Two of the busiest lines shut

[Tom]

Pendos are operating LM services too?

 

[matt]

And desiros and 321s but it appears that djw1981 referring mainly to Virgin services

 

[djw1981]

I thought Wembley was a stabling / cleaning base and not a full depot for Pendo's?

 

[AlexS]

Pathing the extra trains on the MML might not screw things up but when you divert lots of trains via Sheffield to Manchester you increase the journey times and therefore the unit requirement.

Not to mention pulling a lot of crews out of your hat. And screwing up the timetable for every other station on the line.

Chiltern however seem to be quite merrily running 8 carriage sets about.

 

[Metroland]

I bet they are pleased they re-doubled the Chiltern Lines and put 4 aspect signals in between Leamington and Banbury now..

 

[crewmeal]

Whats wrong with bringing back Cl 47's 60's + Mk2/3 rolling stock to cover? Most drivers are checked out on these anyway.

Yet again the traveling public have suffer due to the lack of attention to detail. Surely Virgin and Network Rail talk to each other, why didn't they see this coming?

 

[33056]

Whats wrong with bringing back Cl 47's 60's + Mk2/3 rolling stock to cover? Most drivers are checked out on these anyway.

You can put the rose tinted glasses away .

There are many drivers these days who have never worked on the older stuff and, even if they had, most TOCs will make them take "non core" traction and routes off their cards. There is next to no chance of, for example, any WCML Virgin Trains driver signing via the ECML, MML or GW and even if they were to be sent route learning, it would take several weeks per driver.

 

[Metroland]

I suppose at least some of the comments here aren't as bad as some other websites:

This is disgusting, shareholder profits again before the public, renationalise the lot.

Er, Network rail is a government backed not for Profit Company, there are no shareholders. The profits are reinvested in the network and to go to pay the huge loans off when we bought it back from the shareholders.

There is no competition, it's a complete monopoly

Yes there is, it's called the car, plane and coach. Chiltern Railways also runs parallel services to the West coast main line.

I always use my car, it only costs X in fuel to get to London

When you add the costs of the vehicle, servicing, breakdown cover, fuel, parking and insurance, it's rarely cheaper than the train for one person. Usually around 50p per mile, sometimes much more. All the figures are published in 'What car', for example. http://www.whatcar.co.uk/car-review-costs.aspx?RT=2732&ED=51619&U=0

Manchester to London fare is so expensive, how can anyone afford to travel?

The full open return is, but very few people pay it and it's designed for business travellers who need to travel during the peak. Perhaps some of the full fares are too expensive, but 85% of people travel on discounted fares, for not much more than a tenner on that route in some cases. The average fare on national rail is around £4.40 and on Northern Rail around £2.35. We could have cheaper travel during the peak, but that would lead to overcrowding, and there is little point in buying more infrastructure if it is not used during off-peak hours. Indeed, it's the empty off peak trains is why some railways need subsidy. We would be much better smoothing all our transport demand through price or staggering working hours.

I never use the train, it's so unreliable. I'll stick to my car and the plane

Well the M3 was closed for hours yesterday, and millions of hours are lost on congested roads, many of which cannot be improved around cities because of space limitations. All industrialised countries have much the same problem, even in Japan where rail has a 42% modal share. Airline timekeeping is around 20% worse than rail.

I suppose if people repeat it enough they start to believe these things. Meanwhile everyone is quite welcome to go and check all I have written above. Perhaps these people get all their ‘facts’ from the tabloid newspapers, or are members of the road lobby? While our railways aren't perfect (indeed far from it at Rugby which is indeed an almighty cock-up) banding around lies and mis-truths isn't helpful.

The only issue I generally have, and I think people should concern themselves with is why the privatised railway is costing much more than BR. But a good deal of that is down to risk aversion and a poor structure thought up by economists not railwaymen.

 

[me123]

Most people don't look at the bigger picture. That lady on the EMT reservation debate (BBC news) was hilarious. She blamed EMT for a broken car parking machine which made her miss her train, and therefore it was their fault that she did not have a seat reservation. (I fail to make any conncetion in that at all!)

 

[Metroland]

I have to say the industry is pretty bad at PR, which is one of the reasons they (and we as enthusiasts) get so much stick because people attack them with mis-truths. In all fairness nobody expects the little old lady who occasionally travels by train to understand the workings of a complex industry. But where are the industry people out defending or promoting? Instead they are taking out full page adverts in newspapers to blame industry colleagues (Hello Virgin). Don’t they understand it’s very bad for morale to have the industry as a whole run down, it also makes it difficult to attract the right people in future!?

So I suppose it is left to us enthusiasts. But that’s not the way it should be, other industries spin their performance far better than it is in reality. I can think of at least one other transport concern that does that. While I’m not saying we should go down that road, we should at least aim to neutralise the lies that are put about.

 

[gordonthemoron]

What is forgotten, is that BR was the most cost effective railway in europe if not the world.

Mind, that's the reason why ECML electrification is so dodgy

 

[djw1981]

The one thing a car gives is choice. If the M1 is blocked, I can choose to drive via A1, country lanes, A5,A38 etc. This option is not there on a train because even if a diversion exists, the driver and rolling stock must be able to traverse it, and there may not be paths etc.

 

[Mojo]

Don't forget as well, many people have their cars for another reason. I know that even if I didn't do a motorway drive three times a month I would still have my car for the shopping, visiting others locally and getting to the station. Therefore I have to ask the relavance of including the cost of insurance. My drive to Birmingham (70 miles) is always going to be cheaper (and quicker - traffic permitting) than the train unless I can get the £6.60 with Y-P advance ticket each way *and* I can get collected from the local station.

 

[Metroland]

Well thanks for the support guys about how good your cars are. This wasn't actually an anti car debate, it was about how people base their opinions on hot air and consequently shape public opinion and transport policy, not always for the greater good.

I was actually trying to inject a bit of balance into the debate.

 

[Mojo]

Of course there are plenty of hidden costs with the car and most cars with one passenger are rarely cheaper to drive, especially if you're going into City Centres with parking costs, not to mention the loss of productivity for business passengers and the overall costs for business and the economy directly attributed to traffic congestion and indirectly in sickness costs as a result of stress, accidents and pollution.

 

[me123]

^ it really depends on how much you travel. For me, the train would be cheaper as I don't travel too much on business. But for some, the lack of flexability associated with AP tickets, the cost of open tickets, and the overall distance they travel will mean it's cheaper to take the car. Fair enough.

And remember, there is a lot of snobbery. It may cost more for privacy, but it's worth it. And in many cases, the people can write-off the additional cost as an expense.

 

[Metroland]

Network Rail has said that all the contractors involved in the Christmas-New Year engineering blockade at Rugby which has overun by four days will be the sbject of a major review.

Network Rail confirmed during the afternoon on Thursday 3 January that the work at Rugby would be completed and the West Coast route reopen for services first thing on Friday morning.

Iain Coucher, Chief Executive, said: "I can confirm that trains will start to run normally on the West Coast again from tomorrow. I can take no comfort from this news in the knowledge of the pain and inconvenience we have caused passengers over the past few days. I know that we have let passengers down with the over-run at Rugby. "An investigation into the causes of the over-run has been launched and I will be chairing a high-level meeting next week to review what's happened. I will be summoning our project managers, Bechtel, and the principal contractors involved to attend so they can personally explain to me what has gone wrong. They gave me assurances before Christmas on which they have not delivered. I want answers from them. The railway will be back tomorrow but the work is far from done. We have a significant programme for developing and expanding the railway over the coming years and we have to make certain that it is carried out to plan."

• The £415m work at Rugby / Nuneaton forms part of a bigger scheme that looks to significantly increase the frequency and journey time of services on the West Coast Main Line from December 2008.

• The work at Rugby over the Christmas break was a vital component to the overall scheme introducing new tracks, and enabling the next stages of work to commence as planned.

• The work at Rugby over Christmas included:
+ Installing over 5km of overhead line
+ Bringing into use 5.3km of new track
+ Bringing into use 15 new sets of points
+ Installing two new sets of points
+ Bringing into use 18 new signals
+ Making 16 new track connections
+ Demolishing a mini-signal box
+ Removing 11 sections of overhead wire and moving a further 14
+ Removing four signalling gantries
+ Installing nine new signalling 'booster' cabinets

 

[Tom B]

Remember also that there's a lot of journeys you can't do by public transport - or are impractical. A 30 minute car journey around here could only be done on public transport by a bus, a train, a 40 minute wait, another train, then a 3 mile walk - around 2 and a half hours.

This shows how bad the fragmented railway can be, in that crews are only trained on the bare minimum, stocks are only designed/insured/passed/whatever for the bare minimum etc.

 

[Metroland]

Well a lot is in planning. People used to live around radial routes, live in walkable communities, shops and commerce used to be in town centres and there used to be a lot more bus and train lines. Towns also used to have more dense populations, and there was a noticeable difference between town and country.

But of course it was all ripped out in the 1950s/60s as people bought cars, leaving those that couldn't afford them disadvantaged and creating the congestion, health, energy and environmental problems we have now.

 

[voyagerdude220]

Guess who got hugely caught up in the chaos yesterday?

I've published a very large page about my journey on my currently one & only blog, if anyone is interested.

 

[djw1981]

People also used to live near where they work and commuted short distances (10 miles or so maximum). However the railways, and later the car brought freedom and an ability to live in one place (near family, friends, or scenery / amenities) and work in another. Thus we now have Doncaster & York in the London commuter area, and the M62 / M8 / M6 as busy in each direction at rush hour as people from connurbation A drive to connurbation B for work whilst those from B drive to A. Madness! Ditto for the trains in the aforementioned places. It is no longer people commuting into a city from the suburbs, but from one city to another.

 

[Metroland]

Railways to sack private engineers

Network Rail is to take another step towards renationalisation by stripping its contractors of responsibility for some key upgrades and taking much of the work in-house.

..Iain Coucher, Network Rail’s chief executive, is understood to be furious with Bechtel, the coordinating contractor for the upgrade at Rugby. The project should have been completed by New Year’s Eve but overran by four days, severing the West Coast Main Line and forcing more than 50,000 people a day to catch replacement buses. The contractors failed to supply enough qualified engineers to replace overhead lines, forcing Network Rail to step in and take over from Bechtel on New Year’s Eve...

A senior Network Rail source said: “We are absolutely seething about some of our leading contractors, notably Bechtel, which completely failed to deliver on repeated promises given before Christmas.

The Rail Regulator is investigating what went wrong at Rugby and also at Liverpool Street, used by more than 200,000 passengers a day....Network Rail claimed that it had been unaware of any problem at Liverpool Street until 1am on Wednesday, less than four hours before the lines were due to reopen. The company said that its contractors had failed to keep it up to date with their progress, especially in replacing overhead power lines.

Mr Coucher, who was belatedly called in last night by Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, to explain what went wrong, has himself summoned Bechtel and other leading contractors to a high-level meeting next week.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3129370.ece

 

[djw1981]

This being the same Bechjtel who are praised for their hands on management of Tube Lines which helped it avoid the fate of Metronet, whilst still not being up to date with it's infraco plans........

Network Rail claimed that it had been unaware of any problem at Liverpool Street until 1am on Wednesday, less than four hours before the lines were due to reopen. The company said that its contractors had failed to keep it up to date with their progress, especially in replacing overhead power lines.

SO NR's idea of supervision is to wait to be told. Surely NR should have had the project managers on the ground throughout the project.....

 

[Coxster]

Overhead wire problems at Rugby - let's see if this develops any further

Some of you may be pleased to note that saver restrictions have been lifted from today up to and including Tuesday 8th.

 

[Tom]

Short term class 90 bash anyone?