2025 on the Railway..... Thoughts?!

[Masbroughlad]

2025 and beyond on the railways. Thoughts, hopes and predictions:

More OA operators - GBR vs OAs but will they compete or complement each other?

First Group will be a major force in the new railway

Hopefully see catering reappear on some trains

An IC125 in INTERCITY livery on railtours - LSL?

A land cruise type charter with sleepers and seats (does the new Belmond operation only use hotels?).

Enhanced debate about Birmingham northwards vice HS2

New stock on the Night Riviera

Modal shift to the railway for small loads. Parcels up to wagonload.

New stock order for XC

GBR will be similar to BR under sectorisation (hopefully).

 

[yorksrob]

More s**t weather ruining everything no doubt.

 

[43096]

2025 and beyond on the railways. Thoughts, hopes and predictions:

First Group will be a major force in the new railway

No. Niche operator of open access operations.

Hopefully see catering reappear on some trains

Would be nice, but not much chance. The rwilay is a in a race to the bottom, quality-wise.

An IC125 in INTERCITY livery on railtours - LSL?

No. LSL's fleet is committed to the (Midland) Pullman operation and they repainted their one IC Swallow liveried power car into Pullman blue.

New stock on the Night Riviera

No chance.

New stock order for XC

With refurbishment of the Turbostars and Voyagers underway, it's unlikely.

GBR will be similar to BR under sectorisation (hopefully).

Don't get your hopes up!

 

[yorksrob]

I must admit, I was hoping for some genuine innovation in fares to the benefit of passengers, as opposed to the usual price gouging, however we seem to be back to the usual stagnant RPI+ formula and advanced purchase for everything else, so I'm prepared to be disappointed.

Even quashing the LNER fares debacle would be a sign in the right direction.

 

[VItraveller]

Well, I’m irrationally excited about the new East West rail Oxford to Milton Keynes service, although it’s a shame the track can’t be used for more long distance services or that Chilton can’t extend some of them to Banbury, I suppose the Banbury Oxford route will recover once XC gets their Mojo back but it would be nice to have the additional option.
.

 

[The Planner]

Well, I’m irrationally excited about the new East West rail Oxford to Milton Keynes service, although it’s a shame the track can’t be used for more long distance services or that Chilton can’t extend some of them to Banbury, I suppose the Banbury Oxford route will recover once XC gets their Mojo back but it would be nice to have the additional option.
.

They won't have the units to reverse and go to Banbury.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I suspect we will see the idea of gbr rolled back on quite significantly on grounds of cost, complexity and generally too difficult to achieve with current very limited resources. Doing it on the cheap simply is asking for trouble. I also would love to see an end to certain fairs and ticketing shambles including of course the mess that is lner
I guess it would also be nice to have the rail network, especially on intercity routes sufficiently reliable that people like me didn't automatically default to flights for long distance UK domestic journeys, but I fear this is a pipe dream too far
But the thing that would really please me most is a huge increase in meaningful consultation with passengers over everything from station facilities to onboard services via timetabling and accessibility for disabled passengers. If the general public played a larger part in shaping the railway that we all use, then I remain convinced it would work better

 

[InTheEastMids]

I must admit, I was hoping for some genuine innovation in fares to the benefit of passengers, as opposed to the usual price gouging, however we seem to be back to the usual stagnant RPI+ formula and advanced purchase for everything else, so I'm prepared to be disappointed.

Even quashing the LNER fares debacle would be a sign in the right direction.

Whilst I am sure there will be inevitable tinkering around the edges with ticketing, I can't see much progress on comprehensive action to simplify fares and address all of the issues built into the current system.
Split ticketing is obviously going mainstream with Trainline and Scotrail offering it, so I wonder if we'll see DfT recognise the inevitable and it'll become the standard, and because of things like digital inclusion, it would become something ticket office staff and ticket machines are required to offer.

Unfortunately, split ticketing only further adds complexity to an overly complex fare structure. Whilst I am sure GBR/DfT will issue strategy papers this year with fine words about economic growth, modal shift, environment and social purpose, the revealed behaviour of consecutive Governments is that the main purpose of fares reform will be to recover more of its cost. After all, if they were serious about any of the above points, they would not have allowed XC's capacity issues to fester for about 20 years.

Anecdotally, my recent experience of EMR and LNWR suggests the next place for an LNER-style "experiment" is weekend travel into London, where standing and crush loading are depressingly regular occurrences. Most of these customers are going on day trips including shopping, meals and theatre/sports.

A railway focused on economic growth and modal shift will find ways to extend the EMR trains (several of which are only 5 car) and LNWR (recent experience was 8-car).

My searches suggest that there isn't much that can be done with advanced purchase tickets, as they are only just below the level of flexible day return fares, even weeks out.
So my prediction is that any ticketing improvements will either reduce the availability or increase the cost of flexible day return tickets, allowing advance purchase fares to rise too. The super off-peak day return that I would normally get looks ripe for the chop.

 

[Class15]

I hope we will finally see the introduction of tax incentives for Freight companies to use electric traction, but I’m not holding my breath.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

I'm hoping for a serious rolling stock strategy from GBR, not announced in 2025 but being worked on so we stop the moving of deck chairs on the Titanic philosophy we have now. This involves adding certainty for manufacturers - not feast and famine as we have had but also working out how many train sets are actually needed rather than what's the minimum we can get away with and worry about capacity/availability later.
Also a proper strategy for replacement of DMUs, not airy fairy some tech in the future because we can't be seen to be ordering DMUs - there will be a need for DMUs / BMUs for the next 50 years at least.

 

[The Planner]

I hope we will finally see the introduction of tax incentives for Freight companies to use electric traction, but I’m not holding my breath.

Its the cost of the electric that is stopping them, reduce that and you wouldn't need tax incentives.

 

[yorksrob]

Whilst I am sure there will be inevitable tinkering around the edges with ticketing, I can't see much progress on comprehensive action to simplify fares and address all of the issues built into the current system.
Split ticketing is obviously going mainstream with Trainline and Scotrail offering it, so I wonder if we'll see DfT recognise the inevitable and it'll become the standard, and because of things like digital inclusion, it would become something ticket office staff and ticket machines are required to offer.

Unfortunately, split ticketing only further adds complexity to an overly complex fare structure. Whilst I am sure GBR/DfT will issue strategy papers this year with fine words about economic growth, modal shift, environment and social purpose, the revealed behaviour of consecutive Governments is that the main purpose of fares reform will be to recover more of its cost. After all, if they were serious about any of the above points, they would not have allowed XC's capacity issues to fester for about 20 years.

Anecdotally, my recent experience of EMR and LNWR suggests the next place for an LNER-style "experiment" is weekend travel into London, where standing and crush loading are depressingly regular occurrences. Most of these customers are going on day trips including shopping, meals and theatre/sports.

A railway focused on economic growth and modal shift will find ways to extend the EMR trains (several of which are only 5 car) and LNWR (recent experience was 8-car).

My searches suggest that there isn't much that can be done with advanced purchase tickets, as they are only just below the level of flexible day return fares, even weeks out.
So my prediction is that any ticketing improvements will either reduce the availability or increase the cost of flexible day return tickets, allowing advance purchase fares to rise too. The super off-peak day return that I would normally get looks ripe for the chop.

This sounds depressingly likely.

For EMR, one can say that the meridians were never intended to be the main IC fleet on the route and the new 8 carriage units should hopefully bring some capacity increase.

For LNWR, this route really ought to be looking at Southern region style twelve carriage trains if not already. As far as I'm concerned, this is the one IC route that could genuinely be said to have simple, good value fares.

One thing I do hope is that the Government continues to actively manage industrial relations, rather than using passengers as pawns for years on end like the previous one.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I hope we will finally see the introduction of tax incentives for Freight companies to use electric traction, but I’m not holding my breath.

My number 1 hope. My number 2 is more electrification.

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Its the cost of the electric that is stopping them, reduce that and you wouldn't need tax incentives.

I understand but----

 

[vuzzeho]

I think...

DOHL operators will be rebranded as GBR with new liveries for corresponding sectors. InterCity will be the most similar to its BR counterpart, the rest will be quite changed (and IC will also have a lot of changes!)

LNER's ticketing trial will be tweaked and then expanded. Hopefully lower prices.

FirstGroup will also want to start OA operations on HS1 to Europe.

GBR will come in, things won't immediately be fixed day 1 (because that's impossible), and certain news outlets will proclaim it was a waste of money.

Something ridiculous to do with AI will be trialed, it'll be useless and nobody will really like it, and then it'll be scrapped.

TfL will take over at least one SE metro route. I don't know them that well, so I don't know which one.

 

[Class 317]

I'm hoping for a serious rolling stock strategy from GBR, not announced in 2025 but being worked on so we stop the moving of deck chairs on the Titanic philosophy we have now. This involves adding certainty for manufacturers - not feast and famine as we have had but also working out how many train sets are actually needed rather than what's the minimum we can get away with and worry about capacity/availability later.
Also a proper strategy for replacement of DMUs, not airy fairy some tech in the future because we can't be seen to be ordering DMUs - there will be a need for DMUs / BMUs for the next 50 years at least.

Actually I predict and hope we get no more DMU orders or bi mode orders. Instead I predict GWR, Chiltern and Northern will go for BEMU's with a possibility of a small number of tri mode units depending on how their fleet plan develops. The existing new DMU and bi mode units should see us through the next couple of decades for the difficult to electrify or convert to BEMU operation routes.

I also wouldn't be surprised to see a proposal seriously considered to turn a substantial number of 80X units into trimode units following the very successful testing just completed.

 

[778]

A railway focused on economic growth and modal shift will find ways to extend the EMR trains (several of which are only 5 car) and LNWR (recent experience was 8-car).

To be fair LNWR and EMR are extending trains with 730s and 810s which should run in 10 car formations.

I don't think LNER type fares would work for LNWR as they are 2 very different TOCs.

LNWR fares will probably remain as they are until 2026 when their franchise runs out. They need lower fares to compete with the Avanti trains.

 

[anthony263]

I think we'll see Portishead reopening finally actually get some proper go ahead.

Project churchward get green light

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Could see class 350/2's being fitted with batteries and going to northern etc as well as electrification to Bristol TM

 

[Thirteen]

I think the option to replace the 1972 stock on the Bakerloo Line with the 2024 stock will happen this year.

 

[Class15]

I think the option to replace the 1972 stock on the Bakerloo Line with the 2024 stock will happen this year.

Let’s make the ideas slightly more realistic

 

[Gloster]

I doubt that we are going to see much: we are too early in the government’s life for it to start making extravagant promises that it won’t have to pay for and Son of Network Rail is still ‘organising‘ itself. Anything positive that happens will probably come from the devolved or local administrations.

 

[BerkshireRails]

Project churchward get green light

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What are the planned specification for the project Churchward units, and if the class 230s are part of Project Churchward?

 

[anthony263]

What are the planned specification for the project Churchward units, and if the class 230s are part of Project Churchward?

I think gwr wanted a unit that can completely replace their br fleet plus the 387s. I'm sure someone posted something on this group last year of a proposed design come up by Hitachi basically a tri-mode class 385