LNER is back !!

General UK Railway Discussion and questions.
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cyberdonblue
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by cyberdonblue »

rjhowie wrote:...outstanding feature is the hard truth fact that more people still use rail than BR days...
Without wishing to sound vitriolic or in any way vindictive here, there is a very old saying that I'm sure you are familiar with Mr Howie: "Eat sh*t. Fifty million flies can't be wrong!" In other words, the numbers mean nothing in so far as quality of service can be measured. Many of the poor souls travelling by train these days are a captive audience with little or no reasonable alternative.

For all of the complaints that B.R. got there were never as many, nor for so long, regarding such an appalling lack of service altogether. Timetables mean nothing to these so-called privateers - as the recent debacle of wholesale timetable(?) changes shows. They've had TWO YEARS OF PLANNING invested in these smart-arse changes (plans that all 3 Rail Unions told them from day one WOULD NOT WORK!) and all they've come up with is the biggest cock up in railway history. Trains are cancelled as flippantly as one might discard a sweet wrapper into a litter bin (though sadly it seems most people prefer to discard their litter straight onto the pavement these days.) Trains vanish overnight from so-called "ammended timetables" so that they're further ammended - but passengers only find out when they get to the station in the morning whilst trying to get to work. One Southern region lady passenger said in the press this morning that her local station had 12 trains an hour to London in the rush hour. She got to the station this morning to find out that 6 of them have completely vanished from the timetable altogether - and that's before any cancellations come into play. Another gentleman reported that he'd been sacked due to his continued lateness whilst others complained that they, too, were facing disciplinary procedures at work for appalling timekeeping. B.R. never achieved anything like the poor standard of timekeeping achieved by these private companies. They got people to work on time more times than not, which is more than can be said for today's lot.

The key factors in going forward have to be common sense and a clamp down on the massive amounts of corruption. As neither will likely come into play in the foreseeable future we may as well all just resign ourselves to being ripped off - or buy a bike.

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Dave
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by Warbo40 »

The biggest problem with the East Coast franchise privatisation was that the Stagecoach / Virgin bid was way over the top and their estimate of passenger increase was never going to be achieved. The government even admitted the bid size was over the top but what would you do in the same situation you'd have snatched their hand off just like the Dft did. If someone should get the blame for the East Coast farce IMO it's the higher management of Stagecoach / Virgin for putting in an over inflated bid just so they could get their hands on the franchise in the first place and the Dft for going ahead with it knowing the bid was such. Has the person in charge of the Dft since the handover left or been replaced by a cabinet reshuffle by any chance ? I don't know as i don't really follow politics as they are all scum IMO.

As for the BR days we all know that it was a downward slide especially during the 1980's due to the lack of investment in the railway system. The government wasted shed loads of taxpayers money in the dieselisation era getting umpteen different class of locos built only to sell on or scrap many of them only a few years later, eg the class 14, class 22 and class 28. It has been said that although when the East Coast franchise was in public hands, after National Express gave up on it, it made a profit not much if any investment was ploughed back into infrastructure, etc unlike when Stagecoach and Virgin were in control of it. Don't know how much of that is true but it smacks of deju vu to me as it's usually the same scenario when something is in public hands not much investment is put back into it but any profit is usually put into other things instead.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by klambert »

Warbo40 wrote: after National Express gave up on it, it made a profit not much if any investment was ploughed back into infrastructure, etc unlike when Stagecoach and Virgin were in control of it.
I could be wrong but I thought with the infrastructure being in the hands of Network Rail and the passenger services in the hands of DOR and then Stagecoach/Virgin, funding for infrastructure coming directly from any profit made from operation, would be difficult considering, those two separate facets are operated by separate companies.

Speaking of lack of re-investment from nationalised organisations, of note is that BREL was able to operate on a shoestring budget, and it was one of the most advanced rail development organisations of it's time considering it's shoestring budget. Before anyone cites the APT project as a failure, APT has directly influenced Class 91s and the Pendolino.

BREL also gave us, the HST, the various MK3 EMUS, the networker, the basis of the technology is still being used many modern EMUs, including the Electrostar family.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by rjhowie »

Unfortunate actual sadness is that rail in Gt Britain has had probs in both State and private control and the argument from some will be who is 2worse." However the hard fact on passenger numbers is irrefutable and how they are coped with and handled the main issue. One passing weakness in BR days apart from the dis-satisfaction is that when the State runs something those that work in a thing seem to think they can get away with anything! So what we must do is see that the constant pressures on train numbers is eventually handled properly. Although I lean towards non-State I do have a cheeky passing smile that the ScotRail lot are run by the Netherlands State railway! :P
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by klambert »

rjhowie wrote:Unfortunate actual sadness is that rail in Gt Britain has had probs in both State and private control and the argument from some will be who is 2worse." However the hard fact on passenger numbers is irrefutable and how they are coped with and handled the main issue. One passing weakness in BR days apart from the dis-satisfaction is that when the State runs something those that work in a thing seem to think they can get away with anything! So what we must do is see that the constant pressures on train numbers is eventually handled properly. Although I lean towards non-State I do have a cheeky passing smile that the ScotRail lot are run by the Netherlands State railway! :P
RJhowie would you be able to make any constructive suggestions on how best to fund a railway.
I'm of the firm belief that if you are to criticise something you need to be able to present an alternative.

IE I believe the railways should be ultimately state owned, but run like a company where the government is the only shareholder, this is how Reading Buses runs and it seems to have a large degree of success.

I think BRs biggest problem was that it was far too subject to the whims of the treasury, hence why many projects ended in failure, it needs some sort of vanguard to protect it from the worst of Tory austerity measures. Which is why I've suggested for a more hands off approach by running it as a company where the only shareholder is the government. I've heard the suggestion of running it as a cooperative, however I'm not sure what that entails, if anyone would care to enlighten me, that would be much appreciated.

Another problem with railways in general is that they'll never be able to turn a true profit, this is due to the high costs of the assets (maintenance and upkeep), hence why they needed to be nationalised in the first place, as it was realised they had a far higher social value than an economic.(It was this reason why the London Underground was nationalised way back in 1933) So we need to understand that the railways will always need subsidies, we just need to look at how best to use passenger and property revenue to offset that cost.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by Shippy2013 »

The only real solution then is a state run railway, run as a not for profit organisation.

Revenue pays for Staff, Staff pensions and Maintenance etc.

Government subsidies come in the form of new trains, new lines etc etc.... the big investments ie HS2,3 etc etc etc
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by cyberdonblue »

Shippy2013 wrote:The only real solution then is a state run railway, run as a not for profit organisation.

Revenue pays for Staff, Staff pensions and Maintenance etc.

Government subsidies come in the form of new trains, new lines etc etc.... the big investments ie HS2,3 etc etc etc
That was very much the original idea of Nationalisation. However, various governments - of all ilks - used the railway as a political football to kick around and blame for all the ills in the country, even the many resulting from those individual governments own underhanded policies.

One of the major problems we have in this country is that there are a large number of very powerful and well off people with their own road transport companies that do very nicely, thank you very much, out of running their hundreds of lorries around the nation's roads. However, we rarely hear about the heavy price that has to be paid for repairs to those roads as it's the taxpayer that picks up the bill and there is no road version of Notwork Rail to blame for the running costs. As a matter of fact, it's usually the local councils that get it in the neck all the time.

Transport costs could probably be halved overnight if many more items were shipped by rail in an organised manner (yes, the way things used to be.) Purely as an example: the old MGR trains consisted of 45 wagons maximum, each containing 32 tons of coal. Or looked at in a more rail-centric manner 1 train was equal to 45 lorries - hence power stations were fed by rail. Modern MGR wagons contain 100 tons of coal and many of those trains consist of somewhere around 30 wagons in length (3,000 tons.) How many lorries do you need to shift 3,000 tons of coal? Well, it's nearer 70 than not I know that much. Yes, I know coal is dying out but, as I said, that is merely an example.

Looking at it from another angle though, when Royal Mail was privatised they suddenly abandoned all of their rolling stock and spent a small fortune on buying fleets of 32 and 44 ton lorries. Why? Because the idiots being put in charge of the railways priced them out of it. Even the Train Operating Companies were (AND STILL ARE) paying road haulage companies to ferry rolling stock to places like Doncaster and Tyseley for major exams and repairs because it was (and still is) cheaper than paying Nothingworks Rail for a path to drive the damn things on the bloody rails they're designed to travel on. Until that ridiculous kind of practice is stopped there will never be a decent system. Another problem is, we have hundreds of little two car units clogging up the infrastructure and the likes of Branson thinking that it's OK to run 4 car express trains if they run twice as many. They haven't got the brains to see that they're still short of what we had before - well actually they have but they are not prepared to dig into their profits to provide a proper service - and our Victorian railways can only cope with so many trains. They should be forced to pay a fine for running short trains because it is they that are causing all the congestion.

It's high time that we put all these accountants and lawyers up against a wall a shot the buggers - and because of the stupidity of our police and judges in this country these days I am forced to add: "I AM ONLY JOKING ABOUT SHOOTING ANYBODY AND I DO NOT WISH ANYONE TO BE HARMED BECAUSE OF ANYTHING I HAVE WRITTEN OR SAID." Let's get back to a commonsense world where the idiots that come up with all of these so-called brilliant ideas are detained in institutions for the criminally insane.

No wonder old folk keep saying, "Those were the days..." ;)

Cheers

Dave
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by rjhowie »

May I remind you Shippy2013 that railways were run not for profit under BR and look at the way that went. Railways were started by private companies in a much different world than today here and the idea of the State running everything was a torturous political motivation from one corner. For years railways, power supplies, phones, betting shops, Thos Cooks, airlines, ferry companies, bus companies and all ponderous at times. Slovenly attitudes and negatives many staff got away with because State run and political barons pulled the strings.

I am not going to be too heavy in saying there have not been faults at present but the bottom line is still this. In State run days the dashed numbers were an awful lot less than now and this is weirdly and continually bypassed in this discussion. In my part of the kingdom four lines re-opened one at over 30 miles and yet in State run days the subject was simply ignored or rarely mentioned. It is as simple and direct as that. BR was a mess never mind who was in the government.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by klambert »

rjhowie wrote:

In State run days the dashed numbers were an awful lot less than now and this is weirdly and continually bypassed in this discussion. In my part of the kingdom four lines re-opened one at over 30 miles and yet in State run days the subject was simply ignored or rarely mentioned. It is as simple and direct as that. BR was a mess never mind who was in the government.
May I just say I just dealt with that wafer thin argument in a previous post:
klambert wrote:
rjhowie wrote:
Although there are faults than can be loaded today just like Nationalising days the outstanding feature is the hard truth fact that more people still use rail than BR days.
Ah a common myth which is due to rising car ownership causing roads to be intolerably congested, this too us a hard truth, this is a global trend which is occurring regardless of whether the railways are state owned or not. Rail ridership would've increased just as much if not more, if under the 'bad old days' of British Rail'.

Incidentally rjhowie, how would you propose a solution to rail private/public ownership?
The problem is that your argument doesn't take into account how the post war expansion of the motorway network (government funded may I add) coincides exactly with the retraction of passengers from British Rail. So to answer your point; The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, ......... I hope you understand my argument now.

However passenger numbers have grown as the motorway network has become more congested, I commute most days into London, from Aldershot, if you ask most of the commuters why they don't drive in, the usual response will be due to the congestion on the A3, M25 and London traffic. I'm sure if many could forego being packed like sardines, onto uncomfortable ironing board seats, listening to some accountant drone on his mobile about, pilates, crossover SUVs, Yo sushi and going cycling for the weekend, they would.

Look at what happened to USAs railways without state intervention, it's mostly a freight railway now.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by PFX »

I spent a considerable time writing a post yesterday based on widely available facts and figures from various rail authorities and private research which more than adequately explains passenger numbers and the percentages of passenger revenue as an overall cost of the rail system, while also debunking some of the myths of privatisation.

I deleted the post because I decided I'd be wasting keystrokes but if you want to find out exactly how privatisation is going, it's all out there.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by rjhowie »

But no explanation why more passengers than in non-State time.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by PFX »

This is not my previous post but I thought a wee story might be useful.

A long, long time ago, after the war, road building increased and the motorway network came into being. In 1951, only 20% of the population had access to a car. During the 50s and 60s in particular, more and more people were able to afford a car and people could travel around quickly and conveniently for work and leisure on those nice empty motorways, instead of dirty old trains, and everyone was happy.

Unfortunately, the happiness was short lived as more and more cars, along with lorries and buses, started to use the nice motorways. The more vehicles used the motorways and other roads, the slower and less enjoyable car travel became. Car drivers were no longer happy all the time and they started to wonder how they could get around, especially to work, in a quicker more convenient way. Now, 77% of households own a car and 81% of the total population has access to a car.

Unhappy car drivers would see the empty trains speed past them as they sat in traffic jams and they began to think that maybe the train was a better way to commute as there were no traffic jams on the railway. Passenger numbers started to rise year on year, the trains got busier and busier, and the former car drivers started to wonder if perhaps train travel wasn't so good anymore and, after 20 years of passenger numbers rising at an almost constant rate, there was decline in overall numbers in 2017.

This is not good for private operators as the entire franchise model relies on continued growth. For example, First Group's 2016 TransPennine Express bid assumed growth of 13% - 18% a year, but numbers have remained static. Journeys in London and the south-east fell by 4.5% overall (8.8% on SWT, 5.3% on Thameslink, and 7.4% on Southeastern).

Across the network (based on most recent figures from 2017) journeys dropped by 2.7% against 2016. This is mostly being attributed to over-crowding and massive fare increases.
Last edited by PFX on Sun Jun 03, 2018 10:27 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by klambert »

rjhowie wrote:But no explanation why more passengers than in non-State time.
So to answer your point; The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, I repeat, The car took the passengers away, ......... I hope you understand my argument now.
My goodness are you for real or some troll.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by rjhowie »

Yeah we know how the USA passenger thing declined however it is not a very routine country to use as normally across the globe rail is still an important passenger thing - locally n Europe for example. It is all very well doing that satirical daft quoyte but PRIVATE has increased numbers greatly. The only place in Britain where government can get a part pat on the back is the NIR.

There were for many decades in our country far too many things run by the State and in many of them folk got away with anything and as modernisation things started drifting in it was time to get out of the USSR style drift. I also apart from having to remind about the success re numbers that it didn't matter a toss who was in government but BR just stumbled on so the political die-hards were a yawn. In fairness there will be other places where one can quote an efficent government railway but here we historically cannot do that.
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Re: LNER is back !!

Post by CamJhock »

rjhowie wrote:Yeah we know how the USA passenger thing declined however it is not a very routine country to use as normally across the globe rail is still an important passenger thing - locally n Europe for example.
klambert wrote:Look at what happened to USAs railways without state intervention, it's mostly a freight railway now.
As far as comparing intercity rail travel in the US with intercity rail travel in the UK, there's no real point to be made. Intercity rail travel died out in the US because the cities were simply far too spread out. It became faster and cheaper to fly from New York to Los Angeles rather than riding the train, which swooped down (no pun intended) and stole the business and tourist travel markets from the rail industry. That, among the fact that rail companies anywhere other than the Northeast Corridor used passenger rail to show off their freight industry to rich business travelers, drove American intercity rail travel into the ground.
rjhowie wrote:There were for many decades in our country far too many things run by the State and in many of them folk got away with anything and as modernisation things started drifting in it was time to get out of the USSR style drift. I also apart from having to remind about the success re numbers that it didn't matter a toss who was in government but BR just stumbled on so the political die-hards were a yawn.
On the subject of government owned rail, I'll take my home, Denver, as an example. Recently, the Regional Transportation District of Denver (RTD for short) underwent a massive (and still ongoing) project to build new infrastructure and bring new services to the people. I used to have to drive about an hour to get to the airport, but now, it's just a 30 minute train ride on the new A Line, a ticket for which costing $9. The RTD is subsidized by the state, so funding comes from taxpayers, government bonds, etc. Having the transportation system in Denver owned by the local government has made getting around the city far easier. However, some lines are subsidized by other organizations. The A Line, for example, is funded in part by the University of Colorado and operated in part by Denver International Airport and the City of Aurora. The new B Line to Westminster is overseen by the City of Westminster, and the W Line to Golden is overseen by the City of Golden and the City of Lakewood. Nowadays, each line is being operated in part by the people they serve.

As for the East Coast Mainline, I believe that the government should take a page out of Denver's book. Granted, there's not much new infrastructure to be built, but there is a vast amount of old infrastructure that could be improved. Being re-nationalized, the ECML stands a fairly good chance of having major renovations. In my opinion, if the UK were to revert to having a BR style conglomerate, that would be inefficient in today's world. The better thing to do would be to have separate organizations running services on different lines, i.e.: LNER would run the ECML, somebody else would run the WCML, someone else would run the MML, so on and so forth while all would be overseen by the communities they serve and by the government. It's not exactly privatized, nor nationalized, rather broken down into regions such that each mainline could have services and improvements better tailored to the communities they serve. This would establish a system of checks and balances to keep the railways running effectively. As for the organizations being for-profit vs non-profit, I don't have much of a say. If they operate for-profit, it's less money from the taxpayers, but less money to improve the infrastructure and rolling stock, whereas non-profit would be the opposite.

Just two pence from some (likely ill-informed) yank across the pond.
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