My idea for a restructuring of Britain's railways

[HST43257]

Hi all, I was thinking today about how the railways in Great Britain could be operated if the railways happened to be renationalised. Supposing they did do so, I had an idea for how they could be structured. Instead of being operated on regions, all railways in certain categories. These are:

High Speed - anything which travels on a high speed line (186mph or more)

Intercity - fairly self explanatory. Trains normally limited to 186 on shared high speed and Intercity tracks. 125mph or 140mph otherwise.

Regional Express - It's not quite intercity but it's a fast-ish service. Probably also 125mph or 140mph as well to work with Intercity.

Regional - Often more secluded lines. Slow services that are limited to 100mph in most cases. Take the West Highland Line in Scotland as an example.

Commuter - Trains can reach 125 or 140mph in order to work with Intercity and regional Express setvices of they're sharing tracks. These will operate in and around many cities and major hubs.



Please put your thoughts down below

 

[Energy]

Commuter - Trains can reach 125 or 140mph in order to work with Intercity and regional Express setvices of they're sharing tracks. These will operate in and around many cities and major hubs.

No commuter train (unless you count 395s with there 1/3 and 2/3 door arrangement) can get to that speed, the max is 110mph for 350s, 387s, 730s and soon to be 360s.

 

[David Goddard]

Intercity, Network SouthEast and Regional Railways

 

[Energy]

Intercity, Network SouthEast and Regional Railways

They really don't work in my opinion, London and its surrounding areas are lucky and get NSE while the rest of the UK has to suffer with RR...

 

[Bletchleyite]

They really don't work in my opinion, London and its surrounding areas are lucky and get NSE while the rest of the UK has to suffer with RR...

RR was quite good in many ways. Not least the livery and design approach (someone's posted the whole manual on another thread).

"Other Provincial Services" sounded rubbish though!

 

[Energy]

RR was quite good in many ways. Not least the livery and design approach (someone's posted the whole manual on another thread).

"Other Provincial Services" sounded rubbish though!

Yeah but they did also bring pacers and sprinters and RR areas still aren't really electrified, the BR sectorisation seems to have been designed to focus on London and its commuter market plus the profitable IC routes. I can't really blame them, it is where the money is but today other cities also need to get some focus.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yeah but they did also bring pacers and sprinters and RR areas still aren't really electrified, the BR sectorisation seems to have been designed to focus on London and its commuter market plus the profitable IC routes. I can't really blame them, it is where the money is but today other cities also need to get some focus.

Generally I found the PTEs drew focus to the provincial cities, and then there were things like TPE and Alphaline that RR were quite rightly proud of. It was the branch lines that really felt they were being ignored.

 

[Purple Orange]

Hi all, I was thinking today about how the railways in Great Britain could be operated if the railways happened to be renationalised. Supposing they did do so, I had an idea for how they could be structured. Instead of being operated on regions, all railways in certain categories. These are:

High Speed - anything which travels on a high speed line (186mph or more)

Intercity - fairly self explanatory. Trains normally limited to 186 on shared high speed and Intercity tracks. 125mph or 140mph otherwise.

Regional Express - It's not quite intercity but it's a fast-ish service. Probably also 125mph or 140mph as well to work with Intercity.

Regional - Often more secluded lines. Slow services that are limited to 100mph in most cases. Take the West Highland Line in Scotland as an example.

Commuter - Trains can reach 125 or 140mph in order to work with Intercity and regional Express setvices of they're sharing tracks. These will operate in and around many cities and major hubs.



Please put your thoughts down below

I’d say there are some very blurred lines between ‘Intercity’ and ‘Regional Express’, and then again between ‘Regional Express’ and ‘Regional’. I’d reduce those to just ‘Intercity’ and ‘Regional’.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I’d say there are some very blurred lines between ‘Intercity’ and ‘Regional Express’, and then again between ‘Regional Express’ and ‘Regional’. I’d reduce those to just ‘Intercity’ and ‘Regional’.

In terms of organisation I'd agree, but I don't see why the regional operation shouldn't have services they sell as regional expresses. All a regional express would be is a train operated by the regional organisation that doesn't stop at all stations. Regional Railways had some quite good brands - "NorthWest Express", "Alphaline" and "TransPennine Express" are three of them.

 

[Energy]

Regional Railways had some quite good brands - "NorthWest Express", "Alphaline" and "TransPennine Express" are three of them.

We should really cut down on the amount of brands and simplify it down to a few brands across the UK, so regional services in the midlands are "regional-brand Midlands" and regional services in the west of England would be "regional-brand West". Using some branding for marketing is fine but having loads of different ones just makes it more confusing.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

I suspect that this sort of structure is a non-starter unless it was limited to England. There's no way Wales or Scotland would give back control of their railways and, given that the only conceivable way the railway would be renationalised is by a Labour or Labour/SNP Government, they just wouldn't go there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suspect that this sort of structure is a non-starter unless it was limited to England. There's no way Wales or Scotland would give back control of their railways and, given that the only conceivable way the railway would be renationalised is by a Labour or Labour/SNP Government, they just wouldn't go there.

Yes, that's why I've mentioned the idea of "Rail England" on my suggestions. Though "National Rail" would be less contentious in terms of where it serves Scotland/Wales, not that TfW seem to care about that!

 

[HST43257]

With the Regional Express idea, I felt that things like the Manchester to Barrow/Windermere and some TPE South and North East services didn‘t quite fit into Regional or Intercity groups.