Grim times for UK rail

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  • AMcWhirter
    Participant

    Many times I have noted here and in the magazine about the enormous sums paid to most rail operators under ’emergency measures.’

    These emergency measures apply to those TOCs who pay franchise fees to the DfT.

    They do not apply to open access operators like Grand Central and Hull Trains who pay no fees.

    They also do not apply to LNER and Northern who are now government controlled.

    With both Liverpool and Manchester in tier 3 the losses on these routes operated by Avanti West Coast can only become greater.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/trains-london-manchester-avanti-west-coast-b1249377.html


    x2000traveller
    Participant

    HMG is paying the train operators to keep services going. They currently are allowed, apparently, a 1.5% margin for doing so and the previous franchise contracts have effectively been set aside. HMG is also paying LNER and Northern with the same goal, although presumably without the margin element. But a large proportion of an operator’s costs are fixed so, although as Simon Calder points out, there must be lots of opportunities to reduced frequencies into Tier 3 areas and save energy/wear etc., larger scale savings would only come if track, staffing and leasing costs were reduced as a result.

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    During the first lockdown mainline rail was slimmed down. Other regions / cities are expected to join tier 3 in the weeks ahead.

    Grand Central is the first mainline operator to announce reduced schedules effective today. As an open access operator it receives no government support (unlike the TOCs).

    I have written a piece for this website and it will be posted later.

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