| Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2493 Written by Lee on Monday, 18th December 2006 From the First Great Western Website : 11:06 Westbury to Southampton Central due 12:17 This train has been cancelled. This is due to an earlier train fault. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2496 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Monday, 18th December 2006 I understand (but have not seen) that a 158 is sitting out of use in the sidings at Reading, 3 x 153 are out of use at Eastleigh, and an unspecified but plural number of 150s are sitting out of use at Cardiff. Can anyone confirm these sightings, and say whether or not the units in question were in those locations prior to the beginning of last week. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2508 Written by Lee on Monday, 18th December 2006 15:39 Southampton Central to Westbury due 16:45 This train has been cancelled. This is due to an earlier train fault. Have they given up? Maybe they would have more luck organising a "Bicycle Race" Elsewhere , I notice that the 14:52 Newquay to Gunnislake due 17:20 has gone , as well as the 17:25 Gunnislake to Newquay due 20:18. Also : 15:22 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 18:39 This train will be revised. It will additionally call at: Dunbridge and Dean. This is due to an unusually large passenger flow. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2519 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Monday, 18th December 2006 [quote author=Lee link=topic=872.msg2508#msg2508 date=1166457421] Have they given up? [/quote] The cynic in me suggests that by having a truely dreadful 2 weeks between the inroduction of the new timetable and Christmas, they'll be able to start the new year with a promise of improvements, and deliver, because they're starting from such a dreadful base. It reminds me of the "but we're improving things for travellers by putting in lifts at Bath next year". Yes, but after you've hit them once over the head with the need to change, a second time with an awkward change, a third time with an extended journey, and a fourth time with a fare rise. Four steps back and one forward; it's kinda hard to find words to praise the step forward when there have been so many avoidable steps back. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2564 Written by Steve35 on Thursday, 21st December 2006 [quote author=Graham Ellis link=topic=872.msg2496#msg2496 date=1166442116] I understand (but have not seen) that a 158 is sitting out of use in the sidings at Reading, 3 x 153 are out of use at Eastleigh, and an unspecified but plural number of 150s are sitting out of use at Cardiff. Can anyone confirm these sightings, and say whether or not the units in question were in those locations prior to the beginning of last week. [/quote] 4 x 153 are off-lease at Eastleigh. They went off-lease at the timetable change. 8 x 150 transferred from FGW to Arriva Trains Wales at the timetable change. 1 x 158 is on temporary sub-lease from FGW to Scotrail. A number of 158's were apparently meant to be off-lease by now but aren't... yet. I think the DfT has a lot to answer for. The basic problem is that the privatised railway costs a lot more to run than the nationalised British Rail did. At current cost levels it isn't sustainable. One of the big costs is leasing of trains from the 3 rolling stock leasing companies (Roscos). The DfT thinks the Roscos charge too much. The Roscos (owned by banks) disagree. The DfT therefore appears to be launching an attack on the Roscos. In June 2006 the Office of the Rail Regulator received a submission from DfT "requesting ORR to make a market investigation reference to the Competition Commission under Section 131 of the Enterprise Act 2002." See http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.8421 Another line of attack appears to be to force the TOCs to return some of their trains to the Roscos. i.e. to put them off-lease. The thinking behind this is presumably that when the Roscos find themselves with a lot of off-lease units not earning any money they will decide to lower the leasing charges. Better to be getting a small amount of lease money than nothing at all. Remember that as well as deciding FGW's timetable the DfT also decides what units FGW can use to run that timetable. The DfT underwrites the lease agreements between FGW and the Roscos - if the DfT won't underwrite a lease then FGW can't lease the units in question. Hence why a number of units have just gone off lease. In fact a post by an 'insider' on another forum says it could have been a lot worse. FGW apparently managed to do a 'lease one, get one free' deal with one of the Roscos. Without that deal FGW would have had even less units than it has now. But sadly it doesn't end there. To quote the other forum again "we have been told to take 20 more 158 vehicles out of service. These twenty being the ones maintaining the service whilst the ex-Canton demics are being fixed". A 'demic' train in rail-industry-speak is one that is broken/not useable. A change that occurred with the new timetable was that FGW brought it's unit maintenace in-house. The 158's maintenance had been contracted out to ATW's Cardiff Canton depot prior to December 11th. FGW has extended it's Bristol St Philips Marsh Depot so that it can take on the maintenance of units such as the 158's. Allegedly according to other forums when the 158's got to St Philips Marsh from Cardiff they were found to be demic - which would explain all the cancellations since the timetable change. Now read the above quote again. No timescales I'm afraid for taking the 20 vehicles out of service (ie 10 2-car units or a mixture of 2 and 3-car units) but let's hope it isn't before the demics are fixed..... Another quote: "Do you honestly believe FGW want to throw away revenue? Do you honestly believe that FGW want to take even more vehicles off lease when those same vehicles could be expanding services and earning more money? It's really simple, the DfT refuse to underwrite the leases, they are forcing TOC's, and FGW is just the first one, to put vehicles into store rather than have them pay what they consider to be excessive leasing costs. There are currently about twenty 158 vehicles running around on our services which will not be so for much longer. You may have to put up with Pacers now, or even solitary 153's. The DfT want you on a bus, or adding to the Treasury coffers by driving a car." And one final quote from someone else: "The Labour ones (MP's) will not criticise the Dft as it is run by a Brownite, and they want jobs in the future, the Conservative one's will not criticise, because much of what is going on is down to them, and they want the branches closed by this lot before they get elected again. The Liberals have bugger all to lose so will criticise everybody, and the no-hopers just want to make a noise. It isn't FGW's timetable. Think things are bad now? We now reckon only St. Ives and Exmouth branches will be open by 2009. The rest will be buses. Any Guardian readers here will know what I mean. Difference is we got it straight from a senior DfT woman official. Unless someone other than the government pays, many branches and some urban services are going to close." If you think that's a bit drastic ask yourselves why the Dft went to the trouble of putting new closure procedures in the Railways Act 2005. If closures weren't on the agenda they surely wouldn't have bothered. The old procedures could have quite easily been left in place.... So be very clear. The DfT is where you should be aiming your fire. Not FGW. The passengers and FGW are just pawns in the game. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2565 Written by Lee on Thursday, 21st December 2006 Very well said , Steve. I have yet to read a post that more perfectly sums up the extensive research that I & others have conducted into this. The only things that I would really disagree with are : 1) That certain "political elements" have been far more helpful than you suggest. 2) That FGW , whilst working within limitations , could be far more helpful in resolving many issues. Welcome to the forum. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2571 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Thursday, 21st December 2006 Indeed welcome, Steve. I wish I had much, mouch more time to write "hI" today but I've a very limited hotel access tonight. Will be back on Sunday. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2572 Written by Steve35 on Thursday, 21st December 2006 [quote author=Lee link=topic=872.msg2565#msg2565 date=1166695691] Very well said , Steve. I have yet to read a post that more perfectly sums up the extensive research that I & others have conducted into this. The only things that I would really disagree with are : 1) That certain "political elements" have been far more helpful than you suggest. 2) That FGW , whilst working within limitations , could be far more helpful in resolving many issues. Welcome to the forum. [/quote] Fair enough. I'm fortunate to live nowhere near the FGW area so I don't have first hand experience of their services. I suppose the point of my post was to make sure that you understand the background to the current situation. Most people's reaction will be to just blame FGW - which no doubt suits the DfT just fine. The current timetable cuts could be interpreted as a classic 'closure strategy': They want to close some lines to save money but they can't because the services are too popular. Therefore they have to make the services unpopular. This is done through a combination of 1) reducing the frequency of trains, 2) running the remaining trains at unsuitable times and 3) making the remaining trains shorter so that more people have to stand. This hopefully has the effect of driving away most of the passengers. The DfT can then come along and say that because no-one uses the service it's going to be closed. I think 2007 is going to be the crunch year. There are two acronyms to watch out for: HLOS and SOFA. The funding requirement for the railway is determined every 5 years. Each 'block' of 5 years is known as a Control Period (CP). We're currently in CP3. Control Period 4 covers the years 2009-2014 and the process of determining the funding for CP4 has recently begun. This is where the HLOS and SOFA come in. The HLOS is the High Level Output Specification, which defines the kind of railway the Government wants to buy (eg service levels, train capacity etc), and the SOFO is the Statement of Funds Available, saying how much it is prepared to pay. It is then up to the ORR to try to match up the two i.e. is there enough money in the SOFA to pay for the railway specified in the HLOS? If there isn't (and this is the likely scenario) there then has to be an iterative process involving the ORR, DfT and Network Rail involving a trade off of service levels and costs until a compatible HLOS and SOFA emerge. So in a worst case scenario services could be cut and lines closed as a way of bringing the railway's costs down to the amount specified in the SOFA. The HLOS and SOFA are expected in Summer 2007. For background reading to the HLOS stuff and other issues I suggest looking at the back issues of Roger Ford's 'Informed Sources' column (published monthly in Modern Railways magazine). For starters: October 2005 http://www.alycidon.com/ALYCIDON%20RAIL/INFORMED%20SOURCES%20ARCHIVE/INF%20SRCS%202005/Informed%20Sources%2010%202005%20p4.htm "Periodic Review Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2579 Written by Lee on Friday, 22nd December 2006 I hope that no - one minds a plug for "the other site" (Campaign Against New Beeching Report , link below) , as I would consider it to be very much "on - topic" here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/G1517 Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2585 Written by Lee on Friday, 22nd December 2006 A subject that I notice one of Steve's links touches on is the overwhelming political desire of the DfT not to be seen as "modern - day Beechings." The new procedure allows Network Rail , Train Operating Companies , or a rail funding authority (DfT , Scottish Parliament , Welsh Assembly , PTAs or the Mayor of London) to propose a closure. The decision to allow the proposal will be made by the Office of Rail Regulation & not the Secretary Of State. Against a backdrop of previously subsidised franchises now being let on the basis of unsustainable premium payments , the TOC's are likely to come under pressure from both shareholders within & others outside their organisations to swing the axe themselves. They may be willing to do this on "unsensitive" lines , stations & services (Arriva , for example , are already talking of making "cost savings" in South Wales , click on http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=859.msg2559#msg2559) , but could well baulk when it comes to (say) the Cornish Branch Lines or Heart Of Wales. Given little choice financially , Network Rail will be right behind them , ready to push the doomed subject over the edge. Either way , the DfT will be able to say "not us , blame them." Another thing that you may not be aware of is that SNCF (French Railways) , long - lauded as an ideal railway example , has been engaged in its own "Beeching" for a number of years (see below.) [quote author=Lee link=topic=446.msg1314#msg1314 date=1156854316] Here is a link to an article entitled "French trains? They're worse than ours." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/25/wrail25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/25/ixnews.html Here are some quotes from it : "Britain has saved most of its network through an "enormous catch-up effort," but vast tracts of the French system are being ruined by a short-sighted repair policy, said Robert Rivier, a Swiss professor." "Mr Rivier, the author of a damning audit on the railway ordered by the French government, said track needed to be renewed and ageing or underused lines closed, rather than patching up infrastructure." "While the TGV network remained the envy of the world, the high-speed system only ran on 1,000 miles of track from a total of 19,000 miles. The smaller regional lines have been left by the wayside, Mr Rivier said." "He estimated that two thirds of the national network would be unusable by 2025." "In Great Britain, it took dozens of deaths, after which the British took remarkable action," he said." "They made choices, set out a long-term strategy and chose to scrap parts of the network. The French have that ahead of them." [quote author=Lee link=topic=420.msg1266#msg1266 date=1156339021]Here are a couple of quotes from the Network Rail Business Plan 2006 : "The creation of the Greater Western franchise in April 2006 will see the introduction of a simplified train service structure for the route, particularly west of Taunton, from December 2006. This will eradicate some of the current service duplication and better meet existing demand." "Expenditure The age of rail and sleepers on the route is amongst the highest on the national network and varies between 30 and 40 years old and to address this we are implementing a track renewals strategy which matches the traffic usage of the route. This will include the deployment of Network Rail Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2620 Written by Lee on Wednesday, 27th December 2006 My own view (backed up by evidence in documents & on the ground) is that the decision to cull a significant number of lines , stations & services has already been taken. BBC Article "Network Rail to seek extra Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2650 Written by Lee on Friday, 29th December 2006 Here is the section of the original Beeching report that deals with hardship : "It would be folly to suggest that widespread closure of stopping train services will cause no hardship anywhere or to anybody, and the Transport Act, 1962 makes the consideration of hardship the special responsibility of Transport Users Consultative Committees, where objections to closures are lodged. For (he purpose of judging the closure proposals as a whole, however, it is necessary to have some idea of the scale and degree of hardship which they are likely to cause. With the exception of northern Scotland, and parts of central Wales, most areas of the country are already served by a network of bus services more dense than the network of rail services which will be withdrawn, and in the majority of cases these buses already carry the major proportion of local traffic. With minor exceptions, these bus services cater for the same traffic flows as the railways, on routes which are roughly parallel. Taken as a whole, they have enough spare capacity to absorb the traffic which will be displaced from the railways, which will do no more than replace the bus traffic which has been lost over the last decade, and which will provide a very welcome addition to the revenue of the bus operators. In all these areas, cases of special difficulty will be rare, but there may be localities where there is not already a bus service connecting places at present served by rail. If the traffic displaced from rail has a density of over 1,000 passengers per week it provides the basis for an economic bus service of about eight buses each way. Where the traffic displaced is less than 1,000 passengers per week, and where a bus service does not exist already, some special arrangements may be necessary. Roughly a quarter of the services proposed for closure have a traffic density below 1,000 but it is estimated that only 122 miles of these routes are not already paralleled by bus services. In most areas of the country, therefore, it appears that hardship will arise on only a very limited scale. In parts of Scotland, in particular, and to a lesser degree in Wales and the West country, road improvement or road construction may be necessary before adequate road services can be provided as full alternatives to the rail services which exist at present. Some of these road improvements are required, in any case, for development of the motor tourist trade, on which the future of these areas so greatly depends." Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2651 Written by Lee on Friday, 29th December 2006 [quote author=Lee link=topic=297.msg813#msg813 date=1152451789]Metrolink extension is announced. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/5152948.stm Transport priorities get funding (East Midlands.) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/5153998.stm East gets Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2652 Written by Lee on Friday, 29th December 2006 Moving back to the hardship question , there was a reason that Beeching didnt get things all his own way. Here is an example of a relatively successful (for the Beeching era) closure battle (link below.) http://home.clara.net/wealdenline/spages/hist_bkgrd.html "In December 1966, for reasons which are still not entirely clear, BR abruptly changed tack and proposed the closure of the lines from Lewes to Hurst Green and from Tunbridge Wells to Eridge. As might be expected, its plans met with vigorous opposition from local people, with the Transport Users' Consultative Committee (TUCC -- statutory counterpart of today's Rail Passengers' Committee and required to investigate hardship caused by rail closures under the 1962 Transport Act) registering nearly 3,000 written objections -- a figure described as exceptionally large. The TUCC held a statutory public hearing on BR's application to close the routes in April 1967 and submitted its report to the transport minister that June. Unsurprisingly, it recommended that all the lines should remain open because their closure would result in "very severe" hardship to a large number of rail users and "considerable" hardship to many more. It also warned that closure of the system would cause overcrowding on neighbouring lines, with the Hastings line being particularly hard hit -- prophetic words given what actually happened in the following years as the Uckfield line was run down and cut back. However, while Labour's transport minister Richard Marsh, took heed of the TUCC in respect of the Uckfield - Hurst Green and Eridge - Tunbridge Wells sections, he nevertheless gave his formal consent for the closure of the Lewes to Uckfield link in August 1968. In this decision, it seems likely that his department was influenced both by a county council eager to remove the railway and a BR which had obviously lost all interest in the local network." Here are some quotes from the seminal RMT critique of the new DfT Closure Guidance (link below.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/F3641215?thread=2441627 "The new guidance scraps the current system where the regional Rail Passengers Committee produces a report on the hardship likely to be caused by the proposed cut. Under the rules to be scrapped final decision over closure rested with the democratically elected Secretary of State for Transport. For the future the new procedure will allow Network Rail, Train Operating Companies, or a rail funding authority (DfT, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, PTAs or the Mayor of London) to propose a closure. The decision to go ahead will be made by the unelected Office of Rail Regulation. The consultation process itself requires that notices are placed in both local and national newspapers and in the stations affected by the proposed closures. Organisations have 12 weeks after the second newspaper notice appears to respond. Trade Unions and local rail users groups are not in the list of bodies and organisations that have, by law, to be consulted with. Significantly there is no obligation that the consultation process holds public meetings or hearings to discuss the closure proposals. This is a serious omission. It is vital that local communities and trades unions are able to meet publicly and collectively in order to hold to account those who are proposing the removal of local rail services." One of the other reasons that the CANBER motto is "THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW" , is because , once closures start being proposed , they are likely to be very difficult to stop. Re: Westbury - Southampton Central Cancelled Service 18/12/2006 - 872/2662 Written by Lee on Saturday, 30th December 2006 [quote author=Graham Ellis link=topic=941.msg2657#msg2657 date=1167472365]Has anyone asked Passenger Focus what they make of the current performance levels? link to index of articles |
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Save the Train was the campaign to bring an approriate train service back to and through Melksham. Most big contributors are still around writing at the Coffee shop forum where new members are very welcome. The train has been saved - sort of - we have stepped back up from an unusable service to a poorish one but it's doing very well. We did that through setting up the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership. That fulfilled its early objectives; it has been taken over by local and regional government types who are now doing medium and long term work. The team from this forun can also be found at the Melksham Rail User Group (which was the Melksham Rail Development Group at the time these articles were written and we had no users. We mustn't loose sight, though, that the train service remains poor and needs our community support in marketing and campaigning to keep it going in a positive direction ... and all the more so when we're expecting to find a different normallity once we get out of the Coronavirus Pandemic and head for zero carbon via the climate crisis. Yes, it's saved ... it's now a key community facility ... the need for enhancement and the strong and near-universal local support remain, and the rail industry and goverment remain slow to move and provide the enhancements even to level us up with other towns. Please support the Melksham Rail User Group - now very much in partnership rather than protest with the rail industry and local government, including GWR, TransWilts and unitary and town councils. And please use the trains and buses, and cycle and walk when you can. -- Graham Ellis, (webmaster), February 2021 | |||
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