Northern - a catch 22?

[HSTEd]

The North of England does have a relatively small population though, the Northern statistical area reports this as ~14.5m. (And whether you can really say Victoria benefits the entirity of the North of England is not a question I want to think about).

Now count up the population of the areas served by the Thameslink Programme and Crossrail. It will come out rather higher than this.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Apart from the 508s at Merseyrail and the 319s expected to arrive, what rolling stock in the North has come from the South East?

Most of the Northern stock has been in the North since it's been new, it's just most of it was introduced in the 1980s, the main exception are many of the class 150s. However, the 150s that have been cascaded to the North have come from South Wales and more recently the West Midlands, not the South East - FGW got the cascaded 150s from the South East.
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Look at it this way. Northern have Southport-Airport services which have loadings too high for a 2 car Sprinter so they use 4 car Pacers.

If you look at the track access charges here: http://railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=95593

A pair of Pacers costs 19.48p per mile in track access charges.

A 3 car 172 could provide similar capacity but would cost 13.38p per mile in track access charges, a saving of around a third.Then if you have one conductor on a pair of Pacers they'll probably be a lot of ticket-less travel but that's less to be less of an issue with a 3 car 172.

But a Pacer costs around 75K a year and a new 172 or similar is going to be 4 times that. Track access charges are only part of the cost equation.

Another thing to consider is Northern being required to run loss-making parliamentary/token services e.g. Stockport-Stalybridge, Helsby-Ellesmere Port.

Granted that Helsby costs a unit - but Stockport - Stalybridge is a very marginal operation.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The North of England does have a relatively small population though, the Northern statistical area reports this as ~14.5m.

Now count up the population of the areas served by the Thameslink Programme and Crossrail. It will come out rather higher than this.

In the days of the Victorian railway age, with all railway companies being commercial organisations, that fact did not seem to bother companies such as the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway unduly.

 

[HSTEd]

In the days of the Victorian railway age, with all railway companies being commercial organisations, that fact did not seem to bother companies such as the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway unduly.

This was when the Midlands and the 'North' were the rich parts of the UK and the South East was merely the home of farmers and the richer members of the aristoracy.

These days the situation is somewhat different.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

This was when the Midlands and the 'North' were the rich parts of the UK and the South East was merely the home of farmers and the richer members of the aristoracy. These days the situation is somewhat different.

In those days, the southern areas of England still had a thriving rail network.

 

[yorksrob]

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-subsidy-per-passenger-mile
Total subsidy per passenger-mile (including apportioned Network Grant)
Year: Northern / All DfT franchises:
2009-10: 37.7p / 10.4p
2010-11: 32.4p / 7.6p
2011-12: 34.9p / 7.5p
2012-13: 40.7p / 6.8p

The Northern Rail subsidy per passenger-mile last year was 2.5 times that of FTPE, which was the second worst English TOC in this league table.

I suspect the key phrase here is "including apportioned network grant" which will most likely include a fair amount of long term "capital" investment.

Thinking about it, there's been quite a bit of heavy duty investment in the Northern Rail area recently. Off the top of my head, I can think of substantial bridge replacement on the Barrow line, bridge replacements on the Whitby branch, permanent way stabilisation on the Settle Carlisle. Perhaps rather than engaging in self flagellation, we ought to welcome this additional investment. According to Northern's own website, passenger numbers have increased by 40% in seven years:

http://www.northernrail.org/northern/achievements

And don't forget, there's been a recession on during this time.
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Having been out and about for the last 5 days or so on some of the rural lines, its not difficult to see why subsidy is required.....there are a hell of a lot of trains carrying fresh air!!

You must be travelling on a different Northern Rail from me.

 

[Oscar]

Investment in infrastructure and improving stock is important and fares are often excessively high. Frequency is also a major problem - for public transport to be attractive for short journeys, a turn up and go service needs to be offered in metropolitan areas - every 15 minutes or better. All other routes need to be served every 30 minutes if possible, or otherwise at least hourly (perhaps with some exceptions). However, one problem not yet mentioned on this thread is integration. Most journeys on Northern Rail are relatively short. For short journeys where rail journeys are not particularly fast, access to information and connections are critical. Currently, a passenger wishing to travel from suburban Leeds to suburban York has to first find out the times of the train and two buses and then buy a bus ticket, a train ticket and either York PlusBus or an additional bus ticket. This is expensive and complicated. The minimum connection time of 10 minutes for changing trains in Leeds or Manchester Piccadilly and lack of any attempt to co-ordinate the timetables of services often makes journey times artificially long. Where there is no obvious particular advantage to the passenger to using public transport, as is the case for journeys on most routes except those within or running to or from Greater London, especially outside of peak times, the lack of integration is a major hurdle to increased passenger numbers.

The following steps could be taken on a national level to increase the usage of local public transport:
- through ticketing for all modes and operators of public transport within every region of the UK, the full selection of tickets would be available at stations and on buses and (where necessary) trains. The fares would most likely be zonal and the tickets could take be in paper form or (now almost certainly) smartcards.
- online booking engines selling rail tickets could include all bus timetables, bus times could only change at the time of the June or December rail timetable changes. Alternatively, one national website could replace all the individual websites which would greatly improve clarity for passengers.
- a radically different approach to timetable planning could be adopted. The aim would be to create a network rather than run disparate individual services. For example, East Coast services would pass at Newcastle, Darlington and York around 00/30 and services from Carlisle and Middlesbrough / Saltburn / Harrogate, Leeds, York, Middlesbrough and Scarborough would arrive around 5 to 10 minutes before and depart around 5 to 10 minutes after the East Coast services. At Leeds local services from Harrogate, Ilkley, Skipton, the Calder Valley, Castleford, Selby and Huddersfield could arrive within a few minutes of each other and leave a few minutes later. Ideally arrivals and departures to/from London would be after the arrival and before the departure of these services. Lay-overs for many non-Intercity services are often long anyway and this practice would ensure shorter and more consistent connection times. Bus services would similarly be planned and times around rail services. Long connections are sometimes unavoidable but these instances could be reduced significantly. The timetable would need to be the same in each direction (mirror image principle - a service which arrives at xx.55 would need to depart in the opposite direction at xx.05, this is now widely accepted on the Continent).

This kind of improvement would of course benefit public transport passengers across the UK, not just those using Northern Rail, but where services do not bring in high fare income, better organisation is more urgent.

Perhaps the government and railway industry should consider what is achieved by maintaining and operating irregular, often lightly used services on lines such as the Esk Valley, Dearne Valley or Penistone Lines or by using up capacity by calling at stations such as Wressle, Eastrington and Broomfleet. If such lines or stations do not justify a more regular service, perhaps closure would allow resources to be invested elsewhere, such as in a light rail system or better bus system for Leeds, which would benefit many more people. Scenic lines could perhaps be sold to organisations wishing to set up heritage lines and a much more frequent bus service integrated with the rail network could provide a service instead. Alternatively, conversion to tram operation could be looked at as an alternative way of saving money.

Information about how integrated regular interval timetables work and their advantages and disadvantages:

http://www.swiss-economics.ch/RePEc/files/0037StrubemartinsFingerHallerTrinkner.pdf (fairly dry)
http://www.passengertransportnetwor...ag=Taktfahrplan&IncludeBlogs=1&IncludeBlogs=1 (proposal for ECML integrated timetable)
http://www.passengertransportnetworks.co.uk/reports/ (Report "Timetabling HS2")
https://online.tugraz.at/tug_online/voe_main2.getVollText?pDocumentNr=488163&pCurrPk=73460 (quite technical)
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/2058/1/ITS33_WP579_uploadable.pdf (good introduction to the topic)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taktfahrplan (excellent but in German, corresponding English article contains much less stimulating material)
http://www.miol.it/stagniweb/cadenz00.htm (excellent but in Italian, I will translate this shortly)
http://www.tecnica-vialibre.es/pdf/VLTecnica_260310.pdf (excellent but in Spanish)
http://www.zukunft-mobilitaet.net/4...chland-deutschlandtakt-umsetzbarkeit-konzept/ (about feasibility in Germany, in German)
http://www.sma-partner.ch and in particular http://sma-partner.ch/images/EURAILmag_Business_and_Technology.pdf (importance of integrating infrastructure and timetable planning, English) and http://sma-partner.ch/de/ueber-sma/news-und-veranstaltungen (Netzgrafik Schweiz)

Integrated regular interval timetables are used in Switzerland and the Netherlands and are being implemented in Belgium, Germany, Austria, parts of France and parts of northern Italy (and I think also Denmark). There now appears to be a reasonably wide ranging consensus that this is the best way to make local public transport attractive.

 

[HSTEd]

MiFARE and similar cards are now so cheap that you could just issue them in place of paper tickets with a ten pence deposit on them.

 

[northwichcat]

The North of England does have a relatively small population though

Does it?

More people live in Yorkshire & Humber than in Scotland while the North West is the 3rd most populous region after London and the South East.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps the government and railway industry should consider what is achieved by maintaining and operating irregular, often lightly used services on lines such as the Esk Valley, Dearne Valley or Penistone Lines or by using up capacity by calling at stations such as Wressle, Eastrington and Broomfleet. If such lines or stations do not justify a more regular service, perhaps closure would allow resources to be invested elsewhere, such as in a light rail system or better bus system for Leeds, which would benefit many more people. Scenic lines could perhaps be sold to organisations wishing to set up heritage lines and a much more frequent bus service integrated with the rail network could provide a service instead. Alternatively, conversion to tram operation could be looked at as an alternative way of saving money.

The Penistone line actually has a fairly standard interval service, and has always had a robust passenger usage when I've been on it.

The Whitby line is admittedly irregular, but that said has also always been busy on the occasions that I've used it (always considerably more so than the connecting TPE infact).

I believe the approach of trying to sell routes to the tourist industry was considered for the Settle Carlisle, but there were no takers. Plus you just end up with a set of underutilised infrastructure only open at weekends whilst local people end up having to use an unsatisfactory subsidised bus service.

 

[northwichcat]

Granted that Helsby costs a unit - but Stockport - Stalybridge is a very marginal operation.

Those aren't the only parliamentary/token services Northern run.

And how does a Manchester Victoria based conductor get to Stockport to work the Stockport-Stalybridge service and then on to their next service/back to base to finish? If there's a taxi involved it might cost more than all the fares taken and then there's the conductor's wages on top of that.
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The Penistone line actually has a fairly standard interval service, and has always had a robust passenger usage when I've been on it.

As I've mentioned before the problem with the Penistone line isn't a lack of demand, it's the fact for Huddersfield to Barnsley/Meadowhall/Sheffield journeys it's just as quick to go via Leeds and there's more trains that way as well.

 

[yorksrob]

As I've mentioned before the problem with the Penistone line isn't a lack of demand, it's the fact for Huddersfield to Barnsley/Meadowhall/Sheffield journeys it's just as quick to go via Leeds and there's more trains that way as well.

Well, I'd have thought that line would definately justify greater investment for more capacity.

 

[Oscar]

The Penistone line actually has a fairly standard interval service, and has always had a robust passenger usage when I've been on it.

The Whitby line is admittedly irregular, but that said has also always been busy on the occasions that I've used it (always considerably more so than the connecting TPE infact).

I believe the approach of trying to sell routes to the tourist industry was considered for the Settle Carlisle, but there were no takers. Plus you just end up with a set of underutilised infrastructure only open at weekends whilst local people end up having to use an unsatisfactory subsidised bus service.

The question is whether the huge subsidies required to keep minor routes open would be better spent on suburban rail. Buses may be slower, but because of their lower running costs and capacity could run much more frequently. Passengers are not satisfied with buses largely because the timetables and fares are not integrated with other public transport. In rural areas punctuality tends not to be a major problem and could be improve by better timetable planning and the use of smartcards or ticket machines on board or at stops for fare collection.

My alternative proposal for the Whitby branch is as follows:
A service could run every 15 or 30 minutes from Middlesbrough to James Cook University Hospital, Marton, Gypsy Lane, Nunthorpe and (via a new section of line) Guisborough, possibly as a tram(-train) or at least in the future using electric rolling stock. Fast buses could run from Guisborough to Whitby along the A171 every 30 minutes taking around 40 minutes and journey times between Middlesbrough and Whitby would decrease to around one hour. The existing 2-hourly Whitby - Lealholm no. 99 bus could be extended to Danby, Castleton and Guisborough to connect with rail services. Making the existing line competitive with the car would require significant capacity and speed improvements and in the long term electrification. Could Whitby justify enough services for these investments?

 

[transmanche]

Does it?

More people live in Yorkshire & Humber than in Scotland while the North West is the 3rd most populous region after London and the South East.

Well there's really not much in it, but in the 2011 census Scotland pipped Yorkshire & the Humber at the population post:

• Scotland: 5,313,600
• Yorkshire & the Humber: 5,284,000

 

[ANorthernGuard]

Those aren't the only parliamentary/token services Northern run.

And how does a Manchester Victoria based conductor get to Stockport to work the Stockport-Stalybridge service and then on to their next service/back to base to finish? If there's a taxi involved it might cost more than all the fares taken and then there's the conductor's wages on top of that.
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A Vic Guard will sign Stockport and will sign Stalybridge so workings from say Picc to Stockport and Stalybridge to Man Vic will bot be covered. However A Picc guard will sign Picc to Stockport and Gude Bridge Station so a Vic guard signs more so it makes sense

 

[yorksrob]

The question is whether the huge subsidies required to keep minor routes open would be better spent on suburban rail. Buses may be slower, but because of their lower running costs and capacity could run much more frequently. Passengers are not satisfied with buses largely because the timetables and fares are not integrated with other public transport. In rural areas punctuality tends not to be a major problem and could be improve by better timetable planning and the use of smartcards or ticket machines on board or at stops for fare collection.

I'm not convinced that a purely utilitarian approach of only spending money on transport that benefits the absolute maximum number of people would lead to a very good transport system. If you extend that logic you would eventually concentrate transport more and more on Cities.

There are lots of reasons why people are not satisfied with buses, not just a lack of integration. Speed is always a factor. The 189 bus to Leeds runs parallel to the train service that I catch, and even without any traffic jams on an urban road network, it still takes twice as long as the train.

Also there's comfort. Arguably the Whitby line isn't particularly well integrated with the rest of the railway network, yet it still attracts plenty of custom.

Also, there's the small matter of whether a route such as Whitby really does soak up such massive subsidies. We have the headline figure of 43p subsidy for Northern, but although the branch is long, don't forget, it has minimal signalling, minimal staffing, minimal rolling stock costs and no doubt over the infrastructure life cycle, minimal maintenance. You could tear up the railway and find that actually, it's not eating up a disproportionate amount of subsidy compared to the rest of Northern at all.

In Leigh in Lancashire the trains and buses are reasonably well integrated. You can get a combined ticket, hop off the train at Atherton and on to a connecting bus within ten minutes and into the town centre. Yet there is no doubt that the lack of a railway holds the town back to an extent.

 

[ECML180]

Well, I'd have thought that line would definately justify greater investment for more capacity.

For me it would be worth integrating with the new 'supertram' to Dore & Totley, I suspect there's a few lines like that which could serve better as light rail, especially when feeding into somewhere like Sheffield that already uses trams.

 

[Moonshot]

For me it would be worth integrating with the new 'supertram' to Dore & Totley, I suspect there's a few lines like that which could serve better as light rail, especially when feeding into somewhere like Sheffield that already uses trams.

I suspect you are right......

 

[Oscar]

I'm not convinced that a purely utilitarian approach of only spending money on transport that benefits the absolute maximum number of people would lead to a very good transport system. If you extend that logic you would eventually concentrate transport more and more on Cities.

There are lots of reasons why people are not satisfied with buses, not just a lack of integration. Speed is always a factor. The 189 bus to Leeds runs parallel to the train service that I catch, and even without any traffic jams on an urban road network, it still takes twice as long as the train.

Also there's comfort. Arguably the Whitby line isn't particularly well integrated with the rest of the railway network, yet it still attracts plenty of custom.

Also, there's the small matter of whether a route such as Whitby really does soak up such massive subsidies. We have the headline figure of 43p subsidy for Northern, but although the branch is long, don't forget, it has minimal signalling, minimal staffing, minimal rolling stock costs and no doubt over the infrastructure life cycle, minimal maintenance. You could tear up the railway and find that actually, it's not eating up a disproportionate amount of subsidy compared to the rest of Northern at all.

In Leigh in Lancashire the trains and buses are reasonably well integrated. You can get a combined ticket, hop off the train at Atherton and on to a connecting bus within ten minutes and into the town centre. Yet there is no doubt that the lack of a railway holds the town back to an extent.

There are some potential rail re-openings which would serve a significant number of people and would provide a faster and more frequent service and more capacity. Most of the limited number of lines for which closure seems a reasonable option have longer journey times than buses however. In the case of Middlesbrough - Whitby the fastest bus has much shorter journey times than the Esk Valley railway. The same goes for the West Highland, Kyle of Lochalsh and Far North lines. Rail provides a large potential amount of capacity which could greatly benefit metropolitan areas where the vast majority of journeys are currently made by car and there is great need for modal shift. It is in these areas that congestion makes bus journey times particularly long. Of course rural areas deserve a reasonable public transport service and frequent bus services can often provide this better than an infrequent rail service, though de-regulation makes this difficult in practice.

 

[yorksrob]

There are some potential rail re-openings which would serve a significant number of people and would provide a faster and more frequent service and more capacity. Most of the limited number of lines for which closure seems a reasonable option have longer journey times than buses however. In the case of Middlesbrough - Whitby the fastest bus has much shorter journey times than the Esk Valley railway. The same goes for the West Highland, Kyle of Lochalsh and Far North lines. Rail provides a large potential amount of capacity which could greatly benefit metropolitan areas where the vast majority of journeys are currently made by car and there is great need for modal shift. It is in these areas that congestion makes bus journey times particularly long. Of course rural areas deserve a reasonable public transport service and frequent bus services can often provide this better than an infrequent rail service, though de-regulation makes this difficult in practice.

And yet, in spite of the speed and the infrequent nature of the service, the trains are still busy. The train just has something that the bus doesn't. Doubtless the Whitby town council, tourist board and chamber of commerce recognise this as well.

 

[fowler9]

And yet, in spite of the speed and the infrequent nature of the service, the trains are still busy. The train just has something that the bus doesn't. Doubtless the Whitby town council, tourist board and chamber of commerce recognise this as well.

In my opinion the train gets you further away from busy roads and the buildings around them for at least part of your journey and people appreciate that.

 

[yorksrob]

In my opinion the train gets you further away from busy roads and the buildings around them for at least part of your journey and people appreciate that.

I think that will have a big effect. Particularly for a tourist destination.

 

[Oscar]

A railway to Guisborough (population - 18 108) would keep the bus journey to Whitby (population - 13 213) down to around 35-40 minutes. Why does Guisborough with a larger population not deserve a rail service more than Whitby? A half-hourly service to/from Guisborough with trains passing at Nunthorpe would be very feasible whereas sparse population between Nunthorpe and Whitby is unlikely to justify a frequent service. I agree that passengers generally prefer trains to buses and perhaps this is a reason why the railway should try to provide an attractive service to as many people as possible. It would be excellent if Whitby had a fast rail links to/from Middlesbrough, Scarborough and York but this is not the situation. The Esk Valley is not particularly attractive for journeys towards York, Leeds or London and direct, well integrated buses could help alleviate this problem.

 

[tbtc]

Are we not already seeing increased investment in the North?? I can point to a number of schemes already started, one in particular at Manchester Victoria ( interestingly enough sponsored by European Union funding ).

We are seeing a lot of investment - the problem is that its easy to spot a million pounds spent on building something in the "south" but not easy to spot a million pounds worth of subsidy for unprofitable services in the "north" (and therefore think that the south gets all the money spent on it.

In the case of the Altrincham and Bury lines they were converted when passenger numbers were in decline whereas currently passenger numbers are growing year on year.

I think I saw mention on here of numbers on the Oldham "loop" doubling since the trams started (comparing a full year to a full year) - and presumably it needs no subsidy now either

I think the majority of services that will switch to EMUs are mainly Sprinters with the exception of Liverpool-Victoria stoppers and Huddersfield-Leeds stoppers.

There's Pacers on many routes that'll see EMUs (Leeds to Selby, Leeds to Huddersfield, Manchester to Preston, Liverpool to Wigan, Liverpool to Warrington/Manchester)

I don't actually understand why Northern need subsidising so much. What is it about this franchise that needs this?

That's what nobody seems to be answering (just a lot of griping about the north/south divide - both in England and in Germany...).

I think that any service with under three coaches will struggle to make money - I've wondered in the past whether a fully laden (30m) Pacer would still be unprofitable.

You can run a 25 seater minibus and make a profit, but a train seems to need a couple of hundred passengers to cover its costs.

how does a Manchester Victoria based conductor get to Stockport to work the Stockport-Stalybridge service and then on to their next service/back to base to finish? If there's a taxi involved it might cost more than all the fares taken and then there's the conductor's wages on top of that

IIRC its a Northern service that terminates at Stockport and runs light to Newton Heath Monday to Thursday, so the marginal cost of running it in service to Stalybridge is only an extra few minutes - its quite efficient.

That said, a friend who used to work for Arriva Trains Northern seemed to spend more time getting taxis between Sheffield and Wakefield/ Lincoln etc - seems a real waste of time (but then there were serious staff shortages back then)

I'm not convinced that a purely utilitarian approach of only spending money on transport that benefits the absolute maximum number of people would lead to a very good transport system. If you extend that logic you would eventually concentrate transport more and more on Cities

That sounds a reasonable way to deal with heavy rail - rail works as a mass transit, it needs a critical mass of people to work properly - which is why investment in central London is a lot easier to justify than worrying about rural branch lines.

 

[yorksrob]

A railway to Guisborough (population - 18 108) would keep the bus journey to Whitby (population - 13 213) down to around 35-40 minutes. Why does Guisborough with a larger population not deserve a rail service more than Whitby? A half-hourly service to/from Guisborough with trains passing at Nunthorpe would be very feasible whereas sparse population between Nunthorpe and Whitby is unlikely to justify a frequent service. I agree that passengers generally prefer trains to buses and perhaps this is a reason why the railway should try to provide an attractive service to as many people as possible.

I think had the branch to Guisborough survived, it would have been a good place to terminate some local trains. However it hasn't and unfortunately building a railway is a lot more expensive than maintaining one.

Personally I think one of the best ways to provide an attractive railway is to provide access to as wide range of attractive destinations as possible. Whitby is definately an asset to the network in that respect.
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That sounds a reasonable way to deal with heavy rail - rail works as a mass transit, it needs a critical mass of people to work properly - which is why investment in central London is a lot easier to justify than worrying about rural branch lines.

It wouldn't really do the railway much good as a whole though. Like all that searching for the core "profitable" railway in the 60's and 70's. You just end up with something like Serpell which probably wouldn't be profitable anyway.
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That's what nobody seems to be answering (just a lot of griping about the north/south divide - both in England and in Germany...).

But it's fairly obvious why Northern isn't profitable. It's about as far away as it's possible to be from a traditional railway set up of main line, secondary route and branch. It's an artificial construct of secondary routes.

We talk a lot about how much subsidy we provide to Northern Rail, however, no one mentions how many passengers the Northern network feeds into ostensibly "profitable" parts of the railway (aside from all the other benefits to the local economy etc).

 

[tbtc]

It wouldn't really do the railway much good as a whole though. Like all that searching for the core "profitable" railway in the 60's and 70's. You just end up with something like Serpell which probably wouldn't be profitable anyway

I think that the profitable bits of the network are kept profitable regardless of how many passengers come off a quiet branchline.

I'm not saying that everything needs to be profitable - the railway obviously serves a social need - but future investment should focus on busy routes - which is what a mass people mover is best at.

But it's fairly obvious why Northern isn't profitable. It's about as far away as it's possible to be from a traditional railway set up of main line, secondary route and branch. It's an artificial construct of secondary routes.

We talk a lot about how much subsidy we provide to Northern Rail, however, no one mentions how many passengers the Northern network feeds into ostensibly "profitable" parts of the railway (aside from all the other benefits to the local economy etc).

Northern are still the main operator on a lot of busy routes (Manchester to Bolton, Leeds to Bradford, Liverpool to Manchester etc), they must have some profitable operations...

...which makes the remaining operations even bigger loss makers.

 

[yorksrob]

I think that the profitable bits of the network are kept profitable regardless of how many passengers come off a quiet branchline.

I'm not saying that everything needs to be profitable - the railway obviously serves a social need - but future investment should focus on busy routes - which is what a mass people mover is best at.



Northern are still the main operator on a lot of busy routes (Manchester to Bolton, Leeds to Bradford, Liverpool to Manchester etc), they must have some profitable operations...

...which makes the remaining operations even bigger loss makers.

Yes, but other companies have the express trains with people buying the more expensive long distance tickets.

By all means focus investment on busy routes but we still need to keep the rest of the network going.

We're talking about spending billions on a high speed line to serve a need that may or may not occur in decades to come. Railways such as the Whitby branch, the Settle - Carlisle and Huddersfield - Sheffield have seen huge increases in passenger usage over the past ten years and are valued in their communities. Northern Rail as a whole has seen a huge increase in passenger numbers over the last ten years. This shows that the network is performing a vital function regardless of whether it (as an artificially constructed mish mash of non main line services) appears to make a fare box profit or not. It's about time we are finally beginning to invest in it, rural routes and all.

 

[tbtc]

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-subsidy-per-passenger-mile
Total subsidy per passenger-mile (including apportioned Network Grant)
Year: Northern / All DfT franchises:
2009-10: 37.7p / 10.4p
2010-11: 32.4p / 7.6p
2011-12: 34.9p / 7.5p
2012-13: 40.7p / 6.8p

The Northern Rail subsidy per passenger-mile last year was 2.5 times that of FTPE, which was the second worst English TOC in this league table.

Northern Rail as a whole has seen a huge increase in passenger numbers over the last ten years. This shows that the network is performing a vital function regardless of whether it (as an artificially constructed mish mash of non main line services) appears to make a fare box profit or not

Even if we think that Northern have been dumped with a dog's breakfast of services, how does anyone explain that it's been getting worse and worse despite rising passenger numbers (whilst the rest of the network has been improving its subsidy position)?

 

[yorksrob]

Even if we think that Northern have been dumped with a dog's breakfast of services, how does anyone explain that it's been getting worse and worse despite rising passenger numbers (whilst the rest of the network has been improving its subsidy position)?

Even in the noticeably small sample of data provided, the subsidy decreases before it increases again, so where you get "worse and worse" from, I don't know. As I mentioned in a previous post, the "subsidy" includes the Network Rail grant, so the change could easily be due to increased infrastructure investment, or the negative effects of the recession.

 

[tbtc]

Even in the noticeably small sample of data provided, the subsidy decreases before it increases again, so where you get "worse and worse" from, I don't know. As I mentioned in a previous post, the "subsidy" includes the Network Rail grant, so the change could easily be due to increased infrastructure investment, or the negative effects of the recession.

Where do I get worse and worse from?

32.4p/ mile subsidy to 34.9p/ mile subsidy to 40.7p/ mile subsidy over the last three years that the data covers?

If you want to blame the 2011 - 2013 issue on the recession that started in 2008/2009 (despite the fact that passenger numbers are rising on Northern?) then why are other franchises seemingly requiring less and less subsidy (at the time that Northern require more and more)?