When is a Parliamentary Train not a Parliamentary Train.....

[woodenhead]

When it is a bus of course

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67955990

 

Why haven't Northern done the same for the Stockport to Stalybridge, maybe because it's more than one stop.

[The Stationmaster]

Shouldn't it more correctly run for either East or, more appositely, North Acton to West Ruislip in order to more closely parallel the rail route on question?  As it currently runs all it is doing is paralleling an existing train service as far as Greenford and then it only parallels the disused route between Greenford and West Rusilip.

 

And technically even North Acton misses a small part of the route so perhaps it should start from even further back towards the east?

[Mike_Walker]

19 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Shouldn't it more correctly run for either East or, more appositely, North Acton to West Ruislip in order to more closely parallel the rail route on question?  As it currently runs all it is doing is paralleling an existing train service as far as Greenford and then it only parallels the disused route between Greenford and West Rusilip.

 

And technically even North Acton misses a small part of the route so perhaps it should start from even further back towards the east?

This service is run to replicate the Chiltern rail service in its final form which ran nonstop between West Ruislip and West Ealing.  Therefore there is no need for it to serve East or North Acton.

 

Originally it was operated with a minibus then Stagecoach Oxford operated it using the luxurious Tube double decker coaches but it would appear that one of the London operators are now doing it.

[Wickham Green too]

Does that mean that Chiltern went through the closure process for the 'missing' bit but forgot about Greenford to West Ruislip ?

 

Old Oak Common Lane : 13/10/23

[Mike_Walker]

No, they didn't have to as initially the service continued to run into Paddington but via West Ealing instead of Park Royal.  As there were no intermediate stops, the service was in effect unchanged.  However, when Crossrail started running its services in the Thames Valley into Paddington Main Line the Chiltern service was terminated at West Ealing to free up paths on the GWML and platform space at Paddington.

[62613]

22 hours ago, woodenhead said:

When it is a bus of course

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67955990

 

Why haven't Northern done the same for the Stockport to Stalybridge, maybe because it's more than one stop.

The roads between Stalybridge and Stockport via Denton and Reddish aren't exactly favourable for a replacement bus; the location of Denton Station is particularly problematic for this when coming from Stalybridge.

 

Besides, there's a lobby group in Denton which wants Northern to start a Stockport - Victoria via Denton service. 

Where that would fit in between Ashton Moss North and Victoria, I don't know!

[woodenhead]

2 hours ago, 62613 said:

The roads between Stalybridge and Stockport via Denton and Reddish aren't exactly favourable for a replacement bus; the location of Denton Station is particularly problematic for this when coming from Stalybridge.

 

Besides, there's a lobby group in Denton which wants Northern to start a Stockport - Victoria via Denton service. 

Where that would fit in between Ashton Moss North and Victoria, I don't know!

A lobby group??

 

I cannot imagine much call for trains to Victoria from Stockport that would then want to stop at Denton - isn't that why we have Metrolink through the centre of Manchester so passengers wanting to go south can swap between the stations or if they're really lucky there happens to be a train going to Piccadilly via the Ordsall curve.  Going all the way to Stockport doesn't sound like a faster transfer.

Edited January 17 by woodenhead
spelling

[peanuts]

On 17/01/2024 at 13:57, woodenhead said:

A lobby group??

 

I cannot imagine much call for trains to Victoria from Stockport that would then want to stop at Denton - isn't that why we have Metrolink through the centre of Manchester so passengers wanting to go south can swap between the stations or if they're really lucky there happens to be a train going to Piccadilly via the Ordsall curve.  Going all the way to Stockport doesn't sound like a faster transfer.

Stockport - victoria probly wouldnt get that much patronage outside of the peaks but exstended onto blackpool or southport might especialy in the summer months .Buxton  victoria  blackpool ?

[Wheatley]

On 17/01/2024 at 13:57, woodenhead said:

A lobby group??

 

I cannot imagine much call for trains to Victoria from Stockport that would then want to stop at Denton - .

Neither can anyone else, I suspect that's why they're still a lobby group and not a user group :-)

 

 

[woodenhead]

33 minutes ago, peanuts said:

Stockport - victoria probly wouldnt get that much patronage outside of the peaks but exstended onto blackpool or southport might especialy in the summer months .Buxton  victoria  blackpool ?

If I recall there was a train journey from Stockport to Southport or Blackpool via Piccadilly - it used 769s so I am guessing it was Southport.

 

Doesn't appear on the timetable at present so must have been dropped.

[peanuts]

6 hours ago, woodenhead said:

If I recall there was a train journey from Stockport to Southport or Blackpool via Piccadilly - it used 769s so I am guessing it was Southport.

 

Doesn't appear on the timetable at present so must have been dropped.

there used to be a SO stockport blackpool via victoria in the summer timetable in the 80s was vary popular 

 

[MyRule1]

Does anyone know when the term parliamentary train moved to the currently accepted meaning of a train to avoid the closure procedure from the original one train a day at workman's fares?

[andyman7]

8 minutes ago, MyRule1 said:

Does anyone know when the term parliamentary train moved to the currently accepted meaning of a train to avoid the closure procedure from the original one train a day at workman's fares?

It seems to have become commonplace from the 1990s when such services as the Croxley Green branch and certain chords in the Clapham Junction area were substituted by buses. This seems to be contemporaneous with the 1993 Railways Act superseding previous legislation and making the closure process much more bureaucratic, so that running a bus was easier than going through the process.

As you note, the original 'Parliamentary' trains were those required to be operated in Victorian times for the benefit of workers with fixed 3rd class rates. The current usage refers to the requirement for passenger routes on the network to maintain a minimum advertised service of one train per week unless formal consent for withdrawal is given after following the required statutory process.

Edited January 20 by andyman7

[Jeremy Cumberland]

The 1844 Railway Regulation Act that introduced Parliamentary trains was repealed by the Cheap Trains Act 1883, which in turn was repealed by the Finance Act 1929.

 

I haven't read the 1883 Act, and I don't know whether it still required a daily train stopping at all stations. What the 1883 Act primarily did was offer a better incentive than the 1844 Act for railway companies to offer cheap fares. Under the 1844 Act, the Parliamentary train was exempt from duty, but it had to stop at all stations (as well as offer cheap fares). The 1883 exempted all trains from duty where cheap fares were offered, whether they stopped at all stations or not.

 

Clearly the concept of a Parliamentary train was still well understood in 1885 when WS Gilbert wrote The Mikado. I seem to recall mention of one in a Sherlock Holmes story, which is probably even later (Doyle didn't start writing them till 1887, but a handful of the stories supposedly took place several years before they were written down).

 

I don't recall mention of Parliamentary trains at all in early 20th Century fiction (or in train timetables, for that matter), so my guess is that the idea ended with with the 1883 Act.

Edited January 20 by Jeremy Cumberland

[peanuts]

On 20/01/2024 at 18:35, andyman7 said:

It seems to have become commonplace from the 1990s when such services as the Croxley Green branch and certain chords in the Clapham Junction area were substituted by buses. This seems to be contemporaneous with the 1993 Railways Act superseding previous legislation and making the closure process much more bureaucratic, so that running a bus was easier than going through the process.

As you note, the original 'Parliamentary' trains were those required to be operated in Victorian times for the benefit of workers with fixed 3rd class rates. The current usage refers to the requirement for passenger routes on the network to maintain a minimum advertised service of one train per week unless formal consent for withdrawal is given after following the required statutory process.

wasnt it also to do with grants for maintenance if a route was designated as a passenger route it received more funding seem to remember york mail being routed via OAGB & Ashton moss south for this reason .

[Mol_PMB]

A foreign example from my recent travels.

 

Portugal's last remaining narrow-gauge line runs from Espinho-Vouga to Aveiro-Vouga, and is still operated by the national passenger operator CP. Here's a link to the timetable:

https://www.cp.pt/StaticFiles/timetables/aveiro-vouga-espinho-regional-trains.pdf

 

Both narrow gauge termini are on the broad gauge north-south main line. From a passenger perspective the line is operated as two disconnected branches: Espinho-Vouga to Oliveira de Azemeis; and Aveiro-Vouga to Sernada do Vouga.

The middle section of the line remains in place and is still maintained in working order, although the track condition is poor and a 10km/h speed limit is in place. It's necessary because the trains all have to get to Sernada do Vouga depot for maintenance.

 

CP provides a twice-daily taxi service to cover the middle section of the line, calling at all the abandoned stations. The connections between the taxi and the trains are pretty poor. It took quite some explaining at the main ticket office in Porto before they would sell me a through ticket from Espinho-Vouga to Aveiro-Vouga via the narrow gauge route (which takes over 5 hours, compared to 30 minutes on the main line express!) I definitely got branded as a crazy English trainspotter. Here's my ticket; Comboio 5204 and 5112 are trains, 'comboio 1002' is a taxi.

With nearly 2 hours to waste in Sernada en route we talked our way into the maintenance depot and then had a delicious lunch in the station building at what seemed to be effectively the staff canteen.

 

The line looks pretty run-down and CP have used this taxi-substitution approach on other narrow gauge lines as a prelude to closure.

On the other hand, they've recently spent a lot of money renovating two vintage narrow-gauge trains and this is the only place left to run them, so maybe there is a future?

[62613]

On 20/01/2024 at 19:16, Jeremy Cumberland said:

I don't recall mention of Parliamentary trains at all in early 20th Century fiction (or in train timetables, for that matter), so my guess is that the idea ended with with the 1883 Act.

The idea of the Parliamentary Train  lingered on among railway workers; immediately after the first collision at Quintinshill (May 1915) one of the signalmaen inquired of the other " What's happened ?"; to which the other replied "My God Jimmy, you've got the Parly standing there" (according to LTC Rolt, anyway).

[Oldddudders]

5 minutes ago, 62613 said:

The idea of the Parliamentary Train  lingered on among railway workers; immediately after the first collision at Quintinshill (May 1915) one of the signalmaen inquired of the other " What's happened ?"; to which the other replied "My God Jimmy, you've got the Parly standing there" (according to LTC Rolt, anyway).

And indeed a little longer. Working in Redhill Control in 1968, I distinctly recall the first train down the Tonbridge branch being referred to as the "Parly"

[31A]

On the southern end of the ECML at least, "Parly" referred to King's Cross-Peterborough stoppers until relatively recent times.

 

It probably went out with electrification as prior to that they were irregular, but I remember being on Biggleswade station sometime in the early '80s and some P Way were working on the fast lines in between the platforms.  The Lookout sounded his warning as a train from the north came round the corner in the distance, but then said to them, "It's OK, it's the Parly on the Slow".  This was at the time when there was a Huntingdon - Hitchin (or Hertford) shuttle worked by DMUs in the white livery with blue stripe.

 

[Pacific231G]

Possibly slightly off-topic but weren't the reasons that classes on British trains were 1st and 3rd for a long time after the railways went to two classes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,  something to do with legislation requiring certain minimum third class services to be maintained?

 

ISTR that there were three classes on continental boat trains right up to the end of third class in 1956 because there were still three classes in much of Europe (I can remember while travelling through and around France in the 1970s learningm in second class, to avoid the ex 3rd class carriages in favour of those that had always been second class) 

[Michael Hodgson]

17 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Possibly slightly off-topic but weren't the reasons that classes on British trains were 1st and 3rd for a long time after the railways went to two classes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,  something to do with legislation requiring certain minimum third class services to be maintained?

 

 

I thought it was to do with the way the Midland poached business from the LNWR by providing decent seating to the lower orders, so there was no incentive for the middle classes to pay extra to travel 2nd when steerage was comfortable, and it was too expensive to continuing to offer 2nd if nobody was using it.  The landed gentry of course still travelled 1st so they didn't have to mix with the great unwashed. 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

At least unti 1883 (I still haven't read the 1883 Cheap Trains Act to know exactly what the situation became afterwards), railways were obliged by the 1844 Act to run at least one train a day with third class passenger accomodation meeting minimum standards, which stopped at every station and was charged at no more than a penny a mile., so third class needed to be retained for Parliamentary trains, even if it wasn't used for anything else.

 

Many smaller railway companies used the same carriages for Parliamentary and non-Parliamentary trains, but I don't know about the big companies. I suppose that "first" and "second" for ordinary trains and and "third" just for Parliamentary trains was an option.

 

Class consciousness was important in Victorian England, and I wonder whether at least part of the reason for choosing first and third rather than first and second was aimed at getting most former second-class passengers to pay more for first, so as not to have to mix with the hoi polloi in third.

 

11 hours ago, 62613 said:

The idea of the Parliamentary Train  lingered on among railway workers; immediately after the first collision at Quintinshill (May 1915) one of the signalmaen inquired of the other " What's happened ?"; to which the other replied "My God Jimmy, you've got the Parly standing there" (according to LTC Rolt, anyway).

Thank you. I knew that quote, but had forgotten it. I always took it to be railwayman's jargon, and each time I read it I wonder whether it applied to all stopping trains, or just to the first one of the day (it was common for Parliamentary trains under the 1844 Act to be the first train of the day). By 1915, there were no "Parliamentary" trains in timetables, as you can see from the 1910 Bradshaw, available online here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951002200476y&view=1up&seq=1&size=125)