Transport Committee - Coronavirus Emergency Measures

[Nicholas Lewis]

Transport Committee held this morning reviewing the impact of the railways emergency measures on running the railways.

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/6269b749-a5dc-4f06-9003-f41bdf6e2f4b

Some bullet points

Part One with TOCs (First and Abellio fielded MDs and GoAhead a strategy director)

Don't expect traffic to come back to no more than 75% with commuter market to be fundamentally different.

Say they can do flexible ticketing if DofT wants it and keen to drive passenger growth

Not doing anything about costs currently until DofT decides what service its wants

Challenging timescales over direct awards

Promoting climate change needs to keep the railways intact

Management fees will need to be more in the future to attract right operators

Albeillo concerned about termination arrangements not being fair.

Supportive of Williams review and establishment of guiding mind organisation

Part Two DofT and MoS Heaton Harris

Railways have gone from +400m in 2018 to a projected £9B deficit this year according to chair of committee

MoS says its only 4B extra over.

MoS happy to keep it with TOCs vs OLR

MoS refers to "toxic trains" being removed from the timetable to improve performance

MoS wants a resilient reliable service and TOCs bested place to deliver that and won't be removing train services indeed says industry will need more drivers! Goes on to say though the timetable will need to better match demand and passenger flows in due course.

MoS wants non PRM trains removed from the network as soon as possible

MoS still keen on restoring old railways

Lets out costs are 550-650m per railway period currently

New operating contacts will need be agile and able to change things through there duration

Franchise termination costs not yet agreed its work in progress. Note the 13/12/20 deadline for this is now 29/1/21.

Williams review being updated and be released next month (maybe)


Good to hear DofT and MoS speak up to protect the railways and what they are spending to support it and shows you how Tories now view the industry (well you expect them to do so in public otherwise unions will have a meltdown).

 

[daikilo]

Reassuring that DfT are trying to run a "full" service and not seeing how they can cut it to save money.

Committe clearly frustrated that they are not getting the answers they would like to have, but then many questions rather contradict the above.

I have no idea how anyone thinks they can get to 75% loading with social distancing!

DfT are going to be busy analysing all the data they want the TOCs to collect and provide!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Reassuring that DfT are trying to run a "full" service and not seeing how they can cut it to save money.

Yes that was the only slightly reassuring piece.

I have no idea how anyone thinks they can get to 75% loading with social distancing!

All hopes on the vaccine perhaps?

Interesting the Williams Review is being updated and perhaps published. I wont hold my breath!

 

[Horizon22]

The DfT are definitely asking TOCs to return to a full service for the most part and many December timetables are seeing services re-introduced, yet without the footfall to sustain them. Whilst maintaining a service is a noble aim, it is also a costly one (hence the £9billion deficit) and some specific operational changes (some specific peak cancellations and shorter trains) would be very beneficial with little risk to passengers and would be easy to reintroduce in the future.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The DfT are definitely asking TOCs to return to a full service for the most part -----

MoS refers to "toxic trains" being removed from the timetable to improve performance

So less trains over the Castlefield corridor for example (yes I know there is a separate thread for that) would have the double whammy of the DfT not needing to spend money on improving it.

 

[daikilo]

So less trains over the Castlefield corridor for example (yes I know there is a separate thread for that) would have the double whammy of the DfT not needing to spend money on improving it.

At least the DfT has admitted that they caused those "toxic trains" to exist. Hopefully from now on they will prepare the infrastructure first, and say "no can do" to influential MPs until they have done it.

 

[yorksrob]

The DfT are definitely asking TOCs to return to a full service for the most part and many December timetables are seeing services re-introduced, yet without the footfall to sustain them. Whilst maintaining a service is a noble aim, it is also a costly one (hence the £9billion deficit) and some specific operational changes (some specific peak cancellations and shorter trains) would be very beneficial with little risk to passengers and would be easy to reintroduce in the future.

The key thing is, they were asking for a full service months ago, yet timetables are still running with four hour gaps after December.

 

[peters]

So less trains over the Castlefield corridor for example (yes I know there is a separate thread for that) would have the double whammy of the DfT not needing to spend money on improving it.

Already been confirmed that Northern's May 2021 timetable will not include all services that were included in the December 2018 timetable. Apparently 'relevant stakeholders' have been informed of the planned service cuts.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2020 ==

The key thing is, they were asking for a full service months ago, yet timetables are still running with four hour gaps after December.

Northern have confirmed 6% of services will still be omitted from the December 2020 timetable and some will never be reinstated (see above comment.)

 

[yorksrob]

Already been confirmed that Northern's May 2021 timetable will not include all services that were included in the December 2018 timetable. Apparently 'relevant stakeholders' have been informed of the planned service cuts.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2020 ==



Northern have confirmed 6% of services will still be omitted from the December 2020 timetable and some will never be reinstated (see above comment.)

I could understand if these were all services that were being squeezed around the Castlefield bottleneck. Destroying whole routes is not acceptable.

 

[Mcq]

What are non PRM trains please?

 

[Domh245]

What are non PRM trains please?

PRM is "Persons of Reduced Mobility", so these are the trains that are not compliant with the PRM-TSI. They are pretty much limited to the remaining few pacers and 153s, the EMR HSTs, and some units at Greater Anglia drafted in to cover for the lack of new trains entering service. Generally not too many now, and all with targeted phase outs, dependant on new/cascaded trains entering service soon

 

[Mcq]

Excellent many thanks for the full explanation

 

[Horizon22]

The key thing is, they were asking for a full service months ago, yet timetables are still running with four hour gaps after December.

I think its clearly highly uneven on a regional/TOC basis. In my area, multiple TOCs are still running 12-car peak, London commuter services which are running at a small fraction of capacity.

 

[Ianno87]

I think its clearly highly uneven on a regional/TOC basis. In my area, multiple TOCs are still running 12-car peak, London commuter services which are running at a small fraction of capacity.

Presumably, the marginal cost of running a service as 12-car (instead of 8-car) is relatively low, given the stock would otherwise just be sat in the sidings.

 

[yorksrob]

It's good that we

I think its clearly highly uneven on a regional/TOC basis. In my area, multiple TOCs are still running 12-car peak, London commuter services which are running at a small fraction of capacity.

'Twas ever thus, I suppose.

 

[Horizon22]

Presumably, the marginal cost of running a service as 12-car (instead of 8-car) is relatively low, given the stock would otherwise just be sat in the sidings.

Perhaps it is, but its still extra cost and often involves coupling which adds some (albeit minor) operational risk.