Could First Class only trains work in the UK?

[BestWestern]

Exactly. A carriage with three Emirates style first class suites wouldn’t go completely amiss!

Except that in the UK it would be a nightmare to police something that complex, many passengers (allegedly) can't manage with two classes! We lack sufficient staffing and boarding control in many cases, as well as a massive capacity issue meaning that people cram themselves into a train wherever they can.

 

[Edgeley]

Although not formally First Class only HS2 services might, in the light of pricing, in effect be of this type.

 

[The Ham]

I have previously suggested a "business pod" in the past.

Such a pod would be able to be configured in many different ways (such as seating and a table, a bed, etc.) it would remove say 9 first class seats and provide upto 6 seats, depending on configuration. If it were priced at 3 times the cost of a first class ticket you could get business meetings happening on the train on the way to somewhere with 4 or 5 people getting good value for money out of it. However the super rich could travel in luxury if they so wished.

Control of access to such a pod could be done by ticket swipe or coded entry, which would stop chancers from getting in.

 

[D365]

Although not formally First Class only HS2 services might, in the light of pricing, in effect be of this type.

Why would HS2 be significantly dearer than an equivalent West Coast journey?

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Why would HS2 be significantly dearer than an equivalent West Coast journey?

Track access charges presumably, to partly recoup the costs of building it.

 

[xotGD]

Why would HS2 be significantly dearer than an equivalent West Coast journey?

On the Time-Cost-Quality triangle, HS2 services will be offering a significant improvement in time, and (perhaps?) a high quality on-board environment. Those who value these aspects ahead of low fares will be content to pay more for the service. Passengers looking for the lowest fare will stick with slower, conventional services.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

2+2 First Class only might be an interesting way for FirstGroup to position their London-Edinburgh open access service, as it would in effect opt them out of the regulated fare structure.

 

[baz962]

Some airlines have tried (and failed) with an all 'budget' Business Class offering. Perhaps this might work on the railways - as was suggested up-thread 2+2 seating but with the spacing and table provision of First Class. Throw in some free refreshments and good free wifi and charge 20% more than a full price standard class ticket and this 'Executive Class' may have a chance.

You could call the operation 'Executive Rail' and either bid for open access paths or rent space on existing operators' trains, reconfigured to Executive Class standards.

There is an airline called la compagnie, does business class only. They tried to do Luton to new york, lasted about a year.

 

[D365]

Track access charges presumably, to partly recoup the costs of building it.

Could the same argument not be used by way of the West Coast modernisation?

On the Time-Cost-Quality triangle, HS2 services will be offering a significant improvement in time, and (perhaps?) a high quality on-board environment. Those who value these aspects ahead of low fares will be content to pay more for the service. Passengers looking for the lowest fare will stick with slower, conventional services.

By “equivalent West Coast journey” I was referring to the top-link express trains that HS2 will be primarily replacing.

I don’t see why fares will increase significantly just by virtue of those services turning over to HS2.

 

[The Ham]

Track access charges presumably, to partly recoup the costs of building it.

A 11 coach 390 traveling 400 miles is something like £450, split that over 225 seats (so very lightly loaded) and it's about £2.

Therefore even if you increased the track access charges by a factor of 10 then the extra costs would be £20.

However, there's likely to be other cost savings which would likely eat into those sorts of extras.

 

[Holly]

First Class Only is a non-starter if only for political reasons.
...
First priority on many routes however must remain capacity provision.

Not if you make all trains first class only. Like Harry Perkins

 

[SHD]

On the Continent, first-class only TEE trains disappeared in the 1980s. SNCF considered the possibility of first-class only TGVs in the late 1970s, replacing TEEs such as the Rhôdanien. Nine PSE trainsets were ordered with 8 first class coaches (total capacity 287 seats as opposed to 368 for a standard set). This first-class configuration was abandoned in the late 1980s.

The business case simply was not there anymore.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Definitely agree with the ideas they had for absolutely radical change to the Intercity 225 sets in regard to this.

The leasing company was going to convert the DVT into a Kitchen, then the first passenger coach would have been an 'absolute luxury' although I'd have gone for 1 + 1 with tables and free foods and drinks etc with high end pricing; then you had a 'Business Class' 2+2 with better seats and legroom along with free teas and coffees; then Standard Class.

 

[HowardGWR]

A 11 coach 390 traveling 400 miles is something like £450, split that over 225 seats (so very lightly loaded) and it's about £2.

Therefore even if you increased the track access charges by a factor of 10 then the extra costs would be £20.

However, there's likely to be other cost savings which would likely eat into those sorts of extras.

Interesting. Do you have a handle on the total costs of running 'any inter-city train', say a Pendolino? One simply needs to divide a chosen number of pax into that amount to get an idea of a likely luxury fare for different levels of luxury. I had an idea from an earlier post that Bald_ Rick or another prof here, could kindly give us an idea.

 

[DenmarkRail]

Exactly. A carriage with three Emirates style first class suites wouldn’t go completely amiss!

I flew Emirates a few times over the past few weeks, and really, they aren't the worlds best airline. Really not.

An issue with FC only trains all over the world, is that there will always something above first class. It would drive prices up, and even though it would be nice to travel on once or twice, I wouldn't use it regularly.

 

[DenmarkRail]

A good idea would be priority boarding at terminus stations for IC trains. Mainly at Euston.

 

[bastien]

I swear there would be tourists who'd pay for this on some kind of round-Britain cruise train jobber. No need to run it in the busy paths that way.

 

[greyman42]

I swear there would be tourists who'd pay for this on some kind of round-Britain cruise train jobber. No need to run it in the busy paths that way.

Belmond British Pullman?

 

[Bald Rick]

A 11 coach 390 traveling 400 miles is something like £450, split that over 225 seats (so very lightly loaded) and it's about £2.

Not so. That is the variable element of the access charges only.

According to the ORR, Virgin WC paid £191m in access charges last financial year. This won't be the precise number, but will be close enough for our purposes.
(source: http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf...il-industry-financial-information-2016-17.pdf).

The charges are made up of a 'fixed' element, a capacity charge (per train km), variable element (per vehicle km, weighted according to vehicle type), access charge supplements, station and depot lease charges. It's very complicated.

Anyway if you divide the VTWC £191m by the number of service trains it runs in the year you get an average of around £2,500 per train. Of course only approx two ninths of those are doing the 400miles or so to Scotland, with another two ninths doing approx 112.9 miles and the rest around 200 miles. Therefore if you weight the charges by train service miles the access charge for one VTWC Anglo-Scots train on the WCML would be around £4-5k

Now these are not the real figures, but it gives you an educated guess.

Then of course you will need to lease a train (or borrow the cash to buy one), power it, maintain it, staff it, buy the goodies to give to customers, sell tickets, and have a (small) management team to make it all happen. Let's assume you are doing it all for the good of society, and don't want to make a profit* You'd have a little change out of £15k per single trip if you're lucky.

* just as well, because you won't!

 

[bastien]

Belmond British Pullman?

That’s the badger. You could bung a coach of this ultra-luxury on it, like they do in Russia.

 

[The Ham]

Not so. That is the variable element of the access charges only.

According to the ORR, Virgin WC paid £191m in access charges last financial year. This won't be the precise number, but will be close enough for our purposes.
(source: http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf...il-industry-financial-information-2016-17.pdf).

The charges are made up of a 'fixed' element, a capacity charge (per train km), variable element (per vehicle km, weighted according to vehicle type), access charge supplements, station and depot lease charges. It's very complicated.

Anyway if you divide the VTWC £191m by the number of service trains it runs in the year you get an average of around £2,500 per train. Of course only approx two ninths of those are doing the 400miles or so to Scotland, with another two ninths doing approx 112.9 miles and the rest around 200 miles. Therefore if you weight the charges by train service miles the access charge for one VTWC Anglo-Scots train on the WCML would be around £4-5k

Now these are not the real figures, but it gives you an educated guess.

Then of course you will need to lease a train (or borrow the cash to buy one), power it, maintain it, staff it, buy the goodies to give to customers, sell tickets, and have a (small) management team to make it all happen. Let's assume you are doing it all for the good of society, and don't want to make a profit* You'd have a little change out of £15k per single trip if you're lucky.

* just as well, because you won't!

Thank you for the full description, based on what you've said (£5,000 for a one way service to Scotland) the track access charges for 500 passengers using the train (bearing in mind that there'll be only a few that go end to end and quite a few people will do shorter hops) would be an average of £10 per passenger.

Even if you double or triple this average (to cover the cost of building HS2, which is the point being replied to and not to do with running a first class only train service, although your points are relevent to that) this would add an average of £20 to £30 to the ticket price. Which in the greater scheme of things wouldn't likely be very significant compared to the average price paid by those 500 people.

Which would still be likely able to be reduced by economics of scale on some of the items listed as other costs (as hinted at before staff costs by having more passengers per driver, even if the total staff per 20,000 passengers stays broadly the same).

 

[Bald Rick]

It is reasonable to assume that given the capacity uplift provided by HS2, fares will be broadly the same as today. Those seats will need filling, and the Government will need it to be popular.

Nevertheless, doing the maths of a cost per train is instructive when thinking about new long distance services with low capacity and low train utilisation. In short to make them pay you need high load factors on every train and high fares. Those campaigning for new sleeper services take note.

 

[Polarbear]

The problem with 1st class only trains is that the market just isn't there any more to support them.

Going back to the halcyon days of Pullman travel (I'm thinking 1950's here), those travelling on business would typically travel from the provinces to London, to attend meetings that started in the mid-morning, or even in the afternoon. In those days, the early starts we see today weren't "de-rigour", with those trains offering "Pullman" type service often not arriving into London until after 10:00 or later. That's they way society was, and the railway catered for it quite well.

Over the intervening years, the world of business has changed greatly. Meetings take place over a larger portion of the day & travel habits have changed (early starts/later finishes are accepted more widely accepted). Although more people are travelling on business, they are doing so over a much wider time frame than was the case say 40-50 years back. As such, it would be difficult if not impossible to have a train service, fully first class, that would pay for itself.