Crossrail/Elizabeth Line. From construction to operation - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

Crickey, I've done a ChrisB... 

[ChrisB]

From The Times (subscription-based)

  Extracts:
 
 

The airport’s owners — a consortium of mostly foreign investment funds —
want to recoup its past spending on the private train line with an
“investment recovery charge” of £570 for every train that uses the track,
 plus extra fees of about £107 per train.
 
 Transport chiefs and the rail watchdog argue there is no justification for
 such a historic charge, and fear it could mean higher ticket prices. The
 Department for Transport reckons the extra charges would cost Crossrail
£42m a year.
 
 A High Court judge is expected to rule imminently on the row after Heathrow
 challenged the watchdog’s decision to reject the charges. Under contingency
 plans drawn up by Transport for London, Crossrail trains could terminate a
 few miles short of the airport, with passengers forced to transfer onto
 other trains at a suburban station. The trains would then head back to
 central London, dodging the £700 fees.
 
 Called the Elizabeth line, London’s newest route was funded by taxpayers
 and businesses in the capital and is due to carry 200m people a year. Four
 Crossrail trains an hour will start running between Paddington and Heathrow
 from next May — though not to Terminal 5 as the Heathrow Express has an
 exclusive deal to run services there until 2023.

[grahame]

From The Times (subscription-based)

  Extracts:
 
 

The airport’s owners — a consortium of mostly foreign investment funds —
want to recoup its past spending on the private train line with an
“investment recovery charge” of £570 for every train that uses the track,
 plus extra fees of about £107 per train.

 
 
Current ticket costs are £6.30 per single journey (£12.60 return) from Hayes and Harlington to Heathrow - that's a journey of just under 3 miles as the crow flies, or £2.10 per mile.  I think that already includes an airport owner's fee.

For comparison, and again with heavy engineering, Saltash to Plymouth is £3.20 return - though the fares database says "TEMPORARY FARE From Sun 21 May 2017 until Sat 15 Jul 2017" against that.  The journey is just under 4 miles, so you're looking at £0.40 per mile.

There's a suggestion that when(if?) the western access to Heathrow is completed, trains from London will run to Heathrow with some carrying on, rather than everything terminating at the airport.  If that's the case, what are the plans for through fares?   Will there be extra cost for travelling via Heathrow?

[John R]

 
Current ticket costs are £6.30 per single journey (£12.60 return) from Hayes and Harlington to Heathrow - that's a journey of just under 3 miles as the crow flies, or £2.10 per mile.  I think that already includes an airport owner's fee.

For comparison, and again with heavy engineering, Saltash to Plymouth is £3.20 return - though the fares database says "TEMPORARY FARE From Sun 21 May 2017 until Sat 15 Jul 2017" against that.  The journey is just under 4 miles, so you're looking at £0.40 per mile.

There's a suggestion that when(if?) the western access to Heathrow is completed, trains from London will run to Heathrow with some carrying on, rather than everything terminating at the airport.  If that's the case, what are the plans for through fares?   Will there be extra cost for travelling via Heathrow?

Yes, the current fare includes the premium to cover the airport fee.

It would make a lot of sense if once the western access is completed that the four trains that will replace Connect run straight through to Slough and beyond. (With a shuttle running to T4). Else you have a lot of terminating movements and thus inefficiency. Though I doubt many pax on the main line would choose to go that way out of choice given the extra 15 mins or so it would add.

The alternative would be for the four HEx paths to continue on to Slough, with the former Connect services running to T4 as now. Though as has been debated often, (so maybe not one to reignite here) whether HEx is sustainable post Crossrail and once its 4 paths on the main line are no longer protected is uncertain.  One way or another though I would still expect 4 fast trains of some description to run from Paddington (low or high level) to the airport.

[ChrisB]

It would make a lot of sense if once the western access is completed that the four trains that will replace Connect run straight through to Slough and beyond.

That won't happen - Hex have Terminal 5 access rights until 2023.
Also, the article above means that Crossrail have no access to Heathrow until they can sort this problem out - indeed, they would appear to have chosen somewhere on the mainline to terminate & return according to a thread on uk.railways forum. Those fees quoted in that article being ridiculously high.

The alternative would be for the four HEx paths to continue on to Slough

That is possible, though I agree with your thoughts surrounding HEX after their access rights to paths on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) run out.

[IndustryInsider]

It would make a lot of sense if once the western access is completed that the four trains that will replace Connect run straight through to Slough and beyond.

That won't happen - Hex have Terminal 5 access rights until 2023.
Also, the article above means that Crossrail have no access to Heathrow until they can sort this problem out - indeed, they would appear to have chosen somewhere on the mainline to terminate & return according to a thread on uk.railways forum. Those fees quoted in that article being ridiculously high.

The western access won't be opening until after 2023.

Regarding the Crossrail issue, I personally think some form of deal will be struck.  Heathrow is too important politically as a destination for Crossrail for TfL^» (Transport for London - about) just to settle for some kind of compromise in terms of destination.  Though it might well not serve Terminal 5.

[John R]

It would make a lot of sense if once the western access is completed that the four trains that will replace Connect run straight through to Slough and beyond.

That won't happen - Hex have Terminal 5 access rights until 2023.

Do you mean exclusive rights?  If not then there is plenty of room for another four with the space left available for new platforms. And even if they are exclusive rights then the airport could always agree to waive them as they own Hex if they felt that the benefit to be gained by allowing the Western services to run straight through outweighed the impact on HEx.

Two final points from me.  Clearly the more the airport charges to Crossrail, the more Crossrail has to charge pax and thus the premium to use HEx will be lower (and thus more pax will choose to use it).  Sounds a bit like a monopoly to me, if it is not a fair cost, which is I guess what the courts will decide.  And don't forget that the airport still has a job to do to get it's third runway. So they will need to a) be seen to be encouraging rail use over road to keep overall emissions down and b) avoid any major PR^▸ (Public Relations) gaffs.  For those reasons it really isn't in their interests to dig their heels in over this fight.

[Electric train]

My understanding of the Western approach is its the Airport that is funding the new line.  The Airport's plan is to run HEX Express Padd - LHR- RDG^‡(resolve) dispite what the Burger's (and I don't mean McieDee either) o Slough want the HEX Expresses are unlikely to stop.

Its all posturing by the commercial people

I am sure that the Airport will give way to a certain extent because there rights to platform 6 & 7 at Padd expires in a few years and they could find themselves expelled to 10 to 14 the Intercity TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) (ie GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) have always craved having 6 & 7 back.  also they will not want to loose out to the lucrative Canary Warf passengers that currently use London City

[TonyK]

Even so, 4 tph paying £700 each over a working day amounts to a pretty penny, even for somewhere as rich as Heathrow. That said, if the judge finds for Crossrail, I can see Heathrow deciding against an appeal. It took a long time to lose the "Thiefrow" soubriquet - they don't want that revived for different reasons than last time.

[ChrisB]

It would make a lot of sense if once the western access is completed that the four trains that will replace Connect run straight through to Slough and beyond.

That won't happen - Hex have Terminal 5 access rights until 2023.

Do you mean exclusive rights? 

Yep. Built by Heathrow Airport, they own the tunnels - they're not part of the public railway.

if they are exclusive rights then the airport could always agree to waive them as they own Hex if they felt that the benefit to be gained by allowing the Western services to run straight through outweighed the impact on HEx.[/quote]

Why wouldn't they want these rights for their Hex services? And as they'd be running onto public-owned railway, apply for their own access paths?

Two final points from me.  Clearly the more the airport charges to Crossrail, the more Crossrail has to charge pax and thus the premium to use HEx will be lower (and thus more pax will choose to use it). 

eh? The charges to use the tunnels (not Hex as such) IS the premium - so high charges = high premiums.

Sounds a bit like a monopoly to me, if it is not a fair cost, which is I guess what the courts will decide.

There's nothing to prevent owners of private infrastructure charging what they want....and they do have build costs that need recouping.

And don't forget that the airport still has a job to do to get it's third runway.

indeed, a way out of this would be for the Government to require that the tunnels are available to all services at a set fair cost in return for agreeing a third runway.

[stuving]

There is a lot of stuff you can read if you want to find out what the argument's about. The ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)'s page on this subject has links to their consultation document (March 2016), all the responses, and their consequent ruling (May 2016). The important items are ORR's two, and the submissions from DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), TfL^» (Transport for London - about), and HAL.

But be warned - the legal content of these is pretty chewy.

As far as I can see, the current law applies to all railway owners and train operators irrespective of who they are, public or private, though subject to some tests as to what counts as a railway. ORR can dictate access and charges, and all of that seems to have been accepted. What HAL want, though, is for Crossrail trains to pay an extra (and it seems rather large) sum to pay off the original construction costs. There are rules about that as well, one of which is that if the original plan said where that repayment came from, the owners can't demand the same money again from a new user.

There are (surprise, surprise!) further complications. The rules (i.e. the laws) have changed more than once, and the government at one stage gave HAL a perpetual exemption from something or other. Of course in reality HAL don't have a whole railway at all; it's only useable with rights to run to Paddington - which they have until 2023. (I imagine that's also when their capital repayment plan ends, in theory.) So the rules and exemption apply differently for trains that don't go to Paddington.

ORR expects to be shown evidence about costs to be charged for, and for any capital recovery too. But the construction of the railway under Heathrow was planned jointly with BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)), then the joint company was bought out by HAL (as it is now), which was going to borrow the money. In the end, HAL paid for it out of revenue, and seems to have lost the bills. Of course it never was built as a money-making exercise for HAL (whatever they may say in court), it is one of many things they built to make the airport attractive to their (direct and indirect) customers.

I suspect Heathrow's owners are trying to screw all they can out of the asset while they can get away with it - that is their general approach to running the airport (if it can be called "theirs", given the debt against it). They do not seem to have any allies, at least in the railway business. RDG^‡(resolve) didn't comment on the Heathrow case at all, but did argue for "a whole-network approach to the charging framework" - i.e. in their narrow interests as TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company), rather than as part of the bigger "companies running privatised services" sector. 

Obviously in the end it will be settled - no-one's got a whole train set otherwise. And this may be more a a test case, to see what this law does, and much less antagonistic than it looks. After all, courts can set the level of compensation for what a government has done, but can't really restrict what a new government does in the future (as no parliament can bind another future one).

[4064ReadingAbbey]

There is also a document published by Heathrow Airports Limited, Heathrow Network Statement - Rail dated June 2015 which can be found here http://www.heathrow.com/file_source/Company/Static/PDF/Companynewsandin
formation/rail-network-statement-june15.pdf.

Paragraph 6.1.5 gives the access charges currently paid by Heathrow Connect which can be seen to be very close to the charges proposed for Crossrail. Essentially they are based on flat rate of £11,400 per day, so 16 trains per hour pay £712 per train and 24 trains per hour pay £475 per train.

[rogerw]

New Civil Engineer reports that Heathrow have lost the court case. No further details are yet available

[paul7575]

New Civil Engineer reports that Heathrow have lost the court case. No further details are yet available

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) version of the story here, which suggests access will be completely free?   I expect that's the usual slipshod BBC reporting...

Heathrow cannot charge Crossrail for using its track to travel to the airport, a High Court judge has ruled.
The airport spent £1bn building the five-mile line 20 years ago to connect the hub to the Great Western track.
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)) previously decided Heathrow could not charge trains for using the line, which it said would cost about £42m a year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40059659

Paul

[John R]

Another nail in the coffin of HEx. Crossrail will be competitive enough to make the premium express service much less attractive.