Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
I might want to remove Avanti from FirstGroup too, indeed I do, though it has pulled back from the brink a bit. However north WCML express services should be one TOC.
XC on the other hand, you think they and their nasty, overcrowded Voyagers and excessively high fares are a good TOC to bring in? In 2019 I'd have said they were one of the worst.
XC can only use what the DFT gives them, and due to supply and demand, if you don't have enough supply for the demand, then a solution is to suppress demand with high prices. It also makes business sense to make as much money as possible. TPE on the other hand is just a lost cause.
And why has Avanti been given priority over XC and TPE? Because it serves London. I don't like it myself, but apparently funneling everyone into a single mega city is important to those in power, even if it turns the place into a horrible place to live.
No long distance trains should be running via Castlefield, so Manchester-Scotland services should terminate at Victoria. All services from Crewe/Stoke and beyond should terminate in the main shed at Piccadilly.
Their current predicament of having a large backlog of driver training to do arising from staff having retired after Covid has driven the service to the dumps. Their frequent cancellations and delays render the service totally unreliable at the best of times and some of it is pure incompetance, not reinstating certain services leaving gaps through the day, running services part of the length and not the full length at irregular hours making the entire thing not consistant.
Plus streamlining the rail network with fewer operators would mean less ticket types, less passenger confusion, more coherant branding etc, the list goes on.
What we need is a punctual, reliable, well-integrated service which can attract traffic from the real competition - the M6 and air - not a spat between two TOCs which never ends well. Thus, one TOC is best.
No long distance trains should be running via Castlefield, so Manchester-Scotland services should terminate at Victoria. All services from Crewe/Stoke and beyond should terminate in the main shed at Piccadilly.
How would you terminate at Victoria? There are no west facing bays and turnaround time tends to be longer for long distance services. South Manchester journeys to Scotland are going to take another 30 mins with a non inclusive cross Manchester tram rather than a same station change at Piccadilly.
Victoria platform areas are also unpleasant, and not suited to long distance traffic. The shortcomings have been aired on various threads. Castlefield is a problem, but that can be addressed by ensuring that the timetable through Castlefield has enough slack not to meltdown at the first minor problem.
No long distance trains should be running via Castlefield, so Manchester-Scotland services should terminate at Victoria. All services from Crewe/Stoke and beyond should terminate in the main shed at Piccadilly.
I am sure the scenario of splitting TPE and giving parts to number of operators could happen, sort of happened before, eg Wessex Trains which ended up split with what is now GWR and Wales.
To be perfectly honest, there is quite a weak focus on across the country network, none of XC (cross country)TPE, or even East Midlands to Stansted, or the almost inter city lines like Cardiff-Portsmouth form a complete network. Although might have to wait until GBR starts operating. Perhaps the best solution would be to take the parts of TPE that need to go into a long distance regional network, put them in a temporary operator of last resort and use it as a springboard when time comes to merge XC into it.
The simple truth is there's no such thing as competition on today's railway (open access excepted). No matter who the passenger travels with the revenue goes to the same place and the TOC still gets their management fee. There is little incentive for a TOC to go above what the DfT specifies.
The real competition is between rail, bus and car.
Passengers have choice - the car, flying, the coach. The market is transport, not rail transport. Only a rail enthusiast thinks "rail transport" is a market in itself.
The problem is the lack of incentives to be any good, which means TOCs get their money regardless of whether people use other TOCs or other modes. There either needs to be a revenue share (which is a fairly blunt-instrument method that causes some disadvantages like TOC specific tickets), or there need to be very strong quality criteria with significant penalties for failure. In essence, this should be structured so that if you're as utterly mediocre as TPE is now, the TOC should be making heavy losses in order to motivate something to be done about it.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
The offering, if you're going from Manchester to Sheffield, appears to be rubbish (unreliable - TPE), rubbish (old, short formed and overcrowded - EMR) or rubbish (slow - Northern). Rather a Hobson's choice.
In reality those three services don't compete, they serve three different purposes. It's if anything a demonstration of why on-rail competition doesn't work.
Nor indeed does TPE really compete with Avanti on the WCML, they're just a higher frequency between them, neither has any great influence on what the other does, and nothing would really change about the service if one of them was removed.
The question for passengers would be how bothered Avanti would be about their service or would it be first to be binned when things went wrong, and last to get investment?
The question for passengers would be how bothered Avanti would be about their service or would it be first to be binned when things went wrong, and last to get investment?
It would actually quite a useful service for the west coast to get direct services to the south west especially now since the 2022 December timetable change its impossible to make the XC and wolves anymore. There’s already 3 trains per hour between Preston and Manchester Airport so it would work really well
Agreed, the current connection at New St between XC south west trains and the West Coast stuff is virtually none existent. Plymouth to Glasgow and Edinburgh via Manchester would be fantastic. Probably more useful than Bournemouth (where people south of Reading are quicker going up north via London anyway.).
The question for passengers would be how bothered Avanti would be about their service or would it be first to be binned when things went wrong, and last to get investment?
Heavy penalties for:
1. Cancellations and delays when in the TOC's control (which is most of them) - for instance, the financial penalty for cancelling a train should be well in excess of the cost of running it.
2. Passengers in excess of capacity
3. Non-functioning on-board facilities like toilets
4. Cleanliness
Etc.
The idea is that you can't be allowed to profit from doing a bad job, but you do profit from doing a good one.
Letting contracts without these provisions on a bare-minimum basis is typical UK, but they're essential to quality management.
Micromanaging is "you must run a 4-car Voyager at xx20 on Birmingham to Manchester". Quality criteria in a contract aren't micromanagement, they're due diligence.
Furthermore, there should be concrete performance criteria for non-renewal, exclusion from future tenders and for "ad hoc" removal of the contract.
This is simply about the taxpayer and farepayer getting what they are paying for.
Heavy penalties for:
1. Cancellations and delays when in the TOC's control (which is most of them) - for instance, the financial penalty for cancelling a train should be well in excess of the cost of running it.
2. Passengers in excess of capacity
3. Non-functioning on-board facilities like toilets
4. Cleanliness
Etc.
The idea is that you can't be allowed to profit from doing a bad job, but you do profit from doing a good one.
Letting contracts without these provisions on a bare-minimum basis is typical UK, but they're essential to quality management.
Micromanaging is "you must run a 4-car Voyager at xx20 on Birmingham to Manchester". Quality criteria in a contract aren't micromanagement, they're due diligence.
Furthermore, there should be concrete performance criteria for non-renewal, exclusion from future tenders and for "ad hoc" removal of the contract.
This is simply about the taxpayer and farepayer getting what they are paying for.
Given that it's unlikely the same drivers would sign all of it, I can see no reason why they would do that, but it could be dealt with by a higher penalty for cancelling a Manchester than a Euston. However, as there are decent alternatives for Manchester, with 3tph of Northern connections from Preston (with plenty of capacity as long-term all three will be 6-car services), then I think concentrating on the core WCML service in disruption is sensible, provided a long term agreement is in place for ticket acceptance on Northern services between Preston and Manchester Airport in the event of a TPE WCML service being cancelled. There's no sensible alternative for journeys between Preston and Crewe inclusive, so that means the WCML is more important than the Manchesters (which were just 2tpd in the 1990s).
There'd also be more flexibility for acceptance on other Avanti services, and even the potential to do something like run some WCML services via Manchester providing both in cases of severe disruption or engineering works. (Due to P13/14 this wouldn't work as an ongoing thing pre HS2, but it could be useful to do it occasionally).
For the reasons I explained, the TPE WCML services are secondary and indeed should be higher up the list for being dropped in the event of serious disruption, because alternatives are better provided than for the London services.
BR would have done it too. It's just a sensible prioritisation based on the available alternatives and the level of demand.
It's just like the (now-gone) Southern south WCML service was lopped back to Watford or even pulled entirely in the event of a two-track timetable. It was low priority - rightly - because more people travel on the London services and acceptance via London can be arranged (and classically always was, even for only one cancellation).
The same drivers might well do the northern bits. However all Avanti services crew change at Preston, and it's very unlikely the same crews would sign both Euston and Manchester via Bolton*. Thus lopping the TPEs at Preston would gain nothing crew-wise.
If a particular disruption meant that you could only run 1tph south from Glasgow, it should absolutely be the Euston fast and not the other two, as this is the most important of the three, though it should have stops inserted at Oxenholme and/or Penrith as necessary. That applies whether TPE and Avanti operate them separately or not, though Avanti operating both makes extra stops and ticket acceptance much easier.
* Generally I think if Avanti diverts via Manchester it goes via Chat Moss and onto the WCML at Parkside.
Passengers have choice - the car, flying, the coach. The market is transport, not rail transport. Only a rail enthusiast thinks "rail transport" is a market in itself.
The problem is the lack of incentives to be any good, which means TOCs get their money regardless of whether people use other TOCs or other modes. There either needs to be a revenue share (which is a fairly blunt-instrument method that causes some disadvantages like TOC specific tickets), or there need to be very strong quality criteria with significant penalties for failure. In essence, this should be structured so that if you're as utterly mediocre as TPE is now, the TOC should be making heavy losses in order to motivate something to be done about it.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Really?
The offering, if you're going from Manchester to Sheffield, appears to be rubbish (unreliable - TPE), rubbish (old, short formed and overcrowded - EMR) or rubbish (slow - Northern). Rather a Hobson's choice.
In reality those three services don't compete, they serve three different purposes. It's if anything a demonstration of why on-rail competition doesn't work.
Nor indeed does TPE really compete with Avanti on the WCML, they're just a higher frequency between them, neither has any great influence on what the other does, and nothing would really change about the service if one of them was removed.
For me the the fact that I can pay less to get to Crewe on a LNWR 350 than on a faster but more expensive 390 is competition within rail working. Except that Avanti fell apart anyway (point 2 in your post I quote below would cover that).
But I do very strongly believe that the competition includes transport other than rail. I feel pro-rail people forget that. Furthermore the UK railways need to work on getting customers from that vast non-rail market.
Heavy penalties for:
1. Cancellations and delays when in the TOC's control (which is most of them) - for instance, the financial penalty for cancelling a train should be well in excess of the cost of running it. 2. Passengers in excess of capacity
3. Non-functioning on-board facilities like toilets
4. Cleanliness
Etc.
The idea is that you can't be allowed to profit from doing a bad job, but you do profit from doing a good one.
Letting contracts without these provisions on a bare-minimum basis is typical UK, but they're essential to quality management.
Micromanaging is "you must run a 4-car Voyager at xx20 on Birmingham to Manchester". Quality criteria in a contract aren't micromanagement, they're due diligence.
Furthermore, there should be concrete performance criteria for non-renewal, exclusion from future tenders and for "ad hoc" removal of the contract.
This is simply about the taxpayer and farepayer getting what they are paying for.
My bold. Good way of putting it is instead of micromanaging individual services point 2 above covers the effect on remaining services. Although while there is inside rail competition you would want to investigate overcrowding on a competitors service if it appeared to be due to the other firms cancellations etc.
The sort of mentality that could achieve the above would probably also be looking at an integrated transport policy !. As in what effect is a poor rail+bus offering having on a main road linking the same locations.
For me the the fact that I can pay less to get to Crewe on a LNWR 350 than on a faster but more expensive 390 is competition within rail working. Except that Avanti fell apart anyway (point 2 in your post I quote below would cover that).
It sort of is. In some ways it's market diversification, i.e. the railway as a whole offering an expensive fast option and a cheap slow option (which also has the side effect of increasing volumes on the slow option, making having a decent frequency of slow option for those whose stations are only served by it economic, as compared to the 2-hourly Class 153 stopper that used to serve Trent Valley local stations, say). This happens all over the European state railways. Yes, some people may shift back and forth between the two a bit, but overall it's about ensuring rail offers something that appeals to both the cash-poor student and the time-poor business traveller, say. In a way it's very similar to having two or three classes of accommodation within the same train.
Charging 10p less than the other company* does not achieve this benefit, and thus is something the railway's better without.
* Examples: Avanti vs TPE, Northern vs TPE, LNR vs Avanti on services between MKC and Euston and to a lesser extent the Gatwick Express nonsense.
But I do very strongly believe that the competition includes transport other than rail. I feel rail people forget that. Furthermore the UK railways need to work on getting customers from the vast non-rail market.
Both rail and bus/coach forget that. Bus companies in particular like spatting between themselves for an increasingly small market rather than offering a product desirable for the effectively infinite number of car drivers on the same road - and as a particular bonus, if those car drivers are on your bus they're not causing congestion that makes your bus more expensive to operate.
The mind really boggles on this one as to how so few people "get it" in this regard. I think it's because enthusiasts naturally want to promote their favourite mode of transport, and company owners naturally want to beat the other owner of a similar company rather than thinking outside the box (and many transport managers are both enthusiasts and have an interest in the company).
This is a very interesting debate, and I can see both sides of the coin of on rail competition versus a nationwide fares system.
For me, if a nationwide fares system were to be desirable, the whole ethos of the 'commercial' railway, that's been around from pre-nationalisation, through Beeching, through sectorisation, through privatisation to the current day, would need to be replaced by a genuine public service ethos where the passenger railway was funded to provide that service.
This is a very interesting debate, and I can see both sides of the coin of on rail competition versus a nationwide fares system.
For me, if a nationwide fares system were to be desirable, the whole ethos of the 'commercial' railway, that's been around from pre-nationalisation, through Beeching, through sectorisation, through privatisation to the current day, would need to be replaced by a genuine public service ethos where the passenger railway was funded to provide that service.
Or the railway as a whole starts acting more commercial and competes with the car and air like it's supposed to (I deliberately didn't say bus - rail and bus should work together for best benefit).
Or the railway as a whole starts acting more commercial and competes with the car and air like it's supposed to (I deliberately didn't say bus - rail and bus should work together for best benefit).
I don't know. It costs a fair amount of money to run a decent rail service. It will never succeed in competing with other modes if it's required to slash its costs.
The offering, if you're going from Manchester to Sheffield, appears to be rubbish (unreliable - TPE), rubbish (old, short formed and overcrowded - EMR) or rubbish (slow - Northern). Rather a Hobson's choice.
In reality those three services don't compete, they serve three different purposes. It's if anything a demonstration of why on-rail competition doesn't work.
Nor indeed does TPE really compete with Avanti on the WCML, they're just a higher frequency between them, neither has any great influence on what the other does, and nothing would really change about the service if one of them was removed.
We could be stuck with one operator. No need to imagine if it were all TPE. The route would die. 4 journeys between Sheffield and Liverpool in last month. One by TPE arrived on time. One by TPE arrived half an hour late. Both return trips by EMR which were almost on time despite crowding due to cancelled or short formed preceding TPEs.
EMR often gets delayed from Norwich/Nottingham or Liverpool sometimes avoiding Sheffield altogether. Not as good as it should be, but getting knock on from missing TPE services. Their 158s aren't too bad and short forms are rarer in 2023.
Northern are currently backing up both, as they did this afternoon when I caught their 3 car 195 from Sheffield at 17.14 which was very well filled due to cancellation of the TPE 17.11 - 6 cars left standing in the central roads. They're running a better stopping service than there's ever been on the route so certainly not rubbish - but saying that is probably asking for trouble!
Northern are currently backing up both, as they did this afternoon when I caught their 3 car 195 from Sheffield at 17.14 which was very well filled due to cancellation of the TPE 17.11 - 6 cars left standing in the central roads. They're running a better stopping service than there's ever been on the route so certainly not rubbish - but saying that is probably asking for trouble!
Exactly the same when I was there last week at that time. Northern run a reliable service with decent rolling stock. Much of the 195 criticism was mainly that they were not Stadler FLIRTs and EMR have got more 170s now so no need to shortform 158s. 170s even show up on the Norwich - Liverpool occasionally, so Sheffield - Manchester is only really let down by TPE.
It sort of is. In some ways it's market diversification, i.e. the railway as a whole offering an expensive fast option and a cheap slow option (which also has the side effect of increasing volumes on the slow option, making having a decent frequency of slow option for those whose stations are only served by it economic, as compared to the 2-hourly Class 153 stopper that used to serve Trent Valley local stations, say). This happens all over the European state railways. Yes, some people may shift back and forth between the two a bit, but overall it's about ensuring rail offers something that appeals to both the cash-poor student and the time-poor business traveller, say. In a way it's very similar to having two or three classes of accommodation within the same train.
Charging 10p less than the other company* does not achieve this benefit, and thus is something the railway's better without.
* Examples: Avanti vs TPE, Northern vs TPE, LNR vs Avanti on services between MKC and Euston and to a lesser extent the Gatwick Express nonsense.
Both rail and bus/coach forget that. Bus companies in particular like spatting between themselves for an increasingly small market rather than offering a product desirable for the effectively infinite number of car drivers on the same road - and as a particular bonus, if those car drivers are on your bus they're not causing congestion that makes your bus more expensive to operate.
The mind really boggles on this one as to how so few people "get it" in this regard. I think it's because enthusiasts naturally want to promote their favourite mode of transport, and company owners naturally want to beat the other owner of a similar company rather than thinking outside the box (and many transport managers are both enthusiasts and have an interest in the company).
I agree with all this, and with Peter Sarf's point about LNR to Crewe, and therefore I believe LNR's Crewe service should be extended to Preston. Crewe to Preston, or to be precise Crewe to Wigan, is now the only stretch of WCML where Avanti is the sole operator. It doesn't make much sense and it results in the Pendolinos having to provide the local service between Warrington and Wigan, for example.
Are you suggesting that Avanti trains don't stop at both Warrington and Wigan? Is there some good reason why spare capacity on Pendolinos between Warrington and Wigan shouldn't be used to provide local passengers with a service? With no other stations, it is efficient for the local service to be provided by trains that are running anyway, rather than having to put something else on.
Is TPE the local service between Lancaster and Lockerbie, or should there be another 'local' operator as well?
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
