It's curtains for South West Trains

[salopiangrowler]

hey you had me going there i thought SWT had shut down !

I wouldnt be suprised the franchise is up for tendering.

[mattvince]

Although, if Stagecoach lose the re-tender (particularly to LastGroup), there will be a lot of 'opinion formers' who will be very irate.

[AlanP46]

I think if they lost it they'd be given something else instead - like when Virgin lost the Lottery and gained a lot of extra cash for the WC / XC upgrades.

TBH, I hope that eventually competition is introduced properly - if Virgin had some competitors they'd probably start looking at the overcrowing problems. As it is no-one can come close to competing...

[mattvince]

The trouble with Virgin is that under the current Management Contract, Cross-Country can barely buy a pencil sharpener without asking Sir Humphrey first! All the methods of solving capacity (like the 5th car in 220s) have been thwarted by SRA/DfT/Treasury. I've often suspected that the mandarins in Whitehall cannot cope with the concept of a 'growing railway', and are trying their upmost to return to the 'far more satisfactory' position of 'managed decline'.

[AlanP46]

The trouble with Virgin is that under the current Management Contract, Cross-Country can barely buy a pencil sharpener without asking Sir Humphrey first! All the methods of solving capacity (like the 5th car in 220s) have been thwarted by SRA/DfT/Treasury. I've often suspected that the mandarins in Whitehall cannot cope with the concept of a 'growing railway', and are trying their upmost to return to the 'far more satisfactory' position of 'managed decline'.

Well yes and no. The Virgin parent company *could* go ahead and take a risk by purchasing additional carriages themselves. Seems unlikely though since they take back a whacking great subsidy home every month.

I think they'd need to do a lot more than just buy an extra car for the 220s to solve capacity problems.

The railway has lost too much flexibility; down to accountants running it rather than railway engineers.

[mattvince]

Well yes and no. The Virgin parent company *could* go ahead and take a risk by purchasing additional carriages themselves. Seems unlikely though since they take back a whacking great subsidy home every month.

I think they'd need to do a lot more than just buy an extra car for the 220s to solve capacity problems.

But they can't - the management contract is very restrictive, as the expenditure will be on the 'Virgin Cross-Country' books either way. Secondly, with less than 12 months left on the franchise, no-one in their right mind will be able to justify £34m+ in buying extra coaches - which won't be delivered until after the franchise has ended. The ROSCO, Angel Trains, would have to be the one ordering the vehicles, in order have them under similar arrangements for maintenance, and to avoid all other sorts of 'contractual difficulties'. AT would then also have to charge higher lease costs/unit, which is what will appear on Cross-Country's books. Extra cars would be one part, adding to the Voyager fleet to number some 90 units would be another.

The railway has lost too much flexibility; down to accountants running it rather than railway engineers.

Railway Engineers are all well and good - but tend to have no idea when it comes to filling seats. The people running the railway should be the marketing types - those who know what 'we' the 'customer' want, and how much we're prepared to pay for it, and who can balance that with what the railway can offer.

[AlanP46]

The railway has lost too much flexibility; down to accountants running it rather than railway engineers.

Railway Engineers are all well and good - but tend to have no idea when it comes to filling seats. The people running the railway should be the marketing types - those who know what 'we' the 'customer' want, and how much we're prepared to pay for it, and who can balance that with what the railway can offer.

Marketing perhaps but accountants no. As pretty much a "normal" passenger these days the trains I take are usually 90-100% (or close) full in standard class. The exceptions tend to be odd workings like the 1642 Rugby - Holyhead (starts at Euston but dunno when) which often seems to be full apart from the quiet coach. I've also been on trains where most of the floor space has been filled with either a passenger or their baggage. But still West Coast doesn't make money - which to me says whoever is running it now still doesn't have the right formula.

AFAIK, IC West Coast was returning a profit when Virgin took it over; albeit using old stock.

I think the railway definatly needs to be deregulated as far as competition is concerned regardless as to the length of franchises. Virgin must compete against HMV etc... on the high street, why does it get a monopoly for the WC franchise? NWT tried to compete (ish - so many "hackrounds", to use a computing term) but got squeezed off...

[mattvince]

Marketing perhaps but accountants no. As pretty much a "normal" passenger these days the trains I take are usually 90-100% (or close) full in standard class. The exceptions tend to be odd workings like the 1642 Rugby - Holyhead (starts at Euston but dunno when) which often seems to be full apart from the quiet coach. I've also been on trains where most of the floor space has been filled with either a passenger or their baggage. But still West Coast doesn't make money - which to me says whoever is running it now still doesn't have the right formula.

AFAIK, IC West Coast was returning a profit when Virgin took it over; albeit using old stock.

I think the railway definatly needs to be deregulated as far as competition is concerned regardless as to the length of franchises. Virgin must compete against HMV etc... on the high street, why does it get a monopoly for the WC franchise? NWT tried to compete (ish - so many "hackrounds", to use a computing term) but got squeezed off...

The trouble with that is that it presents two totally conflicting 'ideologies': compete in the market (TOC v TOC) or compete for the market (franchising). And to rubbish that: what is the market - for rail travel, or for transport in general? And if they are to compete against each other, what does that do for the concept of 'National Rail'? I'm not against open access per se, but I think you can't do it in the same way as the planned outcome of the 1985 deregulation of the buses: in fact, is that actually what you want - reference to recent bus ridership figures: down everywhere but London. Operators like Hull Trains have a place, opening up niches, but I think you need an over-arching structure which ensures that an established network still functions like a network. Moreover, the one thing which buses (possibly excepting London) don't have to deal with is capacity of the infrastructure, and maximising the efficient use of track capacity is something which big franchises do better - if given the freedom to do so by Sir Humphrey.

To take a left-hook at Bowker: the problems really start when you have Economists running the railway!

[AlanP46]

The trouble with that is that it presents two totally conflicting 'ideologies': compete in the market (TOC v TOC) or compete for the market (franchising). And to rubbish that: what is the market - for rail travel, or for transport in general? And if they are to compete against each other, what does that do for the concept of 'National Rail'? I'm not against open access per se, but I think you can't do it in the same way as the planned outcome of the 1985 deregulation of the buses: in fact, is that actually what you want - reference to recent bus ridership figures: down everywhere but London. Operators like Hull Trains have a place, opening up niches, but I think you need an over-arching structure which ensures that an established network still functions like a network. Moreover, the one thing which buses (possibly excepting London) don't have to deal with is capacity of the infrastructure, and maximising the efficient use of track capacity is something which big franchises do better - if given the freedom to do so by Sir Humphrey.

To take a left-hook at Bowker: the problems really start when you have Economists running the railway!

It's a difficult problem I know. To simplify extremely though; the only TOC returning money to the government has been GNER which does have to compete with Hull Trains and potentially Grand Central (well, maybe).
I'd like to see Midland Mainline (again) run from Manchester to St Pancras again. Its not as quick as Virgin but it would open up new opportunities... I can't see how a £202 fare is value for money, especially since that doesn't even seem to cover the cost of running the franchise.

Virgin definately doesn't make good use of it's paths when it's running lots of trains that are only 4 coaches long - If the SR practice of joining and splitting trains was used more (seems to work on the SR) perhaps they could revist the places they've cut out of the timetable. For example, the Euston - Holyhead could run as a 10 car Voyager to Crewe, then split with one heading for Holyhead and one for somewhere else.

The bus stats aren't quite as simple as it seems. I remember a huge discussion/arguement about the Routemasters on this board and the following fact came up:

The only non-subsidised 24 hour bus service isn't in London. It's actually in Norwich

.

Bus figures vary depending on where you go. Largely, the branches have been pruned and the trunks expanded rather like the railway. Interestingly, the student buses in Manchester can charge £2 per week and still make money - these tickets include night services. But here in Rugby, the best bus service is once every 12 minutes. A ten quid bus ticket will get me all over, erm, Rugby. Back at home in North Manchester, during the last bus timetable change they pruned a lot of services, and also made some journeys rather unviable.
To get to my favourite pub now involves a 6 mile journey rather than 2½ miles, because the bus that went over hill doesn't run after 6... and et al.

Same with the Oldham loop service. Come leaf fall they butcher the timetable for no apparent reason.

Apparently leaves don't affect the 0620 Rochdale - Victoria, or the 0700 (as these run as they do all summer). But the 1825 Victoria - Rochdale via Oldham runs faster. And after 7 it reverts to pre-leaf fall timetables. Leaves don't fall on Sundays either(!)

All in all that kind of behaviour just makes people give up using the train.

[mattvince]

It's a difficult problem I know. To simplify extremely though; the only TOC returning money to the government has been GNER which does have to compete with Hull Trains and potentially Grand Central (well, maybe).
I'd like to see Midland Mainline (again) run from Manchester to St Pancras again. Its not as quick as Virgin but it would open up new opportunities... I can't see how a £202 fare is value for money, especially since that doesn't even seem to cover the cost of running the franchise.

Thameslink also ran at a premium, and until FirstGroup took over, so did Thames Trains - both of which had to compete against other franchised operators (MML and FGW). The return of 'Rio' services would be 'sort of' nice, however I think it was very marginal on capacity over the Hope Valley (absolute block signalling - gotta love the headways!). Fares are something else - the trouble is, the business types are filling up Standard Class (and on expenses), forcing the SC fares up - Giving business pasengers knock-down FC fares might put them back in the proper end of the train - allowing more room for SC passengers - and dropping the SC fares.

Virgin definately doesn't make good use of it's paths when it's running lots of trains that are only 4 coaches long - If the SR practice of joining and splitting trains was used more (seems to work on the SR) perhaps they could revist the places they've cut out of the timetable. For example, the Euston - Holyhead could run as a 10 car Voyager to Crewe, then split with one heading for Holyhead and one for somewhere else.

Where would you balance the other set to? If that, it could run to Liverpool, Blackpool or perhaps Bolton. But I don't really see five paths/day/direction being that much of a capacity problem. Splitting/Joining on long-distance creates problems of its own - it's a huge performance risk: waiting for a delayed portion, delayed combined sets creating 'TOC on TOC' delays on two routes, and the problems with coupling sets up.

The bus stats aren't quite as simple as it seems.

In some areas, bus travel has gone up, where there has been a concerted effort by the main operator to take on the car - with high-quality buses running frequently at attractive fares: hence Oxford and Brighton - is it a coincidence that Go-Ahead runs both?! Equally, where the operator has been atrocious, like LastGroup, numbers have dropped.

Same with the Oldham loop service. Come leaf fall they butcher the timetable for no apparent reason.

Apparently leaves don't affect the 0620 Rochdale - Victoria, or the 0700 (as these run as they do all summer). But the 1825 Victoria - Rochdale via Oldham runs faster. And after 7 it reverts to pre-leaf fall timetables. Leaves don't fall on Sundays either(!)

All in all that kind of behaviour just makes people give up using the train.

PPM does plummet on certain routes in the Leaf Fall - I know that on my local line, during the Autumn, the Class 323s will do atrociously - slipping away from stations. However, sometimes I do think the leaf-fall is an excuse to massage the PPM figures on routes which have timetables which are simply unworkable. Careful application of the 'Mark Hopwood Effect', or, where necessary, a full 'Haines/Eccles Transformation' should yield far better PPMs than simply fudging in the Autumn. And those 323s? Fit the damn things with Eddy Current Brakes!

[AlanP46]

Blackpool would be a nice idea since it lost all long distance services since privatisation. Perhaps even Manchester via Wilmslow. I think since the pendolinos came in some areas have lost seats - I'm fairly sure that that Glasgow's and Liverpools were hourly before, now the trains are just shorter.

I'm impressed Silverlink / CT are allowed to run a Liverpool - Euston service. Shame it's limited to one a day!

The majority of the buses run in North Manchester are LastGroup so no surprise the numbers are decreasing there. I'm never sure about Stagecoach as they seem to do an OK job in Manchester - lots of new double deckers running fairly frequent services.

Oldham loop being run with 142s its actually better to run more services. As they found in the early 90s the faster runs help improve the reliability of the units (gearboxes got less trashed), and also because of the limited number of powering axles the more trains to clear the must the better. 142s are fitted with clasp brakes which does help a bit.