Royal Mail

pgmetcalf · Post by **pgmetcalf** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 5:44 am

You will now be aware that Royal Mail are planning to stop deliveries by train. This means more than 160,000 more lorry journys per year not to mention job losses.

This could be a scare tatic though because EWS and Roymail Mail are dicussing new deals.

Paul

Post by **martinhodgson** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 9:11 am

No, its official http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2967564.stm

ianmacmillan · Post by **ianmacmillan** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 9:15 am

General feeling of traincrew is that royal mail is trying to reduce the price they pay to EWS. What would they do with the 325s that they own - sell them to a rival ?.
Big parcels companys are ready to jump in if they can force royal mail to share the terminals built before they were privatised and thus subsidised by the taxpayer.

Royal mail would be shooting themselves in the foot if they gave up rail and they are already limping since the Consignia farce.

buffy500 · Post by **buffy500** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:58 am

ianmacmillan wrote:General feeling of traincrew is that royal mail is trying to reduce the price they pay to EWS. What would they do with the 325s that they own - sell them to a rival ?.

Think EWS own them not the post office.

ogwilliam · Post by **ogwilliam** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 2:47 pm

it seems to make no sense do it? until a few salient facts become apparent...
Royal Mail/Post Office don't pay any VAT on their road vehicles (I think they don't pay any road tax either, but wouldn't want to stake my life on it)
The guy who runs the SRA used to run Virgin Trains, and is not exactly well desposed towards anything other than passengers running on the railways (hence entire Voyager debacle)
Government set daft targets in their 10 year transport plan when they were first elected, which cannot now be met due to a few problems (Prescott/Hatfield/incompetence/Virgin, but maybe I'm just cynical)
So, end result - Royal Mail DO get cheaper delivery costs, but at the expense of everything else.
Does anyone really think that the M6 (to name but one) can handle any more road journeys by 38 tonners? The only reason it is cheaper to go by road/rail is because of tax advantages mentioned above.
If I remember rightly, EWS/Royal Mail just forked out for some dedicated EMU's, nicely painted up in red, for exactly this purpose. These cannot be over a couple of years old. If they are leased from EWS I imagine they are not exactly ecstatic about the costs involved in converting them back.

However, as correspondent on the same post notes, all of Royal Mail's competitors will be laughing their heads off, and hopefully will take advantage. Fact remains, Royal Mail are not exactly known for their management nous, (hence "Consignia" anyone remember them?), so maybe what is deserved is coming to them?

Somehow I suspect not, I suspect the main sufferers will be the Post Office staff who work on the TPO's, and the EWS staff who presumably work stupidly unsociable hours servicing and driving the trains themselves. The management will get away scot free for their incompetence as ever. However conservative estimates at least 500 job losses at the moment speak for themselves. This is AFTER EWS reduced the cost of the service by over 20% over the last couple of years.

Unfortunately, I suspect this will not get the coverage, (or the importance) it deserves. Most people (Radio 5 this morning for one) take things like this rather lightly. They couldn't even be sure who wrote the "Night Mail" poem, a classic of English literature. How quaint. (It was W H Auden, in case anyone isn't sure).

Forgive the polemic, but stuff like this gets me angry. And no-one in government gives a monkey's. Quite obviously. And Alistair Darling has already said that the decision is "beyond the SRA's authority". But then he would say that, wouldn't he?

Anyone want to fight the government (and Royal Mail's) corner, please stand up now - I'm sure we'll all be really glad to hear what you have to say.

Heaven help us all - the accountants really do run the country now.

mikey2001 · Post by **mikey2001** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 5:00 pm

I couldnt believe this story when I first heard it. I mean, its not that long since those Class 325 EMUs were introduced and what use are they for anything else now? It seems such a waste.

Post by **martinhodgson** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 5:03 pm

mikey2001 wrote:I couldnt believe this story when I first heard it. I mean, its not that long since those Class 325 EMUs were introduced and what use are they for anything else now? It seems such a waste.

Well according to the BBC, other couriers are interestewd, so they could be repainted into another mail companies colours. Alternatively, EWS may repaint them into EWS colours and use them for logistics transport or something like that. Or they could possibly convert them to passenger use.

mattvince · Post by **mattvince** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 5:22 pm

It is outrageous, this decision calls into question the Royal Mail's environmental policy more than anything else. I wonder how RM will do in performance terms in a year or so's time. If EWS's own operations are vastly better in reliability than RM's road and air, then I can see the RM's bosses going "oops!".

As for the 325s, either EWS use them for 'logistics'/parcels operations, or they get converted to passenger units, and sent to FNW (who despatch their 323s to Central - 16 4-car sets replacing 17 3-car ones).

mikey2001 · Post by **mikey2001** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 5:26 pm

mattvince wrote:It is outrageous, this decision calls into question the Royal Mail's environmental policy more than anything else. I wonder how RM will do in performance terms in a year or so's time. If EWS's own operations are vastly better in reliability than RM's road and air, then I can see the RM's bosses going "oops!".

As for the 325s, either EWS use them for 'logistics'/parcels operations, or they get converted to passenger units, and sent to FNW (who despatch their 323s to Central - 16 4-car sets replacing 17 3-car ones).

Hmm, might be interesting travelling on a converted postal train!

dderek · Post by **dderek** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 5:43 pm

Royal Mail are under a lot presure from postwatch and the goverment to make money even though they have had years of the goverment plundering their profits with the introduction of competition they need to make savings where ever they can. They have made a detailed study and restructured their transport system into a hub and spoke system which will cut the amount of journeys that have to be made.

nwallace · Post by **nwallace** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 8:03 pm

Doubt it would be noticed up here by many.

Anything going far seems to be collected somewhere then shoved on a plane.

And if they are intending on expanding the flying of mail then that may mean that London->birmingham->Manchester->Glasgow stuff would be sorted then shoved on a plane, flown up then shoved on another plane or carted off in a truck.

Pretty sure Edinburgh->inverness is flown (a plane ditched in the forth a wee whiel ago)

Im not saying that it's right that the TPO is being scrapped jsut saying that in some areas it's hardly going to be noticed.

How much does running a TPO from London to MAnchester compare to flying it up then shifting to a lorry?

ThinLizzy · Post by **ThinLizzy** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 8:08 pm

One of the reasons site for the with drawl, is the delays to the trains en route. They said, although the on board staff had done their job {ie the mail was sorted and ready to go} it couldnt be disturbed due to the trains arriving after the post men and women have started their rounds.
I expect Royal mail will get snapped back into line by somebody, if not, their will soon feel stupid when somebody else makes a fortune from the operation they dropped.
As for stock, i would of thought it was owned by one of the rolling stock leasing companies?

ThinLizzy · Post by **ThinLizzy** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 8:56 pm

Somebody mentioned about the staff.
There are very close knit, and the same staff stay on the same duty for years, its a much sort after job {excuse the pun}, and many people have spent most of their working lives on those trains, so i imagine the reduntancy money is quite high.

exshunter · Post by **exshunter** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 9:36 pm

seeing as i have worked for RM for the last 8 years i can confirm that we are up the creek without a paddle.i think that at the end of the last financial year(april 03)RM announced a loss of something like 130 million.part of the blame has to go to sloppy managment,buying into . foriegn postal/parcel firms,and as for the consignia name farce,did you know they paid some plonker half a million to come up with this name, that sounds like a bloody shower gel.apparently any new vehicles for RM ie vans will now be leased and not purchased,theres talk of scrapping second deliveries and the last i heard is the tpo will be going.

but you never know with RM next week could be a totally different story!

rant over

ThinLizzy · Post by **ThinLizzy** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 9:43 pm

Its funny this sotry has only just borken. It was in the rail news this month, and i was reading that wednesday at least, i dunno when the edition was put in the mess room.