Alliance Rail

[LNW-GW Joint]

This is an aside, but if the signalling was installed on the ECML would Class 91s be allowed to travel at 140MPH assuming the cab equipment was installed?

Not without upgrading virtually the whole route (track and OHLE).

 

[ainsworth74]

Makes me feel uneasy if government are considering this. I sincerely hope they are not.

It isn't a government decision it's up to the ORR. Who will find that there aren't enough paths and that the levels of abstraction against the ICEC franchise are too high.

GC did abstract revenue on the York - London corridor but it also stimulated/developed markets that didn't already have direct London services or indeed direct services to York (places like Hartlepool and Sunderland). So it balanced out the 'cost' of the London - York section. These new proposals do nothing like that they are simply a direct attack on ICEC's revenue stream (which will be enough for the DfT/Treasury to want to see them killed).

Given NXEC didn't run the service they said they were going to, I wouldn't see an issue with taking the paths off them and giving them to someone else.

I'd rather seem some timetable juggling and use the paths to make the current London - York stopping service hourly throughout the day than give them to some OAO.

 

[Aictos]

Someone can't count or hasn't done their homework properly regarding LUL services at Kings Cross St Pancras... :roll:

London Underground operates four different routes through King’s Cross / St. Pancras that reach most parts of central London within 20 minutes.

I count six different routes myself:

Northern Line
Hammersmith and City Line
Circle Line
Victoria Line
Piccadilly Line
Met Line

That goes up to 12 different routes if I'm being pedant and including both North/South & East/West variations of the above routes...

 

[Welly]

The mark 4s have reservation tickets stuck in the seat tops and they are so readily visible from outside which saves a lot of time looking for an un-reserved seat at KX; by contrast the Pendos have squinty little LCDs above each seat pair!

 

[tractakid]

Someone can't count or hasn't done their homework properly regarding LUL services at Kings Cross St Pancras... :roll:

London Underground operates four different routes through King’s Cross / St. Pancras that reach most parts of central London within 20 minutes.

I count six different routes myself:

Northern Line
Hammersmith and City Line
Circle Line
Victoria Line
Piccadilly Line
Met Line

That goes up to 12 different routes if I'm being pedant and including both North/South & East/West variations of the above routes...

The H&C, Circle and Met share tracks through Kings Cross St Pancras, therefore they are bundled together as one. The services go to different places (but the destinations aren't central London) and all use the same tracks out of the station.

 

[The Planner]

The mark 4s have reservation tickets stuck in the seat tops and they are so readily visible from outside which saves a lot of time looking for an un-reserved seat at KX; by contrast the Pendos have squinty little LCDs above each seat pair!

Best ring Ian Yeowart and tell him that his bid is doomed!!

 

[91101]

I think several key issues have been missed in the discussion thus far, and I will add in a few bits of conspiracy theroy of my own!

Alliance and GC are in effect one and the same entity - Deustche Bahn.

DB aquired Chiltern and WSMR and had no qualms with shedding the WSMR operation for a more profitable "Mainline" Chiltern service.

GC now have 9 Paths into and out of Kings Cross. Inlcuding 2 in the evening peak (1603
and 1650)

Do you really think that in DB's longer game, they would have any qualms with shedding GC in favour of their new operation if they believe that it could be more profitable and in line with their longer term strategy?

Yes the franchising business is lucrative, but it is highly sensitive to government interaction, whilst if a solid buisiness can be made on the open access market, then why not?!

 

[route:oxford]

Competition is good. Particularly if a condition was to provide at least one North of Edinburgh service.

Tilting trains/Pendolinos are fine - I travel for a purpose not for the pleasure.

But

Tilting trains merely mitigate the issue of track that isn't straight. I can't help looking at the Morpeth area and think how much time would be saved if a bypass line was built between Dudley and Eshott.

12 miles of track that would cut around 12-15 minutes off the Berwick-London journey time straight away and could be used as part the eventual HS2 link to the North.

 

[Eagle]

Competition is good. Particularly if a condition was to provide at least one North of Edinburgh service.

That rules out Pendolinos then (unless Glasgow counts, even though it's somewhat to the south), at least until the electrification to Stirling is done.

(Also it annoys me when people misunderstand the way privatization was supposed to bring about competition. The competition doesn't occur between franchised operators—in most cases it can't, unless you have at least two operators on every line—it occurs between the various companies when they bid for franchises, trying to outdo each other and provide the best service plan. Also ditto for rolling stock procurement.)

 

[tbtc]

(Also it annoys me when people misunderstand the way privatization was supposed to bring about competition. The competition doesn't occur between franchised operators—in most cases it can't, unless you have at least two operators on every line—it occurs between the various companies when they bid for franchises, trying to outdo each other and provide the best service plan. Also ditto for rolling stock procurement.)

Agreed.

If we had the kind of "competition" on the railways that some people want (like exists on the deregulated bus market), we'd end up with something like Serpel - several companies trying to run plum Intercity routes like London - Manchester/ Leeds, but nobody interested in slower services/ "provincial" services.

Be careful what you wish for!

 

[Bald Rick]

Tilting trains merely mitigate the issue of track that isn't straight. I can't help looking at the Morpeth area and think how much time would be saved if a bypass line was built between Dudley and Eshott.

12 miles of track that would cut around 12-15 minutes off the Berwick-London journey time straight away and could be used as part the eventual HS2 link to the North.

Pendolinos are good, but lightspeed is a touch optimistic. Unless they are DeLorean Pendolinos.

 

[Moonshot]

That rules out Pendolinos then (unless Glasgow counts, even though it's somewhat to the south), at least until the electrification to Stirling is done.

(Also it annoys me when people misunderstand the way privatization was supposed to bring about competition. The competition doesn't occur between franchised operators—in most cases it can't, unless you have at least two operators on every line—it occurs between the various companies when they bid for franchises, trying to outdo each other and provide the best service plan. Also ditto for rolling stock procurement.)

That is true as it stands.....however an alternative way would be to bid for paths in the same way airlines bid for slots at Heathrow etc...

However , the difficulty with that ( as pointed out ) is that it could potentially leave significant areas of the UK without rail services at all, a major difficulty being the compelled demand at peak times. So what we have today with franchises is in effect a version of PFI....

 

[Suraggu]

After reading their document I can see they are trying to entice air passengers but the rest of the revenue will be extracted from existing franchises in my honest opinion.
ECML is tight for paths for starters and an hourly service in each direction..... I have to admit I laughed when I read the document.

I cannot see this being accepted by the ORR. They declined Alliance Rail and Grand Central pospective services because of Revenue Abstraction before and I can see this being added to that pile.

 

[Masbroughlad]

What happens to the other GNER and GNWR proposals?

Why does the Edinburgh plan not appear on their GNER routemap.

Have to say, I would have expected progress on their other plans before even more were proposed?

Not usually, but I am sceptical re this....

 

[Morgsie]

I would not be surprised if the ORR rejects this

 

[route:oxford]

Pendolinos are good, but lightspeed is a touch optimistic. Unless they are DeLorean Pendolinos.

Someone will have the exact timings from Dudley (Tyne & Wear) to Widdrington, along with mileage...

But I'm pretty sure that 12 miles in 6 minutes isn't lightspeed.

Likewise I'm absolutely confident that no current UK stock can negotiate Morpeth at 125mph.

 

[Holly]

I could understand some ameteur operation coming up with a childish idea that "we want to be able to run megafast services on an already busy railway, which other trains will have to make way for (but we don't want the headaches of having to meet franchise commitments or take on TUPE'd staff)", but this is a branch of a large transport company, coming up with something ridiculously optimistic that has no chance of ever happening - why do Alliance bother with such ideas? ...

If we allow for a moment that they are not stupid or naive, could it be that they are seeking to destroy the high value of the franchise so that they can buy it cheaply?

 

[tbtc]

If we allow for a moment that they are not stupid or naive, could it be that they are seeking to destroy the high value of the franchise so that they can buy it cheaply?

Interesting idea - could be - try to split up the EC franchise into several different ones so that they can cherry-pick the bits that suit them (and dump the others)?

There's got to be some reason why a professional organisation like DB would waste time putting together a proposal for something that has such little chance of happening!

 

[Bald Rick]

Someone will have the exact timings from Dudley (Tyne & Wear) to Widdrington, along with mileage...

But I'm pretty sure that 12 miles in 6 minutes isn't lightspeed.

Likewise I'm absolutely confident that no current UK stock can negotiate Morpeth at 125mph.

Cramlington to Widdrington is 8.5 mins pass to pass. Saving 12 mins could be tricky.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The timing is clever, as there is no incumbent franchise to annoy and abstract revenue from.
The government is bound to listen to open access proposals because it is government policy to encourage them.
The franchise bidders are also bound to be cautious with their flagship revenue earner at risk.
Apart from abstraction, the ORR can pronounce about paths and performance, but it seems Network Rail are on side in principle with the proposal, or it would not have got this far.
It's a real dilemma for the DfT and ORR.

You have to look to Italy and Austria for something similar.
Austria in particular has a new private operator (Westbahn*) running hourly services alongside OBB between Salzburg and Vienna, calling at the major stations head to head. Capacity is limited, as in the UK.
The Italo NTV competes with Trenitalia with services on the new high-speed lines, but there is lots of spare capacity.
SNCF has a 20-26% share on both companies.

* Westbahn's web site proubly advertises its services run 365 days a year. Something else we have forgotten about.
https://westbahn.at/resources/files/2013/10/18/1200/fahrplan-ab-15-12-web.pdf

 

[IanXC]

The timing is clever, as there is no incumbent franchise to annoy and abstract revenue from.
The government is bound to listen to open access proposals because it is government policy to encourage them.
The franchise bidders are also bound to be cautious with their flagship revenue earner at risk.
Apart from abstraction, the ORR can pronounce about paths and performance, but it seems Network Rail are on side in principle with the proposal, or it would not have got this far.
It's a real dilemma for the DfT and ORR.

The timing is also interesting given the comparison with Hull Trains' electrification proposal, which at £94m is being seen as a big project for an OAO. This seems to me a little bit "me too", piggy backing on the idea of getting access rights on the back of major infrastructure investment.

 

[ainsworth74]

The government is bound to listen to open access proposals because it is government policy to encourage them.

It is? Last I heard it was government policy to hope that OAOs would die a rapid death to protect the value of the franchises!

 

[YorkshireBear]

It is? Last I heard it was government policy to hope that OAOs would die a rapid death to protect the value of the franchises!

That is the real policy, very different to the publicly available policy.

 

[Moonshot]

Quote from the Institute of Directors....

"Between 2007 and 2012, the report found that passenger journeys increased by 42 per cent at those stations on the East Coast Main Line which enjoy competition, compared with 27 per cent for those without competition, while average fares increased by only 11 per cent on those stations served by more than one operator, compared to 17 per cent at stations without competition. At the same time, the open access operators are now providing a number of towns with direct services to London, where passengers would previously have had to change trains.

These improvements haven’t gone unnoticed. Grand Central and First Hull Trains ranked first and second in the Autumn 2012 passenger satisfaction survey, scoring 96 per cent and 95 per cent, respectively, overall. And they also came top in the value for money category.

While competition has brought benefits to passengers, it hasn’t led to higher subsidies for the main operator, as some might have feared. The premium paid by East Coast to the DfT has risen from £46 million in 2009-10 to £188 million in 2011-12."

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Conspiracy theory 2:

I think this is DB's advance play for the East Coast franchise, designed to get stakeholders in the North-East and Scotland on board. It will be rejected, and DB know it will. But they will by then have a mass of support to put behind their (potentially more lucrative) bid for the whole of East Coast if they incorporate parts of this into the bid.

 

[johnnychips]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the European Parliament in Brussels when one of our MEPs explains that we are not allowed to bid to run one of our railways, but the Dutch, German and French governments (or their nom-de-plumes) are allowed to.

Slapping of lederhosen, bouquets of tulips and throwing berets in the air all round!

 

[swt_passenger]

Conspiracy theory 2:

I think this is DB's advance play for the East Coast franchise, designed to get stakeholders in the North-East and Scotland on board. It will be rejected, and DB know it will. But they will by then have a mass of support to put behind their (potentially more lucrative) bid for the whole of East Coast if they incorporate parts of this into the bid.

'Stakeholders' have little or nothing to do with letting a franchise. They can express their views in the franchise consultation, but this has already closed back in October. Alliance/DB whoever touting to use different rolling stock isn't going to make any sense as far as DfT are concerned, as they've clearly specified an 'all IEP' franchise, end of story...

 

[tbtc]

Grand Central and First Hull Trains ranked first and second in the Autumn 2012 passenger satisfaction survey, scoring 96 per cent and 95 per cent, respectively, overall. And they also came top in the value for money category

To be fair, its easy to be "popular" and have your passengers think you are giving good value for money when you only run the services that you want to (and aren't lumbered with so many daily commuters).

WSMR was very popular with its passengers, compared to TOCs that have to deal with troublesome things like the daily commute.

While competition has brought benefits to passengers, it hasn’t led to higher subsidies for the main operator, as some might have feared. The premium paid by East Coast to the DfT has risen from £46 million in 2009-10 to £188 million in 2011-12."[/I][/B]

Worth bearing in mind that DOR have been much less ambitious than NXEC were going to be, which may explain why they are able to focus more money on paying premiums (e.g. no risky services to Lincoln off-peak)

 

[northwichcat]

What happens to the other GNER and GNWR proposals?

GNWR proposals were rejected with the feedback that they won't be given paths until it is known how many are required for franchised services at the next WCML recast.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Worth bearing in mind that DOR have been much less ambitious than NXEC were going to be, which may explain why they are able to focus more money on paying premiums (e.g. no risky services to Lincoln off-peak)

I wouldn't say Operation Eureka was unambitious.

I'd rather seem some timetable juggling and use the paths to make the current London - York stopping service hourly throughout the day than give them to some OAO.

Whoever gets them should be forced to run the service they say they will, whether that is franchisee or OAO. I suppose DafT generally have more clout with a franchisee.

Either way, that Newark "short" is a waste of a path.