression that it was.

Use of the phrase very likely rather than more likely was no more than sloppy writing on my part and not an intentional misrepresentation.

I still maintain, however, that no one actually knows what will happen in the future, no matter how informed any commentators may claim to be. I recall, for example, informed commentators telling us that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter within my lifetime.

I still therefore hold that now is not the time to react or respond to changing travel patters until such time that we are more certain what those changes are likely to mean in the longer term.

Other than that I think we are on the same page and largely arguing semantics and emphasis.  :)

I can?t imagine anything worse than being in my house all day every day to work, to eat, to live, to love. Luckily I?ve been working throughout and still seeing people at work. Would be going stir crazy staring at the same four walls all day every day.

GWR I believe are now looking at cutting services, the original aim was to have the new timetable in next week but that?s looking extremely unlikely. A few rostering issues yet to be resolved.

The cutting of services is expected to be nationwide.


Edit:  They?re looking at 18 January to implement an emergency timetable

Well daily commuting will never return to pre-covid levels, this means peak hour extension of rolling stock won't be needed, (once Covid is no longer a major threat)
So stock that is laid up from around 09:30 to around 15:30 weekdays won't be needed at all, but this means that Electric stock that is already in use will become available to work on NEWLY electrified lines.
More Diesel units can go for scrap!

And with Government plans for all cars to be Electric cars in just 4 years, OK hybrid will still be allowed, I'm betting fuel duty will go UP in leaps and bounds,
And whilst all electric cars will be suitable for 90% of journeys, long distance journeys will be much slower than today.
Modern Electric cars might have a range of 200+ miles (but read the small print that's at an average speed of 27MPH.
Electric Cars aren't going to be belting up Motorways at 80MPH unless the driver wants to recharge for an hour around every hour and a half

Daily commuting by all modes may never return to pre-covid levels, but a model shift from road to rail could make up for the that effect so far as rail is concerned. 

I believe that as Private car driving goes more and more 100% electric, the option for long distance driving will fall off the cliff, Driving fast in an electric Car will decrease the range by around 50% (depends just how fast), whilst the Manufacture will quote 250mile range that's at 27MPH average.
Zooming up a Motorway at 75MPH or more, very frightening to run out of juice and no juice equals no lights :o
Of course you will be able to take an hour's break whilst rapid charging the battery but be warned that rapid charging will depending just how rapid will deplete battery life by around 0.5 to 1% so by the time a Battery has been rapid charged 50 times the range of the battery will have fallen from 250miles to around 200 miles,
Treat a Battery kindly by giving slow overnight charge every time and the battery should outlast the car.

There are problems with rapid charging: the time it takes, the effect on batteries and at the moment the sparse charger network and the diversity of charging standards (though the industry seems to be slowly converging on the American CCS type). And range is of course stated under optimal conditions, just as it is for petrol and diesel vehicles. But what evidence do you have that the range is stated at 27mph? And it's simply incorrect that loss of motive power means no lights; most if not all EVs retain a standard 12V lead-acid battery for lights, radio, etc. Oh, and running out of volts doesn't in the motive power batteries doesn't mean grinding to a sudden halt; it means going into battery-saver 'tortoise' mode, a bit like the low fuel light blinking at you in an ICE car but with restricted speed to eke out the electrons.

I got the 27MPH average from the small print in a manufactures Brochure, I wish I could state which one but I looked at loads.

Agree that electric cars do not suddenly run out of fuel. There are numerous warnings and advice to slow down, and eventualy an enforced "tortoise mode" Lights are powered seperatly and remain operable for some hours.

And I hope that no one will be driving at 80 MPH on a motorway, is not the speed limit 70 MPH ?