Back to the bad old days’: swingeing rail cuts set alarm bells ringing

[WelshBluebird]

Now we have the face coverings back etc. Overcrowding problems in some areas/services, cancellations etc. Possibly putting some passengers off from using the trains, why bother if you can take the car instead and not have to wear a face mask when doing so?

Maybe this is just me, but I am pretty damn sure that the growth of remote working added to your comment about "overcrowding problems in some areas/services, cancellations etc" impact passenger numbers much more than needing to wear a mask.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe this is just me, but I am pretty damn sure that the growth of remote working added to your comment about "overcrowding problems in some areas/services, cancellations etc" impact passenger numbers much more than needing to wear a mask.

I'm avoiding long train journeys while masks are required, but I don't seem to be in the majority from what I can tell.

 

[Mat17]

Maybe this is just me, but I am pretty damn sure that the growth of remote working added to your comment about "overcrowding problems in some areas/services, cancellations etc" impact passenger numbers much more than needing to wear a mask.

I agree.

I didn't mean to make masks out to sound like massive deal, only that to some they may be a contributing factor.

 

[alistairlees]

Yet again, its revenue that matters and thats way off 70%. You need to sell a lot of cheap weekend returns to revenue match whom was previously buying a £5k or whatever season ticket.

Passenger numbers and revenue are more or less the same (though not quite 70%) actually.

 

[A0wen]

Passenger numbers are down 30%. But if you can get them back up, it doesn't matter if they are leisure travellers or commuters, as both pay about the same. Commuters are a solid income but they aren't a goldmine.

What are a goldmine are occasional business travellers as they do tend to pay higher fares. Reduced commuting is likely, in time, to result in increased numbers of those as people go into the office maybe 2 days a week.

Let's use Bletchley-Euston as an example:

12 month season is £4904.00. There are apparently 255 working days in 2021, so if we assume 25 days holiday which is pretty average that means 230 working days for your commuter. That's £21.32 per day.

The Off Peak Day Return is, wait for it, £21.30 - exactly the same, pretty much! There is a Super Off Peak at £16 but it's not valid until the afternoon including Saturday restrictions so is only really much use for evenings out or Sundays, so is a minority "headline fare" ticket rather than commonly used. (There is a way to pay that fare without the Saturday restrictions but you have to know what it is and so most people won't do that, so it's even more niche than actually using the super off peak).

The Anytime Day Return, however, is £42.10, which is very close to twice that. So if that previous season ticket holder goes into the office twice a week but paying that fare (yes, there's a way to get it cheaper, even more so if you have a Network Railcard, but again most people won't) is bringing in £84.20 as against £106.60.

This is a reduction, but not as much as you might think, you only have to sell one and a bit more leisure travellers an Off Peak Day Return to pick it back up (and you'll sell the odd few more to now non-season holders who might buy the odd one on a weekend instead of using the season they used to have). And if you consider that there is likely to be a move away from London due to not needing to be in every day, the overall take might actually end up higher.

There are various complicating factors e.g. monthly and weekly seasons and Railcards, but this should give an idea.

(I deliberately didn't use MKC as this has lower leisure fares, but that's as a result of direct on-rail competition, which is available at a tiny minority of stations - the majority of South East commuter stations will look more like Bletchley)

The difference between commuters and leisure travellers, which you're conveniently ignoring is frequency of travel and volume of travellers.

There are *far* more commuters than leisure travellers - even with some form of hybrid working. It's why trains heading to London for a pre-9am arrival and returning between 5pm-7pm are still busier than the off peak ones.

To believe that leisure travellers is going to bring in revenue to the level the railway needs on the basis of a 1:1 swap with a commuter is fanciful. The commuter will be travelling 3-4 days a week - the leisure traveller a couple of times a month.

 

[bramling]

It doesn't work and it too much of a simplistic view.

I've said it numerous times regarding staffing. It is more about the rosters and stupid railway culture than just throwing staff at it. My depot's roster tomorrow has 14 working duties off 'spare' and we still have someone working a rest day and requests sent out this morning with uncovered work.

We are still running a reduced timetable and are fully staffed !

I think you need to understand the rostering issues that the railway suffers with to truly understand 'staffing' Some TOCs are better than others and some depots work well in the same TOC where other depots continually struggle. Even during the height of Lockdown, we still needed rest day workers.

I do think many on here completely underestimate the complexity of rostering / duty schedules.

It may sound simple, but in practice it really isn’t. Yes more flexibility would make a massive difference, but in the real world things don’t really work like that.

There’s always going to be issues for as long as there is insufficient coverage, but to achieve that costs more and will at times mean there’s people sitting around. A political choice to make.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The difference between commuters and leisure travellers, which you're conveniently ignoring is frequency of travel and volume of travellers.

There are *far* more commuters than leisure travellers - even with some form of hybrid working. It's why trains heading to London for a pre-9am arrival and returning between 5pm-7pm are still busier than the off peak ones.

To believe that leisure travellers is going to bring in revenue to the level the railway needs on the basis of a 1:1 swap with a commuter is fanciful. The commuter will be travelling 3-4 days a week - the leisure traveller a couple of times a month.

But then there is the other side of this. Having expensive rolling stock lying around for peak lengthenings, and extra staff for peak extras, costs a lot of money. Get rid of both of those, and operate an all week Saturday service (as you get away from London), and you're potentially in for a bit of a saving.

 

[Sm5]

All it needs to increase revenue, is for the chancers to know there is a good chance there will be a check. When you can travel from Liverpool to Euston and back with no checks it really is taking the pee.

back in October I went from London to Wick, 8 days, via several stops on the WCML, Bolton, Blackpool, Liverpool, York, Carlilse, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee & Perth, including a day on Merseyrail and a day on SWR south london.

I have a stack of 40 train tickets, and travelled more then 60 trains (admittedly some were only 1 stop).

ticket checks on board: Wrexham General - Central, TPE Lime street to York, Rail Charter Services HST, Strathspey Railway, Inverness to Wick & vv, and Caledonian sleeper. I just don't recall any others.

I have the fullset of tickets, only 1 of them was actually stamped (tpe from Liverpool).

There really isnt much ticket checking going on, on the network that I saw, I travelled on Avanti, Northern, TPE, Merseyrail, ATW, RCS, Scotrail, Caledonian Sleeper, LNER, Strathspey, SWR, LUL, Southern that week.

Admittedly having a days tickets in hand, meant I didnt pass through many station barriers, and London / Merseyside used daytickets which no one checked at all, but it feels like the system is reliant on barriers.

 

[Watershed]

Downsizing fleets seems an easy one.

Which fleets can you name that you think could be downsized?

It's really not as easy as it might seem. The industry is set up to operate something approximating the current level of services; anything more or less will be rather inefficient. Hence why you might need to cut 20% of services to save even 5% of costs.

 

[bramling]

But then there is the other side of this. Having expensive rolling stock lying around for peak lengthenings, and extra staff for peak extras, costs a lot of money. Get rid of both of those, and operate an all week Saturday service (as you get away from London), and you're potentially in for a bit of a saving.

This is a bit of a 1990s view. In those days there was extra rolling sitting around, as your London area off-peak service would have shorter train lengths as well as no peak extras. In the two decades since then the first of these has tended to vanish, with all-day 8 cars being rather more common in place of shortening to 4-cars. Many of the remaining rolling stock will be undergoing maintenance during the day.

I don’t think there’s as much saving to be had here as some people think, especially if we want to avoid “massive overcrowding on Christmas Market Saturday” type stuff!

 

[lammergeier]

I agree to an extent that depot productivity isn't always great. At Plymouth we used to go to London regularly. That was extremely productive for the company, they got a bloody good days work out of the driver and one driver drives the train for its entire journey.
In past couple of years there has been a trend to use 3 different drivers to cover a Plymouth to London leg, changing often at Exeter then Reading. Why? I don't know if truth be told.
Signs of changes with the new roster changes in mid December with Plymouth drivers re gaining some more of our highly productive Plymouth-London-Plymouth diagrams, as much as its a pain doing lots of London work, at least the passenger is getting value for money from their driver.
So for me, more cases of traincrew working a trains entire journey and fewer crew changes on route would be one way in which crewing costs can be cut.

I believe this is a First Group trait after hearing similar about TPE doing the same and paring back route and traction knowledge to the bare minimum.

Not speaking with any direct knowledge, but I know that automated diagramming software looks for the most productive solution overall, rather than necessarily at individual depot level. You may find that the optimal ‘all GWR’ solution for Dec 19 (with full timetable across the board) counterintuitively required a productivity loss at Plymouth to make bigger gains elsewhere. I imagine maintaining route knowledge on all the various routes to London is challenging and would possibly complicate matters for Bristol and Exeter depots?

Yes, on paper it's probably optimal but it causes problems during disruption as inbound delayed staff lead to outbound delayed trains which then escalates throughout the day. Also leads to boredom, complacency and time and time again we see operating incidents including SPADs whereby drivers are caught out by signalling or situations being ever so slightly different to the previous hundred times they went over the same bit of route in the last fortnight.

Dont know why they did that with rosters there, but at ScotRail they cut Glasgow Queen Street & Edinburgh drivers route knowledge back to Dundee having previously worked through to Aberdeen. Reason being that they wanted to minimise risk of SPADs, TPWS interventions etc. Whether it would have had an affect I don’t know - the drivers were obviously competent for the route, but a very risk averse culture came in. Safety obviously has to be paramount but this seemed to remove a lot of flexibility for minimal gain.

Was this during First group's tenure? Would figure and tie in with the above if so. I also don't buy their argument that hacking away at route knowledge leads to less incidents, quite the opposite. Could make an interesting thesis for someone on an IRO course perhaps.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is a bit of a 1990s view. In those days there was extra rolling sitting around, as your London area off-peak service would have shorter train lengths as well as no peak extras. In the two decades since then the first of these has tended to vanish, with all-day 8 cars being rather more common in place of shortening to 4-cars. Many of the remaining rolling stock will be undergoing maintenance during the day.

I don’t think there’s as much saving to be had here as some people think, especially if we want to avoid “massive overcrowding on Christmas Market Saturday” type stuff!

The south WCML has both peak extras and 12-car lengthenings in the peak (though as you say 4-car workings are now mercifully rare). You may be right about maintenance, but there were always a lot of 350s sat on Camden Bank all day not receiving anything.

Of course it doesn't save much unless there's somewhere else for those 350s to go, but there are still BR-era EMUs out there.

 

[Sm5]

Which fleets can you name that you think could be downsized?

It's really not as easy as it might seem. The industry is set up to operate something approximating the current level of services; anything more or less will be rather inefficient. Hence why you might need to cut 20% of services to save even 5% of costs.

Sorry it was a cut / paste from somewhere else, not relevent.

 

[lammergeier]

I agree.

I didn't mean to make masks out to sound like massive deal, only that to some they may be a contributing factor.

I suspect it's not the "wearing a mask" which is the issue, but the false impression that it creates of trains being unsafe from a covid (or other airborne viruses) perspective

 

[Ken H]

A lot of forum members are assuming that the changes in demand since covid are permanent. Given we're now back at 70% of pre-covid passenger levels this conclusion would seem somewhat premature. And that's before we consider the need to encourage substantial modal shift away from cars.

In my corner of the village there is
1. Me. Been WFH full time since June 2018
2. Lady 2 doors away. Freelance project manager. Used to be 50/50 WFH/client sites. Now mostly WFH
3. Lady 3 doors away. was working in office 16 miles away. not 100% WFH since Covid, Says not ever going back to office.
4. couple the other way. She only works 4 day week cos they have a pre school kid. Goes to office 1 day a week, 3 days WFH. Was 5 days office before COVID, but she produced sprog in March 2020. He seems to be 50/50 WFH/office. but he has onsite work too (outside stuff)
5 Bloke over the lane. Moved here end 2020. Was commuting to London. Now 100% WFH.

At my clients site they have requested 2 days in office, 3 at home. Those who have gone back to the office went kicking and screaming. I cant see them getting people in the office more. They have the unanswerable question. 'Was there a problem with my work when at home? no? So why cant I work at home now then?'

It aint coming back for many people.

 

[dk1]

Yet again, its revenue that matters and thats way off 70%. You need to sell a lot of cheap weekend returns to revenue match whom was previously buying a £5k or whatever season ticket.

Thing is though that when you actually work out season ticket value on a daily basis, its heavily discounted nature makes is not much difference to the cheaper advance fares. It seems to be the case that the 2-3 days on the office & purchase of full price day returns doesn't mean all that much revenue loss overall.

 

[A0wen]

Thing is though that when you actually work out season ticket value on a daily basis, its heavily discounted nature makes is not much difference to the cheaper advance fares. It seems to be the case that the 2-3 days on the office & purchase of full price day returns doesn't mean all that much revenue loss overall.

No - but it's guaranteed revenue, which the advance booking leisure traveller isn't.

People *have* to go to work. People *don't* have to travel to visit somewhere / someone. It can be delayed or deferred. Whereas commuters, even with future hybrid working will need to be in the office 2/3 days a week - there's the difference.

 

[Western Lord]

Looking at prices for a return trip next weekend with my sons to visit my elderly father and bring him down to stay for a few days before Christmas. Avanti = £188, car = £55, door-to-door journey time comparable at around 4 hours (London outer suburbs to Manchester outer suburbs). Train is clearly more comfortable and relaxing, but can't ignore that sort of price differential. Fuel would have to be over £4/litre before the motoring charges start to bite

Well, I suppose that it depends on what you are driving, but to suggest that the train is "clearly more comfortable and relaxing" is a strange statement. Trains offer (according to many) uncomfortable seats, noisy fellow passengers, incessant announcements, and the car really does go door to door whereas the train doesn't.

 

[Ken H]

The difference between commuters and leisure travellers, which you're conveniently ignoring is frequency of travel and volume of travellers.

There are *far* more commuters than leisure travellers - even with some form of hybrid working. It's why trains heading to London for a pre-9am arrival and returning between 5pm-7pm are still busier than the off peak ones.

To believe that leisure travellers is going to bring in revenue to the level the railway needs on the basis of a 1:1 swap with a commuter is fanciful. The commuter will be travelling 3-4 days a week - the leisure traveller a couple of times a month.

If they want leisure travellers, they need to look at '2 together' tickets, and family tickets. I remember dad buying 2 and 2 halves when i was a kid. Serious money for him. Then sister got to her 15th birthday.....

 

[Ken H]

Well, I suppose that it depends on what you are driving, but to suggest that the train is "clearly more comfortable and relaxing" is a strange statement. Trains offer (according to many) uncomfortable seats, noisy fellow passengers, incessant announcements, and the car really does go door to door whereas the train doesn't.

and I can play the in car stereo with stuff I want to listen to.

 

[Starmill]

I thought Union subs paid for union reps? Is that not the case.

I'm unsure if anyone has responded on this point so far, but the trade union is free to spend its own money raised through membership fees and miscellaneous funds pretty much as they wish, such as on offices or campaigns or to disburse through various funds.

A union representative however is elected by their colleagues, often there are two or more, and given time at work to spend on union activities. They're paid by the company in the conventional manner for this. If they were rostered to be working elsewhere at the time, as may be usual, the company will need to arrange suitable cover.

 

[Xavi]

Agreed - we've been lucky in an ever expanding universe, where passenger numbers/ train frequencies/ number of stations/ level of Government subsidy all seemed to be growing year on year for pretty much a generation - I think that this has number some people to the prospect of tough times ahead (in the way that the decade of economic growth from the mid 1990s onwards meant that some people assumed that "boom and bust" was a thing of the past)

The railway needed billions in subsidy pre-pandemic (but there was no urgency to fix the "waste" because everything was getting better, so there was nobody demanding we take "tough decisions")

Now, if we have 70% of the pre-pandemic passengers, we may have 50%-60% of the pre-pandemic revenue (given that the commuters were paying high fares, leisure passengers less so), in which case a 10% cut doesn't sound unreasonable - especially at a time when other Government departments are seeing big cuts

But, this is the Government control that a lot of people wanted - there are no franchise commitments to worry about any more, the Government have a free hand to cut things - be careful what you wish for...

Commuters on season tickets pay the least cost per mile. Leisure is higher even after railcard discounts.

 

[43066]

I don't want this to become a discussion of the merits of face coverings, but I am interesting to see if their reintroduction will put off passengers (as indeed speculated in the guardian article). I think (also basing my assumption on trains used recently in the EU) that it will increase confidence amongst the travelling population, even amongst many who like to say they hate them. Would it be possible to capture any such sentiment from the passenger data, or are there too many variables?

Maybe this is just me, but I am pretty damn sure that the growth of remote working added to your comment about "overcrowding problems in some areas/services, cancellations etc" impact passenger numbers much more than needing to wear a mask.

I’d like to know a definitive answer to this too. I suspect the majority won’t be bothered either way, but anecdotally several members of my family and friendship group are in the category of people who *will not* use trains while there’s a requirement to mask. There must be a strong likelihood that category is at least as large than the category who are terrified of covid and won’t venture onto a train unless everyone is masked - especially now that vaccination levels are so high. Those I’m referring are all occasional travellers who can choose to use their cars instead which will clearly make a difference.

 

[Starmill]

Commuters on season tickets pay the least cost per mile. Leisure is higher even after railcard discounts.

But as people keep saying, commuters are (or rather, were) significantly more loyal. Annual season ticket purchases generated interest while the money was in the bond, the customer paying up-front for a full year of travel was a pretty big deal.

Leisure elasticity will fluctuate wildly by things entirely outside of the industry's control, such as the weather, when Easter is, the regional and national sporting calendars etc etc. Season ticket holders paid regardless of any of that.

 

[Wolfie]

And the resulting increase in costs paid for by who? Taxpayers or passengers?

If you really believe that HMT won't be going after current T&Cs you are ignoring 10+ years of public sector history. Sad but true.

 

[Starmill]

If you really believe that HMT won't be going after current T&Cs you are ignoring 10+ years of public sector history. Sad but true.

Indeed. And nearly always better to agree a deal for the contract changes in order to at least get a pay rise in return.

 

[Bald Rick]

I thought Union subs paid for union reps? Is that not the case.

Local / staff reps are company employees, who are released from their normal duties to conduct union business. Their time is paid for by the company. It is not unknown for these reps to spend more time on union business than paid work.

The unions employ ‘full time reps’, but these are relatively few in number.

I am unconvinced that working from home will become the "new normal" (I loath that term). By this time next year many employers and employees will be tired of it.

That point was passed some time ago. There are many employers and employees who welcome it. Plenty of research done on it.

We know revenue is down, but it's the trend that matters, and the trend over the last year is increasing back towards pre-covid levels.

The trend for the last three months is important here. It is flat.

Would it be possible to capture any such sentiment from the passenger data, or are there too many variables?

Too many variables.

But if you can get them back up, it doesn't matter if they are leisure travellers or commuters, as both pay about the same. Commuters are a solid income but they aren't a goldmine.

Unfortunately it does matter. Simple reason - the commuters that haven’t come back are those who typically travel longer distances (>20 miles) principally to London. These typically pay higher average fares, but the crucial point is that it is much cheaper on a per passenger mile basis to provide these services than shorter distance commuting, and particularly regional commuting.

As an example (and I don’t have the detailed data) but there are roughly as many inbound commuters to Sheffield each morning peak as that can be accommodated on 3 peak trains heading to the Thameslink core. The resources needed for the former is an order of magnitude higher, and the revenue is lower.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Not really, they can ditch the fleets with short term deals and move the trains with longer term deals elsewhere on the network to backfill for the withdrawn stock. So long as there are some fleets with short term leases, there is flexibility to deal with the longer term ones.

I don't think it's quite as simple as that, with the industry structure as it is.
80x are contractually tied to the routes they operate and the specified maintenance bases, with the IEP subset also being in Agility ownership rather than "GBR".
Certainly short-term stock will be dumped - until it's (eg) the 158s that form the backbone of a number of regional routes, or Chiltern's 165s.
I think LNER can say goodbye to its prospective order for more stock, and possibly its retained Mk4s.
And what do you do with a surplus of fixed-length 12-car 700s on services that only need 8-cars?
Are we still extending platforms for longer trains that will not now be needed?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Unfortunately it does matter. Simple reason - the commuters that haven’t come back are those who typically travel longer distances (>20 miles) principally to London. These typically pay higher average fares, but the crucial point is that it is much cheaper on a per passenger mile basis to provide these services than shorter distance commuting, and particularly regional commuting.

White collar commuting is still "on pause". It's too hard to say what will happen to it once COVID is a distant memory. If it comes back as a "two day a week" thing using Anytime Day Returns, as I illustrated above, that isn't much of a revenue drop. And people might move out of London a bit so you get more fare income that way - for instance, if someone moves from Watford to Wellingborough that's a rough tripling of Anytime fare against a much cheaper mortgage.

I think it will take 5 years or potentially more to see the long term effect of this - in the meantime we need to make easily reversible cuts such as simple frequency thinning and station destaffing.

For instance I've been primarily a home worker for about 8 years now but I pretty solidly went into our London office one day a week pre COVID, last time I did was 16th March 2020, when Bozza told us to go home. I will very likely return to this once COVID is no longer a genuine threat. Indeed, I might well treat myself to a couple of weekly seasons because I'm so bored of living so locally!

 

[RT4038]

Are we still extending platforms for longer trains that will not now be needed?

Hope so - to run longer but fewer trains.