Fresh from the Labour Party Conference.

[ainsworth74]

Take a look at National Rail travel site for some MAN - EUS timings. Quite a few at 1hour 58.

Really? Between 05:00 and 13:00 on MAN -EUS I can see one service timed at 1hr 58min out of 25 services and in the reverse direction between 06:00 and 14:00 I can't find any at all (checking midweek with no advertised engineering works). So I'm not sure what your definition of quite a few is but it isn't the same as mine!

 

[150001]

No. Don't end privatesisation. Before, we had life expired stock which looked a mess and a poor system. We now have colour and new stock and I prefer it now. Anyway, politicans never keep to what they say!!

 

[HSTEd]

There is precisely one southbond timing at 1h58, and none northbound, its not really a fair indication of the railways speed, otherwise I could use the Flying Scotsman time as the normal one on the ECML.

EDIT: We have life expired stock galore now having spent a vast amount of public money paying for replacements: HST, Pacers, Early Sprinters. The average age of rolling stock is not much lower now than at Privatisation.
And most post privatisation colour schemes look awful.

 

[ainsworth74]

No. Don't end privatesisation. Before, we had life expired stock which looked a mess and a poor system. We now have colour and new stock and I prefer it now.

Really? No new rolling stock orders for over 900 days now, and the average age of fleet might look nice as a national average but by operator how about Merseyrail at 32 years, or FCC at 24 years, or FGW at 28 years or Northern at 22 years? Sure the national average is only 17 years but that is dragged down by TOCs like c2c (10 years), Virgin (8 years) and LO (1 year). I'm sure commuters on Northern would love to see this new stock that we have or how about those on the Valley lines or those in Devon and Cornwall or those on FCC? No new rolling stock to be seen there and not likely to be truly new rolling stock for some time to come (if ever).

 

[185]

I am fortunate enough to have a captive audience of several tory MPs next week.

 

[Invincibles]

Really? No new rolling stock orders for over 900 days now, and the average age of fleet might look nice as a national average but by operator how about Merseyrail at 32 years, or FCC at 24 years, or FGW at 28 years or Northern at 22 years? Sure the national average is only 17 years but that is dragged down by TOCs like c2c (10 years), Virgin (8 years) and LO (1 year). I'm sure commuters on Northern would love to see this new stock that we have or how about those on the Valley lines or those in Devon and Cornwall or those on FCC? No new rolling stock to be seen there and not likely to be truly new rolling stock for some time to come (if ever).

There will never be a new train on FCC? That is going to be fun for the people of West Anglia

 

[ainsworth74]

There will never be a new train on FCC? That is going to be fun for the people of West Anglia

FCC might well be getting new stock but Northern? Or ATW? FGW will be getting new intercity units but what about its regional and local services?

 

[Invincibles]

FCC might well be getting new stock but Northern? Or ATW? FGW will be getting new intercity units but what about its regional and local services?

Everyone can not have new units all of the time, and Northern are in line for cascades. ATW will benefit from valley line electrification (probably) and FGW locals also benefit from cascades.

It is certain that new trains will arrive somewhere sometime.

 

[HSTEd]

Most of this stock will not be arriving until 2018 (certainly in the case of Thameslink 2000 or Crossrail) which means that at the time of replacement the average age of rolling stock will be back where it was at privatisation if not worse.

The total of those two orders is something around 2000 carriages, which isnt that much compared to the overall fleet when you consider the number of vehicles that will be scrapped as a result of the introduction (since most of them they will strengthen servies instead of retiring vehicles)

It will then drop a few years but not by much as you will mostly be displacing Pacers with vehicles just as old as they are (313s and similar knocking everything else down one peg).
All of this at vast expense to the taxpayer and farepayer.

And assuming the IEP actually arrives on time which I have difficulty believing in the current political situation....... you are probably back down below 20 years but not by much.
I would have taken the Networker Classics and extra Mark 4s at a fraction of the cost myself but then Im a dirty commie.

Oh and I just noticed that the IEP fleet is down to 600 or so carriages... compared to 800+ Mark 3s and 4s in active service.... how does the maths for that work out in line with increasing passenger numbers? This probably leads to the HSTs remaining in service which kills your average.

Privatisation is wonderful isn't it?

 

[ainsworth74]

Everyone can not have new units all of the time, and Northern are in line for cascades. ATW will benefit from valley line electrification (probably) and FGW locals also benefit from cascades.

It is certain that new trains will arrive somewhere sometime.

All true but this isn't a discussion about whose getting new stock or cascaded stock it's about the fact that whilst privatisation has lead to new rolling stock it has not for everyone. Hence my reaction to the earlier statement:

No. Don't end privatesisation. Before, we had life expired stock which looked a mess and a poor system. We now have colour and new stock and I prefer it now.

This is true in some areas but not in others. That's my point.

 

[HSTEd]

At an extra cost to the taxpayer that has to be pushing £40bn now..... we could have had TGVs all over the place for that £40bn..... or an enormous uniform fleet of multiple units.

 

[Invincibles]

At an extra cost to the taxpayer that has to be pushing £40bn now..... we could have had TGVs all over the place for that £40bn..... or an enormous uniform fleet of multiple units.

Certainly could have, but we would not have done because rail spending is not high on people's wishlists.

The current subsidy model is clever in that regard as people can happily ignore it and assume that all rail monies come from private sources.

Ideally we will reach a point where subsidies can fall and then the government will be able to herald savings with great fanfare. In a nationalised system that is not possible either.

I will always believe that the mistake was made with Railtrack and that if that had not happened we would have seen a lot more investment than is currently seen. Similarly the franchising model needs work.

It is nice that Labour can waste their time on things like this, it is good to regress.

 

[TDK]

Just hot air!

They didn't nationalise when in office for a lenghy time - they won't do it if they return to power either, utter rubbish from the party that broke the country

 

[sprinterguy]

Oh and I just noticed that the IEP fleet is down to 600 or so carriages... compared to 800+ Mark 3s and 4s in active service.... how does the maths for that work out in line with increasing passenger numbers? This probably leads to the HSTs remaining in service which kills your average.

The current IEP order, for 533 carriages, will only replace the East Coast and GWML South Wales HSTs. This will still leave HSTs in operation on the MML, South West services and Crosscountry, though in the case of the latter their medium term future is more likely to be dictated by any developments with Virgins' Super Voyager fleet than by IEP. The IC225 fleet will also remain untouched by the initial IEP order.

Privatisation has been very good at eradicating the opportunity for joined up thinking across whole divisions of the rail industry due to the way that absolutely everything has been fragmented. This applies to ticketing, train orders, inter-operability of train fleets and services and probably a whole lot of other things besides. Though positively it has brought in names that are familiar to the public in other industries which would probably help with brand awareness if the companies running the trains weren't being changed every five minutes and the boundaries between them constantly redrawn. And I would probably be happier if it wasn't primarily bus companies running the railways, though I suppose they are bound to have the best experience for the job of running public transport concerns.

The concept of the privatised railway isn't a bad one, it's just the model of privatisation that has been chosen that is flawed.

 

[yorksrob]

I think one reason for that was the the Conservative Government didn't expect for one moment that the railway network would see anything but continued decline.

Pretty thick of them really, bearing in mind that passenger numbers had been increasing from around 1983 onwards. But then, what would you expect.