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When the Llandudno shuttles are cancelled the crew and the unit are able to be redeployed. Next to nobody is on the Llandudno Junction - Llandudno stubs when they're not through from Blaunau.
The unit can be redeployed as it is more or less a self-contained diagram. It wasn't redeployed in this closure. Still not going to save much on unit costs because you still have to pay the ROSCO. You can't productively redeploy the crew because they will have other work in their diagrams which they still need to cover, you can use them as standbys to get the TCS out of trouble but otherwise they'll just be spending time stuck in the messroom.
The Llanrwst signaller will spend the time answering phones to farm crossings and the Tal-y-Cafn crossing keeper will finish a few more crosswords. There's nowhere to redeploy them to. P-Way likewise will still be working.
You can't productively redeploy the crew because they will have other work in their diagrams which they still need to cover, you can use them as standbys to get the TCS out of trouble but otherwise they'll just be spending time stuck in the messroom.
Well the track access cost is one government body (TfW) paying another government body (Network Rail) so it doesn't really make a difference. The signallers and P-Way staff will still have to be paid, whether or not NR refund TfW's access charges. The lease will still be paid too. You might save a bit of fuel, but really the unit will probably be used for something else anyway.
Conwy Valley crewing is well integrated with the mainline. It's not like the days when you had a retirement link whose sole duty apart from the branch was to take the 101 to Rhyl to pick up the mail for Blaenau. Four guard and six driver diagrams are involved. Each has a two or four hour hole at some point in it when the line is closed. To reuse them productively you'd have to recast a substantial number of mainline turns, across three depots.
You're right. The true cost is far higher than the variable track access figure implies because Network Rail receives a grant for the difference between their revenues under VTAC and commercial sources and the operating cost. True cost is therefore likely to exceed £2 million per year.
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I think the point was essentially:
1. A temporary closure will save very little
2. A permanent closure would save much more
However 3. There isn't the political will in Wales (which differs from England) for a permanent closure.
And 4. This thread isn't really about proposing a permanent closure in any case, it's a discussion about an actual temporary closure due to badger setts.
Nobody is saying it isn't. But the reality is it's expensive - very expensive, to provide two people to work a two car train. That's true across the board, but in most applications the service is a lot more useful to residents and visitors than the Conwy Valley's is.
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Four guard and six driver diagrams are involved. Each has a two or four hour hole at some point in it when the line is closed. To reuse them productively you'd have to recast a substantial number of mainline turns, across three depots.
Being one of the stereotypical Beeching survivors (in this case due to the nuclear power station) alongside the Marston Vale, it tends to be rather focused-upon by this Forum and its supporters - and its "wannabe Beechings". So anything about it will be reported.
The Marston Vale line isn't similar to the Conwy Valley either, even without East West Rail's prospects for it, because when it ran with an hourly train that service was actually useful for long-distance connections at both ends. The Conwy Valley's service is so thin it provides very poor connectivity from anywhere on the Main Line. It is also dissimilar in that Bedford is far larger than Blaunau and Milton Keynes is far larger than Llandudno.
The service on the Marston Vale always had a very poor financial dimension, but a strong economic dimension, with lots of opportunity for growth. The Conwy Valley has a much weaker financial dimension and an extremely weak economic dimension by comparison, with next to no opportunity to grow.
You're right. The true cost is far higher than the variable track access figure implies because Network Rail receives a grant for the difference between their revenues under VTAC and commercial sources and the operating cost. True cost is therefore likely to exceed £2 million per year.
And that cost will occur whether trains are running or not. Wear and tear accounts for a small proportion of Network Rail expenditure on the line. Fixed costs such as making good the effects of the weather (including flood defences) and the signallers still have to be paid, even during a temporary closure.
No. In order to make productive diagrams while the Conwy Valley was temporarily closed, you would have to chop about several mainline-only diagrams. Doing so for a short, temporary closure is a waste of train planning time.
The same number of people would be travelling on the other journey anyway. Things would just be a bit more crowded (in the classic TfW style, at least silly season has not quite begun).
And that cost will occur whether trains are running or not. Wear and tear accounts for a small proportion of Network Rail expenditure on the line. Fixed costs such as making good the effects of the weather (including flood defences) and the signallers still have to be paid, even during a temporary closure.
No. In order to make productive diagrams while the Conwy Valley was temporarily closed, you would have to chop about several mainline-only diagrams. Doing so for a short, temporary closure is a waste of train planning time.
Can you illustrate just what the net saving would be for a temporary closure? Bearing in mind that the infrastructure cost is the same, the staff are all still being paid, the unit still being leased etc. No one is disputing that a permanent closure would result in savings, we're saying that a temporary closure saves nothing.
No, they haven't chopped LTP diagrams up for temporary closures before. When there used to be a self-contained guard diagram that would revert to spare (so could move to cover other turns), and the Sunday turn abandoned entirely, but they haven't cut and pasted non-self-contained diagrams to make them more productive. The staff just sat in the messroom looking bored.
If the Conwy Valley 197 were moved onto North Wales - Manchester work, there wouldn't be any more passengers travelling between North Wales and Manchester than there would have been if the Conwy Valley unit stayed on the Conwy Valley. It would just be used to strengthen trains or release 15x to strengthen other trains. Obviously things would be a bit more comfortable onboard, but standing passengers pay the same price as seated ones. The only exception is Mon/Fri/Sat during the summer holidays when passengers get left behind on platforms, though most of them will still board a train eventually.
I’d assume they’ll get the correct expensive licenses and specialist (expensive) contractors to remove them, then set them up in new borrows away from the railway, which they’ll probably return to anyway at some point.
I’ll describe them as vermin, and not rodents I’m not really up on wildlife to be honest.
Badgers carry disease and are partially responsible for hedgehog decline. Due to having no natural predators left, their numbers are unsustainably high.
Badgers carry disease and are partially responsible for hedgehog decline. Due to having no natural predators left, their numbers are unsustainably high.
I don't think a badger will have had a natural predator for a long while (certainly not in the UK which completely lacks large predators). Perhaps the wolf was the last one?
Presumably would include the directly attributable fuel cost of the unit(s) temporarily not operating on the line? If so, anyone able to guesstimate how much £££ this might be?
Is this a general issue with all medium-sized predators, over quite large areas of Europe?
Not only the UK, but also much of continental Europe lacks large predators: wolves and bears, for example, are restricted to a few remote mountainous areas. So medium-sized predators are presumably at the apex of the food chain. Yet generally the prevailing mood nowadays is to preserve them, not control them.
Or is it the specific qualities of the badger that make it more problematic than other species?
Can you illustrate just what the net saving would be for a temporary closure? Bearing in mind that the infrastructure cost is the same, the staff are all still being paid, the unit still being leased etc. No one is disputing that a permanent closure would result in savings, we're saying that a temporary closure saves nothing.
As has already been pointed out several times now the temporary closure lasting many months saved more money in inspection and maintenance and reduction of the vehicle requirement (though the latter just manifests itself as facing less business disruption by being one unit less short in most cases) than a bus and driver hire costs.
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If the Conwy Valley 197 were moved onto North Wales - Manchester work, there wouldn't be any more passengers travelling between North Wales and Manchester than there would have been if the Conwy Valley unit stayed on the Conwy Valley. It would just be used to strengthen trains or release 15x to strengthen other trains. Obviously things would be a bit more comfortable onboard, but standing passengers pay the same price as seated ones. The only exception is Mon/Fri/Sat during the summer holidays when passengers get left behind on platforms, though most of them will still board a train eventually.
You're just expressing those savings in different areas of the business. They're still savings with the same or a greater nominal value.
That's what the post by Bald Rick was saying, not that the badger closure itself has actually been a good thing.
Nobody is saying permanent closure would only save around £2 million per year either. It would be far, far more than that over a 60 year period because you'd save all of the opportunity cost of the capex required to keep it open during that time. Easily 10-20 times this annual figure.
How? The staff still get paid, a unit was still being diagrammed, mother nature still batters the infrastructure, and the bus company will have left a bill. Temporary closures won't save any money. A permanent one would of course but thankfully that would be politically unacceptable.
Human control of numbers through culling or hunting isn't a very effective solution either. And of course the habitat loss which started all of this off in the first place wasn't caused by any influence but humans.
No it doesn't, not for a closure restricted to the Conwy Valley. Excluding the long closure during the pandemic (when the entire railway went to an emergency timetable) amended diagrams for engineering work on the line (such as the three week closure that seems to take place most Novembers, or the odd weekends) just result in the Conwy Valley bits being omitted from the diagrams, replaced with "as ordered by Resource Manager". When there are bigger weekend closures on the coast (think Rhyl to Bangor or similar) then it is considered worth recasting all of the diagrams on an STP basis (and they won't be that productive, it's cheaper to let most of Llandudno Junction sit spare than pay for endless taxis to Rhyl when Chester can easily cover most of the truncated service). It doesn't happen for closures only affecting the Conwy Valley.
Overtime is only really applicable on Sundays, RDW is pretty exceptional these days with full staffing. Even then, committed Sundays works both ways and the staff sit spare. Mileage charges and fuel, yes (though using the unit elsewhere would change that, particularly considering higher speeds elsewhere). You're still paying for all of the fixed costs and - as we're constantly being told - the bulk of rail expenditure is in personnel.
Not in Wales they aren't, not apart from a brief trial more than a decade ago. No point arguing about this anyway, it's just a fact that badger populations are currently overpopulated in comparison to the present habitat.
Is this a general issue with all medium-sized predators, over quite large areas of Europe?
Not only the UK, but also much of continental Europe lacks large predators: wolves and bears, for example, are restricted to a few remote mountainous areas. So medium-sized predators are presumably at the apex of the food chain. Yet generally the prevailing mood nowadays is to preserve them, not control them.
Or is it the specific qualities of the badger that make it more problematic than other species?
The service on the Marston Vale always had a very poor financial dimension, but a strong economic dimension, with lots of opportunity for growth. The Conwy Valley has a much weaker financial dimension and an extremely weak economic dimension by comparison, with next to no opportunity to grow.
The Conwy Valley line's economics would change significantly if the mini nuclear power station proposal at Trawsfynydd comes to anything.
But we also said that about slate waste from Blaenau, which has turned into a siding at Llandudno Jn fed by road.
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