Any ideas what the Government is going to suggest?

[Wath Yard]

However, if you look at some of the TOC's offering with overcrowding, then you see that a good proportion of it, particularly with the IEP, shortage of DMU's in the North, and the Thameslink route is down to the fact the the Government, and the SRA, whoever are delaying additional capacity and cutting back orders.

It is very easy for a TOC to call for additional trains and new services, and gives the company involved some very good PR, but not quite as easy to create a sound business plan for them. Many of the proposals for extra trains or carriages have come with conditions attached and require funding from the DfT. There is only a finite amount of money available, something many people don't want to believe when it comes to their journey or their line.

 

[D1009]

It is very easy for a TOC to call for additional trains and new services, and gives the company involved some very good PR, but not quite as easy to create a sound business plan for them. Many of the proposals for extra trains or carriages have come with conditions attached and require funding from the DfT. There is only a finite amount of money available, something many people don't want to believe when it comes to their journey or their line.

A lot of it is how good the TOC is at forging partnerships with user groups, local councils and the like and getting them to apply political pressure where it matters. Wessex Trains was very good at doing that and FGW has continued that work, which is why train services in Devon and Cornwall are thriving. Can anyone explain how Burngullow to Probus was redoubled recently ?

This thread seems to have temporarily got interesting !

 

[Zoe]

Can anyone explain how Burngullow to Probus was redoubled recently ?

Objective One funding.

 

[CosherB]

Somehow I seem to remember that the idea that there was a lack of investment in BR before the pre-privatisation freeze has been proven to be a myth, put about to big-up privatisation. Without privatisation the reasonable level of investment would presumably have continued, as would the licking into businesslike shape of the sectors; the rolling renewals programmes for stock and infrastructure would have continued as planned.
Obviously we cannot tell either way. But please don't distort the starting point.

If you believe that BR was adequtely funded ever, and especially since about 1975, you should do some research as you can't have been there!

 

[F Great Eastern]

It is very easy for a TOC to call for additional trains and new services, and gives the company involved some very good PR, but not quite as easy to create a sound business plan for them. Many of the proposals for extra trains or carriages have come with conditions attached and require funding from the DfT. There is only a finite amount of money available, something many people don't want to believe when it comes to their journey or their line.

But the below have nothing to do with business plans
- Big DMU Order announced years ago, delayed many times and cancelled.
- Intercity Express Program - delayed more times than you can believe.
- Thameslink - see IEP, yet even more delayed.
- Crossrail - already delayed a little, no doubt there will be further delays.

There are numerous cases, particularly in the years of the SRA, where they cut orders for rolling stock for what was originally procured, a short while later after the stock enters service it turns out that actually yes the order was too little and everyone has to suffer.

 

[Oswyntail]

If you believe that BR was adequtely funded ever, and especially since about 1975, you should do some research as you can't have been there!

Apart from the vagueness of "adequately", yes, BR was funded enough to have a rolling investment programme roughly equivalent to that post-privatisation. Would everyone have liked more? Sure!

 

[CosherB]

Apart from the vagueness of "adequately", yes, BR was funded enough to have a rolling investment programme roughly equivalent to that post-privatisation. Would everyone have liked more? Sure!

You've not read my earlier posts - or you've ignored them.

Inadequate BR funding led to line closures (Woodehead, for instance, and they tried very hard to close S&C), single lining, removal and simplification of junctions, signalling removed etc all to save cash. And stuff (ECML electrification) was done on the cheap. And the stock was largely old and knackered, the staions worn out and dirty.

If BR did get adequate funding, they must have wasted it becuase it wasn't reflected in the infrastucture!

 

[Wath Yard]

But the below have nothing to do with business plans
- Big DMU Order announced years ago, delayed many times and cancelled.
- Intercity Express Program - delayed more times than you can believe.
- Thameslink - see IEP, yet even more delayed.
- Crossrail - already delayed a little, no doubt there will be further delays.

There are numerous cases, particularly in the years of the SRA, where they cut orders for rolling stock for what was originally procured, a short while later after the stock enters service it turns out that actually yes the order was too little and everyone has to suffer.

Yes, but of those you've listed a TOC could only possibly deliver 1 of them - extra DMUs. I'm not saying the DfT or SRA are/were blameless but there are other TOC 'proposals' that could be listed that were basically PR stunts.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Yes, but of those you've listed a TOC could only possibly deliver 1 of them - extra DMUs. I'm not saying the DfT or SRA are/were blameless but there are other TOC 'proposals' that could be listed that were basically PR stunts.

Yes - but my point is that many of the TOC's who are now suffering from the most overcrowding are suffering because of constant delays to some of the above projects. However the general public tend to at least from what I have seen, put the overcrowding down to pure greed when actually in the Thameslink area for example, whatever TOC was in there, it would make no difference as the problem is not at operator level, and is caused by government bureaucratic issues that constantly allow projects to get delayed.

Whatever the cases are there is not enough rolling stock going around now and the number of people squabbling over any unit that becomes available tells you that, when the 180's came available the amount of places they were linked with tells you how short we are on rolling stock, if there was not so many delays we'd be in a much better position, not only from an additional stock perspective, but also allowing cascades elsewhere to ease overcrowding.

 

[Wath Yard]

But quite a lot of that goes back to my point of there only being a finite amount of money. My understanding is that FGW and Northern both required additional DfT subsidy when they received the ex-LM units. They presumably had a decent business case and passengers are now suffering less overcrowding - win win.

However, just because TOCs and passengers may want more stock, it does not necessarily mean it can be justified either from a railway persepctive or more generally in total public spending. There are priorities and not everything can happen or happen as quickly as people would like.

 

[ainsworth74]

Inadequate BR funding led to line closures (Woodehead, for instance, and they tried very hard to close S&C)

Eh? They closed the Woodhead because firstly the passenger service was diverted away on the Hope Valley (so as to avoid duplication of service provision) and then closed entirely once the coal industry started to collapse and the lines only significant traffic vanished. Now twenty years later the Woodhead would be nice to have but I wouldn't say BR were wrong to close it using the information they had at the time.

(Not going to argue about the S&C however)

 

[tbtc]

twenty years later the Woodhead would be nice to have but I wouldn't say BR were wrong to close it using the information they had at the time

Agreed.

Hindsight is wonderful, but things like the closure of Woodhead/ introduction of Pacers/ downgrading of other lines happened for a reason.

We can all say now, in 2012, that every line should have been kept open, or every closed line should have been completely preserved, but people need to understand the grim reality of the 1980s.

Easy to be an expert after the event - I'm sure everyone could claim they knew Liverpool would win 3-0 tonight, now the final whistle has been blown - but years of decline and shrinking passenger numbers, plus the decimation of the traditional freight markets (coal etc)... context is everything.

 

[CosherB]

Easy to be an expert after the event - football stuff - but years of decline and shrinking passenger numbers, plus the decimation of the traditional freight markets (coal etc)... context is everything.

No, that's absolute bollox! Was taking out signalling a result of 'context'? Junctions and junction simplifying? Single lining? Poor quality OLE on ECML? Old and knackered stock? Dirty and outdated stations?... etc etc.

No, that (and the pulling of really exciting stuff like APT) are the result of no real gov financial commitment to rail.

Money is everything!

 

[AlanFry1]

For a long time, the government and the transport industry had made sure the railways are not fit for purpose. That need to change

 

[ainsworth74]

No, that's absolute bollox! Was taking out signalling a result of 'context'? Junctions and junction simplifying? Single lining? Poor quality OLE on ECML? Old and knackered stock? Dirty and outdated stations?... etc etc.

Surely the simplification of junctions, single lining and the taking out of signalling was in part due to the over provision of infrastructure for the actual demand? For example why keep a line doubled up with a complex signalling layout when you're only running a train every two hours (the Bishop Auckland branch for example)? I'm not going to argue with you about OLE on the ECML. BR was making strides in dealing with the rolling stock situation with for example Pacerisation, Sprinterisation and Networkerisation across the network, further BR was always (until privatisation looms and the government really does pull the plug on everything) building new rolling stock, it might have only been a trickle at the worst times but it was there. During privatisation we've had two massive periods where no new rolling stock has been ordered, even during the really dark days of government enforced starvation BR still kept slowly adding new stock to it's fleet. I'm fully confident that if privatisation hadn't occurred BR would have continued to add new rolling stock to the fleet and replace the old stock.

I agree with your argument to a degree but I think more nuance is needed than just saying BR was terrible due to always not having enough money and privatisation has been universally successful. To my mind a better position would be that BR had it's positives and negatives, it was often short of cash but it always did well with what it had. Privatisation also has it's positives and negatives and whilst it's cash rich (and that shows for passengers) it's base running costs are far far higher for government and it does not spend the money it has wisely all the time.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

As a party, the Lib Dems will be soon gone...

Fortunately, they are preventing the mad far-right getting control after Labour's shambles.
They don't entirely deserve your derision (any more than the others).
It's called politics.
And a Lib Dem transport minister (Norman Baker) is doing a good job.

 

[tbtc]

No, that's absolute bollox! Was taking out signalling a result of 'context'? Junctions and junction simplifying? Single lining? Poor quality OLE on ECML? Old and knackered stock? Dirty and outdated stations?... etc etc.

No, that (and the pulling of really exciting stuff like APT) are the result of no real gov financial commitment to rail.

Money is everything!

The usual grown up response...

Simplifying junctions and rationalising some lines to single track made a lot of sense on lines that had a tiny service (Ainsworth74 has mentioned Bishop Auckland - you have to remember that converting a line to single track was one way of keeping it open - cutting infrastructure costs significantly).

The ECML was electrified, yes, that one project had more electrification than all subsequent (completed) electrification I would wager. Done on the cheap, but given BR's money problems it was presumably that or nothing.

 

[Zoe]

Simplifying junctions and rationalising some lines to single track made a lot of sense on lines that had a tiny service (Ainsworth74 has mentioned Bishop Auckland - you have to remember that converting a line to single track was one way of keeping it open - cutting infrastructure costs significantly).

If it wasn't making a profit then I doubt the private sector would have wanted to keep it open.

 

[CosherB]

If it wasn't making a profit then I doubt the private sector would have wanted to keep it open.

No, the private sector takes a more business-oriented approach than 'it's not used much so close it'. Instead, they'd say 'here we have an underused assett. Let's find a way of inproving usage and thus making it profitable rather than a loss maker'.

That's the big difference in approach, and that's soooo important. It's the sort of thinking that privatisation brought to the previously inward-looking BR, and thus turned the railway around from the death spiral it was in under the cold and unimaginative hand of the public sector.

When British Airways was the UK state-owned airline, they had this very-expensive-to-run airliner called Concorde, which they ran at a big loss. When Lord King was appointed by Thatcher to privatise BA he had to make the airline profitable, and many thought that would be the end of that money-sucking aeroplane.

Instead, King made the Concorde operation one of the most profitable sectors in BA. He did it through effective marketing, through making better use of the aeroplanes, and particularly through charging the market price for travelling on it. From then on it was mostly flying full or nearly so, and always made a very nice profit for the airline. State-owned BA had wanted to scrap it to save money!

 

[Zoe]

No, the private sector takes a more business-oriented approach than 'it's not used much so close it'. Instead, they'd say 'here we have an underused assett. Let's find a way of inproving usage and thus making it profitable rather than a loss maker'.

The railways were in decline since the 1960s due to the private car. This would have been no different even if the railways had stayed in the private sector. There are many routes that would never have been profitble as there simply was no longer the demand, rail was never going to offer the convenience of the private car.

 

[warriorwarlord]

Instead, King made the Concorde operation one of the most profitable sectors in BA. He did it through effective marketing, through making better use of the aeroplanes, and particularly through charging the market price for travelling on it. From then on it was mostly flying full or nearly so, and always made a very nice profit for the airline. State-owned BA had wanted to scrap it to save money!

Sounds an awful lot like intercity under BR days, which was showing some nice profits out of some clever marketing (IC 125,225, away day deals etc.) and still living on a low subsidy.

 

[HSTEd]

No, the private sector takes a more business-oriented approach than 'it's not used much so close it'. Instead, they'd say 'here we have an underused assett. Let's find a way of inproving usage and thus making it profitable rather than a loss maker'.

So where will the magical demand increase comes from? The private sector doesnt have unlimited capability to make things profitable.
The most cost efficient thing would have been to simply close it as it was never going to make a profit sufficient to justify keeping it open on a commercial basis.
Singling the line simply reduced the losses sufficiently that it was not forced to close to save other lines with better social cases.

That's the big difference in approach, and that's soooo important. It's the sort of thinking that privatisation brought to the previously inward-looking BR, and thus turned the railway around from the death spiral it was in under the cold and unimaginative hand of the public sector.

So the stable and growing passenger numbers in the late eighties were the signs of a railway in a death-spiral?
The "inward looking" and "unimaginative" British Rail produced a railway with more trains at or above 100mph than any other on the planet, the most widespread fleet 125mph running on the planet and a high speed railway service that had a quality sufficient to prompt positive comments from the Japanese.
It did all this on a shoestring, it might have been conservative in its approach but then whenever it tried something big the state would cut it off at the knees (APT development programme).

As to the "poor quality" wiring on the ECML it is frankly quite good quality, it is one of the most intensively used railway lines in Western Europe and the electrification cost was a fraction of what it would ahve cost elsewhere in europe.
Noone bothers to report when the route operates for weeks at a time with no problems with the OLE whatsoever.

BR in the 80s delivered more electriification than we can ever hope of achieving in a similar period of time, and it did it at a small fraction of the cost.

When British Airways was the UK state-owned airline, they had this very-expensive-to-run airliner called Concorde, which they ran at a big loss. When Lord King was appointed by Thatcher to privatise BA he had to make the airline profitable, and many thought that would be the end of that money-sucking aeroplane.

Instead, King made the Concorde operation one of the most profitable sectors in BA. He did it through effective marketing, through making better use of the aeroplanes, and particularly through charging the market price for travelling on it. From then on it was mostly flying full or nearly so, and always made a very nice profit for the airline. State-owned BA had wanted to scrap it to save money!

BR pulled off its own share of very succesful marketing schemes such as the creation of the "InterCity" brand and the later project relating to the High Speed Train.
Every organisation makes mistakes, but it is the position of many in politics to blame any in the private sector on over regulation and any in the public sector on the inherent inefficiency of public ownership.

Sure BR wasn't worried about "maximising profits", but it was concerned with ensuring that it could continue to justify the subsidy it recieved by running as many services as possible with resources that todays railway would turn it's nose up at.

 

[yorksrob]

Sounds an awful lot like intercity under BR days, which was showing some nice profits out of some clever marketing (IC 125,225, away day deals etc.) and still living on a low subsidy.

Indeed. And let's not forget that BR came up with railcards, network cards, cheap day returns, travel cards, super savers, network days etc.

 

[bailey65]

Under br the railways were not perfect but they were at least run more as a service rather than what you get now where the extremely high fare paying passengers the railways customers and bread and butter are almost seen as an inconvinience.

 

[PHILIPE]

The usual grown up response...

Simplifying junctions and rationalising some lines to single track made a lot of sense on lines that had a tiny service (Ainsworth74 has mentioned Bishop Auckland - you have to remember that converting a line to single track was one way of keeping it open - cutting infrastructure costs significantly).

The ECML was electrified, yes, that one project had more electrification than all subsequent (completed) electrification I would wager. Done on the cheap, but given BR's money problems it was presumably that or nothing.

Does it reduce costs by single lining ? The remaining track gets twice as much wear and tear and there must be extra points to form a single line.

 

[HSTEd]

Does it reduce costs by single lining ? The remaining track gets twice as much wear and tear and there must be extra points to form a single line.

No crossovers, no significant signalwork, rail wear is not a significant factor anyway, rust gets the rail to a far greater extent.

On the sort of lines you would single the limiting factor on the life of the trackbed will be the effect of the elements on the ballast and rail far more than the amount of traffic that can pass over it.
Some rail can be in place forty years or more in relatively lightly used areas.

 

[Railsigns]

Captain Speaking: There is not a single point you have made in this thread which cannot be easily demolished. Most of it is sheer invention on your part; a series of imaginary scenarios concocted to support your point of view.

All the positive things you've attributed to privatisation - new trains, reopened lines, line doubling and 4-tracking, improved safety - are nothing to do with privatisation. BR did all those things and they did it for a lot less. Since privatisation, as before, it's public money that's funding these improvements.

You claimed BR "was in a death spiral headed for extinction". This is another piece of pure fantasy for which you have no evidence. It is true that the railways were in a period of decline prior to privatisation and some people thought they were in terminal decline. But let's not pretend that privatisation saved the railway. It did nothing of the sort. Since privatisation, there has been a more positive attitude towards using rail travel generally. That didn't happen because of privatisation; it was partly down to an improving economy and a realisation that we can't go on building more roads for ever while the existing ones become ever more congested.

Haven't you noticed that the state-owned railways in France and Germany (for example) aren't in a death spiral, headed for extinction? Why should it be any different in the UK? Hang on, it's not different at all: The railways in Northern Ireland - that's part of the UK - are still state owned and they have new trains, record passenger numbers and high passenger satisfaction. In fact, BR performed incredibly well with the funding it had. The tragedy is, if the government had just given BR a fraction of the extra money that's now going into rail to pay for privatisation's inefficiencies, we could have had a world class railway by now.

Your assertion that a privately owned railway will automatically receive greater investment from government than a state owned railway is utter nonsense. The issues of ownership and the level of investment are entirely independent of each other. Investment and subsidy from government can rise and fall irrespective of ownership. In fact, what you've said is contrary to capitalist doctrine because we're always led to believe that private industries are more efficient and less dependent on the state. Not on the railway!

Privatisation has delivered nothing that BR couldn't have done; privatisation has just made it very much more expensive. That's taxpayers' money - your money and my money - paying for the inherent inefficiencies of the flawed privatisation model and contributing to private companies' profits. I personally find it abhorrent that taxpayers' money is being diverted into the hands of wealthy shareholders and every person in this country should be outraged that this is happening on such a large scale through the rail industry.

As for BR simplifying layouts and taking out signals, they did what was sensible at the time. Does it make sense to retain - and maintain - facilities that are no longer needed? Of course not. One of the crazy aspects of privatisation is Network Rail's reluctance to remove redundant facilities since this invokes "Network Change" and a reduction in track access charges. So, signals applying to long-redundant sidings will stay in place, year after year, having their lamps replaced when they fail and even in some cases being renewed as LED signals, even though everyone knows there's no chance of them ever being used to signal a train.

You asked why we think the government privatised BR. Did it ever occur to you that capitalist "small state" ideology might have played a part in that decision? There was a certain amount of spite involved as well. Actually, rail privatisation was presented in the 1992 Tory manifesto as ending BR's "monopoly". That was a fallacy, since the railways were, and are, just one form of transport in competition with other forms of transport. Putting the rail industry in competition with itself has been largely counterproductive.

Your suggestion that a private company would prefer to turn around a loss-making service rather than shutting it down is fanciful nonsense. The reality of the "business-oriented approach" is that private companies are only interested in making profit; nothing else matters to them. A private company will only ever run a loss-making service if it's paid to do so, in which case the state might as well run it directly. The General Motors streetcar conspiracy shows what can happen when private companies acquire public transport systems and are left to their own devices.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Anyone who says the privatised railway is an improvement on BR, all things considered, either hasn't fully grasped the situation or is letting their political loyalties dictate their beliefs. You obviously fall into the second of those categories. You are a Tory Party apologist who cannot bear to admit what is plainly obvious to most people, that a policy implemented by your beloved Tory Party has turned out to be a resounding failure.

Like you, the Tory Party can't bring itself to admit that rail privatisation has failed. So now we have McNulty - whom I believe was instructed by the Tory Transport Secretary to remove any criticism of rail privatisation from his report before it was made public - proposing cuts in ticket offices and on-train staff to save money without addressing the damage that privatisation has done. What will happen when McNulty's cuts don't deliver the desired savings - service cuts and line closures? Is that okay with you, because it's not okay with me?

Your claim that "money is everything!" is very telling but fortunately there are still some people who value our public services.

I'm not sure how relevant your piece about the privatisation of BA is but even I'm willing to accept that privatisation can bring improvements in many cases. Maybe one day you'll realise that the private sector doesn't have the answer to everything however, and you'll accept that many public services are more efficiently delivered by the state. This applies to rail.

I recently heard Britain's rail system described as "Europe's first liberated railway". That would be laughable were it not so dishonest. Liberated from what? Since privatisation, our railways are more directly controlled by government than they ever were. Important strategic decisions that previously would have been made by senior BR managers are now being made by politicians and civil servants who know and care next to nothing about railways and aren't competent to make those decisions.

Fifteen years on, it's now perfectly clear that the system of franchising passenger services is incapable of ever becoming an efficient and effective way to run a railway. Despite various attempts to improve the situation whilst retaining its basic structure, nothing has worked. I don't see any sign of other countries adopting the same privatisation model for their railways. If there's anything to be said in favour of Britain's failed rail privatisation, it serves as a stark warning to other countries who might think of doing the same.

Every year, Britain's railways are costing taxpayers billions of pounds more to run than they did under BR. But they are no better, they are just more expensive. Even if it would cost £30 billion to renationalise the railways, at this rate it would pay for itself within about ten years. Are Britain's politicians incapable of making decisions that we know will bring huge ongoing savings in the longer term? They always seem to be looking for the quick fix.

Finally, here's the link to the e-petition on rail renationalisation for anyone else who's fed up being shafted year after year as a result a failed Tory policy implemented for the sake of political dogma:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/630

 

[Don2912]

Railsigns,

I have to say I completely agree with you.
Thanks for the link to the ePetition - Signed.

Cheers,

Don

 

[PR1Berske]

Railsigns - what utter simplistic rot.

 

[SWTCommuter]

Railsigns - thank you for an excellent post.