The Chiltern service connects reasonably well at both Banbury and Leamington Spa to CrossCountry’s Birmingham New Street and Manchester Picadilly service thus preventing the need for the walk from Birmingham Moor Street and New Street in sub-zero temperatures. This, was not mentioned however. There were delays en-route due to a trespasser on the line on the Chiltern route and big delays on the route via Coventry due to a cracked rail. 

Now, a personal tip for passengers out there. Sometimes when things are going badly train operators put on special services to try to assist in getting people home. If you are on a different train operator’s train other than the one that is running the special service the existence of this will not be announced to you – you have to physically check the departure boards at stations. This happened to me while I was being diverted via Manchester on CrossCountry even though there was a direct train to my destination just a few minutes behind the service I was on.

The problems with the West Coast Mainline (WCML) seem to have gotten worse with issues at Bletchley, Rugby and now Wembley affecting also the Overground between London Euston and Watford Junction and the Bakerloo line is partly suspended as well. There are now genuine doubts about the ability of Virgin Trains to run its new enhanced Very High Frequency (VHF) service. Indeed, there have now been five days of disruption on the line which does nothing to improve the image of rail as a quick and reliable mode of transport.

An accusation has been leveled at Network Rail by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) that, “the recent setbacks had occurred because the £9bn upgrade to the West Coast main line had been done in haste in order that it could be completed by the end of 2008.” It has been reported that the disruption has ‘cost’ businesses £38m.

Of course, with the recent inflation busting fare increases, passengers will not be feeling like giving an awful lot of goodwill to the train companies or Network Rail, especially with the all the buggering about train companies do with peak ticket restrictions now. This is shoddy deception from the published figures and a stop should be put to this.

The fare increases on the WCML should be postponed until mid-year as compensation for all, including those that followed advice from National Rail Enquiries not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

• Virgin expects to run a normal train service on Thursday 8th January 2009.

There will be no powers to deal with the incident until the Conditions of Carriage for London transport have been amended, a process which will take about a year according to The Times in a news article released this evening. There will, reportedly, not be regular patrols of carriages by Transport for London or British Transport Police officials but there will be the recruitment of 440 community support officers to assist with any disorder related incidents.

Bob Crow of the RMT reportedly singled out “Liverpool supporters” as being particular examples of people whom their staff would not want to face on the train whilst consuming alcohol. Having been to London many times at weekends, we at Transport Central wonder why Bob Crow has chosen this rather out-dated stereotype to attempt to bolster his rather shaky argument.

The response is of, however, no surprise and the union will be feeling particularly strike-happy at the moment with many planned Tube strikes in recent past – the majority of which having being called off. It is noticed that these Tube strikes are often planned at times, such as New Year, to affect the most possible numbers of leisure and business travelers.

However, Mr Johnson said, “I firmly believe that if we drive out so-called minor crime then we will be able to get a firm grip on more serious crime. That’s why from 1 June the drinking of alcohol will be banned from the tube, tram, bus, and Docklands Light Railway.” The mayor received support from the London transport commissioner who said, “I am sure that cutting out boozing on public transport will be welcomed by our passengers and staff.”

The response from unions seems all the more strange when set in the national context where the consumption of alcohol on buses and coaches is already frowned upon culturally and staff are expected to deal with such people by dealing with it personally or calling the police if they have any worries about handling such people. The union’s response does not seem to match the national picture at all – one policy for London and one policy for the rest.

Boris Johnson did however get a more rational response from the British Transport Police who said, “From June 1, when the new measures come into effect, officers will engage with people who drink alcohol on the tube and let them know that it is no longer permitted. Most of the time, just letting people know that their behaviour is no longer permitted will be enough to make them stop, but if they become antisocial or aggressive they will be dealt with under current legislation and bylaws.”

So true. In New York City, from which Boris is drawing some inspiration, alcohol consumption and the carrying of open drinks containers is already banned by their rules of conduct.

The work is going ahead in the way Network Rail desires despite protests from the Train Operating Companies that use the Main Line for its passenger and freight services. There will be disruption to routes at all bank holidays and most weekends until the end of the year meaning the challenge to passengers and the desirability of traveling via rail will be much reduced.

Network Rail details a number of benefits which are much welcome if the project succeeds by the end of the year:

• Increase in two to three trains per hour between London and Manchester Piccadilly,
• Increase in two to three trains per hour between London and Birmingham,
• A new hourly service between London and Chester and London and Preston.

Compared with 2003, there will be journey time improvements of up to approximately an hour for the route from Glasgow Central from 5h06 to 4h10 as well as 46 minutes being shaved off the Liverpool Lime Street-London Euston route, 43 minutes less from Manchester Piccadilly-London Euston and 23 minutes less from Birmingham New Street-London Euston.

The West Coast Main Line is Europe’s busiest mixed-use railway line so the challenges in upgrading the railway cannot be greater, whilst maintaining at least some of it operationally. It is hoped that Network Rail can deliver its ambitious plan to achieve project success by the end of the year and that they avoid too many slips along the way.

This weekend brought quite a nightmare for passengers as the route into London Euston was closed and there were also replacement bus services on the Chiltern services along the way affecting the only other real alternative route from Birmingham to London for passengers from the midlands and the north west. Added to these woes was a virtual meltdown of the West Coast Main Line again yesterday, 6 May when there was a signal failure at Milton Keynes (again).

The situation that this caused was not pretty with many services cancelled and passengers stranded. A BBC News report reported that up to 30,000 people were affected including 600 people stranded on trains for hours. Rail replacement buses replaced trains for the entire 50 mile stretch between Bletchley and London Euston. In yesterday’s sweltering heat, this cannot have been very pleasant.

The problem struck the network at 9:30am and affected the network until the close of business Tuesday night. Virgin Trains was only able to run three trains per hour after 17:30 compounding the issue. Value Advance ticket holders are being allowed today, 7 May, but are being urged to travel as close to their original ticket time as possible to avoid chronic overcrowding which would delay trains today.

London Midland was also operating a reduced service whilst London Overground was unaffected as it only goes as far as Watford Junction anyway. Other problems on the network included London Liverpool Street being affected by the failure of lineside equipment causing cancellations of trains to Cheshunt, Chingford, Cambridge and Enfield Town and a points failure at Wimbledon during the peak rush hour period affecting South West Trains.

The 6 May was not a day to remember for the British Railways.

A quick look at the live departure boards reveals that the London Euston to Liverpool Lime Street 11:07 is currently running an hour late, as is the 11:56 London to Glasgow service. These issues are also affecting London Midland causing delays of up to thirty minutes on some services. Network Rail have no estimate as to when a normal service will be resumed.

Other problems affecting the railway at the moment are:

• Over-running engineering works between Slateford and Kirknewton (TOC: National Express East Coast, First ScotRail, CrossCountry) due to be resolved by 3pm.
• There was a broken down train between Ascot and Aldershot in the Camberley area (TOC: South West Trains)

In addition, there are 41 seperate engineering projects going on this week to add to these problems. For a full list of these you can go to the National Rail Enquiries website.

South West Trains are facing industrial action in the form of strikes due to Aslef members voting to reject a 4.5% pay increase. The strike action is planned for four days: 31 March, 1 April, 2 April and 3 April. South West Trains say they have met with the union informally today in an effort to avoid the action.

The company is planning to run a limited service and use replacement bus services for other services where possible. In a statement on its website the company’s Managing Director, Stewart Palmer, said:

“We regret the significant disruption this will cause to our passengers and we reassure them that we will do everything we can to avoid this strike taking place However if they do go ahead we will pull out all the stops to run as many trains and buses as we can.

“We are very disappointed that ASLEF has taken this decision as we believe that this is a very good offer in the current economic climate.”

The strike action appears to be unconfirmed at this time with one article reporting that Aslef have actually denied wanting to go on strike, although they have held an industrial action ballot and sent a notification of industrial action letter to South West Trains.

The company also plans to use buses from its national bus network from its sister network.

•  South West Trains

There are to be no rail reopenings considered except at local authority level for the next seven years, the electrification decision has been postponed again, there will be no decision on a new north-south high speed line until 2012 at the earliest, and there is little forward thinking and guidance from the Department for Transport in these matters. It, therefore, comes, also, as no surprise that ‘investment’ in roads is talked about quite a lot.

The Times ran a very interesting article detailing this phenomenum: the road network is growing fifteen times faster than the railway network. According to The Times, “In five of the past eleven years, no track was added to the domestic rail network, and in the peak years for rail growth, in 2001 and 2002, the network grew by only six miles a year.” Reopenings have happened in Wales and Scotland, however. The Highways Agency has 40 new projects in the planning stages and the only seriously considered railway project is Crossrail which only benefits London and the surrounding area.

It may come as another surprise that London is already quite well served by railway connections. What about the rest of the country? As usual, it seems like it doesn’t exist or is not of sufficient importance. A very sad situation. This is despite the fact that rail passenger miles have increased by fifty per cent compared to twelve per cent for roads.

This is hot on the heels of the announcement that BAA wishes to build a second runway at Stanstead and the third runway at Heathrow seems to be a given making domestic flying even more of an option. Flybe announced several new domestic routes recently all of which, there is no doubt, will cost less than the equivalent train journeys.

As the BBC recently highlighted in one of their news reports, it is now cheaper for two people to take a taxi from Bristol to London during peak hours as it costs £137 for a return ticket on the day, if you happen to have to attend an important business event in London, or some other short notice event. Similar prices open up opportunities for airlines to run fifty thousand seats between Manchester and London, despite train services operating every thirty minutes.

The changes to CrossCountry have enabled domestic flights to take off as there have been a massive reduction in the number of through trains to many destinations, almost doubling the duration of some journeys. It is quite absurd that it takes eight hours from Preston to Penzance, for example – and for quite a price too! Due to this, there are now 1,200 domestic flights per day, or 454,000 per year offering something in the region of fourty million seats. This is compared with thirty million in 2001.

The changes to CrossCountry and the changes to the portion now served by First Transpennine Express are starting to really affect people’s choice in how they travel. It seems absurd that a three car commuter train is operating InterCity services that people could be on for up to five hours from Manchester to Glasgow or Edinburgh. These trains are not suitable for such journeys and consequently when they reach top speed they feel like they are going to come off the track, the journey is horrendous according to some reports.

These problems are not going to go away over night. But what can we, the taxpayer and passenger, do about it? The answer is as usual: not a damn thing.

The DfT served FGW with a remedial plan notice to improve services. First Great Western was regularly at the very bottom in the punctuality statistics.

Only last month FGW doubled the compensation paid to season ticket holders and apologised for delivering a poor service over the previous 12 months.

Passenger group “More Train Less Strain” staged another fare strike in the Bristol area in protest of First Great Western’s fare increases on 2 January 2008 which saw the cost of some of the most overcrowded routes increase by up to as much as 10%.

In December a seven-year-old girl fainted in the Bath area on an overcrowded commuter train operated by FGW. The train was so jam packed that the girl was wedged upright between passengers despite having lost consciousness and her grandfather as well as a nurse could not reach her to lay her down on the floor or a seat.

In a remedial plan agreed with the DfT, First Great Western aims to invest £29m for service improvements and an increase in compensation paid to customers. The train operator is planning to provide additional rolling stock and speed up the refurbishment of its Thames Valley commuter trains.

The key points of said plan are as follows:

• Passenger compensation – Between January 2008 and January 2009 First Great Western will double its compensation rates under the passenger charter. This will benefit any passengers who suffer disruption as well as season ticket holders who renew their tickets. These are the customers who have been most affected by the unacceptable performance. From January 2009 to January 2010 there will be a fifty per cent increase in compensation rates.
• Fares offers – an additional 500,000 of the cheapest off-peak tickets will be made available for a selection of First Great Western’s most popular destinations. Fares offers will commence from 1 April of this year until 31 March 2009.
• Additional trains on the Cardiff-Portsmouth route – from summer 2008 until summer 2011 every through train will have an additional carriage to provide extra capacity. This will increase trains from 2 carriages to 3, an aggregate increase of 40% capacity. This will mitigate the overcrowding on one of First Great Western’s most popular routes, which runs through Bristol.
• Upgrade of station customer information systems – new and additional high quality information equipment will be installed at more stations. This will include additional modern monitors. This will finish by end of December 2010.
• Accelerating the refurbishment of Thames Valley commuter trains – First Great Western will refurbish these trains earlier than contracted and will spend double the previously agreed amount. Refurbishment of Thames Valley commuter trains will commence this year and will be completed by 2011. Refurbishment will include the modernisation of carriage interiors to a far higher standard than originally planned. Lines to benefit will include London to Reading, Oxford, Newbury and Reading to Gatwick.

Additionally to that Andrew Haines, Chief Operating Officer at First Great Western, said that FGW wants to:

• Recruit new drivers, guards and technicians to improve customer service and reliability.
• A £4m enhanced customer service training package for FGW’s passenger facing employees.
• Establish a new performance directorate to improve management of disruption alongside Network Rail.
• A package of additional fleet and depot improvements to enhance reliability.
• To ensure resilient operating performance, provide an additional High Speed Train in April 2009.

Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said “The £29m package of benefits agreed with First Great Western will make a real difference to passengers. It includes over 500,000 cheaper tickets on the busiest routes, extra carriages between Cardiff and Portsmouth and vastly increases investment in the refurbishment of Thames Valley commuter trains. “The measures I have announced today will lead to a reduction in train cancellations and also provide a substantial package of benefits to First Great Western’s customers.”

Regular passengers on FGW will breath a small sigh of believe as they have been calling for service improvements on the Great Western Route for quite a while.

However, one wonders if the provision of five additional class 150 units and one more HST will be sufficient to tackle the daily overcrowding on some of the operator’s services.

Failure to deliver the commitments specified by the remedial plan would constitute defaulting on the franchise agreement on the part of FGW, for which the DfT can terminate the franchise

Further information:

• Financial Times article
• Times article
• First Great Western press release
• DfT press release

National Rail reports of proposed industrial action by ASLEF on London Midland services on 28 and 29 February 2008.

Industrial action has not been confirmed yet, but, if it does go ahead, the following services are expected to be affected:

• London Euston – Northampton
• Bletchley – Bedford
• Watford Junction – St. Alban’s Abbey

London Midland services around Birmingham and the West Midlands are currently not expected to be affected.

The industrial action was proposed by ASLEF and shall involve the 178 members working at the Bletchley Depot after, according to ASLEF, talks have broken down with London Midland over pension issues, with some of the train drivers set to loose up to £2,700 annually off the pension they ought to be receiving.

London Midland announced it is disappointed about the strike intentions and continuously tries to resolve the pension issue which it took over from the previous TOC(s) when it was awarded the franchise in Novemeber 2007.

In the meantime, London Midland is looking at contingency plans for 28 and 29 February to reduce the impact of industrial action on its customers as much as possible.

ASLEF said that while London Midland confirms the figures in reduction of pension payments it is only willing to share the cost of correcting the pension fund. General Secretary Keith Norman said this could “only be the beginning” of the dispute.

There has already been significant railway usage improvement in the local area and the benefits a reopened line would bring to the strategic mix far exceed the costs required to build it. There have been many studies completed showing wider benefits of line reopenings for stagnant parts of the country or those which would grow less economically and demographically without it.

There are two possible locations for reopened stations along the line, the main proposal being one at Earby serving the local community of that area as pictured above. The other opportunity for station addition to the network is Foulridge relatively near to Earby. This would not be a small task as the entire station was dismantled, preserved and rebuilt on the new Keighley & Worth Valley Steam Railway at West Ingrow.

A full consultancy was recently held about the feasibility of the options available for the reopening of the Skipton-Colne line.:

• Single track option (£42.6m) to include both stations;
• More extension option involving some doubling of track and junction improvements at Colne and Gannow Junction (£80.7m).

• Hourly shuttle service from Skipton to Colne with the line being run as a branch line again as in the old BR days (£860k);
• Extension of the existing Blackpool South to Colne service to Skipton (£830k);
• Hourly Skipton to Blackburn service operated by two additional trains but there are implementation challenges with this eastbound (£2.41m). With three additional trains, this challenge would be overcome (£3.36m);
• Hourly Skipton to Manchester Victoria service to complement existing services (£6.25m).

Line reopenings in this era of raising fuel costs, concern about the environment and the choking of Britain’s roads to breaking point are often quite successful with the most notable being the Settle to Carlisle line in the area which has gone from near closure to quite well used today. The following benefits were identified by the consultancy document:

• Direct employment arising from railway construction;
• Permanent employment from the operation of the railway;
• Indirect employment created in businesses supplying the products, materials and services;
• New businesses attracted to the area because of improved rail links;
• Induced employment arising from increased spend in the local area;
• Net additional spend by increased numbers of visitors to the area.

From a personal point of view, I would very much welcome the restoration of this rail link between the two towns. As a resident of Preston, I have often thought Skipton would be a nice place to visit for a weekend trip. There are many ways the line can be publicised to increase patronage and we at Transport Central wish SELRAP all the best in their endeavours.

• SELRAP Website