Great Western Coffee Shop

At last! the media are picking up something that has been discussed on this site and others of late and thats the severe overcrowding thats not just happening on weekdays but at weekends on this line also.

For those who weren't able to see the report, below is a brief summary:

Headline was "Cattle Truck Conditions - The mainline trains where people either stand or cram into the toilets". Or as is increasingly happening get left behind on the platform and wait another hour for the next train in the hope that you can get on that one.

Report focused particularly on services on this line between Bristol and Salisbury. One of their reporters took a trip on one of these services to see for himself how bad things of got. Of interest the train they boarded so happened to be the refurbished 158, not that you could see much of the interior as it was jam packed to the rafters with passengers.

The report acknowledged that this has always been a busy route which I can vouch for having been forced to stand on services as far back as the early nineties!

The line carries 4.5 million passengers a year mainly using just two carriage trains. Interviewed passengers had plenty to say how bad it is.

Chris Unwin of Travel Watch Southwest was interviewed saying that FGW didnt want to make a loss on the line (obviously) but its easier to carry standing passengers and make a profit than having a seat for everyone. (Fair enough if it happens on the odd occasion that you have to stand but this is happening ALL the time on most services as two cars isn't enough. Last year they were three carriages now they are two)

FGW are well aware that services on this line are under strain and that they want to run more carriages but need approval from the government first.

Andrew Griffiths was interviewed and says they would love to run extra carriages but there arent any extra carriages to be had and they have been scouring the country looking to do deals to find extra carriages but no joy.

He also went onto say that local trains dont make money (4.5 million passengers on this line and you dont make money, hmmmm!?!?!)

As to the future he cant say that much is going to happen now to alleviate the overcrowding but hopefully in the not too distant future that they will be able to get the case recognised that this route is important and that there is growth potential and that if they could improve the service that it could grow a lot more if they could expand and market it.

Rail minister Tom Harris declined an interview and put out the usual government spin thats not even writing about as it beared now resemblance to the featured article only that improvements will come about at the December TT change. (same amount of trains running though on this line and still two carriages, how is that going relieve overcrowding???)

This is a summary from watching the article. If you saw it and want to add or correct what I've written then do reply to this post. I make no apologies for being passionate about this and the Weymouth line which once again are suffering from under investment and have huge potential if the right amount of rolling stock is used.

 



 

Of course not! Just look at how much it costs to lease the 158 fleet. Then think maintenance, track access, crew, plus other bits and bobs and your onto a looser.

You are right Timmer.  Local trains generally don't make money, but I fail to see how lengthening trains on the Portsmouth-Cardiff route would achieve anything other than better value for the taxpayer.  If you increased all of the two car trains to 3 car and did a bit of promotion of the fact, I predict that you would be able to fill all 3 cars on most trips within the year.  Capacity up 50%, fares income up 50% but costs up by less than 50%.  Even if the train still required subsidy, the amount of subsidy per passenger mile would be less. 

The problem with local trains not being profitable in general is due to the fact that they are generally not long enough to carry enough passengers to cover their fixed costs.  From the point of view of the tax-payer, the situation could be improved by going in either one of two directions 1) withdraw the train completely or 2) lengthen the train and carry more passengers.  Option 1) might be applicable on very lightly used lines but on the Cardiff-Pompy line where there is latent demand for travel option 2) makes much more sense.  As a tax payer I'd rather ^500,000 was spent on getting 50,000 people to work (who will in turn earn money and pay taxes) than ^400,000 was spent getting 25,000 people to work. 

Railways have hugh fixed costs so the only way to get good value for the tax payer out of the rail network is to spread those fixed costs between as many passengers as possible.  The worst value services are those operated by one and two car trains and the worst value lines are those that only have a couple of trains a day (even if such low service level is cheap it is still very poor value). 

The problem is that the DfT is fixated by absolute cost rather than by value for money.   The best example I can think of at the monent is the DfT decision to build London crossrail at a cost of ^15 BILLION pounds.   The costs are high because of the cost of tunnelling though the middle of the city, but if they spent another ^3billion to link Reading, Southend, Amersham etc to the system the number of passengers through the expensive tunnel would double and the cost of the tunnel per passenger would fall. 

Did you know that the SRA used the excuse that Melksham / TransWilts line trains were "very lightly used" as a justification for withdrawing most of them? Save The Train would obviously disagree. See link below.
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/melkshamrailway/138_Lies_damned_lies_and_statistics.html

What demand forecasting methodology are you using? If robust, it could form the basis of an economic case for strengthening which meets treasury appraisal guidelines.

Demand forecasting methodology?  ??? This is why the system is in the state its in!

All I know is: I pay shedloads of tax driving my car and when I want some public transport action it aint exactly anything other than third world cattle car.

If someone thought about the cost of the NHS before they set it up they wouldnt have bothered probably, sometimes you have to think about the PEOPLE not the MONEY.  They waste money on everything else, why not this as well....

Sadly, an ex train user.

/rant  ::)

What this bloke comes up with beggars belief. I'm told he's a train spotter turned to railway manager. Do you know him Jim?