What should the missions for the new BR be?

[HSTEd]

At the end of BR "Intercity" was in profit. I've no doubt that if Intercity services where hived off again that it would generate a profit, one that could hopefully subsidise the loss making regional stuff.

I doubt it, the railway's cost position has deteriorated substantially since then.
Once you make provision for the costs born indirectly through support to Network Rail, all of the TOCs are loss making - even the "pure" intercity ones.

Of the franchised operators, even ignoring the extra subsidies to Network Rail, only East Anglia is not in net subsidy. With the extra Network Rail subsidies noone will even be close.

 

[irish_rail]

I doubt it, the railway's cost position has deteriorated substantially since then.
Once you make provision for the costs born indirectly through support to Network Rail, all of the TOCs are loss making - even the "pure" intercity ones.

Of the franchised operators, even ignoring the extra subsidies to Network Rail, only East Anglia is not in net subsidy. With the extra Network Rail subsidies noone will even be close.

But how much of this is due to suppressed demand. XC is the classic case in point. If we had (heaven forbid) say a loco and could just build plenty of cheap unpowered coaches , we could actually attract far more money onto the railway by making it affordable and an attractive travel choice. It just isn't for so many people at the moment. Was recently chatting to two women who work in a coffee shop. One gets the coach to London as train too much and the other simply can't afford the 300 odd quid it would cost her to visit her father in Blackpool. There are so so many people out there willing to use the train, but are currently priced out, and that's the fault of the industry over past 25 years focusing on fun sized all singing all dancing trains when simple, and comfortable would have been better.

 

[Meerkat]

At the end of BR "Intercity" was in profit. I've no doubt that if Intercity services where hived off again that it would generate a profit, one that could hopefully subsidise the loss making regional stuff.

Depends what fares they are allowed to charge……

XC has to have the potential to be. The high fares and short trains must significantly suppress demand.

It’s pretty complicated so must cost a lot to run, and must do a lot of empty seat miles at the fringes (geographically and time of day terms)

 

[Trainbike46]

GBRs objectives will be
Cost the Treasury less
Stay out of the papers

There may of course be a difference between what you expect will happen and what you want to happen - and if so, potentially you could say both and specify which is which

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2024 ==

I doubt it, the railway's cost position has deteriorated substantially since then.
Once you make provision for the costs born indirectly through support to Network Rail, all of the TOCs are loss making - even the "pure" intercity ones.

Of the franchised operators, even ignoring the extra subsidies to Network Rail, only East Anglia is not in net subsidy. With the extra Network Rail subsidies noone will even be close.

I thought both GA and LNER returned a net premium to goverment, though obviously in both cases there are subsidies to NR to consider?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2024 ==

Depends what fares they are allowed to charge……

It’s pretty complicated so must cost a lot to run, and must do a lot of empty seat miles at the fringes (geographically and time of day terms)

you could estimate empty seat miles from passenger-km and vehicle-km, if you are willing to assume average seats per vehicle. Though ideally you'd have separate stats for the 170-routes and the 22x-routes

 

[HSTEd]

I thought both GA and LNER returned a net premium to goverment, though obviously in both cases there are subsidies to NR to consider?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2024 ==

In the most recent figures LNER (ORR 'Table 7223 – Franchised Passenger Train Operator Finances by Franchise(latest year)') clocks up a net subsidy (excluding hidden NR money) of ~£85m per year.
It is far from the money spinner it was before coronavirus.

 

[Trainbike46]

In the most recent figures LNER (ORR 'Table 7223 – Franchised Passenger Train Operator Finances by Franchise(latest year)') clocks up a net subsidy (excluding hidden NR money) of ~£85m per year.
It is far from the money spinner it was before coronavirus.

thank you for that, always good to have my knowledge updated! For anyone else looking, this covers the April 2022 to March 2023.

by dividing the total income less expenditure row by the passenger-km row, you can calculate average subsidy per passenger km in pence, which gives some surprises:

GB Total (£ million)

Caledonian Sleeper (£ million)

Chiltern (£ million)

Cross Country (£ million)

East Anglia (£ million)

East Coast (LNER) (£ million)

East Midlands (£ million)

Elizabeth line (£ million)

Essex Thameside (c2c) (£ million)

Great Western (£ million)

London Overground (£ million)

Merseyrail (£ million)

Northern (£ million)

ScotRail (£ million)

South Eastern (£ million)

South Western (£ million)

Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (GTR) (£ million)

TransPennine Express (£ million)

Wales and Borders (TfW Rail) (£ million)

West Coast (£ million)

West Midlands (£ million)

-8.13​

-19.83​

-1.71​

-6.54​

1.34​

-1.42​

-5.05​

-11.89​

-8.10​

-7.59​

-12.46​

-23.91​

-24.01​

-33.96​

-12.53​

-3.98​

-4.06​

-17.75​

-26.86​

-1.20​

-11.53​

 

[ac6000cw]

If we had (heaven forbid) say a loco and could just build plenty of cheap unpowered coaches ,

Even 'unpowered coaches' aren't cheap any more - the only thing they lose compared to an MU vehicle is the power equipment, the cost of which ends up in the loco instead. Railway passenger vehicles are expensive to build partly because the labour content is high (think about all those interior fittings and furnishings that have to be hand installed due to space and access limitations).

and that's the fault of the industry over past 25 years focusing on fun sized all singing all dancing trains when simple, and comfortable would have been better.

But apart from the IETs (and FLIRTs) most of what's been built are simple EMUs and DMUs as replacements for old BR-era trains and for capacity upgrades. There's been over 2700 Electrostar and over 2000 Desiro & Desiro City EMU carriages alone built since privatisation. Those are not 'all singing and dancing' trains, just the modern equivalents of the standard EMUs of old. Adding the post-privatisation DMUs and more recent Aventra EMUs (around 2600 carriages) and CAF trains would add considerably to the total of 'simple' passenger vehicles.

That total completely dwarfs the number of 'all singing and dancing' IET carriages built to date, for example (according to the Hitachi UK website, there are 182 IETs 'in service', which if you assume an average length of 7 vehicles per train that's around 1300 carriages).

So no, the industry hasn't been focused on 'fun sized all singing all dancing trains' for the past 25 years - it's mostly been ordering boring basic stuff.

 

[HSTEd]

I have some sympathy with the idea that buying less fancy units would have improved the railways financial position over the previous couple of decades.

But I'd suggest that, far from ordering loco hauled stock, what should have happened was simply ordering a pile more Turbostars instead of the 175s, 185s and 220s.