London Midland to be broken up?

[Olaf]

Modern Railways readers will have seen this by now, but were people generally aware of the possibility of LM being divided up into a West Midlands local operator and a separate WCML(south) local operator, with Euston - Crewe and Birmingham - Liverpool being rolled up into the main West Coast franchise?

Of course further to that, the WCML stoppers could well end up with Crossrail eventually anyway.

Main point though, is that this seems to have rather sneaked in under the radar...

(MR December edition bottom of page 18 for anyone who skimmed past it first time...)

I think there are various conversations about how rail services can be devolved to the Midlands along similar lines to those for Rail North. These snippets may be coming from the fringes of those talks.

 

[LLivery]

TBH I think the current problems with that service being seriously overcrowded is *caused* by the very low fares, causing people to cram onto a 4-car hourly local train who should be on 11-car Pendolinos. There is no reason why anyone should be using these services for non-local journeys (i.e. any journey that doesn't include at one end one of the stations not otherwise regularly served by VT), and them doing so is causing wasteful overprovision to be needed.

I think 4 cars will be sufficient for many or most WCML locals were those super-low fares to be dropped.

Neil

Mind blown - The reason why is saving money! Why should people be forced to pay higher fares on Saint Virgin Trains? If I want to get a slower but cheaper train then I will! Just like I normally opt for (slightly) slower Chiltern when going Brum from London. Good on anyone who wants to legitimately save money on the railways I say.
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We cope with one TOC running all services from London to Nottingham and London to Derby - what's so special about London to Stoke that it needs to have two operators competing for the trade?

As I said on the EC thread (re Stagecoach/ Virgin running two parallel franchises), we've just merged all Brighton - London services into one franchise, and that's a much bigger market than flows like Stoke - London.

Competition on Birmingham - London, I can understand, as it's a big market for one TOC to dominate, but I'm struggling to worry about Stoke, sorry.

Is East Midlands Trains really the BEST example you could have used here? With their walk on, 40 odd quid, off peak return between London and Wellingborough - a 51 minute journey? Advance yes they are quite cheap but we can't always do advance.

I do agree with larger franchises, much larger infact, then again I would have concessions rather than franchises, but that's another story.
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As for London Midland, I would have just merged LM and EMT (non InterCity part) together and have a 'Midland Rail' just like Northern. Maybe have the old 'City Link routes' as a TP Express of the Midlands or just keep it all together. But I can't see much wrong with West Mids ''running'' the locals. IC West Coast taking Trent Valley stoppers seem a little odd - it just doesn't ''fit'' some how.

 

[455driver]

Maybe if Virgin charged reasonable fares people would chose to use them, the fact they believe their own hype about being 'special' and charging special (ie higher) prices is the reason people travel LM (or Chiltern) by choice!

 

[DarloRich]

Maybe if Virgin charged reasonable fares people would chose to use them, the fact they believe their own hype about being 'special' and charging special (ie higher) prices is the reason people travel LM (or Chiltern) by choice!

sssssssshhhhhh criticism of Virgin is not allowed on here. The cognoscenti dont like it.

Write 100 times: Only Virgin could save the West Coast

 

[DynamicSpirit]

"The proposals under consideration would also see the London-Crewe semi-fast and Birmingham-Liverpool services currently operated by London Midland transferring to the West Coast franchise"

That's a direct quote...

If it means Virgin's franchise, that would rather complicate operating the franchise because it would bring in a completely different type of stock to be maintained - just for a couple of routes. I can't imagine Virgin being happy about that, and operationally it seems somewhat implausible to me.

 

[Bevan Price]

As for London Midland, I would have just merged LM and EMT (non InterCity part) together and have a 'Midland Rail' just like Northern.

We could even call it Central Trains........

Bad idea to let Virgin / West Coast to take over Liverpool/Birmingham, or Crewe/Stoke/Euston. End result could be higher fares, and Virgin-like peak hour restrictions. (And no more promotions such as "Great Escape".)

 

[WatcherZero]

Im not sure it would be such a huge deal, we are talking acquiring a dozen long distance EMU's as the 221's start to become operating more and more under the wires (particularly If Chester is electrified) and internally cascaded to new routes so requiring electric replacement as well. Already they are operating all the way from London to Scotland under the wires. Essentially im saying they already need more electric stock and that need is going to rise.

 

[Metrailway]

Surely privatisation is all about offering competition? This kind of situation is the closet we can get.

Not really, BR privatisation was done to reduce subsidies to the railways.

Is it really cogent for the state to subsidise two directly competing franchises or to have one franchise with reduced subsidies?

Particularly as it seems there are going to be further public spending cuts on the horizon whoever gets into power after the general election.

Btw, personally I'll be worse off as I use the LM Crewe services regularly.

 

[Noddy]

It sounds to me that a West Midlands metro franchise is something they could hand over to a Greater Birmingham Mayor/Combined Authority. So the government might be killing a few birds with one stone. Unify Euston to help reduce disruption during HS2 redevelopment, reduce WCML abstraction, and importantly send a message to the political leaders in the West Midlands (Solihull I'm looking at you).

If that is the case Chiltern might pick up some of the faster Hereford/Worcester services.

 

[al.currie93]

Not really, BR privatisation was done to reduce subsidies to the railways.

In that case, it didn't do a very good job :P

 

[Bletchleyite]

Mind blown - The reason why is saving money! Why should people be forced to pay higher fares on Saint Virgin Trains? If I want to get a slower but cheaper train then I will! Just like I normally opt for (slightly) slower Chiltern when going Brum from London. Good on anyone who wants to legitimately save money on the railways I say.

I'm not saying anyone shouldn't use those fares if they exist - though personally I am put off using LM for long-distance due to the severe overcrowding. I am saying those fares probably shouldn't exist, as fares lower than the "base" level ones (VT have not excessively increased Off Peak walk-up tickets during their tenure, indeed because of the SuperSaver abolition they sit often about 10% below other IC TOCs for a given distance).

If LM want to dump a few Advance fares to fill empty seats, fine, but they shouldn't be creating cattle-wagons for those who NEED to use the stopping service by offering unlimited-availability price-dumped fares on them. They have had the sense to put weekend restrictions on the cheapest Super Off Peak, but the fares are still excessively low and the overcrowding therefore will not abate.

As for London Midland, I would have just merged LM and EMT (non InterCity part) together and have a 'Midland Rail' just like Northern. Maybe have the old 'City Link routes' as a TP Express of the Midlands or just keep it all together. But I can't see much wrong with West Mids ''running'' the locals. IC West Coast taking Trent Valley stoppers seem a little odd - it just doesn't ''fit'' some how.

For all their faults, merging Thames Trains and First Great Western has I believe been a substantial success. Yes, FGW are bad at times, but they are not anywhere near as bad as Thames Trains. People have very short memories.

Neil
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Only Virgin can eff up the West Coast!

Many moons ago I got lines at school and got away with doing them on a word processor!

(This was in the early 1990s)

Neil

 

[northwichcat]

Is there any mention of the previously proposed changes whereby:
1. Birmingham to Liverpool would go to hourly with an hourly 350 operated service between Birmingham and Preston and the Euston to Crewe service being extended to Liverpool.
2. Manchester to Stoke would transfer to LM from Northern and be routed via Stone, with Euston-Crewe/Liverpool being routed away from Stone.
3. Alternate Manchester to Birmingham services would run via Crewe instead of Stoke.
?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Im not sure it would be such a huge deal, we are talking acquiring a dozen long distance EMU's as the 221's start to become operating more and more under the wires (particularly If Chester is electrified) and internally cascaded to new routes so requiring electric replacement as well. Already they are operating all the way from London to Scotland under the wires. Essentially im saying they already need more electric stock and that need is going to rise.

How many 350s are used on the Crewe diagrams? (Or rather how many would be if they were stand alone?)

I guess it's about a 6 hour round trip, an hourly service, so you could run it with 6 EMUs if running single units (which is all you'd need if you abolished the super-cheapo fares), plus a spare? That's a rather convenient number, being the precise number of 321s LM have. So if VT used something else on them, LM's WCML services could go all 350?

A few IEP EMUs for the WCML, maybe?

Neil

 

[GatwickDepress]

But if Virgin takes over LM's operations, who on earth will VT offload all their passengers onto to dodge responsibility during disruption?

 

[Class 170101]

LM need to look at providing capacity at weekends on their Trent Valley services. Only a couple of trains each way will be formed of eight carriages from December 2014.

Sadly I don't think LM have done themselves any favours by jacking up the fares / introducing a Super Off Peak restriction on Saturdays as well as weekdays particularly when it is almost certain that they will have spare stock at weekends in carriages sidings away from maintenance depots that normally sees no use from Friday night to Monday morning.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sadly I don't think LM have done themselves any favours by jacking up the fares / introducing a Super Off Peak restriction on Saturdays as well as weekdays particularly when it is almost certain that they will have spare stock at weekends in carriages sidings away from maintenance depots that normally sees no use from Friday night to Monday morning.

What one has to understand with LM is that the leases for the Desiros are mileage based. So LM will not make money by selling a load more price-dumped Super Off Peaks and having to pay to get more Desiros out to put the passengers on.

They indeed aren't being used, but LM can't use them without coughing up. And if you want them to cough up, the fares need to be higher.

The only criticism I have of them with regard to the Super Off Peak restrictions is that, despite me reporting it multiple times, they are implemented wrongly in the journey planner. They are meant to be valid on any train starting its overall journey after 1030, but the restriction as implemented does not do that and so the first northbound off MKC on the Super Off Peak is the 1219, despite the 1119 having left Euston after 1030. There is also an issue with changes in Birmingham for the afternoon restriction (unless they fixed that, they may have done) even though the text of the restriction states that changes of train are permitted to complete a journey begun at a valid time.

Neil

 

[thenorthern]

Competition on Birmingham - London, I can understand, as it's a big market for one TOC to dominate, but I'm struggling to worry about Stoke, sorry.

I would suggest as there is currently competition from Stoke-London it would be a silly idea to remove it, I know the London Midland Only tickets are very popular with people from Stoke and Stafford as they are much cheaper at £97 Anytime return to London compared to £267 return by Virgin Trains.

When London Midland introduced the London-Crewe train I don't think it was designed to undercut Virgin Trains more a solution to provide a regular stopping service for Atherstone, Rugeley Trent Valley and Stone all of which had lost their regular services in 2003 however the cheaper fares for an hour longer journey does attract people.

I think I read London Midland are getting extra coaches from next month to cope with congestion.

 

[The Planner]

Is there any mention of the previously proposed changes whereby:
1. Birmingham to Liverpool would go to hourly with an hourly 350 operated service between Birmingham and Preston and the Euston to Crewe service being extended to Liverpool.
2. Manchester to Stoke would transfer to LM from Northern and be routed via Stone, with Euston-Crewe/Liverpool being routed away from Stone.
3. Alternate Manchester to Birmingham services would run via Crewe instead of Stoke.
?

Things are afoot as part of the Euston HS2 and other demand works but they dont really match those.

 

[33056]

Me too ... I can't recall ever having a single complaint against London Midland, and I'm a regular passenger. The service from Northampton to Euston is the best it has ever been in my opinion (although I did used to prefer it when they used the Cobbler rakes )

Can't speak for Northampton or Milton Keynes but a little further south we have gone from 4 trains an hour to Euston at roughly clock-face times to only three, all running within 25 minutes, and if you want to go to Kings Langley or Apsley during the day then a change of trains is needed.

As for no complaints against London Midland, all I can say is bring back Silverlink! Less than an hour ago, a person has been hit by a train at Watford so no doubt LM will go into meltdown and chaos will ensue; they are usually incapable of implementing any sort of recovery after an incident.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I had a choice, which is important. I don't think anyone can argue that is a bad thing in this context.

It's a bad thing where (a) there isn't the stock to extend the trains, and there are platform issues, and (b) it is meaning those who HAVE to use those trains as they have NO choice (the Trent Valley local stations) are being forced to stand.

I'm all for TOCs making special offers to fill empty seats. But these trains don't have empty seats. It's like TPE's Advances - they should not be selling these on packed trains.

Neil
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It is not, and "Europe" may well decide to have an opinion on the subject.

I doubt it. Europe would look to protect the idea that an open access operator should be allowed in. They will have no interest in contracted/franchised operations, provided the tenders to operate them are fairly and openly conducted.

Neil

 

[The Planner]

But if Virgin takes over LM's operations, who on earth will VT offload all their passengers onto to dodge responsibility during disruption?

Considering LM have a tendancy to give up first Im not sure thats really an accurate statement....

 

[Bletchleyite]

Bad idea to let Virgin / West Coast to take over Liverpool/Birmingham, or Crewe/Stoke/Euston. End result could be higher fares, and Virgin-like peak hour restrictions. (And no more promotions such as "Great Escape".)

Another cause of gross overcrowding until quotas were introduced

But in any case there is a West Midlands Day Ranger (or somesuch) that has almost the same validity except not the bit south of Northampton, should anyone want to do a Great Escape when it's not on

Neil
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As for no complaints against London Midland, all I can say is bring back Silverlink! Less than an hour ago, a person has been hit by a train at Watford so no doubt LM will go into meltdown and chaos will ensue; they are usually incapable of implementing any sort of recovery after an incident.

They have different priorities to a long-distance operator, to be fair - my observation of LM's crisis planning and SS's was that it was exactly the same - run as much into Euston in the morning peak / out of it in the evening peak as you can, as you need to shift people, and don't worry too much if it's late.

Though sometimes the agreed WCML contingency plan does kick in (cancel the Tring stoppers, one of each of Manc and Brum, cut back North Wales to Crewe).

Neil

 

[33056]

They have different priorities to a long-distance operator, to be fair - my observation of LM's crisis planning and SS's was that it was exactly the same - run as much into Euston in the morning peak / out of it in the evening peak as you can, as you need to shift people, and don't worry too much if it's late.

Though sometimes the agreed WCML contingency plan does kick in (cancel the Tring stoppers, one of each of Manc and Brum, cut back North Wales to Crewe).

LM crisis planning appears to be bury head in sand and hope it all goes away; trains moving again at Watford but as there is no Southern service today I will have to head for Euston later and trust that they can actually cobble together some semblance of a service.

 

[northwichcat]

Things are afoot as part of the Euston HS2 and other demand works but they dont really match those.

HS2 is a long way off and will never solve some of the problems that the proposed LM changes would solve like allowing a Hartford to Warrington journey which doesn't involve going in the wrong direction via Crewe or giving Stone a direct link to Birmingham. Even though problems like the frequency of Warrington-Crewe being too low for the demand, can be solved by other solutions, those won't happen for a long time yet.

 

[GatwickDepress]

Considering LM have a tendancy to give up first Im not sure thats really an accurate statement....

Twice during disruption at Euston before the peak with a VT only off-peak ticket I've been told by Virgin staff to use an LM train rather than use an empty VT peak one. With no formal ticket acceptance in place, I add.

 

[rdeez]

It's a bad thing where (a) there isn't the stock to extend the trains, and there are platform issues, and (b) it is meaning those who HAVE to use those trains as they have NO choice (the Trent Valley local stations) are being forced to stand.

I'm all for TOCs making special offers to fill empty seats. But these trains don't have empty seats. It's like TPE's Advances - they should not be selling these on packed trains.l

IMO it is London Midland's issue that they are offering cheap long distance fares on local stoppers, rather than implementing a fares structure that encourage people seeking lower fares to use their other, less crowded services. It still doesn't make the choice a bad thing, it just makes it inefficiently implemented by LM.

 

[The Planner]

HS2 is a long way off and will never solve some of the problems that the proposed LM changes would solve like allowing a Hartford to Warrington journey which doesn't involve going in the wrong direction via Crewe or giving Stone a direct link to Birmingham. Even though problems like the frequency of Warrington-Crewe being too low for the demand, can be solved by other solutions, those won't happen for a long time yet.

I didnt mean 2026, i mean 2017 onwards once Euston starts getting ripped up.

 

[tbtc]

I think there are various conversations about how rail services can be devolved to the Midlands along similar lines to those for Rail North. These snippets may be coming from the fringes of those talks.

It sounds to me that a West Midlands metro franchise is something they could hand over to a Greater Birmingham Mayor/Combined Authority

I'm wondering about the future for those living in the "north midlands" (Staffordshire, Cheshire etc), if we see a "Rail North" focussing on Lancashire/ Yorkshire and a Welsh Government with greater powers over the Wales & Borders franchise (and with the obvious bias that'll mean they are more interested in the first part of that title than the second), plus a "Greater Birmingham" franchise (or at least greater powers for the West Midlands over rail which'd mean that they'd have little incentive to worry about places beyond their borders)...

...will this leave the areas in between as lower priorities? Why would a "Greater Birmingham" or a "Rail North" be that interested in the needs of people outside the area (like Staffordshire)? Something to consider...

Is East Midlands Trains really the BEST example you could have used here? With their walk on, 40 odd quid, off peak return between London and Wellingborough - a 51 minute journey? Advance yes they are quite cheap but we can't always do advance

I could have done what some on this forum do and reached for a far fetched example to try to prove my point, but I thought that Derby and Nottingham represented reasonable equivalents to Stoke (in terms of London services).

Nobody suggests that Nottingham "deserves" competing TOCs for London services, yet according to some on here Stoke does (even though no such competition existed a few years ago on Stoke - London).

Despite the lack of competition, EMT do still offer cheap advanced tickets on some services, which is why I'd expect Virgin to offer something similar if they had to operate an hourly Trent Valley stopper from London to Staffordshire.

If the Trent Valley stopper becomes part of the current Virgin franchise then Virgin would clearly have an incentive to offer cheaper tickets on it (for London - Stafford/ Stoke/ Crewe) to manage capacity on their faster services from London - Stafford/ Stoke/ Crewe (that are for Holyhead/ Manchester etc). I don't buy into the idea that giving all London - Stoke services to the one TOC would mean no advanced/cheaper tickets.

For all their faults, merging Thames Trains and First Great Western has I believe been a substantial success. Yes, FGW are bad at times, but they are not anywhere near as bad as Thames Trains. People have very short memories

Agreed. Nobody is suggesting that the big market of Oxford - Reading - Paddington "deserves" competition (so what's special about Stoke?)

I would suggest as there is currently competition from Stoke-London it would be a silly idea to remove it

Why though?

We are removing competition on the significantly larger market of Brighton - London.

We've removed competition on Ipswich/ Oxford/ Manchester - London (and virtually eliminated it on Glasgow - London with the bi-hourly EC service reduced to one-a-day).

So what is so special about Stoke?

it is meaning those who HAVE to use those trains as they have NO choice (the Trent Valley local stations) are being forced to stand.

I'm all for TOCs making special offers to fill empty seats. But these trains don't have empty seats. It's like TPE's Advances - they should not be selling these on packed trains

+1

HS2 is a long way off and will never solve some of the problems that the proposed LM changes would solve like allowing a Hartford to Warrington journey which doesn't involve going in the wrong direction via Crewe

That's a complicated solution to solve a pretty small problem IMO.

If Hartford to Warrington is a big enough market to warrant throwing resources at then it'd be a lot simpler to give Northern a 319 for a Crewe - Wigan stopper.

 

[northwichcat]

If Hartford to Warrington is a big enough market to warrant throwing resources at then it'd be a lot simpler to give Northern a 319 for a Crewe - Wigan stopper.

The proposed Birmingham-Preston LM service would solve lots of little problems, rather than one big one.

An hourly all-stops service between Crewe and Warrington would be ideal. However, trying to find a path for one on that section of the WCML (which is mainly double track not quadruple) and trying to interwork it with the Virgin services which stop at both Crewe and Warrington* wouldn't be an easy job.

Hartford is a strange station. It's like a small Intercity station (with 11 car platforms) and did use to have Liverpool-London/South Coast services stopping there until Virgin stopped serving it. It's still a park & ride station but not really advertised as such because it's 85 or so parking spaces get filled up without needing to be promoted.

* So you don't have 2tph between Crewe and Warrington within a few minutes of each other.

 

[IanXC]

My observation on this is that whether its done by separating the franchises, or by creating a 'West Midlands local' business unit within LM, that there are a few problematic services:

Shrewsbury
Hereford
Liverpool

What strikes me is that their future could well be wrapped up with the future of the Cross Country franchise. If there is a desire for a third train per hour from Birmingham to beyond Sheffield, if there is a need to remap certain services post East West, and so on; then these services could be in the mix.

My other observation is that the Camp Hill line chord would allow Chiltern to operate the Herefords into Moor Street...