dailymail - One in five train services could be axed as treasury tightens purse strings

[Ianno87]

The Mon-Fri south WCML timetable could certainly stand a bit of thinning and standardisation absent many of the commuters, with more 8 and 12-car formations where extra capacity is needed.

You mean like 2tph stopping to Tring, 2tph semi-fast to Milton Keynes, 2tph fast to Northampton?

 

[Bald Rick]

As mentioned previously, the savings in TOC operations will come only when rolling stock is taken off lease, and staff numbers are reduced and/or paid less.

 

[Watershed]

I do wonder how much of this will be service related in the short term, or will it be a squeeze on the overhead costs of management contracts now that the treasury is taking on the financial risk not the TOC? Would this be ideal, probably, but it seems unlikely when the profit margins for the operating companies is already so constrained.

The management fees on the ERMAs is approximately 1.5% of total cost. Not free, but as the government is clearly unwilling to end private involvement in railway management, that's about the best deal they are going to get.

Personally I'd think the government would want to look at things like leasing costs and other overheads first

Some leases are not only expensive but are fixed over a very long period. For example the original IEP contracts, or leases for which the DfT guarantee a certain number of years of usage (I believe the Pendolini etc. fall into this category). There is no renegotiation to be done there.

There is perhaps a small saving available through cascading stock where frequency reductions permit, but generally it would only make sense to do this where it enables the disposal of older stock. Such older stock naturally attracts lower leasing rates, so you'd probably save more on maintenance rather than anything else.

I really hope you are right but unfortunately I can see a scenario where instead of a twice hourly 4 car you end up with an hourly 8 car service which doesn't really solve the problem, it just shifts around the current crowding issues.

Not necessarily so - frequency has (historically had) a significant impact on patronage. An hourly 8 car service is likely to result in lower total passenger numbers and can therefore cope better with passenger demand. It also takes fewer members of onboard staff to run.

The railways' biggest expense by a country mile is labour. I would not be surprised to see edicts from the DfT requiring a certain percentage of headcount (or the wage bill) to be cut. The obvious candidates would be things like little-used station booking offices, but frequency reductions may also enable a reduction in the number of operational staff required.

A recruitment freeze with resultant "natural wastage" may be sufficient to achieve the desired reductions, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of redundancies in places. Certainly I do not think DfT approval will be forthcoming for pay increases in the way we have seen over recent years.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Have created a thread for those of us who wish to speculate on options for thinning etc:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/if-20-of-train-services-are-to-be-cut-due-to-the-change-in-usage-patterns-what-would-you-cut.212641/

 

[lordbusiness]

Certainly interesting times ahead for the industry, reduction in services will probably spell the end of overtime and RDW if fewer services are required,with longer term reductions in the number of on-board staff and drivers?

 

[Robertj21a]

Maybe there will have to be large fare reductions to try to get new passengers if existing commuters dont return.Cant keep running empty trains.

Just cut the extra commuter trains. Too many doing too little work each day.

 

[Mag_seven]

I don't think the rail industry should "surrender" and accept reduced passenger numbers as a "fait accompli". It needs to pull out all the stops to get people travelling for both work and leisure purposes again otherwise all the investment in new rolling stock and infrastructure that has been made over the past few years will have been for nothing.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I don't think the rail industry should "surrender" and accept reduced passenger numbers as a "fait accompli". It needs to pull out all the stops to get people travelling for both work and leisure purposes again otherwise all the investment in new rolling stock and infrastructure that has been made over the past few years will have been for nothing.

Absolutely but the biggest opportunity will be the off peak leisure market and a rethink on pricing is going to be needed to drive up demand.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think the rail industry should "surrender" and accept reduced passenger numbers as a "fait accompli". It needs to pull out all the stops to get people travelling for both work and leisure purposes again

A bit like "reduce, reuse, recycle", with travel/transport the priorities are "avoid, transfer to human-powered mode[0], transfer to public transport, drive electric, drive ICE" (not quite as catchy, is it?)

So no, the railway should not be encouraging people to travel. If a given piece of travel can be done via Zoom or working from home or whatever instead, so it should be.

The railway should be concentrating its efforts (other than providing for those already using it) on taking journeys out of cars, prioritising cars with one person in them - to no doubt misquote Branson a bit, to grass over the M6.

otherwise all the investment in new rolling stock and infrastructure that has been made over the past few years will have been for nothing.

Quite the opposite. They will offer;

• A seat for everyone, every time.
• Resilience, punctuality and reliability (spare paths are a GOOD thing; it is not to everyone's benefit to find a Class 153 from somewhere just to use them up).
• The scrapping of ancient DMUs with ancient, high-pollution engines.

All of those things are much, much better than cramming more people in for unnecessary[1] journeys. Indeed, things for which we should have invested before, but didn't.

[0] The top two probably at the same priority level, as there is basically no environmental disadvantage of a journey on foot or bicycle, and great fitness and health advantages. So if you can walk/cycle there, go ahead!

[1] I don't mean in a COVID sense, I mean in a "the objective can't be achieved without travel" sense. Many business objectives will be able to be achieved without travel, and thus they should be. Whereas a trip to the seaside can't be achieved without going to the seaside, so again, if that's what you're doing, get on board and go!

 

[DB]

Isn't it likely that the biggest reduction will be in London commuting, so probably the largest reductions will be on those services.

 

[johntea]

I wonder how peak time services will fare in the short term (no pun intended!)

I appreciate I'm in a lucky position where I can work flexible hours, when my season ticket expires at the end of this year if I need to go into the office I'll just wait until an off peak service and work 10am/11am to 6pm/7pm, saving £2 on my journey

At the moment that also follows government advice of 'travelling outside peak times where you can' although if everyone followed that advice then...it wouldn't really work!

 

[Bensonby]

Isn't it likely that the biggest reduction will be in London commuting, so probably the largest reductions will be on those services.

Southeastern are already running a reduced service. I suppose that could be made permanent: though they are bushier now than they were at the top of the first peak. I’ve commuted throughout and will continue to do so, and the trains are busier now than at any point since March. You run a fairly good chance of someone sitting next to you now and the 2m “rule” is out the window (so still vastly less busy than pre-pandemic)

 

[yorksrob]

A bit like "reduce, reuse, recycle", with travel/transport the priorities are "avoid, transfer to human-powered mode[0], transfer to public transport, drive electric, drive ICE" (not quite as catchy, is it?)

So no, the railway should not be encouraging people to travel. If a given piece of travel can be done via Zoom or working from home or whatever instead, so it should be.

The railway should be concentrating its efforts (other than providing for those already using it) on taking journeys out of cars, prioritising cars with one person in them - to no doubt misquote Branson a bit, to grass over the M6.



Quite the opposite. They will offer;

• A seat for everyone, every time.
• Resilience, punctuality and reliability (spare paths are a GOOD thing; it is not to everyone's benefit to find a Class 153 from somewhere just to use them up).
• The scrapping of ancient DMUs with ancient, high-pollution engines.

All of those things are much, much better than cramming more people in for unnecessary[1] journeys. Indeed, things for which we should have invested before, but didn't.

[0] The top two probably at the same priority level, as there is basically no environmental disadvantage of a journey on foot or bicycle, and great fitness and health advantages. So if you can walk/cycle there, go ahead!

[1] I don't mean in a COVID sense, I mean in a "the objective can't be achieved without travel" sense. Many business objectives will be able to be achieved without travel, and thus they should be. Whereas a trip to the seaside can't be achieved without going to the seaside, so again, if that's what you're doing, get on board and go!

No, no, no, the idea that the railway is solely there to reduce motor transport is blinkered and a dead end.

It should reduce motor transport, but it is also there to encourage people to engage in the national economy. When people move around they buy things, support business, improve their own wellbeing.

The railway should absolutely be encouraging discretionary leisure travel for the good of the country.

 

[bramling]

No, no, no, the idea that the railway is solely there to reduce motor transport is blinkered and a dead end.

It should reduce motor transport, but it is also there to encourage people to engage in the national economy. When people move around they buy things, support business, improve their own wellbeing.

The railway should absolutely be encouraging discretionary leisure travel for the good of the country.

One big issue going forward is going to be staff availability, especially for roles like driver. The training backlog must now be immense in places, to the extent I don't think it would be possible to reinstate a full MF timetable if they wanted to, at least not without cancellations. In all honesty I'm amazed they're running as much as they are in places.

Saturday services with max'd out formations is going to be the thing for a while I think, in places at least.

 

[Ianno87]

No, no, no, the idea that the railway is solely there to reduce motor transport is blinkered and a dead end.

It should reduce motor transport, but it is also there to encourage people to engage in the national economy. When people move around they buy things, support business, improve their own wellbeing.

The railway should absolutely be encouraging discretionary leisure travel for the good of the country.

Totally agree. The railway's "value add" should be "why not make that virtual relationship a face to face one"?

Zoom, Teams etc are only partial replacements for working and meeting in person.

 

[yorksrob]

One big issue going forward is going to be staff availability, especially for roles like driver. The training backlog must now be immense in places, to the extent I don't think it would be possible to reinstate a full MF timetable if they wanted to, at least not without cancellations. In all honesty I'm amazed they're running as much as they are in places.

Saturday services with max'd out formations is going to be the thing for a while I think, in places at least.

To be fair, maxing out the formations can go a long way. Northern definitely need to be keeping all their 153's long term for such purposes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Dec 2020 ==

Totally agree. The railway's "value add" should be "why not make that virtual relationship a face to face one"?

Zoom, Teams etc are only partial replacements for working and meeting in person.

Absolutely. I'm sick of zoom.

 

[Jim the Jim]

If your journey involves just one train you might be able to work around a reduced frequency service quite easily. But add in connections and things get trickier. A fifty minute wait is a lot less palatable than a twenty minute one.

 

[the sniper]

I do think the Zoom/Teams being the future of meetings is being rather over played. I think there'll be a period post Covid where work from home staff, no longer required to stay in, will be very keen to get out as much as possible to meet people in person, fatigued by staying indoors and only seeing people on a screen.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The way I’m looking at this, is that it’s probably a rational decision at this point in time, but 3-5 years down the line circumstances may well have changed. Expansions and contractions of service levels (led by demand or not) tend to happen in cycles. The problem is that, much like the early 2000s financial market bubble, we’ve been assuming that continuous growth in demand was a permanent thing. It is not, and was never likely to be.

The 2020s may be difficult for the rail industry and see a fair bit of contraction, but my bet is that by the early 2030s we will be well into the next growth wave and this will be supported by the well-timed opening of HS2 which will boost intercity connectivity to the next level. Personally I would much prefer that the freed capacity on WCML etc is used for as much freight as possible, so if the MK-London commuter market hasn’t grown to the level of needing a metro-frequency service (if it ever could) then this is probably a good thing.

For an example of how services can just shrink without warning, look at some BR Intercity timetables from the mid-late 1980s followed by those of the early 1990s. The change is astonishing, yet it wasn’t a permanent collapse of the industry. This will not be either.

 

[Ianno87]

The way I’m looking at this, is that it’s probably a rational decision at this point in time, but 3-5 years down the line circumstances may well have changed. Expansions and contractions of service levels (led by demand or not) tend to happen in cycles. The problem is that, much like the early 2000s financial market bubble, we’ve been assuming that continuous growth in demand was a permanent thing. It is not, and was never likely to be.

The 2020s may be difficult for the rail industry and see a fair bit of contraction, but my bet is that by the early 2030s we will be well into the next growth wave and this will be supported by the well-timed opening of HS2 which will boost intercity connectivity to the next level. Personally I would much prefer that the freed capacity on WCML etc is used for as much freight as possible, so if the MK-London commuter market hasn’t grown to the level of needing a metro-frequency service (if it ever could) then this is probably a good thing.

For an example of how services can just shrink without warning, look at some BR Intercity timetables from the mid-late 1980s followed by those of the early 1990s. The change is astonishing, yet it wasn’t a permanent collapse of the industry. This will not be either.

Changing and reducing service patterns now is a reasonable and rational thing to do where there is a material cost saving to be had.

It just must be done in a way that doesn't leave "the railway" unable to react to should demand return with a vengeance.

 

[yorksrob]

The way I’m looking at this, is that it’s probably a rational decision at this point in time, but 3-5 years down the line circumstances may well have changed. Expansions and contractions of service levels (led by demand or not) tend to happen in cycles. The problem is that, much like the early 2000s financial market bubble, we’ve been assuming that continuous growth in demand was a permanent thing. It is not, and was never likely to be.

The 2020s may be difficult for the rail industry and see a fair bit of contraction, but my bet is that by the early 2030s we will be well into the next growth wave and this will be supported by the well-timed opening of HS2 which will boost intercity connectivity to the next level. Personally I would much prefer that the freed capacity on WCML etc is used for as much freight as possible, so if the MK-London commuter market hasn’t grown to the level of needing a metro-frequency service (if it ever could) then this is probably a good thing.

For an example of how services can just shrink without warning, look at some BR Intercity timetables from the mid-late 1980s followed by those of the early 1990s. The change is astonishing, yet it wasn’t a permanent collapse of the industry. This will not be either.

This is true. So long as they don't start cutting routes and stations !

 

[Bletchleyite]

Totally agree. The railway's "value add" should be "why not make that virtual relationship a face to face one"?

Absolutely, totally and completely not. Travel must be reduced; that's important to reduce our carbon emissions starkly as will be necessary.

There is enough car travel going on to keep the railway going for as long as it wants without deliberately creating new travel.

 

[Peter0124]

I feel like those intercity routes (Avanti, LNER, XC, GWR) will be the busiest as everyone will be wanting a holiday during the summer, so surely if services need to be cut it would be the commuter ones especially in London eg Thameslink core, services through Clapham junction.

 

[DB]

I feel like those intercity routes (Avanti, LNER, XC, GWR) will be the busiest as everyone will be wanting a holiday during the summer, so surely if services need to be cut it would be the commuter ones especially in London eg Thameslink core, services through Clapham junction.

Suspect a lot of people will be holidaying abroad again if it's possible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is true. So long as they don't start cutting routes and stations !

I wouldn't cut any routes. Some more pointless stations might be better off closing to allow simplification of service patterns. I mentioned New Lane, Bescar Lane and Hoscar; I'm just not convinced these three serve any purpose whatsoever now[1] - even Berney Arms serves more of a purpose for "walk out, train back" leisure activity. Though you could make such stations request stops, they are unlikely to be requested often.

[1] I suspect they probably came about for farmers to take their produce to by horse-drawn cart to be carried to the markets at Ormskirk and Wigan for sale, and have never really served much of a passenger purpose?

 

[yorksrob]

Absolutely, totally and completely not. Travel must be reduced; that's important to reduce our carbon emissions starkly as will be necessary.

There is enough car travel going on to keep the railway going for as long as it wants without deliberately creating new travel.

Absolutely not. Those of us who already do not run cars, do not expect to be "rewarded" for our considerations by being sidelined in favour of services solely aimed at reducing car travel.

The railway is a National network there to enable all citizens to go about their business, including non-motorists.

That "business" will inevitably include leisure travel.

 

[Bald Rick]

I do think the Zoom/Teams being the future of meetings is being rather over played. I think there'll be a period post Covid where work from home staff, no longer required to stay in, will be very keen to get out as much as possible to meet people in person, fatigued by staying indoors and only seeing people on a screen.

I agree to some extent, although some people will of course prefer zoom / teams etc compared to a long commute. However, I also reckon that most people are looking at this from the perspective of today, when most office based people are having to work at home. When restrictions are eased, and people start being able to have meetings in person, it will become more difficult for those not physically in the meeting to participate fully. Partly this will be the technology, and partly the psychology.

On the latter point, when your boss and, say, more than half your colleagues are in the meeting room, I suspect it will be difficult for many people to say “I’m working at home because I don’t fancy the commute”. Clearly there will be people who overcome that, and some meetings will still be easier remotely, but I strongly suspect that people who currently think they’ll be working at home, say, 3 days a week may find that a little optimistic.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I do think the Zoom/Teams being the future of meetings is being rather over played. I think there'll be a period post Covid where work from home staff, no longer required to stay in, will be very keen to get out as much as possible to meet people in person, fatigued by staying indoors and only seeing people on a screen.

For sure death of the office is a misnomer trumped up by journos with nothing better to write about or consultants looking at getting commissions to advise companies how to do it better. The real hit is going to companies downsizing and an element of decentralisng so central London Office market will roll back after many years of expansion. I believe regional office markets might actually benefit here so i see this as largely a reduction in London commuting with its heavy resource demands but it will still need to be managed with peak pricing I suspect.

 

[yorksrob]

I wouldn't cut any routes. Some more pointless stations might be better off closing to allow simplification of service patterns. I mentioned New Lane, Bescar Lane and Hoscar; I'm just not convinced these three serve any purpose whatsoever now[1] - even Berney Arms serves more of a purpose for "walk out, train back" leisure activity. Though you could make such stations request stops, they are unlikely to be requested often.

[1] I suspect they probably came about for farmers to take their produce to by horse-drawn cart to be carried to the markets at Ormskirk and Wigan for sale, and have never really served much of a passenger purpose?

But those stations are so poorly used, and so unfunded as to being not relevant to the debate anyway.

If anyone does argue for cutting routes and stations as partof a cost reduction strategy, the cuts envisaged will be far more severe

 

[Bald Rick]

For sure death of the office is a misnomer trumped up by journos with nothing better to write about or consultants looking at getting commissions to advise companies how to do it better. The real hit is going to companies downsizing and an element of decentralisng so central London Office market will roll back after many years of expansion. I believe regional office markets might actually benefit here so i see this as largely a reduction in London commuting with its heavy resource demands but it will still need to be managed with peak pricing I suspect.

Yep, I agree Sir. The London office market is going to have a rollercoaster ride for the next few years. Starting with a big drop - I can’t see many companies renewing any leases that come up for the next year; at best they will be taking options.