Britain’s experiment in radical rail privatisation is over

[hayfield]

On 25/09/2020 at 02:51, DavidB-AU said:

 

For a publication that promotes economic liberalism and is strongly pro-privatisation, this is quite a radical view. 

 

 

Being someone who commuted for the best part of the first 20 years of my working life, my employers cam to the conclusion to close down all but one central London office and relocate to several new ones  around the M25. I swapped an hours journey each way to on a good day a 5 min drive. What a no brainer and saved me Thousands of £'s in travel expenses.

 

I have an in law who travelled every day from the depths of Kent (he moved there to get away from outer London) to central London for 20+ years constantly moaning about the cost of rail fares and not enough government subsidy on them

 

Having been a commuter and seeing the benefit of working locally then from home its about time reality kicks in for the benefits to both personal life and society that can be achieved by working locally

 

What's going to happen to our city centers ? perhaps people will move back in !!!

 

 

[melmerby]

56 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

What's going to happen to our city centers ? perhaps people will move back in !!!

 

Provision of city centre accommodation has been on the rise for several years, ostensibly to get people closer to their place of work and with in easy reach of entertainment, restaurants etc.

This has been going on in Birmingham, Manchester and other centres at some pace, where many new"middle class" apartment blocks are under construction (and being taken up)

[hayfield]

13 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Provision of city centre accommodation has been on the rise for several years, ostensibly to get people closer to their place of work and with in easy reach of entertainment, restaurants etc.

This has been going on in Birmingham, Manchester and other centres at some pace, where many new"middle class" apartment blocks are under construction (and being taken up)

 

I have noticed this, but London and especially the city is different, that is until now

[Joseph_Pestell]

10 hours ago, xveitch said:

Apropos modern rail-based parcel traffic, I presume you've not seen the (fairly) recent development from the Rail Operations Group (ROG), called Orion: https://orion.railopsgroup.co.uk 

 

They've ordered 5 Class 769 FLEX bi-modes and appear to have access to some 319's: https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/more-flex-units-for-rog-as-it-expands-logistics-traffic-plans

 

Given their experience with rolling stock management it will be interesting to see how they implement this service... 

 

I know very little about train pathing and priorities; maybe someone would be kind enough to answer a question: I presume that when delays occur, a passenger service will be prioritised over a freight service. Would the use of passenger-grade vehicles for this service increase it's priority (which would be very important for parcel deliveries, especially with the claims they're making), perhaps only over other freight services? 

 

Xander

 

Certainly interesting as an exercise in proving viability for some routes.

 

But unloading quickly is key and I think it probably needs purpose-built vehicles with much wider doors or tilt curtain sides.

[Oldddudders]

3 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

I have noticed this, but London and especially the city is different, that is until now

I would suggest that London has done its bit, but much longer ago. Both the Brunswick and Barbican developments, among others, provided new inner-city dwellings, albeit up-market, in bombed-out districts. 

[ejstubbs]

23 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

I think that many cities, including London, have bus stops at spacings that are far too close.

 

I believe that Edinburgh has initiated a limited programme of removing superfluous bus stops.  On one road near where I live -  a major road, given that it is part of the city's "ring road" and always gets rammed whenever the City of Edinburgh Bypass is snarled up - has four bus stops in a space of just over 500m.  Also near to me are two stops 130m apart, again on a major road heading out of the city.  The northern of those two stops seems to have been forgotten by the road planners when they put in a segregated cycle lane recently: all the other bus stops on that road have breaks in the cycle lane to allow buses to pull up alongside the footway but that one poor forgotten bus stop has the cycle lane going past it unbroken, so buses have to stop in the middle of the carriageway to set down and pick up.  (That said, it doesn't actually seem to cause much disruption.)

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Both the Brunswick and Barbican developments, among others, provided new inner-city dwellings, albeit up-market, in bombed-out districts.

 

And look at how much a pad in the Barbican can set you back these days!  That's the problem, though: more people would live closer to an office in the centre of London if reasonable housing were available at a sensible price.  And "reasonable" should include provision for families with children (which, to be fair, the Barbican does have to a degree).

 

When I worked in central London I deliberately chose to live in town in order to avoid long commutes.  After renting a bedsit in South End Green, Hampstead for a while I managed to afford to buy a top-floor one-bed flat on Camden Street.  I was single and it suited me just fine, but it would have been 'cozy' for a couple and no good at all for a family (although there was actually a perfectly good park with a kiddies playground on the adjacent side street - and Regent's Park was no more than a 15 minute walk away).

Edited September 29, 2020 by ejstubbs

[Oldddudders]

4 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

And look at how much a pad in the Barbican can set you back these days!  That's the problem, though: more people would live closer to an office in the centre of London if reasonable housing were available at a sensible price.  And "reasonable" should include provision for families with children (which, to be fair, the Barbican does have to a degree).

True, but perhaps the increase in WFH may cause a sort of trickle-down, such that city offices become smaller, reducing demand and thus land values, so affordable housing gets a bit of an opportunity boost. It will all take time, though. 

[caradoc]

13 hours ago, xveitch said:

I know very little about train pathing and priorities; maybe someone would be kind enough to answer a question: I presume that when delays occur, a passenger service will be prioritised over a freight service.

 

Not necessarily; Network Rail has a duty to treat train operators fairly, and as a Network Rail Controller I made decisions that prioritised keeping freight trains moving over passengers. 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by caradoc
Clarification

[caradoc]

Regarding bus services, the route I use when in Oxford serves, as well as the suburbs, student accommodation blocks, many of whose residents are from abroad and understandably sometimes have difficult with our language, money and bus fare structure. So the bus frequently spends longer stationary at bus stops than actually moving ! (they are all OPO of course). 

 

[ejstubbs]

Very common in central Edinburgh, too, especially at Festival time.  Also people stepping on to a bus seemingly at random in order to get directions from the driver.  I'm told that Lothian Buses' drivers are required by their management to be as helpful as reasonably possible, rather than just saying "The Lothian Buses travel shop is just over there" as I have been tempted to do when stopped in the street.  It's just one of those things us residents have to learn to put up with in a tourist destination city.

[Pacific231G]

6 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

The Red star parcels service worked precisely because it was part of a vertically integrated structure. Many trains in use at the time were still carrying about Guards / luggage accomadation regardless of whether it was used or not - so the costs of providing the parcel service was basically limited to staff and depots etc.

 

Come privatisation and every TOC demanded payments for carrying about other people’s stuff. Combine this with new train fleets with little or no luggage accomadation and the costs of running the Red Star parcels business as a rail based operation became cripplingly large.

Yet now a company is working with several TOCs to do just that and it apparently started well before anyone had heard of Covid. The likes of GwR won't be carrying their stuff for free.  It would be interesting to know whether InterCity RailFreight are getting their packages on and off trains just at the beginning and end of their journeys or at intermediate stations as well. It looks like it's long distance trains they're focussing on and, by using couriers, they wouldn't need parcels offices at stations.

 

There have been some anomalies. AFAIR, one of the reasons why the Royal Mail abandoned rail for trunking post was that the TOCs involved had to charge them VAT on the service but using their own long distance trucks avoided that which shifted the economics in favour of road. Joined up government anyone? 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Pacific231G

[corneliuslundie]

"Joined up government anyone? "

Did I see a porcine aviator?

Jonathan

[ejstubbs]

On 28/09/2020 at 13:27, Oldddudders said:

Parcels and postal traffic ... became distinctly unfashionable when passenger numbers started to increase in the later 1980s. New rolling stock was designed without any space for them. If we believe that WFH is truly going to become far more of a norm, then creating capacity for these traffics might be less contentious. But rolling stock lasts for decades, so it can't happen overnight.

 

You don't have to wait for rolling stock to become end-of-life before starting to think about providing the capability to carry different types of loads.  Existing rolling stock can be converted, if the need/demand is perceived to be there, e.g. the ScotRail 156s being converted to have a coach set aside for bicycles, for use on services in the West Highlands.

Edited September 29, 2020 by ejstubbs

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

You don't have to wait for rolling stock to become end-of-life before starting to think about providing the capability to carry different types of loads.  Existing rolling stock can be converted, if the need/demand is perceived to be there, e.g. the ScotRail 156s being converted to have a coach set aside for bicycles, for use on services in the West Highlands.

And Scotrail is both lessee and user. So it can indeed determine changes with the ROSCO. But the passenger TOCs aren't, at least initially, going to be in the parcel carriae business  by choice. It isn't their core business. A change of attitude will be required for TOCs to carry products/provide services for other companies. In 1995 they decided they would no longer even carry railway maintenance staff on duty gratis, a decision that was not well-received when I tabled it to a BRIS IMU Director the next day. As I said, this will not happen overnight.

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

You don't have to wait for rolling stock to become end-of-life before starting to think about providing the capability to carry different types of loads.  Existing rolling stock can be converted, if the need/demand is perceived to be there, e.g. the ScotRail 156s being converted to have a coach set aside for bicycles, for use on services in the West Highlands.

 

That is more a by product of the class 153s being legal to operate on their own due to disability rights legislation.

 

The new laws mean that either you have to spend a lot of money converting the 153s back into disability compliant 155s - or you add them to other units which are complaint.

 

All that has happened is Scotrail have spotted an opportunity to add extra space for cycles etc to their West Highland services at minimal cost while the leasing company still gets income and is saved from scraping or rebuilding the 153s.

 

Had Scotrail been faced with building new trains for the task it wouldn't have happened.

 

Its the same with the 319s (and possibility the 321s if rumours are to be believed where the existence of redundant passenger rolling stock with many years of life left in them have become surplus to requirements for passenger TOCs leaving the looking at alternative options to scraping them. Parcels traffic is an obvious possibility - particularly if the units are made tri / bi mode and no longer limited to needing an external power source. However if it was the case that new build trains were needed then I doubt the leasing companies / parcel companies would be interested in procuring new stock for the task.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by phil-b259

[phil-b259]

20 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

And Scotrail is both lessee and user. So it can indeed determine changes with the ROSCO. But the passenger TOCs aren't, at least initially, going to be in the parcel carriae business  by choice. It isn't their core business. A change of attitude will be required for TOCs to carry products/provide services for other companies. In 1995 they decided they would no longer even carry railway maintenance staff on duty gratis

 

Yup - a decision which has not changed that still rankles with post 96 employees of Network Rail, FOCs, etc to this day.

Edited September 29, 2020 by phil-b259

[Oldddudders]

56 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Yup - a decision which has not changed that still rankles with post 96 employees of Network Rail, FOCs, etc to this day.

It was a bit of a shock to BRIS, where IMU contract prices to Railtrack had assumed status quo in staff duty mobility, and suddenly that would no longer obtain. The IMU Director said "That means I can't operate!" to which I had to respond "Peter, I believe you can operate, but not necessarily at the price you have quoted." That earned me a long, hard stare..... Privatising the railway was such fun. Not. 

[pH]

9 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

I believe that Edinburgh has initiated a limited programme of removing superfluous bus stops.  On one road near where I live -  a major road, given that it is part of the city's "ring road" and always gets rammed whenever the City of Edinburgh Bypass is snarled up - has four bus stops in a space of just over 500m.  Also near to me are two stops 130m apart, again on a major road heading out of the city.  

Vancouver (and, I’m sure, other cities) has stops at virtually every block (i.e. every 100 yards) downtown and on major roads and no plans that I know of to remove any. But there are two types of service on these routes - expresses and stoppers! The expresses stop only at certain major intersections. You get off an express at the stop before your destination and transfer to a stopper for the rest of the journey - sound like any other type of transport? The arrangement is facilitated by ‘through tickets’ - you have 90 minutes of travel from boarding the first bus. Now done electronically, but it used to be by issue of a paper ‘transfer’, with a time to which it was valid.

[Zomboid]

London has (or had at least) that to an extent with a few peak hour only routes like the X68, which run "non stop" for long stretches of the normal route (and I think the X68 goes beyond the end of the regular 68 at the suburban end).

 

And in Oxford the park and ride buses only stop at a few of the stops outside the city centre.

[Pacific231G]

11 hours ago, Zomboid said:

London has (or had at least) that to an extent with a few peak hour only routes like the X68, which run "non stop" for long stretches of the normal route (and I think the X68 goes beyond the end of the regular 68 at the suburban end).

 

And in Oxford the park and ride buses only stop at a few of the stops outside the city centre.

Hi Zomboid

I believe there are just four express bus routes in London and, according to TfL, the other three are currently operating all day 7/7. You're quite right that the X68  is only operating during the Mon-Fri peaks but I don't know if that's its normal pattern.

 

The one I ocasionally use is the 607 that runs the full length of the old no. 7 tram route which became the 207 bus route and is currently operated, with a huge overlap, by the 207 and 427 routes and the N207 Holborn-Oxford Circus-Uxbridge night bus. The 607 runs along the whole thirteen miles of the Uxbridge Road from Shepherds Bush/White City Bus Station  to Uxbridge station. There are just 12 intermediate stops on its route, so about one a mile, compared with the seventy or so bus stops along the route.

 

There are three X prefixed express routes X26, X68, X140 but the numbering is a bit odd.

X68 Russell Sq.- W. Croydon follows most of the 68 route (Euston-West Norwood) but, as you say, runs non-stop over a long section of it from Waterloo to West Norwood  and goes further than the 68's current terminus to W. Croydon (Does it follow the same roads over that section?)

X140 Harrow-Heathrow follows the original 140 route though that now only goes as far as Hayes & Harlingrton.

X26 connecting Heathrow with Croydon bears no relationship to route 26 but apparently follows a former Green Line route that was once the now defunct 726 bus route.

 

It's not clear why the 607 isn't the X607 but it took its number from the trolleybuses  that replaced the no. 7 tram on that route. Its entire route along the Uxbridge Road was planned to become a tram route again- with about haf as many stops as the buses-  but there was huge local opposition (not from me!) to that. An alternative proposal to turn it into a  trolleybus route also came to nothing but I'm not sure whether you could run express and stopping trolleybuses on the same route on ordinary roads. Express trams are also AFAIK rare on urban tram systems particularly those running on ordinary roads*

 

*There is a shared stopping/express tram route in Lyon where the Rhônexpress tram-trains that run out to the airport and TGV station share  tracks with the city's T3 tram route  for the first 14km of its 23km route. However T3 uses the right of way of the former Est de Lyon railway and there are passing loops at several of its stops.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Pacific231G

[corneliuslundie]

"But unloading quickly is key"

Re the discussion on parcels,. wasn't that why Brutes were invented? The problem is more that there are now no staff to load and unload them at most stations. It would have to be done by staff of the parcel delivery company.

And re courier services. It is crazy. Even in this small town (12000)  we see at least four different courier vehicles every day, often more - even in the lanes to the surrounding farms. That is neither efficient nor environmentally friendly.

BTW, in response to a response by Phil to my earlier comments, I was not suggesting that change would be fast. However, for environmental reasons many changes are being made which people may not like - sometimes half baked ones unfortunately - such as changes to energy regulations for buildings (which in a decade will affect the ability to rent out many houses, for example), the proposed eventual ban on petrol cars, banning cars from city centres etc. This is inevitable. But it may take decades to make any real changes. That was the timescale I had in mind when I wrote.

Jonathan

[Joseph_Pestell]

6 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

"But unloading quickly is key"

Re the discussion on parcels,. wasn't that why Brutes were invented? The problem is more that there are now no staff to load and unload them at most stations. It would have to be done by staff of the parcel delivery company.

And re courier services. It is crazy. Even in this small town (12000)  we see at least four different courier vehicles every day, often more - even in the lanes to the surrounding farms. That is neither efficient nor environmentally friendly.

BTW, in response to a response by Phil to my earlier comments, I was not suggesting that change would be fast. However, for environmental reasons many changes are being made which people may not like - sometimes half baked ones unfortunately - such as changes to energy regulations for buildings (which in a decade will affect the ability to rent out many houses, for example), the proposed eventual ban on petrol cars, banning cars from city centres etc. This is inevitable. But it may take decades to make any real changes. That was the timescale I had in mind when I wrote.

Jonathan

 

Each of those four courier firms vans will be well filled if serving a town of 12000. There are probably more than four. 

 

Unloading a train might require some new technology. The HGVs are unloaded onto a conveyor belt that can be extended into the body of the lorry lengthwise. But I expect that something by way of a hinged and mobile conveyor belt could be devised to unload each wagon of a dedicated rail wagon.

[Jonboy]

On 28/09/2020 at 09:19, chris p bacon said:

 

Having followed some in London I think you'll find that no one liked them as they were incapable of operating with narrow streets.  Having seen one wedged between traffic lights at a junction I can understand why.

 

I did see the ex London buses in Malta after they were shipped there. They didn't work there either and after several fires and complaints from passengers they languish(ed) in yard outside Valletta.

I saw them being upgraded in Oxfordshire before they left....8 out of a batch of 10 broke down on the drive to Bristol dock for the boat to Malta....

[Hobby]

I do wonder sometimes that if we don't invent or build something in this country that there is an inbred desire to see it fail, or if it dosn't come up with excuses why we shouldn't use it. I've travelled on loads of bendi-buses (and trolley buses) when travelling around Europe and they've always been just fine, and got through some pretty tight streets (London isn't the only place to have them!). Yes, they take some getting used to for other road users/pedestrians, that I've no doubt, but they do work and are as reliable as any other bus. But of course we didn't make or develop them and people don't want to adapt to them...

Edited October 2, 2020 by Hobby