Portishead approved

[The exile]

In the last couple of decades an office and hotel district has sprung up on the city side of Temple Meads, helped by the removal of the horrible road flyover and making the remaining roads more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists I never thought the walk into the city centre was that bad - at least until you hit the hill on the other side

By the time you’re looking at getting to the top of the hill from Temple Meads you’re better walking from Clifton Down and boosting the already impressive Severn Beach line figures! IIRC the idea is to run through (or at least was at one point) - the doubling of the service from Bedminster and Parson Street to points north should also do a bit for their attractivity.

 

[edwin_m]

By the time you’re looking at getting to the top of the hill from Temple Meads you’re better walking from Clifton Down and boosting the already impressive Severn Beach line figures! IIRC the idea is to run through (or at least was at one point) - the doubling of the service from Bedminster and Parson Street to points north should also do a bit for their attractivity.

The University area, which I was thinking of when writing my post, is slightly nearer to Clifton Down but still partly uphill. But the service would have to be much more frequent to be worth considering - probably more of an issue in that respect than for Portishead, where that sort of turn-up-and-go journey is less likely.

 

[The exile]

The University area, which I was thinking of when writing my post, is slightly nearer to Clifton Down but still partly uphill. But the service would have to be much more frequent to be worth considering - probably more of an issue in that respect than for Portishead, where that sort of turn-up-and-go journey is less likely.

Beach line loadings would tend to suggest there are plenty who have a different opinion.

 

[Cowley]

I don’t want to start deleting things and creating unnecessary work, but from here can we stick to subject of the Portishead reopening please.

If someone wants to start a thread on something else and would like some posts moved then that’s fine obviously and feel free to get in touch with us.

Over and out.

 

[tumbles]

Nearly everyone has car access in Portishead.

Which is fine except the hell that is getting out of the town due to one main road in. While the railway might not reduce loads that much it will certainly be more attractive to many (myself included) who work in BS1/2/3 etc

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Nov 2022 ==

Going back over years of the proposals and practicality I recall the combination of access to Portbury docks and the topology would always constrain the maximum practical service frequency and the train length.
While I welcome services returning to Portishead and along the route I have always been concerned that the capacity would be inadequate for a significant reduction in the number of cars joining the M5 at Jn 19 to head into Bristol. Crush loaded trains will not be attractive. A 2-car 165 has around 160 seats and a 3-car 250 but 3+2 seating is often not ulitised close to 100%. 158 sets as 2+2 seating are less plus slow loading with the end doors. If the limit was 4-car i.e. 2 x 2-car then using 165's around 320 seats. Long into the future if a 30 minute service and 2 x 3-car 3+2 seated sets then 500 per train so 1000 per hour.
Putting availability of rolling stock aside a proposal I once read was early morning to send togther two sets down then they split to return separately.

The frustration somewhat now is since the closure of Didcot, Abethaw and Uskmouth the coal traffic that made up 95% of the traffic on the line has gone. There was a period of nearly 18 months where not a single freight train ran down the line. At present there is only one intermodal freight train running Sunday Night/Early Monday. Yes there is scope that the docks might become busier but even the HS2 stone has moved from RPD to Avonmouth since the turn of the year.

Despite the talk of 1000s of car transporters being taken off the road back when the line reopened in 2001 I don't; think they've every really used the auto terminal in any sort of daily/regular traffic. It was all about coal.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Nov 2022 ==

I thought that the only possible station site at Ashton Gate had been used up by some sort of segregated bus alignment, or am I getting mixed up?

A bit. The Portishead line is still intact, they removed the old line that ran to the engineering works and then along to the docks (if you want to talk about cock ups, removing the line from BTM to the MShed was a major mistake and could have easily been adapted as light rail solution or different route for Portishead) - the old station is still there but cannot be used because there is no space for a car park. They have proposed putting it further down towards Ashton Vale. Behind the Imperial Tobacco HQ. It wouldn't be able to serve match day traffic for football or rugby. Not sure if it'll even be able to cope with the 5k arena next to Ashton Gate. In my view they might be better off reopening ashton bridge but again no space for parking..

 

[John R]

I'm reading this thread as someone brought up in Bristol but not having lived there for 50 years. The location of Temple Meads in relation to the central business/shopping district was always quoted as the main reason for Bristol's poor local train service. Has recent city centre development improved the situation?

In the last couple of decades an office and hotel district has sprung up on the city side of Temple Meads, helped by the removal of the horrible road flyover and making the remaining roads more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists. I never thought the walk into the city centre was that bad - at least until you hit the hill on the other side - particularly following the former inner ring road via Queen Square.

Exactly this. The white collar employment centre has moved to no more than 2 mins walk to Temple Meads over the last 25 years, with just a couple of big exceptions (LBG and Hargreaves L). And in the next couple of years the massive University development on the opposite side of the station will attract more employment.

So it’s a myth that the location of Temple Meads is not attractive for commuting. If that was the case Network Rail would not have needed to open two new entrances recently to cope with the volumes leaving the station in the morning.

 

[Donny_m]

Suprised this thread has got 4 pages in and not one single mention of the low emissions zone starting in Bristol in 2 weeks.

Not only does this mean that people with 2016 or older vehicles will be looking for alternative ways into town, but the route from Portishead to Bristol will now be the main artery for all vehicles looking to avoid the toll, thus will probably be slower and a lot less of an attractive commuting route than it was previously.

 

[nw1]

Is it really wisdom to spend so many tens of millions in capital expenditure to add yet another heavily loss-making, infrequent diesel train to the burden of annual operating expenditure, all in the hope of unknown future increases to the annual subsidy on offer, while taking no action to improve efficiency either here or elsewhere?

Would it be "heavily loss making" though? An hourly service would need a single shuttle unit all day at worst, and it may be possible to make clever use of interworking to not even require that (e.g do any other routes layover at Temple Meads for almost an hour?)

2tph would need two units. That's more cost than just one, so while that might be the desirable solution, we should start with hourly and scale up. A similar suggestion (of a 1tph shuttle) has been made for the Hythe line (much more local to me than Portishead) and I would hope that one goes ahead.

A single train per hour is overwhelmingly poor value for money because it doesn't offer substantial enough reductions over the bus service in generalised journey times. There is no prospect of getting even more funding to run a half-hourly service in the foreseeable future. People may choose to use it still in large numbers, and if the service is finally delivered, I hope that they do. But unfortunately that doesn't mean that the country is better off as a result of the decision.

It's not about the country though. It's about the residents of Pill and Portishead.
And remember a train gives them seamless connectivity to other parts of the country with a single change at Temple Meads. It would also make journeys within the Avon region easier; I have no idea about commuting patterns from Portishead but presumably at least some people commute to Bath.

I do realise we are living through a very grim time at the moment, but we don't know how long these grim times will last.

 

[zwk500]

2tph would need two units. That's more cost than just one, so while that might be the desirable solution, we should start with hourly and scale up. A similar suggestion (of a 1tph shuttle) has been made for the Hythe line (much more local to me than Portishead) and I would hope that one goes ahead.

Important to note on the Hythe line that 1. All the infrastructure is currently in railway use, it just needs refurbing to passenger standard and 2. The business case is clear that 2tph is required for long-term viability.

 

[paul1609]

This is the first time I’ve ever seen it mentioned that Ashton Gate station is actually proposed to be reopened as Phase 2. Given that this is the home of Bristol City FC, such a station is likely to be incredibly busy on match days with the right service provision.

Given this is GWR the same operator who provides the main service from Fratton westwards and who week after week, year after year only has a 2 car dmu (vice 5 in the current timetable) to clear thousands of spectators from Portsmouth fc home matches its more likely that the new Ashton Gate station will be closed on match days for safety reasons.

 

[nw1]

Given this is GWR the same operator who provides the main service from Fratton westwards and who week after week, year after year only has a 2 car dmu (vice 5 in the current timetable) to clear thousands of spectators from Portsmouth fc home matches its more likely that the new Ashton Gate station will be closed on match days for safety reasons.

Maybe the football club could pay GWR to provide a high-capacity, high-frequency shuttle (this would presumably be Saturdays when spare stock would be lying around, at least outside the summer season). Would seem a more sensible solution than closing the station just when it's most needed. Don't the rugby people pay for a Twickenham shuttle on busy days?

 

[Annetts key]

So I would not want a simple shuttle going backwards and forwards between Bristol Temple Meads and Portishead.

Rather, I would want multiple units running these services:

Portishead, Pill, Ashton Gate, Parson Street, Bedminster, Bristol Temple Meads, Lawrence Hill, Stapleton Road, Ashley Down, Filton Abbey Wood, North Filton, Henbury, St Andrews Road, Avonmouth, Portway Park and Ride, Shirehampton, Sea Mills, Clifton Down, Redland, Montpelier, Stapleton Road, Lawrence Hill, Bristol Temple Meads, Bedminster, Parson Street. Ashton Gate, Pill, Portishead.

Portishead, Pill, Ashton Gate, Parson Street, Bedminster, Bristol Temple Meads, Lawrence Hill, Stapleton Road, Montpelier, Redland, Clifton Down, Sea Mills, Shirehampton, Portway Park and Ride, Avonmouth, St Andrews Road, Henbury, Filton North, Filton Abbey Wood, Ashley Down, Stapleton Road, Lawrence Hill, Bristol Temple Meads, Bedminster, Parson Street. Ashton Gate, Pill, Portishead.

If possible, some of the above services would also call at Bristol Parkway.

Not all services would stop at some of the lightly used stations listed.

Not all the stations listed currently exist, but there are plans for the stations that currently don’t exist, or they are currently under construction.

In terms of Ashton Gate, if the appropriate organisations can get their act together, platforms that are sufficiently long can be built, then a longer train could be used for football match fans. GWR manage to run specials for Glastonbury event goer’s, so what’s the difference?

 

[tumbles]

Given this is GWR the same operator who provides the main service from Fratton westwards and who week after week, year after year only has a 2 car dmu (vice 5 in the current timetable) to clear thousands of spectators from Portsmouth fc home matches its more likely that the new Ashton Gate station will be closed on match days for safety reasons.

Certainly A&S Police have already made it known they are fully against it being open on match days. I think they prefer marching fans from BTM to a designated pub etc, dropping fans directly at the ground in the home pub areas isn't something they want to entertain!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2022 ==

So I would not want a simple shuttle going backwards and forwards between Bristol Temple Meads and Portishead.

Rather, I would want multiple units running these services:

Portishead, Pill, Ashton Gate, Parson Street, Bedminster, Bristol Temple Meads, Lawrence Hill, Stapleton Road, Ashley Down, Filton Abbey Wood, North Filton, Henbury, St Andrews Road, Avonmouth, Portway Park and Ride, Shirehampton, Sea Mills, Clifton Down, Redland, Montpelier, Stapleton Road, Lawrence Hill, Bristol Temple Meads, Bedminster, Parson Street. Ashton Gate, Pill, Portishead.

Portishead, Pill, Ashton Gate, Parson Street, Bedminster, Bristol Temple Meads, Lawrence Hill, Stapleton Road, Montpelier, Redland, Clifton Down, Sea Mills, Shirehampton, Portway Park and Ride, Avonmouth, St Andrews Road, Henbury, Filton North, Filton Abbey Wood, Ashley Down, Stapleton Road, Lawrence Hill, Bristol Temple Meads, Bedminster, Parson Street. Ashton Gate, Pill, Portishead.

If possible, some of the above services would also call at Bristol Parkway.

Not all services would stop at some of the lightly used stations listed.

That's sort of what the severn beach line does, some going as far as Weston/Cardiff. But they have the capacity/route to do so.

 

[geoffk]

Beach line loadings would tend to suggest there are plenty who have a different opinion.

"When I was a lad" in Bristol the peak loadings on the SB line appeared to be dockers to Avonmouth. I had a ride from Shirehampton to Stapleton Road and back 3 or 4 years ago and was surprised at the amount of school traffic - kids just going one or two stops. Even assuming they had tickets, the revenue wouldn't be much but worth having and these are journeys which would be more difficult by bus.

On the football (Ashton Gate) question, St. James' Park station in Exeter is quite well used on match days and I've never heard a suggestion that it should close at match times. In fact, trains from Barnstaple and Okehampton which normally run ecs to Exmouth Jn to turn back made additional stops at SJP. Mind you we've not had the home match v Plymouth Argyle yet!

 

[Annetts key]

The trains on the ‘Beach’/Avonmouth/Clifton line that are the busiest, are around the morning and the late afternoon/early evening peak. Between Bristol Temple Meads and Montpelier they are so full that it’s not possible for the train crew to walk through checking tickets. It’s slightly less busy between Clifton Down and Redland. Note that this is when they are two car units and this was pre-COVID19. I’ve not been that way recently.

The lowest passenger numbers are the section between Avonmouth and Severn Beach.

 

[Starmill]

GWR manage to run specials for Glastonbury event goer’s, so what’s the difference?

Well for a start, Castle Cary already exists, and already has long enough platforms.

Furthermore the festival cover the cost of the extra facilities and buses and work in cooperation with GWR. There's no guarantee that a football club will be willing to put in any resources at all.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2022 ==

It's not about the country though. It's about the residents of Pill and Portishead.

I'm afraid that it is though. Spending >£100 million on this one small project means that there's then insufficient resources for other much better value for money rail projects to go ahead elsewhere.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2022 ==

Would it be "heavily loss making" though?

I'm afraid so. Including the driver and guard, lease, fuel, and maintenance, adding a two car DMU diagram will cost over £1 million per year, plus a further ~£60k each for the unstaffed stations. These are just the opex costs and don't make any allowance for the capex being amortised.

If the line does really well and all trains are busy, it might cover around a third of that opex through ticket revenue.

 

[Annetts key]

Well for a start, Castle Cary already exists, and already has long enough platforms.

Furthermore the festival cover the cost of the extra facilities and buses and work in cooperation with GWR. There's no guarantee that a football club will be willing to put in any resources at all.

Hence why I said “if the appropriate organisations can get their act together”. Obviously if there is insufficient money made available then not only are the platform lengths going to be too short, but it also helps to undermine the justification for building a new station in this location.

What actually happens here will be heavily influenced by Bristol City council. Most of the Portishead line that requires infrastructure works is in the North Somerset council area. A significant chunk of the money is being provided by the councils. This money would not be spent elsewhere in the country.

 

[tbtc]

Would it be "heavily loss making" though? An hourly service would need a single shuttle unit all day at worst, and it may be possible to make clever use of interworking to not even require that (e.g do any other routes layover at Temple Meads for almost an hour?)

(I’ll reiterate that this is the kind of proposal that I’m generally in favour of - whilst I’ve criticised various rambling rural routes reopening, the simple stub from “town to nearest big city” model seems fine in Galashiels/ Ebbw Vale, I’m sure it’ll be fine at Ashington/ Blyth too)

Re: Profotability… apologies if I get some of the details wrong here, but my understanding was that to run one DMU you’d be talking roughly £250,000-£300,000 a year just in staff costs - i.e. three drivers, three guards, including Employer NI/ Pension contributions - since one driver isn’t going to be doing twelve hour shifts seven days a week with no holidays/ sickness etc

The cost of getting the DMU (whether that’s the lease from a ROSCO or the amortisation of an asset purchased outright - I’m not wanting yet another argument about the ROSCO model but if it costs over a million pounds per carriage for a unit expected to last “thirty” years then that needs to be paid for- given the way interest works on a mortgage i wouldn’t be surprised if a two coach DMU costs close to a hundred thousand a year

Plus fuel (as pointed out above, it might only be doing a couple of miles to the gallon)

And then the track Access charges (since this hourly service might be the only train using the Portishead line - given the unpredictable nature of freight- all that infrastructure needs paying for)

Plus, these six extra members of staff and one additional train will have some impact upon the HR/ Training/ Maintenance budgets, so might be the difference between having to hire an additional member of “office” staff - its obviously not guaranteed that this will be the case, but there comes a point in any Company where your “back office” workforce cannot cope with expansion of people/assets to look after unless you also fund some more staff behind the scenes too

So maybe we’re talking in the region of half a million pounds a year just to cover operating costs? Could well be more, but that’s a nice round number for now, until someone corrects me - I’m always happy to be corrected, of course, but that’s my “back of a bus ticket” maths

Given some of the inter working at Temple Meads, there’s not much that terminates there (which a Portishead train could share resources with), even if some of the long routes look like BR-era throw backs (Great Malvern to Warminster, Weymouth to Gloucester, Salisbury to Worcester), slung together for operational convenience, possibly in some cases without a return working

The one train that stands out (since the London services seem to be the only other ones that terminate at Temple Meads each hour?) are the xx:04 to Filton Abbey Wood, but these shuttles seem to inter work with Avonmouth trains (and sometimes then become Weston trains, e.g. Weston - Bristol - Avonmouth - Bristol - Filton and return)?

It’s all changed since i was last down, and it feels hard to know what’s the long term timetable and what’s a “temporary” timetable due to Covid/ staffing etc, but i don’t think there’s much for a Portishead service to share resources with, unless you start chopping up some other existing links

But talking of the Weston trains, does Yatton on that route seem a reasonable comparison with Portishead in terms of distance out of Bristol, and therefore fares? £6.60 Off Peak Day Return, so that means you’d need 75,000 passengers doing return journeys to Portishead to cover costs? Or closer to 50,000 return journeys a year if you had a £9.60 peak fare like Yatton?

Some passengers will presumably be doing shorter journeys (Pill, Ashton Gate, Bedminster etc), which will help fill trains, but if they occupy a seat at the Bristol end then that’s a seat that isn’t being used for a £9.60 passenger - I’ve focused on Portishead people to try to keep this simple, especially as i don’t there’s going to be much demand for journeys that don’t involve Temple Meads (plus some passengers from Bedminster etc will be existing ones from other services, so not “new” revenue for the railway)

(All off the above could be wildly out, by a factor of dozens/ millions, I’m just trying to look at how many passengers we’d need to sustain a service without it losing lots of money each year - happy to be corrected - I’m trying to ignore the construction costs for a moment since if we are expecting a line to repay all of those in the first couple of years of operation then no line stands a chance - thankfully nobody expects lines to be immediately repaying their capital costs, with the obvious examples of HS2, where the “anti” people try to apply this metric despite it clearly not applying to any other line !)

(Please no argument that “BR would have managed to build the line and operate it each year for just the cost of some sticky-backed plastic and the contents of the A-Team’s shed, and still have had change from a fiver” from the kind of people who refuse to accept that standards and costs are very different these days…)

 

[tpm]

There will also be new stations on the Henbury spur line, North Filton (YTL arena) and Henbury, which are now scheduled to open in 2026 at the earliest, also with one service per hour for starters (thread), so maybe those could/will be operated together somehow?

Another thing to keep in mind: There's the whole "Western Harbour" plan which is now in masterplanning stage, with a couple of thousand dwellings (plus more in adjacent/existing developments) around it, and the Portishead line straddles the boundary of that. Arguably that site already has good connectivity with Temple Meads via the m2 metrobus, but a station in the area could still make sense perhaps (also for Bower Ashton campus, Ashton Court, etc.).

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

They'll probably build the station and then close it on match days as the hourly 2-car trains will be insufficient to deal with the crowds

Making the worthiness of the station somewhat questionable.

 

[Glenn1969]

Is this moot given that Full approval by the SoS won't be until 2024?

 

[paul1609]

Certainly A&S Police have already made it known they are fully against it being open on match days. I think they prefer marching fans from BTM to a designated pub etc,

Earlier in the season I travelled to Port Vale Away. At Longport station there were approximately 25 riot police and 3 vans waiting for the 8 Pompey Fans who arrived on the hourly service. The policeman by the footbridge couldnt give the elderley gentleman directions to the ground because he had been brought in from Shropshire to deal with the "incident". They all passed us leaving the "scene" as we waited for the bus.

 

[martinsh]

But talking of the Weston trains, does Yatton on that route seem a reasonable comparison with Portishead in terms of distance out of Bristol, and therefore fares? £6.60 Off Peak Day Return, so that means you’d need 75,000 passengers doing return journeys to Portishead to cover costs? Or closer to 50,000 return journeys a year if you had a £9.60 peak fare like Yatton?

If we assume no Sunday service, this comes to around 250 passengers per day then ? Doable, I'd say

 

[Starmill]

Re: Profotability… apologies if I get some of the details wrong here, but my understanding was that to run one DMU you’d be talking roughly £250,000-£300,000 a year just in staff costs - i.e. three drivers, three guards, including Employer NI/ Pension contributions - since one driver isn’t going to be doing twelve hour shifts seven days a week with no holidays/ sickness etc

The cost of getting the DMU (whether that’s the lease from a ROSCO or the amortisation of an asset purchased outright - I’m not wanting yet another argument about the ROSCO model but if it costs over a million pounds per carriage for a unit expected to last “thirty” years then that needs to be paid for- given the way interest works on a mortgage i wouldn’t be surprised if a two coach DMU costs close to a hundred thousand a year

Plus fuel (as pointed out above, it might only be doing a couple of miles to the gallon)

And then the track Access charges (since this hourly service might be the only train using the Portishead line - given the unpredictable nature of freight- all that infrastructure needs paying for)

Plus, these six extra members of staff and one additional train will have some impact upon the HR/ Training/ Maintenance budgets, so might be the difference between having to hire an additional member of “office” staff - its obviously not guaranteed that this will be the case, but there comes a point in any Company where your “back office” workforce cannot cope with expansion of people/assets to look after unless you also fund some more staff behind the scenes too

So maybe we’re talking in the region of half a million pounds a year just to cover operating costs? Could well be more, but that’s a nice round number for now, until someone corrects me - I’m always happy to be corrected, of course, but that’s my “back of a bus ticket” maths

I'm sorry to say that this is rather too optimistic. Obviously the actual outturn costs are too sensitive to be shared directly but there's some very useful information in the Better Value Rail Toolkit OpEx guide here: https://www.bettervaluerail.uk/home/examine/benefits-and-costs/operating-and-maintenance-costs
Once you've downloaded the guide, section 1.2 and the graph on page 5 are relevant here.

Obviously there's no particular need for the ticket sales to make up the whole cost of running the train, that's what subsidy is for. But something is only a worthy use of subsidy if it produces economic benefits which exceed the subsidy spending.

 

[tbtc]

I'm sorry to say that this is rather too optimistic

Once you've downloaded the guide, section 1.2 and the graph on page 5 are relevant here

Cheers for the link, always happy to listen/learn when someone knows more than me on an issue

it’s hard (for an outsider) to know exactly what revenue is needed to make a line a success, especially given that a number of high profile reopenings happened for reasons other than BCR (where something that significantly exceeds “forecasts” is still requiring high subsidy because it was built for political reasons

A line can be both “beating expectations” and “losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year” - depending on what someone’s focus is.

As the railway is going to have to engage in some serious belt tightening over the next few years, I don’t think we can afford to build/ re-open any loss making lines, since existing subsidies are going to struggle to stretch given that some costs are going up by way over RPI - Portishead feels like one of the safer bets (given all of the lines that frequently crop up as suggestions), but even so I’m not entirely confident of it (even something as ‘simple’ as GWR finding a spare DMU feels like a stretch!)

 

[The exile]

Cheers for the link, always happy to listen/learn when someone knows more than me on an issue

it’s hard (for an outsider) to know exactly what revenue is needed to make a line a success, especially given that a number of high profile reopenings happened for reasons other than BCR (where something that significantly exceeds “forecasts” is still requiring high subsidy because it was built for political reasons

A line can be both “beating expectations” and “losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year” - depending on what someone’s focus is.

As the railway is going to have to engage in some serious belt tightening over the next few years, I don’t think we can afford to build/ re-open any loss making lines, since existing subsidies are going to struggle to stretch given that some costs are going up by way over RPI - Portishead feels like one of the safer bets (given all of the lines that frequently crop up as suggestions), but even so I’m not entirely confident of it (even something as ‘simple’ as GWR finding a spare DMU feels like a stretch!)

Well, Portishead is not going to have the problem of below-target revenue for at least 4 years!

 

[Starmill]

Cheers for the link, always happy to listen/learn when someone knows more than me on an issue

it’s hard (for an outsider) to know exactly what revenue is needed to make a line a success, especially given that a number of high profile reopenings happened for reasons other than BCR (where something that significantly exceeds “forecasts” is still requiring high subsidy because it was built for political reasons

A line can be both “beating expectations” and “losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year” - depending on what someone’s focus is.

As the railway is going to have to engage in some serious belt tightening over the next few years, I don’t think we can afford to build/ re-open any loss making lines, since existing subsidies are going to struggle to stretch given that some costs are going up by way over RPI - Portishead feels like one of the safer bets (given all of the lines that frequently crop up as suggestions), but even so I’m not entirely confident of it (even something as ‘simple’ as GWR finding a spare DMU feels like a stretch!)

They would probably need to recruit four rather than three drivers and guards to provide a Monday - Saturday all day service at 1tph too, unless they would only have one train arriving in Bristol before around 0900 and the last one from Bristol leaving around 1900. Maybe more if you'd like the service to run on Sundays.

 

[Watershed]

They would probably need to recruit four rather than three drivers and guards to provide a Monday - Saturday all day service at 1tph too, unless they would only have one train arriving in Bristol before around 0900 and the last one from Bristol leaving around 1900. Maybe more if you'd like the service to run on Sundays.

Rather more than that, to be honest. The calculations are complicated by the fact that these services would be interworked (crew wise) with other services - however in broad brush terms, you'd need at least 3 driver and conductor shifts to cover an hourly service from early until late.

That would suggest a bare minimum of 6 staff of each grade given a 4 day working week - but probably 7 or 8 of each if you want to have a sensible number of spares.

The aforementioned figure of £50k a head in employment costs is also likely to be a significant underestimate. Drivers' salaries alone are around £55-60k at most operators. Conductors obviously earn less but you are still looking at an average of maybe £80-90k a head.

These two factors greatly increases the number of passengers needed just to break even on a 'marginal cost' basis - let alone if you want to make any contribution to the cost of upgrading or maintaining the infrastructure.

 

[tumbles]

Well for a start, Castle Cary already exists, and already has long enough platforms.

Furthermore the festival cover the cost of the extra facilities and buses and work in cooperation with GWR. There's no guarantee that a football club will be willing to put in any resources at all.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2022 ==


I'm afraid that it is though. Spending >£100 million on this one small project means that there's then insufficient resources for other much better value for money rail projects to go ahead elsewhere.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2022 ==


I'm afraid so. Including the driver and guard, lease, fuel, and maintenance, adding a two car DMU diagram will cost over £1 million per year, plus a further ~£60k each for the unstaffed stations. These are just the opex costs and don't make any allowance for the capex being amortised.

If the line does really well and all trains are busy, it might cover around a third of that opex through ticket revenue.

Most of the funding for the line (2/3rds) is coming from local gov not central

 

[Starmill]

Rather more than that, to be honest. The calculations are complicated by the fact that these services would be interworked (crew wise) with other services - however in broad brush terms, you'd need at least 3 driver and conductor shifts to cover an hourly service from early until late.

That would suggest a bare minimum of 6 staff of each grade given a 4 day working week - but probably 7 or 8 of each if you want to have a sensible number of spares.

The aforementioned figure of £50k a head in employment costs is also likely to be a significant underestimate. Drivers' salaries alone are around £55-60k at most operators. Conductors obviously earn less but you are still looking at an average of maybe £80-90k a head.

These two factors greatly increases the number of passengers needed just to break even on a 'marginal cost' basis - let alone if you want to make any contribution to the cost of upgrading or maintaining the infrastructure.

Unless the route required the establishment of its own new train crew depot to operate efficiently (e.g. Tweedbank was new), it seems very unlikely that any business case will be forced to include the cost of the extra spares or management structure changes, if the sponsor is against doing so. But yes, four would suggest a six a day a week service is still short in reality and is hopeless for a seven day a week service. Incidentally I think that frequent assumptions that the existing number of spares is sufficient when it's clearly not is one of the secondary causes of the near-permanent crew shortage in some areas.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Nov 2022 ==

Most of the funding for the line (2/3rds) is coming from local gov not central

It is for the capital, but not for the operational.