You're saying "I want better trains"...

[northwichcat]

You need to check your timetable again, the ex WVH 06:27 (SX) to EUS calls at MK to set down only.

Ah OK. I looked at RTT which doesn't show calling restrictions

Read what I said again: "There aren't any Virgin trains from MK to Euston between 07:14 and 08:47" which was true when I looked at the timetable on both NRE & VT websites ten minutes ago.

You did also say

which means the London office workers can't use them

So I find it very interesting that no London office workers start before 9am, despite many office workers starting before 9am in cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

You also said

. The LM trains, which are 1/3 2/3 door outer suburban stock just like the 185s and 150s take between 45 and 65 minutes to do the journey.

Which is incorrect as some only take 40 minutes.

I quoted the anytime single fares from NRE. OK so using your comparison figures, it still costs 36% more for a journey on an LM outer suburban stock train.

So do you not agree that most commuters would hold season tickets.

I didn't mention the Overground, I said the tube or bus in central London. They would only use the Overground if they were going back out of the centre (against the peak flow), or changing down from a slow to Euston to the Overground at Watford, probably making the journey well over 2 hours. Seat density is also low on the tube, but there's no denying that it is a crush on those small loading gauge cars.

No but you were going on about people working in London having to put up with crush loadings which isn't unique to London. There are both trains and buses which leave people behind up here as well and usually the frequency is lower up here.
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I wasn't aware that our 150's came from Birmingham, although in hindsight this would seem logical. However, they did run said units on the GOBLIN.

The LO 150s were originally due to go to Northern under the CP4 HLOS but in the end they went to FGW, with Northern only taking on ex-LM 150s.

 

[pne]

A potential solution - Have the trains owned by a public body linked to the area in which they're used.

That’s what has been happening in Lower Saxony, SW of Hamburg where I live for the past several years: trains are owned (IIRC) by the federal state of Lower Saxony, and when franchises were tendered out they included a provision that the TOC will be using exactly that rolling stock.

So they essentially provide manpower and decide on a timetable but don’t have any decisions to make on what rolling stock to buy, lease, cascade, improve, or whatever.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Hmm, since the Rosco's didn't provide the capital investment for the legacy fleet in the first place, and TOC's are required to maintain the trains and patch up any wear and tear, I find your answer a little unconvincing.

The 3 then Roscos paid the government more than £2 billion for the BR fleet, and got contracts of various lengths (typically the length of the first franchises) to lease them back.
The TOCs had different views on maintenance, some did their own and others paid the Rosco or someone else to do it.
Increasingly, the manufacturers do it.
The heavy duty stuff (C6 overhauls, upgrades, compliance work etc) is generally done by the Roscos, like is currently happening to the 319s.
Otherwise, the stock would be un-leasable next time round.
The Roscos also take the risk of stock not being leased.
Various fleets have been idle over the years - eg most of the Mk3 fleet after Virgin stopped using them, or 180s or 458s or 442s.
Pacers will be idle soon (perhaps).

There is also nothing to stop a TOC or anybody else taking on a train fleet. First Group did that with spare Mk3s.
Most of the recent new train orders have been with leasing/maintenance contracted to the manufacturer (class 700, 800 etc), with the TOCs getting out of direct maintenance.
Pendolinos are a bit of both - owned by Angel, maintained by Alstom.

 

[AM9]

You did also say

In as much as they don't stop to let them on.

So I find it very interesting that no London office workers start before 9am, despite many office workers starting before 9am in cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

I didn't say that, I referred to the period between 07:14 and 08:47 which is a long time in the peak hour. Virgin presumably have too many commuters from stations further north who don't need to get to London workplaces before 09:00, to be able to pick more up from MKC, or maybe they must be full of leisure travellers, (very rich ones!).

You also said

Which is incorrect as some only take 40 minutes.

In the window that I mentioned, just one takes less than 45 minutes, (the 07:31 takes 40 minutes)

So do you not agree that most commuters would hold season tickets.

I didn't pass a view on that, however, there is still a 36% difference between MKC-LON seasons and the Northern journey that you gave as a representative example. Basically, travellers are charged a lot more for a 50 mile journey down here than in the north. I'm sure that both of us could seek out exceptions to further our own case but I decided to stick with the example that you gave.

No but you were going on about people working in London having to put up with crush loadings which isn't unique to London. There are both trains and buses which leave people behind up here as well and usually the frequency is lower up here.
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In response to your comment in post no. 62, about onward travel to the workplace: "another half-hour to reach your work place which may be 2-3 miles from Euston" I assumed that the options from Euston would be Tube, (Northern or Victoria Line) or bus. At peak times, tube trains departing southwards from Euston are usually crush loaded. Yes there is another one 3-4 minutes later, and that one is crush loaded as well, - all 6 cars of each train. That's how many passengers there are, over 1 million carried in the morning peak on the Underground every day.
In the northern example you gave, I presume that "a 15 minute walk from Leeds station to your place of work" wouldn't involve crush loaded pavements, (if it would then clearly the problems up there are more extensive than our buses and trains).

 

[northwichcat]

AM9: You're making no sense.You said a 07:14 service was no good for office workers in London but then you're saying people do start work in London at 08:30. Those statements can't both be correct.

Looking at the timetables it seems Virgin omit Milton Keynes for part of the peak period because LM provide additional fast services. The LM services which have 1 hour 5 journey times as you describe are overtaken by faster LM services taking 40-45 minutes.

Therefore in conclusion the journey time between Milton Keynes and Euston in the morning peak is 37-45 minutes unless you board a service which gets overtaken.

As we were originally comparing Warrington-Leeds to Milton Keynes-Euston and you've brought up the slow overtaken options, maybe we should bring in to the equation the option of using the Northern stopper to Deansgate, a tram to Victoria and a Caldervale service to Leeds which would take more time than waiting for the next direct service (in an hour's time.)

With regards to overcrowding on the Underground, it sounded like you were trying to make out that the onward journey at crush loading level was a disadvantage of travelling in London. You were ignoring the fact that underground systems are a fast way of getting between 2 points in large cities and smaller cities don't have them and people have to walk or move at the speed of the congested road in a road vehicle of one description or another. Also you were referring to 10 minutes at crush loading level, which doesn't sound too bad compared to longer journeys.

 

[AM9]

AM9: You're making no sense.You said a 07:14 service was no good for office workers in London but then you're saying people do start work in London at 08:30. Those statements can't both be correct.

Looking at the timetables it seems Virgin omit Milton Keynes for part of the peak period because LM provide additional fast services. The LM services which have 1 hour 5 journey times as you describe are overtaken by faster LM services taking 40-45 minutes.

Therefore in conclusion the journey time between Milton Keynes and Euston in the morning peak is 37-45 minutes unless you board a service which gets overtaken.

As we were originally comparing Warrington-Leeds to Milton Keynes-Euston and you've brought up the slow overtaken options, maybe we should bring in to the equation the option of using the Northern stopper to Deansgate, a tram to Victoria and a Caldervale service to Leeds which would take more time than waiting for the next direct service (in an hour's time.)

With regards to overcrowding on the Underground, it sounded like you were trying to make out that the onward journey at crush loading level was a disadvantage of travelling in London. You were ignoring the fact that underground systems are a fast way of getting between 2 points in large cities and smaller cities don't have them and people have to walk or move at the speed of the congested road in a road vehicle of one description or another. Also you were referring to 10 minutes at crush loading level, which doesn't sound too bad compared to longer journeys.

The 07:14 is not between the 07:14 and the 08:47 as I said earlier. A smaller proportion of people start work in London as early as 07:30 but I was not talking about them.

One train in that window (see above) takes 40 minutes, the rest take more than 45 minutes as I have said already. If you discount the three slower trains then there are only five that take between 40 (1 off) and 48 minutes, but as faster trains, they will be more crowded from MKC.

I don't remember mentioning ten minutes wrt crush loading (or about anything else in this thread). I was just referring to the example of onward travel of 2-3 miles for which you suggested 30 minutes.

 

[northwichcat]

The 07:14 is not between the 07:14 and the 08:47 as I said earlier. A smaller proportion of people start work in London as early as 07:30 but I was not talking about them.

You keep changing your argument. Like I said the 07:14 departure from Milton Keynes would be a very useful service if you are starting work in London at 08:30. If you start work later than the 07:31 and 07:54 services would be most useful, they take 40 and 45 minutes respectively. The 07:21 and 07:47 services which take over 1 hour get overtaken, so it's more accurate to say it takes 40-45 minutes then what you originally said was commuters have to take a 45-65 minute journey especially as it was being compared to the hourly direct service between Warrington and Leeds.

I was just referring to the example of onward travel of 2-3 miles for which you suggested 30 minutes.

I was assuming said passenger had to walk from Euston to somewhere to get an onward service. The minimum connection time at Euston is advertised as 20 minutes, compared to 10 minutes at Leeds.

 

[AM9]

You keep changing your argument. Like I said the 07:14 departure from Milton Keynes would be a very useful service if you are starting work in London at 08:30. If you start work later than the 07:31 and 07:54 services would be most useful, they take 40 and 45 minutes respectively. The 07:21 and 07:47 services which take over 1 hour get overtaken, so it's more accurate to say it takes 40-45 minutes then what you originally said was commuters have to take a 45-65 minute journey especially as it was being compared to the hourly direct service between Warrington and Leeds.

I have said between 07:14 and 08:47 all along, meaning after 07:14 and before 08:47. If however for the discussion you want to change that to include the 07:14 then that is one extra fast train to Euston. The reason that VT has progressively removed their trains from the MKC-EUS peak hour services is because they were full, (even as far out as MKC). It is wrong to think that passengers only travel on the fastest services though, as they are the most heavily loaded ones so some stoppers are used for the whole journey. Even including the overloaded VT 07:14 there are only three of the faster trains that leave MKC to arrive in EUS between 08:00 and 08:30. All this is on of the fastest routes into London, (and inappropriately compared to Warrington-Leeds which is a 10miles longer journey). Looking at the more typical busy outer-suburban London commuter lines, GEML (Colchester), MML (Bedford), ECML (Cambridge), BML (Brighton), the times are almost all around 1 hour. Maybe that would be a better comparison.

I was assuming said passenger had to walk from Euston to somewhere to get an onward service. The minimum connection time at Euston is advertised as 20 minutes, compared to 10 minutes at Leeds.

It takes about 10 minutes for a fit commuter to get from an arriving LM train to the Northern or Victoria Line tube platforms. Up to 10 minutes for 3-4 stops and then another 5-10 minutes for a change to another line. That's assuming the first train isn't too packed to get on. Then up to 10 minutes walk from the platform to whatever adjacent office etc..
If a bus is needed, all bets are off, including a wait for one with space on it.

 

[northwichcat]

I have said between 07:14 and 08:47 all along, meaning after 07:14 and before 08:47. If however for the discussion you want to change that to include the 07:14 then that is one extra fast train to Euston.

You started by claiming the 07:14 is of no use to office workers in London therefore they were no Virgin services which commuters could use. When I asked if any office workers started at 08:30 in London you suggested they did, which invalidated your original claim, unless of course those office workers work so close to Euston that they can catch the next service for an 08:30 start which would make my assumption that Londoners need additional time to get to their work places from the terminus' incorrect.

So which one of us was incorrect, were you wrong about the 07:14 Milton Keynes to Euston (Virgin service) being no use for office workers, or was I wrong about assuming most London workers who live in Milton Keynes don't work within walking distance of Euston?

Also all along you've been going on about the morning peak. In the evening peak there are services which do Euston to Milton Keynes in just 32-33 minutes and even the slow overtaken services take under an hour. Like other operators both LM and Virgin add in generous recovery time between their penultimate station and final station, so southbound journeys between Milton Keynes and Euston are timetabled to take a few minutes longer than northbound ones.

All this is on of the fastest routes into London, (and inappropriately compared to Warrington-Leeds which is a 10miles longer journey).

I don't think it's inappropriate at all. The distance as the crow flies is fairly similar, the extra distance between Warrington and Leeds is mainly because a longer route is required so it serves central Manchester (opposed to stopping at Prestwich) and to allow for the derivation around the Pennines. If HS3 ever gets built (where George Osborne was promising running up to a whopping 125mph between cities in the North) then people travelling between Warrington and Leeds may be able to enjoy the luxury of fast services like you already have on most routes in and out of London.

 

[Yew]

As I've asked previously, what have all those rolling stock leasing charges on already purchased rolling stock been paying for if not replacement/additional trains. Scotch mist ?

Shareholder Divedends

 

[6Gman]

Shareholder Divedends

Didn't the guy who bought one of the original ROSCOs sell it on and buy a football club?

NWIYCGI

 

[455driver]

A Rosco doesn't provide a new train when the old one wears out.
Leasing charges do not include replacement costs, only wear and tear, routine maintenance and the capital investment.
Refurbs, upgrades and anything new are extras.

What about profit?
It all depends on the type of lease, some are pay by the hour (XC HST), some are 'all inclusive' (SWT Desiro) and anything in between.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Shareholder Divedends

What, in financial terms, is a "divedend"?

 

[AM9]

What, in financial terms, is a "divedend"?

It's the end of the pool where the springboards are!

 

[NSEFAN]

It's the end of the pool where the springboards are!

Do the shareholders of ROSCOs have annual meetings, where they all take it in turns to dive into a swimming pool of gold and money, like Scrooge McDuck?