Do branch lines contribute much financially to the greater network?

[Dr Hoo]

Probably. The costs of it must be enormous (how much did that embankment collapse south of Carlisle cost?).

I'm probably one of the few, here and overall, who used it for a business trip a while ago. London-Doncaster-Carlisle-London. Apart from the impossibility of getting sensible ticketing for such, I had an alternative that if the first meeting ran on and I missed the one practical afternoon train from Leeds to Carlisle, going via Newcastle was a very reasonable alternative. The "tourist traffic" comprised taking the whole of one car of the 2-car 158 as reserved, for a coach party who only used the train between Hellifield and Kirkby Stephen (while their coach drove, empty, along parallel roads). Everyone else was squashed into the back car, where the largest load was north of Skipton, with standees (fine view for tourists that, all they would see was the ballast), but by the time we got to Carlisle there were just about a dozen passengers. I doubt the coach party contributed much to the overall end-to-end costs of a whole dmu car from Leeds to Carlisle. It also seemed to come as quite a surprise to the railway that if you provide a service in an area well known for hiking and backpacking, your passengers might bring their backpacks with them, and thus need provision for them ...

The accident at Ais Gill in 1995, out of the tourist season, is instructive for showing just a couple of passengers in each of the two trains.

BIB According to an article in The Rail Engineer at the time the project costs were £27.5million for Eden Brows. I don't think that that included non-engineering costs like loss of revenue, replacement buses, freight diversion and so on.

Strangely enough I also had a bizarre business trip over the S&C. Living in Northamptonshire and having a day meeting in Glasgow it was an obvious (if slow) route with a full-price open ticket. My return trip involved a short change at Carlisle into an already-rammed train that was full of pensioners enjoying some TOC 'Over-55s' promotional fare. Had to stand all the way to Leeds.

But out-of-season you can usually get a 4-seat table bay to yourself.

 

[A0]

With a bit of thought they can sometimes be designed out, though. The quirky planned layout of Kirkby Headbolt Lane for instance allows for lifts not to be required while the station is fully accessible.

With respect, the cost of a couple of lifts is marginal in the scheme of things and is a bit of a red herring.

You can't "design out" the fundamentals which have led to increases in cost due to safety or access requiurements.

The point still stands - either you want a modern, accessible railway which comes at a cost, or you don't. It's a binary choice. And all new developments need to meet current legislative requirements, so harking back to what was OK to do "on the cheap" in the 1980s is pointless.

 

[MattRat]

With respect, the cost of a couple of lifts is marginal in the scheme of things and is a bit of a red herring.

You can't "design out" the fundamentals which have led to increases in cost due to safety or access requiurements.

The point still stands - either you want a modern, accessible railway which comes at a cost, or you don't. It's a binary choice. And all new developments need to meet current legislative requirements, so harking back to what was OK to do "on the cheap" in the 1980s is pointless.

Have you ever heard of trickle down economics? Basically, technology gets cheaper over time.

 

[A0]

Have you ever heard of trickle down economics? Basically, technology gets cheaper over time.

I have and I also understand it, which I'm not sure you do.

To give a practical example IF new standards mean fencing *has* to be metal rather than wooden and metal fencing costs 20% more to manufacture and install, then no amount of "trickle down" economics is going to change that.

Most of the access standards haven't demanded new technology to implement but *do* require additional resources e.g. better lighting, different materials, hand rails where previously these weren't needed etc.

What you're referring to works where you have something new to market - technology being the obvious one where when something is introduced to the market it is usually done with low volumes and high prices - as the product gets established and derivative products arrive in the market the price falls.

To go back the the example I called put - lifts are a mature, established product. They are not introducing new, high price, high tech products.

 

[yorksrob]

Again with the hysterical language... there's no need for your scaremongering... nobody is talking about "slashing" the railway network... you could save millions of pounds in annual subsidy by removing a small number of lightly used lines... the fact that you have to sound so alarmist about less than 1% of passenger miles suggests that you know how weak your argument is, so need all of this hyperbole to pad it out

Unfortunately one has to consider where it will stop (or not). Once this supposedly painless 1% has been cut this year, how long will it be until the TBTC's of this world are calling for the next "only 1%" of cuts.

You may call it "only 1%", but taken with the cuts we've already had since Beeching, this is just adding to an continued unacceptable shrinkage of the passenger network.

How do you run a railway without an element of Robbing Peter To Pay Paul?

It's always been the way - it happened a lot in BR days (e.g. the Regional Railways 158s that were pinched by Network South East, various cascades of stock around the country to try to cover shortfalls) - there's an opportunity cost to every spending decision - every pound that your Government spends subsidising quiet branch lines is a pound that they could use on the NHS



You keep saying "useful", rather than using any actual figures

In the case of the Whitby branch, Whitby had around 130,000 passengers per annum in the years pre Covid. So that's 65,000 departing passengers each year. Which means roughly the capacity of a two coach DMU per day worth of passengers per day. i.e. with four services a day each service is a quarter full (fewer than fifty passengers per service). Obviously some of these will be focussed on the "school" services. This is why people are a little sceptical with your amazing bad luck of being "crammed onto the trains" every time you visit a line that has low passenger numbers

I'm sure that services/ stations/ lines are all "useful to the people who use it" - they obviously use it because they find it "useful" - the question isn't "do the people who use a train find that train useful", it's "do enough people use the train to justify the subsidy"



I'm not sure what you mean here Rob... are you saying that The Powers That Be should keep running all services regardless of any financial costs (e.g. keep subsidising all journeys, even if the subsidy per passenger mile gets out of hand)?

Are you (as someone who's consistently argued for the Government to control all of the railway) saying that you want the Government to keep subsidising the railway, regardless of the costs, when that money could be used on health/education etc?

In what world would there be absolutely no "financial concerns" taken into account when assessing whether a service can be justified?

For example, the Barton line made sense when there was a ferry over the Humber. The A15 now goes over the river, so there are no ferries. The branch is a very lightly used stub to a fairly small settlement (Barton upon Humber). Do we just keep subsidising that line indefinitely, even though it's lost most of its purpose?

The Stranraer line made sense when lots of people used the train to get to the ferry terminal as the main way of crossing to Larne. Then Ryanair etc came along and you could take a flight directly from Edinburgh/Glasgow/ Prestwick to Belfast/Dublin. Then the ferries fought back by moving to Cairnryan (a shorter crossing, but a long way from any train station). With the Irish passengers no longer using the branch, the passenger numbers have declined significantly and the station at Stranraer is a very bleak half mile away from the town centre. Do we just keep subsidising that line indefinitely, even though it's lost most of its purpose?

I could go on with routes that once had a reason for existing but that market died away (or the freight that sustained the line dwindled, leaving a handful of passenger trains to cover all of the costs of the route), but I'm guessing that, if it were up to you, we'd have kept a station at the Baseball Ground even after Derby County moved to Pride Park and the original station lost its purpose?



Well said

Some people aren't interested in solving problems or focussing on increasing overall passenger numbers, they just have a starting point of how the railway looked in about 1960 and desperately try to find a way of justifying getting back to that

I don't think that anyone is arguing about shuffling rolling stock on this thread. The successful deployment of 159's to NSE solved a gap in provision and allowed all routes involved to continue. This is somewhat different to permanently closing railway routes.

In terms of the Whitby line, its testament to the routes popularity that it manages to get 65000 per annum with a timetable that's inconvenient for everyone but the schoolchildren. There are lots of people who want to visit Whitby. Provide a half decent service frequency and even more passengers will roll in.

I'm sorry "TC" you'll have to point out where I'm "consistently calling for the government to run all of the railway". It seems fairly obvious that the far greater day to day interference in the running of the railway exercised by the government today, than under BR, is proving to be counterproductive in many ways.

Barton's an interesting one. When I had a friend who lived there I did use the branch to visit him. The off-putting aspects were the extortionate fares that blight most middle distance journeys on the regional railway (we don't have network cards, groupsave offers etc that the South east does to keep the cost down). Also, there was no Sunday service, so I had to raise over to Hull the Sunday morning to get back. I'd rather address these two issues as well as the fact that the railway has just ditched it's more cost effective single railcars for the route than close.

 

[Ken H]

It all depends on how personally precious you are about seating - I'd find most modern bus seats more comfortable than a "3+2" toaster rack seat on a 150 - I tend to get a much better window view from most buses than most trains - but it's all subjective (partly depends on how long your legs are, how fussy you want to be about these things)



These are all projects that will be used by thousands of people a day

Whereas Stranraer station is used by about eighty departing passengers a day, i.e. half a 158's worth of passengers all day

Not in the same ball park



If you honestly believe that the best way to reduce the billions of subsidy that the railway requires (note, not remove the subsidy entirely, nobody is demanding that the railway operate without any subsidies, there's just a debate about where to use the subsidy to best serve people) is the fact that trains and signs are repainted every five years or so then there seems no point in arguing with you (you probably don't think that there were any rebranding costs with BR and all of the different "sectors" or different versions of InterCity/ NSE liveries or any other tinkering with brands back in the Good Old Days!)



I don't think there are any John Major fan boys here... yet another straw man... the initial version of privatisation didn't last very long (Railtrack, tiny franchises like Gatwick Express/ Valley Lines/ Island Line) and we've been through many models since then - we now have GBR - move on



One of the arguments in favour of focussing on the tourist market is the economic boost to rural places

If we are talking about somewhere like Skegness then you are say that without the trains the Holiday Camps would be without hundreds of residents, which would have quite an economic impact (people may stay a week there and spend a lot of money in local places) - the line is also a main way of getting to the rest of a country for a town of around twenty thousand people

However, in the case of the S&C, there aren't any particularly large intermediate places, and the kind of "tourists" it attracts are more likely to be going for a walk in the countryside, maybe buying a meal in a pub before getting the train home again, but not huge spenders - so is spending a tenner on subsidising each train passenger a great way of regenerating the rural economy? Seems a fairly blunt way of doing it to me

It wouldn't be "popular", no, I'm sure lots of people who barely use the line a handful of times a decade would be outraged, but if we only focussed railway resources on where they'd be most popular then we'd invest in lots of quaint rural branch lines and ignore modern travel patterns - do we do what's right or not?

S&C isn't just tourists. Get the early train from settle on a weekday and it will be rammed with commuters. Loads of kids going to college in skipton. And people needing to be in leeds/Bradford early. And the train doesn't come into Settle empty either.
I have also had to stand on the next train south from settle.
The 'bus to Skipton takes so long and there isn't a really early one as the bus starts from lancaster.

 

[Starmill]

Also, there was no Sunday service, so I had to raise over to Hull the Sunday morning to get back. I'd rather address these two issues as well as the fact that the railway has just ditched it's more cost effective single railcars for the route than close.

There's a Sunday service in summer to Barton-on-Humber.

If they really want a single car train back they could try to negotiate for some of the Transport for Wales ones. However their capacity is so low that if that's realistically all that's needed, then a train is simply not the answer.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There's a Sunday service in summer to Barton-on-Humber.

If they really want a single car train back they could try to negotiate for some of the Transport for Wales ones. However their capacity is so low that if that's realistically all that's needed, then a train is simply not the answer.

Barton is an interesting case as the (Stagecoach, I think?) bus service over the bridge is (and long has been) in the railway timetable to search. How much effort would it be, I wonder, to bring it into the fares system too?

 

[nw1]

Unfortunately one has to consider where it will stop (or not). Once this supposedly painless 1% has been cut this year, how long will it be until the TBTC's of this world are calling for the next "only 1%" of cuts.

You may call it "only 1%", but taken with the cuts we've already had since Beeching, this is just adding to an continued unacceptable shrinkage of the passenger network.


I don't think that anyone is arguing about shuffling rolling stock on this thread. The successful deployment of 159's to NSE solved a gap in provision and allowed all routes involved to continue. This is somewhat different to permanently closing railway routes.

In terms of the Whitby line, its testament to the routes popularity that it manages to get 65000 per annum with a timetable that's inconvenient for everyone but the schoolchildren. There are lots of people who want to visit Whitby. Provide a half decent service frequency and even more passengers will roll in.

I'm sorry "TC" you'll have to point out where I'm "consistently calling for the government to run all of the railway". It seems fairly obvious that the far greater day to day interference in the running of the railway exercised by the government today, than under BR, is proving to be counterproductive in many ways.

Barton's an interesting one. When I had a friend who lived there I did use the branch to visit him. The off-putting aspects were the extortionate fares that blight most middle distance journeys on the regional railway (we don't have network cards, groupsave offers etc that the South east does to keep the cost down). Also, there was no Sunday service, so I had to raise over to Hull the Sunday morning to get back. I'd rather address these two issues as well as the fact that the railway has just ditched it's more cost effective single railcars for the route than close.

What worries me is that we are entering a period of "slash and burn" economics. It's particularly worrying when people say "why should we keep lines like S+C and Whitby open when the money could go to the NHS". You could trot out the NHS as an excuse to cut everything - and this indeed often happens when cuts-oriented economic policies are argued for.

(Sorry, edited out over-pessimistic rant, I was in a bad mood when I made the post...)

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Because they can't afford to maintain them, and it's simply more obvious in America where there are more roads.

So what? What has that to do with this thread or your assertion that roads cost more to maintain than railways and have less throughput?

 

[A0]

What worries me is that we are entering a period of "slash and burn" economics. It's particularly worrying when people say "why should we keep lines like S+C and Whitby open when the money could go to the NHS". You could trot out the NHS as an excuse to cut everything - and this indeed often happens when cuts-oriented economic policies are argued for.

(Sorry, edited out over-pessimistic rant, I was in a bad mood when I made the post...)

Looking to manage public spending is hardly "slash and burn" economics - particularly given the huge amount of public spending which was put in place to bridge the effects of the pandemic.

It's perfectly reasonable to look at the rail network - especially when passenger numbers are about 1/3rd down against pre-pandemic levels with no clear path or evidence that they will return to pre-pandemic levels any time soon, much of this being driven by changes to working practises. And whether you like it or not, much of the rail's farebox income was from commuters travelling on a daily basis - especially those who bought season tickets, thereby effectively guaranteeing revenue for the railway for weeks and months ahead. Nobody's talking about a "Beeching II" - but lines like Barton on Humber, which have been massively loss making for donkeys years do need to be revisited. And the line his limited freight potential - only as far as New Holland and that's dwarfed by Immingham.

Looking at Barton in the round - there is a half hourly bus to both Hull (via the bridge) and Scunthorpe (which the railway doesn't serve directly), there is another hourly bus between Hull (via the bridge) and Grimsby / Cleethorpes which takes about an hour to get from Barton to Grimsby - the train runs every 2 hours and is only 10 minutes quicker between Grimsby and Barton. Given that - what is the benefit of continuing to run a train service - the bus is covering all the key destinations, the journey time advantage for the train is negligible - and worse if you actually want to go to Scunthorpe or Hull - both of which are likely to be bigger draws than Grimsby / Cleethorpes.

You simply can't spend money which you can't repay in the future - so spending billions on the rail network, when its future usage levels are unclear is not very wise. This issue is not unique to the public sector - private sector companies are having to make similar decisions about what and where to invest in - the retail sector in particular, where things like store refurbishments and refits will be delayed because the numbers actually going to the stores have declined due to Covid; even last week Wilkinsons announced a limited number of store closures, given they operate in the "budget" end of the market and are a low cost operation that is telling, because that is the end of the market which usually recovers first. I'd not be surprised if other "budget" retailers (Poundland, B&M) made similar announcements in the weeks ahead.

Edited in response to OP editing their post.

 

[Meerkat]

I doubt the three-ish (?) DMUs necessary to operate the S&C are going to make that much of a negative impact on the environment in the scheme of things.

What about all the diesel vans and on track stuff doing the maintenance?

hat's the answer to the question "if branches were deemed worthy of keeping open in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, a period of high car ownership, then why not now?"

They weren't deemed worthy of keeping open, they were just too politically difficult to close.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What about all the diesel vans and on track stuff doing the maintenance?

What about all the diesel vans that maintain the roads?

You can forget closing the S&C, it won't happen. Too politically sensitive. Barton, maybe. Stranraer, slightly less maybe (as it's in Scotland). Conwy Valley, certainly if there's a major tunnel collapse, which with the unlined tunnel may well happen at some point, and possibly even without if the new electric bus service paralleling it is a big success (as I think it might be). But not something as high profile as the S&C.

 

[yorksrob]

There's a Sunday service in summer to Barton-on-Humber.

If they really want a single car train back they could try to negotiate for some of the Transport for Wales ones. However their capacity is so low that if that's realistically all that's needed, then a train is simply not the answer.

Ah well, that's an improvement on when my friend lived there ! Id agree that obtaining a TfW 153 would be a better efficiency compromise than closure.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jan 2022 ==

What worries me is that we are entering a period of "slash and burn" economics. It's particularly worrying when people say "why should we keep lines like S+C and Whitby open when the money could go to the NHS". You could trot out the NHS as an excuse to cut everything - and this indeed often happens when cuts-oriented economic policies are argued for.

(Sorry, edited out over-pessimistic rant, I was in a bad mood when I made the post...)

Ah but you're quite correct. The argument on this very thread is already beginning to stay into S&C territory (I think possibly Whitby before I mentioned it, but if not I'll accept the blame for raising it).

It's a pandoras box that anyone who relies on the passenger network should be wary of seeing opened.

 

[nw1]

Ah well, that's an improvement on when my friend lived there ! Id agree that obtaining a TfW 153 would be a better efficiency compromise than closure.

I would agree that a single-car is a better solution than closure, and I don't think the "if a single-car is needed, there probably isn't a need for a railway" argument is valid. A line might be quiet, but still get steady use, and a single-car sounds a good solution to this scenario.

Single-cars have been used for many years; before the 153s there were the 'bubble cars' (121s) also. Single-cars are also fairly common in Germany IMX; to give one example, the Bad Krozingen-Muenstertal branch in the Black Forest used them in 1986/7 and 2009. The line attracts some traffic, but not enough for a full 2-car, so why not use a single-car?

An hourly shuttle using a single-car off-peak, and a 2-car unit in the peak, could still give a very usable service for a quiet line without over-provisioning capacity. The off-peak 153 could then be used to boost capacity on other lines in the peak, making it quite an efficient way to run the branch.

 

[A0]

You can forget closing the S&C, it won't happen. Too politically sensitive. Barton, maybe. Stranraer, slightly less maybe (as it's in Scotland). Conwy Valley, certainly if there's a major tunnel collapse, which with the unlined tunnel may well happen at some point, and possibly even without if the new electric bus service paralleling it is a big success (as I think it might be). But not something as high profile as the S&C.

I happen to agree with you about the S&C.

Stranraer makes no sense, but then again nor do many of the SNPs demands and that one will probably become totemic in a silly campaign from Edinburgh.

I think there will be questions about the extent of the stopping service on the Marston Vale - pre pandemic most of those trains carted fresh air around (school timed ones and Amazon at Ridgmont being an exception) and stations like Millbrook, Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick which are in the middle of nowhere may come into question. The Abbey Flyer is another where I could see questions being asked.

I know you've mentioned Heysham before - there's another, once there's no longer the traffic to the power station. After all the non vehicle traffic from the ferry will almost certainly have arrived by bus at Douglas - a direct bus to Lancaster (given the time the ferries arrive / depart) would almost certainly be quicker and more convenient.

 

[Greybeard33]

There's a Sunday service in summer to Barton-on-Humber.

If they really want a single car train back they could try to negotiate for some of the Transport for Wales ones. However their capacity is so low that if that's realistically all that's needed, then a train is simply not the answer.

Which begs the question, why has the Heart of Wales not yet featured in this thread? It seems that infrequent single 153s are considered adequate to meet demand on this line, despite the capacity reduction from installation of the PRM toilet. And infrastructure repairs must have cost a pretty penny over the last few years.

 

[Meerkat]

What about all the diesel vans that maintain the roads?

From observation I would say that there aren't as many. I don't see many vans about maintaining the roads (actually maintaining them, not digging them up for utilities etc) whereas whenever I go anywhere by train there seem to be NR and contractor vans all over the place. And if you compared the S&C with a road with a similar level of traffic I bet the difference would be significant (with the added mileage of having to drive all over the place to maintain a railway as you cant just drive along it to stop off and mend something)

 

[nw1]

What about all the diesel vans and on track stuff doing the maintenance?

Fair point but even still, in the scheme of things, lines like S+C are not going to cause a significant negative impact on the environment.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I happen to agree with you about the S&C.

Indeed. It's too hard to get away with closing a line that basically everybody has heard of, even if they have never used a train in their lives and don't even know quite where it is. I suspect the presence of the "Harry Potter bridge" on the Mallaig line would also keep that fairly safe.

I think there will be questions about the extent of the stopping service on the Marston Vale - pre pandemic most of those trains carted fresh air around (school timed ones and Amazon at Ridgmont being an exception) and stations like Millbrook, Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick which are in the middle of nowhere may come into question.

There already have been - EWR are proposing to consolidate the stops to 5 by closing some and relocating others, which will also be coupled with major brownfield housing development which would cause some of the "middle of nowhere" ones (most notably the latter two) to actually serve somewhere useful. There has been a thread on it but overall it does make some sense, though I still think the lack of direct MKC services are a limiting factor, Bedford is limited as a commuting destination (other than schoolkids who generally don't mind using buses), and anyone commuting to London from the new developments will probably just drive to Flitwick for Thameslink rather than going north to go south.

The Abbey Flyer is another where I could see questions being asked.

Possibly, though I think it's nowhere near as "bad" as some. It's a shame it's single track, as were it double it'd make a reasonable guided busway which would at least get people into Watford or St Albans rather than 15 minutes' walk from each.

I know you've mentioned Heysham before - there's another, once there's no longer the traffic to the power station. After all the non vehicle traffic from the ferry will almost certainly have arrived by bus at Douglas - a direct bus to Lancaster (given the time the ferries arrive / depart) would almost certainly be quicker and more convenient.

Indeed, though the power station will be around a while yet - it closes in 2024 (I think) but it takes years to decommission one, so it's probably got 10 years left. It isn't useful in passenger terms, because it runs down the back of the town, not through it as the main road does, but as the passenger service just runs instead of one round trip to Lancaster (ish) it doesn't actually cost anything per-se so it'll probably stay unless the Government makes closing things easier.

I doubt the ferries carry many foot passengers. The set of people who are scared of flying and wouldn't find Liverpool (for the IoM) or Holyhead or Cairnryan (for Ireland) easier to get to is very small.

 

[A0]

Which begs the question, why has the Heart of Wales not yet featured in this thread? It seems that infrequent single 153s are considered adequate to meet demand on this line, despite the capacity reduction from installation of the PRM toilet. And infrastructure repairs must have cost a pretty penny over the last few years.

I think HoW is probably safe - because it serves areas which would be a *long* way from the rail network if it were closed (basically the reason why Borders Rail made some sense) - and any road journey would be significantly longer / slower.

Compare this with Stranraer for example where the station has lost most of its traffic due to the move of the ferry port, the train takes 52 minutes to get to Girvan which the bus does in 51 minutes or Barton where there are 3 buses an hour to Hull, 2 an hour to Scunthorpe (which the train doesn't go to from Barton) and hourly to Grimsby and Cleethorpes (the train is every other hour) and the journey time difference is negligible.

 

[RT4038]

Which begs the question, why has the Heart of Wales not yet featured in this thread? It seems that infrequent single 153s are considered adequate to meet demand on this line, despite the capacity reduction from installation of the PRM toilet. And infrastructure repairs must have cost a pretty penny over the last few years.

I would suggest that the length of the line, and the difficulty of providing a practicable road transport service to and between the intermediate towns. If there was a paralleling main road then it would surely be up there for review.

I don't think the economics only should be looked at as a binary solution. It is about providing the best and cost effective solutions for public transport as a whole. I'm all for new/re-opened lines on corridors of high demand, especially where journey times are going to be sped up for lots of people. However, spending large sums of money on few passengers on some rail branch lines, whilst large numbers of people not on railway lines get very little spent on their public transport, is unfair and not sustainable. There needs to be a mechanism to adjust the rail network accordingly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think the economics only should be looked at as a binary solution. It is about providing the best and cost effective solutions for public transport as a whole. I'm all for new/re-opened lines on corridors of high demand, especially where journey times are going to be sped up for lots of people. However, spending large sums of money on few passengers on some rail branch lines, whilst large numbers of people not on railway lines get very little spent on their public transport, is unfair and not sustainable. There needs to be a mechanism to adjust the rail network accordingly.

What we fundamentally need is rail and bus money coming out of the same pot as part of funding a public transport network rather than simply a rail one. That would result in some fairer decisions and better integration.

The Conwy Valley is a classic example - if, instead of the bi-annual rebuild and operating subsidy, that same money went on subsidising a fully integrated, high quality Snowdon Sherpa network looking like you might have with the Postauto* services in similar parts of Switzerland, things would be better for everyone. However there is no mechanism at present to actually do that - rail is funded from national general taxation and bus subsidy from Council Tax.

TfW has a chance at being, due to the de-facto situation of regulation in Wales, a first go at that since before deregulation when attitudes were very different.

* Swiss Post operates them, but they aren't really postbuses in the way we see them (though that is their origins) - they are just a bus company, really, that happens to sit under Swiss Post rather than being a standalone Government entity.

 

[nw1]

What we fundamentally need is rail and bus money coming out of the same pot as part of funding a public transport network rather than simply a rail one. That would result in some fairer decisions and better integration.

The Conwy Valley is a classic example - if, instead of the bi-annual rebuild and operating subsidy, that same money went on subsidising a fully integrated, high quality Snowdon Sherpa network, things would be better for everyone. However there is no mechanism at present to actually do that - rail is funded from national general taxation and bus subsidy from Council Tax.

TfW has a chance at being, due to the de-facto situation of regulation in Wales, a first go at that since before deregulation when attitudes were very different.

I do think rail and bus need to be integrated better, and be part of a cohesive system with through ticketing which makes mixed-mode journeys less expensive. Having 'rail-like' buses would go a long way towards restoring the losses of Beeching.

For example, to give a local case which I would personally make use of if it existed: a dedicated Purbeck rail-bus link with through ticketing and timed to connect into Waterloo trains at Wareham. It could be hourly, but increase to half-hourly at weekends from say April to September and all week in July and August. Granted there is already a service bus but AFAIK there is no through ticketing with the railway meaning a dual-mode journey is disproportionately expensive and doesn't necessarily connect. Also it continues into Poole rather than being a dedicated Wareham-Swanage 'shuttle' which could result in delays, the A351 north of Wareham being particularly delay-prone.

 

[RT4038]

What we fundamentally need is rail and bus money coming out of the same pot as part of funding a public transport network rather than simply a rail one. That would result in some fairer decisions and better integration.

TfW has a chance at being, due to the de-facto situation of regulation in Wales, a first go at that since before deregulation when attitudes were very different.

Quite. 'Tis one of the few things that both you & I agree on ! (actually probably a lot more, but just different ways of getting to and doing the same thing)

 

[Starmill]

Which begs the question, why has the Heart of Wales not yet featured in this thread? It seems that infrequent single 153s are considered adequate to meet demand on this line, despite the capacity reduction from installation of the PRM toilet. And infrastructure repairs must have cost a pretty penny over the last few years.

The Heart of Wales and Conwy Valley lines both feed into regional centres of Swansea and Llandudno respectively, wheras Girvan - Stranraer lacks even that. There's also some role for the Heart of Wales in feeding into Shrewsbury.

However as you say these aren't at all large traffic generators. It's been suggested that they'd perform better as tourist routes with the local transport handled by much better bus links. It's easy to imagine the prospect of a tourist-focused service to Betws-y-Coed would be a commercial success.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Heart of Wales and Conwy Valley lines both feed into regional centres of Swansea and Llandudno respectively, wheras Girvan - Stranraer lacks even that. There's also some role for the Heart of Wales in feeding into Shrewsbury.

However as you say these aren't at all large traffic generators. It's been suggested that they'd perform better as tourist routes with the local transport handled by much better bus links. It's easy to imagine the prospect of a tourist-focused service to Betws-y-Coed would be a commercial success.

The main issue with the Conwy Valley is that the bit that causes the very high costs (i.e. the bit that washes away) is the northern bit. Were it the southern bit, you could see it making sense to have a two hourly single-unit service to Betws which connected properly with a series of buses to places people were likely to be going, e.g. Pen y Pass and Llanberis as well as Blaenau. Three hourly is too infrequent for that - but I have suggested in the past, and still do believe, that by paying attention to exactly who specific journeys were aimed at you could actually reduce to a service with four round trips per day and serve more peoples' needs than the pre-COVID six. (The COVID four trip service doesn't count as it's just the same with the early and late round trips lopped). I'm all for Takt, but I think the value goes once you get too infrequent.

 

[yorksrob]

The Heart of Wales and Conwy Valley lines both feed into regional centres of Swansea and Llandudno respectively, wheras Girvan - Stranraer lacks even that. There's also some role for the Heart of Wales in feeding into Shrewsbury.

However as you say these aren't at all large traffic generators. It's been suggested that they'd perform better as tourist routes with the local transport handled by much better bus links. It's easy to imagine the prospect of a tourist-focused service to Betws-y-Coed would be a commercial success.

I should imagine if I lived in Llandovery or Llandrindod Wells and wanted to get to Cardiff or Manchester for University or to visit friends, I doubt a long bid journey would be much use.

A service geared towards both local residents and tourists, as achieved on the Settle and Carlisle route would seem most appropriate.

 

[Starmill]

I should imagine if I lived in Llandovery or Llandrindod Wells and wanted to get to Cardiff or Manchester for University or to visit friends, I doubt a long bid journey would be much use.

Why? Do you realise that Llandrindod Wells has a direct bus to Cardiff which is quicker and more frequent than the train service? And cheaper? Why would people use the train for that journey when there are no through trains, rather than the two hourly direct bus?

I really find it difficult to criticise you but I'm forced to conclude by your constantly posting that people don't want to use a bus that you're just innately averse to bus travel for your own personal reasons. That's absolutely fine and nobody can criticise you for that, but you must accept that that only goes for you personally.

As a wider transport solution buses are an important part of the answer. They are not the only answer, and they can and should be better. But roads-based transport has certain advantages that rail doesn't.

 

[yorksrob]

Why? Do you realise that Llandrindod Wells has a direct bus to Cardiff which is quicker and more frequent than the train service? And cheaper? Why would people use the train for that journey when there are no through trains, rather than the two hourly direct bus?

I really find it difficult to criticise you but I'm forced to conclude by your constantly posting that people don't want to use a bus that you're just innately averse to bus travel for your own personal reasons. That's absolutely fine and nobody can criticise you for that, but you must accept that that only goes for you personally.

As a wider transport solution buses are an important part of the answer. They are not the only answer, and they can and should be better. But roads-based transport has certain advantages that rail doesn't.

On the contrary, there is a bus that goes from the end of my street to the centre of Wakefield that I find very handy and use weekly or more. That is the sort of local journey that buses are well suited for.

The middle of Wales to Cardiff, on the other hand isn't, and I would no more use one for that journey than for Leeds to Settle. I'm sure the majority of the traveling public would make a similar distinction.