What is the railway doing well currently?

[yorksrob]

I would suggest that 'the railway' and 'the Government' (including Dft/Treasury) are two separate categories of assessment.

Unfortunately the railway is being forced to do the DfT/Treasury/Government's bidding in this respect.

 

[zwk500]

Unfortunately the railway is being forced to do the DfT/Treasury/Government's bidding in this respect.

Indeed, which is why it's important to distinguish between things the railway is doing badly (communicating to passengers, managing timetables appropriate to the available resources), and things the railway is doing well but is being hamstrung/sabotaged by the Government repeatedly (timetable rewrites, new infrastructure projects, future capacity requirements).

 

[Yew]

Unfortunately this may be the biggest problem facing us today, not a positive. Too many new rolling stock fleets - with contracts guaranteed for years. The only thing that can be cut is staff or maintenance, or maintenance staff...

This table (Modern Railways, Jan '23) shows real-terms increases in costs (after adjusting inflation!!).. Is now almost as much cost as TOC staff..

View attachment 125861

I do worry about the costs of that - the concept of the ROSCOS is one that has never made financial sense. It's not like we see an over-supply of trains, and therefore real competition; instead it just seems to be a way for take money out of the publics hands, and put it into the pockets of private companies.



On the other hand it seems like EMR has listened to the criticisms coming from the new Azumas, and is keen on making a more comfortable train, even if I worry that with the lighter/shorter carriages, the suspension may be even firmer.

 

[johntea]

Passengers not giving up on rail, despite everything.

Yes, there are some who will say "never again", yes there are some for whom the railways is the best or only option to travel. But every good experience we give them means they are likely to talk about it, and be the railway's advocates and encourage more people to travel by train. And the regulars will fight for the railway as well, whether that by insisting LNER's First Class breakfast is decent or raising how the railway is vital for some communities/constitencies, such as Huddersfield-Mirfield-Wakefield(-Castleford).

Creating those "good experiences" is something that's in the hands of many people on this forum. Not me, I'm just a passenger

The Huddersfield service has potential but needs to not run 5-10 minutes after the Sheffield service (ideally time it to make a twice hourly service about 30 minutes apart to Normanton and Wakefield)

Castleford is a positive example of the railway though, the station is now night and day compared to 10 years ago despite still being unstaffed, even though it never got the ‘interchange’ both the rail station and bus station now have excellent facilities with Platform 2 nearly open again which opens quite a few opportunities going forward should the TOCs choose to make use of them! (A case of ‘build it and they will come’ perhaps)

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The operator of last resort. This is how the railway should be run.

But they are not immune from strikes - their unions are all in dispute with their TOC/RDG/DfT.

I think e-ticketing is a positive, but as ever, the UK railway manages to go off at half-cock with many routes not supporting it, or forcing m-tickets on us.
I still find it frustrating that I can go round almost all of Europe on a series of home-bought PDF e-tickets, but not in the UK.

By and large, stations are better-presented these days, with better PIS, lighting and access generally.
NR did a good job at places like Reading and Liverpool Lime St, although the jury is still out at Birmingham New St and Manchester Victoria.

There are more modern trains with aircon, and the dreadful Pacers have gone (that was a political decision).
It's going back a bit but the WCML VHF timetable was excellent, exploiting the tilting Pendolino to the maximum (if not at 140mph), and delivering hourly Chester 221s.
Merging the Birmingham-Scotland and Euston-Wolverhampton service was the last big beneficial change, along with the Norton Bridge scheme.
The WCML has gone downhill lately, of course, which may or may not be because of the change of operator.

And of course Crossrail (joint DfT/TfL), despite the delay/cost overrun, is a major plus.
It took a long time, and there are still grumbles, but the final Thameslink system is pretty impressive.
Farringdon must now be about the best-connected station in the NSE area with (I think) 12 through routes to almost all points of the compass on TL and EL services.

 

[Bow Fell]

I travelled with EMR for the first time properly yesterday travelling from London back to the North West, I couldn’t fault them one bit, friendly staff. An absolute joy to travel from St Pancras rather than from Euston like I usually would. A nice 10 car 222, and there was plenty of room onboard. Train was on time, up until Chesterfield, and we were then booked via the “old road” which I thought was interesting! We arrived Sheffield around 10 late, I was then connecting into a Norwich - Liverpool there.

Don’t get me wrong my journey was nearly 4 and a half hours compared to the usual 2hr15ish but do you know what at the moment I’d take that every time rather than travel with Avanti, personally I’ve never suffered a cancelled train with Avanti it’s just the Euston scramble I hate, as well as the unpredictability of whether your train will run. Euston and St Pancras are just completely night and day.

Well done EMR anyway you’ve won yourself a customer!

 

[Llandudno]

I travelled with EMR for the first time properly yesterday travelling from London back to the North West, I couldn’t fault them one bit, friendly staff. An absolute joy to travel from St Pancras rather than from Euston like I usually would. A nice 10 car 222, and there was plenty of room onboard. Train was on time, up until Chesterfield, and we were then booked via the “old road” which I thought was interesting! We arrived Sheffield around 10 late, I was then connecting into a Norwich - Liverpool there.

Don’t get me wrong my journey was nearly 4 and a half hours compared to the usual 2hr15ish but do you know what at the moment I’d take that every time rather than travel with Avanti, personally I’ve never suffered a cancelled train with Avanti it’s just the Euston scramble I hate, as well as the unpredictability of whether your train will run. Euston and St Pancras are just completely night and day.

Well done EMR anyway you’ve won yourself a customer!

When making this journey I suggest you change at Chesterfield rather than Sheffield as it avoids the melee at Sheffield station trying to get on a Liverpool bound service especially when TransPennine have as is the norm cancelled most of their westbound services.

Same platform interchange at Chesterfield, there are clean toilets and two coffee shops, the ubiquitous Pumpkin and a local independent Cana with a great selection of bread and pastries.
No ticket barriers and no stairs to access these facilities.

 

[Bow Fell]

When making this journey I suggest you change at Chesterfield rather than Sheffield as it avoids the melee at Sheffield station trying to get on a Liverpool bound service especially when TransPennine have as is the norm cancelled most of their westbound services.

Same platform interchange at Chesterfield, there are clean toilets and two coffee shops, the ubiquitous Pumpkin and a local independent Cana with a great selection of bread and pastries.
No ticket barriers and no stairs to access these facilities.

Thanks! That was the plan to change at Chesterfield but everywhere was shut around there at 1900 last night, so I stayed on until Sheffield, to be fair it was fairly quiet. I got the 1702 from St Pancras and there was plenty of room and the same with the Norwich - Liverpool at Sheffield plenty of room!

As I said I was very impressed and will certainly be going that way again!

I know this was only 1 journey but in keeping with the thread, that journey for me shows exactly how well the railway can do things at the moment.

 

[Llandudno]

Thanks! That was the plan to change at Chesterfield but everywhere was shut around there at 1900 last night, so I stayed on until Sheffield, to be fair it was fairly quiet. I got the 1702 from St Pancras and there was plenty of room and the same with the Norwich - Liverpool at Sheffield plenty of room!

As I said I was very impressed and will certainly be going that way again!

I know this was only 1 journey but in keeping with the thread, that journey for me shows exactly how well the railway can do things at the moment.

The cafes close around 5pm at Chesterfield station.

The nearest Wetherspoons, The Spa Lane Vaults is quite pleasant and is about 7-8 minutes walk away from the station. Slightly closer is the excellent Pig & Pump, food and drink offering more expensive than Wetherspoons but boasts around 10 different hand pumped beers!

 

[miklcct]

Elizabeth line is certainly doing well in providing transport in Central London.

 

[modernrail]

There are a few green shoots within local areas that have been poor for years. West Midlands, TfW, Scotrail, all have achieved and/or are soon to be achieving real meaningful improvement at metro and on some longer distance routes.
Northern and most long distance services (West Coast, Cross Country, TPE) are a complete and utter mess. That means most northern cities are in a complete mess. Levelling up has turned out to be utter horse****

 

[YorksLad12]

The Huddersfield service has potential but needs to not run 5-10 minutes after the Sheffield service (ideally time it to make a twice hourly service about 30 minutes apart to Normanton and Wakefield)

Castleford is a positive example of the railway though, the station is now night and day compared to 10 years ago despite still being unstaffed, even though it never got the ‘interchange’ both the rail station and bus station now have excellent facilities with Platform 2 nearly open again which opens quite a few opportunities going forward should the TOCs choose to make use of them! (A case of ‘build it and they will come’ perhaps)

Good point, well made. The failure to get Castleford Interchange done 10 years ago was annoying, to say the least, But the investment in the separate bus and rail stations is welcome. Castleford is now an interchange for three routes; if services can be guaranteed to run it will attract third-party facilities (even if only the coffee cart out of the back of a Smart car I used to see at Brighouse in the morning peak).

 

[Matt_pool]

Thanks! That was the plan to change at Chesterfield but everywhere was shut around there at 1900 last night, so I stayed on until Sheffield, to be fair it was fairly quiet. I got the 1702 from St Pancras and there was plenty of room and the same with the Norwich - Liverpool at Sheffield plenty of room!

As I said I was very impressed and will certainly be going that way again!

I know this was only 1 journey but in keeping with the thread, that journey for me shows exactly how well the railway can do things at the moment.

You were lucky, last time I went on EMR from Manchester Piccadilly it was a 2 carriage 156 with standing room only all the way to Liverpool!

 

[jayah]

On the other hand it seems like EMR has listened to the criticisms coming from the new Azumas, and is keen on making a more comfortable train, even if I worry that with the lighter/shorter carriages, the suspension may be even firmer.

We had heard great words on this subject ever since the Voyagers, rolled out and the trend has been that seats have become more and more uncomfortable.

Perhaps we have reached a bottom, where they could not get any worse without real effort and it will happen by accident? The bar really is on the floor at the moment.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps we have reached a bottom

I'm hoping that that's a pun

 

[dorsetdesiro]

484s for Island Line - not perfect though doing better than their 230 cousins, the MV units' struggles also the TfW units being a non-starter. I think the 484s won an award didn't they?

 

[Deepgreen]

Time for a little positivity;

- Technological innovation- class 769’s, 69’s etc.
- Fairly constant stream of large quantities of new rolling stock entering service.
- A few TOC’s have overhauled and upgraded large portions of their fleets recently e.g Northern, TP, TFW.

Are any TOC’s doing a great job but under the radar? What else is going well currently?

If we could try avoid negativity as much as possible in this thread, that would be appreciated

Assuming the 769 reference is a joke (the GWR ones being an example in microcosm of exactly what the railway is doing wrong at the moment), as a lifelong railwayman I genuinely cannot think of anything important that the railway is doing well, much as I would like to. It is fragmented, poorly-managed by people who see it as a bus service on rails and who refuse to learn from/build on the lessons of the past and are determined to reinvent as much as possible, leading to disjointed policies and information, among vastly many other things. It's a thoroughly depressing scenario and we have an inane government who has no interest in the railway in principle or in practise, (or the environment as a whole; only professing it to try to win votes). The concept of passengers arriving on time has been sacrificed for that of trains doing so, i.e. obvious connections not advertised as such are abandoned and those that are advertised are usually so ludicrously time-padded that they are unhelpful. The entire railway is struggling to operate on the basis that it presents genuine competition and makes a genuine profit - two fundamentally false assumptions that underpinned privatisation. Sorry - I know negativity was not sought here, but I see this as realism! Hang on, I've thought of something - the railway still allows steam workings (recognising its history and heritage)!

 

[eldomtom2]

I do worry about the costs of that - the concept of the ROSCOS is one that has never made financial sense. It's not like we see an over-supply of trains, and therefore real competition; instead it just seems to be a way for take money out of the publics hands, and put it into the pockets of private companies.

The point of the ROSCOs was essentially a way to solve the problem of "what incentive do the TOCs have to make capital investment in rolling stock when they may lose the franchise in a few years?". In this respect they have sort of worked. Like most of the privatised railway, they were a decent enough answer to the question; the problem is that the question - "How do we privatise BR?" - was asked out of an ideological belief in the benefits of the free market rather than out of an desire to improve the railway.

 

[brad465]

This may vary for some, but for me I think delay repay is a success area: in the past it hasn't been due to limitations in compensation format, but now that bank transfer compensation is included this is helpful. Railway delay compensation is also arguably the best delay compensation for any mode of transport in this country: you cannot get compensation for private car or bus journeys, and you have to have very serious delays to a flight to get compensation there. The application can be complex for novices despite the promotion of compensation being high on the network, but then TOCs do want proof the journey was made.

 

[JamieL]

I am agree with the delay repay comments above. Almost all the journeys I make by train are late (excluding the Caledonian Sleeper) and so delay repay gets invoked. Whilst the TOC in question can't seemingly run a railway for toffee, their delay repay is spot on - automated email has often arrived within hours of getting home.

 

[Phatcontroller]

Time for a little positivity;

- Technological innovation- class 769’s, 69’s etc.
- Fairly constant stream of large quantities of new rolling stock entering service.
- A few TOC’s have overhauled and upgraded large portions of their fleets recently e.g Northern, TP, TFW.

Are any TOC’s doing a great job but under the radar? What else is going well currently?

If we could try avoid negativity as much as possible in this thread, that would be appreciated

Based upon a rover ticket trip today, I would say that Greater Anglia is up there. We took a clean modern fast 745 from Colchester to Norwich - as good as most services in Europe- then enjoyed various branch lines on the excellent 755s. Comfortable seats, good performance and guards who checked tickets and consistently provided sensible advice as to splitting, change points and running. A great advertisement for the railway and a driver of growth. Well done.

 

[Brush 4]

I agree about Anglia. Did some routes in September, Norwich, Lowestoft, Ipswich, Cambridge, Hitchin, Cam, Norwich, Nearly all trains on time and not standing room only. Friendly staff and efficient operation. Only hiccups were at Cambridge which seemed badly disrupted. 2 trains for Hitchin, guard said to others, 'this train in the bay will leave first, as it should have done, as it was late. Main line one arrived alongside. I watched the signals, green for main line one, jumped in. Those who followed the guards advice and boarded the other one were left behind.
Later, took train back to Cam then to Norwich for connection to Sheringham. Well late, 3 or 4 other passengers had told friendly guard about the connection. She rang and arranged for the Sheringham to be held. Cue Olympic sprint to waiting train, everyone made it. Now that's customer focussed service, as opposed to timetable focussed service. A good day all round

Also, Elizabeth Line, successful from day 1, re-openings done and in progress. Still have doubts about whether Portishead will happen though. DfT/Treasury lurking behind the scenes.....

 

[yorksrob]

Running a train service ..... on the Southern Region.

I've spent the last week and a bit travelling mainly around Kent, but also with a jolly to Dorset:

• The trains have run when they've been supposed to. No long lists of cancellations, services largely on time, connections made
• Decent capacity - even a couple of the Coastway services which were shorter, were busy but not uncomfortably so.
• Decent value - I renewed my network card, so was able to enjoy some good and some very good value tickets - and not reliant on this advance purchase nonsense. Walk up fares at my convenience.

It is the railway as it was when I was attracted to it and a different world from the ongoing fiasco in the North.

It's been bliss.

If they want to improve the railway offering, make it all like the Southern Region.

Paint all the trains green !!!

 

[The Ham]

The only thing the railway is doing well at currently is putting people off travelling!

Unfortunately (although for the railways fortunately) the data doesn't show falling passenger numbers, there's been quarter on quarter growth in 5 out of the last 6 quarters (that one was small and the following exceeded the quarter before).

Yes we're still below where we were, but in the last year we're at about 2009 in terms of passenger numbers, whilst the last quarter if repeated would be about 2011 (the October to December numbers are likely to be higher).

 

[yorksrob]

Running a train service ..... on the Southern Region.

I've spent the last week and a bit travelling mainly around Kent, but also with a jolly to Dorset:

• The trains have run when they've been supposed to. No long lists of cancellations, services largely on time, connections made
• Decent capacity - even a couple of the Coastway services which were shorter, were busy but not uncomfortably so.
• Decent value - I renewed my network card, so was able to enjoy some good and some very good value tickets - and not reliant on this advance purchase nonsense. Walk up fares at my convenience.

It is the railway as it was when I was attracted to it and a different world from the ongoing fiasco in the North.

It's been bliss.

If they want to improve the railway offering, make it all like the Southern Region.

Paint all the trains green !!!

Probably spoke a little too soon. South Eastern still seem to have problems providing working toilets on their trains

Seriously, I thought they'd solved that by now ?

Ah well, the grit in the oyster I suppose

 

[306024]

Based upon a rover ticket trip today, I would say that Greater Anglia is up there. We took a clean modern fast 745 from Colchester to Norwich - as good as most services in Europe- then enjoyed various branch lines on the excellent 755s. Comfortable seats, good performance and guards who checked tickets and consistently provided sensible advice as to splitting, change points and running. A great advertisement for the railway and a driver of growth. Well done.

Good to hear. Living in GA land we are fortunate that the service is pretty reliable. Sure there are the odd infrastructure or train failures but they are relatively unusual. In the past few days I’ve been on 12 GA trains and 2 GA rail replacement buses. All on time, even the buses. And been wished a happy new year by the conductor today.

 

[Alanko]

I wouldn't rush to describe the Class 69 as 'technological innovation'. The guts of a 66 spooned into the body shell of a 56, using grandfather rights to dodge having to comply with emission regulations. This seems the antithesis of innovation when the future is bi-mode or tri-mode traction. It's a good example of being thrifty by reusing kit like traction motors, etc, like the 73/9s.


Currently the railway is doing well at pushing freight onto roads and pushing passengers into private cars.

 

[The Ham]

Currently the railway is doing well at pushing freight onto roads and pushing passengers into private cars

Whilst it may not be increasing as fast as it could be if there were no strikes, rail use is still showing an upwards tend:

Domestic Transport Usage by Mode

www.gov.uk

 

[185]

What is the railway doing well?
A. Being a comedy genius...

Northern

"We are not running the 1am train or a bus replacement as even though it is not a strike day - it is before 4am and is in the previous day's timetable."

3 days later, different day, different rules...

"We are not running the 1am train or a bus replacement as it is a strike day from midnight. It doesn't matter what the previous day's timetable is - it's a strike."

I'm more confused than Van Damme in that 90s time travel film

 

[43066]

Probably spoke a little too soon. South Eastern still seem to have problems providing working toilets on their trains

Seriously, I thought they'd solved that by now ?

Ah well, the grit in the oyster I suppose

A particular problem on their 376 and 707 fleet…