CAF rolling stock confirmed for Arriva

[Wolfie]

Silly question, but for buses, coaches etc - is there any reason why they can't switch to petrol? Aren't modern turbo/supercharged engines now quite efficient.

Maybe not as efficient as diesel, but if it reduces the harmful emissions markedly then wouldn't it make sense to switch to petrol/electric hybrids instead of diesel/electric?

Possibly a safety angle too - petrol is a damn sight more volatile - either leaking fuel lines in the presence of hot spots or fractured fuel tanks in the event of a crash would be VERY unfunny

Wolfie if you read my later post you'll see that I admitted that I misrembered something when writing that post and if you click through to the letter you'll see he admits the poor business case doesn't allow for newer trains attracting more passengers or providing journey time improvements. What ever his position those two claims are political nosense. I seem to recall you were one of the posters who kept insisting Pacer replacement was a pre-election bribe and the Conservatives wouldn't keep their promise, so you're probably disappointed that the CAF order has been placed.

I hadn't seen your later post at the time I posted. The PUS did indeed say that which is unsurprising - if he is writing to SofS formally he is obliged to set out all of the facts and assunptions upon which costings are based. Do you have any hard objective evidence that new, faster trains always result in passenger growth? Further, at the fare levels being charged versus the changed rolling stock cost, do you have have any hard objective evidence that any such passenger growth actually results in revenue gain (ie that the extra fare revenue amounts to more than the extra rolling stock cost)?

I have no problem with new trains for Northern (or perhaps, looking at the allocation of the new stock, I could say mostly the North West), albeit that I certainly do object to London and the South being asked to bear the cost of that for a franchise which, even with the forecast financial improvements, remains an economic basketcase. That is doubly so when the stock in question appears to be being built to a higher specification than that actually being procured for those areas.

However, my opinion about probable HMT action admittedly did not take account of the personal interest of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the issue. People will have views on why exactly he has that personal interest; I certainly do but I best not express them.....

 

[northwichcat]

The PUS did indeed say that which is unsurprising - if he is writing to SofS formally he is obliged to set out all of the facts and assunptions upon which costings are based. Do you have any hard objective evidence that new, faster trains always result in passenger growth? Further, at the fare levels being charged versus the changed rolling stock cost, do you have have any hard objective evidence that any such passenger growth actually results in revenue gain (ie that the extra fare revenue amounts to more than the extra rolling stock cost)?

Well in the case of TPE introducing the 350/4s and prior to the 170s going the subsidy fell despite the costs involved in leasing additional new stock. In contrast the LM subsidy rose as a result of introducing the 350/3s. So no new trains don't always result in more revenue. However, a key difference between what TPE and what LM did is TPE provided more and faster services, while LM just added capacity. As the aim with Northern Connect is to provide more and faster services on a lot of routes it hopefully means the situation is more similar to TPE than to LM.

I have no problem with new trains for Northern (or perhaps, looking at the allocation of the new stock, I could say mostly the North West)

If we look at the routes set to get new diesel stock:
Manchester Airport to Barrow
Manchester Airport to Liverpool via Warrington
Chester to Leeds via Warrington and Bradford
Liverpool to Leeds via Bradford
Manchester Airport to Leeds via Bradford
Leeds to Lincoln via Sheffield
Sheffield to Scarborough
York to Blackpool
Bradford to Nottingham

2 are completely west of the Pennines (and currently with TPE), 4 are completely east of the Pennines (and currently with Northern) and out of the others 2 are roughly half in both and 1 is mainly in Yorkshire.

So for DMUs I'd say they are roughly 35% for the North West and 65% for East of the Pennines.

For EMUs Yorkshire is expected to get at least 24 carriages out of 141 so at least 17% are going to Yorkshire so the majority will go to the North West but it should be noted a number of the EMUs for the North West are due to no suitable alternative being available due to Porterbrook's refusal to extend the 323 lease and 319s not being suitable.

albeit that I certainly do object to London and the South being asked to bear the cost of that for a franchise which, even with the forecast financial improvements, remains an economic basketcase.

You'll be please to know TPE is expected to become subsidy free and that the subsidy to Northern will fall then. It's worth noting the profitable London commuter franchises don't even return enough profit to pay Southeastern's subsidy never mind LM's subsidy as well despite media reports about GTR or SWT passengers subsiding Northern.

 

[The Ham]

There does seem to be a bit of a trend with new builds now for units to not have corridor connections at the ends. Is it a PITA for "revenue" guards when two units are coupled and they don't have corridor connections?

It depends in part as to what the TOC's rules are on staff having to have at least one member of staff per unit.

As others have pointed out if guards have to be in the non driver unit then the chances are people would risk not buying a ticket and travelling in the front unit.
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You'll be please to know TPE is expected to become subsidy free and that the subsidy to Northern will fall then. It's worth noting the profitable London commuter franchises don't even return enough profit to pay Southeastern's subsidy never mind LM's subsidy as well despite media reports about GTR or SWT passengers subsiding Northern.

It depends on whether you are talking about TOC profit, total rail subsidy or just TOC subsidies (excluding NR's).

If the latter then SWT's payment to the DfT is circa £370 million which is about 1/2 of the total subsidy for all the other franchises (£727 million).

If you exclude Scotrail the subsidy for all the other TOC's is covered by Southern, Thameslink, and Greater Anglia (all southern franchises which make a premium payment to the DfT).

However for balance the total TOC subsidy (including Scotrail) is some £802 million LESS than the premiums paid by all the TOC's.

That all pales into insignificance compared with the NR funding, however to reduce the cost to the taxpayer the best thing to do is to more intensively use the less used sections of track as then the cost to keep them operational per passenger will reduce. The best way to more intensively use the track it to have more trains.

 

[northwichcat]

It depends on whether you are talking about TOC profit, total rail subsidy or just TOC subsidies (excluding NR's).

Well if you use TOC profit then Northern Rail finish up as one the best performing TOCs financially and if you use total rail subsidy they are ones of the worst performing TOCs financially.

Really I think you have to use Total subsidy even if you object to Network Rail's charges otherwise it doesn't take in to allowance that fast heavy trains like Pendolinos wearing out the track faster than lighter commuter trains like 172s, then only a couple of franchises are profitable and the profits are small compared to the subsides of other franchises.

 

[The Ham]

Well if you use TOC profit then Northern Rail finish up as one the best performing TOCs financially and if you use total rail subsidy they are ones of the worst performing TOCs financially.

Really I think you have to use Total subsidy even if you object to Network Rail's charges otherwise it doesn't take in to allowance that fast heavy trains like Pendolinos wearing out the track faster than lighter commuter trains like 172s, then only a couple of franchises are profitable and the profits are small compared to the subsides of other franchises.

If you are going to take the total subsidy, then as I stated previously it is better to increase investment to provide more trains and/or longer trains to more intensively use the network. As the variable costs of having more/longer trains are small compared with the fixed costs of having a line which trains can use. In doing so the extra costs of running more/longer trains are likely to be offset by attracting more passengers.

Obviously this wouldn't be viable on every single line (a 25 mile line with a total population served of 100,000 isn't going to attract many more people if it runs at 4tph than if it runs at 2tph), however where there has been reasonable growth over the last 10 years (and existing trains are showing reasonable loading levels) then it is worth considering.

Which is basicly what is happening with Northern, there are a lot of services which are fairly busy so by providing a small investment to provide more and longer units the "cost" of providing the railways should then go down as a whole, especially as there would needed to have been a level of investment to maintain the status quo.

 

[northwichcat]

Obviously this wouldn't be viable on every single line (a 25 mile line with a total population served of 100,000 isn't going to attract many more people if it runs at 4tph than if it runs at 2tph), however where there has been reasonable growth over the last 10 years (and existing trains are showing reasonable loading levels) then it is worth considering.

It's hard to make generic predictions based on population alone.

Taking my local line:

• Northwich - population 19,924. Combined annual journeys to/from Greenbank and Northwich stations 384,000
• Knutsford - population 13,191. Annual journeys to/from Knutsford 494,000
• Altrincham - population 52,419. Annual journeys to/from Altrincham and Navigation Rd 567,000

Those numbers seem to don't seem to add up especially considering many people leave the NR network at Altrincham to join Metrolink so should be counted as an entry/exit.

However, if you consider a couple hundred people catch the train to Knutsford every day to get to Barclay's Radbrooke Hall site and a couple hundred schoolkids get the train to and from Knutsford to get to Knutsford Academy. Then on top of that Knutsford has poorer bus links than both Northwich and Altrincham, it makes more sense why Knutsford's figure is proportionally high. Currently a major development project is being undertaken in Northwich which should create a lot of jobs so could help push up Northwich's usage to Knutsford's current level.

As for how to get more passengers the market to target would be the business travellers who drive to stations with direct London services, providing higher quality rolling stock and more frequent services might attract them to use a connecting train, over driving and paying for a day's parking. Affluent business owners won't be attracted by the prospect of a Merseytravel Pacer.

 

[The Ham]

It's hard to make generic predictions based on population alone.

Taking my local line:

• Northwich - population 19,924. Combined annual journeys to/from Greenbank and Northwich stations 384,000
• Knutsford - population 13,191. Annual journeys to/from Knutsford 494,000
• Altrincham - population 52,419. Annual journeys to/from Altrincham and Navigation Rd 567,000

Those numbers seem to don't seem to add up especially considering many people leave the NR network at Altrincham to join Metrolink so should be counted as an entry/exit.

However, if you consider a couple hundred people catch the train to Knutsford every day to get to Barclay's Radbrooke Hall site and a couple hundred schoolkids get the train to and from Knutsford to get to Knutsford Academy. Then on top of that Knutsford has poorer bus links than both Northwich and Altrincham, it makes more sense why Knutsford's figure is proportionally high. Currently a major development project is being undertaken in Northwich which should create a lot of jobs so could help push up Northwich's usage to Knutsford's current level.

As for how to get more passengers the market to target would be the business travellers who drive to stations with direct London services, providing higher quality rolling stock and more frequent services might attract them to use a connecting train, over driving and paying for a day's parking. Affluent business owners won't be attracted by the prospect of a Merseytravel Pacer.

I wasn't saying that a low population would generate a low number of passengers. What I was getting at is a low population probably wouldn't justify an increase from 2tph to 4tph as it would likely just result in broadly the same number (yes some more but not significantly more) of people using more trains. As such although there should be an increasing in rail capacity that it is unlikely to be universally spread.