Railway franchises in the coming year

[woodenhead]

7 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Be careful what you wish for, much of London’s success masks the failures, down to that it’s profitable.

 

Trains between Bolton and Manchester may thrive under Manchester’s central government... they will be happy to support a profit centre... but who pays for services to Blackburn, Burnley, Blackpool South, Morecambe etc.

 

If the profitable revenue of Blackburn to Manchester comes from Bolton to Manchester ticketing, you may find Manchester asking Lancashire to stump up the difference, where as Lancashire’s view is the entire route makes money and they should be entitled to a share. Of course money runs dry, and politicians can be stubborn.. you may find the Blackburn service curtails at Bolton, and Lancashire has to find a solution for a Blackburn to Bolton Route.. whilst balancing those costs against what they can afford elsewhere... maybe cut back on Blackpool South ?

 

Whilst some of the profit from Manchester’s commuters covers the losses of Lancashire’s rural services, if the future Lancashire took responsibility for their bit, and Manchester there’s... you could find luxury services in Manchester, Andy Burnham safely re-elected, and a return to horse and carts outside the county.

 

I don't expect local services to make a profit - any profit Arriva derives from Northern is built into the price paid by the government, hence some of the union arguments for nationalisation.

 

Scottish railways don't make profits either nor do a lot of the south eastern services outside of the peak.

 

I expect that public transport should be paid for out of a mix of central and local taxation (council tax) so that there is a good choice of buses and trains when we need them.

 

The only way to break the car owning generation is to offer a good alternative using eco friendly machines to get us about, also a return to shops being nearby (thank you Aldi and Lidl) rather than large supermarkets that Tesco, Asda and Morrisons used to like so much with their massive car parks.

[adb968008]

8 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

I don't expect local services to make a profit - any profit Arriva derives from Northern is built into the price paid by the government, hence some of the union arguments for nationalisation.

 

Scottish railways don't make profits either nor do a lot of the south eastern services outside of the peak.

 

I expect that public transport should be paid for out of a mix of central and local taxation (council tax) so that there is a good choice of buses and trains when we need them.

 

The only way to break the car owning generation is to offer a good alternative using eco friendly machines to get us about, also a return to shops being nearby (thank you Aldi and Lidl) rather than large supermarkets that Tesco, Asda and Morrisons used to like so much with their massive car parks.

As long as it’s local council tax I would support it.

 

Round here it makes money, indeed i’d Expect a fare reduction from the lack of need of subsidy going to the North...

 

so on your argument i’m in !!!

 

You do realise the only reason a conservative PM would be willing to support a Labour Mayor is to get rid of centralised funding off the central books and get to be able to point to the Mayor when it all goes south, and maybe even pick up a few “I told you so” local votes too. I bought my own trainset, if Andy Burnham wants one, let him pay for his.

Edited January 5, 2020 by adb968008

[caradoc]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

 

......... In the case of the railways, they have become a 7/365 operation and the working conditions need to change to reflect that reality - and as I said ideally through negotiation but if not then by being forced.

 

 

The railways have always been a 7/365 operation; In my first job on BR, in October 1978, my roster included Sundays and night shifts, and when I retired 38 years later, it still did !

[Adamski94]

I don't know about other TOCs but the one I work for Sundays are not part of the working week but nor are they really voluntary. You can make yourself unavailable for them but if they can't be covered then you have to work. Thus I don't really know of many occasions certainly in my experience where Sunday trains have been cancelled due to lack of staff. However thats just a very small part of the national picture. 

[rockershovel]

Quite a lot of special pleading above, I think - viewing global issues from local, or specific perspectives. 

 

Railways, as railways, have rarely made money  (pace the Festiniog Railway).  Hudson, the Railway King died penniless. The Gurney’s Overend bank collapse was materially affected by railway shares. The 1923 Grouping produced that chronic financial invalid, the LNER and Nationalisation was unavoidable post-1945.

 

Railways in the US have a long and undistinguished history of bankruptcies. 

 

I don’t really see, on the evidence, why anyone would expect rail franchises to be consistently profitable. However the government are hardly in a position to admit this. Either we want a national rail network, in the national interest, or we don’t. There is also the inherent conflict of interest, whereby local funding is under severe pressure of its own. 

 

The crux of it is, government occupies a unique position, with unique responsibilities. It is expected to govern, which no other body can do; and to do so in the national interest, which no other body represents. 

 

Quite where this leads, remains to be seen; but the polls showed Labour’s proposals for rail nationalisation to be very popular. The electorate have developed a taste for voting “none of the above” and it wouldn’t surprise me at all, to see the railway OpCos being treated to a taste of this particular tarbrush, in the foreseeable future. 

[mdvle]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I don't expect local services to make a profit

 

I expect that public transport should be paid for out of a mix of central and local taxation (council tax) so that there is a good choice of buses and trains when we need them.

 

You may expect those things, but that isn't the reality on the ground.

 

TfL gets no operating subsidy from central taxes (they at best when they are lucky get one time payments for certain capital projects like Crossrail).

 

The much wanted local control, as attempted to be pointed out to you by adb968008, isn't a magical solution in as much as it also attracts serious negatives - in the case of London an ill-advised fare freeze as part of a mayoral election, combined with the Crossrail delays (revenue from Crossrail is being badly missed from the TfL budget) means a lot of stuff is being cancelled/deferred or creative financing being invoked regardless of the long term consequences (or, to put it another way, things aren't looking so great for transit in London).

 

And that's all with a single government in charge - now, as suggested, have 3 or more governments in the north of England fighting over the service and it simply is a recipe for disaster particularly when the central government funding disappears (because the treasury won't want to give London a reason to be demanding money again).

[rockershovel]

I don’t know which sounds worse; handing local government the keys to something which makes a profit, or the keys to something which doesn’t...

[lmsforever]

Local government is not the way forward for rail,  the mayor for Manchester seems to be interested in publicity at every chance not good for passengers.The staff who  run the trains receive much abuse from press and public it should not happen as they are trying to do their best in often difficult situations, the public mostly do not understand how the rail system works.One organisation that has caused many problems is the DFT  they seem to be intent on making bad decisions and blaming others lets have a rail organisation that looks after rail  managed by people who know their job.

[rockershovel]

I rather think that DfT is a good example of the problems inherent in the Conservatives trying to copy Blair’s style of government. Blair’s key purpose was to get elected, with no real plan for what followed. Hard liners who could never expect to be elected as Leader were allowed to run amok, because there was no real prospect of credible opposition at the polls for a long time to come. New MPs, disconnected from the main power centres within the party, were set running after time-consuming red herrings like the fox hunting bill. 

 

Cameron tried to do the same. Unfortunately Labour are unlike the Conservatives, structurally speaking, and the “break the unions” hard liners congregated at DfT, along with the “privatisation is always best” school, leading to the sort of attitudes on display there today. There isn’t really much else to attract them, and the situation can’t improve until they are moved on. 

 

Whether Boris Johnson can, or will do this, remains to be seen. He needs to appeal to an electorate which has lost all patience with the observed outcome, and (being predominantly English) aren’t hugely interested in the details. He also needs to keep the Conservative Party under sufficient control. 

 

let’s see what develops. 

 

[The Stationmaster]

On 05/01/2020 at 17:58, rockershovel said:

Quite a lot of special pleading above, I think - viewing global issues from local, or specific perspectives. 

 

Railways, as railways, have rarely made money  (pace the Festiniog Railway).  Hudson, the Railway King died penniless. The Gurney’s Overend bank collapse was materially affected by railway shares. The 1923 Grouping produced that chronic financial invalid, the LNER and Nationalisation was unavoidable post-1945.

 

Railways in the US have a long and undistinguished history of bankruptcies. 

 

I don’t really see, on the evidence, why anyone would expect rail franchises to be consistently profitable. However the government are hardly in a position to admit this. Either we want a national rail network, in the national interest, or we don’t. There is also the inherent conflict of interest, whereby local funding is under severe pressure of its own. 

 

The crux of it is, government occupies a unique position, with unique responsibilities. It is expected to govern, which no other body can do; and to do so in the national interest, which no other body represents. 

 

Quite where this leads, remains to be seen; but the polls showed Labour’s proposals for rail nationalisation to be very popular. The electorate have developed a taste for voting “none of the above” and it wouldn’t surprise me at all, to see the railway OpCos being treated to a taste of this particular tarbrush, in the foreseeable future. 

But  that final paragraph of yours shows the total ignorance than runs through the public (political) arena in this whole subject.  The railway itself is nationalised, and has been for several years so it is in a situation where it physocally can't be nationalised.  If we then d come to train services - which is what passengers are most concerned about we come to two other areas of 'nationalised' responsibility.  Firstly to a very large extent in most cases, and to an entire extent in some others, the train timetable is controlled by the state through the DfT through the specification it sets for franchise bidders - so we therefore have a nationalised railway with trains running on it to a largely 'nationalised' timetable.   In many respects the tyep of trains and the manner in which they are operated is also down to the DfT's specification - i.e. it is 'nationalised'.

 

If we then go into everyday operation it is regulated by NR (i.e. the nationalised part of the industry) and infrastructure related delays are also down to the nationalised part of the industry.   The trains themselves are generally 'nationalised' ownership although some, such as Crossrail's awful class 345s  very definitely are publicly owned while various trains which are perceived by many as lemons such as the 700s and 80Xs reflect a major state influence in the specification and  design.  yet strangely people seem to regard this sort of thing and these sorts of trains as 'popular.

 

Just goes to show that you really can fool most of the people all the time - without even trying.

[royaloak]

On 05/01/2020 at 17:58, rockershovel said:

Quite where this leads, remains to be seen; but the polls showed Labour’s proposals for rail nationalisation to be very popular. The electorate have developed a taste for voting “none of the above” and it wouldn’t surprise me at all, to see the railway OpCos being treated to a taste of this particular tarbrush, in the foreseeable future. 

Was that the 1997 Labour manifesto promise to Nationalise the railways or one of the many later proposals?

 

Further to SMs excellent post above,

  About the only thing privatised is the staff and even then the numbers are tightly controlled by DaFT, both maximum and minimum staff numbers in each grade.

Edited January 6, 2020 by royaloak

[rockershovel]

Re the two previous posts, that’s missing the point rather. The electorate as a whole, are not interested in distinctions of this sort, which they regard as specious and/or irrelevant. 

 

“The railways” , in the sense of the global entity by which trains run on tracks from one place to another, clearly aren’t functioning to their benefit or the nation’s, and public funds are being poured into private pockets to that end. Politicians posture and vapour, but simply continue in post; complex quarrels between staff and employers, rage for months on end; so it goes on. 

 

The public, or a sizeable segment of it, have lost patience with the concept of privatised railways, and the government’s continued attempts to resolve a problem which is plainly beyond solution. This can’t continue, and its time for the private entities to leave the stage, is the view. 

 

[caradoc]

If the railways were fully nationalised, ie no private sector involvement in any way, would the influence of the DfT be;

a) Greater ?

b) Less ?

[mdvle]

2 hours ago, royaloak said:

Was that the 1997 Labour manifesto promise to Nationalise the railways or one of the many later proposals?

 

Proposals/promises in the 2019 and 2017 elections, which independent polling from outside of the Labour party showed strong public support for. 

 

Part of it is the reality that we forget the bad parts of the past, so BR through the tint of history looks great.  But it is also that the public are tired of the finger pointing between entities when things go wrong and want a return to a system where it is obvious who is in charge (a system that I would guess DfT would not like).

 

8 minutes ago, caradoc said:

If the railways were fully nationalised, ie no private sector involvement in any way, would the influence of the DfT be;

a) Greater ?

b) Less ?

 

Essentially the same, maybe slightly greater with the occasional threat of legal action gone.  There is no real indication at this point that the private sector TOCs have much influence in the running of the railway.

[caradoc]

Although it would presumably mean the end of Open Access operators ?

[corneliuslundie]

The government could drop Open Access anyway without any other changes, post EU. Don't suggest it!

Just one correction: not all franchises are making money for the companies operating them.

Jonathan

[mdvle]

On 04/01/2020 at 17:06, Gwiwer said:

A change at the top for South Western Railway.  Pitched as a reshuffle I make no comment in the light of recent industrial action and other rumblings (with or without foundation) regarding the future of this particular franchise.  It has, however precipitated change at the top for GWR who Head Honcho moves - in theory if not actuality - from Paddington to Waterloo at least pro tem.  

 

Interesting times may lie ahead for users of both.

 

So this article at London Reconnections indicates there may finally be hope for long suffering SWR users - that a lot of infrastructure work has been done to increase capacity and the new trains arriving are to a large extent the final piece of the puzzle with their larger capacity and better designed doors (according to the article one of the reasons for junking the Class 707 units was a poorly designed/specified door area that lead to dwell time delays - and given that Waterloo is the big elephant in trying to improve SWR capacity reducing dwell times to allow more trains per hour was the only viable solution short of Crossrail 2).

 

https://www.londonreconnections.com/2020/guards-in-name-only-dwell-times-and-the-swr-guards-dispute/

 

(also, as noted in the 442 thread, fans of the 442 units should thank the Guards for their strike, which freed up sufficient capacity during December that they were able to fix and test the 442 signal interference issue).

Edited January 6, 2020 by mdvle

[royaloak]

On 04/01/2020 at 22:06, Gwiwer said:

A change at the top for South Western Railway.  Pitched as a reshuffle I make no comment in the light of recent industrial action and other rumblings (with or without foundation) regarding the future of this particular franchise.  It has, however precipitated change at the top for GWR who Head Honcho moves - in theory if not actuality - from Paddington to Waterloo at least pro tem.  

 

Interesting times may lie ahead for users of both.

It doesnt matter who is at the top if the DaFT wont allow any room to negotiate, there have been a few compromises acceptable to both sides but DaFT wouldnt allow them, just because Mark Hopwood (A thoroughly decent chap) has been parachuted in doesnt in itself mean anything else has changed. 

[rockershovel]

A new manager parachuted into post, can only have an effect to the limits of his remit. The question must be, what is his remit?

 

We are not at the point of catastrophic failure, after all. However we ARE at the point at which the current political vision - of competing parties with few, if any real functional differences, conducting a constant factional struggle in pursuit of party advantage, incorporating quite hard-Line ideological elements from both sides and chronically deficient in operational skills  - has ceased to be electable. 

 

The Conservatives have taken a position of pragmatism, although to what extent remains to be seen. This has shifted the electoral balance in their favour, against Labour’s irredentism. This means that the door is open to a policy of cumulative, organic change without the need to label it according to current, or recent usage. 

 

In terms of railways, I don't believe we will see “nationalisation”, by that name. The electorate don’t care that some franchises (call them what you will) lose money, seeing that as a risk of doing business. Unprofitable routes will pass under central control by default, and stay that way over time. The naked favouritism of the privatised era will be scaled back, probably in the direction of cost-plus management contracting.  More centralised control of personnel training, conditions and remuneration will be introduced over time, without a return to national collective bargaining.  

[bimble]

13 hours ago, caradoc said:

If the railways were fully nationalised, ie no private sector involvement in any way, would the influence of the DfT be;

a) Greater ?

b) Less ?

 

13 hours ago, caradoc said:

Although it would presumably mean the end of Open Access operators ?

 

How would freight companies be affected? Presumably a "fully nationalised" railway could only be considered "fully" if they were brought back into the fold? Are they Open Access in the same manner as Hull or Grand Central, or are they something just a little bit different?

[4630]

8 minutes ago, bimble said:

 

 

How would freight companies be affected? Presumably a "fully nationalised" railway could only be considered "fully" if they were brought back into the fold? Are they Open Access in the same manner as Hull or Grand Central, or are they something just a little bit different?

 

As far as the freight companies are concerned the phrase 'Open Access' is not really relevant.  'All Access' would be a better description as their operating licences give them them full access to the network, subject of course to suitable traction and staff resourcing/knowledge for the routes concerned.

 

'Open Access' is only open in the sense that Hull Trains and Grand Central have applied directly to the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) to run a commercial passenger service on specific routes outwith the normal franchise agreements arranged by the DfT.  Different economic tests are applied by the ORR before permission to operate is granted and the operators take on the commercial risks (and rewards) of running their services.

[rockershovel]

4 minutes ago, bimble said:

 

 

How would freight companies be affected? Presumably a "fully nationalised" railway could only be considered "fully" if they were brought back into the fold? Are they Open Access in the same manner as Hull or Grand Central, or are they something just a little bit different?

 

See above. We are entering a complex phase in which the government’s priorities are being redefined, in a wide range of fields. 

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Re the two previous posts, that’s missing the point rather. The electorate as a whole, are not interested in distinctions of this sort, which they regard as specious and/or irrelevant. 

 

“The railways” , in the sense of the global entity by which trains run on tracks from one place to another, clearly aren’t functioning to their benefit or the nation’s, and public funds are being poured into private pockets to that end. Politicians posture and vapour, but simply continue in post; complex quarrels between staff and employers, rage for months on end; so it goes on. 

 

The public, or a sizeable segment of it, have lost patience with the concept of privatised railways, and the government’s continued attempts to resolve a problem which is plainly beyond solution. This can’t continue, and its time for the private entities to leave the stage, is the view. 

 

Maybe railways are, or aren't, functioning to teh benefit of the nation  - and that in itself is a major debate.  But the critical point is that they are run in a manner set by the state via the medium of DfT, which is ultimately responsible for its actions to elected politicians, and through the medium of National Rail which is a state owned company.

 

It is all too easy to complain about 'the owner' having (incorrectly) identified who that is by the colour of a particular train but that still ignores where the ultimate responsibility lies and how it has been hidden.  If - for example the state openly controlled the trains, instead of doing so by contracts with franchisees, the question which has to be asked and cannot be avoided is what difference would it make?  and the simple answer is - as far as I can see and my experience tells me - it won't make the slightest bit of difference except possibly in respect of the colour of the trains.

 

BR managed, over many years, to generally keep politicians at arm's length and it ran the railway with minimal interference from the extremely small railway section of the Dept of Transport.  That has gone and can never be recreated in less than a generation and probably even longer because everybody at a certain level the industry is now very much a 'political' (with a small 'p' most of the time) animal totally unused to working in a way that is independent of the dictats of the DfT.   Oddly too if you look at various satisfaction ratings the operators that tend to get the highest scores - for whatever reason.  In a survey of 4,000 people conducted by which the only British mainland train operators to score over 60% were private companies running under open access (Grand Central and Hull Trains) although Island Line scored highest of all ( I bet it won't now) and Translink NI Railways also scored over 60%.  The worst were, as it happened arguably those operators where the DfT has interfered the most in various ways -Thameslink, Southern, and Northern.  Statistically that looks to me more like a vote for independent operators than for state control!

 

A second survey in late 2018 with a sample of 10,000 had slightly different results with Merseyrail scoring soring 72% (instead of its earlier 58%, Translink NI came second with 70% , Island Line again did well but it scored the sanme as Grand Central at 66%.  The bottom three were, again, Southern, Thameslink, and Northern - oddly those very operators where 'state control' had been at its most prevalent.  Looks like 'nationalisation' (aka state control') isn't quite the panacea it's claimed to be.

 

If we come forward to the 2019 National Passenger Survey we get some equally fascinating results.  Taking passenger perception of the value for money of fares three operators scored over 60% (all were in the 60-7-% range), Gt Grand Central, Hull Trains, and Merseyrail.  Most were in the 50-60% range and some were lower.  Rather different results from those seen in earlier wider based surveys as Great Northern. South Western, and South Eastern all scored below 40%.  Overall satisfaction with the journey also produced some interesting results  - Heathrow Express (private operator) came out top with 95%Chiltern (long term franchise of course), Virgin got 91%, Hull Trains, and Merseyrail all scored 90%, while Grand Central got 89% as did Gatwick express, LNER, and TfL Rail; the lowest scorer was Great Northern at 77%.

 

It does of course depend on who was asked when but the oddity is that in many respects the wholly private concerns seem to do rather well while those under the DfT's tightest grip often finished up at the opposite extreme.  equally of course not all passengers will have experienced every operator and so can't necessarily make comparisons not r do most passengers know where state control has its greatest influence or the opposite.  which of course leaves us with the perennial question about what voters say when they are asked about policies and how are the questions put to them?  In that respect i think any political party can produce survey/polling results to prove whatever it wants and to demonstrate support for its policies but I suspect that in all too many cases the person hasn't really got the faintest idea what they are being asked about and have no experience of it.

 

Perhaps another way of looking at it is don't bother to ask the man on the Clapham omnibus because he dorsn't travel by train anyway!

[rockershovel]

A difficult question, as you point out at some length. There’s no doubt that the destruction of the former structure of BR is far advanced and in all likelihood, beyond repair. There is also a good case to be made that many of the worst problems are concentrated on routes which weren’t noted for financial health in pre-nationalisation days - LNER and the ECML being a good example. 

 

I’m not convinced in the least, of the value of branding in railway services; the overall “brand” of “privatisation” is too tarnished, by now. Nor am I convinced of the appeal to the electorate, of the principle that private companies should cream off any profits which can be extracted from the rail network, leaving the taxpayer with the dross. Rail privatisation was trumpeted as “providing capital investment, value and efficiency” and if that can’t be demonstrated, what is its point or purpose? 

 

There’s also the issue of employment practices. Rail privatisation has turned up some fairly unedifying examples, from time to time. “Breaking the unions” was fighting talk in the 1980s but I rather think that its time is now well in the past, against a widespread background of resentment of casualisation, de-skilling and under-employment. 

 

Quite where this leads, is a pretty good question. The Conservatives have produced a piece of electoral sleight-of-hand in the form of “taking back control”, only to find that the genie not only won’t go back in the bottle, but will go on making its presence felt for the foreseeable future. To offer another metaphor, the electorate will tolerate them not producing a Phoenix from the ashes, providing that they don’t produce a turkey instead, or a lame duck. 

 

I don’t see any single solution. I strongly suspect that (relatively) viable franchises with good approval ratings will stay much as they are, while the hard core of incorrigibles and “usual suspects” will pass under government control  and stay there, probably under more-or-less bogus brand names (LNER, again) to distract attention from this. I doubt that XC would be much mourned, nor whoever ends up with the chronically mutinous commuter public on the lines South of London. 

 

Construction of rolling stock will be a sector worth watching. Bombardier might, or might not be any real good at building trains, but they certainly do a good job of alleging European malfeasance in the award of contracts. I don’t doubt that our relations with the EU will remain adversarial and fractious, but that also gives Boris Johnson scope to insist on contracts being executed in U.K., with U.K. personnel. 

 

We are undergoing a “sea change” in our public life. Trying to define the likely outcomes in terms of past goals, isn’t  going to be the answer. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Davexoc]

Recently reported that SWR are in talks with the government and could be about to hand back the keys having lost £137m.

 

So if Northern and TPE get stripped of their franchises, that could be 4 of them being state run soon.

And then there is Scotrail....