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I’m not sure that how “Network Change” is accounted for adds any value to the discussion here. If NR imposes “Network Change”, all operators, not just OAO, have to be compensated for the consequences. ERTMS is one such “Network Change”. So you will find that stock fitment, any additional staff...

East Anglia local lines must be in with a shout, Norwich-Cambridge being a strong contender. Hull and East Riding stations to Doncaster saw some spectacular increases when Hull Trains started up and Howden sky rocketed when they started stopping there.

But the OAO are not abstracting from the state operators because the Government pays nearly all of the fixed costs or investment in the network. It’s a false argument because the public operators are not paying these either. The system was set up to enable modal shift so that is why all...

All operators (franchised, OAO and freight) pay only 10% of NR’s net infrastructure costs. The system works like this. The Governments decide how much they want to grant fund NR. That is the vast majority of NR’s income. Then the ORR works out the TOC/FOC charges, based on short run marginal...

Amendments that have not been voted on at third reading in the Commons do not carry over into the Lords - they have fallen. The bill, as formally amended at that third reading, is what the Lords discuss and can also put their own further amendments to.

Not quite. FG had naff all to do with the start of Hull Trains. Hull Trains, as a concept, was the brainchild of John Nelson and Mike Jones (under their Renaissance Trains umbrella) who approached GB Railways, the then owners of Anglia, for both financial backing and an operator who could take...

It was to put all vehicles in a common number range with locos not being altered. So passenger stock had to fit around the locos. The pre-nationalisation coaching stock existing in around 1983 gives you the guide as to what numbers were left blank for the subsequent issue of numbers. Reuse was...

808 is correct (the class number has now been issued) but tilt is not. They will (currently) be BEMU’s.

As far as depots were concerned LVRS was introduced as a stand alone work recording system at each depot and it was eventually mainframed as RAVERS. The move to class numbers was indeed with an eye to what eventually became RAVERS. The lack of money and resources for BR to computerise...

GWR isn’t going anywhere and the DfT will still be calling the shots there after the date of transfer.

Not relevant with the loco class scheme as this predated TOPS by several years. Coaching stock could always be prefixed on TOPS and was with NPCCS, on TOPS way before passenger carrying stock was added. BR wagons were also prefixed. Class 41 was reallocated to the prototype HST power cars...

That’s the plan.

I have written about this before but I used to work for a person who was involved in the class designation work, when he was a senior clerk for the CM&EE BRB in the mid 1960’s. His name was Cyril Beal and he succeeded Arthur Smith (ex Top Shed) as head of the Technical Clerical section (the...

The DfT regard all rolling stock contracts as “commercially confidential”. People have tried to FOI them before and failed to get any information. But no manufacturer or ROSCO covers delay repay. That cost sits with the TOC (or rather the DfT these days) like other consequential losses.

FG itself has not objected to the TfW application and has had no influence over what GWR has said in its response to that application. GWR gets any guidance on that direct from the DfT.

It’s no secret about lease charges not reducing with age - that’s the regime and has been from day one. It’s called “Modern Equivalent Asset Value” - “MEAV” and it is designed to make replacement stock easier to fund. So the capital part of the lease never falls, as it would do if the asset was...

The TOCs are not free to increase services - that has to be agreed with their paymasters first because they will be the ones paying for any extra services and receiving any extra revenue. The problem is that a GWR train generates revenue for the DfT and a TFW one generates revenue for TfW. The...

Because the DfT had been in effective control of their recruitment and training plans since 2020, in common with most TOCs. Several TOCs (not all FG) were in the same situation. Trying to get money off the DfT to recruit and train drivers and guards was like getting blood out of a stone. If you...

The TfW numbers don’t translate because they are just the purchase price of the initial spares, not the annual cost of consumable spares nor the annual cost of repairable items.

GBR doesn’t exist yet. This is DfTO. Don’t tell me they haven’t bothered to hedge their fuel price, like FG did?!