Great Western Coffee Shop

Just read an article about the new "High" Speed trains in Kent. For most commuters, however, journey times are longer to get to the West End, Westminster or The City, as St Pancras is further away from Victoria, Charing Cross or Cannon Street respectively. They will have to take the Tube - adding time, money and stress.

Services on domestic lines are being reduced - as much as 60% in places. Semi-fast services are being AXED to get longer distance commuters onto the Javelin trains FORCING them to pay 35 % higher fares!

Most journeys from north Kent will be 1 minute slower (to a London terminus) than now (2 minutes slower than the 1960s).

Journeys from East Kent will be quicker, but ONLY is they pay the premium, otherwise they will be SLOWER and LESS FREQUENT.

Some commuters in London are angry that they have paid an EXTRA 8% to pay for a service in Kent which is the cause of a REDUCTION in service in London.

_{Source: thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23615659-details/140mph+Javelin+train+not+as+fast+as+it+seems/article.do}

What do people think. I hope the following occurs - no-one uses the Javelin:

- they either cram onto the normal trains, causing worse overcrowding - cue the press

- or the drive, causing even worse traffic congestion

until SE reinstate the axed services.

- and they perform a fares strike

until Southeastern reduce the fares to at least the same as a normal service.

Normally I am against fares strikes but this is different.

Commuters can barely afford to current prices. Commuters are happy with their hour long journey if they can afford it. They won't be happy with either a shorter or longer journey of they can't. SE are basically forcing many people to pay 35 % more.

I have a number of colleges who travel into Waterloo East to work who are being goaded into traveling to St Panc jet they work in Waterloo.

I am not sure what is going to happen to the SE stock I would not mind betting is going to be cascaded to elsewhere

But SE will find they need the stock.

Even if people grit their teeth and go on the Javelin, trains will fill up and cater for passenger growth.

And any rolling stock that happens to become free will be hoovered up by the Thameslink Programme!

Why all the fuss over the price rises.  This sort of thing has happened before for example london to reading is about twice the price from Paddington than Waterloo.

Season tickets on the East Coast are more expensive mile for mile than West Coast.  This reflects the superior service on the East Coast Mainline from its last upgrade.  The anomoly now is why they have not increased the West Coast Mainline season tickets now that it has been upgraded.

Its not the rises on their own, it is the fact that people are being forced to pay them, as normal services are being axed.

The row over this has been rumbling for several years now, since the SRA announced their original plans. Campaigners have had a fair degree of success in curbing some of the worst features of what was first proposed.

However, a number of stations will receive a drop in frequency of some description, and quite a drastic one in certain cases. CANBER will be keeping a close eye on how things pan out.

I am going to highlight three of our "ones to watch" :

EAST MALLING - Currently receives 1 train per hour to London Victoria and Maidstone East. However, nothing is shown off-peak from December 2009.

BELTRING and SWALE - Both stations were proposed for closure by the SRA. CANBER has a written undertaking from the DfT that they will not progress the closure plans. We will continue to monitor the situation closely, though.

Once again it appears that the DfT considers that we should all be grateful we get a train service at all and that they will run the services they want.

Somewhere on this board is very interesting thread on rail services and social engineering.

It concerned people who had based their work home journey on the through Bristol Oxford trains which were abrutly withdrawn one time table change.

Once again we see the DfT taking no account of the pattern of commuting that has grown up in Kent and has been suduced by being able to say we've got faster commuter trains than you to the World.

The fact that in provinding them totally disrupts the work home journey of thousands of people who have chosen to live and work where they do, to make use of exisitng services, doesn't come into the equation.

On smaller scale Crossrail will bring considerable disruption to people who now Commute from Twyford and stations westwards to Slough and stations to Ealing Broadway. Whereas they now have through trains after Craossrail tehy will have an enforced change at Maidenhead or Slough. 

Hopefully the Javlins will empty, which means, of course, we the taxpayer will have to compensate the TOC. Funny I thought privatisation was meant to pass the risk to the private sector.

 

No, because all public transport "improvements" in this country are to impress people who don't use them.

:D No it's meant to provide a guaranteed profit for the private sector, while the risk remains with the taxpayer. That's why privatisation has been so attractive to governments and their entrepreneurial friends for the last 30 years.

Can anyone tell me if any of the TOC's have ever posted an annual loss? All I ever hear about is profits, even in years where the operator in question has provided an abysmal service which can't even be blamed on the likes of Network Rail or God.

I, too, hope the Javelins run empty! ;D

Hopefully, commuters in Kent will start a campaign to persuade as many people as possible to avoid them.

Govia are using their monopoly (only company in/near Kent, and the roads are all jammed) to hike fares 35% and axe services. This should be illegal, and the only way we will stop them, is if commuters vote with their feet.

Hopefully this will give some food for thought to a number of people who uncritically support plans for high speed lines.

I think parent companies have (Sea Containers), but in practise the train operating end is protected by "Cap and Collar" arrangements:

http://www.canber.co.uk/?q=node/32

I believe this was part of their franchise commitment, if not set out in the specification for the franchise. So I don't think it's Govia who is to blame but (guess who), DaFT.

But I agree that what at first sight seemed a positive improvement now appears to be nothing but the sort.

 

Yes, fair enough, the blame may not lie with Govia/ SE.

But surely SE realise what is going to happen?

Yes they do know what's going to happen but they are not worried as the money will still roll in either from fare hikes and/or the taxpayer.

So not only is it absolutely impossible for a TOC to lose money, it's also impossible for them to make a decent profit. Running a franchise is only about ticking the necessary boxes to win future franchises, and protecting your tiny margin to pass onto the shareholders. But wasn't privatisation about the prospect of increased profit encouraging better services? Take that away and exactly what benefit is it supposed to bring??? If there's another theoretical justification then I'm afraid nearly 30 years of propaganda has failed to lodge it in my brain. ;)

So TOC's are like banks then -- too important to suffer the consequences of their mistakes and misjudgements like the rest of us.  ;D However, at least the government has bought a stake in the failing banks, whereas a failing TOC and its shareholders get to keep the subsidy.

Of course, I can see the downside of the letting a TOC go bust: the government would have no option but to take over running the franchise itself, which would be nationalisation, and might support the arguments of all those old skool socialists and liberals who still can't understand why privatisation is automatically the best possible solution to everything. And it's more important to marginalise your political opponents than to have decent public services.

As for the Javelins, they are a "flagship" project. They will be fast, they will probably look nice, and they will be the railway equivalent of the empty community centre on the edge of a deprived estate -- built to look good in a photocall with this week's Minister, and to impress people who don't need to use them. Meanwhile 99.9% of rush hour commuters are packed in like sardines in 40 year old carriages on slow unreliable lines.

The classic example of when action of this nature was taken is, ironically, Connex Southeastern (link below.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3024804.stm


Issues related to this discussion will undoubtably be raised at a meeting between Geoff Hoon and the CEO's on January 20 (link below.)
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3613.msg33274#msg33274

The government did not do this in the case of the Intercity East Coast franchise.  GNER continued to run it on a management contract until the government re-let the franchise.

Unfortunately, the Javelins will be running mostly on the unreliable lines too! :(

The SE stock is pretty modern (most is Electrostars i.e. 2000s). ;)

And for most people THEY WON'T BE FASTER.

Passenger Focus speak out against Southeastern fare rises (link below.)
http://www.kentnews.co.uk/kent-news/Campaign-gathers-steam-to-tackle-train-fare-hikes-newsinkent19599.aspx

An East Malling to London Anytime Single costs 13.90 (current figure). Distance is 35 miles - so that's 40p per mile in comparison to the 68p per mile Bath to Paddington (and some fares even higher) that we found in the South West:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=4141.0

But please note - I chose East Malling more or less at random - a station right in the middle of Kent with a whole series of commuter trains each morning into London and an hourly service through the day.  Ticket sales of around 100,000 per annum. So there MIGHT be other Kentish trips up to the same 68p or even 91p figures.

Once again, SE are justifying the sky high rises this year on the Javelins! I wonder if the stations in question in the article are to have service cuts?

Another article pointing out that people will begin to desert the railways and return to their cars as the cost of petrol falls. One really begins to wonder if this was a rail fare rise too far in terms of how much fares went up percentage wise at such a sensitive time where cost means a lot more than it used to. With an election looming in the next year and a half you can sure as bet the government wont be raising car tax either!

That's around 100,000 per annum, but no off-peak service shown from December 2009....

>:(

They are paying this year to have their daytime trains scrapped!

MP's attack fare rises on Southeastern in the Commons (link below.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1125061/Commuter-MPs-attack-rail-fare-price-hikes-stealth-tax.html?ITO=1490

HS1 is well worth the money. Eurostar has seen passenger numbers rise by 10+%. St Pancras is better located for the north of England which is a potentially massive market, meanwhile the South still has Ebbsfleet and Ashford. Its also worth noting that Eurostar will stop at Stratford for London 2012.

As well as the links to the Midlands and North, I believe St Pancras is considered a better location for central London than Waterloo.

Eurostar won't stop at Stratford (for some reason). ::)

Passengers will have to change onto a "Javelin" service to access the games.

Debatable.

Both are the same time to The City.

Waterloo is nearer Westminster and the West End.

Eurostar is a LOT less hassle than flying. It is less stressful, and a lot more pleasant than flying. It is still quicker for many people. And if it was extended to B'ham, it would definitely be quicker to take the train (3 hrs to centre of Paris).

St Pancras International is linked to St Pancras and Kings Cross domestic stations. It is very near Euston (for WCML).

It is also linked to 7 tube lines & Thameslink and will be one stop sway from Crossrail (Farringdon).

So there is no better place. Also:

Trains do not clog up the South London suburban lines.

Waterloo has more space (one platform already converted, others might be in future if they re-do all the tracks out of Waterloo).

It is European loading gauge all the way.

What other reasons do you want?

We're obviously not going to persuade you that HS1 was worth it. But if we hadn't built HS1, would we even be thinking about HS2, let alone 3,4 etc.  Relevant to FGW travellers,  KX is much more accessible than Waterloo.

I think in 20 years time, when passengers are regularly taking the train to Amsterdam and Frankfurt, we will recall the dark ages when 300kph trains used to trundle through Kent and South London at what became ever slower speeds as their train from the Continent approached Waterloo. And we will wonder why it took us 13 years to build our first HS line.