What would PerfectRail cost?

[6Gman]

This site is full of people calling for various rail improvements, such as:

1. Strengthening existing services;
2. Enhancing existing frequencies;
3. Introducing new services;
4. Replacing existing stock;
5. Building new infrastructure.

This would create what I term PerfectRail.

But what would it cost?

Just as a starter - some new Class 172s to replace the following:

142s - c.£250M
143s - c.£65M
144s - c.£70M
150/1s - c.130M

That's half a billion just for starters!

 

[HSTEd]

Half a billion really isn't that much on today's railway where everything costs absurd amount of money.
£1bn buys you something like 330 2-car Class 172s.
That replaces all the Pacers, all the Class 153s and 155s on a unit-for-unit basis and a substantial fraction of the 150s.

 

[route:oxford]

That's half a billion just for starters!

So about the same as sorting out Reading station.

 

[daccer]

It does seem that the vast majority of complaints centre around pacers and Voyagers. So get rid of the Pacers and get Voyagers onto services for which four and five cars are more suitable and we should all be happy. Yeah right! we will just find something else to moan about. Weird how despite all the indications being that passenger satisfaction is growing we can find something to moan about whatever is done.

 

[6Gman]

It does seem that the vast majority of complaints centre around pacers and Voyagers. So get rid of the Pacers and get Voyagers onto services for which four and five cars are more suitable and we should all be happy. Yeah right! we will just find something else to moan about. Weird how despite all the indications being that passenger satisfaction is growing we can find something to moan about whatever is done.

Well, just going by threads I've looked at recently PerfectRail would also require:

Strengthening in Leeds, Bolton, Exeter, much of ATW;
New services in Lincolnshire;
Various curves in the Burscough area;
A Skelmersdale station;
Toilet-fitted trains along the Sussex coast

and doubtless many more .....

 

[Carlisle]

Well, just going by threads I've looked at recently PerfectRail would also require:

Strengthening in Leeds, Bolton, Exeter, much of ATW;
New services in Lincolnshire;
Various curves in the Burscough area;
A Skelmersdale station;
Toilet-fitted trains along the Sussex coast

and doubtless many more .....

What's so special about the Sussex Coast ,why not have toilet fitted trains on Merseyrail ,all SPT network ,Great Northern and Great Eastern suburban srevices and London Overground

 

[Moonshot]

It does seem that the vast majority of complaints centre around pacers and Voyagers. So get rid of the Pacers and get Voyagers onto services for which four and five cars are more suitable and we should all be happy. Yeah right! we will just find something else to moan about. Weird how despite all the indications being that passenger satisfaction is growing we can find something to moan about whatever is done.

If ever there was a post that summed up attitudes towards public services, then this is it. Time and time again how often do you hear " I ve paid my taxes so I m entitled to it " etc......I used to work for the NHS a few years ago, and I never ceased to be amazed at what people complained about.

 

[Bevan Price]

Half a billion really isn't that much on today's railway where everything costs absurd amount of money.
£1bn buys you something like 330 2-car Class 172s.
That replaces all the Pacers, all the Class 153s and 155s on a unit-for-unit basis and a substantial fraction of the 150s.

But that just repeats the current problem. One and two car dmus are simply inadequate (too small) for many of the services on which they are used.

Units not displaced by electrification will all have to be replaced - sometime. The major questions are:-
When ?
With what ?
How much will this cost ?

Followed by:-
Would more electrification be a better option than buying new dmus for some of the lines not currently in electrification projects ?

Some big decisions will need to be made from 2018 onwards (Pacer replacement), and then around 2025 to 2030 (start of 15x replacement.)

(And forget about Voyagers, etc., ever finding their way onto local services - too expensive to run, and seating/door layouts unsuitable for such work.)

 

[Carlisle]

The class 180s (a bit similar to voyagers) found themselves on local work for a few years with Northern Rail

 

[Manchester77]

The class 180s (a bit similar to voyagers) found themselves on local work for a few years with Northern Rail

Manchester to Preston / Blackpool is hardly local work!

 

[HSTEd]

But that just repeats the current problem. One and two car dmus are simply inadequate (too small) for many of the services on which they are used.

Units not displaced by electrification will all have to be replaced - sometime. The major questions are:-
When ?
With what ?
How much will this cost ?

Followed by:-
Would more electrification be a better option than buying new dmus for some of the lines not currently in electrification projects ?

Well in my own opinion one or even two additional HOOP trains (plus supporting teams) should assembled and we should aim for total electrification inside 30 years.

So any DMU fleet has to be purchased now and they will be the last DMUs in service at the end, probably having to do the last years of service as departmental units or abroad.

 

[Carlisle]

Manchester to Preston / Blackpool is hardly local work!

No I appreciate it's not quite Stourbridge jct-town but it's not the long distance work they were primarily made for either

 

[Moonshot]

A point was made on this thread about peoples answers to "Perfect Rail" invariably involve rolling stock or infrastructure etc, but this is bound to happen on this forum in general anyway. If you were to ask the same question of someone such as an economist, liberal politician or some sort of social scientist, that answer would be different. One such answer would be a rail network completely free from government influence and taxpayer support......

 

[Greenback]

If ever there was a post that summed up attitudes towards public services, then this is it. Time and time again how often do you hear " I ve paid my taxes so I m entitled to it " etc......I used to work for the NHS a few years ago, and I never ceased to be amazed at what people complained about.

The railways ar eno longe rrun as a public service. That said, many people probably think they are! Which is undoubtedly part of the problem!

A point was made on this thread about peoples answers to "Perfect Rail" invariably involve rolling stock or infrastructure etc, but this is bound to happen on this forum in general anyway. If you were to ask the same question of someone such as an economist, liberal politician or some sort of social scientist, that answer would be different. One such answer would be a rail network completely free from government influence and taxpayer support......

I agree that everyone's view of what 'PerfectRail' is would be different. To some the old BR mindset of trying to provide enough capacity for almost every eventuality, even if that meant carriages lying idle in sidings for 5 or 6 days a week, is the correct thing to do.

But the 1980's put an end to all that when the first generation fleet of MU's needed replacing, and mark 1 and early mark 2 carriages were at the end of their lives.

My own view is that we will never see those days again, but we do need to recognise that capacity is a problem primarily caused by a relatively late realisation that rail is not dying after all, but is now growing far beyond what anyoen could have foreseen 30 or even 20 years ago. Even 10 years ago the growth was not enough to convince the sceptical that ti wa sanyhting more than a statistical blip, unlikely to continue in the long term.

I do hope that the next rounds of procurment will be based on current needs and projected future growth.

 

[Moonshot]

The next round of serious procurement may well involve " Tram - Train " concept. I live right next to a recently opened extension of Manchesters Metrolink, and having just been out to my local shop for a pint of milk ans watch 2 trams go past me in the same direction separated by about 90 seconds, I can see why more and more urban areas are turning to this idea.....

 

[ChiefPlanner]

You can do anything (much) with money - half a billion doesn't sound much really in the total UK money-go-round but rail funding comes from 2 sources - the taxpayer or the fare payer (often combined) ....I suspect the money could be borrowed or re-allocated from somewhere else .......

 

[Techniquest]

Manchester to Preston / Blackpool is hardly local work!

Much more 'local' than the work the 180s were intended for, high speed inter-city services!

Finding this thread quite an interesting read so far. An en-masse order of 172s to replace the ageing DMUs would not be a bad idea, as I disagree that total electrification is worthwhile. Routes like the Central Wales line, the Cambrian Coast line, Heysham Port and without doubt an awful lot of other lines, would not exactly have a good cost:benefit ratio for electrification works to be done on them. So a new series of DMUs will be needed soon enough.

Greenback also raises a good point, there were low expectations at the time of ordering the 175s hence why there were 2 car 175s. Now we have third-generation DMUs with pitiful amounts of capacity running key services through big cities at busy times of the day, resulting in overcrowding. Sadly nothing can be done about that aside from pairing the units up, although the fleet is far from big enough to cope as it is, let alone trying to add such a crowd-busting measure. It's also a shame that they're used on long-distance, almost inter-city journeys and suffer the lack of useful benefits like WiFi and power sockets.

There's basically a lot that the UK railway needs doing to it to make it perfect, I suspect we all have a Top 10 list of things that we'd like to see done straight away, however let's also not forget that there have been some significant improvements around the UK too in the last 10 years.

 

[Bevan Price]

The class 180s (a bit similar to voyagers) found themselves on local work for a few years with Northern Rail

I don't think Northern had much choice in the matter. They needed extra trains and the 180s were the only trains available at the time. And only one of the two diagrams involved working outside the M-F peak hours. The second diagram was SX, so they were hardly used intensively.

 

[Carlisle]

I don't think Northern had much choice in the matter. They needed extra trains and the 180s were the only trains available at the time. And only one of the two diagrams involved working outside the M-F peak hours. The second diagram was SX, so they were hardly used intensively.

How about a couple of 158s that are needlessly used on the electrified Lymington -Brockenhurst line

 

[WestCountry]

How about a couple of 158s that are needlessly used on the electrified Lymington -Brockenhurst line

The Lymington unit (one) can usually be replaced by a 450 if necessary so reduces the number of 'spare' units SWT need to cover failures/maintenance. It doesn't increase the overall number of units they need.

 

[Carlisle]

The Lymington unit (one) can usually be replaced by a 450 if necessary so reduces the number of 'spare' units SWT need to cover failures/maintenance. It doesn't increase the overall number of units they need.

Cheers for clarifying that ,I always thought there was no harm in continuing with the heritage 4cig unit on that line rather than a DMU after all Chiltern are still using their bubble car which must must surely be slightly older

 

[Lockwood]

PerfectRail would need to have a station to take me from where I live to where I work.
However, PerfectRail mustn't come within 3 miles of my house.

 

[bb21]

PerfectRail must offer 100% Delay Repay when more than 2 minutes late.

 

[HSTEd]

PerfectRail must offer 100% Delay Repay when more than 2 minutes late.

2 minutes?

If is more than 45 seconds late the operator would provide coupons to all passengers to explain the delay to any managerial staff upset over them arriving late at work.

 

[Lockwood]

PerfectRail must run 12 car units for everything.
I should never have to take more than 10 steps from ticket window to train, or train to exit