Railways Blog

Patrick Crozier comments on a non-regular rail user’s experiences with ticketing (Scroll down to the “Alice in Blunderland” post – blogger’s archiving is farkled again)

Those of use that make regular use of the railways system know how things work; what sort of tickets are valid when and where, the fact that the timetable is no more than a hopeful statement of intent rather than an accurate foretelling of the time of arrival, and that Virgin Voyagers are awful.

An aside – my latest personal horror story is my return from Brighton last weekend; due to the signalling system’s inability to work properly when it rains, the one-hour journey to London ended up taking two-and-a-half hours. One of our party had a connection to Berwick on Tweed, and had hoped to spend an hour shopping in London en-route. His plans evaporated as the train sat somewhere not very far north of Brighton for the best part of an hour, and then spent another aeon waiting at Three Bridges for no apparent reason.

Returning to the subject of Byzantine fare structures, Patrick advocates an Easyjet-style demand pricing, which the price for any particular train varies depending on the demand. I’m not sure how regular travellers would take to this; we already have something along these lines with cheap book-ahead fares; the number available for a particular train varies by time, with very few for popular peak-time services, and few for busier times; this means that cheap fares for popular trains need to be booked a long time in advance.

One thing that would be very unpopular with a lot of people would be if walk-up service to disappear and all services to become advance reservation only. However convenient this might be for the operators, it removes the flexibility for the consumer that’s always been one of the advantages rail has had over air.

Update: You can now read Patrick’s article here.

As you can see here, in a fight between a 120 tonne American-built locomotive and an Audi, there can only be one winner.

BBC NEWS | UK | Rising costs ‘threaten rail plans’
At last, somebody seems to have noticed! Modern Railways magazine has printed several articles about so-called ‘boiling frog syndrome’, comparing escalating costs of railway infrastructure work to the fate of a frog in a saucepan of water slowly being brought to the boil. In this case, I don’t know whether the frog itself has noticed the escalating temperature, or somebody else has noticed the frog is going to die unless they turn the heat down.

BBC NEWS | England | Rail firm considers 200mph trains
First Great Western is considering building a brand-new TGV-style line to the West of England.

However, if new lines are needed, they could cost £50m a mile, which could go up to £60m a mile if tunnelling is involved.

As yet there is no information saying how it would be paid for, when it could be achieved, or how far west the new line would extend.

There’s the rub. The present line is pretty fast up to Exeter, but then takes a winding switchback route through Devon and Cornwall, with a maximum speed of 60mph over most of it. The nature of the terrain west of Exeter means there are going to be a lot of tunnels unless it does what the present line does, which is to follow the contour line.

I suspect the environmental lobby will have problems with line crossing Dartmoor. As for how far west it would go, I doubt an LGV Penzance would be economically feasible. And unless Plymouth-Penzance is electrified, a Plymouth LGV would mean curtains for through services west of Plymouth.

A Cornish MP clearly sees this:

Truro and St Austell MP Matthew Taylor said: “It ain’t going to happen.

“I don’t mind people looking at this, and if they can come up with a way of making it work, then fine.

“But let’s actually get the reality working – the trains replaced. That’s what First Great Western should have been announcing.”

Seriously, if we’re going to follow the French and the Japanese with new high-speed rail links, the obvious first one would be parallel to the West Coast Main Line, where the present route is at capacity already.

Just in case anyone at Virgin Trains thinks the only people that dislike Virgin Voyagers are railway enthusiasts nostalgic for class 47/8s and pressure-ventilated Mk1s, this post from Alice Bachini says exactly the same things that I’ve been reading on trainspotter lists like SWRG. Are you listening, Richard Branson and Chris Green?

Patrick Crozier has been to Japan. He writes about the apparent standardisation of Japanese rolling stock:

If you standardise on one design that means you can constantly improve upon it over the years. You can introduce a model, find out how it works in service, how easy it is to maintain and incorporate the lessons in the next release.

Strangely enough in Britain we also have trains that are extremely reliable. They are known as Mark 1s. They were also the product of many years of experienced-based improvement.

A lot of Mk3-based trains use the same traction equipment as the surviving Mk1s, but with a stronger bodyshell. South West Trains’ 442s used the traction motors from the scrapped 4-REPs. Similarly, some 455s (they’re the plug-ugly sliding door trains used by SWT on inner-suburban services) used motors recovered from scrapped 1940s-built 4-SUBs!

They are due to be scrapped by the end of 2004.

This is supposedly because of their lack of crashworthyness. But I bet they won’t be scrapped by then, because no-one is going to scrap perfectly good trains unless their replacements are not only in traffic but performing with sufficient availability. Which I bet they won’t be!

And their replacements? Not such a happy tale I am afraid. The replacements are to be a mish-mash of different designs from different manufacturers. They are being introduced in a rush.

There’s more standardisation than you think. Look at how ubiquitous the 170s are becoming. So far, Chiltern, Midland Main Line, Scotrail, Central Trains, Anglia and South-west trains are all running them. They’re rapidly becoming the standard for medium-speed inter-urban and cross-country diesel trains. This is probably as much because it’s cheaper to buy an off-the shelf design that something to their own unique spec, which is what the BR sectors used to do. Only company to go for something different is First North Western with their 175s, which turned out to be crap. (Hence a lack of repeat orders by anyone else). Why else are the ancient 1950s-built 101 units still running?

170s aren’t ugly either.

We could have done with more standardisation in the BR days. Can anyone explain why the a.c. commuter trains used in Birmingham and Manchester (the 323s) had to be completely different from those designs used in London and Glasgow (the 317/318/321 family, all basically the same train)?

Already, there are signs that they are way off the reliability of their predecessors. No great surprise really as there simply hasn’t been the time to get it right.

170s had teething troubles at first – the bodyshells *leaked* when it rained, but now seem pretty reliable. On the other hand, I’ve documented the troubles with Virgin’s 220/221 ‘Voyagers’, which are becoming the standard for diesel-powered inter-city trains (Midland Main Line and Hull trains have also place orders for these). Most of my complaints have concerned the ill-designed interiors, but their allergy to seawater is a new development.

The non-standardisation today is nothing on the 1955 modernisation plan, when British Rail ordered locomotives from many different companies for comparative trials. Many of the designs delivered were totally useless; a complete waste of taxpayer’s money. Some of the notoriously bad designs spent most of their time out of service awaiting repair, and were consigned to the scrapheap after less than ten year’s service. Top of the hall of shame are the products of North British, producers of such turkeys as the D600 diesel-hydraulics, which didn’t even manage to outlast steam, the 21/29 diesel electrics, expensively re-engined but *still* scrapped by 1971, and the worst of the west coast electrics, the AL4s. Other notorious failures were English Electric’s class 23 “Baby Deltics”, Metropolitan-Vickers’ class 28 Co-Bos, and the Clayton’s class 17s. British Rail managed to order 117 of the latter before someone discovered how terrible they were.

This was posted to the Britrail mailing list last night by a train driver called “Mike”.

Today Sunday 13th October I was due to sit spare at work. However due to the high winds here on the South Coast (Sussex) a tree fell across the railway line and one of my colleagues ran into it breaking the flexible brake hose on the front of his train. therefore I was scrambled to get a new unit out of the shed at Littlehampton and work it to London Victoria and back.

On the return trip from Victoria working the 21:17 to Portsmouth the rain was still falling and being driven by the cold winds. We arrived at East Croydon with time to spare and departed on time as well. As I passed under the station and road bridge the rain was lashing down still, the night sky was softly illuminated by the yellow glow from street lights. My eye spotted something that looked a bit unusual on the up slow line, it was the headlight that first drew my attention. My train gave a sudden jerk as it lost traction on the slippery rails, I shut off power content to coast over the points before trying again.

The headlight on the up slow drew closer and I could also see some dimmer lights to the side of it, and what looked like a very low cloud following it!

Then there she was, the unmistakable lines of a Bullied Pacific, just as she drew level with me she let out a long ghostly whistle to warn people as she headed towards the station. I caught a glimpse of the driver in the cab and the fireman hard at it, then the well maintained coaches passed by with passengers enjoying a far nicer time than the ones on my train.

All too soon this marvelous spectacle was gone, the distinctive smell of smoke lingered for a while but this to soon left as my train picked up speed and headed into the night. I realised that the 4CIG unit (1803) had probably seen sights like this back when it was new in 1963.

It’s moments like this that make it all worthwhile and I wanted to share this with you. I think the loco was Clan Line I am afraid I was too shocked to think to make a note. The time was 21:37 and thank heavens for falling trees that’s all I can say

Not sure what the “kettle” working was, but it demonstrates that main-line steam excursions are sufficiently commonplace in Britain that it’s not a national event every time one happens. I remember queuing for a ticket at Slough three or four years back and hearing a steam engine whistle – then saw “Clan Line” rolling through on the down slow line with the VSOE pullman set; a magnificent sight!

Voyager at Dawlish

Virgin Trains are very proud of their new Voyagers. Their website goes into great detail about how wonderful they are. Other people are less impressed, complaining about cramped interiors, lack of luggage space, and the fact that these four or five coach trains have replaced older seven coach trains, and can’t cope with the crowds.

Now a new problem has occurred; it appears that they don’t like seawater. I haven’t yet read the full story of yesterday’s Dawlish sea wall fiasco, but it seems that between five and seven of these shiny new trains failed on the same five mile stretch of track that runs along the sea wall.

Hugh Dady takes up the story on the SWRG mailing list

The evening high tide has now passed and with the wind now moderated, trains again running normally again with the exception of Virgin who are running an HST only service i.e. very little.

Will try and post todays happenings tomorrow – they have been long and complex but for those still dying to know, Voyager 220024 forming 1S69 sat in Dawlish station for some time today before setting off at around 1130 only to collapse between there and the Rockstone bridge. Thunderbird 47756 had already been scrambled but its progress (as it had to run wrong line from Teignmouth) was hampered by a down 221 which itself was in trouble on the sea wall. After running round at the Warren 47756 arrived to attach to 220024 around 1220 but it took just over an hour to complete this operation. All sorts of problems and crew clearly unfamiliar with carrying out the procedure in anger. Further delays caused by the inability to build sufficient air pressure to release brakes so the cavalcade did not set sail until 1325 some two and a half hours after first reaching Dawlish. Arrival at Exeter was at 1340 where the train was terminated with the 47 removing the errant 220 to Riverside Yard almost immediately for decoupling.

A full account of a pretty unhappy Princess will be posted tomorrow – I am still trying to work out what was what as things went from bad to worse through much of the day. Amey staff on site have confirmed that there have been no problems with the signalling or infrastructure during what was a fairly mild easterly weather pattern. No other reported problems from other trains so sadly it was just the Voyager fleet that brought the service to a standstill through much of the day. Wessex indicators at Dawlish are still displaying a note at 2200 this evening saying that the service remains disrupted as a result of “several Virgin Cross Country train failures between Exeter and Newton Abbot today”.

H.D.

Manchester MRC have changed the date this year, due to Warley changing their date to MMRC’s old slot at the beginning of December. (Unfortunately this now clashes with Dragonmeet – you can’t win!)

The Manchester show was still at the same venue, the New Century Hall near Victoria station. There were a large number of high-quality layouts, even if a lot of them were steam age ones. Two of the best, as far as I was concerned, were “Europe 3″, a large HO-scale Italian layout set in the present-day with an assortment of FS Bo-Bo-Bo electrics of various classes, and “Mostyn”, just about the only large P4 diesel-era layout in existence, with their large collection of class 24 and 25 ‘rats’, and a special guest appearance by an ex-works regauged Heljan blue 47. While this layout still has some way to go, especially stock-wise, what they have so far is very impressive indeed, and challenges the kettle-centric world of finescale modelling.

The Manchester club’s own ‘Dewsbury Midland’ was in evidence, of course; the last couple of times I’ve seen this layout they were running it with 70s blue diesels, this time they’d turned the clock back to the mid-60s, mostly grimy steam.

Other layouts that caught my eye were “Fort Nevis”, 2mm fine-scale based on Fort William in Scotland with an extra couple of sidings, operated with a fleet of class 37s, and “Grange over Sands”, an accurate N-gauge model of ‘The Dawlish of the North’, and the large N-gauge main line “Starbeckbridge”.

Of course, the traders ambushed my wallet as usual; but I had been looking for the Minitrix Swiss intermodal set for quite some time.

The BBC’s “Rail Champion”, Jon Yuill, has a Ten Point Plan for improving things. Here’s my thoughts on his proposals.

1. Better communication

It’s impossible to overstate the need for good communication in times of trouble. You can be on a train, delayed for half-an-hour and no one tells you a thing. Tell us why we are stuck, what’s being done to fix the situation, how long the delay is likely to be. Use the PA system or install scrolling text screens. It’s the same when you’re waiting at the station. Just tell us what’s going on.

Ideal in theory, but it presumes that someone, somewhere, actually does know what’s going on.

Better information would help even when nothing has gone wrong – try arriving at Paddington from the Hammersmith and City line tube platforms, and try and find out the time of the next train to Slough? There’s no information screen showing stops at that end of the station, and by the time you’ve walked the two or three minute’s walk to the concourse end to the main departure board, that fast train on platform 9 might have gone! Reading is just as bad.

2. Common-sense staff

I know platform staff have a hard time and they don’t see us commuters at our best – half asleep and rushing to work or back home again. We do appreciate them, but they must be encouraged to use their common sense and take the initiative. So, for example, when a train is half-an-hour late and everyone’s irritated, just open the ticket barriers and let us out of the station as soon as possible.

This should include maintaining connections as well. I can’t see any purpose in letting a local train that’s got no forward connections at the other end depart fifteen seconds before a dozen passengers from the late-running main-line train can make it over the bridge, leaving them with an hour-long wait until the next one. This happened to me a couple of weeks back.

I’m not convinced that operators always make the best attempts they can to minimise disruption when an incident occurs. That was one thing I noticed on my daily commute a few years back on what’s now South West Trains; incidents that disrupted things occurred at roughly the same frequency, but whenever something went wrong, delays were far worse than before privatisation. Whether this was a result of fragmentation and divided responsibility between the TOC and Railtrack or a result of the TOC cutting back on staff to the bare minimum to cover the timetable, I don’t know.

3. Get integrated

Imagine how good it would be if you could get off the train and cycle to work, or home. But on my line, you can’t bring bikes on board during rush hour. I know that means more space for passengers but you used to be able to put your bike in the guards’ carriage. If that’s not possible, how about decent bike parks at stations. They would be well lit and secure so you know your bike would be there at the end of the day. It’s not just bikes – bus times also need to be integrated with trains.

And I thought you were talking about the dreaded wheel/rail split… Yes, this is a major problem with all trains designed from the late 70s onwards – no room for bikes. Therefore you get cyclists blocking the doors of the passenger coaches.

4. Quiet carriages

Some trains have these already – carriages where mobiles are banned. I don’t want to listen to someone else’s personal conversations, and nor does anyone else on the train. There should also be a fast-food-free carriage. The smell is awful and just creates more litter.

And where there is a quiet coach, can we actually try and enforce it?

5. On-board CCTV

Violence and loutish, yobbish behaviour is often overlooked as a commuter gripe, but it’s real enough and common enough to be a problem. One of the reasons people avoid public transport is the safety threat. Although serious incidents are rare, we have to make sure people can travel without fear of intimidation.

Good idea in principle (we already have on-board CCTV on some buses), but we need to take the expense into account.

6. Air-conditioning

In this day and age, surely it can’t be beyond the wit of rail companies to see that we can all travel comfortably. I was told by a rail company once that each carriage has its own thermostat, but you wouldn’t know it. It’s simple – we need temperature control systems that work.

Bah! Just open the windows! Nothing like a good rake of pressure ventilated Mk1s on a summer’s day with the roar of the class 50 up front reverberating through the train! Sorry, I’m in nostalgia mode again. But seriously – when the train is air-conditioned, like the Thames 166s, can we lock the windows so some idiot doesn’t open them when the air-conditioning is working?

7. Litter bins

The litter bins were withdrawn because of the terrorism threat, but now there’s nowhere to put your rubbish. So it goes on the floor. Like the bigger trains, couldn’t someone come along with a rubbish bag and collect paper coffee cups. As for old newspapers – what about big cages at the end of platforms where people could just throw their old papers as they got off. These could then be recycled.

Has anyone told them that the IRA ceasefire was several years ago? And putting bombs in litter bins isn’t Al Queda’s style?

8. Rapid-response fix-it teams

My idea is to airlift emergency engineering teams by helicopter. Perhaps it’s far-fetched but the point is when something goes wrong and we’re stuck on a train, we have to wait for a beat-up old Transit van to arrive and then the engineers are on foot. Meanwhile, we are all waiting. Think how many millions of pounds this costs in lost working hours and it doesn’t sound so crazy after all.

OK, take a Made Tim Laugh Point. Up to now, the suggestions have been mildly sensible, but this one is not only totally impractical (like where are you going to land these helicopters?), but screamingly funny.

9. Give passengers preference…

…not freight trains. Many times my train is shunted aside so a goods train can get ahead. But what are they doing on the rails at rush-hour times anyway?

I want to see more freight go by rail to get as many heavy lorries off the roads as possible. Barring freight from the tracks at rush-hours is fine in theory, but since most freight travels a long distance, it’s likely to hit the rush-hour at some point in it’s journey whenever it runs. It’s probably not possible to keep all freight off the tracks at peak times, especially when it’s something time-sensitive like mail or fresh tomatoes from Italy. Trainloads of coal for a power-station with several weeks’ supply of the stuff stockpiled might be a different matter.

10. These problems are countrywide

London draws in most commuters and I’m one of them. But commuters up and down the country experience similar frustrations everyday and my simple solutions should applied to benefit as many people as possible.

And not all passengers are commuters. People use rail other business trips, for holidays and leisure travel, to visit friends and relatives, and yes, to send freight.