On the first point, you could, but no one ever does. That's the problem.
On the second, are Grantham, Newark and Doncaster really that different from Tamworth, Stafford and Crewe.
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Railway competition
- Thread starter FlyingPotato
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On the first point, you could, but no one ever does. That's the problem.
On the second, are Grantham, Newark and Doncaster really that different from Tamworth, Stafford and Crewe.
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FlyingPotato
Member
Yes that's what I meant by Bournemouth
I bloody hope grand Union happens, I just wished it stopped at Lancaster as well
zwk500
Veteran Member
Fixable with the right willpower.
Not at all, but the point is LNR also has Atherstone, Polesworth, Nuneaton, Lichfield, and Rugeley to pick people up at as well.
I'd love for a LNER semi-fast using 110mph 378s (or similar) Calling Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham, Newark NG, Retford, Doncaster, York (maybe 1tph sliding off via Pontefract), but I suspect the ECML would need something akin to the TV 4-tracking project to accomdate it.
ECML has Stevenage, Retford etc.
As mentioned, there are plenty of loops on the ECML. People won't be using the service for high speeds from the Northern stops, they'll be using it as a budget option.
Why? You can go to Manchester, tomorrow, for under £50 on a whole choice of trains. That’s for the Thursday before a bank holiday weekend, for a journey that takes a little over 2 hours for nearly 200 miles. In my book that’s great value compared to the alternatives.
FlyingPotato
Member
Is that a single or return
Cause if that's a single, you can go to Paris for cheaper
£50 is too expensive for a lot of the population especially students
Slight mistake on my part, as I thought it was Wednesday today!
you can go Thursday for under £50
its one way.
how do you get to Paris for under £50 on Thursday ? Cheapest train is £195 one way. Cheapest flight is £78, if you don’t want to take a anything more than a small cabin bag, and can get yourself to Gatwick for free…
Students would be paying £33 with a railcard (plenty of trains at £47), and there’s even some at £29 with a railcard. That is remarkably good value. If that’s too expensive, alternatives are available.
London Manchester is the single biggest point to point revenue flow in the U.K. rail industry. By a distance. Any open access operator is simply going to take some of that, and lead to increased Government subsidy. Hence it is not going to happen.
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zwk500
Veteran Member
Tbf Paris is not that much further, at 230miles direct from London or 280miles via Lille.
FlyingPotato
Member
Even then £33 is very expensive, in comparison with another county, one time I saw Cologne Leipzig for 25 euros
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Not much further but it's still an international journey
Bartsimho
Member
Is it fair to look at it just 2 days ahead when surge pricing is in operation? A planned journey of only 3 weeks returns flights of £29
Google Travel
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For a railcard journey on the same day is £31 so comparable but without a railcard which many people don't have or know about its £47 and as the train from London to Gatwick arriving at 6:30 for the 8am flight is £13.70 without railcard its cheaper to get to Paris.
If you wanted a ticket leaving Euston before 9:30 it would be £95.
So with a bit of quick planning for just 3 weeks ahead it is cheaper to take the train to Gatwick and fly to Paris Orly. To get into the centre of Paris its €11 more so slightly more expensive but very similar.
You can do it slightly cheaper if you don't mind it being a little slower: €4.20 (two t+ tickets) to get the T7 tram from Orly then the metro into the city center.
RobShipway
Established Member
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Some of the issues though for rail, when compared to Air services certainly is seating comfort levels on long journey's as well as price which has been previously mentioned in this thread. With regards coaches well, the nearest comparison is probably Nat Ex as @zwk500 has said. Megabus is like the Ryanair of the coach industry, where they may offer reduced fares, but their seats are uncomfortable if you are travelling for more than an hour.
Whilst railway competition such as you have with LNER, Grand Central, Lumo, Thameslink, Great Northern and Hull Trains to places in the North from Kings Cross, the issue you have is paths. Also, as has been said on many threads, that competition only really works with travelling from London.
Grand central serving Bournemouth would have to be from London Waterloo, as I cannot see them getting the passenger numbers with travelling to Bournemouth from anywhere else. Not sure if it is still the case, but certainly back in the 1990's when I lived in Bournemouth and anytime since I have travelled since to Bournemouth, any Inter-City/XC trains to/from there have been pretty much empty pass Southampton, unless an event is taking place in Bournemouth. So I am nit sure where Grand Central would get any revenue from in doing services to Bournemouth?
In an ideal world, you would have TOC's running services between cities/towns by the sea to those more inland with say Brighton to Holyhead service, that has gone via Redhill to Reading, then up to Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street. But you then have the issue of would a service like this with missing out customers in London, have enough revenue to keep going and pay for the leasing costs of the trains that you are using?
So, you would have to have competition really on existing routes out of the main stations from London. As well as the competition at Kings Cross, you also have the competition at Euston between Avanti West Coast, Caledonian Sleeper and LNWR (West Midland Trains). With the exception being Caledonian Sleeper, the slower the service, the cheaper the fares.
At any of the other London main stations such as Waterloo, Marylebone, London Bridge, St Pancras, and Victoria you do not really have competition where TOC's are operating the same routes, other than perhaps London Bridge with Southern, Thameslink and South Eastern.
Whilst railway competition such as you have with LNER, Grand Central, Lumo, Thameslink, Great Northern and Hull Trains to places in the North from Kings Cross, the issue you have is paths. Also, as has been said on many threads, that competition only really works with travelling from London.
Grand central serving Bournemouth would have to be from London Waterloo, as I cannot see them getting the passenger numbers with travelling to Bournemouth from anywhere else. Not sure if it is still the case, but certainly back in the 1990's when I lived in Bournemouth and anytime since I have travelled since to Bournemouth, any Inter-City/XC trains to/from there have been pretty much empty pass Southampton, unless an event is taking place in Bournemouth. So I am nit sure where Grand Central would get any revenue from in doing services to Bournemouth?
In an ideal world, you would have TOC's running services between cities/towns by the sea to those more inland with say Brighton to Holyhead service, that has gone via Redhill to Reading, then up to Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street. But you then have the issue of would a service like this with missing out customers in London, have enough revenue to keep going and pay for the leasing costs of the trains that you are using?
So, you would have to have competition really on existing routes out of the main stations from London. As well as the competition at Kings Cross, you also have the competition at Euston between Avanti West Coast, Caledonian Sleeper and LNWR (West Midland Trains). With the exception being Caledonian Sleeper, the slower the service, the cheaper the fares.
At any of the other London main stations such as Waterloo, Marylebone, London Bridge, St Pancras, and Victoria you do not really have competition where TOC's are operating the same routes, other than perhaps London Bridge with Southern, Thameslink and South Eastern.
I’m sorry, but it really isn’t. It’s a bargain for nearly 200 miles in just under 2 hours. its comparable with the cost of driving in a small economical car - which is the main competition on this route - but much quicker.
any comparison is fair on an equitable basis (same day, same journey).
Your example is actually two weeks away. And yes you can get to Paris for about £40 (With a small bag, and getting yourself to/from Gatwick/Luton, Orly/CDG) on that day. However you can get to Manchester for £20 and take whatever size bag you can carry. (Avanti superfare).
The Planner
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As we are back to journeys being too expensive (and I agree the quoted £33 to Manchester is very good value) what are people expecting them to be?
I actually think that £33 from London to Manchester is very good value for money.
The question is whether it will be available when I need it to be. What if it isn't, or what if I'm not sure when I'll want to travel ?
If I were said Manchester person, I'd probably forget about the whole thing until the day, turn up and get one of LNWR's very reasonable walk up fares to Crewe and finish the journey by Northern.
Added bonus - the trains are really much nicer than you'd expect for a "budget" option.
The question is whether it will be available when I need it to be. What if it isn't, or what if I'm not sure when I'll want to travel ?
If I were said Manchester person, I'd probably forget about the whole thing until the day, turn up and get one of LNWR's very reasonable walk up fares to Crewe and finish the journey by Northern.
Added bonus - the trains are really much nicer than you'd expect for a "budget" option.
Which makes £20 an absolute bargain!
Currently available for all times of day from 3-17 May, except the evening of Eurovision and the morning after.
Polesworth?
It's showing £40-44 on tenth May - not bad admittedly, but I'd prefer the choice of walking up.
The off-peak appears to be £114.
ahh - there’s a separate website for the superfare (which seems odd, but there you go)
Superfare
Travel fast for less with Superfare tickets. Be matched to an empty seat, get a bargain fare for an Avanti West Coast train. Fares are low whenever you go.
www.avantisuperfare.co.uk
mike57
Established Member
Looking at ECML we have 3 open access operators, Lumo, GC and Hull trains catering for different markets. GC and Hull trains cater for destinations that LNER don't serve well, Lumo concentrate on the low cost London Edinburgh market.
The York London market which is my own typical journey, currently advance tickets are currently £40-45 each way depending on when you travel, this is based on tickets for a day in London. If there was a slower London service how long would it take, typical journey times currently are in the 1h50m to 2hr range. To tempt me it would have to be much cheaper, assuming journey time is closer to 3 hours and rolling stock is more 'commuter train' then its going to need to be at least £20 cheaper, would this be viable for an operator. Saving a fiver to spend another hour on a less comfortable train just doesnt stack up for me.
The only other thing a low cost slower operator may be offering is direct journeys between places that currently need a change at say Peterborough but that isnt going to fill 8 or 12 carriages hourly or 2 hourly
However there is one big problem, currently the ECML doesnt have spare capacity for this type of operation.
I am not sure that having competition between two opertors in the same market segment would be a good idea, splitting LNER, would in theory result in competion, but the fragmentation, problems when things go wrong, I think would make it far less attractive in reaility than it appears on paper.
When you talk about competition you need to think about other modes of transport, air, private car, coach. If you look at the volume of traffic on the A1 or M1 there is a huge market for rail to compete with, and take share from, but all operators need to make sure their offerings are attractive, and its not just cost and journey time. Are the seats comfortable with enough legroom, can I get a drink and a snack, do the toilets look like the one out of 'Trainspotting', are the staff pleasant and able to deal with queries, if things do go wrong are alternatives put in place quickly, is there enough space for my and everyone elses luggage, or do the ailses end up blocked, Is the experience at either end of the journey OK, the list goes on, and I think currently a lot of operators are missing a trick here and going for absolute max capacity, but then most of the time never actually running at that capacity and compromising passenger comfort.
The York London market which is my own typical journey, currently advance tickets are currently £40-45 each way depending on when you travel, this is based on tickets for a day in London. If there was a slower London service how long would it take, typical journey times currently are in the 1h50m to 2hr range. To tempt me it would have to be much cheaper, assuming journey time is closer to 3 hours and rolling stock is more 'commuter train' then its going to need to be at least £20 cheaper, would this be viable for an operator. Saving a fiver to spend another hour on a less comfortable train just doesnt stack up for me.
The only other thing a low cost slower operator may be offering is direct journeys between places that currently need a change at say Peterborough but that isnt going to fill 8 or 12 carriages hourly or 2 hourly
However there is one big problem, currently the ECML doesnt have spare capacity for this type of operation.
I am not sure that having competition between two opertors in the same market segment would be a good idea, splitting LNER, would in theory result in competion, but the fragmentation, problems when things go wrong, I think would make it far less attractive in reaility than it appears on paper.
When you talk about competition you need to think about other modes of transport, air, private car, coach. If you look at the volume of traffic on the A1 or M1 there is a huge market for rail to compete with, and take share from, but all operators need to make sure their offerings are attractive, and its not just cost and journey time. Are the seats comfortable with enough legroom, can I get a drink and a snack, do the toilets look like the one out of 'Trainspotting', are the staff pleasant and able to deal with queries, if things do go wrong are alternatives put in place quickly, is there enough space for my and everyone elses luggage, or do the ailses end up blocked, Is the experience at either end of the journey OK, the list goes on, and I think currently a lot of operators are missing a trick here and going for absolute max capacity, but then most of the time never actually running at that capacity and compromising passenger comfort.
Bartsimho
Member
It probably needs someone with an insight to timetabling or Journey Times but how long would a King's Cross-Stevenage-Peterborough-Grantham-Newark Northgate-Retford-Doncaster-York-Darlington-Durham-Newcastle-Morpeth-Berwick-Edinburgh service take if using a 110mph train under wires? It would just need an estimate if there were no holds or holds of like 1 minute.
I'd also ask how busy is the Thameslink core for passengers from South of Kings Cross to on the ECML?
So keep Moorgate to ECML services but remove City Thameslink to ECML services and have a change at Kings Cross/St Pancras
Edit: Thinking about it how about TL and GN get combined into one operator with an alternating pattern. 3 train through the core and 1 train to Moorgate. From what I can see Moorgate to Drayton Park takes 10 minutes and is a single line so 2tph to Moorgate and 6tph to the Thameslink core from the ECML. From what I can tell it is 14tph into the Thameslink core from the MML and ECML leaving a nice even 8tph into London as commuter trains from both Main Lines. Thameslink/Great Northern should run about half their services to Welwyn Garden City and half to Peterborough basically taking all the Slow Line paths while the Fast Line trains don't stop until at least Stevenage and then not again until Peterborough. I'm unsure if this would work or what the path capacity is on the Slows and the Fasts on the ECML.
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mike57
Established Member
But then would you include Huntingdon, ECML stoppers used to call there, Thrisk, Northallerton, Alnmouth and Dunbar. Personally I wouldnt bother with the full King Cross - Edinburgh route, maybe just Kings X - Newcastle, but I am not sure the economics and capactity would stack up
Bartsimho
Member
I've tried a bit of Thameslink reform in there as well to hope to have fast and slow line capacity there with Huntingdon on 4tph Thameslink with it being a similar distance as Wellingborough from London and that has 4tph to London (although those are fast into London as TL ends at Bedford).
You could curtail all TL/GN at somewhere like Biggleswade/St Neots as Peterborough seems quite far for the Thameslink trains and their comfort. The run a EMR Connect like service from Peterborough which stops at Huntingdon, St Neots, Biggleswade, Hitchin and Stevenage before running fast to Kings Cross.
Leeds almost has Grand Central, a few times I took a local service down to Wakefield to pick one up there and save a few quid on my regular London trip. Presume the MML Leeds services are no longer running then?
A Bristol Temple Meads service avoiding Bath would be welcome for the time saving, GWR were running some of those not so long ago.
FlyingPotato
Member
I think the mml Leeds services went with the HSTs as they were only run to move the HSTs to a depot near Leeds (I think not sure tho)
Bristol TM avoiding Bath should come back as Peak time train, or at the very least have more trains that go fast from Bath to London during the peak.
Surely there is nowhere near enough demand (or capacity) for that sort of service level though?
Bartsimho
Member
If there isn't cut that down further to allow for longer services. I wasn't sure of demand so I just took a guess at it
As someone who has travelled on the GN for half a century this sounds like a very bad dream.
In particular you seem to have completely forgotten about the Cambridge line trains.
The main constraints on ECML operation are at the southern end notably:
- platform capacity at Kings Cross
- the two track section at Welwyn
- the two track section at Holme Fen
- ECML<125mph trains need to be on the slow lines between Woolmer Green and Huntingdon
- the complete absence of places to reverse trains between Welwyn and Peterborough
Indeed you could, but (ignoring abstraction issues) would it make money with a SVR to London of at least the Peterborough fare of £50 (OK you could charge a bit more but how much?). Bear in mind that there is very little intermediate traffic, so you are essentially running for 80 miles to tap into the Doncaster(and north)-London market where there are already 2 OA operators.
LNWR works as it does because the WCML upgrade went wrong, Virgin essentially withdrew from Trent Valley and a franchised service was required to give Nuneaton etc a tolerably good London service. And as a franchised service, they couldn't be stopped from undercutting Virgin, just like GN and Peterborough.
Full marks to Silverlink or whoever it was for spotting a business opportunity, but it would never have happened without the need to serve the TV stations.
The equivalent would be to hand Retford, Newark and Grantham over completely (or nearly completely) to GN and run a semifast with 387s (or...), calling at Huntingdon and St Neots or Biggleswade. And you'd have to go half-hourly as far as Newark, because that's what they get currently. I can see that being popular - not.
Fleetmaster
Member
I never understood why the aviation model wasn't applied to the railways. State ownership of the tracks and signalling, trade cooperation to draw up a timetable the fixed capacity of the network supports, and a wholly commercial side which takes care of sourcing and operating trains.
Train operators competitively bid for slots, which funds maintenance of the track and signals and ongoing improvements to continuously update capacity. These private companies then gamble that their skill in running a service that customers pay for at the fare box, covers their bid, investment and dividends. Private finance funds the companies in expectations of returns. Maintenance contracting and spot hire emerges organically.
Alliances facilitate interoperability and through ticketing, but companies aren't obliged to join if it conflicts with their business strategy. Nobody complains just like they don't object to this in aviation. This is distinct from passenger's basic rights, which remain a matter for the state to enforce.
The state ensures slots cannot be sat on, being either relinquished or temporarily leased if occasional or experimental users can offer a reasonable price. Socially necessary services in slots that attract no bids are provided either by a least charge auction or a universal tax on slots or tickets. Delay attribution is a thing, but it's a thing in air transport too. Industry insurance covers operate failure, just as it does in aviation, no fuss, no drama.
There's probably a black hole in the finances here somewhere, something that prevents the fare box covering the whole cost of the railway and thus gives private finance no confidence in financing operators, in which case people need to be told how and why it is that airlines can make money despite their own massive costs and limited markets, but trains can't.
Train operators competitively bid for slots, which funds maintenance of the track and signals and ongoing improvements to continuously update capacity. These private companies then gamble that their skill in running a service that customers pay for at the fare box, covers their bid, investment and dividends. Private finance funds the companies in expectations of returns. Maintenance contracting and spot hire emerges organically.
Alliances facilitate interoperability and through ticketing, but companies aren't obliged to join if it conflicts with their business strategy. Nobody complains just like they don't object to this in aviation. This is distinct from passenger's basic rights, which remain a matter for the state to enforce.
The state ensures slots cannot be sat on, being either relinquished or temporarily leased if occasional or experimental users can offer a reasonable price. Socially necessary services in slots that attract no bids are provided either by a least charge auction or a universal tax on slots or tickets. Delay attribution is a thing, but it's a thing in air transport too. Industry insurance covers operate failure, just as it does in aviation, no fuss, no drama.
There's probably a black hole in the finances here somewhere, something that prevents the fare box covering the whole cost of the railway and thus gives private finance no confidence in financing operators, in which case people need to be told how and why it is that airlines can make money despite their own massive costs and limited markets, but trains can't.
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