This is TFW. Not delivering what they promise is one of the few things they're good at. Nobody will be surprised if it doesn't happen, and nobody will be accountable so no eggs needed!
-
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!
GWR accused of disrupting Wales-England train links by Welsh Government
- Thread starter Meole
- Start date
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
contrex
Established Member
I see Stapleton Road will be served. It is my local station, and my wife and I go to Cardiff for the day a couple of times a month. Will we be able to board at Stapleton Road (which has no ticket machine) and buy paper return tickets on board, and would the return half be inter-available on GWR services? Having said that, the other week we went via Filton Abbey Wood and nobody came to sell us a ticket, and at Cardiff they just directed us to a ticket machine.
If there are no ticketing facilities- yes, you can buy on board. TfW may introduce a TfW only fare undercutting the flexible one but that will still remain available.
There's always eggs on faces in politics but I would say this is more TfW than Welsh government directly and especially so because it was started way before these recent elections.
It might be that they decide the valleys will be their sacrifice and move the rest of the trains where they're meant to be.
Because really it's the 398s in the wrong place more than a lack of 197s.
One thing I'm curious about with the Cardiff to Bristol routes are these ones expected to become stoppers at the new stations in future or are they going to need to find even more paths through the tunnel.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
TfW are pretty good at advanced fares so it's likely there'll be some good deals on the rout, but yeah flexible tickets will still be a thing this isn't open access where maybe they can refuse to accept general tickets.
It might be that they decide the valleys will be their sacrifice and move the rest of the trains where they're meant to be.
Because really it's the 398s in the wrong place more than a lack of 197s.
One thing I'm curious about with the Cardiff to Bristol routes are these ones expected to become stoppers at the new stations in future or are they going to need to find even more paths through the tunnel.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
TfW are pretty good at advanced fares so it's likely there'll be some good deals on the rout, but yeah flexible tickets will still be a thing this isn't open access where maybe they can refuse to accept general tickets.
zwk500
Veteran Member
The new stations would be served by additional stoppers.
Open access operators cannot refuse to accept "general" tickets.
Oh interesting I figured they were completely private and not part of (insert acronym for the fare distribution system).
In fairness it might only be an extra diagram or two for the Bristol service given most of the Cardiff terminators sit in Canton before returning to West Wales and its just a two hourly service.
I assume initially these will be 2 car 197s throughout the entire journey from West Wales to Bristol rather than the arrangement the Manchester services have with extra carriages attached at Swansea.
Last edited:
It depends on whether they are part of the NRCoT or not. But so far, for the vast majority of open access operators, it has been a condition of their operating licence that they must become a party to the NRCoT and thus accept interavailable tickets.
The main exceptions are the likes of the Heathrow Express, Eurostar, and West Coast Railways' Jacobite.
Out of curiosity, what have TFW not delivered?
Granted they have probably bitten off more than they can chew, but in reality since franchise change
- CAF 197 introduction
- Stadler 231/756 introduction
- electrification of much of the valleys
- regular 4-5 car South Wales / Manchester service
- increased service on Bidston line
- extending Liverpool / Chester to Llandudno.
- new wheel lathe at Holyhead
Once the 398s are in then more pf the fleet can move to where they should be.
While things aren't all great with fleet availability recently, the above is a pretty decent achievement and is a big improvement in what Arriva offered.
To be fair to Arriva, they were given a ‘no growth’ franchise. Quite how someone thought that was a good idea in 2003, I have no idea.
Which is very true, but that meant whichever operator took on the new franchise would have a huge task ahead of them.
Keolis Amey took it on with an ambitious vision. Some may take the view that it was too much, me included in some aspects, but while not perfect, they have certainly achieved a fair bit in their time already.
Farigiraf
Established Member
I'd imagine that a 1-seat ride between West Wales and Bristol, plus an extra 100 seats every 2 hours between Cardiff and Bristol, is more of an incentive than a 5-10 min saving.
Even with the low frequency I'd be surprised if this service doesn't end up regularly full to capacity. Cardiff-Newport-Bristol is slowly becoming a turn-up-and-go interurban commuter route so many travellers will just take the first train that turns up. I hope that TFW can learn from East West Rail and sort out 3- or 4-car running before starting service, or delay until they can do so. Unlike EWR, there's still 2 trains an hour between Cardiff and Bristol, with a minimum of 3 cars per service, so this TFW extension is more of a nice bonus rather than an entirely new link.
In hindsight, it's really obvious that TFW should've ordered a hefty surplus of new trains, as there are plenty of routes that may have been okay with 2- or 3-car trains in 2018 but will definitely need more capacity by 2030 - this includes the Marches line, the North Wales Coast (inc. the new Liverpool service), Cardiff-Bristol (West Wales semifast + Burns stopper) plus any future aspirations like Cardiff-Birmingham Moor Street or the Swansea Bay Metro. However, I'm guessing that this wouldn't have been easy to get funding for, plus during COVID when rail travel dropped significantly it would have been a rather embarrassing situation to have dozens of new trains intended for future service enhancements, but no passengers to use them.
Remember that those trains were ordered to fulfill franchise promises and not really anymore. Then things have changed a lot since but the train orders were largely locked in.
Service to Bristol was never part of that franchise to be clear. In an ideal world TfW would procure more trains now but for a service where they won't even know if they get the paths they will always have an initial period where they have to make do with what they've got.
Service to Bristol was never part of that franchise to be clear. In an ideal world TfW would procure more trains now but for a service where they won't even know if they get the paths they will always have an initial period where they have to make do with what they've got.
Moreover I would imagine that even the new Cardiff to Bristol service requires additional subsidy (despite the fact they will get some of GWR/GBR's revenue via ORCATS). So with the Welsh government having significant budgetary pressures and TfW already taking up a fairly large proportion of their devolved budget I can't imagine there will be a huge appetite to order more stock to allow strengthening.
The Welsh government has been very keen on attaining full rail devolution in part due to the fact that at the moment they get no Barnett consequential despite spending a significant amount of their own money on rail, owning their own TOC plus a fairly substantial amount of actual rail infrastructure in Wales.
All the infrastructure improvements and maintenance done to the Valley Lines has come out of the same block grant that goes towards health or education with no extra money put towards it from the UK government as far as I know, which is pretty absurd.
It is absurd, but it is also quite largely the Welsh Government's own fault. No one forced them to take the CVL and they were well aware of the cost responsibility they were taking. I would argue that they should have negotiated further payments to stop other budgets being drawn on. There is obviously the argument that they are making up for missing investment on the UK Government's London focused spending, but I would question how much that is improving given they are embarking on the same policy but Cardiff and Southern focused in Wales.
For what it's worth I do think there should be greater spending in Wales, as many other places, but the funding situation is their own creation. They didn't want to take responsibility like Scotland did, and therefore they shouldn't get the funding as if they did.
Snow1964
Established Member
Will it require extra subsidy, trains rarely run empty on busy Cardiff - Newport - Bristol section, so higher frequency like to bring in extra revenue, at least enough to cover cost of running a 197
Yes, some of it is marginal time when it would require staff to move the train to stabling location anyway. There is a cost of doing those empty moves which will be saved
It would be very interesting if TfW was allowed to extend its contactless Pay as you go area to these two stations. At the moment the area goes out to zone 7 to the west, but effectively stops at zone 3 or 4 at eastern end when it hits English border. Distance wise these stations would easily be within the zones if they weren't English.
Maybe if TfW and WEMCA (West of England mayoral authority covering Bristol area) could merge their PAYG systems, especially if there are more cross border trains (including the Burns stations) then both would benefit from increased revenue. Although I suspect 2car units would need replacing by something longer (plans show Burns stations as having 170m long platforms, longer enough for a 7car 197, or pairs of 4car Flirts, or pairs of 387s)
Last edited:
This is true. Certainly my semi-regular Swansea-Bristol commute is a faff. Personally if they could run nonstop from Cardiff-Bristol, perhaps with complimentary coffee and bacon rolls for those buying TfW only tickets…
I know that it was the case that due to wage inflation it wasn't physically possible to fit enough passengers into a single 153 to cover the crewing costs of the unit. Given that TfW has given traincrew substantial raises over the last few years, I wouldn't be surprised if the same now applies for a 2 car DMU.
Just because a train is (relatively) full, that doesn't necessarily mean it is profitable. A 2 coach 197 only has 116 seats, whereas most Open Access Operators run at least 5 coach trains that seat 300-400, and they all run to & from London where they can charge higher fares per mile due to the convenience factor.
I would be surprised if there are many TfW services that cover their marginal costs of operation, let alone their share of the infrastructure costs.
Snow1964
Established Member
Bristol TM - Cardiff - off peak return is £17.80
Bristol - Newport off peak return is £16.10
There are virtually no advances (unless part of much longer journey)
So at 116 seats revenue would be nearer £2000, but let's be realistic and say half full or some tickets with railcards, so revenue nearer £1000
Multiply for multiple trains per day, and then reducing for fares shared to other trains, so revenue probably nearer £3000-4000 extra.
Using 28% of all costs for cost of staff (taken from another operators accounts) need to cover about £1000 each day for staff. Probably need 2-3 extra staff per day, and realistically staff on the ground are nearer £250 per day, so should be ok to cover costs, easier still if there is growth.
Quite right, there are few, but AIUI those that do are those that run into England.
Any link between that fact and this proposal is I’m sure coincidental.
Well, there's really just one. A route that TfW have a monopoly over, and on which they run five car formations.
Two coach 197s running every couple of hours on a route shared with GWR's half-hourly service won't have the same economics as Cardiff-Manchester.
More or less one additional unit diagram is needed for the Bristol service, since it's a two hourly service and it takes an hour each way from Cardiff. The long turnround in Bristol (1h20m on most services) is basically the same as what the West Wales services currently have at Cardiff.
However because the long turnround is in Bristol rather than Cardiff, the marginal increase in the number of crew diagrams is likely higher than the increase in the number of unit diagrams.
For example whilst a conductor might be able to take a break in Bristol, it's ultimately still time that counts towards the length of their diagram and thus limits the number of round trips any one conductor can perform in a day. The drivers generally won't be able to take a break because the units will be shunting via Bristol West Jn during the turnround.
One 'out and back' run from Cardiff is around 3h20m; multiply that by 9 daily return trips and you have roughly 32 hours of work a day to cover. I don't know TfW's diagramming parameters but that's going to take at least 4 driver + 4 conductor diagrams when you account for breaks, even if it's works out 100% efficiently which is never the case. Probably more like 5 driver diagrams when you account for the fact they can't take breaks in Bristol.
The ratio of diagrams to headcount varies depending on the TOC, but with TfW having a 4 day working week and now having Sundays inside the working week, you're looking at a bare minimum of 2 staff per diagram. Again the average is likely to be higher at 2.5 or 3 when you account for covering annual leave, sick leave, training etc.
So very roughly you are talking 12 drivers and 10 conductors. Based on published salaries and pension contributions rates, their direct employment costs work out at around £1.8m a year. Divide that by the roughly 3000 services a year that TfW will run and you get to a figure of around £620 per round trip, more than twice the estimate above.
Based on those figures it would take at least 35 passengers paying the full adult fare to cover the staffing costs. Whilst you may well have a higher loading than that on some trains, how many will be on Railcard discounted, season or child tickets? There's also sales commission of roughly 5-10% depending on the retailing channel to consider.
When we consider that staffing costs are only around 28% of operating costs as cited, these services are going to need to be nearly fully occupied on every service to break even....
However because the long turnround is in Bristol rather than Cardiff, the marginal increase in the number of crew diagrams is likely higher than the increase in the number of unit diagrams.
For example whilst a conductor might be able to take a break in Bristol, it's ultimately still time that counts towards the length of their diagram and thus limits the number of round trips any one conductor can perform in a day. The drivers generally won't be able to take a break because the units will be shunting via Bristol West Jn during the turnround.
One 'out and back' run from Cardiff is around 3h20m; multiply that by 9 daily return trips and you have roughly 32 hours of work a day to cover. I don't know TfW's diagramming parameters but that's going to take at least 4 driver + 4 conductor diagrams when you account for breaks, even if it's works out 100% efficiently which is never the case. Probably more like 5 driver diagrams when you account for the fact they can't take breaks in Bristol.
The ratio of diagrams to headcount varies depending on the TOC, but with TfW having a 4 day working week and now having Sundays inside the working week, you're looking at a bare minimum of 2 staff per diagram. Again the average is likely to be higher at 2.5 or 3 when you account for covering annual leave, sick leave, training etc.
So very roughly you are talking 12 drivers and 10 conductors. Based on published salaries and pension contributions rates, their direct employment costs work out at around £1.8m a year. Divide that by the roughly 3000 services a year that TfW will run and you get to a figure of around £620 per round trip, more than twice the estimate above.
Based on those figures it would take at least 35 passengers paying the full adult fare to cover the staffing costs. Whilst you may well have a higher loading than that on some trains, how many will be on Railcard discounted, season or child tickets? There's also sales commission of roughly 5-10% depending on the retailing channel to consider.
When we consider that staffing costs are only around 28% of operating costs as cited, these services are going to need to be nearly fully occupied on every service to break even....
I'm fairly sure TfW wouldn't be applying to run these services if they needed extra subsidy at least in the long run. They just wouldn't bother, subsidising English journeys. I even recall an interview with James Price where this service was mentioned and he mentioned the idea is to cross subsidise other services (though I may be misremembering).
Unless of course the subsidy is minimal and worth it because they can utilise capacity differently at Cardiff.
Unless of course the subsidy is minimal and worth it because they can utilise capacity differently at Cardiff.
318266
Member
The present devolution settlements are political compromises from the late 20th century, so I don't think the framing of "they didn't want to take responsibility" is of much merit - the present government certainly wants it!
This simply isn't true. The Welsh Assembly was offered devolution of rail maintenance in 2005 and declined it, and one of the reasons is they didn't think the civil service at the time could handle it. The present government has been in power for less than half a year, we have no idea what negotiations are ongoing.
Why do they even want to do Cardiff-Moor Street been hearing about this but not heard of any real reason why they would want to run it.
Farigiraf
Established Member
It's one of the services that the Midlands Rail Hub project will allow to run, alongside Birmingham-Swindon and extra Birmingham-Bristol, Birmingham-Hereford and Cross City line services.
As with most routes where CrossCountry have a de facto monopoly, it's an unreliable, overpriced route where there are enough seats available for about 30% of potential travellers. An additional service to Birmingham would add about 400 extra seats an hour, increase frequency to a number of busy underserved local stations (e.g. Chepstow, Bromsgrove, Worcs Parkway), and likely be a lot more reliable than CrossCountry.
Given the high demand (reflected by the high fares) on the route, TFW would presumably need to use 4 or 5 car trains. Where they'll get these, who knows...