Rail Delivery Group & train companies mixed messages

[kingston12]

The RDG have decided to mount a campaign to get everyone using the train again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58502589

That would seem like a reasonable thing to do from their perspective, but it's also totally at odds with what some of the train companies themselves seem to be doing.

South Western Railway for example have announced a plan to slash the number of trains that they run permanently as a result of long term forecast lower usage, and have promised a much more reliable service as a result.

As usual, they seem to have gone too far - it's actually more difficult to get onto a commuter train at my local station during rush hour than it was pre-Covid even though passenger numbers as supposedly still so low.

Admittedly, SWR are a bit of an outlier as one of the most overcrowded networks coming into this, but I don't think they are making it more attractive for people to come back to using their services.

[alangla]

Scotrail are slashing services as well. Some inner city stations in Glasgow are now going to be permanently served by 1 train per hour, "fast" trains to the Ayrshire coast running every 2 hours and the flagship Edinburgh to Glasgow service permanently cut to 2 per hour from 4. Evening services are being halved on some routes as well.
There's some greenwash about "unused seat miles" but no mention of right-sizing the trains, so it appears they're going to be running long trains formed of coupled units, but less frequently.

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotrail/fit-futu...

[Gecko1978]

In the article the spokesperson moans about extra pollution.....lol made me laugh trying to guilt us into using trains with same old environmental BS. Thing is people aren't using them as they are working remotely so less CO2 the car travel is journeys that were not done by train in any case.

Train companies and the RMT have provided a costly and poor service for years over seen by car hating governments. Well reap what you sow mother fkers

[kingston12]

alangla said:

Scotrail are slashing services as well. Some inner city stations in Glasgow are now going to be permanently served by 1 train per hour, "fast" trains to the Ayrshire coast running every 2 hours and the flagship Edinburgh to Glasgow service permanently cut to 2 per hour from 4. Evening services are being halved on some routes as well.
There's some greenwash about "unused seat miles" but no mention of right-sizing the trains, so it appears they're going to be running long trains formed of coupled units, but less frequently.

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotrail/fit-futu...

Yep, that's quite similar to what SWR have said. SWR are a little more shameless as they boast about how much more reliable the service has been whilst they've been running less trains during the pandemic. Erm, yes, I'm sure a lot of people would do a better job if they had much less to deliver!

It just seems strange so blatantly trying to have it both ways. I'm not sure why I'm surprised after what they have put us through over the years!

[kingston12]

Gecko1978 said:

In the article the spokesperson moans about extra pollution.....lol made me laugh trying to guilt us into using trains with same old environmental BS. Thing is people aren't using them as they are working remotely so less CO2 the car travel is journeys that were not done by train in any case.

Train companies and the RMT have provided a costly and poor service for years over seen by car hating governments. Well reap what you sow mother fkers

It's the same old stuff - pollution from car journeys, city centres dying because no one is going to Pret any more. No admitting that certain parts of the rail network were so critically overcrowded before Covid that cutting passenger numbers by 50% would make them just about usable.

I know London is a bit different from the rest of the country in this regard, but there is no way that many London commuters are driving into work, paying the congestion charge, paying to park if they can even find parking. As you say, they are more likely to be staying at home more often which is probably the right thing to do if the railway can't sort itself out.

[Gecko1978]

It's a double edged sword, if we travel less we use less energy and pollution falls. But if we do that some business is not sustainable.

Its not my job to prop up the railways or pret (city based worker), but for years they have been happy to make travel expensive, go in strike, and not offer flexible tickets (a recent thing). So apologies if you work in rail on tfl but it's not my problem. Public transport has always been a distant second choice to the car.

EVs, deiverless tech and remote working will mean less need for public transport seems a good thing to me and I hope the people who work in that sector (who clearly have skills) can find new industries to work in that dont hold the nation to ransom.

[kingston12]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

They always always seem to be boasting about new rolling stock, but I don't recall having ever seen much on our line - still the nonsense of running 4/8 coach services rather than 12 and now far less trains as well.

There were eight fast trains running from Surbiton to Waterloo between 07.50 and 08.50 before Covid, there are now two with plans to add back a third one from December 2022.

The Flexi-season ticket programme seems a mess as well. It doesn't apply to journeys within the London zones, so if I were commuting it would actually be slightly cheaper for me to drive out to Esher and come in from there.

I'm fortunate that I don't have to commute any more so I'll leave the few inches of standing room that I once used to someone who really needs it.

[kingston12]

Gecko1978 said:

It's a double edged sword, if we travel less we use less energy and pollution falls. But if we do that some business is not sustainable.

Its not my job to prop up the railways or pret (city based worker), but for years they have been happy to make travel expensive, go in strike, and not offer flexible tickets (a recent thing). So apologies if you work in rail on tfl but it's not my problem. Public transport has always been a distant second choice to the car.

EVs, deiverless tech and remote working will mean less need for public transport seems a good thing to me and I hope the people who work in that sector (who clearly have skills) can find new industries to work in that dont hold the nation to ransom.

Indeed. It's an opportunity for change, but that change is made more difficult because we've been doing the wrong thing for so long.

We knew that we were becoming too city-centric, but it's been very convenient for commercial property owners in those centres and residential property developers on the peripheries to move away from it as it is with any demand bubble.

Further down our line, they've squeezed thousands of new flats into Woking, based on the fact that it has such a good rail connection to London. It does, in that is takes 25 minutes to get in when it's all working, but they always forget that it was running well over capacity before they built all of that. Now they are cutting the service level...

Kingston is going the same way with thousands of new flats, and that had a rubbish connection in the first place - a rubbish connection that is now going to lose half it's trains and go down to two an hour.

[over_the_hill]

kingston12 said:

They always always seem to be boasting about new rolling stock, but I don't recall having ever seen much on our line - still the nonsense of running 4/8 coach services rather than 12 and now far less trains as well.

There were eight fast trains running from Surbiton to Waterloo between 07.50 and 08.50 before Covid, there are now two with plans to add back a third one from December 2022.

The Flexi-season ticket programme seems a mess as well. It doesn't apply to journeys within the London zones, so if I were commuting it would actually be slightly cheaper for me to drive out to Esher and come in from there.

I'm fortunate that I don't have to commute any more so I'll leave the few inches of standing room that I once used to someone who really needs it.

There was some rail bod on TV this morning extolling the virtues of the "new" flexible season ticket (while trying to state the case to get
people back on trains and commuting).

Apparently for people who are now only coming into the office perhaps 2 days per-week (so 40% of pre-pandemic levels on a 5-day week)
they can get up to (note up to not actual) 20% off.

Well whoopee doo. So a season ticket is effectively now even more expensive than it was.

[Speed1283]

kingston12 said:

They always always seem to be boasting about new rolling stock, but I don't recall having ever seen much on our line - still the nonsense of running 4/8 coach services rather than 12 and now far less trains as well.

There were eight fast trains running from Surbiton to Waterloo between 07.50 and 08.50 before Covid, there are now two with plans to add back a third one from December 2022.

The Flexi-season ticket programme seems a mess as well. It doesn't apply to journeys within the London zones, so if I were commuting it would actually be slightly cheaper for me to drive out to Esher and come in from there.

I'm fortunate that I don't have to commute any more so I'll leave the few inches of standing room that I once used to someone who really needs it.

Im terms of SWR they are in the midst of procuring new trains to replace the old 455 and 456s (and new 707s). Unfortunately for SWR the manufacturer (Alstom) is extremely late with it's build with many software and hardware issues so SWR are having to keep running the old stock until the new become ready.

[kingston12]

over_the_hill said:

There was some rail bod on TV this morning extolling the virtues of the "new" flexible season ticket (while trying to state the case to get
people back on trains and commuting).

Apparently for people who are now only coming into the office perhaps 2 days per-week (so 40% of pre-pandemic levels on a 5-day week)
they can get up to (note up to not actual) 20% off.

Well whoopee doo. So a season ticket is effectively now even more expensive than it was.

Yep. If I went into the office 5 days a week on my annual season ticket it worked out at about £9 a day and I had the benefit of using it a weekends effectively for free.

Now it looks like it is £15.40 a day, quite an increase. Flexi-saver doesn't apply for reasons best known to themselves.

I did't really ever expect it to be cheap to be honest, but boasting about the low cost and using it as a means to tempt passengers back is a bit disingenuous.

[oyster]

Gecko1978 said:

In the article the spokesperson moans about extra pollution.....lol made me laugh trying to guilt us into using trains with same old environmental BS. Thing is people aren't using them as they are working remotely so less CO2 the car travel is journeys that were not done by train in any case.

Train companies and the RMT have provided a costly and poor service for years over seen by car hating governments. Well reap what you sow mother fkers

Don't know about you, but I want more people using the trains, less of them in the way when I use my car.

[g3org3y]

Gecko1978 said:

It's a double edged sword, if we travel less we use less energy and pollution falls. But if we do that some business is not sustainable.

Its not my job to prop up the railways or pret (city based worker), but for years they have been happy to make travel expensive, go in strike, and not offer flexible tickets (a recent thing). So apologies if you work in rail on tfl but it's not my problem. Public transport has always been a distant second choice to the car.

This.

[Gecko1978]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

but we as consumers have an option now many of us travelling to citis can work remotely. So put up the ticket price an more staff will ask for that option and the railway will become un sustainable. We never had a clear choice before (we did but 99% of firms were cold re WFH) now consumers do. So next time TFL go on strike see how much impact it has. Again Reap what you sow

[anonymous-user]

I like trains, I try to use trains where possible, and I would like to use trains more in the future.

But at times it feels like the train operators themselves really try to put you off the whole idea of using trains...

Just in this last week I have suffered cancellations, huge delays, and overcrowding, all of which make you think "Perhaps I may use my car next week"

[kingston12]

Gecko1978 said:

but we as consumers have an option now many of us travelling to citis can work remotely. So put up the ticket price an more staff will ask for that option and the railway will become un sustainable. We never had a clear choice before (we did but 99% of firms were cold re WFH) now consumers do. So next time TFL go on strike see how much impact it has. Again Reap what you sow

It's an interesting point, but it does seem that a lot of employers seem to want staff back in 2-3 times a week, and some employees will have less bargaining power than others.

Longer term the more that the rail companies muck about with cutting service levels and pushing up prices the more people are likely to look for a job that comes closer to 100% WFH.

There's bound to be other longer term factors as well. There seems to be a significant number of people bored with WFH now who want to go back into the office full time, but I wonder how many of those will go back to a few days WFH when they remember the negative points of the commute and office.

Then there are the employers who are encouraging people back into the office now, but might change their stance a bit when the next lease break comes up and they an downsize/shut the office and realise the cost savings.

[Gecko1978]

kingston12 said:

Gecko1978 said:

but we as consumers have an option now many of us travelling to citis can work remotely. So put up the ticket price an more staff will ask for that option and the railway will become un sustainable. We never had a clear choice before (we did but 99% of firms were cold re WFH) now consumers do. So next time TFL go on strike see how much impact it has. Again Reap what you sow

It's an interesting point, but it does seem that a lot of employers seem to want staff back in 2-3 times a week, and some employees will have less bargaining power than others.

Longer term the more that the rail companies muck about with cutting service levels and pushing up prices the more people are likely to look for a job that comes closer to 100% WFH.

There's bound to be other longer term factors as well. There seems to be a significant number of people bored with WFH now who want to go back into the office full time, but I wonder how many of those will go back to a few days WFH when they remember the negative points of the commute and office.

Then there are the employers who are encouraging people back into the office now, but might change their stance a bit when the next lease break comes up and they an downsize/shut the office and realise the cost savings.

I like WFH others dont or cant an 100% is not good for some people. But I maintain if you do 1 day a week WFH thats 20% less travel, 2 days 40% can the rail ways cope I doubt it but that is the new world

[irc]

There had been industrial action on the trains for 6 months. Almost zero Sunday services. People have hardly noticed.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scotra...

With the operating contract ending next March not much incentive for management to settle.

With the caveat that I know very little about the railways it seems odd to me that for a 7 day a week service Sundays appear to be staffed by overtime shifts. I ve worked Sundays all my working life which were fostered shifts.

Any time I have been on a train in the last 18 months it has been almost empty. Not the best time to be striking I would have thought as the revenue being lost is not much.

[kingston12]

Gecko1978 said:

I like WFH others dont or cant an 100% is not good for some people. But I maintain if you do 1 day a week WFH thats 20% less travel, 2 days 40% can the rail ways cope I doubt it but that is the new world

Indeed. SWR's figures to justify service reduction show that commuters worked in the office for an average of 4.3 days per week pre-Covid, and will do so only 2.6 days per week from 2022.

I'm not sure where the figures come from. It doesn't seem unreasonable as an assumption, but it conveniently ignores that the trains were hopelessly overcrowded before Covid and that there have been many thousands of new homes built since then, so there will be a lot of new commuters, even if they are only going in a couple of times a week.

I think that SWR could cope for a few years if they kept their old timetable, no chance with these new proposals. It will be different for the other operators, some of whom don't seem to have announced any significant reductions yet.