Great Western Coffee Shop

The latest newsletter from SERUG can be viewed in the link below, which goes to their publications page. Previous newsletters are also availabke there.
There are updates on performance, formations, Network Rail ( including Devon Metro and SWR service enhancement). There is a piece from Natalie Edwards, the GM West of England Line, and on thoughts about stock replacement among other things.

https://sites.google.com/view/serug/publications

On Salisbury to Exeter: "...excellent passenger growth despite the strikes, with longer distance leisure travel leading the revival."

This despite the somewhat bare-bones service and is it only 70 ish % of trains running to time.

Also, really unfortunate for its passengers that the DfT took the opportunity to kill the SWR Bristol-Waterloo trains as it too offered  potential for growth.

Mark

Back to 83% of pre-pandemic passenger numbers for the first quarter of the year I see.  Given the often mentioned reduction in 5-day a week commuting and the ‘collapse’ of business travel, I think that tells the story of how leisure travel is rapidly on the up…and the operators are struggling to cope with it.

Particularly struggling to cope at weekends!!!

What are the the corresponding revenue figures for Q1?

Yes, they’re the most popular leisure days.  Revenue was 79% compared to pre-pandemic, that’s up from 70% the same period last year.

Thanks - so we can see the hole in revenue caused by the collapse of business travel and falling off of 5 day a week commuting, and whilst the numbers of leisure travellers may be up, there's still a huge revenue gap that the taxpayer is having to fill with additional subsidy to make up the difference.

Ever more important that operators do find a way to cope with additional demand for leisure travel at the weekend and avoid the sort of farcical situation we saw last Sunday - get it right, and that gap may continue to close.

Interestingly, revenue from season tickets was up 10% which is quite a leap.

It will be fascinating to see what impact on costs and reliability the incoming Labour government’s plans to take all the operators back into public ownership will have.

It can’t be any worse a mess than it is at the moment, which makes these figures all the more impressive IMHO.

I guess if they simply wait until the franchises expire and then take them into public ownership it won't cost too much from that perspective? However I don't think the ROSCOs are to be nationalised and of course NR already is.

The Unions will no doubt expect more from Labour in terms of pay however with inflation now at 2% their case isn't a strong one.

If memory serves, I did ask the question in another thread as to what difference nationalisation will make to the public/customers in terms of reliability, cost etc and despite the enthusiasm from some for nationalisation, I can't recall getting a straightforward answer.

Suspect it'll be pretty much the same - although looking at the bigger picture I do think rail will be some way down the priority list for Starmer et al.

I was thinking more along the lines of reducing operational costs going forward, i.e. reducing the taxpayer contributions, than the cost of making the organisational changes, which should be small.

That would indeed represent a considerable achievement.

It may be of interest to know that SWT are having a "Meet the Manager" event at Salisbury on July 23rd - just read it on another forum.

I'd hate to see folk head for Salisbury! The event is being held at BOURNEMOUTH (unless there is more than one event happening on that date)!