Some Questions regarding TOC costs

[Trainbike46]

Staffing is the major cost for all companies, but especially rail. Have a look at Figure 1 here: https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/om/understanding-the-rolling-stock-costs-of-uk-tocs.pdf (Page 9 of the report, 17 of the PDF).
On only 2 TOCs do Rolling stock costs outweigh staffing costs, and that includes every cost such as Fuel and maintenance on top of leasing.

In response to this document shared by @zwk500 in another thread.

The document is from 2015, so a bit out of date, but there's some really confusing things going on and I was hoping some people here could share their thoughts


Firstly, how does all-electric c2c manage to spend more than half of traction energy costs on diesel for an all-electric fleet? Relatedly, how does southern not have any diesel costs despite running diesel trains?

Another one that I found very striking was the class 158 MTIN numbers:

How are they so much better at SouthWestTrains? And can we duplicate it at other TOCs without massively increasing costs?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Nov 2022 ==

And a general question to better understand the costs of the railway, are there any significant costs that are missing from this figure below, and if so what would they be?

 

[Wynd]

I presume FSR is First Scotrail, if so, how on earth do they attract by far, the highest NR track access charges of any single operator?

I seem to recall in recent figures Scotrail paying 1/4 of all UK track access charges, which to me anyway, is inexplicable.

 

[Trainbike46]

I presume FSR is First Scotrail, if so, how on earth do they attract by far, the highest NR track access charges of any single operator?

FSR is First Scotrail yes

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Nov 2022 ==

The full list of operators from the report:
GRA Abellio Greater Anglia
ATW Arriva Trains Wales
c2c c2c
CHI Chiltern Railways
ACC Arriva Cross Country
ECM East Coast
EMT East Midlands Trains
FCC First Capital Connect
FGR First Great Western
FSR First Scotrail
TPE First Transpennine Express
LOM London Midland
LRL London Overground
MER Merseyrail
NOR Northern
SEN Southeastern
SOU Southern
SWT South West Trains
VWC Virgin Trains West Coast

 

[Wynd]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but how could SR pay more for track access than East Coast, GWR, or Southern?

 

[Sonik]

I presume FSR is First Scotrail, if so, how on earth do they attract by far, the highest NR track access charges of any single operator?

I seem to recall in recent figures Scotrail paying 1/4 of all UK track access charges, which to me anyway, is inexplicable.

Since it's per KM I'd say it's probably simply down to utilization, and the relatively higher cost of maintaining remote assets.

Less trains over a larger area will result in a higher cost per train, to amortize the fixed costs. Railway infrastructure as a whole is very durable so working it hard statistically lowers the average cost per KM, without a commensurate rise in maintenance costs.

 

[Trainbike46]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but how could SR pay more for track access than East Coast, GWR, or Southern?

It's a fair question! From what I've heard it is because of the large lengths of comparatively low-usage routes in Scotland, but maybe someone with more knowledge can confirm and elaborate

 

[Wynd]

How are track access charges applied? is it not a linear equation of route miles travelled?

It seems a stretch to think 8% of the Uk population are shouldering 25% of track access charges. Worse still, something like 1% of Scottish citizens use the train... 1% of that 8% is a very low number.

I really hope someone comes along to prove me wrong, because that just cannot be correct.

 

[507020]

How are track access charges applied? is it not a linear equation of route miles travelled?

It seems a stretch to think 8% of the Uk population are shouldering 25% of track access charges. Worse still, something like 1% of Scottish citizens use the train... 1% of that 8% is a very low number.

I really hope someone comes along to prove me wrong, because that just cannot be correct.

I very much doubt that only 1% of Scots use the train. Over 75% of the Scottish population live in the central belt, where most of the railways are and most of these are electrified, including all commuting into Glasgow and less so but also the routes into Edinburgh.

 

[station_road]

How are track access charges applied? is it not a linear equation of route miles travelled?

It seems a stretch to think 8% of the Uk population are shouldering 25% of track access charges. Worse still, something like 1% of Scottish citizens use the train... 1% of that 8% is a very low number.

I really hope someone comes along to prove me wrong, because that just cannot be correct.

Those are figures per vehicle kilometre, as previously mentioned it reflects the lower utilisation across Scotland as a whole - you have to multiply those costs by total number of vehicle kilometres to get the full track access cost for Scotrail to compare it to other TOCs.

 

[Sonik]

It seems a stretch to think 8% of the Uk population are shouldering 25% of track access charges. Worse still, something like 1% of Scottish citizens use the train... 1% of that 8% is a very low number.

It seems unfair, but on the flip side the heavily used metros like London Overground, Merseyrail (and to a lesser extent Northern) have very high staffing costs due to the number of staffed stations per KM.

 

[30907]

On the 158s (which are a microfleet - SW being mostly 159s) it was eventually decided that Salisbury depot management were being creative with attributing causes of delay. IIRC from reading Modern Railways over many years the later figures were still pretty good.

 

[Watershed]

How are track access charges applied? is it not a linear equation of route miles travelled?

It seems a stretch to think 8% of the Uk population are shouldering 25% of track access charges. Worse still, something like 1% of Scottish citizens use the train... 1% of that 8% is a very low number.

I really hope someone comes along to prove me wrong, because that just cannot be correct.

It's correct. It reflects the fact that ScotRail operate over some of the most remote and sparsely served lines on the British railway network - such as the Far North, Kyle, West Highland, Stranraer lines.

The marginal cost of running an additional train is generally quite low, whereas the high, fixed cost of maintaining the infrastructure is distributed across far fewer vehicle-km because of the infrequent service (approx 4 trains per day each way). Accordingly the cost per vehicle-km is quite high.

It's also unsurprising that the staff costs per vehicle-km are considerably higher at pure metro operators such as Merseyrail and London Overground. Due to the close proximity of stations on their network, their trains have a much lower average speed.

Accordingly it takes longer to travel each km, and hence the staff costs (drivers/conductors) per km are higher. All of their stations are also staffed from first till last train, which comes at a notable cost.

Really these kinds of statistics are only useful for like-for-like comparisons - e.g. comparing regional/long distance/southeast/metro operators to each other.

 

[Pretendolino]

In response to this document shared by @zwk500 in another thread.

The document is from 2015, so a bit out of date, but there's some really confusing things going on and I was hoping some people here could share their thoughts

View attachment 122970
Firstly, how does all-electric c2c manage to spend more than half of traction energy costs on diesel for an all-electric fleet? Relatedly, how does southern not have any diesel costs despite running diesel trains?

Another one that I found very striking was the class 158 MTIN numbers:
View attachment 122971
How are they so much better at SouthWestTrains? And can we duplicate it at other TOCs without massively increasing costs?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Nov 2022 ==

And a general question to better understand the costs of the railway, are there any significant costs that are missing from this figure below, and if so what would they be?
View attachment 122972

My best guesses are:

First chart is duff. There's the Class 171 Turbostars on Southern that should be diesel, albeit a relatively small proportion of traction costs. Figure 24 in the report shows c2c as fully electric, so again I think that's just a mistake in the figure shared here.

Second chart strikes me as a difference in reporting standards. I doubt SWT were that much more reliable than their peers. There may have been delay attribution shenanigans whereby delays were disputed and not put into the MTIN (or something similar).

The last figure captures the main costs for train operators. My experience is that c90% of costs are between staff, rolling stock, access charges, and traction.

If you wanted to get into more detail, the other areas could include HQ (such as Systems & IT, Marketing & Comms, Legal & Professional fees), facilities, planned and unplanned bus hire, etc

 

[Dr Day]

It seems a stretch to think 8% of the Uk population are shouldering 25% of track access charges

But isn't that covered by Scotrail's subsidy? AIUI the track access charges aren't reflected directly in the fares, so Scotrail's passengers aren't paying directly towards the higher-than-average costs of maintaining their infrastructure, per vehicle km.

 

[Trainbike46]

It's correct. It reflects the fact that ScotRail operate over some of the most remote and sparsely served lines on the British railway network - such as the Far North, Kyle, West Highland, Stranraer lines.

The marginal cost of running an additional train is generally quite low, whereas the high, fixed cost of maintaining the infrastructure is distributed across far fewer vehicle-km because of the infrequent service (approx 4 trains per day each way). Accordingly the cost per vehicle-km is quite high.

It's also unsurprising that the staff costs per vehicle-km are considerably higher at pure metro operators such as Merseyrail and London Overground. Due to the close proximity of stations on their network, their trains have a much lower average speed.

Accordingly it takes longer to travel each km, and hence the staff costs (drivers/conductors) per km are higher. All of their stations are also staffed from first till last train, which comes at a notable cost.

Really these kinds of statistics are only useful for like-for-like comparisons - e.g. comparing regional/long distance/southeast/metro operators to each other.

The full report does in fact compare reasonably similar TOCs, specifically pairing London Overground with Merseyrail; East Coast with Virgin Trains West Coast; and Northern, Scotrail and ATW