Which specific train journey is the most profitable in the UK?

[GuyGibsonVC]

My mind was wandering the other day whilst on a train and this thought popped into my head.

Which individual train journey makes the most profit? Not the most lucrative, but profitable?

I would imagine there are a few variables such as staff costs, energy costs, ticket costs, timings, loadings, capacity, track access etc?

Is it even quantifiable?

Anyway, it made the journey go quicker!

 

[yorkie]

Which individual train journey makes the most profit?

What do you mean by "individual train journey"?

Do you mean which passenger flow?

Not the most lucrative, but profitable?

How do you define profitable?

 

[Horizon22]

Got to be something like an airport to London. Gatwick Express? Heathrow?

Otherwise major and sustainable flows (I.e regular traffic, 7 days a week) from Home Counties to London where the fares are disproportionately high for the distance. I’d say Oxford - Paddington is a good bet.

 

[GuyGibsonVC]

What do you mean by "individual train journey"?

Do you mean which passenger flow?

How do you define profitable?

I was thinking what particular timetabled journey makes the most for that particular TOC.

For a made up example, LNER know that the 1700 out of KX on a Friday evening makes them the most money.

Sorry for the brevity. It is hard to define!

 

[GordonT]

Got to be something like an airport to London. Gatwick Express? Heathrow?

Otherwise major and sustainable flows (I.e regular traffic, 7 days a week) from Home Counties to London where the fares are disproportionately high for the distance. I’d say Oxford - Paddington is a good bet.

These are good suggestions. Other ingredients might be "fast mileage" as you are getting more productivity out of resources human and otherwise. Also a turnover of traffic generated to/from a few major intermediate centres may mean you are "selling" seats more than once in the course of the same journey.

 

[Horizon22]

I was thinking what particular timetabled journey makes the most for that particular TOC.

For a made up example, LNER know that the 1700 out of KX on a Friday evening makes them the most money.

Sorry for the brevity. It is hard to define!

In which case probably a Thursday morning peak train from the Home Counties then for most London & SE operators. Likely to be full and standing so good utilisation and reasonable fares from further out.

There’s probably too much variety to know exactly though.

 

[Nottingham59]

My guess is the service with the greatest excess of ticket income over operating costs will be one of the peak morning Avanti services from Manchester to London.

Specifically whichever one has the most first class occupancy, so I imagine one that goes via Wilmslow rather than Stoke-on-Trent. And midweek, not Monday or Friday.

So I'll plump for 1R21 on Wednesdays, d MAN 0655, d WML 0713, a EUS 0909.

EDIT: or 1A11 which arrives at Euston at 1009. Like 1R21, non-stop after Stafford so everyone on board will be paying full fare - very few season tickets holders.

 

[Bikeman78]

Got to be something like an airport to London. Gatwick Express? Heathrow?

Otherwise major and sustainable flows (I.e regular traffic, 7 days a week) from Home Counties to London where the fares are disproportionately high for the distance. I’d say Oxford - Paddington is a good bet.

How profitable is Gatwick Express? A lot of people are getting wise to the cheaper Southern option. Last Sunday, for example, the 1702 and 1716 from Victoria both unloaded a huge number of airport passengers. There was a 1659 Gatwick Express so clearly lots of people had made the choice to go for the cheaper 1702.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

To run that peak Manchester-London train you have to have a sizeable fleet of high-spec trains, depots that can service them and train crews to man them.
That train also depends on the £10 billion spent (over a decade and more) on the last route upgrade (WCRM) and the intensive operation and maintenance of the whole route by NR.
There will be less "profitable" services on the same route at other times of day/week/year, maybe some which are "unprofitable", but you need to take the bad with the good in any sustainable service.
Along the route there will be trains of variable "profitability" from other TOCs, which consume capacity (cost) but do not contribute anything like as much revenue to the pot.
You can only really assess these things on a whole service group or route basis, not on individual trains.

The old profit earner, I think, would have been be long-haul power station coal trains, eg Hunterston-Midlands, but they are now history.
I should like to think a fully loaded electrically worked intermodal train from Felixstowe/Southampton to Trafford Park would be highly profitable.

 

[SynthD]

As OP is asking about the most profitable train service, can I also ask which is the most profitable ticket, from a TOC?

 

[The exile]

My mind was wandering the other day whilst on a train and this thought popped into my head.

Which individual train journey makes the most profit? Not the most lucrative, but profitable?

I would imagine there are a few variables such as staff costs, energy costs, ticket costs, timings, loadings, capacity, track access etc?

Is it even quantifiable?

Anyway, it made the journey go quicker!

Pretty unquantifiable, I should think - and like examinations of individual services (usually at the other end of the profitability scale) by bean-counters or politicians who like to vent hot air about trains carrying around fresh air, looking at only half the story. A single service on a route might be vastly more profitable than the others, but it is often the presence of those others that mean people are travelling at all.

 

[PGAT]

How profitable is Gatwick Express? A lot of people are getting wise to the cheaper Southern option. Last Sunday, for example, the 1702 and 1716 from Victoria both unloaded a huge number of airport passengers. There was a 1659 Gatwick Express so clearly lots of people had made the choice to go for the cheaper 1702.

I’m not sure but the GX have the only direct trains between Victoria and Brighton so many passengers probably take it by default

 

[Snow1964]

Not since pandemic by some of the trains from Guildford, Woking, Farnham that picked up all stations to Surbiton then Waterloo in morning peak arriving Waterloo at about 8:15-8:30 would often carry 50+ standees in all 12 carriages from Surbiton (often nearer 80+ standees in coaches near front)

I would hazard a guess that trains like these carrying about 1300-1600 passengers were probably lot higher revenue per mile than any airport service or an Avanti Manchester-London service.

 

[Sorcerer]

I would personally hazard a guess that the most lucrative services would be former InterCity ones, more specifically on the West Coast Main Line just based on the cities connected. London and Manchester trains make the most out of those if I'm not mistaken.

 

[172007]

Arguably Stourbridge Jct to Stourbridge Town.

Short route with high frequency and plenty of patronage. Low speed on line of 15mph and just a token so no signaling would mean track access charges are absolutely minimal. The train is crewed by staff employed by Pre Metro Operations Ltd and are paid frofrwhat I understand way less than main line drivers, more like tram wages. The two units I believe are now owned by West Midlands Railway so no lease costs but I stand corrected.

 

[Robcuk]

I read a few years back cost per mile the Heathrow express was the most expensive journey in the world

 

[philosopher]

Got to be something like an airport to London. Gatwick Express? Heathrow?

Otherwise major and sustainable flows (I.e regular traffic, 7 days a week) from Home Counties to London where the fares are disproportionately high for the distance. I’d say Oxford - Paddington is a good bet.

My guess would be the Stansted Express as it is the only rail transport option to Stansted Airport and I suspect a high proportion, if not most passengers using the service are travelling from London to Stansted airport, so are paying the higher Stansted airport fare.

 

[Bikeman78]

I’m not sure but the GX have the only direct trains between Victoria and Brighton so many passengers probably take it by default

On Sundays, Brighton reverts to being Southern. The 1702 was a 12 car Brighton train packed from end to end after Clapham. I only boarded at 1700. The rear eight were already full. Plenty of seats in the front four but they filled up at Clapham Junction. I'd be interested to know how busy the 1659 express was.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I read a few years back cost per mile the Heathrow express was the most expensive journey in the world

Nah. Way behind. E.g. Heathrow Express cash Standard Single to Terminal 4 is £25 for 16m 27ch = about £1.53 per mile. Good old LUL cash single Hatton Cross to Terminal 4 is £6.70 for just over one mile. I make it £6.23 per mile.

On the general question of the thread, I noted in a recent travel feature in the Evening Standard that a single on the Orient Express for one person from Venice to Paris in around 24 hours 'starts from' £7,260!

The old profit earner, I think, would have been be long-haul power station coal trains, eg Hunterston-Midlands, but they are now history.
I should like to think a fully loaded electrically worked intermodal train from Felixstowe/Southampton to Trafford Park would be highly profitable.

Do you have up to date figures for the cost full 25kV electrification for the 'missing bits' to Southampton and/or Felixstowe? (Along with the related upgrades to Haughley Junction, Soham, Ely North, level crossings and so on for Felixstowe.)

Given that intermodal traffic is highly competitive between multiple FOCs, let alone against road haulage, can you clarify why one player might find it highly profitable?

I also note that in the last reported year total track access charges paid to Network Rail by the FOCs were £11 million. How long would it take NR to make a profit on the flow?

 

[Snow1964]

Slightly off topic, but there was a recent survey of 8 hour weekday stay in station car park.

Oxford was highest in UK for station car park £31.50
Gatwick Airport highest for car park by a station £50.00
Munich Hbf highest in Europe €49 (£41.78)

Train Station Parking Report

Trains connect us to our favourite places, but how costly it is to park at some of the busiest train stations? We explore stations across the UK and Europe.

www.moneybarn.com

 

[southern442]

I suppose in order to figure this out exactly you'd need to come up with some arbitrary unit of running costs per mile for any particular train service (which will probably vary by TOC, infrastructure, traction) and then you could start to guess which particular service has the highest ratio of total tickets bought for travel on that train to the running cost for the whole of that train's single journey. Easy in theory!

 

[Robcuk]

I think i read it here - bit out of date now but it's obviously an expensive option although with my fip discount I favour it.

Travelling on the most expensive railway in the world? (The Heathrow Express) - Miles from Blighty

I hate the Heathrow Express. Let me get that out right up front. “Why?” you may reasonably ask. It’s simply the following: A £20 ticket for a 15 minute journey seems radically expensive when compared with the price for a journey to the airport by Tube of £5.50 (cash fare). Of course an...

milesfromblighty.boardingarea.com

 

[Master29]

How profitable is Gatwick Express? A lot of people are getting wise to the cheaper Southern option. Last Sunday, for example, the 1702 and 1716 from Victoria both unloaded a huge number of airport passengers. There was a 1659 Gatwick Express so clearly lots of people had made the choice to go for the cheaper 1702.

I would think the same applies the Heathrow option with Crossrail.

 

[Western Sunset]

Would it necessarily be a passenger train?

 

[Geoff DC]

If trains are consistently full and standing including Toilets, Vestibules & any other spare space, then surely XC must be most profitable & if not why not ??

 

[Nottingham59]

If trains are consistently full and standing including Toilets, Vestibules & any other spare space, then surely XC must be most profitable & if not why not ??

Because it's full of students and leisure travellers on advance and discounted off-peak tickets, and no rich businessmen or lawyers heading to London on expenses in first class.

 

[Geoff DC]

First is always full too, with paying customers.
From chatting to others I've met Doctors, solicitors etc. all paying top dollar.

 

[scotraildriver]

The Edinburgh to Glasgow route is highly profitable, indeed the only ScotRail route to make a profit.

 

[ivorytoast28]

As an individual single journey it must be a crammed commuter service into London. The The 7.32 from Woking to Waterloo was long considered the most packed service and given the astronomical cost of a ticket on that train SWR must be raking it in with over 1000 passengers.

In general, flows from just outside the tfl fare zone to central London at the insane ticket prices associated with them must win this. SWR must be raking it in especially as they run less and less services for higher prices

 

[CyrusWuff]

As an individual single journey it must be a crammed commuter service into London. The The 7.32 from Woking to Waterloo was long considered the most packed service and given the astronomical cost of a ticket on that train SWR must be raking it in with over 1000 passengers.

Surely that would depend on how many of those are season ticket holders?

An Annual Season between Woking and London Terminals is £4072. For Delay Repay purposes, a Single journey has a nominal value of 1/464th of the price of the ticket. That equates to just £8.78 (or £17.56 Return) compared to a walk up price of £14.50 Single or £27.10 for an Anytime Day Return.