Prioritising freight vs passenger trains and how it works in other countries?

[zwk500]

On another thread about the railways @yorkie mentioned that compared to most of the world which puts customers first the UK railways don't and should do be doing more to and it's things like putting freight ahead of all passenger trains that shows up the railway as being less interested in prioritising customers.

How often are Class 4 or 6 put in front of class 1 or 2? If you watch the aftermath of a big incident on OTT or Traksy you'll see the Class 1s are given significant precedence. E.g. when the WCML backs up, freights will be held until all Passengers in the vicinity have been cleared, often leading to stacks of class 4s on the slow line waiting for their slot in convoy.

I think some passenger trains should have priority, like headline IC services and already delayed services to prevent accumulating delay time but other regional expresses and locals shouldn't (and especially not leisurely railtours), since there is an importance of freight. That said, freight is given too much priority as it stands and that is what contributes to the image of British railways being anti-customer.

Freight doesn't feature in the popular perception of the railway. Passenger trains being late or cancelled are what create an anti-customer image, and the amount of delay caused by prioritisation of freight is absolutely negligible. Wrong-regulation delays are frankly rare, and most of them occur when the root cause is something else, like a train or infrastructure failure.

It isn't a half hour delay up the WCML that will prevent food getting onto the shelves before it all runs out.

It can easily be, if it means that a freight driver runs out of hours and can't take the train to the end. Or if it means that Daventry can't accept the train because it's just had another arrival that needs shunting and the train needs to be put into a loop at Rugby or Northampton, so half an hour turns into 1 and a half hours. Then the next train is delayed, and so .

 

[43066]

it's things like putting freight ahead of all passenger trains that shows up the railway as being less interested in prioritising customers.

Sorry but this is complete nonsense. The UK railway doesn’t “put freight ahead of all passenger trains”! On the other hand you’ll find railways in other parts of the world do prioritise freight over passenger trains (eg USA and Australia)!

Why do so many posters on here seem to like bashing the railway for incorrect/made up reasons?!

 

[zwk500]

Sorry but this is complete nonsense. The UK railway doesn’t “put freight ahead of all passenger trains”! On the other hand you’ll find railways in other parts of the world do prioritise freight over passenger trains (eg USA and Australia)!

Why do so many posters on here seem to like bashing the railway for incorrect/made up reasons?!

tbf, the USA is hardly known as a passenger-friendly railway! Not sure what Australia's reputation is on passenger-friendliness.

 

[dk1]

tbf, the USA is hardly known as a passenger-friendly railway!

Or a safety conscious one. Some of the accidents over the last few years have brought it home how poor standards are on many of their operations.

 

[43066]

tbf, the USA is hardly known as a passenger-friendly railway! Not sure what Australia's reputation is on passenger-friendliness.

Well tell that to the poster I was responding to, who seems to think the UK is the least friendly in the world!

 

[TheBigD]

In my neck of the woods you have no choice but to run the liners. Once they leave Peterborough or Ipswich there is the grand total of 1 loop that can accommodate a single full length liner, and that's at Ely.

 

[dk1]

In my neck of the woods you have no choice but to run the liners. Once they leave Peterborough or Ipswich there is the grand total of 1 loop that can accommodate a single full length liner, and that's at Ely.

Same on the GEML and will be even worse now the EL (Elizabeth Line on the Electric Lines) is ramped up from every 10 to every 7-8 mins off peak. Not that freight strays from the main lines much these days.

 

[Facing Back]

On another thread about the railways @yorkie mentioned that compared to most of the world which puts customers first the UK railways don't and should do be doing more to and it's things like putting freight ahead of all passenger trains that shows up the railway as being less interested in prioritising customers. I think some passenger trains should have priority, like headline IC services and already delayed services to prevent accumulating delay time but other regional expresses and locals shouldn't (and especially not leisurely railtours), since there is an importance of freight. That said, freight is given too much priority as it stands and that is what contributes to the image of British railways being anti-customer. It isn't a half hour delay up the WCML that will prevent food getting onto the shelves before it all runs out.

Surely freight operators are customers of NR too? And businesses which use rail freight are customers, as are customers who are passengers? By extension therefore tour operators and their customers are customers too. All are worthy of respect and if you accept their business and offer terms of service then you have a professional obligation to attempt to meet it.

You are equating customer to regular passenger here I think - am I wrong?

Agreed that passenger delays should be prioritised in case of disruption, but within reason. I suspect that freight has service levels too and the process needs to take all of that into account - and yes - an hour's delay on a freight train can have very significant impact bearing in mind that there are lorries and ships waiting to take their goods and move then onwards.

 

[AlterEgo]

Surely freight operators are customers of NR too? And businesses which use rail freight are customers, as are customers who are passengers?

Indeed - Freight is extremely valuable, there is much more revenue generated per train path than for passenger services.

Decarbonising freight is a much higher priority than individual passenger trips - lorries off the road is a major sell of HS2.

 

[Watershed]

there is much more revenue generated per train path than for passenger services

Revenue generated for whom? I doubt NR receives more money per freight path than per passenger, simply because FOCs don't pay fixed access charges.

OTOH if you are talking about benefit to the wider economy, it may well be true, and is probably only not true if the passenger train has 8-12 coaches and is well loaded.

 

[Falcon1200]

Why do so many posters on here seem to like bashing the railway for incorrect/made up reasons?!

Because bashing the railway is a national hobby in the UK!

I suspect that freight has service levels too and the process needs to take all of that into account - and yes - an hour's delay on a freight train can have very significant impact bearing in mind that there are lorries and ships waiting to take their goods and move then onwards.

Indeed. Back in the old days, when part of my Control area was the Kilmarnock-Dumfries-Gretna Jc route, and there was heavy coal traffic on the line, I was sometimes 'encouraged' to hold an Up freight in the loop at Thornhill for a passenger train to pass. This would save a 10 minute delay to the 2-car Class 156 at the expense of 60 minutes for the 2000t freight, so I politely declined. There were occasions when a heavy delay to a freight in Scotland was still causing delays the following day, such was the tight diagramming of Drivers, locos and wagons.

One advantage, if it can be called that, of privatisation is that the infrastructure operator has to consider the needs of all train operators, rather than freight being the poor relation as it often was in BR days (although Sectorisation had started to address that).

 

[Bow Fell]

Poorer decisions have been made this week, a few examples below.

8-13 minutes late for 1Y55 to Manchester Airport after being held at Bolton for the late running Rochdale 2J23 stopper seems to be a weekly occurrence

Realtime Trains | 1Y55 0722 Blackpool North to Manchester Airport | 23/02/2023

Real-time train running information for 1Y55 0722 departure from Blackpool North to Manchester Airport on 23/02/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Realtime Trains | 1Y55 0722 Blackpool North to Manchester Airport | 01/03/2023

Real-time train running information for 1Y55 0722 departure from Blackpool North to Manchester Airport on 01/03/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

A 7 minute delay departing Oxford Rd whilst held for 1Y50 that had only just departed Salford Crescent

Realtime Trains | 2F43 1614 Manchester Oxford Road to Warrington Central | 02/03/2023

Real-time train running information for 2F43 1614 departure from Manchester Oxford Road to Warrington Central on 02/03/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

1Y54 (all stops) was signalled to depart Preston 3 minutes ahead of the express 1Y91, and not regulated at either Bolton or Salford Crescent. Therefore was terminated short at Piccadilly due to this delay.

You say “decisions” but I’d say a lot of due to signalling system in the first place deciding in some areas anyway.

As a Train Running Controller I’d have delayed 2F43 at Oxford Road all day long to protect 1Y50 and the return work through the Oxford Road/Piccadilly corridor. WL119 driver on that is due to a PNB at Preston on the return work and it’s a short bare minimum PNB, there’s no way I’d have wanted a delay on that without impacting on things at Preston.

2F43 had the turnaround at Warrington Central anyway, and was going to be a late start regardless due to 1B81.

1Y54/1Y91 another correct decision, 1Y91 was always going to be a risk with 14 turnaround at the Airport, do you delay two trains unnecessarily? It’s inconvenient I know for those turfed off at Manchester Piccadilly but certainly the correct decision at the time.

 

[Llanigraham]

Sorry but this is complete nonsense. The UK railway doesn’t “put freight ahead of all passenger trains”! On the other hand you’ll find railways in other parts of the world do prioritise freight over passenger trains (eg USA and Australia)!

Why do so many posters on here seem to like bashing the railway for incorrect/made up reasons?!

When we caught The Canadian, from Toronto to Vancouver, we were regularly looped to let frieght pass, and finally arrived in Vancouver 12 hours late! No delay repay, or any compensation allowed.

 

[Facing Back]

Indeed. Back in the old days, when part of my Control area was the Kilmarnock-Dumfries-Gretna Jc route, and there was heavy coal traffic on the line, I was sometimes 'encouraged' to hold an Up freight in the loop at Thornhill for a passenger train to pass. This would save a 10 minute delay to the 2-car Class 156 at the expense of 60 minutes for the 2000t freight, so I politely declined. There were occasions when a heavy delay to a freight in Scotland was still causing delays the following day, such was the tight diagramming of Drivers, locos and wagons.

One advantage, if it can be called that, of privatisation is that the infrastructure operator has to consider the needs of all train operators, rather than freight being the poor relation as it often was in BR days (although Sectorisation had started to address that).

Interesting, thanks

When we caught The Canadian, from Toronto to Vancouver, we were regularly looped to let frieght pass, and finally arrived in Vancouver 12 hours late! No delay repay, or any compensation allowed.

AIUI North American railway infrastructure is owned by the freight companies and they allow passenger services to use spare capacity....

 

[Llanigraham]

AIUI North American railway infrastructure is owned by the freight companies and they allow passenger services to use spare capacity....

Canadian National, which is the main passenger line across Canada although it does carry much freight, is a public company, previously nationalised but currently the largest shareholder is Bill Gates.
Canadian Pacific is the other operator and that is almost exclusively frieight although they do run commuter services in Toronto and Quebec. It's largest stockholder is a London hedge fund company.

 

[Watershed]

AIUI North American railway infrastructure is owned by the freight companies and they allow passenger services to use spare capacity....

Not quite - don't know about how it works in Canada, but in the US, Amtrak has the legal right to use freight "railroads" and indeed their services theoretically have to be given priority over freight trains.

Unfortunately, the railroad corporations ride roughshod over the law in practice, e.g. by operating trains that are longer than any of the available loops so that in practice it's the Amtrak trains that have to wait. Only the Department of Justice can enforce the law and it seems entirely disinterested in doing so.

 

[DarloRich]

Yet again signallers at rugby put a freight train out in front of 1z33 at Northampton,train left Northampton 1 min late got to rugby 16 late! And don’t feed me the usual oh but freight trains have a timetable as well! Passenger trains should take priority over any freight train. I bet if the public knew about this there would be uproar!!

It may come as a shock that the freight might be more importnant or valuble than you

EDIT - hang on is this a rant about a puffer buffer tour being delayed?

 

[zwk500]

It may come as a shock that the freight might be more importnant or valuble than you

EDIT - hang on is this a rant about a puffer buffer tour being delayed?

Even better, the Steam tour was held up by a photographer trespassing.

 

[DarloRich]

Even better, the Steam tour was held up by a photographer trespassing.

Really?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Not just close thread. Close internet! Close it all down. We have a winner

 

[cin88]

Can't help but enjoy the irony of a steam tour being delayed by someone trying to get a picture of it

 

[RailWonderer]

Well tell that to the poster I was responding to, who seems to think the UK is the least friendly in the world!

Never said that, only that the UK could do more to put passengers ahead.

Surely freight operators are customers of NR too?

Yes.

And businesses which use rail freight are customers, as are customers who are passengers? By extension therefore tour operators and their customers are customers too. All are worthy of respect and if you accept their business and offer terms of service then you have a professional obligation to attempt to meet it.

You are equating customer to regular passenger here I think - am I wrong?

Yes but customers have to be prioritised differently.

Freight doesn't feature in the popular perception of the railway. Passenger trains being late or cancelled are what create an anti-customer image, and the amount of delay caused by prioritisation of freight is absolutely negligible. Wrong-regulation delays are frankly rare, and most of them occur when the root cause is something else, like a train or infrastructure failure.

Passengers see the consequences, and yes, passengers see freight trains pass all the time, minutes after their train was meant to arrive, so yes, freight is in the minds of passengers when standing on a draughty platform listening to a deafening 66 locomotive pass. You cannot say it is negligable, it is easily 10-15 mins regularly and sometimes more. I was not blaming freight for all the UK rail's reputation problems, only a small part of it.

It can easily be, if it means that a freight driver runs out of hours and can't take the train to the end. Or if it means that Daventry can't accept the train because it's just had another arrival that needs shunting and the train needs to be put into a loop at Rugby or Northampton, so half an hour turns into 1 and a half hours. Then the next train is delayed, and so .

We are not a tin pot country where shelves will be empty after one missed day of deliveries.

Agreed that passenger delays should be prioritised in case of disruption, but within reason. I suspect that freight has service levels too and the process needs to take all of that into account - and yes - an hour's delay on a freight train can have very significant impact bearing in mind that there are lorries and ships waiting to take their goods and move then onwards.

Yes to all.

 

[zwk500]

Yes but customers have to be prioritised differently.

Passenger trains are already shown significant priority today, how do you suggest this changes? Absolute priority? Freight cannot be allowed to depart a loop if a passenger train is within 10 miles of it?

Passengers see the consequences, and yes, passengers see frieght trains pass all the time, minutes after their train was meant to arrive, so yes, freight is in the minds of passengers when standing on a draughty platform listening to a deafening 66 locomotive pass. You cannot say it is negligable, it is easily 10-15 mins regularly and sometimes more. I was not blaming fraight for all the UK rail's reputation problems, only a small part of it.

Wrong-regulation IS a negligible part of all delays. And seeing a freight train pass is different to associating it with the reason your specific train was late. When there are big 'stop the job' moments, it's freight that get parked up and passengers flighted through ahead of them.

We are not a tin pot country where shelves will be empty after one missed day of deliveries.

Not immediately, but UK supermarkets' use of Just In Time delivery is a significant reason behind why the UK has empty shelves at the moment and the EU does not. A 775m container train can be carrying 130 TEUs, or 65 40' Containers. That's a lot of goods not making it to shelves overnight if the train never makes it to the distribution centre. Remember residual delays can still be affecting movements well into the next day, with consequential impacts on terminal operations etc.

 

[Bow Fell]

It’s worth pointing out for example, that Drax won’t accept late arrivals after a certain point. The what’s and why’s I don’t know, that’s between GBRf and Drax to be honest, but it is the case, and that’s why sometimes these trains are “given a run”

I’m more than happy to discuss regulation decisions with anyone, it’s a part of the job I love, but it’s unfair to be criticised when most on here don’t have all the information at hand, especially when making simultaneous decisions after putting the job back together for example after disruption.

Not only that there are some agreed contingency plans between NR and TOC’s that state for example if such a service is xx minutes late it must be terminated short or ran express.

I think there are others here in such positions that will happily admit that they haven’t got it right 100% of the time either. I got one spectacularly wrong the other week, and just had my head my hands knowing there was nothing I can do than watch it all go wrong! It happens!

One of the things I see is that these decisions aren’t passenger friendly, it’s complete nonsense to be honest, the decisions we make are to keep trains and as a result keep passengers moving, the last thing anyone in a control position wants is prolonged disruption or trains that have been failed to be mitigated, it’s more work in the long run!

 

[AlterEgo]

We are not a tin pot country where shelves will be empty after one missed day of deliveries.

What about exports? Say you're a business sending containers to Felixstowe - is it okay for your goods to be a whole day late? What if, for example, you will incur penalties or loss of sales because of it?

Freight is valuable - you should have a think about how much in terms of goods are on the next 40 wagon train you see and think about whether that's more or less than an 8-car Class 350.

 

[Horizon22]

Same on the GEML and will be even worse now the EL (Elizabeth Line on the Electric Lines) is ramped up from every 10 to every 7-8 mins off peak. Not that freight strays from the main lines much these days.

Just a point is that its been 7-8 minutes off-peak for a long while.

Regulation of freight could be a tad better especially when something is already 60+ late.

 

[XAM2175]

On the other hand you’ll find railways in other parts of the world do prioritise freight over passenger trains (eg USA and Australia)!

Not sure what Australia's reputation is on passenger-friendliness.

Nah, passengers have a pretty decent ride compared to freight in Australia - the majority of freight (other than the private networks out in the middle of nowhere) runs on trackage under the control of third parties akin to Network Rail, but it helps that there's very little long-distance passenger traffic in the first place. Where there's overlap passengers have priority; one of the biggest bottlenecks affecting intermodal freight on the east coast is the fact that it's virtually impossible to path freight into, out of, or through Sydney except in the dead of night.

 

[Facing Back]

Not quite - don't know about how it works in Canada, but in the US, Amtrak has the legal right to use freight "railroads" and indeed their services theoretically have to be given priority over freight trains.

Unfortunately, the railroad corporations ride roughshod over the law in practice, e.g. by operating trains that are longer than any of the available loops so that in practice it's the Amtrak trains that have to wait. Only the Department of Justice can enforce the law and it seems entirely disinterested in doing so.

You're right of course, there is a legal right to use to tracks as per agreed timetables. The Amtrak services have the priority when they are running exactly on time. If not, then they seem to have to wait. Passenger services are subsidised - quelle surprise - but the support for the subsidy seems to be far from consistent.

Railroad law is federal and 90% of law enforcement is state based (I'm guessing at that number) so enforcement is not a priority.

It's starting to get some small traction with Biden's infrastructure bill - look back in 10 years time and see...

 

[dk1]

Just a point is that its been 7-8 minutes off-peak for a long while.

Regulation of freight could be a tad better especially when something is already 60+ late.

It’s not always an easy call. Yes didn’t the 7-8 min frequency start last December or was it May? Seen some London Gateway freight on the EL lately at Forest Gate but then that doesn’t have any choice.

 

[Falcon1200]

Passengers see the consequences, and yes, passengers see freight trains pass all the time,

'All the time'; Slight exageration I think.

I’m more than happy to discuss regulation decisions with anyone, it’s a part of the job I love, but it’s unfair to be criticised when most on here don’t have all the information at hand, especially when making simultaneous decisions after putting the job back together for example after disruption.

Very well put. And of course, if trains are having to be regulated because the service is not running as timetabled, someone is going to be delayed (and will not be happy about it), but Signallers and Control will work together to maintain the overall service as best as possible. In Glasgow Control we reckoned that if we received a similar level of complaint from each Operator about regulation of their trains, we were treating them all fairly.....

 

[RailWonderer]

'All the time'; Slight exageration I think.

No exaggeration. Half an hour frieghts 24 hours a day on the GEML.