New Lines needed

[GRALISTAIR]

Just a pity John Major had to come along isn't it?

Absolutely - wish I had a time machine and power so I could have banged some sense into his head. It would have been wonderful if we could have just kept electrifying as under the Thatcher regime.

 

[yorksrob]

I disagree - you should allow the profitable parts to re-invest the profits in their improvements.

You then assess each of the non-profitable parts in their own right - identifying a maximum subsidy which will be put in place and monitor the trend of how much it is costing over the medium term. If costs and losses are escalating, then it's madness to keep ploughing more and more money in on the vain hope it might one day become profitable.

Using the USA as an example is not appropriate - the sheer scale and size means there are very few areas where you can compare the US rail network with Europe, let alone just the UK. The state of Florida alone is the same georgraphic size as England and Wales put together yet has a population of only 20m, compared to the c60m of England and Wales.

The US is using rail transport primarily for urban transit in the large cities / conurbations - not as a way of connecting the various cities across the USA.

You assume a vain hope that the route might one day become profitable.

Obviously some surplus from the main line will need to go into funding improvements to it, but a balance will need to be struck between that and supporting local routes.

The reality is that the Nation has a greater requirement for subsidised routes than it has appetite for paying railway subsidies, therefore the railway has to cross-subsidise. If you're sceptical that that's the case, why else has the railway embedded cross-subsidies from its inception to the present day ?

You only have to consider the invisibility of subsidies to rural routes in the West Country (that partially come from the mainline) compared to the political football that state subsidies of Northern Rail have been over the last fifteen years.
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I don't understand at all. Do you mean cross-subsidy from the freight to the passenger business or cross subsidy within the passenger business? Or some other combination?

The railways had a revenue stream from freight and passenger of a known size. Using this revenue stream to subsidise some services only works if the donor revenue stream is greater than the costs incurred in generating it, as otherwise all that is being done is making one loss-making service yet more loss making to reduce the losses on another loss making service.

You can only cross-subsidise if your total outgoings are less than your total revenue; the issue is then just cost allocation between the different services. If you're losing money overall, which BR certainly was in shedloads, then cross-subsidy merely complicates the management accounts and conceals the true source of the losses.

The comparison with the USA is irrelevant as the size of the place and the separation and density of the centres of population means there is little in common in transport terms with the UK. Only the densely populated areas in the North East and increasingly around Los Angeles have any sort of passenger rail systems.

That's not the case at all. It's perfectly possible to cross-subsidise within the organisation if total outgoings are more than total revenue. It just means that overall subsidy of the organisation reduces. As I've mentioned this has happened within the railway since its beginnings up until now (and strictly speaking, the railway is still losing shedloads of money even now).

I'm thinking more of cross-subsidies within the passenger network, as my knowledge of freight is more limited (although I suspect that freight might not pay its full costs and may effectively be subsidised by the passenger railway as a whole).
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If you can't control your losses - then you're going to end up in Carey Street anyway.

All the arguments against having detailed management accounts and how one's business is structured - what its markets are, how to meet the demands set by them and what such activity costs and so on - seem to be based on people's interpretation of decisions that were taken decades ago with which one disagrees. Life, and accounting techniques, has moved on.

You can still make bad decisions, but that's not because of not knowing what the numbers are, but because of misunderstanding the business one is in and misinterpreting the numbers, the latter often because of preconceptions of what business you think you are in.

Hey, no one said anything about not understanding what, or where your costs are. Cross-subsidy and analysis of costs aren't mutually exclusive. Infact, that was one of the reasons for sectorisation I believe. I would agree that it's important to know what is being cross-subsidised and to try and control those costs. However, that's not to say that cross-subsidy isn't necessary.
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This is such a political reply and down right nonsense - absolute codswallop "The wicked witch of Grantham" driving through a rail channel tunnel, + all the electrification in the 1980s. I will post a YouTube video where Roger Ford says "It maybe politically unfashionable to say so, but the railways did rather well under Margaret Thatcher."

I'm inclined to think that Channel Tunnel excepted, the improvements to the railway during the 80's and early 90's had rather more to do with BR's efficiency and ability to get on with stuff, than Mrs Thatcher's munificence.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I'm inclined to think that Channel Tunnel excepted, the improvements to the railway during the 80's and early 90's had rather more to do with BR's efficiency and ability to get on with stuff, than Mrs Thatcher's munificence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyjH9rWOcSM&list=PLKndoqtG789s3CJlsi2gRJRD-S-BtHogv&index=5

54:50 to 56:00 is rather enlightening. Peter Snow is not exactly a right winger.

 

[Philip C]

Another knowall poster with no idea of the facts but is willing to give an opinion as fact. My wife has been at Ripon Campus since before closure of the line in 1967, before your sister so knew how much students used the railway for weekends home and nights out in York, Harrogate and Leeds, during amalgamation with York St John and now at the York Campus.

Closure of the Ripon line was acknowledged and publicly stated by both Students Union and final Ripon Camus Principal as the reason why numbers dropped in Ripon. Amalgamation didn't work in maintaining numbers and everything decamped to York.

Will you now accept my explanation?

If you are referring to the Ripon Training College, which my sister attended in around 1970, this was amalgamated with St John's College, York in 1975 (after 113 years of independence). The amalgamated college (The College of Ripon & York St John) then remained in existence until 2001/2 when the Ripon Campus was sold and training concentrated on the York Campus.

http://www.yorksj.ac.uk/PDF/Ripon Booklet.pdf refers.

I'm not familiar with the detail of what occurred after 1975, but to blame a line closure in 1967 for a college closure in 2001/2 may be a little tenuous or are you referring to some other Teacher Training College of which I am unaware?

Please re-read my post (above) and inform me which 'opinion' I am stating as 'fact'. Everything which I state as 'fact' is backed by the document cited and I then explicitly state that 'I'm not familiar with the detail of what occurred after 1975'. I draw attention to the 'fact' that closure of the college took place 34 years after the closure of the railway line and offer the 'opinion' that the attribution of blame for one on the other 'MAY be a little tenuous'.

My 'opinion' is that the judgement of readers may be better informed by knowledge of the long time period which elapsed between line and college closure, a matter which you overlooked to explain in your initial reference to the College.

In response you supply a reported view offered, presumably in 2001, about why, after 34 years of line closure and 26 years of college amalgamation, the Ripon Campus was no longer viable.

For what it may be worth I will acknowledge that, had the line remained open, a Teacher Training College 'may well' have been more sustainable, but if anyone in this exchange has held 'opinion' to be 'fact' I am not that person.

Finally I wish the campaign to re-establish rail connection between Harrogate and Ripon well. I am less persuaded of the benefits of the wider scheme which, I note from the submission to the NYCC (of 15.4.15), include sections of line as remote from Ripon as that between Spalding and March.

 

[yorksrob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyjH9rWOcSM&list=PLKndoqtG789s3CJlsi2gRJRD-S-BtHogv&index=5

54:50 to 56:00 is rather enlightening. Peter Snow is not exactly a right winger.

He seems to be saying that the InterCity 125 played a considerable part in the turn-around of the railway during the late 1970's/early 80's to which I'd partially agree (I'm not sure it was in quite the state of near collapse he suggests. We seemed to muddle through in Kent with without the 125).

Wasn't there a revelation in this documentary that Mrs T preferred compartment carriages ?

 

[coppercapped]

You assume a vain hope that the route might one day become profitable.

Obviously some surplus from the main line will need to go into funding improvements to it, but a balance will need to be struck between that and supporting local routes.

The reality is that the Nation has a greater requirement for subsidised routes than it has appetite for paying railway subsidies, therefore the railway has to cross-subsidise. If you're sceptical that that's the case, why else has the railway embedded cross-subsidies from its inception to the present day ?

You only have to consider the invisibility of subsidies to rural routes in the West Country (that partially come from the mainline) compared to the political football that state subsidies of Northern Rail have been over the last fifteen years.

I would point out that, taking all the English and Welsh TOCs together, they have been paying a premium to the DfT since the financial year 2010-11. In 2010-11 this amounted to 0.1 pence per passenger-mile for a total of £53.2 million increasing to 1.3 pence per passenger-mile for a total of £802.2 million in financial year 2014-15.

Even allowing for a payment to £122.8 million to the Passenger Transport Executives in 2014-15, this means that the English and Welsh passenger businesses are no longer in receipt of subsidy.

Your argument is out-dated.

 

[HSTEd]

Even allowing for a payment to £122.8 million to the Passenger Transport Executives in 2014-15, this means that the English and Welsh passenger businesses are no longer in receipt of subsidy.

Your argument is out-dated.

Oh really, this shows only three non subsidised TOCs, those being ICEC, Southern and SWT.
East Coast will now be back in subsidy as it was only out of it because of the not for profit nature of the franchise.

DfT franchised TOCs are at 6.8p/passenger mile still.
They are still subsidised even if it is in the form of subeconomic track access charges rather than outright payments.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Wasn't there a revelation in this documentary that Mrs T preferred compartment carriages ?

Yes she liked the privacy and able to get work done in compartments. What all the research showed was that women preferred open style as it was much less intimidating and isolating. I do have a nostalgia (some of my best railtours) for the Mark 2F compartment carriages - but do have to admit open is far better with the modern railways.

 

[yorksrob]

I would point out that, taking all the English and Welsh TOCs together, they have been paying a premium to the DfT since the financial year 2010-11. In 2010-11 this amounted to 0.1 pence per passenger-mile for a total of £53.2 million increasing to 1.3 pence per passenger-mile for a total of £802.2 million in financial year 2014-15.

Even allowing for a payment to £122.8 million to the Passenger Transport Executives in 2014-15, this means that the English and Welsh passenger businesses are no longer in receipt of subsidy.

Your argument is out-dated.

You were the one who "couldn't understand" how cross-subsidies could work in a system which receives an overall subsidy.

It stands to reason that cross-subsidies also work in a system in which revenue outstrips operating cost.

 

[yorkie]

As the discussion on new lines appears to have ended, I'll close the thread.

If anyone has something to contribute on that topic which hasn't been mentioned before, please contact us and we'll look at re-opening it.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes she liked the privacy and able to get work done in compartments. What all the research showed was that women preferred open style as it was much less intimidating and isolating. I do have a nostalgia (some of my best railtours) for the Mark 2F compartment carriages - but do have to admit open is far better with the modern railways.

I can't bring myself to agree. I used to love the compartment carriages on the Southern region (before they got rid of the slammers in 2008).