UK RAIL FARES

I read a letter in Metro yesterday that was so good I want to quote from it. It was from Julian Self of Buckinghamshire.

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So the Association of Train Operating Companies reckons it will always offer "a range of fares to suit every pocket", does it?

Given it (rail) is already massively subsidised by the public purse at a far higher level than the old, state-owned British Rail ever was, and that it has`raised fares above inflation ever since privatisation in the mid-1990s, I rather fancy I know whose pockets these fares are designed to suit. It certainly isn't those who depend on trains to get them to their places of work.

It seems rail companies and successive governments have done their very best to reduce train overcrowding in peak hours ... by making the entire rail experience as unpleasant and uncomfortable as possible.

... At a time when all public services are struggling to provide more for less, it seems these railwaymen (and I use the term in the same spirit as highwaymen) are intent on providing less for more.

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Good man yourself, Julian Self. The overcrowding I can vouch for, as I am at present experiencing it a daily basis between Bristol, where I live, and Newport, where I am working for the next couple of weeks.

... and another thing: in case you don't believe J. Self's assertion that the subsidy is higher now than before rail was privatised in the UK, I have read the same claim in "The Economist", a magazine whose grasp of facts I tend to trust.

BREAKING NEWS: RAIL TRAVELLERS PREFER TRAINS TO BUSES!

Earlier this year, train operating companies (TOCs) in the UK were asked by Network Rail, who own the track and signalling systems, to sign an undertaking that they will use “rail replacement services” only as a last resort. That’s because their research has shown that rail passengers (sorry, customers; we are all customers now), having paid for a rail ticket, prefer to travel on a train and not on a rail replacement service. Did they need to commission research to come to that conclusion?

For those of you who have never had the doubtful pleasure of using them, “rail replacement service” is another way of saying "bus". This euphemism is widely used by train operating companies in the UK.

The issue is not new. A report said that Network Rail “recognises the need for a 7-day railway”. That was in August 2007. What progress have we made since then? See http://www.firstclasspartnerships.com/opinion.php?id=6

My impression is that many other European rail systems handle this problem far better, by doing more of the necessary maintenance work overnight. That’s referred to in the link above.

Going back to the original report, a question that occurs to me is: how do you define “last resort”? If a TOC wants to use a bus – sorry, rail replacement service – they could, of course, find a reason, or excuse, and call it a “last resort.” The BBC report said that Virgin Trains, for example, can sometimes run replacement trains over the parallel Chiltern Railways track between London and Birmingham when their normal route is blocked by engineering work, but they don’t like to do it because (a) their drivers are not familiar with the route, and (b) the cost is higher than using buses. Would either of those reasons qualify as a "last resort"?

I avoid travelling by train on Sundays and will continue to do so until we really do have a "7-day railway".

BRITISH RAIL FARES: SKY-HIGH OR COSTING THE EARTH?

We all seem to agree that improving public transport has benefits for the environment, as well as for quality of life. Well, public transport in the UK is improving, slightly, and not before time. However, the costs are still ridiculously high by international standards, despite what we are told by politicians and the train companies. Earlier this year a damning report by the Passenger Focus group – the first-ever of its kind – compared rail fares in the UK with the rest of Europe. For average commuter journeys (11 – 25 miles) into the respective capital cities, UK fares are (a) the highest in Europe, (b) twice as high as the second highest, France, and (c) four times as high as Italy. Inter-city fares compared equally badly; 87% higher than in Germany; three times those in the Netherlands.
Transport commentator Christian Wolmar says that despite these high fares (and despite having privatised our rail system so as to hand regional monopolies to a small number of operating companies) we are still subsidising rail to a large extent. To what extent, I’d love to know. I’ve heard it said that subsidies are higher than when the rail system was nationally owned in the UK. That can’t be true, can it? If you want to see the BBC’s report on the report, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7897903.stm

When representatives of train operating companies are interviewed about high fares, they always say that if you book early, you can get really good deals. Well, “a chance would be a fine thing”, as the saying goes. Next week I’m heading from Bristol, where I live, to Harrogate in Yorkshire; to visit old friends and also to see my daughter singing in cabaret (had to get that in!) at a hotel in the Dales. Despite checking online several times, well in advance, I have found none of these elusive so-called advance tickets available. Thus I’ll have to pay the “turn up and go” fare. That’s £58 return, based on (a) my senior card, (b) off-peak travel, and (c) avoiding London. If I’d needed to travel before 9 a.m., go via London and been a couple of years younger, it would have been £167. The distance is 224 miles each way … “do the math!” as they say in America.

My fare information source, by the way, was the well-known website branded: “The Train Line: buy cheap tickets ….” Cheap tickets, huh? What would qualify as expensive? I wonder if there is another website that offers “expensive tickets ... because you’re worth it.” Those fares would be truly eye-watering.

This was not an isolated case: in the past few months I have made also made longish journeys to Manchester and to Haverfordwest in West Wales. In neither case was an advance ticket available, despite trying to book at least a week in advance; the ads tell us that advance tickets are available until the day before travel.

By the way, my senior railcard costs £26 a year. That’s a good investment, because I save much more than that. However, in France and (see below) Canada, seniors get discounted travel without paying for the privilege. As I saw on a T-shirt: “I’m a senior: give me my damn discount!”

Re Canada: last week I was there for my nephew’s wedding. Coming back, I discovered that I could get to the airport by Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) subway – or underground as we’d say on this side of the pond – with a connecting shuttle bus for the last couple of miles. The service was frequent, quick, civilised. The one-way fare (one ticket, valid on subway, tram and bus, as always in Toronto) costs just $1.85 Canadian, (that’s about £1.20) for seniors, $2.85 for you youngsters. The distance is 17 miles, (27 km) which is similar to the Heathrow / London distance. Yes, I know that one can do the whole journey to Heathrow by tube, whereas in Toronto it’s tube plus shuttle-bus; but if you live in or near London, you don’t need me to tell you how the costs compare.

I also saw two safety ideas of especial interest to women passengers. Every subway platform has a Designated Waiting Area with an emergency call system, where anyone who might feel vulnerable is invited to stand. Also their buses have a “Request Stop Program,” whereby women travelling alone on a bus between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. can ask the driver to stop at any intermediate point between bus-stops.

So, on both value for money and on passenger (sorry, customer) care: Toronto Transit Commission, take a bow!

Who'd want to run a railway?

It’s good to have an opportunity to defend the UK’s often-criticised rail system. Did I hear you say “a rare opportunity”? Shame on you!

Last Sunday I was travelling, as I often do, from Cheltenham to Bristol Temple Meads. This time I took the first train of the day, the 09.52; I had been surprised that there wasn’t anything earlier, but as the train was half-empty, the operator would no doubt have replied that there’s no demand for an earlier train on a Sunday.

You don’t have to be a railway fan, just a traveller, to know that the franchise for cross-country routes, particularly from my home in the South-West to the North-East and Scotland, is no longer held by Virgin Cross-Country but by the imaginatively named Cross-Country Trains. You might not also know that Cross-Country Trains is / are run by Arriva.

I was chatting to the very helpful guy running the shop (probably his title was Retail Manager or something like it.) I was keen to found out what differences the franchise change had made (I hadn’t observed too many, apart from a new and rather dull external colour scheme on the trains which they had taken over from Virgin) and he was very forthcoming. Yes, there was a definite improvement in the new company as seen from the viewpoint of the employees, all of who had transferred across from Virgin, like the trains.

I told Paul (not his real name) that my only beef about the change was that it had been reported that the main reason Virgin lost the franchise to Arriva (several years earlier than it was due to expire) was because of frequent complaints of overcrowding, i.e. insufficient capacity, but I had seen little change in that regard.

Paul however said that progress is being made and Arriva had just bought five renovated “HST sets”, i.e. the so-called High-Speed Trains. They’re widely used elsewhere in the country; I say “so-called” because the name is a misnomer on this part of the route, where average speeds are not that high due to the frequent bends. He said that these new acquisitions had been extensively renovated and were better than the “Voyager” trains that were previously the only trains on this route. I agreed that the HSTs were more comfortable and roomy, less noisy, and had more capacity compared with the four- and five coach Voyagers. I added that they also didn’t suffer from the smelly-loo syndrome of the Voyagers; the latter always remind me of the scene in the movie version of “Glengarry Glen Ross” when the Al Pacino character, holding forth in a bar, says: “all train carriages smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don’t mind it. That’s the worst thing that I can confess. You know how long it took me to get there? A long time.”

Enough of movies: Paul told me that the five new trains (well, second-hand but renovated) were the most that “the Government” had allowed Arriva / Cross-Country to buy. That’s not the first time that I’ve heard “from the horse’s mouth”, i.e. from a railway employee, that the TOCs (Train Operating Companies) cannot make their own decisions about procurement of new trains and that new trains / rolling stock are allocated centrally. Makes you wonder about the thinking behind privatisation. It seems to be a typical British muddle. You sell off the railways, giving private companies local monopolies. However, their prices, i.e. fares, are controlled to a great extent in a way not many private enterprises are. Then you can take away their franchise if their services are overcrowded, i.e. they don’t have enough seating capacity (e.g. the Virgin Cross-Country case, plus threats of similar sanctions have probably been discussed with First Great Western) but if they want to buy new trains they are told they can’t. The FGW employee who first told me their hands were tied in this respect, said that most new trains are currently being allocated to routes serving the north, where FGW doesn’t operate. I don’t know how true that is. Furthermore, I know that late running can bring financial penalties, but how many times have you been on a train that is held up by a signalling problem (which is clearly outside the TOC’s control), or because another train (which may be from a different TOC) is running late? That's often been my experience.

I know that the Rail Minister Tom Harris (in July 2007) said Arriva's commitment to increase capacity – “it has promised a 35 per cent rise in the number of passenger seats on rush-hour trains by June 2009” - had played a key part in the award. Strange that he used the phrase “[Arriva] has promised to … “ when his department has so much control over whether they can keep that promise.

In short: we love to complain about the railways in this country. Our moans are generally directed at the company whose train we’re travelling on, but who’d want to run a railway company these days, with the messy structure we have? Just stand at a major junction station (say Leeds) and count how many trains arrive and depart every hour; many of them operated by different companies, and using track and signalling systems owned by yet another company. I rest my case.