WSMR to finish

[scotsman]

A friend of mine recorded an anouncement by jane one of the on train managers, here is the link for anyone who is interested, i know it brought a tear to my eye.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/264347-jane-the-train-manager-on-one-of-the-last-wrexham-shropshire-trains

That is so poignant and very moving indeed, well done her - giving everyone working onboard credit, and keeping going despite being very upset indeed :cry:

 

[Striker]

Roll your eyes as much as you like Pal, I have worked with these people for 3 years and to see nearly all of them in tears is a very moving time - and to be honest the tears or not because we are loosing our jobs but because OUR FAMILY has been split up - this is the reason why the staff are so emotionally upset - I had grown men crying on my shoulder - I think any help for the staff at Wrexham and Shropshire staff is welcomed - I personally have invited every single one of the - all 55 to my house for a Party tonight to celebrate the success of the company and so we can all be together for one last time, so don't knock what people are saying

What does this have to do with anything? I said it's sad for people to lose their jobs. Its just that some of the forum members seem to be in a competition to seen who can come up with the most bizarre ideas. Preparing a speech to give on the train? Give me a break.

 

[Dai.]

Is there anything that can bring them back into service?

Just out of curiosity. I don't really understand why they had to stop. Lol >.< I've never used their services.

Was it lack of money?

 

[RPM]

As I passed Neasden just after 5pm yesterday I passed what may be the actual last ever WSMR working - the two sets that ended up a Wrexham on Friday night were returning empty to Wembley, with the DVTs coupled nose to nose. Another Wrexham set was in one of the new stabling sidings at Moor Street. Very sad to see.

 

[MCR247]

Is there anything that can bring them back into service?

Just out of curiosity. I don't really understand why they had to stop. Lol >.< I've never used their services.

Was it lack of money?

Technically they had plenty of money, being owned by DB Regio who own Arriva and Chiltern. But WSMR simply wasn't making profit, and it makes no sense to keep running at a loss does it, however much money you have

 

[45669]

As I do not live anywhere near the territory that was covered by the Wrexham & Shropshire, I never had an opportunity to sample their services. My only knowledge of them was reports and pictures on the Internet, mainly 'Dampflok's' pictures on his excellent Fotopic site.

However, by chance I happened to be in London on Friday, and as I arrived into Paddington I realized that if I made a small detour from my plans, I might be able to get to Marylebone in time to see the morning train from Wrexham arrive.

By the time I got there it had, in fact, just arrived, and the ticket inpector at the gate kindly let me on to the platform to go and see it. I took some pictures which, sadly will be the only ones that I shall ever get of W & S trains. They are now on my Fotopic site and, if anyone is interested to have a look, they are here :

http://ronfisher2.fotopic.net/c1907221.html

Alternatively, click on the following picture; this will enlarge it and take you to the others :



As usual, the pictures are in the 'Stop Press!' collection which is where all the new pictures go to begin with. In due course I shall move them on and they will then be found in a new collection dedicated to the memory of the W & S.

It is always very sad when any rail services are withdrawn; when I heard the news about the W & S, it reminded my of how I used to feel back in the Beeching era when the withdrawal of rail services was a regular occurance.

 

[barrykas]

Technically they had plenty of money, being owned by DB Regio who own Arriva and Chiltern. But WSMR simply wasn't making profit, and it makes no sense to keep running at a loss does it, however much money you have

To be pedantic, DB Regio UK comprises:

• M40 Trains, which in turn owns Chiltern
• DB Regio Tyne and Wear
• 50% of the shares in WSMR (Holdings), which owns WSMR, the remainder split between Renaissance Trains and Laing
• Part of LOROL, the remainder being with MTR Corporation

DB Regio UK, in turn, falls under Arriva UK Trains, along with ATW and CrossCountry.

Cheers,

Barry

 

[crewmeal]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351744/How-crazy-rules-killed-Wrexham--Shropshire-Railway.html

My thoughts entirely. I asked this question in a previous post.

 

[43021HST]

Technically they had plenty of money, being owned by DB Regio who own Arriva and Chiltern. But WSMR simply wasn't making profit, and it makes no sense to keep running at a loss does it, however much money you have

I always saw plenty of passengers board the trains, I wonder whether the stock was just too expensive for the volume of passengers?
Also does anyone know whats happening to the WMSR stabling platforms at Wrexham or are they just going to fall into dis-repair.

 

[tbtc]

I always saw plenty of passengers board the trains, I wonder whether the stock was just too expensive for the volume of passengers?

Two things:

1. DB had better things to use the stock on (more profitable use on Chiltern services etc)
2. Whilst there have dozens of reference to "the 55 members of staff", nobody seems to have done the maths and worked out that if you run around half a dozen trains a day you need each (return) service to pay for over a dozen employees. Such a "highly staffed" service will be great for customer service, of course, but someone needs to pay for all those professional salaries (as Bob Crow will tell you, railway staff aren't cheap...). You'd need to sell a lot of £40 fares to pay for all those staff. But this gets ignored in the "fairytale".

 

[4SRKT]

Technically they had plenty of money, being owned by DB Regio who own Arriva and Chiltern. But WSMR simply wasn't making profit, and it makes no sense to keep running at a loss does it, however much money you have

Ah, the public service ethos in action While I reluctantly agree with this sentiment in this particular case, sad though it is to see that quality appears to have been rejected by the mass of people for whom Ryanair is the benchmark (and of course sad for the people made redundant), the notion that 'it makes no sense to keep running at a loss' is very dangerous if applied to railways. There wouldn't be very many of them at all if this were taken literally.

 

[merlodlliw]

I have sent you a P.M., look in your in box if it does not flash. Hope last night went well.

Bob
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I always saw plenty of passengers board the trains, I wonder whether the stock was just too expensive for the volume of passengers?
Also does anyone know whats happening to the WMSR stabling platforms at Wrexham or are they just going to fall into dis-repair.

As for the stabling platforms, I don't see any activity in the near future,suppose the the VT could be parked there, as it spends two hours parked outside the station in the mornings. As of noon Saturday the 24 security on the station was ended , so dis repair for now. One good thing about the stables, they do have CCTV cover, but don't know to where.
Following the station paint job just completed in its green/white/red its looks in excellent condition for its listed grade one status.

Bob

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Two things:

1. DB had better things to use the stock on (more profitable use on Chiltern services etc)
2. Whilst there have dozens of reference to "the 55 members of staff", nobody seems to have done the maths and worked out that if you run around half a dozen trains a day you need each (return) service to pay for over a dozen employees. Such a "highly staffed" service will be great for customer service, of course, but someone needs to pay for all those professional salaries (as Bob Crow will tell you, railway staff aren't cheap...). You'd need to sell a lot of £40 fares to pay for all those staff. But this gets ignored in the "fairytale".

I pointed out earlier in the thread ( but it seems to have got swamped by the high volume of postings! ) that if that £40 fare is an average of what was actually being sold, and the annual loss quoted is correct, then with three trains each way each day ( six services ) each of those six services would have needed an average of an extra 35 passengers in order for WSMR to just break even.

That may not sound like much, and indeed it probably is not, but it does demostrate just how tight the financial margins are when running something like this.

The DfT enforcing the MoC rules even when VT were happy for them to be lifted was probably a very large factor in this - had WSMR been able to pick up and set down at the key stations they were forced to pass through, it could have made a huge difference even without taking into account ORCATS.

 

[45669]

The link to a picture that I put on last night isn't working this morning. At least, not for me it isn't. Instead of the picture, all I get is a white square with a little red cross in the corner.

Is it just me, or is everybody else getting the same? Strangely, the link still works - clicking on the white square still brings up the enlarged picture.

Can any computer buffs tell me what's gone wrong?

Baffled of Finchampstead.

 

[andyfrommk]

Here is my contribution,The last train to leave Wrexham General, Shot at Banbury

Warning! HTML5 video and a large file size! (32Mb), you need a HTML5 compliant browser like firefox, Chrome or Opera and a decent processor to watch it.

Or download it from here and watch in your media player.

Sorry, I don't like uploading my videos to video sharing websites

 

[tbtc]

I pointed out earlier in the thread ( but it seems to have got swamped by the high volume of postings! ) that if that £40 fare is an average of what was actually being sold, and the annual loss quoted is correct, then with three trains each way each day ( six services ) each of those six services would have needed an average of an extra 35 passengers in order for WSMR to just break even.

That may not sound like much, and indeed it probably is not, but it does demostrate just how tight the financial margins are when running something like this.

The DfT enforcing the MoC rules even when VT were happy for them to be lifted was probably a very large factor in this - had WSMR been able to pick up and set down at the key stations they were forced to pass through, it could have made a huge difference even without taking into account ORCATS.

I think the Moderation of Competition is a red-herring - the rules were there beforehand.

35 additional passengers would need to be on each and every journey, of course.

However I do the maths, there's no way that each return trip is going to pay for eighteen members of staff (on railway wages) - 3x18 = 54. The wonderful customer service comes at a high price, especially when things like Track Access Charges, Rolling Stock Leases etc are (fairly) fixed costs on long contracts.

 

[nedchester]

I think the Moderation of Competition is a red-herring - the rules were there beforehand.

35 additional passengers would need to be on each and every journey, of course.

However I do the maths, there's no way that each return trip is going to pay for eighteen members of staff (on railway wages) - 3x18 = 54. The wonderful customer service comes at a high price, especially when things like Track Access Charges, Rolling Stock Leases etc are (fairly) fixed costs on long contracts.

But this is part of the problem on Britains railways the costs to run such a service are ridiculously high.

You should be able to run a decent service without having to offer a Ryanair type service to the passengers.

WSMR tried their best to run that decent service.

 

[Polarbear]

Firstly, I would like to pay tribute to all of the staff who made WMSR a success in terms of customer service & passenger satisfaction. The customer service offered by the company was second to none & will be missed on what is fast becoming a very de-personalised & ulitarian rail network.

I also hope that most if not all of the erstwhile WMSR employees find suitable alternative employment as soon as possible. It's must be very unsettling to be told you have no job at such short notice! Best wishes & good luck to all of you.

Unfortunately, I didn't get chance to use WMSR as much as I would like to have done, largely down to the lack of advance fares at weekends over the latter months. I am aware of the reasons for this, (Evergreen 3 mainly), but the lack of dedicated WMSR fares can't have helped matters latterly.

One thing that puzzles me is the (almost) indecent haste in which WMSR's demise came about. OK, many posting on here will have been aware that the economics of the operation were, at best, marginal. However, when the end came, it was very sudden.

The service level was cut back to 3 trains each way on weekdays as from the December timetable change. Time & effort will have been put in to the timetable planning on the run up to December, not to mention the costs for changing the publicity involved. To then cease the service, one month on from this seems strange. DB/Arriva's decision to completly withdraw the service seemingly came out of the blue. This thread started on Wednesday 26 January, initially with some scepticism that the story was in fact true. By the end of Friday 28 January, it was all over! Off topic, but if DB/Arriva can act so quickly with one decision, why does the issue of Wi-fi on X/C continue to drag on...??

With the completion of phase 1 of the works between Banbury & London due by the next timetable change, services would have been speeded up somewhat. Whilst this may not have affected the balance sheet in the short term, it would have been a good starting point to re-launch the service as a 7 day a week operation & an opportunity to get a bigger share of the business market, given the faster journey times.

To me, the problem with WMSR was purely economic. If you are going to run a competing service, you have to compete either on speed or price. Comfort is a factor granted, but the harsh economic reailities of Britain in the 21st centrury dictate that £££'s come before comfort. To begin with WMSR only tried to compete on comfort & not speed or price and I think this may have been it's undoing.

A relatively slow journey time was never going to attract business people who are prepared to pay more money to save time. We may all complain about the eye-watering high "Anytime" fares charged on London flows, but they make a large contribution to the balance sheet of many TOC's. WMSR found this out after a while & had to abandon their standard class peak fares & heavily discount the "walk on" first class fares too. That change alone will have made a major dent in the company's revenue stream. At the other extreme, the advance fares offered when services first started were set too high to attract users (such as myself) who are more sensitive to price than speed. Again, these were revised in due course, but I fear that by the time they were revised, the damage had been done.

I'll freely admit I was put off using WMSR at first, due to the relatively high advance fares from Wrexham at first (£20 each way for standard class). I don't have priv, I don't work for the railway & I don't have a railcard so it made a difference. Latterly, the advance fares were cheaper, but the lack of availability at weekends then became a factor.

I'm sorry WMSR did not last a bit longer as I feel the tide would have turned in it's favour. However, I also feel that I have outlined the reasons for it's untimely demise above. Certainly, it wasn't for the lack of enthusiasim of the good people who worked on the trains and made it a haven of customer service excellence for an all to brief time.

 

[laird]

Thinking about tbtc's post. If we assume 4 staff members per train (driver, train manager, steward and buffet staff) then it was necessary to have 12 staff members per day available, presuming a 2 to 1 ratio of on duty to off duty then the balance of approximately half the staff were based in the office.
If we look at the other open access operators perhaps the First Group (Hull Trains) can share the back office funtions within the group leaving few staff beyond those dedicated to the service and I guess Grand Central would share back office functions between Bradford and Sunderland routes.
Perhaps therefore it is the lack of expansion that restricted the success of WSMR as the single route had to bare the cost of the whole business, had they been able to merge with Arriva then the back office burden would not have been so great per seat sold but it wasn't to be.

It seems a strange thing that when the company was formed it didn't rely more on its share holders own existing back office functions rather than bringing them in house, although I suspect that much was reliant upon Chiltern, certainly it was a regular occurence even on Friday to see Chiltern staff on the trains denoted by their name badges. Maybe there was something else that prevented greater sharing of resources within the Chiltern/DB group of companies.



Polarbear, I think WSMR had tried a few times to adjust pricing structures to give it a cost advantage. It did seem an unusual move when they adjusted all the fares in the early days to give a simpler structure but then the introduction of advance tickets also seemed to be appropriate given the predomination of customer wanting to travel at low cost to and from London.

Speed wise it seemed that improvements were coming, the initial timetable didn't include stops at Leamington Spa and was something of a slow affair, the stop at Birmingham International was a particular problem. It came at the right time to serve soup in First Class but with the doors locked customers were effectively turned away. I think they did get permission after a while to open the doors but I don't thinkt he option was ever taken.

The next timetable was better, faster journey times, Leamington Spa appeared and so forth, but later some services were cut back to Shrewsbury.

Based on Friday, the final timetable was a significant step back, perhaps not so for the peak services but certainly the loss of some intermediate stops during the day and the stop start journey wasn't likely to help growth.

Looking back it seems that the way paths are bid for and operators not being as helpful to one another as perhaps we might hope had an impact on the timings that became possible. I seem to recall reading that WSMR had been turned down when they asked other operators to move recovery times on some journeys to permit WSMR to have a better path.


It would be lovely to think that each and every staff member would find a new rewarding role for them after WSMR, and that this isn't the end of open access operators joining the rail network or wonderful customer service on the railways in this country.

 

[37705]

As somebody who managed 112 trips on this company (some nothing more than Wolves - Telford, but most Tame Bridge - London), I feel compelled to throw in my thoughts.

I travelled on the last one out of Wrexham on friday, I too couldn't quite bring myself to do the very last one. It was heartbreaking. I will never forget the scenes on the platform when we came in on the 0924 from London - staff on the platform in tears, a wreath being carried down the platform, and on departure, the constant blast on the horns from Skip 13. As I watched it leave Wolves for the last time, it felt like the biggest kick in the teeth to the railways since BR was privatised. The headboard on the last train was a nice touch, as it had been used when the service started.

http://jasonshergold33.fotopic.net/p68855969.html

What upsets me about this situation is that it's all purely profit driven. Yes, you will say, you can't run a train service that runs at a loss, but surely the whole point of WSMR being part of DBS was that DBS, realising that they had a much loved train service under their wing, would have gained a lot of respect if they had kept it going. Surely you would use the profits gained elsewhere to cover the losses of WSMR? If somebody can explain that this would not have been possible, please advise - but I believe the merger with Chiltern in 2009 was partly done to try and achieve this.

WSMR was a throwback to the days of the "proper" railway. Proper coaches, and a desire to put the passenger first, are an all too rare feature of railways today. I admired the fact that they always attempted to get passengers from London to Wrexham even when engineering works seemingly stood in their way - there are not too many operators who would consider doing Wolverhampton - Shrewsbury via Stafford and Crewe on a sunday night, but they did. On the one time I had to do a replacement bus from Warwick Parkway to Banbury, the staff were nothing but apologetic, and on departure from Banbury, not only was a WSMR rake provided (no herding onto a Chiltern that night), but free food was even offered as a "sorry".

My hope is that Chiltern/ATW/however, upon realising just how good this service, take the staff onboard, and that the coaches are used on some sort of Wales/Midlands to London replacement. RIP WSMR.

 

[Daimler]

What upsets me about this situation is that it's all purely profit driven. Yes, you will say, you can't run a train service that runs at a loss, but surely the whole point of WSMR being part of DBS was that DBS, realising that they had a much loved train service under their wing, would have gained a lot of respect if they had kept it going. Surely you would use the profits gained elsewhere to cover the losses of WSMR? If somebody can explain that this would not have been possible, please advise - but I believe the merger with Chiltern in 2009 was partly done to try and achieve this.

I don't think you can expect a private company to run a service at a loss (and DB is operating in the manner of a private company in the UK). The profit issue lies not with the private company operating the trains, but with government. If WSMR were allowed to stop at Wolverhampton (properly), Birmingham New Street/International and Coventry, they may well have made the necessary profit, and thus have kept going - the injustice of MOC, and the manner in which it stifles the very competition that privatisation was supposed to encourage, meant that this was not possible, and is perhaps a major reason for the folding of WSMR. Now, tbtc and others may argue that WSMR should have factored this into their calculations before starting up, and this is perhaps true. However, that does not alter the fact that had MOC not existed, the company may still have been around today.

Furthermore, I think it's a little disingenuous to argue that because WSMR was making a loss, its closure was not only to be expected, but an entirely reasonable outcome of events. A major problem with this argument is of course that the vast majority of this country's rail services also lose money - but they are subsidised by government, which allows them to continue operating (and allows the private companies in charge to make profit) while WSMR has to fold, despite being a well-used service (not well-used enough to make a profit, but certainly from my experience of rail travel better-used than many other rail services still running today).

 

[37705]

Daimler - spot on about other TOC's making losses, but having the government there to bail them out. That sentence pretty much sums up this whole sorry mess.

It's a bit like Man United. Millions in debt, but kept afloat by backers and winning trophies. Could you imagine it if they said, "Fergie, we can't stay in debt anymore, so we are going to sell all your players. And then close the club."

BR may have had it's faults, it too shedded some services that were loading poorly (The European, when it went over the north london line), but it was never this bad.

 

[TomJ93]

Going by the price of an XC return from Coventry to Leamington that alone could've kept them afloat

 

[Snapper]

BR may have had it's faults, it too shedded some services that were loading poorly (The European, when it went over the north london line), but it was never this bad.

No, it was much worse. It squandered millions on crap locomotives, marshalling yards and all sorts of stuff that never paid it's way. In contrast, this is a commercial operation which has cut its losses.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

What upsets me about this situation is that it's all purely profit driven. Yes, you will say, you can't run a train service that runs at a loss, but surely the whole point of WSMR being part of DBS was that DBS, realising that they had a much loved train service under their wing, would have gained a lot of respect if they had kept it going.

And how does that 'respect' pay peoples wages? Or the fuel bill.

It's always easy to say someone should keep losing money when its not your money they're spending.

 

[tbtc]

WSMR has to fold, despite being a well-used service

I wonder if there was any way of keeping going?

If you assume that WSMR's fifty five staff had to be paid for by three return journeys a day then the maths looks bad.

But what if WSMR had cut back to basics, just a driver and conductor on each service (like the vast majority of trains in the UK), no restaurant, nothing fancy. Would they have been able to keep a direct train service from Shropshire to London going? Would a "basic" WSMR service to London be better than nothing?

I ask this as I find it interesting that they didn't try to dilute quality, they went from "full restaurant service with lots of staff" to "nothing", they didn't dumb the service down.

So, serious question, would a WSMR with no restaurant (no "spare" members of staff etc) be better than just scrapping the service outright? It'd have kept some people in jobs, maintained a direct link from Shropshire to London (but at an obvious loss to quality)...

 

[MCR247]

Going to basics wouldn't of worked IMO

The TOC needs a SP. Virgin has one; fast journey times. WSMRs was it being a premier luxury service. Without that, WSMR is just a train that although direct, takes forever and isn't worth it.

 

[laird]

First class perhaps was covering the extra, certainly there were customers, too many of them on the final day!
Until recently the excess food was sold to standard class passengers presumably at a profit, catering is usually a highly profitable part of the business (afterall water to make tea and coffee is not expensive) and yet sells for over £1 per cup when produced. That one carriage could potentially have been the most profitable on the train.
Certainly if not too much was being lost through the ORCATS regime then every expensed first class traveller between Shropshire and Banbury/London was producing quite a lot of revenue for the company?

 

[Failed Unit]

I think it is down to the old time, quality and price balancing act. It was hard for them to get all 3 right. Time was out of there control but they needed to have a lower price to reflect counter that. Quality from what I understand was perfect. It could be hard I guess to justify not using Virgin.

The fuel price increases will also certainly have contributed, as they only seem to be going one way at the moment. I suspect a 67 cost a fair bit per day on fuel.

 

[Snapper]

I wonder if there was any way of keeping going?

Not if it's a 'well used service' that still loses money.

 

[tbtc]

Not if it's a 'well used service' that still loses money.

...but my argument is that one reason it may* have lost money was through having so many staff (55 employees for three return trips?) - running with just two employees per trip (and getting the "back office" functions done by ATW/Chiltern) would have brought the cost-base down and maybe made it profitable?

* - I say "may" because until we know all the facts I don't want to gossip about certain things