...but the users of Lumo and Hull Trains may well consider that First Group has done quite a good job. It is to be noted that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) does not have so much influence in staffing and expenditure in these two organisations as it does in the 'franchised' TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company).

And trains do not make up all of First Group's operations.

Oh, quite, I agree. But the subject was about Mayor Khan's implication that the only railway west of Paddington is the Elizabeth line, nowhere was any mention made that other operators use the Great Western Main Line as well. I repeat, his statement was simply show business.

I have. The article states

QUOTE
Between Monday and Thursday until March 28 there will be a reduced Elizabeth line service from Paddington from 9.30pm, with four trains an hour to Heathrow airport and two to Reading.
END QUOTE

This is neither very long - how much can be done in the next three weeks? - and only affects the stretch out to Maidenhead. Removing a couple of trains an hour to Heathrow and a couple of trains an hour to Maidenhead late at night is merely show business.

Khan is first and foremost a politician. As the infrastructure failures also affect all traffic on the Great Western Main Line it is, at best, disingenuous to imply that it’s only the Elizabeth line that is affected.

If he can imply that the blame for the failures lies with Network Rail the implication is that it’s actually the fault of the Government for being tight fisted. He is Labour and the Government is Conservative so why am I not surprised by his statement? He is also playing the ‘fares freeze’ game again. In January he announced that TfL^» (Transport for London - about)’s fares will be frozen for the current year, see this press release https://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-steps-and-announces-hell-freeze-tfl-fares-year-easing-cost-millions-londoners

What he doesn’t mention is that as a result there will be a shortfall in TfL’s income (again) which will inevitably result in another call on the Government for more support for TfL's investment programmes.

For what it’s worth I reckon that the Great Western has been undermaintained over the last fifteen years or so due to lack of engineering access caused by the Reading station rebuild, the construction of the extra flyovers at Stockley and the flyunder at Acton as well as the electrification work west of Airport Junction and transfer of the signalling control to Didcot. After a while all this deferred maintenance shows its ugly face and with the increase in the number of trains running getting onto the tracks to do stuff is getting more and more difficult.

If Khan was serious about getting the infrastructure more reliable he would meet Network Rail, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and the freight operators half way and offer to cut the number of trains operating dramatically in those hours when maintenance is possible.

If not, then it’s only grandstanding.

PS: The original electrification was not done on the cheap - it was designed and installed to cope with four multiple unit trains per hour in each direction. It worked as designed very well until the number of electrically powered trains rose dramatically.

I don't follow the conclusion. As HS2 will end at Handsacre Junction the journey times to points north will be longer than they otherwise would have been. This means that time savings made by routing via OOC rather than the existing routes will be less. The implication is that fewer people will route this way. So the original longer distance passenger flow assumptions will no longer be valid which calls into question why all main line, long distance trains should all stop at OOC. This conclusion is not applicable to the Elizabeth line services on the GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about) Relief Lines offering a suburban service along the Thames Valley.

An Act of Parliament enables the building of the railway - it does not, and never has done, require it to be built.

Your conclusion is incorrect.

The initial statement from the French Transport Minister about the success of the German ticket should not be taken at face value.

A report a couple of weeks ago on the German ZDF television network showed that while the €49 ticket increased the use of trains on those corridors already well served by trains it had little or no effect in moving people off the roads and onto public transport in those areas where the transport offering was limited in frequency or coverage.

As a way of promoting the general green agenda its effects are very, very limited.

I understood the story...


In the days of stage coaches the coaches stopped at 'stations', being a place on the road where the coaches stopped. Compare 'action stations' being the places on a warship where the sailors had to be in expectations of a battle.

When the first trains began to carry passengers the places where the trains stopped were also called 'stations' but to distinguish them from the much more common stage coach stations they were called 'railway stations'.

QED!

May I congratulate you on starting this thread, it is a subject that really does need closer examination.

I suspect that any changes in the service offered, in both train timetabling and ticketing, will take t i m e if the current political, financial and organisational stasis remains for much longer.

Stamina is called for!

I have commented on TfL^» (Transport for London - about)'s proposal and said that I have a National Rail Disabled Railcard. As you all know this permits me a reduced rate on both the mainline railway and the Tubes and buses in London. I don't have an Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) card and would have to use ‘contactless’ payment for my onward journey once I have reached Paddington or Waterloo.

Although contactless payment has a daily expenditure cap it will not possible to take advantage of the reduced rate for journeys within TfL’s area as it is not possible to link my Disabled Railcard to my bank card.

This is discriminatory and disadvantageous to those with disabilities. It seems to me that the proposal is, quite possibly, illegal and TfL should abandon it.

I also agree that Heathrow Express's demise may well be longer drawn out than is postulated at the moment.

This is a bit of an anecdote and it was all about a dozen years ago but I think it still has some relevance. Back then I had a contract in München which ran for a bit more than three years with the result that I travelled home to Reading every three to four weeks and I came to the conclusion that the reason slow access to airports is such a pain is that planes are so quick.

There is an hours time shift between the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and Germany and my work started at 7.30 on Monday morning; it takes a shade over an hour to fly from Heathrow to München wheels off to wheels down. There are two S-Bahn routes between the Airport and the Hbf, S1 and S8 and each one takes about 45 minutes; each has a twenty minute frequency so there is an all-stations S-Bahn train from the airport to the city every ten minutes but to get to Pasing to the west of Munich - where I had a flat - the shortest route was the S1 to Laim where I changed to a west-bound service with an additional delay of typically eight or ten minutes late on a Sunday evening. The last thing I wanted to do is to sit in Neufahrn or Ismaning stations at 22.50, having left home at about 16.00, knowing that I still had the best part of an hour to go before I reached Pasing and could get to bed.

Getting from the Münchener Flughafen to my bed took just as long, if not longer, than the flight from Heathrow to München. One leg was 35 km long and the other 950 km.

I would happily have paid extra for a fast train link to München, I frequently did pay for a taxi direct from the airport to my flat. Getting into bed an hour earlier was well worth the €30 or so it cost me instead of the €9 or €10 [1] that the S-Bahn cost - and I still had to pay for a taxi at Pasing from the station to my flat as by that time on a Sunday night that bus route no longer ran.

Travel is not always about doing it the cheapest way possible.

[1] Prices from a dozen years ago.

The main limitation in reducing journey times is that, as far as the Reading services are concerned, it is essentially a two track railway all the way to Waterloo. Track occupation from Staines eastwards is very high and combinations of the various service groups stop at all the stations.

The only way to speed up services from the outer areas is to

Four Track, Now!

So what is the point of it? Will the choice of site have an effect on the quality of the decisions emanating from it?

How self-centred..."We have made good progress in reviewing our expectations". Wow!

Waste of money and space.

Yes, I would like to add my congratulations on winning a well earned award. Demystifying public transport has to be a good thing for everybody.