XC in CP 6

[AndyLandy]

It's almost as if the rail network is a public service that's never going to be profitable on it's own and really is a frankly pointless thing to try and pretend is a profitable private enterprise...

Quoted for Truth™

 

[tbtc]

Would there be any empty seats to start with? Surely anyone standing in a 5-car Voyager would take the majority of those seats without bringing in any extra revenue as they're already fare paying customers.

This is a problem with extending trains - there's no financial incentive for the TOC to put on an extra coach (which sees no people standing), unless they can guarantee attracting people who don't currently use the service.

The plan to sell lots of cheap advanced tickets runs into the problem of cannabalising the current revenue.

 

[The Ham]

This is a problem with extending trains - there's no financial incentive for the TOC to put on an extra coach (which sees no people standing), unless they can guarantee attracting people who don't currently use the service.

The plan to sell lots of cheap advanced tickets runs into the problem of cannabalising the current revenue.

Which is why I suggested 7 coach trains as they would allow for extra passengers, beyond those who are currently standing on the trains whilst not making them so long that they have to sell lots of advanced tickets.

It would also allow them to be of a length which enabled them to be reconfigured at a later date to run longer services (i.e. for every three they shorten back to 5 coaches, which can be paired up, they could lengthen two to being 10 coaches long), although that would mean that they had to have extra sets they could be a different class of unit if the original unit class was no longer available to be built.

 

[tbtc]

Which is why I suggested 7 coach trains as they would allow for extra passengers, beyond those who are currently standing on the trains whilst not making them so long that they have to sell lots of advanced tickets

I'm all for seven coach trains on XC, I'm just saying that there's no incentive for the TOC to spread 300 people over seven coaches rather than cramped into four/five (in fact, there's a disincentive as the extra coaches would cost more to run).

Most TOCs are in the position of knowing that every extra fare/ passenger will mean a fairly proportionate increase in revenue. Because of the way that XC share their flows/ routes with other TOCs (usually with XC as the minority partner), they'd not get the same result back.

(not a criticism of DB/ Arriva who are doing a reasonable job in the circumstances)

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I don't buy the "losing money" argument. If they were seriously losing money, they would have gone out of business or handed back the franchise.

Many large companies like Amazon, Ebay, Starbucks all manage to "lose" money when it suits them by the UK company making large transfer payments to foreign sister companies - sometimes these are for things like a payment for the use of the brand. Could anything like this be contributing to Arriva XC apparently losing money?

You are confusing subsidy with profit and loss.
XC, whether operated by Virgin or Arriva, was always going to need subsidy, a large one.
Arriva's franchise deal allows for this annual subsidy, and they make a profit if they achieve an agreed revenue or better.
If they fail to achieve that revenue, they lose money.
If they fail by a wide margin, the "loss" is supported by extra "cap and collar" payments from DfT.
This is where XC currently is, ie both XC and DfT are losing money on the franchise (as of course are several others).
Arrive (DB) is supporting these losses from other profitable businesses like ATW and its LOROL interests.
DfT will have told Arriva to "get well", and that means hiking fares (ie no advances) or cutting costs (not easy when your train fleet is hired until 2016 whether you use it or not).
Apparently it is doing better than it was a year or two back, but it's still in maximum cap and collar support by DfT.
That's why there is no plan to get more stock on XC (read: extra cost) in the current franchise term.

 

[Goatboy]

I'm all for seven coach trains on XC, I'm just saying that there's no incentive for the TOC to spread 300 people over seven coaches rather than cramped into four/five (in fact, there's a disincentive as the extra coaches would cost more to run).

Which is why the DFT usually mandates stuff like this - from a business perspective you are entirely correct.


SWT would save money by shortening 12 coach trains to 8 coaches - there is presumably a reason why they cannot do this?

It is very much the ugly side of the privatised railway when we have train services which are more or less deliberately run with less than the required capacity simply because it's better financially for the operator.

 

[JamesRowden]

Perhaps once Coventry-Basingstoke is electrified the present 'X' could be modified to the following pattern:

• Manchester-Bournemouth
  • 1tph
  • Present Stopping Pattern
• Manchester-Reading
  • 1tph
  • Present stopping pattern
• Newcastle-Reading(-Southampton)
  • 1tph (1tp2h to Southampton)
  • Non-stop between Birmingham and Reading
• Manchester-Bristol
  • 1tph
  • Non-stop between Manchester and Birmingham
• Edinburgh-Plymouth
  • 1tph
  • Present Stopping pattern

By running the diesel services fast along the electrified Manchester-Reading corridor, less fuel is required (because of less kinetic energy required accelerating from stops) and the journey time saving could be used to reduce the amount of stock required or to extend the services. Since the additional stock required is electric, the costs of adding it should not be such a problem (and should be very useful during the peaks). It might be possible to time the fast diesel services to connect at Birmingham with an electric service that is coming/going to/from the other route so to replace the presently available direct journies (e.g. Banbury-Sheffield) with nice connections at Birmingham.

 

[Rich McLean]

Perhaps once Coventry-Basingstoke is electrified the present 'X' could be modified to the following pattern:

• Manchester-Bournemouth
  • 1tph
  • Present Stopping Pattern
• Manchester-Reading
  • 1tph
  • Present stopping pattern
• Newcastle-Reading(-Southampton)
  • 1tph (1tp2h to Southampton)
  • Non-stop between Birmingham and Reading
• Manchester-Bristol
  • 1tph
  • Non-stop between Manchester and Birmingham
• Edinburgh-Plymouth
  • 1tph
  • Present Stopping pattern

By running the diesel services fast along the electrified Manchester-Reading corridor, less fuel is required (because of less kinetic energy required accelerating from stops) and the journey time saving could be used to reduce the amount of stock required or to extend the services. Since the additional stock required is electric, the costs of adding it should not be such a problem (and should be very useful during the peaks). It might be possible to time the fast diesel services to connect at Birmingham with an electric service that is coming/going to/from the other route so to replace the presently available direct journies (e.g. Banbury-Sheffield) with nice connections at Birmingham.

Currently, there are no paths between New Street and Wolves. Would you run the extra non-stop via Bescot and via Tyseley?

Also Oxford - Didcot is currently jam packed with freight and passenger paths so any extra services down that corridor would also be a no go

 

[JamesRowden]

Currently, there are no paths between New Street and Wolves. Would you run the extra non-stop via Bescot and via Tyseley?

Also Oxford - Didcot is currently jam packed with freight and passenger paths so any extra services down that corridor would also be a no go

I would have the extra Birmingham-Manchester path directly ahead/behind one of the electric Cross Country services between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in order to make the best use of the capacity (I do not know if this would be enough). If there is not enough capacity for this then maybe service(s) which presently run non-stop between Birmingham and Wolverhampton could have some stop(s) added to produce the extra capacity (since there would not need to be such a large inital gap between service(s) with stops added and the metro service running ahead of it).

There are presently only 6 passenger services per hour between Oxford and Didcot (off-peak) and East West Rail is going add one more. There are only 3 stops between Oxford and Didcot (and the stopping services do not call at all of them). Do you have proof that there will not be the capacity required for another extra service?

 

[Hophead]

Perhaps once Coventry-Basingstoke is electrified the present 'X' could be modified to the following pattern:

• Manchester-Bournemouth
  • 1tph
  • Present Stopping Pattern
  
  Since the additional stock required is electric...

• 
  
  Hope that quotes properly.
  
  I see this sort of thing proposed quite often; however, so far as we know, the wires will initially terminate at Southampton, which means one of (a) dual-voltage cross-country stock; or (b) hybrid power (electro-diesel); or (c) no change - diesel throughout.
  [Agree, though, about the desirability of simplifying the service pattern]
  
  There have been hints that the full scheme might extend through to Bournemouth or Poole (an electrical engineers' conference, if I recall correctly) but I would not be surprised to see this DC-> AC conversion heading towards the back of the CP5 electrification queue (albeit ahead of Oxford to Bedford).

 

[JamesRowden]

Hope that quotes properly.

I see this sort of thing proposed quite often; however, so far as we know, the wires will initially terminate at Southampton, which means one of (a) dual-voltage cross-country stock; or (b) hybrid power (electro-diesel); or (c) no change - diesel throughout.
[Agree, though, about the desirability of simplifying the service pattern]

There have been hints that the full scheme might extend through to Bournemouth or Poole (an electrical engineers' conference, if I recall correctly) but I would not be surprised to see this DC-> AC conversion heading towards the back of the CP5 electrification queue (albeit ahead of Oxford to Bedford).

I forgot to state that my idea involved 110mph (or possibly 118mph) dual voltage EMUs.

 

[Rich McLean]

I would have the extra Birmingham-Manchester path directly ahead/behind one of the electric Cross Country services between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in order to make the best use of the capacity (I do not know if this would be enough). If there is not enough capacity for this then maybe service(s) which presently run non-stop between Birmingham and Wolverhampton could have some stop(s) added to produce the extra capacity (since there would not need to be such a large inital gap between service(s) with stops added and the metro service running ahead of it).

There are presently only 6 passenger services per hour between Oxford and Didcot (off-peak) and East West Rail is going add one more. There are only 3 stops between Oxford and Didcot (and the stopping services do not call at all of them). Do you have proof that there will not be the capacity required for another extra service?

With that, and the extra E-W that will be 7tph off peak plus freight. Add on the peak extra's and that would make it 8-9tph plus freight.

The planner will be able to expand further on the reasons why. Perhaps with improved signalling space maybe created

 

[The Planner]

Oxford Didcot is getting re-signalled in the next few years, brings the headway down to 3 minutes so no reason why you can't get 10tph depending on what they doing. Oxford is where it will all go pear shaped as that tends to be ECS city and with E-W causing a few conflicts along the way.

 

[swt_passenger]

I see this sort of thing proposed quite often; however, so far as we know, the wires will initially terminate at Southampton, which means one of (a) dual-voltage cross-country stock; or (b) hybrid power (electro-diesel); or (c) no change - diesel throughout.

...or (d) run the Manchester trains only as far as Southampton, and run the extended Newcastle services to Bournemouth.

 

[Muzer]

...or (d) run the Manchester trains only as far as Southampton, and run the extended Newcastle services to Bournemouth.

And find enough paths for that (perhaps by reducing the Southerns via Southampton Airport to a parliamentary level?).

 

[Kettledrum]

You are confusing subsidy with profit and loss.
XC, whether operated by Virgin or Arriva, was always going to need subsidy, a large one.
Arriva's franchise deal allows for this annual subsidy, and they make a profit if they achieve an agreed revenue or better.
If they fail to achieve that revenue, they lose money.
If they fail by a wide margin, the "loss" is supported by extra "cap and collar" payments from DfT.
This is where XC currently is, ie both XC and DfT are losing money on the franchise (as of course are several others).
Arrive (DB) is supporting these losses from other profitable businesses like ATW and its LOROL interests.
DfT will have told Arriva to "get well", and that means hiking fares (ie no advances) or cutting costs (not easy when your train fleet is hired until 2016 whether you use it or not).
Apparently it is doing better than it was a year or two back, but it's still in maximum cap and collar support by DfT.
That's why there is no plan to get more stock on XC (read: extra cost) in the current franchise term.

Thanks for shedding some light on the situation. With the regular complaints on this forum being that XC fares are very high, with trains being very crowded, it's difficult to understand exactly why the costs exceed the income by so much.

 

[swt_passenger]

And find enough paths for that (perhaps by reducing the Southerns via Southampton Airport to a parliamentary level?).

I wasn't explicitly assuming both services would run hourly...

You can't really reduce SN much below the single train each way on weekdays though...

 

[Goatboy]

Thanks for shedding some light on the situation. With the regular complaints on this forum being that XC fares are very high, with trains being very crowded, it's difficult to understand exactly why the costs exceed the income by so much.

Because the trains are packed because they are small. Therefore the operational cost per seat on an XC service is somewhat higher than the operational cost per seat of, say, an East Midlands Trains service using an almost identical class of train but with far more capacity.

XC isn't crowded because it's a roaring success and loads of people travel on them. It's crowded because a small number of people attempt to travel on an even smaller train. The average Voyager service has just 2.5 coaches of Standard Class accomodation. It doesn't exactly take a lot to pack that out.

 

[JamesRowden]

...or (d) run the Manchester trains only as far as Southampton, and run the extended Newcastle services to Bournemouth.

If that extended service were to run every two hours it would probably make sense to have the other bi-hourly service extended to somewhere about 30 mins from Reading (e.g. Basingstoke, Guildford, Heathrow, Paddington) so that one service does not need to wait at the terminus for over a hour so to fit in with the other service's pattern. This would not be an issue if the Bournemouth extensions were every three hours instead.

 

[swt_passenger]

If that extended service were to run every two hours it would probably make sense to have the other bi-hourly service extended to somewhere about 30 mins from Reading (e.g. Basingstoke, Guildford, Heathrow, Paddington) so that one service does not need to wait at the terminus for over a hour so to fit in with the other service's pattern.

The NCL/RDG pattern doesn't have an hour at Reading. The Newcastle - Readings sit there for about half an hour and return up north, the extended ones sit at Southampton for a similar half an hour. The extra unit per day involved in the train plan that allows for the extensions covers the additional 2 hour long round trip to/from Southampton, so that the up and down services cross with each other between Reading and Basingstoke. It's a lot easier to explain with a piece of graph paper though, what ends up happening is that a southbound Southampton comes back through Reading 2 and a half hours later, forming the next but one departure on pattern.

Hence to run the alternate 2 hourly Reading terminator somewhere else other than SOU you'd ideally want that destination to be about an hour away as well, and you'd then need another extra unit for the day.

 

[JamesRowden]

The NCL/RDG/SOU pattern doesn't have an hour at Reading. The Newcastle - Readings sit there for about half an hour and return up north, the extended ones sit at Southampton for a similar half an hour. The extra unit per day involved in the train plan that allows for the extensions covers the additional 2 hour long round trip to/from Southampton, so that the up and down services cross with each other between Reading and Basingstoke. It's a lot easier to explain with a piece of graph paper though, what ends up happening is that a southbound Southampton comes back through Reading 2 and a half hours later, forming the next but one departure on pattern.

Hence to run the alternate 2 hourly Reading terminator somewhere else other than SOU you'd ideally want that destination to be about an hour away as well, and you'd then need another extra unit for the day.

That was my point about your suggestion (extending the bi-hourly Southampton terminators to Bournemouth). I thought that saying 'over an hour' would be more polite than saying 90 mins since 30mins is probably there for timetable reliability reasons).

 

[swt_passenger]

Ah I see, I was thinking of how you could extend the alternate train from Reading in the current set up - hence trying to get another destination an hour from Reading. But in any case, I doubt they'd be happy to reduce Bournemouth from hourly anyway, so in the absence of any firm plans to extend the wires to Bournemouth there'll be potential problems ahead.

I've often wondered if the people at the DfT who came up with the Southampton OHLE plan ever even considered the impact on XC services...

 

[Eagle]

Bournemouth is quite a moneyspinner for the XC network (both for direct journeys and the slice of ORCATS they get for all journeys between Bournemouth and Southampton); they're not likely to give up any services to there without a fight.

 

[AndyLandy]

I've often wondered if the people at the DfT who came up with the Southampton OHLE plan ever even considered the impact on XC services...

I'm not sure the south west OHLE is anything to do with passenger trains, is it? I thought it was all in aid of the "Electric Spine" project. It's just that XC gets a knock-on benefit.

I still suspect there'll be no will in DfT or XC to procure new electric trains for the service until the Voyagers are life-expired.

 

[swt_passenger]

I'm not sure the south west OHLE is anything to do with passenger trains, is it? I thought it was all in aid of the "Electric Spine" project. It's just that XC gets a knock-on benefit...

That was always my understanding of what was first published. Hasn't stopped almost continuous proposals in this forum for how to utilise the wires to Bournemouth rather than Southampton Docks as described by the DfT though...

 

[AndyLandy]

The other thing that seems to have not been considered here is what East-West Rail will look like in CP6 and what impact (if any) that will have on XC services.

Presumably EW will be electrified (why would we build a new railway that isn't?) but what speeds will it run to? If it was a completely new alignment, I'd expect it to be built for 125mph, but as a lot of it follows existing alignments, or is upgrades to existing lines, I can well imagine it wouldn't exceed 100mph.

So, what TOC(s) are likely to offer through journeys along that route. Is it possible that XC might be running services from Reading to Norwich? Is it likely they'd be through services from the south coast?

 

[Eagle]

Presumably EW will be electrified (why would we build a new railway that isn't?) but what speeds will it run to? If it was a completely new alignment, I'd expect it to be built for 125mph, but as a lot of it follows existing alignments, or is upgrades to existing lines, I can well imagine it wouldn't exceed 100mph.

EWR will be electrified (as an Electric Spine scheme), but it's the exception rather than the rule. Almost all railway reopenings in the last 20 or 30 years have not been electrified.

I think EWR are pushing for a 90-100 mph maximum speed. The whole thing is existing lines (of which only Claydon to Bletchley is disused).

 

[Goatboy]

Another day, another badly over crowded 4 coach Voyager from one end of the country to the other. This time it's so packed the entire aisle from one end of the coach to the other is occupied by standing passengers.

Must be imagining it though as on here the concenvous is that XC trains carry only fresh air in Devon.

Ironically the inbound service arrived as a Double Voyager...

 

[Kettledrum]

That was always my understanding of what was first published. Hasn't stopped almost continuous proposals in this forum for how to utilise the wires to Bournemouth rather than Southampton Docks as described by the DfT though...

The announcement about the electric spine was ambiguous, possibly created by the political spin that accompanied it. There were some references to electrification to Southampton and some to Bournemouth.

There was also comments from expert pundits about the age of the 3rd rail system between Southampton to Bournemouth, so this would have to be re-done anyway, so it's not surprising that some people think the wires will be put up to Bournemouth.

 

[The Ham]

Another day, another badly over crowded 4 coach Voyager from one end of the country to the other. This time it's so packed the entire aisle from one end of the coach to the other is occupied by standing passengers.

Must be imagining it though as on here the concenvous is that XC trains carry only fresh air in Devon.

Ironically the inbound service arrived as a Double Voyager...

Although there are lighter loadings on the HST's west of Plymouth, which could enable portion working of 22x's if GW were to use them (although they my need to allow for increasing the frequency a little over time). Nearly every XC service is at least fairly busy, esp. those which run as only 4 coachs. Hense most of this thread dissussing ways of being able to free up the exisitng 22x's to enable more double running where electrification isn't such a high proirity (which is not to say that Devon shouldn't be electrified, rather that there are lengths which would need to be done before many of the XC services in Devon would be able to go over to EMU so it's best to do them first and use the freed up 22x's to provide more seats for services in Devon).