GB Railways Charter/spot hire company.

[renegademaster]

Would a state owned charter/rosco company be a viable and useful thing for when GBR is complete? Ideally a 20 or so DMU sets with go anywhere dimensions simple as possible controls and electronics , that doesn't mind being kept in a siding without power for a few months, that can fill in for stock shortages or surges in demand as they appear. Could also have a reserve of drivers to cover driver shortages.

 

[43096]

Would a state owned charter/rosco company be a viable and useful thing for when GBR is complete? Ideally a 20 or so DMU sets with go anywhere dimensions simple as possible controls and electronics , that doesn't mind being kept in a siding without power for a few months, that can fill in for stock shortages or surges in demand as they appear. Could also have a reserve of drivers to cover driver shortages.

Who is paying and where are the trains coming from?

 

[JonathanH]

Would a state owned charter/rosco company be a viable and useful thing for when GBR is complete?

What are you suggesting it would be useful for?

I think a lot of people are hoping that, with a unified fleet once more, it will be possible to redistribute rolling stock between routes to cope with unusual or seasonal demand rather than having dedicated surplus stock, as British Rail would have done before privatisation.

 

[renegademaster]

What are you suggesting it would be useful for?

I think a lot of people are hoping that, with a unified fleet once more, it will be possible to redistribute rolling stock between routes to cope with unusual or seasonal demand rather than having dedicated surplus stock, as British Rail would have done before privatisation.

That would still take decades to come , or a very expensive whole fleet replacement of trains brought a few years ago.

What are you suggesting it would be useful for?

Big events where demand outstrips the ammount of trains the TOC has but free paths exist(WCRC and LSL very occasionally get used for this), or where their is sudden rolling stock shortages, like the Hitachis for a while when they found cracks.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Sep 2024 ==

where are the trains coming from?

China mabye? Something as specified as "bare minimum that meets the safety regulations " and ideally fuel efficient too

 

[JonathanH]

Big events where demand outstrips the ammount of trains the TOC has but free paths exist, or where their is sudden rolling stock shortages, like the Hitachis for a while when they found cracks.

The railway already has the flexibility to deal with such big events in many cases, by diverting rolling stock from other routes.

It is often the next tier of events where the railway struggles, where it is more difficult to gauge the demand, and short term hire stock probably wouldn't help unless it was in the right place at the right time.

 

[AF91]

I had wondered the same thing regarding a potential nationalised charter operation. My thoughts were that it would come in useful for things like sports or special event traffic to take the pressure off normal timetabled services. It could also be useful for boosting capacity on diversionary routes during engineering works, again so that normal timetabled services don't take all of the additional pressure.

 

[SynthD]

Most football matches (the main need for charters) take place at times where commuter stock could be borrowed. The larger companies like GTR could have done this when they were a franchise but didn’t. I suspect the same reasons will apply even if every carriage was owned by GBR, which they won’t be.

 

[JonathanH]

It could also be useful for boosting capacity on diversionary routes during engineering works, again so that normal timetabled services don't take all of the additional pressure.

Can you provide an example of how this would work? Where does the problem exist of a diversionary route being available, with paths and traincrew, but insufficient rolling stock and normal timetabled services coming under undue pressure?

 

[AF91]

Can you provide an example of how this would work? Where does the problem exist of a diversionary route being available, with paths and traincrew, but insufficient rolling stock and normal timetabled services coming under undue pressure?

The chiltern mainline on weekends when the WCML is shut comes under tremendous pressure and has in the past used charter stock to boost services.

My view though would be to treat it like a small operator in its own right with its own sets of train crew. I'm sure there could be enough work to keep them active most weekends with assisting with engineering diversions, sports events, seasonal spikes in traffic and ad hoc circumstances.

 

[renegademaster]

Can you provide an example of how this would work? Where does the problem exist of a diversionary route being available, with paths and traincrew, but insufficient rolling stock and normal timetabled services coming under undue pressure?

When the normal stock doesn't have route clearance as its too large for the diversionary route?

 

[JLH4AC]

Direct Rail Services (Which is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.) currently offers passenger and train operating company support which includes the provision of train crew, and locomotive and coaching stock hire. It should be viable for them to continue with sports and luxury charters when GBR takes over. Ideally GBR would get to the point where it owns its passenger fleet outright and have enough spare rolling stock to fill in for stock shortages or surges in demand though it is possible that when/if GBR outright owns part or all of their passenger fleet it would be owned and maintained by a ROSCO subsidiary that on paper would lease the trains to the GBR TOCs, Direct Rail Services could be merged into GBR to perform this task along with its freight duties.

 

[43096]

China mabye? Something as specified as "bare minimum that meets the safety regulations " and ideally fuel efficient too

So new trains for occasional use. That is never going to make any sort of operational or financial sense. It is frankly utterly bonkers.

Even BR didn't do that - their reserve fleets were superannuated Mark 1s that were on minimum maintenance and if anything big went wrong they went in the bin.

 

[43096]

Direct Rail Services (Which is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.) currently offers passenger and train operating company support which includes the provision of train crew, and locomotive and coaching stock hire. It should be viable for them to continue with sports and luxury charters when GBR takes over. Ideally GBR would get to the point where it owns its passenger fleet outright and have enough spare rolling stock to fill in for stock shortages or surges in demand though it is possible that when/if GBR outright owns part or all of their passenger fleet it would be owned and maintained by a ROSCO subsidiary that on paper would lease the trains to the GBR TOCs, Direct Rail Services could be merged into GBR to perform this task along with its freight duties.

You might need to have a look at what the current DRS fleet consists of.

 

[renegademaster]

So new trains for occasional use. That is never going to make any sort of operational or financial sense. It is frankly utterly bonkers.

Even BR didn't do that - their reserve fleets were superannuated Mark 1s that were on minimum maintenance and if anything big went wrong they went in the bin.

Mark 1s , as shown by their long life in preservation , are relatively cheap to maintain even with limited resources , nothing like that really exists anymore

 

[biggerisbetter]

I have wondered if the 68s + mark 5s could be used for charters, football ‘specials’*, summer services to holiday destinations etc. due to being a microfleet without a potential long term home.

Could the 68s run with a set of Mark 5s at each end to provide 10 carriage sets with the loco in the middle?

*I would see the football services as basically running semi-scheduled services on the main routes between London and the north. For the weekend of Saturday 14th for example the could be services on the WCML for Man City v Brentford and Coventry v Watford and on the MML for Leicester v Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday v QPR. The cost of operation could be contributed to by the clubs or leagues to improve sustainability and help minimise costs for away fans (which is already done).

 

[JonathanH]

The cost of operation could be contributed to by the clubs or leagues to improve sustainability and help minimise costs for away fans (which is already done).

Do they not put on (road) coaches for supporters any more? Is there evidence that the ordinary scheduled services can't cope? How many football supporters travel from the station nearest their home team to away games?

 

[Halish Railway]

Pre-2020 this is the sort of thing that DRS' fleet of locomotives and MK2s came in useful for, old stock that no TOC wanted that worked charters and for spot-hire to cover for shortfalls in capacity on regular franchised services. However, accessibility legislation put paid to that and there is no accessible and flexible coaching stock lying around to be the successors to the MK2s.

 

[JLH4AC]

You might need to have a look at what the current DRS fleet consists of.

I am aware that DRS has sold off/is selling off its Mark 2/3 coaches, but it is still marketing on recently updated pages as a service it provides. It is still able to sublessee coaches from ROSCOs/other owners if there is any return of demand for said service (At the moment TfW and LNER are the only operators of loco hauled trains that still lease coaches the others use coaches they own, and there are various problem that leads to TOCs only operate a limited number of sports specials many of which will hopefully be fixed as part of the GBR reforms.) and of course in the future they can order a replacement fleet if they believe there is enough demand to justify it.