Service reductions to save money?

[Magdalia]

Most commuters from my local station arrive there before me, and I arrive on the platform with 4 minutes to spare, typically there's two people arriving at about the same time as me and few arriving after I get there.

I commuted by train for 30 years. I always knew exactly how long it took to walk to the station, and rarely arrived more than 2 minutes before departure time. Between the alarm clock going off and the train departure there was very little recovery time.

 

[DaventryRabbit]

Simple answer, no. Another way of describing these suggestions is managed decline, and it would be a case of the rail network shooting itself in the foot given the increases being seen in off-peak travel.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Aug 2025 ==


Maybe the standard off-peak ticket price for London to Birmingham should be lowered and the LNWR only tickets scrapped as part of GBR, which would fill up the Avanti services and leave the LNWR services for their intended use of shorter distance journeys.

Or go back to what was done briefly in NSE days, ie advertising the via Northampton Trains as terminating at Hemel Hempstead?
then again perhaps not, as regular pax would soon become savvy and notice that once at Northampton it was advertised as London. All it would take is one post on socials to this effect and any benefit might soon be negated....

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or go back to what was done briefly in NSE days, ie advertising the via Northampton Trains as terminating at Hemel Hempstead?

False destinations are just confusing and are not in my view ever appropriate. So no.

If they want not to price people onto WMT services they just need to stop doing so!

 

[Starmill]

There are over one hundred Scotrail trains a day each way between Edinburgh and the two Glasgow stations Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street serving many other stations in the Central Belt of Scotland. I cannot therefore see the point in extending any Newcastle-Edinburgh train services to Glasgow.

It will be interesting to see if Lumo picks up a significant number of extra passengers with their one or two daily extensions to Glasgow Queen Street but their limited number of services are already well used and there are plenty of frequent connecting Scotrail services between Edinburgh and stations all over the Central Belt of Scotland for passengers travelling between Edinburgh and stations on the ECML South of Edinburgh.

The fact that there are a hundred such trains doesn't really mean anything if you have a 35 minute wait for one. If the service weren't long-standing or weren't under application by Lumo, then you may have a point. But unfortunately that's not the world we live in. You can be pretty sure Lumo will seek to apply again for the rights they haven't received this time.

 

[weeklycommuter]

The fact that there are a hundred such trains doesn't really mean anything if you have a 35 minute wait for one. If the service weren't long-standing or weren't under application by Lumo, then you may have a point. But unfortunately that's not the world we live in. You can be pretty sure Lumo will seek to apply again for the rights they haven't received this time.

The ORR only approved a very limited two northbound rights and one southbound right between Edinburgh and Glasgow Queen Street on weekdays and one right in each direction on Sundays out of four return rights between Edinburgh and Glasgow Queen Street on weekdays, five rights on Saturdays and three rights on Sundays applied for.

The ORR did not approve the remainder not just because paths were not available but also because the full application failed the revenue abstraction test so I cannot see how any future application for the remainder of the paths would be successful. The very small number of XC daily extensions between Edinburgh and Glasgow serve Glasgow Central so discontinuing them would not free up any more paths for Lumo extensions to Glasgow Queen Street.

 

[Falcon1200]

False destinations are just confusing and are not in my view ever appropriate.

Except perhaps when a train returns to its origin? Advertising the Cathcart Circle services at Glasgow Central as going to Glasgow Central would surely also be confusing!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Except perhaps when a train returns to its origin? Advertising the Cathcart Circle services at Glasgow Central as going to Glasgow Central would surely also be confusing!

Created a new thread for this:

Should "false destinations" be used on slow/circular services?

Except perhaps when a train returns to its origin? Advertising the Cathcart Circle services at Glasgow Central as going to Glasgow Central would surely also be confusing! Such a discussion ensued over "The Loop" bus service in Milton Keynes, and the conclusion was that it should be honest...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Starmill]

The ORR only approved a very limited two northbound rights and one southbound right between Edinburgh and Glasgow Queen Street on weekdays and one right in each direction on Sundays out of four return rights between Edinburgh and Glasgow Queen Street on weekdays, five rights on Saturdays and three rights on Sundays applied for.

The ORR did not approve the remainder not just because paths were not available but also because the full application failed the revenue abstraction test so I cannot see how any future application for the remainder of the paths would be successful. The very small number of XC daily extensions between Edinburgh and Glasgow serve Glasgow Central so discontinuing them would not free up any more paths for Lumo extensions to Glasgow Queen Street.

The reality is pretty clear that Lumo won't just take two trains a day lying down. Otherwise they wouldn't be running anything, which we'd have heard by now. You can argue with it all you like but that doesn't change facts. Now you may well believe that ceding this market is a price worth paying, for example, Selby and East Yorkshire to London has mostly been ceded in this way. Glasgow - Newcastle is smaller than that. You may also believe that long term purchasing these businesses back, using public money, is an acceptable way to re-integrate their services for efficiency. But you can't argue it's not going to happen.

 

[weeklycommuter]

The reality is pretty clear that Lumo won't just take two trains a day lying down.

If Lumo want to run more trains than the ORR has approved between Edinburgh and Glasgow, Lumo would have to make a further application to the ORR for the additional paths. The ORR has already said no under the current rules which are if anything likely to be tightened by the GBR legislation.

The sixth return journey every day between London and Newcastle increases the number of paying passengers Lumo can transport between London and Newcastle by 20%. Running double sets between London and Newcastle and Edinburgh would double the number of paying passengers Lumo can transport between London and Newcastle and Edinburgh. These are surely far more important for growing Lumo's business and revenue than a small number of single set extensions between Edinburgh and Glasgow. LNER withdrew their daily extension to Glasgow because they said it was not particularly well utilised.

 

[Starmill]

If Lumo want to run more trains than the ORR has approved between Edinburgh and Glasgow, Lumo would have to make a further application to the ORR for the additional paths. The ORR has already said no under the current rules which are if anything likely to be tightened by the GBR legislation.

The sixth return journey every day between London and Newcastle increases the number of paying passengers Lumo can transport between London and Newcastle by 20%. Running double sets between London and Newcastle and Edinburgh would double the number of paying passengers Lumo can transport between London and Newcastle and Edinburgh. These are surely far more important for growing Lumo's business and revenue than a small number of single set extensions between Edinburgh and Glasgow. LNER withdrew their daily extension to Glasgow because they said it was not particularly well utilised.

I really don't see how any of that changes anything. It's not a shock the LNER service was poorly used given it was only good for a journey in one direction. Ultimately there's a reason the XC service has been retained and the Lumo service is being pushed, and the reason isn't that it's fun for enthusiasts.

 

[Killingworth]

Surely Northern's withdrawal of many Sunday services must come within the scope of this thread? It would cost too much to crew them, particularly on the west side. It may deserve a thread of it's own to see how many services on how many routes have been quietly dropped compared with 2 or 3 years ago. 1 in 3 on my line, but others may be faring worse.

For well over a year we've been told negotiations on new terms were ongoing but have clearly led nowhere - or to the DfT where mandarins have said "There is no money!"

 

[BerkshireRails]

I do for instance think there's a very strong case to drop Merseyrail to 2tph between the weekday peaks in order to free up money to increase the Sunday shopping day (say 1100-1700) to 4tph, which would be far more in tune with actual demand than what runs now (which has, bar the service beyond Rock Ferry, been basically exactly the same for the last 40 years or so since the base went from 3tph to 4 in the early 80s, and dating back to when Liverpool city centre was basically totally closed on a Sunday and when most families had only one parent working so there was a lot more demand for daytime travel, particularly as families typically only had one car and the husband tended to go to work in it in those days) and could potentially be cost neutral or actually save costs.

As for outer suburban services like around London I suspect those have always been quiet between about 10-3 weekdays outside school holidays as they don't serve much of a local travel purpose - the mentality in the South East is firmly that trains are for going to London and buses and cars are for local travel.

However how many passengers would be lost from the reduction in frequency as it is no longer turn up and go outside of the peaks?

 

[Bletchleyite]

However how many passengers would be lost from the reduction in frequency as it is no longer turn up and go outside of the peaks?

I'd venture none.

Because of the memorable pattern people I know use a timetable for Merseyrail rather than stand in the cold for 14 minutes. You only have to remember one number and be able to add 15, 30 and 45 to it. Sunday trains are healthily loaded at 2tph.

 

[The exile]

Conjecture then.

Given that the rolling stock cost is sunk and some of the crew cost is sunk too, it doesn't take much to cover the marginal costs of an offpeak journey. A train might look empty, but a handful of passengers in each carriage will generate for that train the 3-figure (commuter) and 4-figure (inter-city) sums that'll pay for that trip.

It's rare that out of a train's entire off-peak circuitry all trips are quiet or empty - often you need that emptier move trip as a positioning move for the next busier trip anyway.

As I've said before, much of the service restoration happened during Treasury micro-managing subsidy reduction initiative days of the previous government. I very much doubt things would have been signed off if they were subsidy increasing initiatives.

Not to mention that the fact that trains (or buses) are running at times you don’t usually want them is one of the reasons that people are prepared to use them over the car. Particularly for short / medium distances the ability to be flexible is vital. For medium distances (30- 60 minutes), particularly where there is road congestion, a 15 minute interval service is turn-up-and-go, whatever those used to London frequencies might argue.