Did sectorisation improve BR?

[nw1]

I think you’ve forgotten that ScotRail was not a separate sector: it was one of the Provincial/Regional Railways sub-sectors.

Ah right, OK - apologies for that.

 

[Helvellyn]

You're ignoring that the stock and service types were very different back then. InterCity was moving to all air conditioned fleet by the very early 1990s whereas Provincial was gradually implementing Sprinterisarion to eliminate loco haulage, that included cascaded coaching stock towards the end of life.

It was the formation of Provinvial and NSE that saw them increasingly design stock suitable for their markets.

The 156 was a good mid-distance unit, the Class 158 was designed to bring InterCity comfort to long thin but generally slower inter-regional routes. Loco hauled services that might have been two-hourly became hourly. Unfortunately it was under-estimated what new demand an increased service frequency would unleash versus spreading your loco-hauled passengers across two trains (e.g. North Trans Pennine).

For NSE look how they delivered a quality product in the 442, whereas the early 317/455 style units were revamped as the 321/456 (and the Networker project was a step change again).

The 1980s railway was a very different beast from today in terms of passenger numbers and service frequencies. But the privatised railway has also been around twice as long as the sectors so we need to be careful not to project back what we have now to then.

 

[Fleetmaster]

OK, so you're at a large station in the North West in the 1980s, say Piccadilly or Lime Street. Your 1200 train to Birmingham, formed of an 86 + Mk-II set, has problems due to a failed loco (with no substitution available) or severely delayed inbound working. The next scheduled service is the 1400 (in the 80s, there could be 2-hour gaps on these routes). There's also a 1300 to Euston, with a 30-min connection to New Street available at Stafford (again, these kinds of long waits were commonplace in the 80s). What's least bad?

a) a 304 is available in the sidings and not needed until the evening peak - enough time to get it to Birmingham and back. There's staff available to operate it. You get the 304 out of the sidings and deploy it on the 1200. OK it's an "inferior product", but it's something, and those needing Birmingham relatively quickly (recognising a 304 would lose time) have it as an option.

b) you just cancel it full stop and tell people they must wait for the 1400, or, for the 1300 to Euston which has a 30-min connection at Stafford for Birmingham.

Some might prefer the 304.

You might say "they could have travelled on the 1100 all-stations stopper to Birmingham if they were happy using a 304". But they probably wouldn't. They chose the 1200 because it was fast, and IC-standard. They would prefer an IC-standard train in the ideal world. But they would put up with an EMU designed for local services if the only alternative was a cancellation.

An interesting example, because of course, with my IC Businesses Development hat on, seeing a customer choose our 12.00 direct service to travel from Manchester to Birmingham, makes me think it is very unlikely to be someone for whom urgency or even time of arrival was going to be of primary importance.

I might suspect they were choosing our service as much for the fact it would see them spending the shortest amount of time on a train, and doing it in comfort. And that they probably have access to a car, if their journey was of upmost importance.

If the nature of this problem as posed is that for budgetary reasons I can only either offer an inferior direct train or cancel the service and offer a full refund, then hand on heart, and being mightily annoyed that someone else in the company apparently thinks It is OK that we don't have suitable replacements on hand at one of our most important hubs, I would cancel the service.

In doing so, I am making it clear that we don't consider these things a matter of "ideal world" expectations. You either get what you paid for, or a full refund. Informing my decision is that hopefully the existence of the 13.00 and the 14.00 is enough to leave those passengers for whom time of arrival wasn't the most important factor, less likely to be displeased at the outcome.

 

[devon_belle]

Thanks for the interesting replies everyone. From what I understand after reading the replies, it was positive for the passenger until something went wrong, and it was mostly useful for BR from an accounting perspective?

 

[nw1]

An interesting example, because of course, with my IC Businesses Development hat on, seeing a customer choose our 12.00 direct service to travel from Manchester to Birmingham, makes me think it is very unlikely to be someone for whom urgency or even time of arrival was going to be of primary importance.

Let's say they were seeing friends in Manchester, and wanted to spend the morning with them, and then had a work meeting, or even an important social meetup, at Birmingham at 15.00. The 12.00 would get there in time, but the 13.00 (with change) probably wouldn't.

Run the 304 and they can get to their meeting in time. Cancel the service altogether and they miss their meeting.

Admittedly I am probably revealing my own preferences here (unit designed for stopping services employed on a fast service is almost always better than a cancellation) but I can imagine many others would think the same.

 

[Route115?]

I was the finance manager of a sub-sector for a while. From my perspective, the logical business unit was the sub-sector, which effectively became the TOCs and it might have been interesting to have them reporting directly to the BRB, although it may have been a rather wide span of control. (You could have had a London co-ordinating body as well.)

The issue of the management of infrastructure is interesting. I won't bore you with the details of prime user accounting (which in any case I have probably forgotten). There were always dangers of sub-optimal decisions but it seemed to achieve results.

There was the dreaded ORCATS raiding - timetabling trains to maximise the allocation of tickets which could result in sub-optimal timetables. I am that InterCity had two quite senior managers whose sole job was to maximise allocations.

Overall I think that overall Sectorisation was positive and resulted in a more commercial approach and focus on costs although the LSE sector didn't really take off until Chris Green came along. It would have been interesting to see how Organisation for Quality would have worked out over time. My view is that it was the right way to go and would have worked out well if privatisation hadn't come along.

 

[yorksrob]

I was the finance manager of a sub-sector for a while. From my perspective, the logical business unit was the sub-sector, which effectively became the TOCs and it might have been interesting to have them reporting directly to the BRB, although it may have been a rather wide span of control. (You could have had a London co-ordinating body as well.)

The issue of the management of infrastructure is interesting. I won't bore you with the details of prime user accounting (which in any case I have probably forgotten). There were always dangers of sub-optimal decisions but it seemed to achieve results.

There was the dreaded ORCATS raiding - timetabling trains to maximise the allocation of tickets which could result in sub-optimal timetables. I am that InterCity had two quite senior managers whose sole job was to maximise allocations.

Overall I think that overall Sectorisation was positive and resulted in a more commercial approach and focus on costs although the LSE sector didn't really take off until Chris Green came along. It would have been interesting to see how Organisation for Quality would have worked out over time. My view is that it was the right way to go and would have worked out well if privatisation hadn't come along.

This is the sort of insight I find fascinating (speaking as someone travelling on the railway at the time albeit as a youngster).