The first is scale. As a very large organisation (and especially a government body), GBR will have to sustain what it does do, and have limited capacity to generate or support new ideas.
Fortunately ORR produces station statistics (and of course rail industry has more detailed data that isn't published). But using the handy Tim Jupp summary, not hard to see where growth is (black dots)
So I would argue new ideas is wrong terminology (implies unproven concept), should be seen as new services where data shows increasing demand. Big difference between speculating on a service and adding one where demand is growing
The second is that smaller organisations can be highly motivated to create from new, seeing opportunities and pursuing them. That’s what lurks behind the OAOs and even as a First Group business, Lumo will have that.
Here it is more a case of existing railway using dinosaur mentality, we ran that service 30 years ago, therefore should continue to do so, even if work and leisure patterns have moved on. There are big chunks of network where core timetable is same as 30 or 40 years ago. Tweaked yes, but not really changing any patterns.
Open Access looks for unfilled demand (or being blunt) business the existing railway isn't interested in. Yes will be some bits that duplicate existing services, but if not prepared to serve whole route then existing railway shouldn't moan if it is abstractive.
The OP posed a pretty binary question i.e. is Open Access primarily abstractive (and thus detrimental to the wider railway network) or does it fulfil a useful function by serving locations overlooked by the main operators?
Exactly, the railway cut various routes in 1960s and 1970s, and even if demand is growing (due to housing, work, leisure moving in), and can clearly see on link where it is growing. There are areas where rebuilding services has been overlooked
I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. DfT-driven cost cutting drove the incumbent TOCs to shrink the network size and service frequency. That generated gaps which the Open Access Operators gladly filled.
I would take the view, not been very good at cost cutting, instead gone in for lot of non-standard rolling stock that is hard to redeploy, so continue to over-provide services in areas of decline, and cannot then expand others within overall budget
In an ideal world there would be sufficient funding for GBR to run services to a wider range of destinations, rendering Open Access superfluous. I'm not holding my breath expecting that to occur any time soon
We have all been on trains where carriages are virtually empty (and I am not just talking about counter-peak services that run full in on direction), but where services are pointlessly run for operational simplicity, rather than someone having nouse to find a better alternative at quiet times.
If an open access operator can fill in gaps in demand, with just 3-5 trains a day, have to ask is DfT, GBR (and its interim shadow version), not able to be more creative with what staff, stock and routes that exist. Pare back some little used services, and fill in the gaps.
Oddly, they seem to have realised, some existing services are not really required, as cutting them for a few weeks over the summer. But this seems to be more a temporary idea, than realising maybe don actually need these when alternative trains available. Really it should be a serious evaluation of if can manage without them for few weeks, why not cut them as unneeded to current destinations, and where would we be better running these few trains to instead.
