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Is it just me, or are they actually saying rejected because others are entitled to run late, rather than having to cancel if they miss their timetable slot
I am not sure what you suggest is a workable solution. A cancelled train in one direction means the return service is cancelled as well.
While poor performance and delays is not something which should be condoned, it is a fact of life that things happen that cause those problems, including passenger actions. If trains really were cancelled for missing their slot, it would make journey planning a whole lot more difficult.
I would be interested to know what you had in mind and how it would make a difference to the open access decisions. It might be noted that open access trains get delayed as well.
My point is, appears from ORR rejection letter, that the timetable gaps identified in the applications are seen as an excuse to allow late running, and keeping those slots free for occasional late running has been deemed more important than the new application.
There seems to be 2 things wrong with this idea, the monopoly network operator isn't obliged to do anything to add capacity, and the operator who might need the late running slots isn't expected to either improve so doesn't need the firebreak slot, or alternatively return another slot which it can use as a firebreak for its late running.
It seems the ORR is more keen to protect existing users even if they don't run on time, than open a token number of slots to competition.
At least the old rubbish of Open access abstracting 0.5% of national ticket revenue is no longer a serious factor
My point is, appears from ORR rejection letter, that the timetable gaps identified in the applications are seen as an excuse to allow late running, and keeping those slots free for occasional late running has been deemed more important than the new application.
You speak as if Avanti is deliberately running late or even that it's mostly their fault. This is nonsense - most delays on the WCML are caused by a combination of it being too congested and infrastructure failings. If you use every single path with none spare for recovery you will have a very unreliable and unpunctual railway.
If anything it needs thinning out, not more rotting toiletless 221s cramming in to break down in awkward places.
You speak as if Avanti is deliberately running late or even that it's mostly their fault. This is nonsense - most delays on the WCML are caused by a combination of it being too congested and infrastructure failings. If you use every single path with none spare for recovery you will have a very unreliable and unpunctual railway.
That's my point, the ORR decision is not permitting a token number of extra trains, rather than saying those causing the congestion need to thin out their workings due to their inability to keep time.
Effectively ORR are saying Avanti not needing to hand back a slot so they can run late without blocking the last available slot, has been deemed better option than allowing a few trains to serve other destinations
Effectively ORR are saying Avanti not needing to hand back a slot so they can run late without blocking the last available slot, has been deemed better option than allowing a few trains to serve other destinations
That's hardly controversial. They're prioritising the reliability of the existing timetable, which is vastly more sensible in terms of meeting the railway's goals than running a few odd slow trains to a town that has tried and failed direct services to London before.
That's my point, the ORR decision is not permitting a token number of extra trains, rather than saying those causing the congestion need to thin out their workings due to their inability to keep time.
Why should Avanti have to do that just so a parasitic OAO can come in and run short, highly polluting diesel trains under the wires when the delays are not their fault?
If Avanti has to lose money from thinning it should be so they benefit from the reliability improvements, not so another TOC can be crammed in.
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That's hardly controversial. They're prioritising the reliability of the existing timetable, which is vastly more sensible in terms of meeting the railway's goals than running a few odd slow trains to a town that has tried and failed direct services to London before.
One observation about delays is that the train manager always tries to express reassurances like "we'll try to make up the time we've lost". They must have the view that that is what passengers want to hear. Filling up the timetable does make service recovery a lot harder but cancelling trains that are late is not really in the passenger interest.
‘Making up time’ is a very old fashioned idea nowadays given that most driving policies don’t allow variation and dwell times are often optimistic to start with.
If you’re lucky, a bit of pathing, performance or recovery time might give a couple of minutes back but the era of a quick ‘2’ from the guard and the driver ‘giving it a go*’ are long gone.
* I count myself blessed to have once been told by a signaller ‘I’m running you up in front of the passenger, tell your driver to give it a go!’
‘Making up time’ is a very old fashioned idea nowadays given that most driving policies don’t allow variation and dwell times are often optimistic to start with.
If you’re lucky, a bit of pathing, performance or recovery time might give a couple of minutes back but the era of a quick ‘2’ from the guard and the driver ‘giving it a go’ are long gone.
The main way to make up time on Avanti is for a "via West Midlands" service to be sent via the Trent instead. I find otherwise that you often get quite sloppy station operations even when late so you inevitably get later.
This already happens, to some extent anyway. Particularly on routes where there are constraints such as single lines.
I don't know if it's still current but the Harrogate Line contingency plan used to be that if a train was 10+ late leaving York or 20+ late leaving Leeds it would be cancelled. I suspect there are other examples around the network.
That's my point, the ORR decision is not permitting a token number of extra trains, rather than saying those causing the congestion need to thin out their workings due to their inability to keep time.
Effectively ORR are saying Avanti not needing to hand back a slot so they can run late without blocking the last available slot, has been deemed better option than allowing a few trains to serve other destinations
That assumes Avanti are the ones causing all the problem, which they aren't. Its not rocket science to work out that the more you try to run, performance suffers.
That assumes Avanti are the ones causing all the problem, which they aren't. Its not rocket science to work out that the more you try to run, performance suffers.
It's more complicated than that, much easier to run more trains with comparable performance, than a mixed Fleet.
Avanti got away with introducing slower 805 and 807 amongst the faster 390.
But actually ORR was between a rock and a hard place, and if the bid had been with trains that have equal or better performance then might have changed the equation. Perhaps the regulator really ought to have been saying yes with high performance trains, but not with 221s
But really if Network Rail is calling a section of track congested, there really ought to be a mechanism for rejecting shortest train and replacing it by something longer. Deeming a route congested and still allowing short 5 car trains is where problem really stems from.
I am with you on concept that performance suffers if too many trains, but operating one full length train over 2 shorter trains really ought to be preferred solution when a line is at capacity, and allocation of paths ranked on train capacity, not just keep allowing lower capacity trains to still hoard paths for historic reasons
I understand you don't like Avanti, I don't either. However, the WCML is a very full railway already, so adding extra services would mean all services get less reliable - not something that would be in passenger's interest.
There are a lot of trains on the WCML, from a range of operators (Avanti, XC, LNWR, Lumo, etc.), and the timetable is very full. Avanti has increased per-train capacity over the last few years, not reduced it as your above reply seems to imply. They removed the low-capacity 221s, which had only 246 seats, and replaced them with a mix of class 805s (299 seats, so 53 extra seats per train) and class 807s (453 seats, so 207 extra seats per train). In my experience, most of the runs to Chester/Bangor/Holyhead are operated with 2x5 car trains as far as I can tell. I do agree it would be good to expand that further. The route most relevant to the Lumo proposal is the Manchester route, which Avanti operates using a mix of 9-car and 11-car pendolinos, which are high-capacity trains. Removing any of the exisiting Avanti services to make space for Lumo is a bad idea, not in the least because Lumo's proposed rolling stock would be lower capacity than the existing Avanti stock!
XC's services are very busy, and they should be extended. Removing XC services to make space for Lumo would be a bad idea, because (i) these services are popular and Lumo would not offer replacement journey opportunities, and (ii) XC's paths don't go all the way to London so it wouldn't actually free up a path that could be used for the proposed Lumo service.
LNWR, northern, etc. all offer essential local services that should be improved, not replaced with low-capacity long-distance services like the one proposed by Lumo.
That would leave the option of cancelling the existing Lumo service for the new one, which I guess you could do, but continualy changing what services are available isn't in the passengers interest. Cancelling existing open-acces operations to enable new ones would not be good for OAOs either, as it prevents them from investing for the long term.
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I am with you on concept that performance suffers if too many trains, but operating one full length train over 2 shorter trains really ought to be preferred solution when a line is at capacity, and allocation of paths ranked on train capacity, not just keep allowing lower capacity trains to still hoard paths for historic reasons
This already happens, to some extent anyway. Particularly on routes where there are constraints such as single lines.
I don't know if it's still current but the Harrogate Line contingency plan used to be that if a train was 10+ late leaving York or 20+ late leaving Leeds it would be cancelled. I suspect there are other examples around the network.
With the intended 15min interval on each of the Cardiff Valleys, they will generally have to turn short any train more than few minutes late before it gets to the single line sections. Otherwise it will delay at least one other train plus its own return working, both of which have to hit precise slots at Queen Street otherwise the entire service is at risk of collapsing. In this case of course there is another train not far behind to take the passengers, although crowding could be a problem.
One observation about delays is that the train manager always tries to express reassurances like "we'll try to make up the time we've lost". They must have the view that that is what passengers want to hear. Filling up the timetable does make service recovery a lot harder but cancelling trains that are late is not really in the passenger interest.
I've noticed that RTT and other data feeds always assume that a late running train will make up time, when the opposite is more often true in my experience, especially once it gets to more than +5. It doesn't seem like the programming takes any account of where it might conflict with other trains. That said, when I was on a XC train the other week and we were running badly late leaving Bristol, the conductor reassured us that we had a clear road ahead of us so should be able to make up time. By the time we got to Exeter, we had lost a further three minutes...
It's more complicated than that, much easier to run more trains with comparable performance, than a mixed Fleet.
Avanti got away with introducing slower 805 and 807 amongst the faster 390.
But actually ORR was between a rock and a hard place, and if the bid had been with trains that have equal or better performance then might have changed the equation. Perhaps the regulator really ought to have been saying yes with high performance trains, but not with 221s
But really if Network Rail is calling a section of track congested, there really ought to be a mechanism for rejecting shortest train and replacing it by something longer. Deeming a route congested and still allowing short 5 car trains is where problem really stems from.
I am with you on concept that performance suffers if too many trains, but operating one full length train over 2 shorter trains really ought to be preferred solution when a line is at capacity, and allocation of paths ranked on train capacity, not just keep allowing lower capacity trains to still hoard paths for historic reasons
The mixed performance here isn't that detrimental, its not as though you are trying to thread anything slower than 110mph on the fasts. WSMR weren't putting high capacity trains on at the end of the day, nor are LUMO.
I wonder if the proposed Rolling Stock strategy needs some standardised acceleration and top speed specifications so that everything fits in as well as possible
That and some improvements to train capacity in particular for XC so each path is used as efficiently as possible
I wonder if the proposed Rolling Stock strategy needs some standardised acceleration and top speed specifications so that everything fits in as well as possible
That and some improvements to train capacity in particular for XC so each path is used as efficiently as possible
I've noticed that RTT and other data feeds always assume that a late running train will make up time, when the opposite is more often true in my experience, especially once it gets to more than +5. It doesn't seem like the programming takes any account of where it might conflict with other trains. That said, when I was on a XC train the other week and we were running badly late leaving Bristol, the conductor reassured us that we had a clear road ahead of us so should be able to make up time. By the time we got to Exeter, we had lost a further three minutes...
Predictions on RTT and other data feeds (which would usually predicted by something called Darwin) should assume the best case scenario to avoid people missing trains because they arrive "early" against the expected arrival time. They assume the train doesn't get stuck behind something else or held for something else. Sometimes they're ambitious with dwell times too, I've seen at Reading XC predicted to reverse in 2 minutes!
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