Great Western Coffee Shop

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8354358.stm

If this story is completely accurate, I'm not sure what's more depressing - the fact that NR apparently hasn't heard of group travel rates/savers/advance tickets etc or the fact that it allows this sort of publicity to get out!

Can't imagine you could get an allocation of 200 advance tickets on a Voyager.

For 200 pax they could have hired a train - always assuming they could give the operator a path!

Yes it is depressing.  Though without knowing where they were going in Coventry, might they have needed coaches at the other end, which would have added to the rail cost.

Network Rail staff sent to Coventry......there's a joke in there somewhere  ;)

Network Rail is its own ticket agent, that is it has ticket printing machines in larger offices like travel agents do.  We have to use rail as a first choice of travel.  The location they are traveling to I suspect is Network Rails Management, Business and Leadership center at Westwood nearest station is Tile Hill.  I have attended a National meeting of Electrification and Plant at Westwood basically we filled two coaches of train going and coming back as we have tickets issued with seat reservations just like anyone else who gets a ticket in advance public fair paying customers we standing.

I can not comment on this particular groups arrangement they may have used the travel company we use to book hotels etc to arrange the travel (this company also does rail tickets for us for offices that don't have ticket issuing machines) and would do the cheapest deal as that is what their service contract requires them to do.

It is important to note that Network Rail does not get free travel on the network it pays the full fair, potty I know but thats how it is.

Coach will always be the best way for large groups of people to travel. Perfectly understandable decision, BBC ought to think before it publishes a load of dribble.

Quite - something my company takes into account.  One or two of us travelling to London we get the train.  5 or 6 we get a taxi, 20 or 30 we hire a coach.  Entirely sensible.

That's a bit defeatest there, Devon Metro.  If you can get the capacity on the train and the right fares, and you're not going far from the station at the other end, train is best.

It can be done - though of course I'll admit, it can be tricky on the busiest routes.  As has been said, 200 from Reading to Coventry would have meant a special train or Voyager added to a service train (yes, I know that's not at all easy).

I hope they at least tried to do it by train and am disappointed the quote blamed the supposed difference in cost.   

This is quite well timed - at the moment I am reading a book called "Global Warming and Other Bollocks" - there is a very interesting chapter, "Road versus Rail", in there, comparing car, coach and rail travel. Well recommended.

To be quite honest it is very difficult to put up a really cogent argument against many of the points made in this book about rail transport.

"........and ...........the sentimentality surrounding the great age of (extraordinarily dirty) steam, have elevated rail to a kind of religion, virtually beyond criticism, failing only because of man's failure"

Don't get me wrong ! I like travelling by train and hate coaches - BUT - give me another couple of inches legroom, a straight, fast run into (say) Temple Meads down a tarmac'd over old railway line ....................


discuss !..........

3000 people die every year on UK roads.  About 3000 passengers have ever died on the UK's railways (including during the early period where it was a lot less safe than it is now).

IMHO, this is the strongest arguement in favour of rail over road (that and the fact that a rail passenger can stretch his legs, read a book, do some work, have a pint or a meal none ofwhich a car driver can do)

Richard B makes an interesting point abut adding an extra Voyager onto a normal service train.

In BR loco haules days extra coaches were often added to service trains to cater for large parties. These were taken from a pool of coaches most large carriage siding had up ther sleeve.

When Beeching did his audit BR were rightly criticised for having ovr 5000 + coaches that only moved a few times a year. Now we seem to have gone to other extreme and have less coaches/trains than the total service requires hence all the cancellations due to shortage of stock.

Whilst 5000 extra would be excessive 1 or 3 totally spare units sets in each fleet would firstly ensure the total service can be run when there unexpected breakdowns and provide extra capacity  when required for parties such as this.

Having totally spare units will also impiove maintenace and reliability of the whole fleet as there will be more time in the depot to do more through maintenace rather than hasty patches to get the train back in service.

Hull trains proved this when their fleet of 5 (1 spare) Meridians which recorded the highest miles per failure of any DEMU fleet was reduced to 4 the reliability fell dramatically.

Ordering spare units in teh initial order also caters for growth further down the line.

The trouble is the " bean counters" can't do the sums and only see under utilised assets.

I agree with you eightf, but it is slightly more complicated (or rather the way the bean-counters count their beans is more complicated).

When BR brought new stock it was depreciated in their accounts over a fixed period of time (typically 20 or 30 years).  This meant that stock older than that was effectively "already paid-for" and there was no cost associated with using it other than maintenance, fuel, crewing etc.  Now stock is owned by the ROSCOs.  Although the rental on old stock is lower than for new stock it is still significant (a cynic might suggest that the ROSCOs do this not only to make more money but to make the purchase and use of more profitable new stock more attractive to the TOCs). 

Also keeping spare units must but much more expensive than a few old coaches.  A unit will need regular maintenaince in storage or you will find that it will not start when needed.  An old coach (especially one without modern improvemnts like retenstion toilets, push button doors, SDO, passenger information displays etc) doesn't cost half as much to store. 

BUT on a positive note, there is a reasonable amount of old but still decent stock in storage or light use.  It is owned by the charter companies and could (and sometimes is) pressed into use a lowish cost for "specials".  The problem is really the demise of loco and coach working, because you can no longer just couple an extra couple of carriages on. 

I'm afraid, just as the bit I quoted said, sentimentality is taking over from sense. Most people want to get from A to B, in a sensible combination of speed, comfort and price - not many want to read a book, or whatever, on route. Look at the figures, people vote with their feet (wheels) - even on long distance journeys the car wins on popularity, hands down. Journeys of 350 miles +: Cars 42%, Air 39% and train 12%. On shorter journeys, air drops hugely to 5%, trains increase to 14%, coaches are at 8%, the car is at 72%.

Another problem with the rail network is that 70% of journeys are made within London and the South East. These numbers are then used within the UK-wide context and give exaggerated and skewed figures.

On the subject of deaths, you are not comparing like with like. If I decide to commit suicide by standing in the middle of the M4, that is a "road death" and is added to the 3000 odd that die on the roads every year.
If I stand in the middle of the main line from Paddington, that doesn't appear as a "passenger" death (which you quote), it probably doesn't even appear as a railway death of any sort except in detailed figures.

"Every year about 200 people choose to die on the railways - a further 50 kill themselves on the London Underground." (RSSB figs)

Rail is about 6 times safer than travelling by car - BUT air is 10 times safer than rail. Strong argument to fly more ?

Perhaps most telling all - an excerpt from Hansard 16 Jan 2001:

"Railway Accidents

Mr. Bradshaw: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what the annual average figure was of serious injuries and deaths on the railways per passenger mile travelled in the two decades preceding privatisation; and what has been the annual average figure since privatisation. [144823]

Mr. Hill: This information can be provided only at disproportionate cost."

This would appear to make even the passenger death figures somewhat suspect.

BR were not allowed depreciation by the DoT they BR had to fund the full cost of new stock, but having said that BR did have spare stock, the current franchise system does actively encourage the only just enough stock after all the share holders will only fund to the point where they get the maximum return

Before we start tossing statistics around, you need to be absolutely clear what you are using as your measure of "safety". In particular, when comparing rail versus aviation safety, are you referring to deaths per passenger mile or per passenger journey? This is a vital distinction - because of the sheer length of most journeys taken by air, the "deaths per passenger mile" statistic for aviation is very low. Further, you also need to be absolutely clear about the time-period to which your statistics refer, since they may not reflect current rail safety performance (which has improved hugely in the last ten years or so).

I'd find it pretty startling if you're claiming that aviation is ten times safer than rail on the basis of deaths per passenger journey.

Flinging those sorts of numbers around is a dangerous game, especially when you don't actually explain what figures you're quoting or give enough information for them to be critically evaluated and put into a context.

Thank you  Inspector -  that was exactly my point with Tim's previous post, I quote:-

"3000 people die every year on UK roads.  About 3000 passengers have ever died on the UK's railways" (my highlighting) - hardly a realistic comparison.

Even you are doing the same to some extent:- "rail safety performance (which has improved hugely in the last ten years or so" Not on level crossings it hasn't ! As Chris from Nailsea pointed out quite recently it has got markedly worse since 2003.

You are quite right about air safety - my figures were per million passenger miles (lies, damned lies and statistics !); but as I said, most rail journeys (70% in SE) are of relatively short distance, but by quoting absolute figures or deaths per journey the end figures are distorted.
Aviation must be unique, in that the longer the journey, the safer you are, using some methods of calculation.

By the way, I didn't raise the subject of rail deaths in the first place - just commenting on a book that raised some interesting points about transport in general.

Finally: would anyone have commented had I just said that rail was 6 times safer than a car and left out the bit about air ? I am inclined to think not    ;)

The point is - in a car, you are somewhat in control of your own destiny - on a plane, bus or train, you trust the driver.  I cannot be a passenger in a car - I'm not noticeably anxious but unless I am sitting behind the wheel, I get very very very sick.  Its a control thing. 

Now - apart from passengers who are non-participating - I would guess (although it is non PC) that 99.9% of other deaths on the railway only have the deceased to blame.  So these can be discounted from the figures.

Fatality - dont jump
Level crossing - use common sense
Mashed brats - learn railways are dangerous before its too late

In 99.9% of cases, it is NOT the railway that is the cause but the deceased - although I guess telling the parents of a squished teenager they only have themselves to blame is probably not done therefore will skew the figures as someone else has to be blamed.

Not quite true, as a driver of a car you are reliant on the other drivers to do what you think they should be doing and them not misinterpreting what you are doing - - - all very random

]

But you have the ability to react to it!

I totally agree with what you are saying but you seem to be missing the point.

The original statement was NOT comparing like with like -  road "people" are NOT rail "passengers".  In 2007 the total killed on Britain's road was 2964 - for a start, 646 were pedestrians, to re-use your statement "so these can be discounted from the figures". BUT these were NOT discounted in the original quotation - so it would be quite correct to include suicides, level crossings etc in the rail figures to obtain a valid comparison.

Ok statistics are a mess and distorted by what you are measuring (deaths per mile, per hour, per journey) and FA has made a good case for discounting suicides and people who kill themselves by being down right stupid (although I dislike her arguement that risk in a car is lower because the driver is in control - you only have an illusion of control and i'd much rather hand my life over to a well trained train driver (and accompanying safety systems such as signalling) than trust my own limited car driving abilities and those of teh otehr idiots on the road. 

The air vs rail comparison is also misleading I think because IIRC the air industry only counts deaths of passengers during flights whereas if you fall down an escalator at a station and kill yourself you will be counted as a railway death.  According to Eurostat in 2004 1,450 people were killed on the EU's railways 9excluding suicides).  But only 62 of them were passengers.  Most of the rest were trespassers, level crossing (ab)users and track workers and shunters. 

BUT whatever way you slice the stats, air and rail are safer than road and a reducion in road traffic and an increase in rail traffic would be expected to save lives.  Lives saved are considered when analysis cost-benefit of buildig a new (safer) road or upgrading a dangerous road.  the same consideration shoudl be factored into rail investment.   

You are right when it came to buying new trains.  but am I not correct in thinking that when carrying out a C:B analysis for an proposed new service, BR ignored the capital cost of the stock if teh proposal involved using old stock that was regarded as already "paid for"?