Trivia: lines which are open but really shouldn't be?

[TUC]

What a daft post.

A town of 15,000 plus should have a railway station; in fact any sizeable community should.


As to the title of the thread, apart from old industrial lines to collieries and the like, no railway line should be closed.

Nothing. no matter how uneconomic? Why?

And as far as that any town of 15,000 should have a railway station, surely that depends upon how far it is to the next town. There's a point beyond which the distance without additional fare income becomes plain uneconomic.

 

[RichmondCommu]

It depends a lot on where you're from and where you live, although as someone close to the age group discussed, it's amazing how much less a car is considered a status symbol or right of passage. I only learnt to drive because I had to (work was not near any public transport and inaccessible by foot or cycle). Now that can commute by train, I do. While all of my friends from the country learnt to drive young (17-20) and often have access to a car, mostly borne of necessity, almost none from cities do (especially London), as they just tend to hop on a train, bus etc.

Personally, I had intended never to learn to drive or own a car, but circumstances changed that.

Well assuming that taking the train is quicker and cheaper then you would be mad to drive to work. Three of my children were born in London and whilst they certainly didn't need a car to get around they saw it (I think) initially as a challenge to see if they could learn to drive. As it goes it was a good thing as my youngest son has a years work placement at Sellafield and realistically needs access to a car. My eldest daughter has a similar placement at Rolls Royce in Derby and also uses a car. Without lessons at 17 they would now be struggling. Before their work placements they shared a 'pool' car which was in all fairness seldom used but was useful in certain 'out of town' journeys.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There's not really any justification for closing the Bentham route. It's more or less run in conjunction with the Settle Carlisle and doesn't have any signalling or staffing of it's own to speak of. It's about as frugal a route as you can expect to find, yet finds itself of good use to the North.

I dispute the idea that a bus connection would be an adequate replacement, particularly for those travelling further afield. Long bus plus longish train journey isn't going to be as acceptable to local residents as even a longish train journey.

Also, as a regular traveler on both the Bentham and Settle - Carlisle routes, I note that there are a fair number of people who travel from Shipley, Bingley and Skipton to the North and West. Forcing them to double back via Copy Pit isn't going to be an acceptable alternative. This plus the fact that the Bentham and Copy Pit lines complement eachother when one or the other are closed (This was particularly noticable during the closure of Holme tunnel).

Agreed. And add to this that trains between Lancaster and Preston are often already overcrowded, so you don't really want to be forcing more people onto them so they can go via Copy Pit. And for people travelling from/to Lancaster or Morecambe (which is quite a significant destination in its own right) you'd be forcing an additional change of train.

I'd actually suggest that Lancaster-Leeds is a good example of a line that has a lot of potential to become much more useful if only some imagination (and investment) could be applied to it. In particular at the Lancaster end, it runs along the Lancaster-Carnforth commuter route which suffers massive road congestion. Imagine what it could do for the area, both in terms of reducing congestion, making commuting easier and helping tourism if - say - it had an hourly service run with decent trains - timed to interleave with Lancaster-Barrow to make a half-hourly service between Lancaster and Carnforth. A station for commuters at Hest Bank, a park and ride station at Melling (to pick up commuters from that area into Lancaster, and also with buses from Hornby and Kirby Lonsdale timed to connect with the trains, and a guaranteed connecting bus at Bentham to get to Ingleton (a significant tourist destination), with through tickets available...

 

[tbtc]

In my view, it's difficult to present a proper case for either retaining or closing lines because some of these figures are difficult to obtain in the first place, and even then the accuracy of them can be challenged. Statistics can be used in many ways, as we all know, and sometimes it's hard to get at the real truth of the matter.

We have to use a certain degree of estimates, guesswork and assumptions when it comes to opening new stations/ lines – there’s no guarantee that passenger numbers will be exactly as projected – so the same assumptions/approach could be applied to potential closures as we use for potential reopening?

Whilst I appreciate that the information available to enthusiasts is at the “blunt” end of the spectrum, it should be possible to use ticket sales to work out what percentage of people on a lightly used branch line have journeys wholly contained on that line versus those going further afield, to assess whether there’d be much impact on the “wider network”.

The problem is that a lot of enthusiasts wont’ countenance any cuts because they are worried that pruning the most minor of branches will lead to another Serpell.

And there are still lines that could be reopened because they need to be, such as Perth-Cowdenbeath, which would cut down train times between Inverness and Edinburgh quite a bit, as well as serve Kinross, a substantial town

Even if you include nearby Milnathort and surrounding villages, the “Greater Kinross” population isn’t going to be much above five thousand – it’s the only “big” place for miles around but it’s really not that big.

Kelty would be a better bet, if you want to serve a town along the M90 corridor, and more of a population likely to commute to Edinburgh. But there’s a lot of empty countryside between Kelty and Bridge of Earn/ Perth – compared to, say, reopening little over five miles of track from Thornton Junction to Methil (to serve 30,000 in the Leven/ Buckhaven area)?.

Firstly, the route gets a decent amount of freight, so you're wrong to start off with. But even taking into account passenger services, I do believe we should be able to at least trial a proper service on it (much like BR used to do for some routes in the 80's) before we give up on it

What would you define as a suitable trial then? Six months? A year? Three/ Five years?

Where would you pinch the spare stock required to run this service from?

And what criteria would satisfy you that this line through a fairly empty part of the country (roughly five miles away from a parallel railway that’s much busier) has no viable future as a passenger railway?

(please don’t come back and say something like “the fact that there are no spare DMUs sat around unused that would be suitable for this trial is a failure of privatisation” though – it’s just reality)

As for rolling stock, why should I, as a regional passenger suffer because of poor decisions made about the sell-off of our rolling stock industry. The current log jam is an aberration. In any rational way of running a railway, rolling stock would be built continually, so as to cope with the replacement of assets as they become life expired. In this way, you would have nearly life expired stock that could be used to test out a route before going to the torch

Like I say, our inadequate rolling stock set up shouldn't be used as a stick with which to beat the regional railway.

That’s how things are in the real world though – have you got practical solutions to the situation that we are actually in?

Obviously, in an ideal world there wouldn’t have been the “thousand day” gap between rolling stock orders, but there was, and we have to allocate finite resources accordingly.

If you’d rather use resources on “one man and a dog” services whilst people stand on busier lines then fair enough, but we can’t change historic decisions.

On the Buxton - Matlock thread recently, you were against removing a cycle route, yet as this has no fare paying users or tolls, it's entire existance can only be judged on "unquantifiable" criteria. Why are you happy to accept these criteria for cycle routes and roads, yet for a railway, they suddenly become "unquantifiable" ?

I think you are trying to put words into my mouth again...

On the Matlock thread (http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=110340&page=11), I was arguing against the “we need to close the Monsall Trail because too many people are using, especially tourists and disabled people” argument – from the kind of posters who’s answer to every single problem is “a railway” – that was my only comment on the subject.

I made no comment on the relative benefits of railways/ roads/ cycle routes; I just pointed out the arrogance of people who couldn’t accept any other use of land that once had a railway on it

And allowing pensioners cheaper travel travel in winter - a way to artificially boost passenger numbers or a great way to improve the health and well being of our older citizens

It’s quite a leap of logic to reach the conclusion that “running trains through scenic parts of the countryside” is the solution to the health problems pensioners have – even if there are medical benefits from heavily discounting such tickets for OAPs, I’m not convinced that that’s very efficient and I think that these journeys artificially inflate the passenger numbers at intermediate stations.

isn't it better to have a full 158 (and sometimes it's a 158 & 153 set) rather than a near empty 153?

Is that a good use of resources (given the capacity problems that we have on other routes in northern England)?

1.2 million journeys up and down the S&C isn't bad for a little backwater branch line is it? That's 1.2 million that might well return, maybe stopping off along the way next time and spending money, thereby helping along the local economies. And those 1.2 million people might recommend the route to friends and family etc etc

It’d be amazing if 1.2 million different people were using the route each year!

1.2 million *journeys* a year is considerably different – one commuter may make four hundred and fifty journeys a year (e.g. a return journey Monday to Friday during forty five weeks of work) – much easier to think about it in terms of “departing passengers per day”.

Then take out the journeys that are “end to end” (i.e. passengers travelling all the way from Leeds to Carlisle, possibly as part of longer distance journeys which could be just as fast today via Manchester and even faster in a few years time when the Huddersfield line is electrified), which leaves the following "departing passengers per day" at intermediate stations:

Armathwaite......................13
Lazonby & Kirkoswald..........24
Langwathby........................34
Appleby.............................84
Kirkby Stephen...................43
Garsdale............................21
Dent..................................14
Ribblehead.........................26
Horton-in-Ribblesdale..........22

(of which a number will be pensioners on heavily discounted jaunts - http://www.northernrail.org/tickets/Metro+WYPTE+-+Settle-Carlisle+Winter+Offers)

the Calder Valley does need strengthening, but this is not the fault of the S&C, but of Northern's hands being tied in not be allowed to procure new stock, and simply rely totally on cascaded units from elsewhere.

...but this is the situation that we are in.

You may not want to rob Peter to pay Paul, but we don’t have the resources to keep every line “happy”.

I am all for social rail but we are probably going to have to find more ways to cut the cost of providing it.

Yes, but nobody wants to talk about how these costs can be cut – easier to blindly dismiss the subsidy figures as “inaccurate” and ignore whether there are any ways that we could run things more efficiently (which only makes the railway an easier target for other people to criticise).

If British Rail had introduced some efficiencies in the 1950s then they wouldn’t have had branch lines where staff outnumbered passengers (given some of the stories about the numbers of full time employees on routes with only a handful of services a day), which would have made it harder to justify some of the cuts of the 1960s.

Failure to evolve in the 1950s meant that the railway was a bloated mess in the 1960s and unable to defend itself.

Had BR continued to operate, annual subsidy would be about £2billion to-day.
As it is, subsidy to the privatised railway is £4billion with much of this annual payment being lost to the rail industry and this country. Taking railways back into public ownership would save at least £1.5billion annually and reduce fares by a third. It belongs to us and should be run for the benefit of us and not profit making TOCs and ROSCOs

I’m interested in where you get your maths from, especially as many/most railway costs have risen by more than inflation (insurance, fuel, staff wages, infrastructure) – in line with similar increases in costs for broadly comparable bits of Government (e.g. road construction costs have gone up by more than inflation, BR existed in an era before “No Win No Fee” ambulance chasers, Safety legislation has made everything more complicated which has impacted upon costs).

Seriously, where is the huge saving to be found? (beyond some ramble about “middle managers” and “bureaucrats” – as if it’d be possible to run any organisation without such administration)

Everything is more complicated and expensive than in the 1980s – the idea that going back to British Rail means going back to a time without audits/ expensive modern safety requirements/ expensive modern construction techniques etc, a time back when final salary pension schemes were affordable and employment costs a lot cheaper, before Working Time Directives and modern employment law... It’s not a “public”/ “private” debate, it’s one about the modern world being more complicated and expensive than the 1980s.

Back in the real world, even a guaranteed bus service (if such a thing existed) isn't going to be an adequate replacement for the railway. Slower, more cramped, more ponderous. There's not a town in the country that would trade its railway service for a bus. People don't even like replacement bus services when the line's being maintained, so a permanent bustitution isn't going to attract visitors and business to anywhere

Of course more people would prefer a train (though my experience would argue with your comments about how a bus can’t be “guaranteed” and is “cramped” compared to a train – you must be very lucky in terms of only ever getting trains with generous legroom that are never delayed or cancelled! )...

...but that doesn’t mean a train is always the answer.

You have this habit of taking the most desirable outcome – which is generally the most expensive outcome - and then deciding that this *must* be the answer (regardless of the fact that the msot desirable outcome is usually the most expensive one and that other options may be more cost effective/ appropriate).

I’m sure some villages would love to be on the railway map, but if their passenger numbers are can’t justify an Optare Solo then a DMU seems a fairly blunt and expensive instrument!

How much of what is spent on track access and rolling stock leasing costs for the Whitby branch for example, actually goes towards maintaining the service on the Whitby branch.

Don’t know, but the costs for maintaining the Whitby branch are obviously only shared between just four journeys a day (no freight that I can remember?) – some equipment will last longer with fewer trains using it of course, but the costs of maintaining long bits of railway for the sake of just a handful of trains a day won’t be cheap.

At least with busier bits of the railway network the costs of every signal/ over-bridge/ signpost (etc) are spread over hundreds of trains a day.

Many of the bigger bus companies are concentrating their efforts in running their high frequency, high occupancy service in favour of other less well utilised services

Perish the thought that public transport concentrates on where people actually want to go in the twenty first century and focuses resources on the most popular corridors (rather than slavishly following nineteenth century routes)!

I can see why some on here would find that abhorrent...

 

[Bantamzen]

It’d be amazing if 1.2 million different people were using the route each year!

1.2 million *journeys* a year is considerably different – one commuter may make four hundred and fifty journeys a year (e.g. a return journey Monday to Friday during forty five weeks of work) – much easier to think about it in terms of “departing passengers per day”.

Then take out the journeys that are “end to end” (i.e. passengers travelling all the way from Leeds to Carlisle, possibly as part of longer distance journeys which could be just as fast today via Manchester and even faster in a few years time when the Huddersfield line is electrified), which leaves the following "departing passengers per day" at intermediate stations:

Armathwaite......................13
Lazonby & Kirkoswald..........24
Langwathby........................34
Appleby.............................84
Kirkby Stephen...................43
Garsdale............................21
Dent..................................14
Ribblehead.........................26
Horton-in-Ribblesdale..........22

(of which a number will be pensioners on heavily discounted jaunts - http://www.northernrail.org/tickets/Metro+WYPTE+-+Settle-Carlisle+Winter+Offers)

Sorry, but I am confused here. You want to take out the end to end journeys because there is another, longer route that involves additional changes? That's your logic for talking down the figures? That's the logic of an accountant tasked with closing the line. If only handfuls of people are using intermediate stations along the route, then then majority are on it for it's length. So if you take them off the S&C, and onto the Copy Pit or more likely TP they are going to be joining the many thousands already shoehorning onto those other services.

Just loosely looking at the figures, and assuming that those 1.2M journeys are returns, that would leave 600,000 each way per year. Now with 8 services Monday to Saturday each way (and 5 on a Sunday but I'll use the larger number here), that's 600,000/363 days (leaving out Christmas), divided again by the services a day giving us an average of 206 passengers per service. Certainly enough to warrant at least a 2 or 3 car 158 set per service (or a 2 car 158 + 1 153), maybe more. Now of course the actual number might be a bit lower, as at least some of those numbers will be on the steam specials, but even so it's hardly a lightly used service. And perhaps with a better frequency (not easy given the line & high freight usage) even more people might be inclined to use it.

You can dispute the figures if you wish, but every time I've been up and down the route it's always been well populated regardless of time of year, so much so that it's always wise to get to Carlisle nice and early for the return to maximise the chance of a seat on the way back. It's not been uncommon for it to be standing only for much of the route, which may go some way to explain why the intermediate stations have less footfall than they might.

And with events like Le Grande Depart last year and the new planned Tour De Yorkshire this year and into the future, this part of Yorkshire is hoping for many more tourists than ever before. And many of them may well opt to use the S&C to get to some of the more remote, and stunning parts of this region. Like it or not, the S&C is doing well and has the potential for more.

Perish the thought that public transport concentrates on where people actually want to go in the twenty first century and focuses resources on the most popular corridors (rather than slavishly following nineteenth century routes)!

I can see why some on here would find that abhorrent...

And perish the thought that service actually meet the needs of the community rather than those of the shareholders eh? It seems to me that you see the transport network as a single entity, whose design is purely to run at a profit. I see public transport as a service, connecting people with places of work and leisure. Having a well connected, joined up network has net benefits for the country as a whole. It can help reduce crippling congestion, encourage people to spend more pleasure time away from their homes and spending in local economies, and is far better for the environment.

But when the large bus companies consolidate much of their traffic onto main routes, they can actually discourage people from using them. Not everyone lives along trunk routes, and often it becomes easier to simply forget about public transport and join the ever growing numbers of cars carrying one person. I'm sorry that you can't see the logic beyond the accountant's bottom line.

 

[Howardh]

Regarding Dent station - I'm sure it would attract a lot more footfall if it were actually nearer, er, Dent! What is the situation there these days, it's some distance to the village and Youth Hostal, so if anyone isn't walking/biking it's a high taxi fare.

But, are there any public transport links to that station when trains arrive, ir a train/taxi deal? Never seen anything regular - but not been in that area for years. A train ride and a pint in Dent are on the must-do list, so a bus back to the station would go down very well!

 

[yorksrob]

Agreed. And add to this that trains between Lancaster and Preston are often already overcrowded, so you don't really want to be forcing more people onto them so they can go via Copy Pit. And for people travelling from/to Lancaster or Morecambe (which is quite a significant destination in its own right) you'd be forcing an additional change of train.

I'd actually suggest that Lancaster-Leeds is a good example of a line that has a lot of potential to become much more useful if only some imagination (and investment) could be applied to it. In particular at the Lancaster end, it runs along the Lancaster-Carnforth commuter route which suffers massive road congestion. Imagine what it could do for the area, both in terms of reducing congestion, making commuting easier and helping tourism if - say - it had an hourly service run with decent trains - timed to interleave with Lancaster-Barrow to make a half-hourly service between Lancaster and Carnforth. A station for commuters at Hest Bank, a park and ride station at Melling (to pick up commuters from that area into Lancaster, and also with buses from Hornby and Kirby Lonsdale timed to connect with the trains, and a guaranteed connecting bus at Bentham to get to Ingleton (a significant tourist destination), with through tickets available...

Indeed. I think a station at Melling in particular could prove very useful. The point about services to Cumbria is very pertinent to me. At some times visit rugby matches in the Whitehaven area and find the line quite useful to get back. However, a football match would be out of the question with the route as they tend to finish that little bit later.

The problem is that a lot of enthusiasts wont’ countenance any cuts because they are worried that pruning the most minor of branches will lead to another Serpell.

Well, I'll give you that. Amongst other things, I do fear that if you cross that rubicon, the powers that be will consider it a lot easier to close down other routes. And as we know, their assumptions of what constitutes "cost effective" or not can be extremely controversial. Better to have a few very cheap parliamentaries (far cheaper infact than the 3% profit of TOC's we're constantly told isn't a great deal of cost to the railway). Far better not to open that potential flood gate.

Another issue, I would say, is the difficulty of getting it back if we come to regret the closure. I have to say, many of your eloquent arguments on this forum ferment this fear.

What would you define as a suitable trial then? Six months? A year? Three/ Five years?
And what criteria would satisfy you that this line through a fairly empty part of the country (roughly five miles away from a parallel railway that’s much busier) has no viable future as a passenger railway?.

Maybe three years. However, given that you've already started with a negative expectation of the process, rather than an open mind, I certainly wouldn't trust you to play any part in the assessment.

(please don’t come back and say something like “the fact that there are no spare DMUs sat around unused that would be suitable for this trial is a failure of privatisation” though – it’s just reality)
That’s how things are in the real world though – have you got practical solutions to the situation that we are actually in?
Obviously, in an ideal world there wouldn’t have been the “thousand day” gap between rolling stock orders, but there was, and we have to allocate finite resources accordingly.
If you’d rather use resources on “one man and a dog” services whilst people stand on busier lines then fair enough, but we can’t change historic decisions.

Sorry I can't oblige your request. The rolling stock situation is a massive failure of privatisation.
How do we get past the issue ? Declare rolling stock manufacture as being of strategic national importance and direct contracts towards it in the same way we would for aircraft carriers and fighter jets.

The EU provides legal leeway for this sort of thing. Just look at France.

In the ordinary run of things, we would be electrifying those routes which are standing room only (the lack of that over the past fifteen years is another failure of privatisation for you to stew on, by the way) and producing rolling stock to replace life expired stock in good time. That way, you would have stock towards the end of its working life to play with, either to cope with growth, or to try out new markets.

I think you are trying to put words into my mouth again...
On the Matlock thread (http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=110340&page=11), I was arguing against the “we need to close the Monsall Trail because too many people are using, especially tourists and disabled people” argument – from the kind of posters who’s answer to every single problem is “a railway” – that was my only comment on the subject.
I made no comment on the relative benefits of railways/ roads/ cycle routes; I just pointed out the arrogance of people who couldn’t accept any other use of land that once had a railway on it

You're arguing on this thread that railway routes should be closed on the basis that they supposedly don't make enough money directly to justify their (alleged) operating costs. Cycle routes don't make any money directly to justify their operating costs, so by your own logic, you must be either suffering from an inconsistency of thought, or your argument must apply to a cycle route as well.

It’s quite a leap of logic to reach the conclusion that “running trains through scenic parts of the countryside” is the solution to the health problems pensioners have – even if there are medical benefits from heavily discounting such tickets for OAPs, I’m not convinced that that’s very efficient and I think that these journeys artificially inflate the passenger numbers at intermediate stations.
Is that a good use of resources (given the capacity problems that we have on other routes in northern England)?:

At the end of the day, it's just offering tickets at quieter times for a cheaper price to attract passengers. Yield management. The same as every InterCity TOC that offers cheaper advanced fares at quieter times of day does.

I presume you're not against that ? If you are, then you must regard improvements to the InterCity network, up to and including HS2 as being of poor value for money, as not pricing to demand would drive a coach and horses through those business cases. That's the logic of your argument.

And issues such as reducing social isolation, encouraging active etc are important for people of all ages and well recognised. You will find them in any strategic needs assessment across the country.

It’d be amazing if 1.2 million different people were using the route each year!
1.2 million *journeys* a year is considerably different – one commuter may make four hundred and fifty journeys a year (e.g. a return journey Monday to Friday during forty five weeks of work) – much easier to think about it in terms of “departing passengers per day”.

I'm sorry, but this is a new one on me. We can't count repeat journeys as separate journeys now ? Even Beeching didn't try that one. It's a nonsense argument. What does my daily commute throughout the year count as ? Is that one journey or two, as sometimes I use the train to go shopping ?

Which journeys are repeat journeys and which ones aren't are neither here nore there. the day tripper contributes to economic activity on his journey going shopping, visiting tourist attractions etc. A commuter contributes to economic activity every day that he commutes by working.

Then take out the journeys that are “end to end” (i.e. passengers travelling all the way from Leeds to Carlisle, possibly as part of longer distance journeys which could be just as fast today via Manchester and even faster in a few years time when the Huddersfield line is electrified), which leaves the following "departing passengers per day" at intermediate stations:
Armathwaite......................13
Lazonby & Kirkoswald..........24
Langwathby........................34
Appleby.............................84
Kirkby Stephen...................43
Garsdale............................21
Dent..................................14
Ribblehead.........................26
Horton-in-Ribblesdale..........22

Whilst I appreciate that the information available to enthusiasts is at the “blunt” end of the spectrum, it should be possible to use ticket sales to work out what percentage of people on a lightly used branch line have journeys wholly contained on that line versus those going further afield, to assess whether there’d be much impact on the “wider network”

Goodness, you're worse at making your mind up than Bucks Fizz.
First we have to make sure there are enough people using the line as part of the wider network, otherwise we can get rid of it for a three hour bus journey presumably, then we have to discount all the longer distance journeys as they can crowd onto Trans Pennine Express (oh goody) instead. So basically:

If it's mainly longer distance travellers, it's a case to close it,

If it's mainly local travellers, it's a case to close it,

If it's mainly commuters, it's a case to close it,

If it's mainly tourists, it's a case to close it,

Presumably if both of the East and West Coast mainlines fell into the sea, that would be a case to close it as it would be unnecessary competition for the airline industry !

I don't think I've ever seen so many verbal contortions in one post to justify an unjustifiable position

(of which a number will be pensioners on heavily discounted jaunts - http://www.northernrail.org/tickets/Metro+WYPTE+-+Settle-Carlisle+Winter+Offers)

Considering a day out are we ?

Yes, but nobody wants to talk about how these costs can be cut – easier to blindly dismiss the subsidy figures as “inaccurate” and ignore whether there are any ways that we could run things more efficiently (which only makes the railway an easier target for other people to criticise).

I'm pretty sure we've had discussions about track access charges and rolling stock leasing, or perhaps I was imagining it ?

If British Rail had introduced some efficiencies in the 1950s then they wouldn’t have had branch lines where staff outnumbered passengers (given some of the stories about the numbers of full time employees on routes with only a handful of services a day), which would have made it harder to justify some of the cuts of the 1960s.
Failure to evolve in the 1950s meant that the railway was a bloated mess in the 1960s and unable to defend itself.

We're not talking about the 1950's. There aren't hoards of staff at Wennington or Bentham anymore. I guess you haven't been there for a while. I think there's someone at Appleby, but that's not many for a fairly big network of routes.

I’m interested in where you get your maths from, especially as many/most railway costs have risen by more than inflation (insurance, fuel, staff wages, infrastructure) – in line with similar increases in costs for broadly comparable bits of Government (e.g. road construction costs have gone up by more than inflation, BR existed in an era before “No Win No Fee” ambulance chasers, Safety legislation has made everything more complicated which has impacted upon costs).
Seriously, where is the huge saving to be found? (beyond some ramble about “middle managers” and “bureaucrats” – as if it’d be possible to run any organisation without such administration)
Everything is more complicated and expensive than in the 1980s – the idea that going back to British Rail means going back to a time without audits/ expensive modern safety requirements/ expensive modern construction techniques etc, a time back when final salary pension schemes were affordable and employment costs a lot cheaper, before Working Time Directives and modern employment law... It’s not a “public”/ “private” debate, it’s one about the modern world being more complicated and expensive than the 1980s..

Some things have got more expensive. Staff and signalling, trains. S&C and the Bentham route have a lot less of the first two than other parts of the network, and the last one is generally less expensive than on other parts of the railway. I bet you the track access charges don't reflect this.

And as you admit that the cost of infrastructure has gone up everywhere, how come you're not looking at cost savings on our vast road network ? Have you seen how many miles of road there are in the area compared to the lines West and North of Skipton ?

Of course more people would prefer a train (though my experience would argue with your comments about how a bus can’t be “guaranteed” and is “cramped” compared to a train – you must be very lucky in terms of only ever getting trains with generous legroom that are never delayed or cancelled! )...
...but that doesn’t mean a train is always the answer.
You have this habit of taking the most desirable outcome – which is generally the most expensive outcome - and then deciding that this *must* be the answer (regardless of the fact that the msot desirable outcome is usually the most expensive one and that other options may be more cost effective/ appropriate).

Having a railway network is generally going to be more expensive than not having one.

You have a habit of deciding that you want a smaller railway network, then coming up with every possible argument to try and justify it - even if, as in this thread, they contradict eachother.

I’m sure some villages would love to be on the railway map, but if their passenger numbers are can’t justify an Optare Solo then a DMU seems a fairly blunt and expensive instrument!

Not as blunt as an axe.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Sorry, but I am confused here. You want to take out the end to end journeys because there is another, longer route that involves additional changes? That's your logic for talking down the figures? That's the logic of an accountant tasked with closing the line. If only handfuls of people are using intermediate stations along the route, then then majority are on it for it's length. So if you take them off the S&C, and onto the Copy Pit or more likely TP they are going to be joining the many thousands already shoehorning onto those other services.

Just loosely looking at the figures, and assuming that those 1.2M journeys are returns, that would leave 600,000 each way per year. Now with 8 services Monday to Saturday each way (and 5 on a Sunday but I'll use the larger number here), that's 600,000/363 days (leaving out Christmas), divided again by the services a day giving us an average of 206 passengers per service. Certainly enough to warrant at least a 2 or 3 car 158 set per service (or a 2 car 158 + 1 153), maybe more. Now of course the actual number might be a bit lower, as at least some of those numbers will be on the steam specials, but even so it's hardly a lightly used service. And perhaps with a better frequency (not easy given the line & high freight usage) even more people might be inclined to use it.

You can dispute the figures if you wish, but every time I've been up and down the route it's always been well populated regardless of time of year, so much so that it's always wise to get to Carlisle nice and early for the return to maximise the chance of a seat on the way back. It's not been uncommon for it to be standing only for much of the route, which may go some way to explain why the intermediate stations have less footfall than they might.

And with events like Le Grande Depart last year and the new planned Tour De Yorkshire this year and into the future, this part of Yorkshire is hoping for many more tourists than ever before. And many of them may well opt to use the S&C to get to some of the more remote, and stunning parts of this region. Like it or not, the S&C is doing well and has the potential for more.



And perish the thought that service actually meet the needs of the community rather than those of the shareholders eh? It seems to me that you see the transport network as a single entity, whose design is purely to run at a profit. I see public transport as a service, connecting people with places of work and leisure. Having a well connected, joined up network has net benefits for the country as a whole. It can help reduce crippling congestion, encourage people to spend more pleasure time away from their homes and spending in local economies, and is far better for the environment.

But when the large bus companies consolidate much of their traffic onto main routes, they can actually discourage people from using them. Not everyone lives along trunk routes, and often it becomes easier to simply forget about public transport and join the ever growing numbers of cars carrying one person. I'm sorry that you can't see the logic beyond the accountant's bottom line.

An extremely well argued post.

 

[po8crg]

A town of 15,000 plus should have a railway station; in fact any sizeable community should.

Any suggestions where the trains should run to from St. Helier?

 

[Bantamzen]

Regarding Dent station - I'm sure it would attract a lot more footfall if it were actually nearer, er, Dent! What is the situation there these days, it's some distance to the village and Youth Hostal, so if anyone isn't walking/biking it's a high taxi fare.

But, are there any public transport links to that station when trains arrive, ir a train/taxi deal? Never seen anything regular - but not been in that area for years. A train ride and a pint in Dent are on the must-do list, so a bus back to the station would go down very well!

Sadly there is only a very limited service from Dent station down to the village and back. There's one that meets the 10:16 (ex 08:49 Leeds), and a return leaving Dent at 17:05 meeting the 17:32 back to Leeds, but it would at least give you time for a walk and a pint or three...

http://www.sedbergh.org.uk/travel/bus.html

It is a problem for a lot of rural areas around the Dales, many of the bus routes simply don't link in very well, or at all with the rail services. Hence few people use them for anything other than leisure. It's long been argued that more efforts should be made not only to allow inter-modal ticketing, but actually giving modes properly connect up to allow reasonable travel options.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Any suggestions where the trains should run to from St. Helier?

They used to run to Gorey on the East Jersey Railway and to a point near where the airport is now on the other Jersey Railway.
But it's not in the UK, so it's both very costly and outside of the ATOCs report. Today only a railway of Alderney and tourist railways exist on the so called Channel Islands.

 

[backontrack]

With the Leeds-Lancaster, it might been better financially to close it and continue running the service to Low Gill via Ingleton, Kirkby Lonsdale and Sedbergh. Not sure, though.

 

[CockneySparrow]

I would have though Donny-Lincoln, nowadays at least, could be justified strongly with its position as a frequent diversionary route for the ECML and taking an awful lot of freight.

And I agree with everyone else re: St Ives. It's an incredible testament to local and community rail, FGW and the users themselves just how much it has grown over the years. Suggestions of its bustitution are merely just someone looking on a map and going 'Oh my God it's so short!'.

The March to Spalding section should have been kept open although not Beeching that had it closed, it would have been ideal for freight missing Peterborough and would also benefit by stacking if it was needed
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History has clearly taught you very little, if indeed anything. The MML slow lines were singled or in some cases completely removed in the 1980's and are now being re-installed at great expense. The same can also be said for the route running through the Cotswolds.

Yes but once you offset the cost saved by them not being there for the last 30 years is there much difference in cost

Remember over the last 30 years the rails would have to be replaced totally anyway from wooden sleepers to concrete one, various upgrades in signalling also plus any other maintenance, not to mention line speed upgrades, then of course we come to vegetation, more than likely there would have been trees growing through the track by now so not only would these need to be removed but removed with track it situ

 

[Greenback]

We have to use a certain degree of estimates, guesswork and assumptions when it comes to opening new stations/ lines – there’s no guarantee that passenger numbers will be exactly as projected – so the same assumptions/approach could be applied to potential closures as we use for potential reopening?

The estimates are usually on the conservative side. How many reopenings have exceeded projected usage in the first few months? If the methodolgy is flawed, and in particular skewed towards suppressing the figures downwards, it doesn't really strike me as a good basis for assessing whether lines should be retained.

Whilst I appreciate that the information available to enthusiasts is at the “blunt” end of the spectrum, it should be possible to use ticket sales to work out what percentage of people on a lightly used branch line have journeys wholly contained on that line versus those going further afield, to assess whether there’d be much impact on the “wider network”.

The problem is that a lot of enthusiasts wont’ countenance any cuts because they are worried that pruning the most minor of branches will lead to another Serpell.

Isn't it also true that closure suggestions are opposed because of the flimsy basis on which they are proposed?

I'm sure that there are some who will oppose every closure on principle, and I can't blame them for sticking up for what they believe in, but I would support a closure proposal as long as it is clear that there would be significant savings in doing so and that users would not be disadvantaged in terms of fares, connectivity, speed or frequency of service.

Of course, to reach that conclusion the figures used to calculate costs would have to be reliable and accurate, so they would have to be in the ;public domain and challenged or scrutinised where necessary.

My problem is that I haven't seen anything of the sort. Passengers numbers and station usage statistics can serve as a guide, but they themselves cannot be used as a basis for such decisions without consideration of overall revenue, and such things as the actual cost of operating whatever line or section of route that's under discussion.

 

[Passenger John]

My problem is that I haven't seen anything of the sort. Passengers numbers and station usage statistics can serve as a guide, but they themselves cannot be used as a basis for such decisions without consideration of overall revenue, and such things as the actual cost of operating whatever line or section of route that's under discussion.

I was chatting to a couple of guys servicing the ticket machine at my small village halt (Shepreth) yesterday, and they were saying that ONLY tickets sold from this machine (and not even online tickets collected from it or delivered by post) would count towards the station's revenue. I asked what about some of the longer journeys I made from the station using advance tickets bought on the internet and again they said they don't count towards usage figures or revenue. So how can you assess what contribution a small local station makes towards the overall usage of the network. If (and I know it would never happen) Shepreth was closed then what would be the loss towards the network as a whole, as I and several other local people would have no alternative but to use their cars?

 

[Greenback]

I'm not sure that you been given the correct information, sorry.

 

[Passenger John]

I'm not sure that you been given the correct information, sorry.

Please can you put me to right then, love to know the correct information.

 

[Greenback]

Please can you put me to right then, love to know the correct information.

I don't know for sure, but I've always understood that the usage figures, although not perfect for a variety of reasons, include all tickets sold to and from a particular station through all channels. All ticket data is uploaded so that revenue can be allocated through ORCATS.

The discrepancies, as far as I'm aware, arise through things like season tickets, rovers/rangers, and group stations such as Dorchester, where the figures for West used to be far too low due to tickets being issued from Dorchester Stations and included under South as a result.

I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, as I don't consider myself an expert on these figures. I just don't think that the people who spoke tom you are either.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Regarding Dent station - I'm sure it would attract a lot more footfall if it were actually nearer, er, Dent! What is the situation there these days, it's some distance to the village and Youth Hostal, so if anyone isn't walking/biking it's a high taxi fare.

But, are there any public transport links to that station when trains arrive, ir a train/taxi deal? Never seen anything regular - but not been in that area for years. A train ride and a pint in Dent are on the must-do list, so a bus back to the station would go down very well!

You could always walk down the Coal Road into Cowgill and have a pint at the Sportsman's. Its also not too far to walk to Arten Gill viaduct where if you're feeling fit you can then walk up the hill and over to the Coal Road. Done that many times!

Incidentally the YHA sadly closed several years a go although it was actually much closer to the station at Cowgill then the village is. The YHA is now a privately run hostel but its rates are really only suitable for large groups of people.
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It’d be amazing if 1.2 million different people were using the route each year!

1.2 million *journeys* a year is considerably different – one commuter may make four hundred and fifty journeys a year (e.g. a return journey Monday to Friday during forty five weeks of work) – much easier to think about it in terms of “departing passengers per day”.

Then take out the journeys that are “end to end” (i.e. passengers travelling all the way from Leeds to Carlisle, possibly as part of longer distance journeys which could be just as fast today via Manchester and even faster in a few years time when the Huddersfield line is electrified), which leaves the following "departing passengers per day" at intermediate stations:

Armathwaite......................13
Lazonby & Kirkoswald..........24
Langwathby........................34
Appleby.............................84
Kirkby Stephen...................43
Garsdale............................21
Dent..................................14
Ribblehead.........................26
Horton-in-Ribblesdale..........22

(of which a number will be pensioners on heavily discounted jaunts - http://www.northernrail.org/tickets/Metro+WYPTE+-+Settle-Carlisle+Winter+Offers)

Do you have to be a pensioner to hold a MetroCard? Incidentally if you are alighting or joining the train at Garsdale, Dent or Ribblehead you are either planning a walk in the Fells or you are a local. Indeed the same could be said for Horton. Granted there is the Station Inn at Ribblehead and of course the viaduct but in general you don't off at those stations and hang about, even in summer as the next train is not due for another two hours.

 

[47802]

I'm sure that there are some who will oppose every closure on principle, and I can't blame them for sticking up for what they believe in, but I would support a closure proposal as long as it is clear that there would be significant savings in doing so and that users would not be disadvantaged in terms of fares, connectivity, speed or frequency of service.

If you say no one is disadvantaged by a closure in any shape or form then nothing will ever close so cannot agree with that, yes I'm sure some people will be disadvantaged by a closure but it depends how many and you would have to make a judgement on that, so yes possibly some people might be disadvantaged but frankly that's tough.

 

[Greenback]

If you say no one is disadvantaged by a closure in any shape or form then nothing will ever close so cannot agree with that, yes I'm sure some people will be disadvantaged by a closure but it depends how many and you would have to make a judgement on that, so yes possibly some people might be disadvantaged but frankly that's tough.

Note that I did note state that the disadvantage should be general, it applies to particular areas of service/ It does not mean that speed and frequency shoudl remain exactly the same, but that they should not be substantially worse. For instance, if a rail journey to a major regional centre or connectional point takes 30 mins by rail, a 40 minute bus journey instead would be acceptable, but not anything more than an hour, or twice the previous time.

All I want is protection put in place so that replacement bus services, as has been mooted when lines close, retain through fares and a similar level of service that the railway provides. Again, my example would be that four trains per day could be replaced by four buses, but it wouldn't be acceptable to replace eighteen trains a day with four buses.

In some cases, sufficient alternatives may already exist, but as far as I'm concerned, these things have to be looked at when a closure is being considered. If they aren't, then the process is not fit for purpose.

My wording originally may not have been the best, so I'm happy to expand and hopefully clarify my meaning.

 

[Passenger John]

I don't know for sure, but I've always understood that the usage figures, although not perfect for a variety of reasons, include all tickets sold to and from a particular station through all channels. All ticket data is uploaded so that revenue can be allocated through ORCATS.

The discrepancies, as far as I'm aware, arise through things like season tickets, rovers/rangers, and group stations such as Dorchester, where the figures for West used to be far too low due to tickets being issued from Dorchester Stations and included under South as a result.

I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, as I don't consider myself an expert on these figures. I just don't think that the people who spoke tom you are either.

Thanks for that, reassures me then that I am infact able to support my local station.

 

[Bantamzen]

Do you have to be a pensioner to hold a MetroCard? Incidentally if you are alighting or joining the train at Garsdale, Dent or Ribblehead you are either planning a walk in the Fells or you are a local. Indeed the same could be said for Horton. Granted there is the Station Inn at Ribblehead and of course the viaduct but in general you don't off at those stations and hang about, even in summer as the next train is not due for another two hours.

A Metrocard is the weekly / monthly/ annual season ticket for West Yorkshire. So few if any pensioners will have them. Most Metrocard holders will be regular commuters within the county.

 

[Greenback]

Thanks for that, reassures me then that I am infact able to support my local station.

When I worked on the railway, some managers used to tell passengers they should buy tickets at their local station instead of from us (in Reading) otherwise their ticket offices may close. I think that's where some misunderstanding may creep in for the rail staff you spoke to.

Tickets bought on the internet or at another station, over the phone etc, won't count towards the figures that are looked at when decisions need to be made about ticket office opening hours, or closing the office altogether. But I've always understood that it's a separate issue to station usage figures.

 

[glbotu]

Again, my example would be that four trains per day could be replaced by four buses.........

Or 12, given the differing capacity between a train and a bus.

Actually, an interesting question. What would be the cost of this matching, compared with running a railway service.

Let's assume that we're running a 100 capacity pacer along a route, 4 trains per day each way. Compared with running 12 buses per day each way with a bus of 30 capacity.

(Obviously this question could depend on the length of the route, but if we assume that 4 tpd each way is run by a "there and back service" twice in the morning and twice in the evening and the bus is still offering a similar service 6 there and back in the morning, 6 in the evening).

 

[Greenback]

Or 12, given the differing capacity between a train and a bus.

My assumption is that a closure would only be put forward if there weren't many passengers using the trains that were running. But you never know...

Actually, an interesting question. What would be the cost of this matching, compared with running a railway service.

Let's assume that we're running a 100 capacity pacer along a route, 4 trains per day each way. Compared with running 12 buses per day each way with a bus of 30 capacity.

(Obviously this question could depend on the length of the route, but if we assume that 4 tpd each way is run by a "there and back service" twice in the morning and twice in the evening and the bus is still offering a similar service 6 there and back in the morning, 6 in the evening).

This is what makes assessing the costs of running a line so complicated. You'd have to consider whether the train crew costs of running a limited service can be completely allocated tot hat line. If traincrew diagrams involve other lines,a s they almost always do, what proportion of the costs are actually directly attributable to the line in question? And if the line did close, what would be the actual saving in staff costs?

That's before you start looking at anything else like track access charges, leasing charges and the like.

 

[Passenger John]

When I worked on the railway, some managers used to tell passengers they should buy tickets at their local station instead of from us (in Reading) otherwise their ticket offices may close. I think that's where some misunderstanding may creep in for the rail staff you spoke to.

Tickets bought on the internet or at another station, over the phone etc, won't count towards the figures that are looked at when decisions need to be made about ticket office opening hours, or closing the office altogether. But I've always understood that it's a separate issue to station usage figures.

I don't know wether Shepreth being unstaffed would make any difference.

 

[Greenback]

I don't know wether Shepreth being unstaffed would make any difference.

I'm not referring specifically to Shepreth, more that whoever you spoke to may have got a little muddled had they been told something previously about ticket office usage statistics. It could have been a case of chinese whispers, that happens a lot on the railway!

 

[duffield]

Just to complicate things, I would say that if your local station is lightly used, it's a good thing to buy from that local station's ticket office even if you don't need to, and don't care whether it has a ticket office, because if the ticket office closes this may put other people off from travelling from that station at all (even if it's just a handful) and undermine its overall viability. I.e. although the ticket office revenue vs online revenue etc. doesn't directly affect station closure it may indirectly affect it in the long term!

Also it's possible that buying from the ticket office may bring more revenue to the railway; buying online probably involves giving a commission to someone else which will reduce the revenue to the railway.

 

[bavvo]

Just to complicate things, I would say that if your local station is lightly used, it's a good thing to buy from that local station's ticket office even if you don't need to, and don't care whether it has a ticket office, because if the ticket office closes this may put other people off from travelling from that station at all (even if it's just a handful) and undermine its overall viability. I.e. although the ticket office revenue vs online revenue etc. doesn't directly affect station closure it may indirectly affect it in the long term!

Also it's possible that buying from the ticket office may bring more revenue to the railway; buying online probably involves giving a commission to someone else which will reduce the revenue to the railway.

I wonder if there would be some value in combining rural post offices with rural ticket offices? Might be a way to share overheads and improve the viability of both. Could also be a backdoor way to get some parcel traffic back on rail.

 

[Grumpy]

With the Leeds-Lancaster, it might been better financially to close it and continue running the service to Low Gill via Ingleton, Kirkby Lonsdale and Sedbergh. Not sure, though.

Nearly right. The Low Gill route should have been kept and the S&C shut north of Settle. Considerably more passenger potential from the stations mentioned.

Leeds-Lancaster should have continued on the old route via Green Ayre to Castle , with the Wennington-Carnforth line shut.