It appears that everything we thought we knew about the railways has been changed for good over the last ten years. No longer is the talk about decline and closure. Expansion and additional capcity is now the cry as more and more people try and cram onto the trains. Rush hour is now two hours long as the TOC's try and flatten the demand in the peak periods. This change has made many rail professionals, the public also, change their perspective on the industry and it is undeniably on the up and up. However there has never been a period of sustained growth like we have seen in the last decade in living memory and many are struggling to adjust. I think rolling stock provision is the one area where we are seeing this problem come to a head.
Just some headline figures. Say there are 10,000 vehicles in use on the network (I am not sure of the exact figure but it cant be far short of this). If we see 5% growth per annum, which is very possible once things recover, then in theory to keep the status quo on overcrowding 500 vehicles would need to be introduced every year. If the fleet has a life expectancy of 40 years then another 250 vehicles would need to be introduced to keep the age of the fleet the same. So in very simplistic terms 750 vehicles per year would keep the status quo as is assuming the above criteria. i know this is a simplistic view but it gives an idea of the volumes of rolling stock that will be needed to feed a growing railway. We are so used to decline and stagnation that not having enough rolling stock has never been a real issue for the network.
When was the last time we got anywhere close to this. What is happening now with the attempts at trying to get a couple of hundred new dmu's for Northern et al. Ah but I hear people mutter it is always cyclical and feast always follows famine. This may be true normally but there is a growing finance crisis coming so who will pay for these carriages. On top of that the next two large scale rolling stock orders will be for Crossrail and Thameslink. Both routes will offer many new journey opportunities and whilst they will offer some relief to existing services many of the journeys made would be instead of other transport modes and not in place of an exisitng rail journey. Therefore these massive fleets will havea diluted effect on current overcrowing issues.
So what is going to happen. The following is amost inevitable. Trains are going to get older - it used to be that 30 years was a good age for scrapping - it seems that 40 will become the new 30 - the 313's are 32+ and due to be cacaded to a new operator rather than off for scrap. The scrap men are going to have a very lean time of it as even the Pacers are going to be in demand for the foreseeable future. Overcrowding is going to get worse. When capacity is increased on certain routes I think you will see it go almost immediately as there must be massive surpressed latent demand on many lines which will just swallow up capacity increases (it used to be the mantra for road builders that no matter how many motorways you built it would never be enough. the same now goes for the railways). So what will the answer be if Govt and the banks cant finance new vehicles quickly enough and the franchise model is dependant on continued growth to be sustainable (fare increases wont always be enough to supress demand). Well we already have the answer and it is coming to the railways in growing numbers. The return of the loco hauled train in greater and greater numbers is i feel inevitable. When operators need to increase capacity they have to go for LHCS - there are simply no units available - FGW has stock on hire from ATW, Northern and SWT as well as some old Silverlink goodies and yet they still need an LHCS set. So those MK 2's and 3's that were deemed surplus years ago are now worth keeping hold of - this decade of growth has shown that the whole railway needs to change its mindset and the thought that locos and coaches are a thing from a bygone era is patently wrong. Investment in the railways is a habit that for many years the British Govt has got out of - there is already talk of scaling back some investment before we have really even started - it may be a case of make do and if so then we need to keep what we have as one day very soon we may well need it!
Just some headline figures. Say there are 10,000 vehicles in use on the network (I am not sure of the exact figure but it cant be far short of this). If we see 5% growth per annum, which is very possible once things recover, then in theory to keep the status quo on overcrowding 500 vehicles would need to be introduced every year. If the fleet has a life expectancy of 40 years then another 250 vehicles would need to be introduced to keep the age of the fleet the same. So in very simplistic terms 750 vehicles per year would keep the status quo as is assuming the above criteria. i know this is a simplistic view but it gives an idea of the volumes of rolling stock that will be needed to feed a growing railway. We are so used to decline and stagnation that not having enough rolling stock has never been a real issue for the network.
When was the last time we got anywhere close to this. What is happening now with the attempts at trying to get a couple of hundred new dmu's for Northern et al. Ah but I hear people mutter it is always cyclical and feast always follows famine. This may be true normally but there is a growing finance crisis coming so who will pay for these carriages. On top of that the next two large scale rolling stock orders will be for Crossrail and Thameslink. Both routes will offer many new journey opportunities and whilst they will offer some relief to existing services many of the journeys made would be instead of other transport modes and not in place of an exisitng rail journey. Therefore these massive fleets will havea diluted effect on current overcrowing issues.
So what is going to happen. The following is amost inevitable. Trains are going to get older - it used to be that 30 years was a good age for scrapping - it seems that 40 will become the new 30 - the 313's are 32+ and due to be cacaded to a new operator rather than off for scrap. The scrap men are going to have a very lean time of it as even the Pacers are going to be in demand for the foreseeable future. Overcrowding is going to get worse. When capacity is increased on certain routes I think you will see it go almost immediately as there must be massive surpressed latent demand on many lines which will just swallow up capacity increases (it used to be the mantra for road builders that no matter how many motorways you built it would never be enough. the same now goes for the railways). So what will the answer be if Govt and the banks cant finance new vehicles quickly enough and the franchise model is dependant on continued growth to be sustainable (fare increases wont always be enough to supress demand). Well we already have the answer and it is coming to the railways in growing numbers. The return of the loco hauled train in greater and greater numbers is i feel inevitable. When operators need to increase capacity they have to go for LHCS - there are simply no units available - FGW has stock on hire from ATW, Northern and SWT as well as some old Silverlink goodies and yet they still need an LHCS set. So those MK 2's and 3's that were deemed surplus years ago are now worth keeping hold of - this decade of growth has shown that the whole railway needs to change its mindset and the thought that locos and coaches are a thing from a bygone era is patently wrong. Investment in the railways is a habit that for many years the British Govt has got out of - there is already talk of scaling back some investment before we have really even started - it may be a case of make do and if so then we need to keep what we have as one day very soon we may well need it!
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