Economic Case for the Far North Line

[6Gman]

The big advantage of coaches for the cruise operators is that they can pick up from the dockside, so you're not left with several hundred to a couple of thousand tourists ambling through town at varying rates and with varying degrees of navigational accuracy. Even if they wanted to run rail excursions, they'd probably still lay on coaches to take passengers to and from the station. Unless the attraction at the other end is next to the railway station, they'll want coaches at that end too. So you'd be paying for the coaches all day, as well as potentially a second set of coaches depending on the destination and travel times by road and rail, and there are two extra occasions when you have to marshal passengers.

For rail excursions to appeal, the operator needs to be able to get their passengers straight from the ship to the train, go directly to a rail-served destination, and be confident of getting them back again in time for sailing. There are relatively few cases where that all comes into place, and the Far North isn't one of them. The stations are in the wrong place for the ports, and the service isn't resilient enough to guarantee that the train won't miss the ship sailing.

And all of that is before they've even approached the railway to find out if they can run a train that meets their requirements. I'd be surprised if they even bothered asking the question.

There's nothing stopping a tour operator chartering a train to suit their requirements, except cost. That is, after all, what the Royal Scotsman does. I imagine there probably are companies who could (say) fill a single carriage on the Kyle line a couple of times a week, and it's unfortunate if the railway operates in a way that drives them on to the roads. The ability to proved additional carriages for this kind of traffic would be nice, but is almost certainly impractical for all the usual reasons.

All very well expressed!

 

[BRX]

For rail excursions to appeal, the operator needs to be able to get their passengers straight from the ship to the train, go directly to a rail-served destination, and be confident of getting them back again in time for sailing. There are relatively few cases where that all comes into place, and the Far North isn't one of them. The stations are in the wrong place for the ports, and the service isn't resilient enough to guarantee that the train won't miss the ship sailing.

The station is just down the high street in Invergordon. By the time they've walked from the ship down the pier they are 30% of the way there.

 

[Indigo Soup]

The station is just down the high street in Invergordon. By the time they've walked from the ship down the pier they are 30% of the way there.

Or, 70% of the way not there, in an unfamiliar town, and on the other side of a major road.

You'd need to relay the Invergordon harbour branch to even get close to the ease of access that the coaches offer.

 

[Tobbes]

I should be clear what I was thinking of.

Take 700 passengers. Split them into two groups of 350, run the first lot to the station in coaches and then go back to the ship for the second lot and drive them to Dornoch / Castle. Group A are on the train to Golspie and have morning tea and after dropping off Group B, the coaches go to Golspie to pick up Group A bringing them back to Dornoch too. After lunch, Group B get on the coaches and get taken to Golspie to get on the train, with the coaches returning to Dornoch to pick up Group A and take them to the ship. Group B then takes afternoon tea on the train and the coaches pick them up at Invergordon station after dropping Group A at the ship and drop Group B back to the ship.

 

[BRX]

Or, 70% of the way not there, in an unfamiliar town, and on the other side of a major road.

You'd need to relay the Invergordon harbour branch to even get close to the ease of access that the coaches offer.

'Major Road'?



Ok, so yes coaches can afford easier access. But come on, if someone wants to get a group of tourists from the pier to the station it's hardly an insurmountable task. This problem is dealt with worldwide, daily, by having a tour guide holding a colourful umbrella in the air. They don't have to cross any motorways or fight through a jungle. They just have to cross a B-road, walk down the High Street of a very small town, and get on the train.

 

[6Gman]

I should be clear what I was thinking of.

Take 700 passengers. Split them into two groups of 350, run the first lot to the station in coaches and then go back to the ship for the second lot and drive them to Dornoch / Castle. Group A are on the train to Golspie and have morning tea and after dropping off Group B, the coaches go to Golspie to pick up Group A bringing them back to Dornoch too. After lunch, Group B get on the coaches and get taken to Golspie to get on the train, with the coaches returning to Dornoch to pick up Group A and take them to the ship. Group B then takes afternoon tea on the train and the coaches pick them up at Invergordon station after dropping Group A at the ship and drop Group B back to the ship.

Well, yes. It could work. But it seems extremely complex to little purpose. And risky on a single track railway. And expensive.

I can understand why the cruise operators might choose to stick with coaches!

 

[Tobbes]

Well, yes. It could work. But it seems extremely complex to little purpose. And risky on a single track railway. And expensive.

I can understand why the cruise operators might choose to stick with coaches!

I can completely understand why cruise operators stick with coaches - many more variables under your direct control. However, a dedicated/exclusive train trip - especially with steam - could appeal as a premium outing over "just another bus trip" for cruise passengers who are likely to have a substantially above average per day spend compared to holidaymakers in general. It wouldn't be for everyone, and it may well be more hassle to the railway than it is worth, but I'd be interested to see if there was appetite from cruise operators who also have to be able differentiate themselves in a crowded competitive market.

 

[Robertj21a]

There's a few fairly crazy ideas on here !! I'm not sure that some people have really thought through the practicalities, and costs, of what they are proposing.

 

[philthetube]

Flam in Norway is a good example of where cruise ships une railways, admittedly, using scheduled services, but the walk is as far to the station, passengers are just told when they need to be at the station and left to it.

The station is signposted from the harbour and cruise staff are at the station to assist.

If a loco and rake and a path could be found then cruise lines would look at it and decide if it was viable.
It would probably be a unique tour on the cruise and therefore of interest.

 

[jimm]

Flam in Norway is a good example of where cruise ships une railways, admittedly, using scheduled services, but the walk is as far to the station, passengers are just told when they need to be at the station and left to it.

The station is signposted from the harbour and cruise staff are at the station to assist.

If a loco and rake and a path could be found then cruise lines would look at it and decide if it was viable.
It would probably be a unique tour on the cruise and therefore of interest.

Invergordon staton is a good 10 minutes' walk away from the pier, longer if you're not in the first flush of youth. At Flam the station is little more than a stone's throw away. Cruise passengers there are accommodated on scheduled services on a nice segregated branch line, where trains take less than an hour up the hill and less than an hour back, so nice and easy for people to understand and to fit into the window of a port call and no risk of disruption from other train services.

The Flamsbana trains are also used by a lot of people staying in the Sognefjord region, or people doing the largely rail-based Norway in a Nutshell trips which have been a big money-spinner for NSB and Flamsbana day in, day out for many years. So the whole operation has a diverse revenue base to support it - a rather different matter from the kind of elaborate standalone operations being proposed by some here for cruise passengers only, who arrive on ships that turn up at random times and days of the week and with big differences in the numbers of people on board, from a few hundred up to 4,500.

This was the provisional schedule for cruise liner calls at Invergordon this year - good luck to anyone trying to plan and timetable a viable special train service around that lot.

http://mediafiles.thedms.co.uk/Publication/GB-IL/cms/pdf/Cruise-Lines 2018.pdf

 

[BRX]

The Flamsbana trains are also used by a lot of people staying in the Sognefjord region, or people doing the largely rail-based Norway in a Nutshell trips which have been a big money-spinner for NSB and Flamsbana day in, day out for many years. So the whole operation has a diverse revenue base to support it -

But that's exactly what lines like the FNL should be aiming for, and cruise business could be part of that diverse base.

Instead of looking at each potential source of custom individually, and finding reasons why each one in isolation is too much bother to try and make work, I wish we could have some kind of co-ordinated strategy, so that we are looking at whether increasing frequency could encourage commuter use, and whether that increased frequency would then make rail a more attractive proposition for eg. cruise passengers, and whether that in turn makes the overall service more viable with benefits for locals, and whether there's potential for a Jacobite-type offering between Inverness and Kyle, and whether once such an operation was established it would in turn make it more viable to run one-off special trains dedicated to cruise passengers, and can longer term decisions about the type of stock on regular services look at the potential to fully exploit tourist business, and those doing outdoor activities like cycling, and can timetabling think about these kinds of things too, and so on and so on.

I know that's easy to ask for, and it's probably not something that, say, Scotrail is going to take on - it's something that would need to be led by transport policy and local and national government including infrastructure investments, and that's what we seem to lack, and to me all the comments on here dismissing everything as too difficult or impossible feel like a kind of an indication of that overall attitude, although I realise that may be an unfair connection to make.

Also...why is the starting point to look at the cruise timetable and say, well, that's too difficult to plan around? The pro-active approach would be to say to the cruise operators, look, we think we could make this or that work, with a bit of adjustment to your departure time, and if the proposition is attractive enough then as others have said, it may well be worth it to the cruise liners to make those adjustments.

 

[jimm]

But that's exactly what lines like the FNL should be aiming for, and cruise business could be part of that diverse base.

Instead of looking at each potential source of custom individually, and finding reasons why each one in isolation is too much bother to try and make work, I wish we could have some kind of co-ordinated strategy, so that we are looking at whether increasing frequency could encourage commuter use, and whether that increased frequency would then make rail a more attractive proposition for eg. cruise passengers, and whether that in turn makes the overall service more viable with benefits for locals, and whether there's potential for a Jacobite-type offering between Inverness and Kyle, and whether once such an operation was established it would in turn make it more viable to run one-off special trains dedicated to cruise passengers, and can longer term decisions about the type of stock on regular services look at the potential to fully exploit tourist business, and those doing outdoor activities like cycling, and can timetabling think about these kinds of things too, and so on and so on.

I know that's easy to ask for, and it's probably not something that, say, Scotrail is going to take on - it's something that would need to be led by transport policy and local and national government including infrastructure investments, and that's what we seem to lack, and to me all the comments on here dismissing everything as too difficult or impossible feel like a kind of an indication of that overall attitude, although I realise that may be an unfair connection to make.

Also...why is the starting point to look at the cruise timetable and say, well, that's too difficult to plan around? The pro-active approach would be to say to the cruise operators, look, we think we could make this or that work, with a bit of adjustment to your departure time, and if the proposition is attractive enough then as others have said, it may well be worth it to the cruise liners to make those adjustments.

The Far North Line is not some kind of hermetically-sealed operation like Flam, where the only real performance risk is the - rare - late arrival at the junction station at Myrdal of a train from Oslo or Bergen.

Venturing along the Far North Line, never mind to Kyle (people who want to go to Skye can get on a cruise that docks at Portree), involves running on infrastructure shared with timetabled services which has long single-line sections with limited places to pass other trains (something which is already a constraint on adding more Scotrail services).

Any investment proposals to address those capacity constraints would be subject to detailed cost-benefit analysis - 'nice to have' does not register in such calculations.

If cruise passengers are somehow supposed to be the salvation of the Far North Line - unlikely, to put it politely - then when the cruise ships tie up at Invergordon most certainly is the starting point for trying to cash in on this supposed pot of gold. The cruise operators do what suits them, at times that suit them and their customers. You fit in with them, not the other way round.

 

[BRX]

If cruise passengers are somehow supposed to be the salvation of the Far North Line

Not sure where you've got that idea from.

 

[Steamysandy]

I think this has wandered well away from a basic starting point.Like it or lump it the far north line is a line of transport used by people living in a remote area on a daily basis.
Invergordon and Kirkwall further north are both being swamped by Cruise Liners - I was told that on one day last week there were three ships in Kirkwall simultaneously.. Traffic from these ships would at best be supplementary but to really reap the benefits would involve spending large sums of money.
Transport through this area is always going to be difficult but it is needed for the people who not only live there but need to pass through en route to Orkney for example.
That is the reality of the situation.Perhaps what is really needed is a return to mixed trains carrying not only passengers but also parcels and such goods as are suitable . DMUs are fine but they aren't always the ideal solution
Maybe time for a rethink

 

[InOban]

Correction. North of Tain, the far north line is a line of transport which is occasionally used by a few residents, and, in season, by a number of tourists.

South of Tain it is a commuter route, and with suitable investment, could become much more important.

 

[Steamysandy]

Could the same not be said of the Oban Line? After all Oban is as much at the end of a line through similar territory to the far north line and is also a ferry terminal for the Hebrides.
In addition there's a decent bus service to Glasgow.
And a lot of tourists also use it! All that's missing are the Cruise Liners!!

 

[Gathursty]

If the only thing that was done was to redouble in full Inverness to Dingwall, what benefits would that alone unlock with regards to increasing services? How much would this full redoubling cost? Is there anything physical in the way of an extra line along this route?

 

[Esker-pades]

The section from Inverness to the Clachnaharry swing bridge would be pointless to double.
I think the Lentran loop is sufficient rather than re-doubling the whole 19 miles.

 

[Gathursty]

The section from Inverness to the Clachnaharry swing bridge would be pointless to double.
I think the Lentran loop is sufficient rather than re-doubling the whole 19 miles.

Yes, you are right about upto the swing bridge as the trains aren't going fast by that point anyway. We are now down to about 18 miles. It is better to be ambitious as I find that politicians normally over promise and underdeliver so if we ask for 18 miles redoubling, we may end up with the Lentran loop!

 

[InOban]

Could the same not be said of the Oban Line? After all Oban is as much at the end of a line through similar territory to the far north line and is also a ferry terminal for the Hebrides.
In addition there's a decent bus service to Glasgow.
And a lot of tourists also use it! All that's missing are the Cruise Liners!!

The Oban trains are used all year round by local residents, and those coming off the islands. Far more use the train than the coach. And we have Cruise Liners too!
When did a train last leave Wick/Thurso full and standing?

 

[Steamysandy]

But the point is the lines are similar in physical terms and like Wick/Thurso the train is a two car diesel unit - easy to fill.
If they started looking at the Far North Line ,where else might they look? Kyle,Mallaig.Oban,Stranraer - the list goes on
Proposing any closure is a dangerous game because once one domino falls, then others will at least be looked at.
The two differences are firstly the length of the line in its entirety and secondly the Oban line has very little commuter traffic North of Arrochar and Tarbert (or should that be Helensburgh Upper?)
And finally what freight is there? The oil tanks don't run now to my knowledge.

 

[philthetube]

The Far North Line is not some kind of hermetically-sealed operation like Flam, where the only real performance risk is the - rare - late arrival at the junction station at Myrdal of a train from Oslo or Bergen.

Venturing along the Far North Line, never mind to Kyle (people who want to go to Skye can get on a cruise that docks at Portree), involves running on infrastructure shared with timetabled services which has long single-line sections with limited places to pass other trains (something which is already a constraint on adding more Scotrail services).

Any investment proposals to address those capacity constraints would be subject to detailed cost-benefit analysis - 'nice to have' does not register in such calculations.

If cruise passengers are somehow supposed to be the salvation of the Far North Line - unlikely, to put it politely - then when the cruise ships tie up at Invergordon most certainly is the starting point for trying to cash in on this supposed pot of gold. The cruise operators do what suits them, at times that suit them and their customers. You fit in with them, not the other way round.

If a train arrives late then the ship will wait, they operate like the swiss railways with slack in their itineries.

It they can shift 500 passengers on a train charging £60 and paying 30 they will say happy days, make it work, especially if they can manage a better margin than with coaches.

 

[jimm]

If a train arrives late then the ship will wait, they operate like the swiss railways with slack in their itineries.

It they can shift 500 passengers on a train charging £60 and paying 30 they will say happy days, make it work, especially if they can manage a better margin than with coaches.

If that was all there was to it, someone would probably have tried it years ago.

 

[Steamysandy]

BBC Scotland news is reporting that a minor landslide on the A9 at Helmsdale went unreported for three months and that conditions on the road in winter are dire.The Road is being described as the forgotten road in winter and there's a story about an ambulance having to be escorted with a snowplough in an emergency.
In those conditions the railway is needed.
Meantime the road is single lane till work starts to repair the landslip Next Month!

 

[InOban]

I would expect that the amount of snow needed to defeat the snowploughs on the A9 would also close the railway. And NR would concentrate on keeping the HML open rather than the Far North line.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Well, yes. It could work. But it seems extremely complex to little purpose. And risky on a single track railway. And expensive.

I can understand why the cruise operators might choose to stick with coaches!

all the above - and more!

Perhaps a start could be made to promote rail usage in small ways, eg the cruise companies could list scheduled train departures from Invergordon, with suggestions of possible return trips (eg Inverness, Beauly, Dingwall) during the time when in port - always stressing that trippers do need to allow for late running when returning to the ship for departure.

That would help enable the more independent cruise passengers to use the opportunity if it took their fancy. (Something tells me there won't be that many, even with a far better scheduled service on the FNL.)

As for the thought of shepherding 350 cruise folks of all ages even 500 yards down the road to the station ... it would be a logistical and insurance nightmare, I should think.

 

[Robertj21a]

all the above - and more!

Perhaps a start could be made to promote rail usage in small ways, eg the cruise companies could list scheduled train departures from Invergordon, with suggestions of possible return trips (eg Inverness, Beauly, Dingwall) during the time when in port - always stressing that trippers do need to allow for late running when returning to the ship for departure.

That would help enable the more independent cruise passengers to use the opportunity if it took their fancy. (Something tells me there won't be that many, even with a far better scheduled service on the FNL.)

As for the thought of shepherding 350 cruise folks of all ages even 500 yards down the road to the station ... it would be a logistical and insurance nightmare, I should think.

Absolutely. That's why they would use coaches.

 

[InOban]

There will always be a small number of passengers who have family connections in the area- perhaps they were born around there- and would like an independent day. They would appreciate being given the train and bus timetables. But the bulk of the passengers? Chartered coaches.

 

[philthetube]

all the above - and more!

Perhaps a start could be made to promote rail usage in small ways, eg the cruise companies could list scheduled train departures from Invergordon, with suggestions of possible return trips (eg Inverness, Beauly, Dingwall) during the time when in port - always stressing that trippers do need to allow for late running when returning to the ship for departure.

That would help enable the more independent cruise passengers to use the opportunity if it took their fancy. (Something tells me there won't be that many, even with a far better scheduled service on the FNL.)

As for the thought of shepherding 350 cruise folks of all ages even 500 yards down the road to the station ... it would be a logistical and insurance nightmare, I should think.

They wouldn't be shepherded, they would be told that the tour involved a 500 yard walk to the station, how long to allow and that they should do it independently.

Pepole seem to hav a concept that the average cruise passenger is totally useless, unable to think or do anything for themselves and needs constant mollycoddling.

 

[Highland37]

Flam in Norway is a good example of where cruise ships une railways, admittedly, using scheduled services, but the walk is as far to the station, passengers are just told when they need to be at the station and left to it.

The station is signposted from the harbour and cruise staff are at the station to assist.

If a loco and rake and a path could be found then cruise lines would look at it and decide if it was viable.
It would probably be a unique tour on the cruise and therefore of interest.

Yes it is and you are correct. But it is also a modern railway with good rolling stock, electrified and hasn't been allowed to deteriorate to the level the North Line has, along with many other railways.

Getting cruise passengers onto the train at Invergordon is possible but when they get there the product is in general very poor relative to other operations such as Flam or those in Switzerland. A 158 simply isn't up to the job regardless of how much it is "refurbished" and banging along the jointed track is no great advert either.

Contrast that with Flam....