Another HST looks set to be 'Turbotised' from December

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

The quoted fares seem a little unusual, in that without a railcard the cheapest fare on the Virgin service quoted (at least for the next couple of weeks) is ^74 (anytime), but with a senior railcard it is ^28.40 (off-peak). I'm not sure why off-peak tickets are allowed for senior railcard holders when it's peak for everyone else, though then again I'm still a few years off studying the particular terms of the senior railcard.

Virgin allow all Railcard holders to travel at peak times with off peak fares on journeys they operate and set the fares for.

[John R]

Thanks. Gosh, that's generous, particularly if peak services are overcrowded.

[willc]

With 1,300 seats per hour to fill between the West Midlands and London from 5.30am, Virgin can probably afford to be generous to a few railcard holders, especially when those without railcards will pay ^149 for an anytime return from International to Euston, or about ^100-110 using a pair of advance singles - which is to say most people likely to be travelling at that time of the day and is a rather fairer comparison of the typical costs of doing a Worcestershire-London journey that way at that time of day, as the average business traveller is unlikely to be toting a railcard.

Hence my continued scepticism about this never-quantified number of people from Worcestershire who drive to Warwick or International for non-existent journey time benefits to avoid the robber barons of FGW^▸ (First Great Western) - who, of course, give passengers from Worcester (120 miles from London, ^66 anytime return*) a considerably better deal fare-wise than Swindon, where you pay ^109 anytime return (for about 80 miles), while the best peak journey combining advance singles tomorrow is ^84.50. And in Swindon, you can't get a ^45 Saver (aka off-peak) return for an 07.35 departure, which is also valid for return travel in the evening peak, nor use a Network Card off-peak - a railcard which is available to all ages.

* And that's in the context of a ^51 anytime return between Oxford and London.

Oh, and before we get the usual stuff about allowing Cotswold Line time, things do go wrong on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) and the M42 too, you know.

You've hit the nail on the head with this paragraph....it's the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), *not* FGW who have the control on what stock is offered on the Cotswold Line.

Er, no. The DfT did not tell FGW to take off all the off-peak and weekend HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) that have disappeared from the Cotswold Line over the past two years. That was entirely FGW's operational decision, to cut costs on the line. They have not got rid of those HSTs from their fleet, have they? Just as it was FGW's decision to get rid of the 180s and tell us and DafT that it would all be fine, because they would get more HSTs instead. And if First Group took it into their heads to do so, they could probably work out a way to remove the HSTs they own from the FGW fleet, never mind what DafT thinks.

[ChrisB]

You've hit the nail on the head with this paragraph....it's the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), *not* FGW^▸ (First Great Western) who have the control on what stock is offered on the Cotswold Line.

Er, no. The DfT did not tell FGW to take off all the off-peak and weekend HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) that have disappeared from the Cotswold Line over the past two years. That was entirely FGW's operational decision, to cut costs on the line. They have not got rid of those HSTs from their fleet, have they?

A little disengenious, Willc, as I thought we were talking about trains around 0850, weren't we? So peak / shoulder-peak stock provision is the subject, when all the HSTs are in use delivering people into Padd. My point stands in the context of the discussion at that point in the thread.
 Just as it was FGW's decision to get rid of the 180s and tell us and DafT that it would all be fine, because they would get more HSTs instead. And if First Group took it into their heads to do so, they could probably work out a way to remove the HSTs they own from the FGW fleet, never mind what DafT thinks.
[/quote]

[IndustryInsider]

I'm sure FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are trying for more, but the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) is juggling with more than just FGW demands on other stock availability - and we'll just have to wait & see what else, if anything, FGW get allocated.

This quote from the government covering stock hints that there will be something for FGW:

The Government will now enter into commercial negotiations with the franchised operators about the allocation of the unallocated element of 650 further carriages for delivery before 2014. Subject to those negotiations, the Government expects additional carriages to be added on services into Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, London Paddington and London Waterloo.

[willc]

You've hit the nail on the head with this paragraph....it's the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), *not* FGW^▸ (First Great Western) who have the control on what stock is offered on the Cotswold Line.

Er, no. The DfT did not tell FGW to take off all the off-peak and weekend HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) that have disappeared from the Cotswold Line over the past two years. That was entirely FGW's operational decision, to cut costs on the line. They have not got rid of those HSTs from their fleet, have they?

A little disengenious, Willc, as I thought we were talking about trains around 0850, weren't we? So peak / shoulder-peak stock provision is the subject, when all the HSTs are in use delivering people into Padd. My point stands in the context of the discussion at that point in the thread.
 

In what way is it disingenuous?

Show me an order from the DfT telling FGW to take off the HST on the 05.48/08.58, or any other service at any other time of the week on the Cotswold Line over the past two years - such as the latest to lose an HST and the one this thread began about, the 11.21 from London and 14.34 return from Malvern, which is most assuredly not a peak shoulder service.

The pool of rolling stock available to FGW (either leased with the agreement of the DfT or owned outright by First Group) in the Thames Valley has barely changed since December 2008, at which point pretty much everything that moved on the Cotswold Line bar the halts trains and a couple of Malvern out and back Turbo trips were HSTs or one of the last few Adelantes (it also meant the Reading-Gatwick service got 166s, with lots of luggage space) - providing that InterCity quality and comfort FGW said we would get throughout the day back in 2004. We certainly aren't getting that now, are we Chris? And that was a point I made only yesterday and elsewhere back up the thread.

The 08.58 - and increasingly the 09.52 - are the two weekday services without a doubt where crowding is the biggest issue (though not forgetting the Turbo on the Sunday 18.30 from Hereford, 3hrs, 35 mins in inner-suburban seating for anyone doing the full trip), but there is the broader issue of the 2004 announcement and what was said about the service enhancements FGW could offer during the bidding process against Thames Trains in 2003 - enhancements which we enjoyed for several years but which have been chipped away at over the past two.

[ChrisB]

Show me an order from the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) telling FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to take off the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) on the 05.48/08.58, or any other service at any other time of the week on the Cotswold Line over the past two years - such as the latest to lose an HST and the one this thread began about, the 11.21 from London and 14.34 return from Malvern, which is most assuredly not a peak shoulder service.

This thread is going round in circles. There is not the public demand for a 7 coach train at that time, as well you know & have agreed.

[willc]

May not be the numbers to fill an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) - though something like an attempt at marketing off-peak travel on the line, as opposed to absolutely nothing of the sort being done for years, might help fill more seats* - but we would still like that InterCity quality and comfort FGW^▸ (First Great Western) said we would get and which it used as a carrot to dangle in front of the SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about), something you will never ever get with a Turbo, whether there are 25 or 250 people on board.

* It's not as though they don't have the tools for the job available already, with the Network Railcard, the Cotswold Line Railcard (which wasn't even mentioned on the FGW website for several years), the Oxford Evening Out ticket for Oxfordshire stations (try finding it mentioned on the FGW website, it's not under special offers, which would seem the obvious place), and the LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) ^3.70 evening out ticket valid west of Moreton-in-Marsh (the only notices about this that I have ever seen at the stations have been produced by the CLPG^» (Cotswold Line Promotion Group - about)). Try promoting that little lot properly - and collect the revenue, of course - and the numbers might look a bit different.

[inspector_blakey]

I don't really want to shake the hornet's next any further, but a thought occurred to me earlier on. Now it's possible my memory is not correct, but wasn't this oft-cited carrot dangled in connection with 2004-2006 extension of the Thames Trains franchise which First were awarded? If that was indeed the case then my understanding is that First have fully discharged that promise, since Adelentes were in squadron service on the Cotswold Line during the First Great Western Link era.

The Greater Western franchise was, I believe, let on substantially different terms from the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Link franchise extension, and wasn't one of the tenets that the 14 Adelantes would be handed back to their leasing company and replaced with five additional HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train)? What I don't know is whether this was a DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) requirement or a suggestion that First came up with; either way the 180s were got shot of with the full knowledge and approval of the DfT, perhaps even at their insistence.

As has been mentioned elsewhere in Cotswold Line threads passim, in many ways the ideal solution for those off-peak services when operating an HST is not commercially justifiable would be some kind of high-quality 170-, 175- or 185-like DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) but there simply aren't any of those around at the moment, and although there was the appealing prospect of 172s being introduced this has apparently been nixed by HM Government for the immediate future at the very least. So I assume the bottom line from FGW's point of view is that they're not in breach of their franchise obligation by operating Turbo stock vice HSTs and can therefore do so at times when passenger numbers don't justify a seven- or eight-car train.

One thing I'm not clear on is what's happening to the HSTs that have apparently been released from Cotswold Line duty by these changes; are they needed to cover for poor fleet reliability, have they been redeployed to services elsewhere or do they now just sit in sidings at the times when they would have previously been travelling to Worcester or Hereford?

[Richard Fairhurst]

There are some of those available at the moment, of course: five 180s. Just right to run a slightly expanded Cotswold Line service.

I don't think anyone's arguing that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have broken a formal franchise obligation. The contention is rather that they've broken their promise to Cotswold Line users - and that, irrespective of what they might or might not have said, 16xs are objectively inappropriate stock for London to Worcester and Malvern, let alone Hereford.

(Post-electrification, could Oxford become a Turbo-free zone? 319s to Paddington; Chiltern to Bicester and Marylebone; a 153 would be plenty for the Banbury stoppers; just leaving the Cotswold Line...)

[Andy W]

Hence my continued scepticism about this never-quantified number of people from Worcestershire who drive to Warwick or International for non-existent journey time benefits to avoid the robber barons of FGW^▸ (First Great Western)

Who called the FGW robber barons? They do not promote 'special fares' in the way either Chiltern or Virgin do hence they make no effort to fill seats.

How on earth do you expect a passenger to come up with those figures? What I can tell you is that of the people I know fewer than half of those who use the train to go to London use FGW.

Non existant travel time benefits? - Look at the full journey time which often includes waiting for a train in the first place. The maximum wait for a Virgin train is 20 mins, for Chiltern 30 mins, now look at the timetable from Paddington. Should you get to Paddington at 13:30 to return to Pershore how long do you have to wait?

the LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) ^3.70 evening out ticket valid west of Moreton-in-Marsh

I can't find any mention of this offering but do notice that the off-peak return from Honeybourne/Evesham/Pershore to Worcester is ^3.70

Also the ^10 allowed for motoring costs (parking is ^8) works out at 49mpg fuel cost only for the 82 miles. A more realistic 30p per mile makes the round trip ^24, thus eroding the benefit still further.  

Actually around 52mpg - if you drive a car that does 20mpg that's up you, - clearly no need for to you to check fares.

The quoted fares seem a little unusual, in that without a railcard the cheapest fare on the Virgin service quoted (at least for the next couple of weeks) is ^74 (anytime), but with a senior railcard it is ^28.40 (off-peak). I'm not sure why off-peak tickets are allowed for senior railcard holders when it's peak for everyone else, though then again I'm still a few years off studying the particular terms of the senior railcard. 

And the price for the trains quoted is around ^38 without a railcard not ^74. It's nothing to do with off peak and everything to do with advanced purchase (which I did the afternoon before I travelled).

Out of interest what incentives are there on the Cotswold Line for any advanced purchase - a good way to fill seats (particluarly off peak)?

Cheapest one way non-railcard fares to London are:-
Virgin ex Birminghan International - ^7.50
Chiltern ex Warwick Parkway - ^5
FGW ex Worcester - check for yourself

Now to the substance of this thread:-
Virgin use Pendilinos - found it comfy enough (but prefer an UNREFURBISHED Mk III)
Chiltern 168 - pleaseant enough, good 2+2 seating, aligned to windows, many tables, not as refined as an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) but seat layout makes up for the extra noise / door locations etc.

Now look at the Turbo - frankly not fit for purpose in this long distance market.

As Richard Fairhurst says there are 180s available at the moment - and with some active imagination & marketing FGW could easily increase the patronage on the western end of the line.

[ChrisB]

There are some of those available at the moment, of course: five 180s. Just right to run a slightly expanded Cotswold Line service.

Indeed - and again, the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) will allocate those as it sees fit. It is not within a TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) ability to take them on....the DfT will be looking for the best deal it can get - and as tax-payers money is involved, wouldn't we agree with that?

I don't think anyone's arguing that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have broken a formal franchise obligation. The contention is rather that they've broken their promise to Cotswold Line users - and that, irrespective of what they might or might not have said, 16xs are objectively inappropriate stock for London to Worcester and Malvern, let alone Hereford.

As are 90% empty HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) if you consider the green issues. Inspector Blakey, I think, is correct - in that FGWL made that promise when taking over from Thames Trains. This is a completely different franchise, where different promises were made.

(Post-electrification, could Oxford become a Turbo-free zone? 319s to Paddington; Chiltern to Bicester and Marylebone; a 153 would be plenty for the Banbury stoppers; just leaving the Cotswold Line...)

And we have to be very hopeful that the DfT order IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) stock that can be split - i.e. 5 or 6 car units that join to 10- or 12-car units ex-Pad in the peak. Then a 5 or 6-car front unit can be split at Oxford for the Cotswold Line with either a dual-fuel or loco engine attached. God forbid they order 10/12 car units that can't be split - they'll never run along the Cotswolds.....(except maybe two peaks)

[Richard Fairhurst]

Indeed - and again, the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) will allocate those as it sees fit. It is not within a TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) ability to take them on....the DfT will be looking for the best deal it can get - and as tax-payers money is involved, wouldn't we agree with that?

For this part of "we": given the amount of taxpayers' money that's being frittered away in bankers' bonuses, PFI deals and wars in the Middle East, I find it hard to get worked up about the leasing costs of five trains. But I may be going off-topic here. 

As are 90% empty HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) if you consider the green issues.

Yes - for the current Cotswold Line usage, 180s are much more suitable trains off-peak than either Turbos or HSTs. (Though Will is correct that off-peak usage is seriously under-promoted on the Cotswold Line.)

Inspector Blakey, I think, is correct - in that FGWL made that promise when taking over from Thames Trains. This is a completely different franchise, where different promises were made.

Not "completely different" at all. It was always clear that FGWL was the first step of incorporating the Thames area into Greater Western: indeed, Richard Bowker was famously caught saying "When First gets Greater Western" before hastily correcting himself to "If First gets Greater Western". FGW^▸ (First Great Western) was even planning to continue branding the three constituent parts of Greater Western separately (FGW Link, FGW Local and FGW High-Speed IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly)) at one point.

And we have to be very hopeful that the DfT order IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) stock that can be split - i.e. 5 or 6 car units that join to 10- or 12-car units ex-Pad in the peak. Then a 5 or 6-car front unit can be split at Oxford for the Cotswold Line with either a dual-fuel or loco engine attached. God forbid they order 10/12 car units that can't be split - they'll never run along the Cotswolds.....(except maybe two peaks)

To be honest I don't see much sense in second-guessing IEP, especially with electrification on the cards - it might comprise a Pendolino-Pacer hybrid running on pineapple juice for all DfT seems to have decided. But given that DfT has no problem with diesels running under the wires (e.g. Birmingham-Glasgow Voyagers), I wouldn't be at all surprised if we and similar lines end up with Voyager/Adelante type stock. MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) electrification could open up interesting possibilities for cascades...

[ChrisB]

Not "completely different" at all. It was always clear that FGWL was the first step of incorporating the Thames area into Greater Western: indeed, Richard Bowker was famously caught saying "When First gets Greater Western" before hastily correcting himself to "If First gets Greater Western". FGW^▸ (First Great Western) was even planning to continue branding the three constituent parts of Greater Western separately (FGW Link, FGW Local and FGW High-Speed IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly)) at one point.

Yes, a completely different franchise that completely different promises were made to obtain it. Might be the same company - although I understand a new company was formed by First to run it. (First Greater Western) The only thing that remained was the Parent company, I undertand - First Group.

But neither here nor there, as it is a different franchise for sure, with different promises.

[willc]

Are people here really seriously suggesting they promised to make the Cotswold Line's service worse, two years after improving it to loud fanfares, yet still won the Greater Western franchise?

All the spin in 2007 was that bringing in more HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) was as a result of the tremendous successes enjoyed under FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Link, which meant that the 180s were struggling to cope with demand between Oxford and London much of the day. It was presented as a straightforward swap of one train type for the other and another improvement in FGW's service offer, with yet more seats in nice trains.

And let's get away from the notion that FGW Link was in some way a separate entity from the wider FGW operation. It wasn't, its invention merely reflected the short-term, stop-gap nature of the two-year franchise. Your average passenger never understood the difference anyway - it all said First Great Western on the tin. Changing the names of subsidiary companies along the way is not a substantial or meaningful change, and the same faces were in place in FGW management across the franchise change.

I would refer people to the famous (here at least) December 2004 press release for a bit of a memory refresher, which, apart from a certain pledge, talked proudly about integrating the two operations' timetables and quotes Alison Forster, the "managing director of First Great Western and First Great Western Link". It presents the whole operation as a seamless, integrated package. See http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/NewsItem.aspx?id=203

The removal of 125mph InterCity stock from Cotswold Line services did not start until January 2009, after a year when HSTs had gradually supplanted 180s, with just a few 180 trips lingering on until that spring. Making a change of rolling stock one month into a timetable hardly suggests an organised policy decided years previously, does it? Never mind the underhand way in which it was implemented, with a few posters stuck up at stations days before and nothing being said to the CLPG^» (Cotswold Line Promotion Group - about) until the deed was done. And at pretty much every timetable change since, a few more HSTs have gone.

I accept FGW aren't in breach of the strict letter of the franchise, because they are using specified stock, but that specification is widely drawn, allowing them as it does to use 67s plus coaches pretty much anywhere on the network, should the mood take them. And it doesn't make what they have done right.

As for

some kind of high-quality 170-, 175- or 185-like DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit)

we had something better, it was called a 180. A four-car anything else with 2+2 seats would offer better comfort but no improvement in seating numbers on a 166, where a 180 gives 284, though I expect a high-density refresh could push that up to 300-plus. And what we need off-peak here is something with more seats than a 166 but fewer than an HST and which can go like stink on the fast lines east of Didcot. Remind you of anything?

It is not within a TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) ability to take them [ie 180s] on

Give the leasing company a big enough cheque and you could do what you like with them. If an operator, even a franchised one, wanted to take them on at its own commercial risk, I don't think the government would or could stand in their way. Can you imagine the headlines? The 180s are not the property of the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about). Just as the HSTs that First Group owns are not the property of the DfT.

Who called the FGW robber barons? They do not promote 'special fares' in the way either Chiltern or Virgin do hence they make no effort to fill seats.

How on earth do you expect a passenger to come up with those figures? What I can tell you is that of the people I know fewer than half of those who use the train to go to London use FGW.

Non existant travel time benefits? - Look at the full journey time which often includes waiting for a train in the first place. The maximum wait for a Virgin train is 20 mins, for Chiltern 30 mins, now look at the timetable from Paddington. Should you get to Paddington at 13:30 to return to Pershore how long do you have to wait?

The robber barons bit was a joke, though you were quite clearly asking people to compare and contrast the costs involved among the options you had.

Why shouldn't I ask a passenger who tells us lots of people go to catch trains in Warwickshire? I wasn't expecting precision, just something more than an oft-repeated assertion.

What time benefits? Your journey options involved leaving within a 15-minute window and arriving in a five-minute window. Hardly substantial differences - and what happens if the M42 is a mess?

And are you really suggesting that the Cotswold Line and Worcester should get the frequency of service that the West Midlands conurbation and the places along the way from London can sustain? The last draft post-redoubling timetable I saw shows the 13.21 would end at Moreton-in-Marsh, with the 14.21 extended to Worcester instead. Definitely not ideal, though spreading services out more, and definitely a Turbo.

I can't find any mention of this offering but do notice that the off-peak return from Honeybourne/Evesham/Pershore to Worcester is ^3.70

It's the same thing - it's just described as a super off-peak return so that it has a name that the gobbledegook ticketing system can understand. Its time validity in no way matches that normally used for a super off-peak.

The reasons why FGW doesn't offer advance fares on the Cotswold Line are pretty straightforward - the fares are already low by comparison with journeys over similar distances, the Network Card is valid all the way out to Worcester, backed up by the Cotswold Line Railcard for local trips, you don't need the help of advance fares to fill the peak services (unless you wanted to encourage contra-peak travel and a Saver/off peak return is already valid from Paddington on the 05.48 and 06.48 for journeys on to the Cotswold Line) and you wouldn't want to completely fill up off-peak Turbos off the Cotswold Line with people travelling at rock-bottom prices, as people boarding at Oxford might struggle for a seat, especially when they do offer rock-bottom off-peak advance fares (down to ^4 single) from Oxford as part of their fight with the M40 coach operators.

Cotswold Line passengers can benefit from these tickets if they use them in conjunction with a Cotswold Line Railcard fare west of Oxford, especially for a one-way journey in the evening peak out of London. You can find ^8 singles on the 17.22 and 18.22 and sometimes down to ^6.50 on the 17.50, which, used with a Cotswold Line Railcard single past Oxford would give, for example, a London-Moreton fare of ^12.05, compared with a peak single of ^30.50.

On a return trip to London, a Network (or Senior, etc) Railcard return fare, especially if a London Travelcard is factored in, probably has the edge, unless you do strike lucky with those ^4 fares, though these seem to be mainly confined to HST services that start at Oxford