What would you do?

[A0]

Returning to having a singular company operating the British railway does not mean we can’t learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes, just like how we can learn from the more recent past to avoid current issues (Such as the lack of a plan to replace rolling stock that is near end of their designed service life is putting our nation’s capacity to manufacture new rolling stock at risk, and 10 year old EMUs being stuck in storage for the foreseeable future due to no operator wanting them due to high leasing costs.) happening again in future

Except the first of those *did* happen under BR - life expired 1st gen DMUs which had no plan to replace with the result underpowered 31/4s were put to use on cross country services for which they were ill equipped.

The big difference now, is where BR "bought and owned" the stock and therefore had to find a use for it, the 10 year old units in store are owned by the leasing company, so it costs the rail network nothing to have them unused. The leasing companies have to work out whether that's good business - ultimately they will either have to drop the lease cost, sell or scrap the asset, but that's not a concern of the TOCs.

 

[mike57]

Quite a lot here, not sure how far the money would stretch

Set up an in house electification department/undertaking
Begin with a few easy infill projects
Complete 'half finished' electrification projects, GWML, MML, TPE.
Then move on and electrify the major cross country and secondary routes. A rolling program keeping teams and knowledge in place.

Increase train length on all currently over crowded routes where possible. Network capacity is limited, but there are still lots of locations with less than optimum length units running around which wastes capacity
Draw up 'UK' rolling stock specification requirements to ensure that all future stock is interoperable within sector, i.e. Inter City, Regional, Suburban/Metro. Future trains then bought to a detailed specification rather than the lowest price which then results in lots of micro fleets, with higher quality interiors for long distance stock. (which will form part of the spec).

Move all currently OLR operators into GBR, and as franchises expire bring them in as well.
Ticketing to be national, apart from open access operators no ToC specific ticketing. Ticketing simplified. Apart from Seasons and rovers reduce ticket types to 3, Anytime, Offpeak and Advance. Remove the need for split tickets, booking engine proposes tickets at the lowest fare for the journey. Look at the pence/mile of all journeys and try and reduce anomolies over time. Target of fare reform should be revenue neutral.

And a one that may start a debate, move all employees onto nationally agreed terms and conditions, and set up training and development facilities to ensure that current and future manpower requirement can be met. Set workplace and management targets to ensure that the railways are career of choice.

All public facing activity is 'GBR' even if private contractors still operate behind the scenes

 

[Ken H]

Remove as many level crossings as possible.
Electrify more of W Yorks. The tangle of lines that includes Leeds - Knottingley, Leeds - Wakefield via Normanton and Leeds Sheffield via Barnsley and via Wakefield Westgate.

 

[JLH4AC]

Except the first of those *did* happen under BR - life expired 1st gen DMUs which had no plan to replace with the result underpowered 31/4s were put to use on cross country services for which they were ill equipped.

The big difference now, is where BR "bought and owned" the stock and therefore had to find a use for it, the 10 year old units in store are owned by the leasing company, so it costs the rail network nothing to have them unused. The leasing companies have to work out whether that's good business - ultimately they will either have to drop the lease cost, sell or scrap the asset, but that's not a concern of the TOCs.



That is a very naive view of how business works and suggests your experiences are limited.

While BR did often fail to have plans to replace ageing rolling stock it did not happen to the scale it is happening now, back then both private and state manufacturers had a relatively steady stream of orders from BR that kept them relatively safe as going concerns, also BR failure to replace ageing rolling stock often came down to underinvestment in the railway (Investment in the Uk's for the vast of majority of the time since 1950s have lagged behind European railways.) is proven by the most of the First Generation rolling stock being replaced within the first 10 years of privatisation due to how much extra yet uneven investment that came in from private and foreign state sources.

The Class 379s (Which are EMUs in question) were ordered by National Express using £155 million that came from the Government meaning that by just sitting in storage they are in effect wasting public investment that could have been used to order rolling stock that is more heavily used (Also further put in question why are the Roscos are needed.) and delays in them being cascaded to other routes is preventing older stock that is more costly to operate from being scraped or exported. Govia Thameslink and Porterbrook have recently announced that they are now planning to operate them on Great Northern however it is unknown when they will enter service and that would still be at least 2 and half years where they sat in storage doing nothing of value and there being no foreseeable plans to do anything with them for the bulk of that time, also without major reform how the train ownership/leasing works it will happen again when the time comes to cascade them or another costly uint.

What I have posted regarding accounting issues on this thread is simplified thus it likely does seem naive to some but as this is basely a wish fulfilment thread does not warrant it being more complex. My view is one that is publicly shared by many such as Tony Danker former Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, Dr George Dibb associate director for economic policy and head of the Centre for Economic Justice at IPPR, Stian Westlake Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council, and Gareth Dennis engineer and transport systems and policy writer/lecturer, they have all highlighted issues with allowing finance departments to directly influence non-financial matters especially in relation to the Treasury having undue power over fiscal and economic matters (These matters are the responsibility of other departments in other developed economies.) and the activities of the other departments.

 

[rf_ioliver]

I'd find a £20bn project and charge £5bn in consultancy.

You got that the wrong way around... 20bn in consultancy and 5bn in a project...more specifically project planning and analysis with the outcome that it costs too much (due to consultancy costs).

Seriously though. Camarthen-Aberystwyth for a start, then continue the Treherbert line back around to Neath and reinstate a few more of the valley services, eg: Sirhowy etc - also cross valley lines, eg: Pontypridd-Caerffili-Machen amd also via Nelson. LOTS of plans

 

[Topological]

1. Buy land in North West Manchester, East Glasgow and West Stoke. Focusing here on brownfield with planning options.

2. Obtain running rights on HS2 between Old Oak Common and near Handsacre. Maybe Euston, but see 6a

3. Obtain paths on the WCML between Lancaster and Motherwell(ish)

4. Build a line through West Stoke towards Manchester Airport then on to North West Manchester to ultimately pass to the East of Preston and join the WCML. A second short stub would leave the WCML before the Glasgow suburbs and reach my area of East Glasgow. Stations would be located on the land I bought.

5. Develop the land around my HST stops (I can buy that acronym if needed). Profit from said investment given the excellent connections to London that these new areas have compared to their surrounds (My North West Manchester station will beat Piccadilly - London significantly). New suburbs to be high density mixed use and tailored to future life style.

6a. Invest profits from 5 in connecting to Heathrow using the passive provision HS2 made
6b. Charge HS2 to run trains over my link to Heathrow in the London direction (that may get offset in 2)

7 Continue a rolling process of investment in edge of centre locations in other cities and connect with HS lines.

8. Build additional capacity for HS2 to ensure no bottlenecks emerge from my trains.

All being well I should be profitable at the end of all of that.

 

[A0]

While BR did often fail to have plans to replace ageing rolling stock it did not happen to the scale it is happening now, back then both private and state manufacturers had a relatively steady stream of orders from BR that kept them relatively safe as going concerns, also BR failure to replace ageing rolling stock often came down to underinvestment in the railway (Investment in the Uk's for the vast of majority of the time since 1950s have lagged behind European railways.) is proven by the most of the First Generation rolling stock being replaced within the first 10 years of privatisation due to how much extra yet uneven investment that came in from private and foreign state sources.

The Class 379s (Which are EMUs in question) were ordered by National Express using £155 million that came from the Government meaning that by just sitting in storage they are in effect wasting public investment that could have been used to order rolling stock that is more heavily used (Also further put in question why are the Roscos are needed.) and delays in them being cascaded to other routes is preventing older stock that is more costly to operate from being scraped or exported. GOVIA THAMESLINK and Porterbrook have recently announced that they are now planning to operate them on Thameslink however it is unknown when they will enter service and that would still be at least 2 and half years where they sat in storage doing nothing of value and there being no foreseeable plans to do anything with them for the bulk of that time, also without major reform how the train ownership/leasing works it will happen again when the time comes to cascade them or another costly uint.

What I have posted regarding accounting issues on this thread is simplified thus it likely does seem naive to some but as this is basely a wish fulfilment thread does not warrant it being more complex. My view is one that is publicly shared by many such as Tony Danker former Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, Dr George Dibb associate director for economic policy and head of the Centre for Economic Justice at IPPR, Stian Westlake Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council, and Gareth Dennis engineer and transport systems and policy writer/lecturer, they have all highlighted issues with allowing finance departments to directly influence non-financial matters especially in relation to the Treasury having undue power over fiscal and economic matters (These matters are the responsibility of other departments in other developed economies.) and the activities of the other departments.

The 379s are effectively a micro fleet of 30 units, however Porterbrook have now acquired them from Akiem and have announced they are going to be used on GN (not Thameslink as you state, they'd have a bit of a job going south of Farringdon as they aren't 3rd rail capable) - so they've seen about 2 years out of use - in reality the 317s sat in sidings longer in the early 80s whilst the unions argued with BR over their introduction, condemning passengers to time expired Class 127 DMUs for a longer period.

So your claim of £ 155m being "wasted" is somewhat wide of the mark. Equally even if they'd only seen 10 years use, that only cost the taxpayer would have been £ 15m / year - pretty cheap for 30 units, set against, for example, the very cheapest leasing cost of a Boeing 777 at almost £ 2m / year.

Porterbrook acquires Electrostar fleet · Porterbrook

www.porterbrook.co.uk

Porterbrook has been successful in its bid to take ownership of 30 Class 379 Electrostars.

The intention is for the fleet to be leased to Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) to run on the Great Northern route, as per the notice published 12th March 2024.

Delays in cascades are, as often as not, due to delays in the introduction of new units. Though once again, that was pretty commonplace in BR times. Unless you buy 'off the shelf' standard designs and have a seamless introduction to service there will always be challenges. BR of course didn't buy 'off the shelf', it specified each unit individually and very few had problem free introductions, some were absolutely terrible - the first 5 years of the Class 313s being a case in point.

All the economists and others you quote have a political axe to grind and don't have a track record of running large businesses - Tony Danker being the best example of that. That they have no track record in effectively running large businesses shows that much of what they spout is entirely theoritcal and the fact no large business has implemented their thoughts tells you much about the practicality of their ideas.

 

[aavm]

Make travel free - £8bn/year. (may be a covid year figure)

 

[The Ham]

A few schemes which I think haven't been mentioned:

Crossrail 2
Southern Approach to Heathrow
Grade separation of Woking and Basingstoke
Redouble WofE line
Reopen via Okehampton to Plymouth
Reopen to Bordon (Hampshire)
Rail tunnel to the Isle of Wight
Rail tunnel to Ireland
Rolling program of extending trains to a minimum of 4 coaches, with platforms being lengthened to suit. Where 4 coach trains were more than 60% full on the busiest 4 services a day look at increasing frequency where services are less than 3tph otherwise lengthen to 8 coach trains.

Others I'd look at:

A grade separated junction near to Farnborough to allow Basingstoke to Ascot services to run and to serve as a metro service for the Northern area of the Aldershot Urban Area
Rail tunnel from near Brighton to near Dieppe (Channel Tunnel 2.0), to spread the load of vehicle traffic away from Kent. Passenger services London, Brighton, Rouen, Paris. Vehicle hubs at Gatwick (or the M25) and on the coast in the UK and near Rouen and Paris in France. The realised capacity from building this would allow a new vehicle hub north of the Thames to avoid the need for a lot of lorry travel through Kent.

 

[Class15]

Make travel free - £8bn/year. (may be a covid year figure)

You’d need to pay for a lot for infrastructure to deal with the increased number of passengers.

 

[FGWHST43009]

A few schemes which I think haven't been mentioned:

Crossrail 2
Southern Approach to Heathrow
Grade separation of Woking and Basingstoke
Redouble WofE line
Reopen via Okehampton to Plymouth
Reopen to Bordon (Hampshire)
Rail tunnel to the Isle of Wight
Rail tunnel to Ireland
Rolling program of extending trains to a minimum of 4 coaches, with platforms being lengthened to suit. Where 4 coach trains were more than 60% full on the busiest 4 services a day look at increasing frequency where services are less than 3tph otherwise lengthen to 8 coach trains.

Others I'd look at:

A grade separated junction near to Farnborough to allow Basingstoke to Ascot services to run and to serve as a metro service for the Northern area of the Aldershot Urban Area
Rail tunnel from near Brighton to near Dieppe (Channel Tunnel 2.0), to spread the load of vehicle traffic away from Kent. Passenger services London, Brighton, Rouen, Paris. Vehicle hubs at Gatwick (or the M25) and on the coast in the UK and near Rouen and Paris in France. The realised capacity from building this would allow a new vehicle hub north of the Thames to avoid the need for a lot of lorry travel through Kent.

I like this! I would also allow more passenger and through freight in the Channel Tunnel. Another service idea could be local services through the existing Channel Tunnel. Essentially I would want to get as many people using the through passenger trains and as much freight onto through freight trains to eliminate the need for LeShuttle. I would convert the terminals into huge intermodal freight complexes. Or potentially a railhead station for passenger trains.

 

[mike57]

Rail tunnel to Ireland

Rail tunnel from near Brighton to near Dieppe (Channel Tunnel 2.0)

I think these two would massively burst the OP's £25b/year budget. The others make sense.

Rolling program of extending trains to a minimum of 4 coaches, with platforms being lengthened to suit. Where 4 coach trains were more than 60% full on the busiest 4 services a day look at increasing frequency where services are less than 3tph otherwise lengthen to 8 coach trains.

SDO would mean that lengthening every platform wouldn't be needed, and given infrastructure congestion at 'pinch points' I would prioritise longer trains over increasing frequency, its also easier to deliver within existing staffing levels.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The fundamental problem with 'spending' £25,000,000,000 per year, effectively from a standing start, is that the supply chain, 'shovel ready'/'off the peg' schemes to invest in simply isn't ready for it.

So there would be massive bidding up of prices for scarce resources, simultaneous blockades to multiple parts of the network that would probably cause a freight collapse, gargantuan rail replacement bus services, delays to projects, lack of oversight, waste, corruption, training backlogs, demand for workers from overseas, etc.

Anything infrastructure-related, such as electrification, re-openings or gauge clearance would presumably need a lot of 'new' rolling stock to exploit it too. Along with depots, grid power supply upgrades and so on.

Basically an awful five years for rail customers but hopefully with a better network at the end of it.

So we…don’t spend anything at all?

To answer the OP’s question, and I know it’s a rubbish answer, but I think considering the fundamental problem with the railways and by extension almost all parts of government in this country is cultural, no amount of money can fix that.

 

[The Ham]

I think these two would massively burst the OP's £25b/year budget. The others make sense.

The tunnel to Ireland was reminding people of schemes which had previously been suggested. Generally it's been out into the far too costly pile.

The second tunnel to France was a bit of a fight of fantasy, but was probably something which was an interesting thing to consider if the funding was ongoing and/or shared with France, given the fairly significant value.

SDO would mean that lengthening every platform wouldn't be needed, and given infrastructure congestion at 'pinch points' I would prioritise longer trains over increasing frequency, its also easier to deliver within existing staffing levels.

Indeed, and that was why I said look at increasing frequency otherwise lengthen trains. What I meant by that was, if a line has no pinch points it's likely to be better to run 2*4 coach trains than run a 8 coach train as it would be far more attractive. However if there were pinch points it's likely that increasing frequencies might be much more costly and so lengthening trains could be better.

Likewise if a line has 2tph going to a 4 coach train and an 8 coach train and then to 2*8 coach trains is likely to be the better way forwards, however while that's happening look at what's required to then add in a third train an hour. As that could be quite disruptive if the other services are running on a half hourly basis and you change to a 20 minute frequency for that one service.

However, it could be that having a 15, 30, 15 interval spacing may allow a better connection to another service and so may be better at attracting more people.

It may even be that the extra demand is only over a certain part of the route, so it could be that other services may be added rather than duplicating existing roots. That could be running a train along a branchline and to a different point in the mainline for example to connect that line to a different town/city or could be something else.

Like if the capacity was needed for between Salisbury and Basingstoke and as there's currently no capacity to run more services into London or could be that a new service (by extending the Basingstoke Reading services) is created to provide a Reading Salisbury service.

As such "look at" wasn't a commitment to increase by +1tph but rather a short hand for consider the options whilst having lengthen services as an option.

It's also worth noting that 60% of a 350 is 140 people which is basically a full (seated) class 150 so isn't a lightly used train, as such it's not unreasonable to be considering increasing frequencies. However that value is the trigger point to start the process rather than the point at which new capacity is added, so it may well be that those services get busier before (say) new rolling stock is added to the fleet, which could still take a few years to deliver.

 

[mike57]

The second tunnel to France was a bit of a fight of fantasy, but was probably something which was an interesting thing to consider if the funding was ongoing and/or shared with France, given the fairly significant value.

How much spare capacity is there in the tunnel currently? Brighton - Dieppe is 80 odd miles so the scale of the project would be beyond anyrhing currently under consideration anywhere in the world, and Brighton is hemmed by the South Downs, so onward connections would not be easy. If you are considering a sub sea tunnel at this sort of length then maybe Felixstowe - Dunkirk so that north of London traffic doesnt have to wend its way around London.

This is a speculative thread, but the reality is I think even if the money was available a second fixed link wouldn't feature high up priorities for the UK when we have a half finished HS2 and a lot of half finished electrification projects (OK so they were finished to project scope, but I am thinking complete GWML, MML and TPE north throughout their length)

 

[FlyingPotato]

I have many ideas mainly including longer stock, more trains electrification, Etc

But I will give an idea that occurs to me every now and again
Electrify the Reading Taunton line to at least Frome
Then retract, upgrade, and electrify the line to Radstock/ Midsomer Norton. Have a second station in Frome at Bridge Street
Build a parkway station for Devizes
Extend the Newbury Semi fast to Radstock. Calling at Radstock, Frome Bridge Street, Westbury, Devizes, Pewsey, Bedwyn, Hungerford, Kintbury, Newbury and then all the usual stops into London

I would also do more projects like this and also HS2 in full