Ideas for more services like Lumo on the UK rail network?

[Bigman]

A once a day Wharfedale - Kings Cross and return service. Ilkley - Burley-in-Wharfedale - Menston - Guiseley - Garforth - Kings Cross. Would not impact on current Leeds - Kings Cross passenger flows.

 

[EllieAquitrain]

A once a day Wharfedale - Kings Cross and return service. Ilkley - Burley-in-Wharfedale - Menston - Guiseley - Garforth - Kings Cross. Would not impact on current Leeds - Kings Cross passenger flows.

I struggle to believe there's much more demand for direct London services from this area than is already served by the LNER extensions.

 

[Mike Machin]

With the changes to passenger levels and the large reduction in business travel and long-distance commuting, I feel that all limited stop long-distance inter-city services should be provided by 'Lumo' type operators, allowing for innovative and competitive customer-focussed operators to thrive.

 

[JonathanH]

With the changes to passenger levels and the large reduction in business travel and long-distance commuting, I feel that all limited stop long-distance inter-city services should be provided by 'Lumo' type operators, allowing for innovative and competitive customer-focussed operators to thrive.

There was certainly a proposal in the Williams-Shapps Review to give the longer distance operators more flexibility over fares.

Some network benefits would be lost if the long-distance services lost their less lucrative stops and concentrated on the direct flows.

Essentially, this idea is to privatise the long-distance operations and leave the rest of the operations in the concession framework.

As I noted in a previous comment, Lumo-type operations aren't a magic bullet to cheaper fares on a wider selection of routes without someone losing out.

 

[class26]

Is Newcastle a major airport? Or Plymouth? I thought the idea of Lumo was to help cut regional flights.

Plymouth airport closed some time ago.

 

[Bigman]

I struggle to believe there's much more demand for direct London services from this area than is already served by the LNER extensions.

There are no LNER extensions on the Wharfedale line sadly. If Horsforth, Shipley, Low Moor, Brighouse and Mirfield have direct services, then I don't see why Ilkley and Guiseley can't have too.

 

[JonathanH]

There are no LNER extensions on the Wharfedale line sadly. If Horsforth, Shipley, Low Moor, Brighouse and Mirfield have direct services, then I don't see why Ilkley and Guiseley can't have too.

It isn't for a Lumo-style operation to provide them though. If Ilkley and Guiseley need services to London, they need to be run by LNER as extensions of Leeds services. The Lumo model is for a service between two major cities with no stops in between.

 

[telstarbox]

MML really needs a low cost Lumo type operation more than most to challenge and break the high fare, short train, current overcrowding and abysmal Sunday service monopoly of EMR, especially as passengers within the catchment of those stations do not have a nearby low cost alternative like West Midlands passengers do from Coventry, Birmingham etc do, which keeps fares of the main operator Avanti lower that they might otherwise be. But I accept this is never going to happen on MML as such a service would most definitely fail the 'not primarily abstractive' test and there is also the issue of paths not available.

What about coaches on this route? I remember doing Sheffield Meadowhall to London Victoria in 3 hours 30 a few years back, which wasn't much slower than EMT and it was certainly much cheaper.

If it had called at say Brent Cross at the bottom of the M1 it would have been faster for a big area of North London (bearing in mind nobody lives on top of Victoria).

For London to Manchester the time difference is a lot more significant.

 

[JonathanH]

If it had called at say Brent Cross at the bottom of the M1 it would have been faster for a big area of North London (bearing in mind nobody lives on top of Victoria)

Yes, National Express stop at Golders Green for that purpose although most passengers still use Victoria.

 

[MattRat]

Bristol and Exeter both have flights to Newcastle tomorrow - in Bristol's case there are two.

The railway can't hope to offer a journey time anything like that available by plane though.

What about from Edinburgh? Gives the train more time to get ahead when going to Bristol and Exeter.

 

[philosopher]

With the changes to passenger levels and the large reduction in business travel and long-distance commuting, I feel that all limited stop long-distance inter-city services should be provided by 'Lumo' type operators, allowing for innovative and competitive customer-focussed operators to thrive.

One of the three London to Manchester and two London to Leeds hourly paths could be transferred to an open access operator to provide proper competition on these routes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One of the three London to Manchester and two London to Leeds Manchester hourly paths could be transferred to an open access operator to provide proper competition on these routes.

The competitor is the car.

But with one of each of Manc and Brum paths spare at the moment there have been worse ideas...

 

[JonathanH]

One of the three London to Manchester and two London to Leeds Manchester hourly paths could be transferred to an open access operator to provide proper competition on these routes.

It would still be artificial competition, constrained by the paths on offer. Let's suppose you had Avanti on two services and Virgin on the other and the prices were more or less the same. Would there really be brand loyalty at play or would passengers not really care?

Moreover, isn't the confusion of more than one operator running services on a particular route (and consequent fares confusion) precisely what passengers have informed the Williams-Shapps review that they don't want?

 

[MattRat]

One of the three London to Manchester and two London to Leeds Manchester hourly paths could be transferred to an open access operator to provide proper competition on these routes.

If we are talking of cutting services, LNWR London to Crewe could be cut, as well as combining London to Birmingham and Birmingham to Liverpool (the latter of which goes to Crewe anyway). Then you have a free path straight from London to Glasgow, maybe stopping at Crewe and Preston for connections to Liverpool and Manchester.

 

[JonathanH]

Then you have a free path straight from London to Glasgow, maybe stopping at Crewe and Preston for connections to Liverpool and Manchester.

Not a very good one though.

combining London to Birmingham and Birmingham to Liverpool

...didn't go very well the last time it was tried.

If we are talking of cutting services, LNWR London to Crewe could be cut

With the market now established, there is a good argument for this to be in the same franchise as the other Avanti services with the corresponding fares charged but I don't think it is ripe for cutting, particularly as there is a need to serve the local stations on the Trent Valley.

Are you suggesting that by using 125mph stock and cutting out the Milton Keynes stop, the Trent Valley service could run fast to Rugby at xx54, on the opposite side of the hour to the Glasgow, stop at the Trent Valley stations and then run fast to Scotland?

 

[MattRat]

With the market now established, there is a good argument for this to be in the same franchise as the other Avanti services with the corresponding fares charged but I don't think it is ripe for cutting, particularly as there is a need to serve the local stations on the Trent Valley.

Are you suggesting that by using 125mph stock and cutting out the Milton Keynes stop, the Trent Valley service could run fast to Rugby at xx54, on the opposite side of the hour to the Glasgow, stop at the Trent Valley stations and then run fast to Scotland?

Sorry, forgot about some slight differences, which would be added to the other service instead.

 

[Jozhua]

I want to point out the key innovative IC operator was Virgin, with their tilting rolling stock and idea of shorter, more frequent trains on XC.

Some of it worked out, but obviously we've ended up with this absolute capacity headache. As was also seen, the WCML upgrade was a bit of an expensive nightmare and improvements to service have seemingly stagnated since then.

Railways and airlines are pretty different beasts, but even when you consider what makes a budget airline cost effective, you realise most of this is already deployed on the railway to the extent possible.

For railways you really need to create the infrastructure around the intended services. There is not much "low cost" operators can do to reduce their overheads and therefore ticket prices, certainly nothing that couldn't be done by improving capacity more generally.

The competitor is the car.

But with one of each of Manc and Brum paths spare at the moment there have been worse ideas...

Yep - this is what I say about buses too! You're fighting over this 10% modal share that you could instead focus on growing by working collaboratively.

 

[Bigman]

It isn't for a Lumo-style operation to provide them though. If Ilkley and Guiseley need services to London, they need to be run by LNER as extensions of Leeds services. The Lumo model is for a service between two major cities with no stops in between.

Fair point. Maybe a non-stop Leeds - London instead, perhaps St Pancras.

 

[Ianno87]

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Yep - this is what I say about buses too! You're fighting over this 10% modal share that you could instead focus on growing by working collaboratively.

When people say "I want to see some rail-on-rail competition", that usually translates as "I just want a cheaper fare".

 

[Bletchleyite]

If we are talking of cutting services, LNWR London to Crewe could be cut, as well as combining London to Birmingham and Birmingham to Liverpool (the latter of which goes to Crewe anyway). Then you have a free path straight from London to Glasgow, maybe stopping at Crewe and Preston for connections to Liverpool and Manchester.

I would suggest you do some Forum reading to see what happened when that was done last time and thus revise your opinion on it.

Also are you proposing closing the Trent Valley stations?

 

[paddy1]

What about coaches on this route? I remember doing Sheffield Meadowhall to London Victoria in 3 hours 30 a few years back, which wasn't much slower than EMT and it was certainly much cheaper.

That is certainly true on a Sunday and some late night weekday services.

 

[MattRat]

Also are you proposing closing the Trent Valley stations?

No, you'd add them to the other services.

 

[JonathanH]

No, you'd add them to the other services.

How would that be done? Many of the stations only have platforms on the outer lines? How would the local service be maintained? The trains would lose their paths further north if they had to include the stops.

A lot more people use the Trent Valley stations now than when a 153 used to run between the stations once every two hours.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, you'd add them to the other services.

Thus speaks someone who doesn't understand the WCML service pattern and why it is as it is (and its huge success as it is).

 

[TravelDream]

Over 3 million passengers were handled pre covid from Edinburgh Airport to the big five airports in London, with strikingly similar city-centre to city-centre journey times (~4 hours).

The plane is faster centre to centre. Or do you think 'centre to centre' is King's Cross to Waverley?

London-Cardiff is the "obvious" one. The Grand Union application for the service did pass the Not Primarily Abstractive test (but failed on absolute abstraction).

The number of coaches from NX, Megabus and Flixbus that head down the M4 is testament to the demand for a lower cost service. Even with the current Covid schedules, buses operate at least hourly through most of the day. Pre-Covid half-hourly was common through the busiest times of the day not including the dozen or so trips to Heathrow. It helps that the journey can be done sub-4 hours.

That's too early for most people to get to after work. Friday and Sunday evenings are the peak times for EasyJet, so there's definitely a lot of end-to-end traffic at those times. 5.50pm-10pm would probably be attractive to many fliers as it would arrive before the last easyjet.

Friday and Sunday have long been the peak for short-haul flights with Tuesdays and Wednesdays being the quiestest as both business and leisure slow-down on those days. Obviously this excludes holidays.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The number of coaches from NX, Megabus and Flixbus that head down the M4 is testament to the demand for a lower cost service. Even with the current Covid schedules, buses operate at least hourly through most of the day.

But remember that all the buses in a day, full, would barely get close to overloading a single 9-car 80x.

 

[EllieAquitrain]

There are no LNER extensions on the Wharfedale line sadly. If Horsforth, Shipley, Low Moor, Brighouse and Mirfield have direct services, then I don't see why Ilkley and Guiseley can't have too.

But that's my point - how much demand is there that isn't served by driving to a station currently served by LNER extensions? And unless you can extend in marginal time, is it really worth the investment in a whole (I presume 5-car) train to accommodate this extra demand?

 

[NoRoute]

When people say "I want to see some rail-on-rail competition", that usually translates as "I just want a cheaper fare".

Yes and that is what is needed to encourage more people to take the train.

It's exactly what happened with the airlines, while the routes were controlled by a few former flag carriers, with limited competition, high operating costs and high ticket prices travelling by air remained something of a luxury, it was only the entry of the budget airlines with a firmer focus on efficiency, much lower operating costs, and significantly lower ticket prices which transformer air travel.

The railway needs this same kind of transformational change, shake-up the industry, its operators and its practices if it's ever going to achieve the kind of passenger growth many people hope to see.

 

[tornado]

One of the main problem is that people don't know about simple savings like Network Railcard and Group of 3+. The number of times I've seen a group travelling together with individual tickets is countless. Not to mention split ticketing.

 

[TravelDream]

One of the main problem is that people don't know about simple savings like Network Railcard and Group of 3+. The number of times I've seen a group travelling together with individual tickets is countless. Not to mention split ticketing.

Less the fault of the consumer, more the incredibly complex and outdated ticketing system.