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TfL supposedly interested in taking over Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise services

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Bald Rick

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Magdalia said:
Incorporating the Thameslink operation into a regionalised Great British Railways is going to be a challenge however it is done. Given the emphasis on the devolution agenda I'd be surprised if handing some services over to TfL was not on the agenda.

As a user of both Thameslink and the Mildmay Line one of the advantages of TfL would be stations, both staffing and facilities. In particular I have more confidence in TfL on rolling out step free access.

I would also expect TfL to push harder for some of the peak hour Thameslink services to run all day such as Welwyn-Sevenoaks and West Hampstead-Orpington.

But it makes no sense for TfL to take over all of the current Thameslink operation. A good starting point is the split between 8 car and 12 car trains: as a rule of thumb the routes using 8 car trains might make sense for TfL but the routes using 12 car trains do not.
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There is zero chance of different operators running through the core.

There is also zero chance of a Labour Government, having gone through the pain of reorganising the railway to bring the operators under DfT contracts ‘in house’, to then hive some of it off to an organisation that contracts them out to the private sector.
 
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bramling

bramling

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Sad Sprinter said:
South London is getting a terrible deal from Treasury Railways: infrequent routes, lack of strategic interchanges, old stock. Please give it to TfL.
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What old stock is this?
SWR - total replacement of the inner-suburban fleet by class 701 (albeit very late in service)
SN - inner-suburban fleet is all Electrostar (half-life or younger)
SE - 465 (30 years), 376 (half-life), 707 (7 years)
TL - 700 (8 years).

Meanwhile TFL’s Bakerloo Line fleet is now over 50 years, and still no replacement programme.
 
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Bald Rick

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Sad Sprinter said:
South London is getting a terrible deal from Treasury Railways: infrequent routes, lack of strategic interchanges, old stock. Please give it to TfL.
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And yet:

1) the south London network is essentially at capacity - TfL can’t do anything about that
2) Clapham, Wimbledon, East Croydon, and Lewisham all say hello. What other ‘strategic interchanges’have you in mknd, and why?
3) SWR have new stock about to be introduced on all their metro routes (yes, I know it’s rather late); Southeastern have some nearly new trains in service with most of the rest of the metro fleet about to be replaced, Thameslink’s metro servie is formed of trains under a decade old, and Southern’s metro services are formed of trains that are to a reasonably high standard.

What wouldTfL do that is any different, other than some new stations signs and a lick of paint?
 
Haywain

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bramling said:
What old stock is this?
SWR - total replacement of the inner-suburban fleet by class 701 (albeit very late in service)
SN - inner-suburban fleet is all Electrostar (half-life or younger)
SE - 465 (30 years), 376 (half-life), 707 (7 years)
TL - 700 (8 years).
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And then there's the London Overground stock (15 years, or so).
 
Sad Sprinter

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JonathanH said:
It would still be dependent on funding from the Treasury.
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Oh God its like a Stephen King story

bramling said:
What old stock is this?
SWR - total replacement of the inner-suburban fleet by class 701 (albeit very late in service)
SN - inner-suburban fleet is all Electrostar (half-life or younger)
SE - 465 (30 years), 376 (half-life), 707 (7 years)
TL - 700 (8 years).

Meanwhile TFL’s Bakerloo Line fleet is now over 50 years, and still no replacement programme.
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I was referring to the Networkers. I don't them but it appears some people hate them because of their age.
 
bramling

bramling

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Sad Sprinter said:
Oh God its like a Stephen King story



I was referring to the Networkers. I don't them but it appears some people hate them because of their age.
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The problem with the Networkers isn’t their age, but that they have been totally left to rot. But they’re no worse than LU’s 1992 stock, indeed a proportion of the Networker fleet had their traction system replaced many years ago, unlike the 92 stock which is only getting this work done now, having had very many years of dire reliability.

And, unlike the 92 stock, there are plans in place to look at replacing the Networkers.
 
Sad Sprinter

Sad Sprinter

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Bald Rick said:
And yet:

1) the south London network is essentially at capacity - TfL can’t do anything about that
2) Clapham, Wimbledon, East Croydon, and Lewisham all say hello. What other ‘strategic interchanges’have you in mknd, and why?
3) SWR have new stock about to be introduced on all their metro routes (yes, I know it’s rather late); Southeastern have some nearly new trains in service with most of the rest of the metro fleet about to be replaced, Thameslink’s metro servie is formed of trains under a decade old, and Southern’s metro services are formed of trains that are to a reasonably high standard.

What wouldTfL do that is any different, other than some new stations signs and a lick of paint?
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A. Well yes...it's not really about running the services and giving everything a new lick of paint. It needs a radical, integrated plan combining infrastructure and running of the services. Given that TfL is, you know, transport for London I would have thought it would be in their interests to provide a transport system for about 25% of the metropolis that's far more efficient and useful than the one that's on offer at the moment.

B. Brockley, Clapham High Street, Brixton, Streatham Common, Leigham Vale also say hello. Lewisham sucks as an interchange. Wimbledon could be better but has only 2tph towards Streatham et al, Clapham Junction needs rebuilding, East Croydon has an appalling number of suburban trains from stopping there. It's insane that given its importance there's NO direct services there from the Sydenham Corridor, 1tph from Balham, none from Streatham Hill, or Crystal Palace. WTF?

C. TFL/The Mayor could scope the desired system that it wants to operate and fund the infrastructure needed. Yes I'm aware of the Selhurst junction problem. But I'd at least like to see a plan for a better, integrated system come from City Hall and work towards at least some of it. Well, I expect you're right and it is all futile anyway, as others have pointed upthread Khan wanted the Northern City Lines and Whitehall said "No". What more can one mayor do in his overly-centralised country?
 
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CBlue

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This is reminding me of an anecdote from when TfL took over the Greater Anglia services out of Liverpool Street.

Apparently there was genuine surprise among some that the increasingly athritic 317s and 315's hadn't been replaced overnight with brand new stock.
 
Sad Sprinter

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CBlue said:
This is reminding me of an anecdote from when TfL took over the Greater Anglia services out of Liverpool Street.

Apparently there was genuine surprise among some that the increasingly athritic 317s and 315's hadn't been replaced overnight with brand new stock.
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Same with TfL Rail.

I mean, I know that new stock will take a little bit of time. But I think a comprehensive Overground system designed by the London authorities, for the benefit of London's citizens, is far more preferable than a Treasury managed railway system which has no loyalty to anyone or anything other than saving costs. I get it that it would still require Central Government funding (astonishing giving London has the economy the size of Sweden) but if such a system could be at least partially GLA funded that would be encouraging.


The fact that I can't get a train from Brixton to Peckham is insane.
 
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thenorthern

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I suppose one of the issues with splitting routes or transferring services is how it works with storing and maintaining trains at the depot. It's not always straightforward. I remember once being at Lancaster and there was a Class 153 unit operating the Morecambe shuttle in Northern livery with "Transport for South Yorkshire" written on it. If railways were to be devolved to South Yorkshire that kind of thing wouldn't be able to happen.
 
30907

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Sad Sprinter said:
The fact that I can't get a train from Brixton to Peckham is insane.
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TfL, who operate the obvious service to serve East Brixton (or West Brixton, whichever is more practicable), haven't managed to solve that one - have they even proposed it?
 
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Recessio

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thenorthern said:
I suppose one of the issues with splitting routes or transferring services is how it works with storing and maintaining trains at the depot. It's not always straightforward. I remember once being at Lancaster and there was a Class 153 unit operating the Morecambe shuttle in Northern livery with "Transport for South Yorkshire" written on it. If railways were to be devolved to South Yorkshire that kind of thing wouldn't be able to happen.
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TfL seems to have made this work when they took over existing metro services previously operated by Silverlink, Greater Anglia and now Great Western.
 
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renegademaster

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Recessio said:
TfL seems to have made this work when they took over existing metro services previously operated by Silverlink, Greater Anglia and now Great Westeren
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Silverlink was taking over a whole a TOC , Elizabeth line involved whole fleet replacement for the sectors they took over
 
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Recessio

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renegademaster said:
Silverlink was taking over a whole a TOC , Elizabeth line involved whole fleet replacement for the sectors they took over
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Some Silverlink services went to London Midland, and the point still stands re Greater Anglia who still run some of the metro services to this day.
 
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renegademaster

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Sad Sprinter said:
But it does have everything to do with a municipal government not having the powers to run part of its transport system in the interests of its city.
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Kent County Council could make the same argument that the SouthEastern network isn't being used to it's best interests. Which is why you have Whitehall to work out a compromise. Even if you gave London unlimited tax raising powers (how that wouldn't bump London back into population decline god knows), and pawned off all the inner routes to them, they wouldn't much a say over the service plan, since that would largely be decided whoever is the successor to Network Rail, with that , you might as well just keep all the network unified and give up on any unnecessary splitting of stock and depots.
 
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Bald Rick

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Sad Sprinter said:
But it does have everything to do with a municipal government not having the powers to run part of its transport system in the interests of its city.
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If TfL wanted to, they could easily propose, and fund, a station on the Atlantics at Brixton, and require the Overground to stop there. And there’s nothing central Government could do to prevent it.

That TfL haven’t done this shows that the cost of doing so is far in excess of any benefits that would accrue.

(Not least because building a station on the Atlantics at Brixton would be phenomenally expensive.)
 
TT-ONR-NRN

TT-ONR-NRN

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stevieinselby said:
I can't see TfL taking on regional express services that go so far out into the Home Counties ... but even if it was on the cards, rejecting that because you don't like the names TfL give their lines is just about the most petty and pointless reason I can think of.
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Was about to say just that. I also think the names are ridiculous (and virtue signalling) but using that to disregard the benefits TfL's takeover from Silverlink, Southern and Greater Anglia has had by incorporating their routes into the Overground thus far is much more ridiculous.

renegademaster said:
Doesn't Merseyrail do this with a Northern ran service?
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Yes, and it's absolutely pointless and effectively weakens what would be a strong brand associated with fast, modern and frequent electric rapid transit services had they only their branding on the Northern and Wirral lines.
 
Horizon22

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Sad Sprinter said:
Same with TfL Rail.

I mean, I know that new stock will take a little bit of time. But I think a comprehensive Overground system designed by the London authorities, for the benefit of London's citizens, is far more preferable than a Treasury managed railway system which has no loyalty to anyone or anything other than saving costs. I get it that it would still require Central Government funding (astonishing giving London has the economy the size of Sweden) but if such a system could be at least partially GLA funded that would be encouraging.


The fact that I can't get a train from Brixton to Peckham is insane.
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Well TfL Rail to a full Elizabeth line service took 8 years (could have been less without Covid perhaps). It originally had 5-6 various stages which gradually built up the operations / new fleet / new infrastructure. 315s were only completely retired in 2022.

To carve up sections - and it would only be strategically, selective routes - would take the best part of a decade if it came with infrastructure changes and perhaps half that without major new infrasructure.

I don't think it is "insane" when you consider there is literally not a station on that route, rather an qurik and an oddity of the fact 19/20th century privatised operators built the Atlantic lines that fly over Brixton station.
 
explnemeses

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Bald Rick said:
There is also zero chance of a Labour Government, having gone through the pain of reorganising the railway to bring the operators under DfT contracts ‘in house’, to then hive some of it off to an organisation that contracts them out to the private sector.
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I mean, yes? That's what devolution is all about, letting local authorities decide how to run their own railways. If that is with private contracts, so be it. Mabye read the orignial linked document from the first post and/or the English Devolution Whitepaper for more info as to why.
 
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CBlue

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Sad Sprinter said:
The fact that I can't get a train from Brixton to Peckham is insane.
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I'll admit I don't know Peckham at all, and only ever been to Brixton twice - but putting both into directions on google maps gives me a.....30 minute bus ride. A bus route that runs every 10 mins at peak, and maintains a half-hourly service between midnight and 05:00.

From my perspective, I'm not sure how much a train service is going to improve that.

Meanwhile I live just outside one of the largest towns in the region (41,202 from the 2021 census) without a railway station (closed in the 60s) and on a good day the main transport link to Cambridge is a bus every 20 mins, taking around an hour. It also goes nowhere near one of the biggest employment sites in the city and apart from a few late night services doesn't even stop outside the railway station.

......yet the road linking the two is a congested mess simply as there doesn't appear to be an alternative.

While I understand London is enormous in both terms of population and economy, there does seem to be the "have our cake and eat it" applied here sometimes....
 
bramling

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Recessio said:
TfL seems to have made this work when they took over existing metro services previously operated by Silverlink, Greater Anglia and now Great Western.
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Making something work isn’t quite the same as it being an optimal situation. In the case of Crossrail the operation is big enough to stand on its own feet, especially with a large new fleet depot being required as part of the scheme.

GN inners, for example, is a tiny operation. From memory the current off-peak operation requires something ridiculous like just 9 trains.

GTR have already done some pigeon-holing in terms of the crewing, and the general view is that this hasn’t really produced a good outcome due to the lack of depots being able to cross-cover. Even a full 2019 peak service is still less trains than all Underground lines bar the W&C. In essence it has inefficient written all over it.

I think SC and SE inners aren’t much better. There’s too much crossover between the inter-suburban metro type routes versus those which go further out. West Anglia already has elements of this, in that the Hertford East service isn’t part of TFL, despite serving all the intermediate stations between Hackney Downs and Cheshunt via Tottenham Hale. What this means is the current timetable is now very heavily baked in.
 
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