Great British Railways: Thoughts, predictions, speculation

[Bletchleyite]

To make any difference buses and trains must be financed out of the same 'public transport' pot, with no artificial financial barriers or ring fencing between them.

Absolutely. The way you make money out of a bus to the station is from the expensive railway ticket it results in being sold, not the bus fare.

 

[Harvey B]

While I welcome the news to scrap franchises and Private Companies having 100% control of Revenue, etc. I do have concerns about the new model.

Firstly, I can see the concession System being Exploited by the Private Operators with them asking for more money out of the Government, etc

Secondly, I can think that the reason why the Government chose a TfL style concession System over Fully renationalising the Railways is because they probably want to make Decisions that Staff and Passengers won't like (I.E: Driver Door Operation), Force all Private firms to comply and start a blame game with those Private Operators. This System is just set up to fail IMHO.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 May 2021 ==

Will a concession be the same routes, stock etc as a franchise is now. ie Will the front line service look the same, with massive changes financially and structurally one step above the operator?

That's my Question too. I's probably say it is. But does that mean that the Operators will still have their own Branding and Livery?

 

[the sniper]

Secondly, I can think that the reason why the Government chose a TfL style concession System over Fully renationalising the Railways is because they probably want to make Decisions that Staff and Passengers won't like (I.E: Driver Door Operation), Force all Private firms to comply and start a blame game with those Private Operators. This System is just set up to fail IMHO.

Other than ideology, for the sake of keeping the private sector involved somehow, this is the only logical reason for the structure they've gone with. The pensions will be the big one they'll go for. You can only be in dispute with your employer, even if GBR are calling the shots, with any decisions be made by the State...

What purpose do the private operators serve otherwise? What will differentiate bids for concessions cost wise other than bidding on what you promise to impose on staff? They won't have control over much else surely?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

But I did think it was amusing how it almost felt like there was something of an elephant in the room at times discussing the various problems and issues that have arisen over time and failing to note that it was often the, er, DfT that were at the root of them. Another one I spotted was the snipe at the situation north of York at the moment where it is increasingly congested between LNER, XC and TPE (even before we add in East Coast Trains). And who was it that either specified or at least agreed to the plans that the TOCs put forward? Well, as you say, people may wish to speculate as to who that was...

you just named that tune in 1. To put it another way: “you might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment! “

 

[tbtc]

Talking of "rubbish" in the report, I find the argument that there are too many types of passenger train in use because no airline or coach company would have that many a bit odd.

It’s not wrong, though. The UK has a lot of micro-fleets of 15-30 units in a class, sometimes with no commonality with other train types on the network.
Having a more unified fleet brings purchasing, leasing, maintenance and operation costs down, and this is what all other countries do, privatised or not, sectorised or not.

Ideally, we'd not have ordered all of these micro fleets, but given the expected thirty/forty year lifespan of a train, it'd be rather expensive to get rid of them, annoying though they are.

But then, it was the same in BR days - look at how they ordered several versions of pretty much the same thing - sometimes the idea was that if they ordered a few here and a few there then they'd award the next "big" order to the firm who made the best small fleet, e.g.

81s - 25 built
82s - 10 built
83s - 15 built
84s - 10 built
85s - 40 built
86s - 100 built

... whilst there were some huge classes (37s, 47s), there were several examples of "similar but not identical" locos being ordered to suit other demands

Will a concession be the same routes, stock etc as a franchise is now. ie Will the front line service look the same, with massive changes financially and structurally one step above the operator?

Will we stop the ridiculous fines per minute for delays? Maybe connections may start to hold again?!

The "fines per minute" incentivise the railway to have reliable timetables /trains/ infrastructure

If there were no penalties then what's going to encourage the infrastructure side of the operation to rectify regular problems? Whereas, if the "Network Rail" side is paying a thousand pounds every time a particular signal fails then they know that spending x thousand pounds on replacing this shoddy bit of kit will be cheaper than shelling out money every time it goes on the blink. Same with there being some incentive to remove a conflicting bit of timetabling or unreliable rolling stock

Otherwise, there's not going to be any urgency to fix any problems - why fix long running problems if there's no incentive to?

In the initial post privatisation period there was a reasonable amount of standardisation with the Turbostar being bought to operate all sorts of routes, for which it wasn't entirely suitable. If you wanted standardisation you would have left them on the MML and bought them instead of the 185s, but it hardly would have been an improvement

Agreed - a larger fleet of Turbostars would have been much better than building almost two hundred and fifty carriages of 175/185s - it'd have made future uses much simpler - e.g. at the moment EMR won't have enough 170s to run their services (because Southern still need their 171s) - there will be 175s from Wales & Borders and 185s from TransPennine but EMR aren't going to want to take a handful of these non-standard trains to get enough DMU carriages to run their services - however if the Welsh/ TPE trains were also Turbostars then getting a few of them would be a no-brainer

But First like ordering their bespoke little hand crafted micro-batches of trains, like the pink and purple hipsters that they are...

From today's Daily Telegraph:


SIR – Does British Rail coming back under a new name (report, May 20) signal a return to those long-gone days when trains were prompt and efficient, and our services were the envy of so many countries?

If so, where does this leave the great vanity project that is HS2? Are we still expecting hundreds of people to be prepared to pay what will no doubt be an exorbitant price to travel from not-quite London to not-quite Birmingham to save 20 minutes?

Olly Plater
Holmer Green, Buckinghamshire

So much wrong and so much right in one short letter!

Is that real?

It sounds like a parody from Private Eye - amazing box-ticking wrongness!

Agreed. And where the system is designed for connections, people use them. I've mentioned this before, but it fits here - while commuting was still a thing, about 30 or so Bletchley passengers would change daily from the 1816 semifast Birmingham (Leighton Buzzard, MKC and onwards) at Leighton Buzzard to the following 1805 off Euston, with the Southern behind it as a backup. Because not holding the stopper at Ledburn would knacker timekeeping, it waits. And it's same platform.

Make connections good and people will use them. That means cross-platform, and it means holding trains where necessary (or if you're not going to because of already existing delay, e.g. to the inbound forming the 1816, informing people that you aren't, so they can make other choices, such as in this case waiting at Euston for the following train and not in the freezing cold at Leighton for 20 minutes).

It's just coincidence that you seem to have a bit of a different attitude when it comes to encouraging passengers to change on services that you use - e.g. the apparent need to maintain a through service from Bletchley to Birmingham, or from Southport to Oxford Road (or the proposal for Cambridge trains to only serve Bletchley rather than central Milton Keynes)...

Really the only way to do that is to renationalise the buses and re-establish the National Bus Company as a feeder (locally) to the railway network and maybe allow the reformations of the municipal Corporations in cities and boroughs, allowing them to run buses for the benefit of their residents (or burghers, as they were known)

If the Government were serious about improving transport then they'd focus on buses (but then, whilst there are more bus journeys, the average train passenger is a lot wealthier and likelier to vote than those who still rely on buses).

Same goes with Labour's obsession with rail nationalisation versus pretty much silence about buses (until Andy Burnham, at least)

But I disagree with the idea that bus networks have to be subservient to trains - there seems a general obsession on here about everything playing second fiddle to heavy rail (whereas diverting buses via train stations and altering the times to try to wait for scheduled trains would be inconveniencing the majority of bus passengers to suit a minority)

 

[RT4038]

Absolutely. The way you make money out of a bus to the station is from the expensive railway ticket it results in being sold, not the bus fare.

However, that is assuming that there is sufficient additional take up to pay for the costs of extending services to the station (and possibly increasing the scope of services too), which is by no means a given. On the contrary, in most places it is probably highly unlikely - the phrase 'make money' being quite inappropriate!

 

[Dr Hoo]

Apologies if I have missed it on another thread but has there been any discussion on how GBR fits with the 'DfT out base' agenda?

A recent announcement on the government website said:

"DfT has today (15 March 2021) announced the creation of a second HQ in Birmingham and a northern hub in Leeds, as part of a plan to create 650 roles in the cities.

The move is part of the government’s commitment to diversifying the Civil Service, ensuring decisions are rooted in the communities it serves.

It is a particularly important step for DfT, given the huge role it has to play in levelling up the UK through investment in vital transport infrastructure and services.

It is the latest step in the government’s drive to move 22,000 Civil Service roles from London to communities across the UK by 2030.

Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, said:

This is a historic move for the department and part of a significant wider culture change across Whitehall.
Transport is absolutely vital to the local communities we serve and having hubs in major cities like Birmingham and Leeds will offer a fresh perspective on how we can better serve these areas.

[Various other quotes follow but don't seem to add much substance.]"

Given the last 'Shapps' quote in the box I assume that these 650 staff were going to be rail or road specialists, rather than (say) ports or air transport.

This begs the questions of (1) how many of the 650 might now be re-charted to GBR, and (2) whether this is a clue that GBR may have a significant office (such as concession 'management') in Birmingham or Leeds.

Any thoughts or insights?

 

[HSTEd]

Well the obvious place to send people out of london, would be Milton Keynes given that a lot of the timetable people apparently work there already

 

[YorksLad12]

This begs the questions of (1) how many of the 650 might now be re-charted to GBR, and (2) whether this is a clue that GBR may have a significant office (such as concession 'management') in Birmingham or Leeds.

Any thoughts or insights?

While TfN is based over the road from Manchester Piccadilly, the Rail North Partnership people are (were) at Grace Street in Leeds, near The Warehouse. The now-former TPE & Northern franchises were already in Leeds so there is some sense in moving to the new Government hub at Wellington Place (built on the site of the goods yards at Leeds Central).

 

[The Planner]

Well the obvious place to send people out of london, would be Milton Keynes given that a lot of the timetable people apparently work there already

A lot? All of NR timetablers are there, however none of regional strategy teams are.

 

[DerekC]

My guess is that the DfT franchising team (converted to passenger service contracting) will stay in London and be co-located with the fares people from RDG. The economists and strategy people will stay at DfT. DfT Projects people will presumably co-locate with Network Rail somewhere, although I wouldn't be surprised to see them stay independent in some way so as to be able to work on getting private finance engaged for projects like East-West Rail.

 

[DJ_K666]

All this said, if this idea is a good one then it'll work. It'll give better fares, better service and make the Railways easier to use instead of being a chore. And get a good few lines reopened to boot

On the other hand, I just hope it's not a smokescreen to divert attention from flat reburbishments st a certain address, £750 wallpaper and bodies piling high remarks (Which, I might add I wouldn't have been averse to shouting in a rage of Sarcasm had I been in his position. And the flat at no.10 would have ended up painted black)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 May 2021 ==

All railway managers? A bit, umm, genocidal don’t you think?



In around 2009/10 NR was remitted and funded to deliver platform extensions to 12 car on the Tilbury Loop, which it duly did (on time and on budget, as it happens).

However the body responsible for specifying the train service on the line chose not to require the train operator to run 12 car services on that line.

You may wish to speculate which organisation remitted NR to do the work but then chose not to specify the longer trains.

Axes in the form of P45s. Although there are a few directors, initials M B -the ones who clear passengers out of 1st class in order to occupy the whole thing on GTR who leave that other desire. Shame the people didn't refuse and remove all the 1st branding, rendering it unenforceable. I don't thing anyone is obliged to give their name to some random office jockey.

 

[Wolfie]

All this said, if this idea is a good one then it'll work. It'll give better fares, better service and make the Railways easier to use instead of being a chore. And get a good few lines reopened to boot

On the other hand, I just hope it's not a smokescreen to divert attention from flat reburbishments st a certain address, £750 wallpaper and bodies piling high remarks (Which, I might add I wouldn't have been averse to shouting in a rage of Sarcasm had I been in his position. And the flat at no.10 would have ended up painted black)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 May 2021 ==


Axes in the form of P45s. Although there are a few directors, initials M B -the ones who clear passengers out of 1st class in order to occupy the whole thing on GTR who leave that other desire. Shame the people didn't refuse and remove all the 1st branding, rendering it unenforceable. I don't thing anyone is obliged to give their name to some random office jockey.

Re your last para MB was lucky not to get thumped over that incident and he'd have deserved it.

 

[DJ_K666]

Re your last para MB was lucky not to get thumped over that incident and he'd have deserved it.

Ah you know who I mean then. It's not the sort of thing that makes a company look good is it? I think they should have done. And covered over the CCTV cameras (or removed the hard drives) Joking aside though, I really hope he got reprimanded over it but unfortunately, due to GDPR rules, we'll never know the outcome.

 

[Wolfie]

Ah you know who I mean then. It's not the sort of thing that makes a company look good is it? I think they should have done. And covered over the CCTV cameras (or removed the hard drives) Joking aside though, I really hope he got reprimanded over it but unfortunately, due to GDPR rules, we'll never know the outcome.

There was a serious hatchet job done on the gentleman in the Evening Standard at the time - google is your friend lol. As l recall the company's mealy-mouthed attempted justification at the end of the article only served to make things much worse.

 

[DJ_K666]

There was a serious hatchet job done on the gentleman in the Evening Standard at the time - google is your friend lol. As l recall the company's mealy-mouthed attempted justification at the end of the article only served to make things much worse.

Heh yes I read that at the time. I do wonder if the PR department typed that while looking through their fingers and wondering how exactly to word it. In that light I wonder if the initial drafts were much, much worse.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 May 2021 ==

Yum, government-issue white bread !

Probably leftover WW1 'Standard' bread. (It was made with 50% potato flour to save wheat. And it was grey and hard, tasted rather nasty)

 

[BrianW]

Apologies if I have missed it on another thread but has there been any discussion on how GBR fits with the 'DfT out base' agenda?

A recent announcement on the government website said:

"DfT has today (15 March 2021) announced the creation of a second HQ in Birmingham and a northern hub in Leeds, as part of a plan to create 650 roles in the cities.

The move is part of the government’s commitment to diversifying the Civil Service, ensuring decisions are rooted in the communities it serves.

It is a particularly important step for DfT, given the huge role it has to play in levelling up the UK through investment in vital transport infrastructure and services.

It is the latest step in the government’s drive to move 22,000 Civil Service roles from London to communities across the UK by 2030.

Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, said:


[Various other quotes follow but don't seem to add much substance.]"

Given the last 'Shapps' quote in the box I assume that these 650 staff were going to be rail or road specialists, rather than (say) ports or air transport.

This begs the questions of (1) how many of the 650 might now be re-charted to GBR, and (2) whether this is a clue that GBR may have a significant office (such as concession 'management') in Birmingham or Leeds.

Any thoughts or insights?

Business relocation often provides opportunity to 'lose' some staff relatively painlessly for the organisation and to make a 'fresh start'/ 'culture change' with new and cheaper and less argumentative/ obstructive and more malleable/ compliant incomers deperate for income and hoping to stay on after a 'successful' probationary period, maybe with less good conditions of service than previously pertained. The loss of 'corporate memory' will be seen as a benefit by some, until some disaster strikes. I'm picturing job opportunities in and/ or commutable from/ work-at-homeable in blue wall seats. Some 'blue wall thinking'?

 

[Wolfie]

Probably leftover WW1 'Standard' bread. (It was made with 50% potato flour to save wheat. And it was grey and hard, tasted rather nasty)

Have to ask: are you old enough to have tried it???? lol

 

[DJ_K666]

Have to ask: are you old enough to have tried it???? lol

No but I could try making some. (Not that I'd want to...) It was something we studied at school with rationing and how they tried to make the grain supply go as far as possible.

 

[SynthD]

But I disagree with the idea that bus networks have to be subservient to trains - there seems a general obsession on here about everything playing second fiddle to heavy rail (whereas diverting buses via train stations and altering the times to try to wait for scheduled trains would be inconveniencing the majority of bus passengers to suit a minority)

Enabling more wholly car-free based commutes, such as bike or bus to a train station to another town, is a genuine good I'd like to see researched.

 

[ainsworth74]

On the other hand, I just hope it's not a smokescreen to divert attention from flat reburbishments st a certain address, £750 wallpaper and bodies piling high remarks (Which, I might add I wouldn't have been averse to shouting in a rage of Sarcasm had I been in his position. And the flat at no.10 would have ended up painted black)

Considering the Williams review was commissioned in September 2018 that would have been one heck of a piece of planning to arrange for it to be in position to distract from other issues around Boris and his corruption funding arrangements

 

[TravelDream]

It's how easyJet and Ryanair control their costs (crewing, maintenance), and standardises their product.
At the same time they buy new planes and retire 5-10 year old near identical planes to get the most efficient fleets.
Keeping multiple different rolling stock fleets going until they fall apart is a big cost factor for the rail system.
Also these days the manufacturers are usually contracted to maintain their trains, not the operator.

The airline market isn't quite a fair comparison for a couple of reasons. It's a global market rather than a British one - a plane flying for BA today could be flying for Air Canada or China Airlines within a month or so. The number of aircraft is limited to a couple of dozen primarily from four manufacturers (2 large and 2 regional).

When you get to Ryanair's size, having two fleets of aircraft doesn't really matter as there are lots of other factors involved. Also you also can't standardise long and short haul just like you can't commuter, regional and intercity.

Aircraft financing is also super complex and obviously involves far more cash than the rails. Generally, aircraft can be leased or can be financed with most airlines choosing finance over leasing for the bulk of their fleet. Some airlines like Ryanair made a lot of money by buying lots of financed aircraft just after 9/11 at rock-bottom prices and then selling them when the market was its peak.
Different parts of the plane can be owned by different companies as well with things like 'power-by-hour' which has really hurt companies like Rolls-Royce because of Covid. That's where the engine manufatuer owns the engine and conducts all maintenance on it and the airline just pays per hour flown. I'm not sure that's totally practical for trains.

 

[Wolfie]

Considering the Williams review was commissioned in September 2018 that would have been one heck of a piece of planning to arrange for it to be in position to distract from other issues around Boris and his corruption funding arrangements

Publication dates though are in the gift of the Govt....

 

[Harvey B]

Other than ideology, for the sake of keeping the private sector involved somehow, this is the only logical reason for the structure they've gone with. The pensions will be the big one they'll go for. You can only be in dispute with your employer, even if GBR are calling the shots, with any decisions be made by the State...

What purpose do the private operators serve otherwise? What will differentiate bids for concessions cost wise other than bidding on what you promise to impose on staff? They won't have control over much else surely?

Yes, Exactly.

And it will only start a Blame Game between the The Government/GB Rail and the Private Operators.

The Government will bring in a new rule that all Operators Must comply with (I.E: Driver Door Operation), The Private Operators will say that they're going to accept it and announce that they intend to bring in DDO.

Then the unions will get involved and the Private Operators will say that it's to comply with rules set by the Government which is where the Blame Tennis Starts. The Private Operators will say it's the Governments fault and the Government will blame the Private Operators and say it was their fault.

This Blame Game will probably continue for months. If not, years

 

[IanXC]

So the effort involved in delay attribution now is not actually much different to in BR days? That's certainly not the impression I generally get.

(edited because my other question was already answered)

And edited again because having looked at the report now, it certainly doesn't give the impression that arguing over blame is only a very small part of the process - it says that around 40% of delays are disputed through an extensive escalation process.

That’s rubbish. 40% of delays get disputed but not very far through the process. That’s not much different from what happened under BR when individual departments used to fight over delays.

The big change from BR, apart from the financial aspect, is the number of staff at the NR end. It’s not small!

Use of the word "disputed" is very misleading in this context. Disputed in this system just means 'disagreed with'. If a Network Rail attributor creates a new incident for a delay, rather than putting it in an existing one, the only way that the player assigned said new incident has of getting it merged with the original incident is to dispute it.... Equally a TOC who finds a delay in one of their incidents, but determines it to be part of another incident (even if its also that same TOC's responsibility) its only option is to dispute the delay. Very misleading figure to quote.

 

[Annetts key]

That’s rubbish. 40% of delays get disputed but not very far through the process. That’s not much different from what happened under BR when individual departments used to fight over delays.

The big change from BR, apart from the financial aspect, is the number of staff at the NR end. It’s not small!

There are still ‘fights’ (okay, disagreements and discussions) within Network Rail about which function/department should be responsible for the delay...

 

[Peter Sarf]

The more i read the more cynical I become. I do think there is a lot of scope for "cost saving" with this GBR. It will not be nice of course. But moving the goalposts and saying its beyond their control etc helps to get it done.

My enduring memory of office re-locations is that the company loses a lot of staff whether they intended to or not. Indeed logic says they will lose the better staff who can easily find another job. Worse still there are those who can afford to retire early - thus losing the oldest knowledge and experience. Amongst thrusting progressives this is seen as removing those entrenched in the past of course !.

Reducing the number of civil servants must be on the agenda as well. So moving some of them to another company that may or may not have a future is one way of doing it.

The truth is that, given the state pays so much to the railways in subsidies, it makes sense (demands) that the state interfere. It is inevitable and was the big disappointment of privatisation. I was against privatisation (fragmentation) but I had hoped that at least the the state would stop interfering - that was never going to happen of course.

The talk of making railway administration more local is only a reaction to the pressure from outside London. Watch out for the excuse that follows - "You locals run it so you locals can pay for it". It is kind of fair but ignores the idea of a unified country (which is going out of fashion). The high earning parts of London have to support those less well off. Most obviously in London with those that do the necessary ancillary jobs (health, cleaning, policing etc). BUT also the rest of the UK is also essential. Granted it was more so before the Thatcherite decimation of alternative earners to banking (proper industry). The main advantage of living and working outside London (and the SE) is still the lower cost of living - housing being the big example. Follows there is less pollution and it is also a lot less possible to have such a long expensive commute when the conurbations concerned are so much smaller than London. So devolution (etc) does let locals (as in non-London) prioritise their own needs - but it still has to paid for by someone !.

I fear there could be big cutbacks over the horizon. I am afraid that there is no way the state is going to pay for social distancing on public transport. The trains either run full and standing or do not run.

I hope I am wrong.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This isn't due to take effect until 2023. If social distancing is still needed by then we have an almightily larger problem.

 

[Peter Sarf]

This isn't due to take effect until 2023. If social distancing is still needed by then we have an almightily larger problem.

True !. I do wonder though how much social distancing will carry on. Either necessarily or otherwise. Years ago I realised my health improved when i stopped commuting into London by train and tube. I was never seriously ill, just colds really but still better afterwards. But now a lot of people are going to believe that it is not just Covid that you evade by avoiding confined spaces full of people.

 

[Bletchleyite]

True !. I do wonder though how much social distancing will carry on. Either necessarily or otherwise. Years ago I realised my health improved when i stopped commuting into London by train and tube. I was never seriously ill, just colds really but still better afterwards. But now a lot of people are going to believe that it is not just Covid that you evade by avoiding confined spaces full of people.

Won't just be the Tube itself, it'll be sleeping better - when I commuted I never got enough sleep.