Could a Red Star Parcels style operation make a return under GBR?

[Dr Hoo]

That would take forever, there are so many with stairs or long ramps separating the tracks from the lockers.

Dore & Totley, for example, if coming from Sheffield (which Hope Valley deliveries tend to). At least Hope is the ‘handy’ side (not to be confused with its nice Handyside footbridge. Giggle.)

 

[Shimbleshanks]

I think there could be a market for this sort of thing, if the rail industry had the collective will and nous to implement it. It could be particularly useful on the more out-of-the-way branch lines and stations, which the regular couriers don't particularly want to service but have to in order to provide nationwide coverage. Perhaps the railways could offer the capacity to other courier companies on a third party basis. It might also give some of the more lightly-used rural lines a bit more of a reason to be than they currently have.

The railways could also offer other courier firms a fast same-day service on major routes, without the courier having to go the the expense of running a dedicated van.

But it would probably need either a reconfiguration of existing rolling stock to provide a guards van or general utility area for things like bikes and prams - no bad idea in itself - or for the next generation of rolling stock to include such space.

If it works in Switzerland, there's no reason why it couldn't work in this country apart from the usual British 'can't do' attitude to anything new. Can't see it happening in my lifetime, sadly.

 

[mrmartin]

I think there could be a market for this sort of thing, if the rail industry had the collective will and nous to implement it. It could be particularly useful on the more out-of-the-way branch lines and stations, which the regular couriers don't particularly want to service but have to in order to provide nationwide coverage. Perhaps the railways could offer the capacity to other courier companies on a third party basis. It might also give some of the more lightly-used rural lines a bit more of a reason to be than they currently have.

The railways could also offer other courier firms a fast same-day service on major routes, without the courier having to go the the expense of running a dedicated van.

But it would probably need either a reconfiguration of existing rolling stock to provide a guards van or general utility area for things like bikes and prams - no bad idea in itself - or for the next generation of rolling stock to include such space.

If it works in Switzerland, there's no reason why it couldn't work in this country apart from the usual British 'can't do' attitude to anything new. Can't see it happening in my lifetime, sadly.

But the regular delivery companies do provide nationwide coverage. There are some exceptions to the Scottish highlands but I can't see this helping at all. What are people meant to do? Drive 30+ miles to the nearest tiny remote station?

You wouldn't believe the amount of stops even rural Amazon etc routes have these days. I've seen videos on YouTube of people doing them and I was astonished to see they were very frequent stops. I suspect they are no more expensive to serve these days than suburban areas with chronic traffic congestion (as the cost is really driven by the time between stops, which may not be the same as distance with congestion).

 

[Shimbleshanks]

But the regular delivery companies do provide nationwide coverage. There are some exceptions to the Scottish highlands but I can't see this helping at all. What are people meant to do? Drive 30+ miles to the nearest tiny remote station?

You wouldn't believe the amount of stops even rural Amazon etc routes have these days. I've seen videos on YouTube of people doing them and I was astonished to see they were very frequent stops. I suspect they are no more expensive to serve these days than suburban areas with chronic traffic congestion (as the cost is really driven by the time between stops, which may not be the same as distance with congestion).

I'd envisage this would be more for trunk haul - get material up from the Midlands to Inverness, Aberystwyth etc than hand over to local delivery companies for final mile delivery. Though no reason why there couldn't be a station to station element as well.

 

[Helvellyn]

I think there could be a market for this sort of thing, if the rail industry had the collective will and nous to implement it. It could be particularly useful on the more out-of-the-way branch lines and stations, which the regular couriers don't particularly want to service but have to in order to provide nationwide coverage. Perhaps the railways could offer the capacity to other courier companies on a third party basis. It might also give some of the more lightly-used rural lines a bit more of a reason to be than they currently have.

The railways could also offer other courier firms a fast same-day service on major routes, without the courier having to go the the expense of running a dedicated van.

But it would probably need either a reconfiguration of existing rolling stock to provide a guards van or general utility area for things like bikes and prams - no bad idea in itself - or for the next generation of rolling stock to include such space.

If it works in Switzerland, there's no reason why it couldn't work in this country apart from the usual British 'can't do' attitude to anything new. Can't see it happening in my lifetime, sadly.

This is the universal service that Royal Mail is obligated to provide - many parcels firms will do the trunk delivery then drop it on Royal Mail for the last leg in rural areas. Royal Mail has ditched its remaining trains and also internal mail flights to use road only to reduce costs. So why do we want to force GBR to take on parcels deliveries when one of the things the Government wants is for GBR to be more efficient and reduce the amount of subsidy?

 

[BlueLeanie]

If you’re doing that, is going via the station actually an advantage? Oxford may be somewhat of an exception, but getting between the station and most of the housing is a complete pain.

So a £5 charge every time you visit Oxford station by car to collect a parcel.

And if it earns £££ for the local authority, you can be sure local authorities across the UK will be keen to implement a similar charge.

 

[Ken H]

This needs a simple operation. Offer a parcel service for just Euston - Glasgow traffic that is carried on the sleeper. Euston could operate from the old parcels depot above the station with dedicated drop off.

Remember KISS. Keep it simple, stupid

 

[Technologist]

So the plan is for GBR to take on Amazon?

Metric	Amazon (Global 2024)	British Rail Industry (2024 UK)
Revenue	$637.9 billion	$32 billion
Profit	$59.25 billion	-$15 billion (total government subsidy)
Employees	1.5 million	100,000
Other Assets	Owns an air fleet of 101 aircraft and 31% of the internet!	Some nice stations

I think a better angle would be how we can get Amazon to either operate more of our railway and/or adopt Amazon's culture of "Customer Obsession", PowerPoint bans and the one and two way door decision making structure? Say whatever you want Amazon is wicked fast at building infrastructure, even in the UK.

More broadly if we look at the rail network it is substantially constrained and also incredibly un-profitable, it is subsidised on a societal benefit basis. Rail freight is "profitable" but likely only because it doesn't pay nearly enough track access charges. If we look where rail makes either a profit or provides a very large BCR it is on lines where we operate it in a high frequency, single traffic type and where we use that service to allow the construction of new homes.

What GBR should focus on is becoming a self funding Rail/Property business like MTR in Hongkong, Japan or the Old Metropolitan railway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think a better angle would be how we can get Amazon to either operate more of our railway and/or adopt Amazon's culture of "Customer Obsession", PowerPoint bans and the one and two way door decision making structure? Say whatever you want Amazon is wicked fast at building infrastructure, even in the UK.

I don't think Amazon's approach of treating staff like dirt on the management's shoes is likely to work on the railway to be honest.

 

[Technologist]

I don't think Amazon's approach of treating staff like dirt on the management's shoes is likely to work on the railway to be honest.

Were rail to adopt Amazon like management practices it would be fallacious to assume that they would try to run it like Amazon run a distribution warehouse.

As I put in my little table Amazon employs 1.55 million people it's entirely impossible to generalise as to how Amazon treats its employees, though again because of its size it will always be possible to find a whole stack of malfeasance. Through most of the time it has been a major employer Amazon has existed in a time where there has been relatively low unemployment so it has actually needed to compete for staff.

Amazon didn't go from being founded 30 years ago to being the worlds largest company by revenue by not understanding how to treat its staff and by being ineffective. Over time it has greatly increases the amount of people it employs even though it has made everything it does ruthlessly efficient. Part of the Amazon DNA is about pushing decision making as low in the organisation as they can and not needing authorisation from higher tiers of management so whilst they might work their staff hard they can also get stuff done, be effective and have considerable personal agency.

 

[Egg Centric]

Were rail to adopt Amazon like management practices it would be fallacious to assume that they would try to run it like Amazon run a distribution warehouse.

As I put in my little table Amazon employs 1.55 million people it's entirely impossible to generalise as to how Amazon treats its employees, though again because of its size it will always be possible to find a whole stack of malfeasance. Through most of the time it has been a major employer Amazon has existed in a time where there has been relatively low unemployment so it has actually needed to compete for staff.

Amazon didn't go from being founded 30 years ago to being the worlds largest company by revenue by not understanding how to treat its staff and by being ineffective. Over time it has greatly increases the amount of people it employs even though it has made everything it does ruthlessly efficient. Part of the Amazon DNA is about pushing decision making as low in the organisation as they can and not needing authorisation from higher tiers of management so whilst they might work their staff hard they can also get stuff done, be effective and have considerable personal agency.

That's the complete opposite of what GBR will be (and some of this is for good reason, with the obsession with safety at all levels they're not exactly going to be signing off on "considerable personal agency" about what to do if a signal has been red for 2 minutes) so fuggedaboutit.

 

[BlueLeanie]

I don't think Amazon's approach of treating staff like dirt on the management's shoes is likely to work on the railway to be honest.

So pretty close to how the public sector treats staff then.

 

[Technologist]

That's the complete opposite of what GBR will be (and some of this is for good reason, with the obsession with safety at all levels they're not exactly going to be signing off on "considerable personal agency" about what to do if a signal has been red for 2 minutes) so fuggedaboutit.

See previous points about them also operating a fleet of more than 100 large freighter aircraft and a satellite constellation, they also handle the data of billions of people and handle the regulations of hundreds of countries across dozens of industries.

The point is that what they are very good at is speed of decision making and making decisions in the right place. So for example the decision to run a railway service in the UK was likely identified as a two way decision, ergo a decision that they could change at any point and where they could off load the investments/leases on rolling stock relatively easily, thus the decision would have been taken relatively low in the organisation with relatively light business justification. There will not have been multiple 1-2 week delays in the process as the decision made its way across multiple business process meetings that take place on 1-2 week schedule.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

What GBR should focus on is becoming a self funding Rail/Property business like MTR in Hongkong, Japan or the Old Metropolitan railway.

That sounds uncomfortably similar to the ethos that was Railtrack's undoing, ie that it was a property company with a railway attached. I doubt such an approach would gain much public support; running trains on time while charging somewhat affordable fares (however you choose to measure that!) is surely the priority.

 

[Egg Centric]

See previous points about them also operating a fleet of more than 100 large freighter aircraft and a satellite constellation, they also handle the data of billions of people and handle the regulations of hundreds of countries across dozens of industries.

The point is that what they are very good at is speed of decision making and making decisions in the right place. So for example the decision to run a railway service in the UK was likely identified as a two way decision, ergo a decision that they could change at any point and where they could off load the investments/leases on rolling stock relatively easily, thus the decision would have been taken relatively low in the organisation with relatively light business justification. There will not have been multiple 1-2 week delays in the process as the decision made its way across multiple business process meetings that take place on 1-2 week schedule.

I think you're missing the point of my post somewhat - it's not anti-Amazon. It's anti-GBR (even though the example may have read otherwise). Seems pretty obvious to me we're going to end up in a decade or so (assuming current political trends) with a scelerotic extension of the DfT. I'd love to be wrong about that btw.

 

[Technologist]

That sounds uncomfortably similar to the ethos that was Railtrack's undoing, ie that it was a property company with a railway attached. I doubt such an approach would gain much public support; running trains on time while charging somewhat affordable fares (however you choose to measure that!) is surely the priority.

Every time you pay for a train ticket on average the taxpayer stands behind you and pays a similar amount, I'm pretty sue the public would support rail expanding and doing so by taking a share of the economic prosperity it helped create rather than asking for their tax money.

I think you're missing the point of my post somewhat - it's not anti-Amazon. It's anti-GBR (even though the example may have read otherwise). Seems pretty obvious to me we're going to end up in a decade or so (assuming current political trends) with a scelerotic extension of the DfT. I'd love to be wrong about that btw.

Reasonable point, taking the same people you had before in basically the same policy environment and then expecting radically different outcomes it wishful thinking. The big question would be how would you make GBR behave with the dynamism of Amazon or how would you get people and organisations like Amazon to run rail services?

 

[MarkyT]

That sounds uncomfortably similar to the ethos that was Railtrack's undoing, ie that it was a property company with a railway attached. I doubt such an approach would gain much public support; running trains on time while charging somewhat affordable fares (however you choose to measure that!) is surely the priority.

Depends what the property arm's remit is. At worst it could be to sell off any land parcel at maximum return with no consideration of the future relationship with the railway nearby, nor any safeguarding for future rail projects. At best, a property division could identify synergies that add long term value to both rail and property portfolios, attracting new business to rail, funnelling mass footfall past retail and entertainment businesses and employment opportunities, all while protecting the network's ability to grow.

 

[HSTEd]

That sounds uncomfortably similar to the ethos that was Railtrack's undoing, ie that it was a property company with a railway attached. I doubt such an approach would gain much public support; running trains on time while charging somewhat affordable fares (however you choose to measure that!) is surely the priority.

The railway has experienced decades of public support and funding largesse on a scale unprecedented in history.
Electrification of road transport (already underway) is probably going to erode the environmental credentials that have played a big part in this.

The adoption of hybrid working etc has already taken a huge chunk out of the historically most dependable part of its revenue base.

The railway must get into a position where it can sustain itself if the funding taps are turned down substantially - real estate development is probably one of the best ways it can do that.
Many others will be very difficult given the rail industries apparent cost control issues, fractious staff relations and the shortage of investment capital.

 

[Technologist]

Depends what the property arm's remit is. At worst it could be to sell off any land parcel at maximum return with no consideration of the future relationship with the railway nearby, nor any safeguarding for future rail projects. At best, a property division could identify synergies that add long term value to both rail and property portfolios, attracting new business to rail, funnelling mass footfall past retail and entertainment businesses and employment opportunities, all while protecting the network's ability to grow.

To be clear my original framing was around MTR, the various Japanese rail companies, Metropolitan Railway company and many of the companies that built the US railway and street car systems. They all built railways and funded them using land ownership around stations. I was meaning this rather than selling off existing railway land.

Opening up land for housing is worth around £2-10 million per hectare and considerably more in the centres of cities. Funding railways in this manner is how we get to the point where we can build stuff without getting treasury and DfT involved entrepreneurial regional mayors who have both transport portfolios and also planning powers could pull this off and be in office long enough to reap the electoral rewards. I'd also argue that funding by means of property would also align funding and costs to a much greater degree than the current liberal spending of other peoples money that went on at all stages of HS2. That works in both directions as the planners would also be able to increase scope and service when they spot opportunities to create more property value.

 

[Carlisle]

I don't recall any service being designated for either cycles or parcels and I don't recall ever seeing any of these locked.

Definitely happened on the Cardiff - Portsmouth route when 158s were introduced not sure for how long though.

 

[nailerrail]

Referring to Red Star Parcels in the earlier part of this discussion. A bit of history.

1948; British Railways is born as a national organisation, BTC until around 1955.

1968; Green Arrow Parcel service introduced, the forerunner of Red Star Parcels, which was purely a station to station service via direct trains only. Then, to get better national coverage, transfers were added at key stations equipped to handle certain volumes of traffic. RPT, or Recorded Parcel Transit, was the alternative facility for all other locations where parcel facilities existed on BR. Both Red Star and RPT were classed as premium services with an additional fee applied to the standard charge, similar to first class postage.

A road transport organisation, City Link, were adopted in the late 1970s as the end to end service, providing collections from private or business addresses, take to the local station for despatch, then collect for delivery at the destination address, a system that worked effectively. In 1983, Night Star with delivery to the customers address was introduced, followed by Red Star Sameday.

All other parcels were standard or second class, mainly door to door, such as mail order, at a lower cost to despatch, or on occasions station to station. Where door to door was used, parcels were generally picked up by the local PCD ( Parcel Concentration Depot) road vehicle or from from the station and the opposite applied at the delivery end. Mail order returns, i.e. Grattans, Kay's, etc.. were always free of charge.

Back in the day, BR had the infrastructure at their disposal, and it worked well. But, times have changed in this digital e-world. Maybe a system that is used in Germany, with limited weight and dimensions, and same-day service, could be introduced, subject to station and on board train facilities. Perhaps teaming up with Amazon, for example, could be a successful idea.

Don't expect anything any day soon, it took BR 20 years plus to establish Red Star from its infancy into a UK wide service some 15 years later, and another 10 years before its demise.

A rail based parcel service would be most welcome and appreciated by many who remember the original product, but I doubt it would ever get off the ground.

Apologies if I've gone on a tad!!

 

[eldomtom2]

See previous points about them also operating a fleet of more than 100 large freighter aircraft and a satellite constellation, they also handle the data of billions of people and handle the regulations of hundreds of countries across dozens of industries.

But Amazon doesn't operate those freight aircraft themselves. They contract out operations and maintenance. This perhaps raises questions about whether Amazon's internal structure could or should be applied to public transportation.

 

[Technologist]

But Amazon doesn't operate those freight aircraft themselves. They contract out operations and maintenance. This perhaps raises questions about whether Amazon's internal structure could or should be applied to public transportation.

Yes, cost cutting and a hard nosed business culture have no place in aerospace. That's why Ryanair, South West and EasyJet don't exist and why flying is so much more expensive than taking the train.

A culture that focuses on the method of decision making and having clear lines of responsibility in place is also terrible for safety.

Amazon air does wet leases of it's aircraft which means it is still ultimately responsible for validating the safety of the aircraft, it's still an aircraft operator.

Amazon is literally the world's largest company and it operates in multiple domains. It competes against other massive companies who are also highly competent. It does this pretty much entirely on the basis of it's ability to find an opportunity and then execute that opportunity in a highly competitive environment. They aren't cruising on decades old IP or a former state monopoly.

It shouldn't be controversial to suggest that one of if not the best run companies in the world might have something to teach an uncompetitive, over regulated sector that majors on pissing off it's customers and using out of date technology.

 

[eldomtom2]

Yes, cost cutting and a hard nosed business culture have no place in aerospace. That's why Ryanair, South West and EasyJet don't exist and why flying is so much more expensive than taking the train.

I think those companies would provide a much better example

A culture that focuses on the method of decision making and having clear lines of responsibility in place is also terrible for safety.

Do you think current decisionmaking and lines of responsibility on the railway are impeding safety?

It shouldn't be controversial to suggest that one of if not the best run companies in the world might have something to teach an uncompetitive, over regulated sector that majors on pissing off it's customers and using out of date technology.

I don't think it should be controversial to suggest that instead of just pointing to Amazon and saying "do it like them", it's more helpful and fruitful to discussion to explain specific changes you think should be made to the railways and how they would be helpful - for example, you say the railways are "overregulated" - what rail-related regulations do you think should be repealed?

 

[coppercapped]

Yes, cost cutting and a hard nosed business culture have no place in aerospace. That's why Ryanair, South West and EasyJet don't exist and why flying is so much more expensive than taking the train.

A culture that focuses on the method of decision making and having clear lines of responsibility in place is also terrible for safety.

Amazon air does wet leases of it's aircraft which means it is still ultimately responsible for validating the safety of the aircraft, it's still an aircraft operator.

Amazon is literally the world's largest company and it operates in multiple domains. It competes against other massive companies who are also highly competent. It does this pretty much entirely on the basis of it's ability to find an opportunity and then execute that opportunity in a highly competitive environment. They aren't cruising on decades old IP or a former state monopoly.

It shouldn't be controversial to suggest that one of if not the best run companies in the world might have something to teach an uncompetitive, over regulated sector that majors on pissing off it's customers and using out of date technology.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make in the recent (now closed) thread 'XC-RMT strike is there a discussion somewhere' found here: #117

I would make some further observations, in no particular order of significance:

• profitable airlines are safe airlines
• the biggest single error made in the 1993 railway privatisation was that Railtrack was set up with no marketing and sales function. As it was reliant on the access charges the TOCs and FOCs paid (there was no network grant in the early days) it should have been attempting to drive up its income by selling more train paths. Marketing would have identified places and locations which limited the increase in the number of paths and generated ways to either work round the problem or expand capacity. By definition this activity would have meant that Railtrack would have needed to have had a deep understanding of its own infrastructure and many problems which occurred later would have been avoided.
• one of the major points about the original model of privatisation was that train operating and marketing decisions were pushed as close to the customer — in those days the passengers — as possible. Understanding the management of businesses has never been the Labour party's forte and so it removed the ability of local management to make decisions by setting up the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) and so we eventually ended up with the 2018 timetable melt down because the timetable parameters were baked into the TOC-Government contract and governments are never known for making quick decisions.
• The SRA and later the DfT replaced the concept of 'the passenger as customer' with that of 'the government is the customer' and many posters here now wonder why the passenger isn't centre stage. The answer is obvious.
• I have seen a similar culture to that of Amazon's from the inside, that of Apple Engineering and that also had very short chains of command. I worked for some years as a manager in Apple's European R&D in Paris and my manager reported to a Vice-President in Cupertino. In turn he reported to the CEO, in those days John Sculley. The point of this story is that it worked — and in spite of having one or two wobbles on the way Apple has become one of the world's largest companies.
• Great British Railways is a disaster waiting to happen. It doesn't even have a consistent funding model, infrastructure will be on a five year cycle and train operations on a three year cycle. It will be impossible to manage.
• With such a structure a return of Red Star Parcels will never happen.