On 14 March 2017 Network Rail finally published its draft Kent Area Route Study Report. On the same day, quite deliberately, the DfT published its consultation document for the requirements of the next South East rail franchise entitled South Eastern Rail Franchise Public Consultation. Here we take a look at the Route Study report in general and more specifically at the suburban services through London Bridge operated as part of the South East rail franchise.
Not a Route Utilisation Study
This Route Study is quite different in its objectives from the Route Utilisation Studies (RUS) of old. The old RUS reports were largely aimed at people familiar with both railway terminology and practice. They were generally an exercise in looking at what could be done on a route by route basis to increase capacity, then deciding whether it was worth doing so or not. The conclusion of the early RUS reports was substantially decided by Network Rail, with input from others. It was, more or less, Network Rail who got to decide which schemes were worth proceeding with. In later RUS reports, the final decision rested with the DfT but the principle was the same.
This route study draws on various other documents, such as the those published as part of the Long Term Planning Process (such as network studies and market studies), to assess what may be desired, what can be done to achieve it, how much it might cost and what the expected BCR would be. The current practice is not to make a recommendation as to whether or not to proceed with a particular project, but instead it is suggested as a candidate for inclusion into a list of projects to be implemented in future.
The friendly format route study
What is noticeable is that the new format is designed to be much friendlier for the average railway passenger to read. That is, the people for whom the passenger railway is supposedly run. Terms like Train Operating Company (TOC) and digital railway are explained, as is a diagram giving the characteristics of different classes of train. There is also a diagram explaining how the lines are generally referred to – far from trivial when one bears in mind that the name used in passenger announcements may be quite different to that used internally by Network Rail.
Metro area with route names provided
Not so much moving the goalposts as enlarging them
One thing that is becoming more and more apparent in Network Rail’s analysis is how maximum acceptable standing capacity frequently seems to be treated as a target to get near to but not to exceed. Various categories of standing are used:
Seats available – up to 75% seats taken
Seats busy – 75-85% seats taken
Seats full – 85-100% seats taken
Standing – 0-60% standing space used
Congested standing – 60-100% standing space used
Overcapacity – allowable standing space exceeded
Passenger numbers are rising all the time, so “congested standing” risks becoming “overcapacity” in the next few years. It seems that the objective is simply to avoid overcapacity. There appears to be no sophistication, as there is with TfL metrics, to take into account the unpleasantness of the journey caused by lack of seating space or even space to stand in comfort. We seem to have entered an era in which the level of crowding on some routes may be unacceptable to passengers, but if it is within the limits of acceptability laid down by the DfT then nothing will be done about it.
This apparent acceptance of severe crowding – but not overcapacity – is in marked contrast to the draft franchise proposals where the desire to increase space for passengers is repeatedly emphasised. Somewhat ominously there is no specific mention of those passengers being seated, so perhaps the objective is simply to enable commuters simply to stand in greater comfort.
When it comes to measuring how busy trains are, more impressively, the “first instance of standing” on inward high peak trains is recorded. Hopefully, this is pragmatically assessed as there are people who will stand even if every single seat is empty. Nevertheless, this is a good metric to use as an alternative way of measuring “busy-ness”. After all, it is rather annoying to discover that the fact that you had to stand isn’t taken into consideration because, unbeknown to you, it so happened that there were other carriages that had seats available. It is also a metric that favours more trains rather than longer ones and the former is probably what most passengers ideally want.
Keeping capacity targets to a bare minimum
As always seems to be the case with their planning documents, Network Rail seems to be oblivious to the notions of either suppressed demand or deliberately providing more capacity than immediately needed to stimulate housing growth.
The apparent decision to ignore suppressed demand seems to indicate that if small improvements do occur, then we are going to get stories of selective train lengthening that fills up within weeks. This is because people will change their travel habits when they realise the train they really want to catch is now no longer full – and so it fills up again.
An example of suppressed demand
The Hayes line is reported as one of the most crowded. Indeed beyond Ladywell on an inward journey is one of only two stretches of line reported as at overcapacity. There are proposals to address this overcapacity by putting extra carriages on selective trains as and when required. Yet this is a route for which there are plenty of alternative stations available on different lines nearby.
Levels of overcrowding
In the case of the Hayes line, the plans to relieve the overcapacity do not seem to take into account passengers who actually use Catford station but would rather use Catford Bridge, which is almost adjacent to it. The reason they don’t use Catford Bridge (which is the station before Ladywell) is often because the Hayes line trains are either very crowded or full. In a similar way, passengers who know they are unable to get on at Ladywell may well decide that it is more pragmatic to walk to nearby Lewisham where there is a more frequent service and a choice of trains.
A failure to stimulate house building
More worrying than the failure to recognise suppressed demand is the failure to recognise the need to stimulate house building by creating additional passenger capacity in advance of development. Despite TfL and the Mayor emphasising its importance, there is no attempt to get ahead of the curve and stimulate house building in south-east London where opportunities exist. One of the main reasons given by TfL and the Mayor for wanting control over the metro service currently run by Southeastern was because they wanted to increase passenger capacity to attract house building. TfL claimed that Network Rail and the DfT would fail to take this into consideration. On the evidence of this, that claim was entirely justified.
This failure to stimulate housing is even more disappointing when one considers that the Network Rail press release is headlined “More housing and more train passengers“. It turns out the “more housing” part was referring specifically to supporting the projected housing growth in Ebbsfleet Garden City.
After 2024 then what?
The study considers two dates in the future and services that need to be provided by then. Of course, this does not mean we have to wait for those dates to see the plans implemented. The first date is 2024 which, presumably, is aligned with expected date of the end of the next South East rail franchise. The second date is 2044 and there appears to be no obvious reason for choosing it.
Breaking down the report
Due to the relative ease with which the report can be read, we at LR Towers feel that that document does not need a full summary to understand the salient points. Nevertheless, taking a geographic approach to its contents may help things be seen in a different perspective.
London Bridge Metro Services
Our eyes, almost inevitably, first turned to looking at what was proposed for the current Southeastern metro services into London Bridge. For clarity, the report spells out the area covered:
5.5.1. The London Bridge Metro area covers the services that operate from London Charing Cross and London Cannon Street, through London Bridge to Gillingham and Dartford via the three lines, to Hayes, to Sevenoaks via the Main Lines and the Bromley North branch
Much of what is proposed for these services was predictable. Some detail is provided that hitherto had not been available. The big surprise is, however, that other than lengthening existing trains there seems to be no strategic long-term plan.
For current Southeastern metro services through London Bridge, the only real clue as to what is proposed for 2024 onwards is Table 5.12, where, under longer trains and more trains is the comment “Further development work required”. This clearly means further development work is required to find a way of providing the capacity, rather than to determine the requirement because the projected requirement is given in a table.
In fact, more ominously, buried deep down in the text is paragraph 3.8.3 which states:
Beyond 2024 additional services would be needed on all the metro routes (except via Abbey Wood) to meet projected demand. The capacity work has confirmed that although paths are available on sections of each route, the network as a whole cannot accommodate the additional services.
No Govia via Greenwich in draft
The study, perhaps worryingly, is done on the basis of a 2018 timetable that does not include 2tph Thameslink trains going via Greenwich as proposed by GTR. Whether the failure to base the study on a timetable that takes this into account is because it is by no means certain (or even likely) these will be implemented, or whether this is simply because they haven’t got around to modifying the analysis is not clear. Network Rail promise that:
The output from the GTR consultation will be considered as part of the final Route Study.
What “considered” means is not defined.
Tell us what we don’t know
What the Route Study does when it comes to the London Bridge Metro services is more or less tell us what we already know. Significantly, it does not mention power supply problems as an issue that would impede introducing longer trains – something that definitely used to be the case. If fact (in 2.2.14) it makes it clear that this is not a problem for running selective 12-car trains. It does mention, as we already knew, that Networker trains in use on the current Southeastern metro services cannot be made compatible with Selective Door Operation (SDO) except at prohibitive cost. It does not discuss the alternative of replacement trains which is not entirely surprising as that would be very expensive and the Networker trains still have many years of life left in them.
The study reiterates the fundamental problem of providing 12-car platforms at Woolwich Dockyard. It doesn’t explain that problem though, which is that there is a tunnel at both ends of the platforms.
The study makes the point that the line on which Woolwich Dockyard is situated (the North Kent line) doesn’t really need 12-car trains. This is largely due to Crossrail at Abbey Wood providing some relief at the end of 2018. Nevertheless, because of the way trains may well traverse all three Dartford routes (as well the Hayes and Orpington lines) in the course of a day, it wouldn’t really be practical not to do the necessary work at Woolwich Dockyard unless modern SDO-compliant stock were provided.
As well as Woolwich Dockyard, the study reiterates that 12-car Networker stock cannot use platforms 4, 5 or 6 at Charing Cross.
And they do tell us something we don’t know
What is new, or at least new in a published document, is Network Rail’s definitive list of what is required for 12-car operation. On the station platform side, there is, of course, the aforementioned Woolwich Dockyard problem. Rather than be considered an insurmountable obstacle, as it has been in the past, Network Rail have simply put a guideline price of £20-50m on all of the work necessary – including Woolwich Dockyard platform lengthening. Network Rail sources suggest that it won’t be possible to open up sufficient length of tunnel(s) or eliminate completely for less than £10m. It will likely be more than that, but probably not considerably more. To put this in context, a single 12-car train costs around £15-18m.
The only other platform that still needs lengthening is Waterloo East platform B. This will probably be awkward as the station is on a high viaduct. Quite why this was originally omitted is a mystery, but it could be that mitigation measures which were acceptable in the twentieth century are no longer acceptable in the twenty-first.
Most platforms were extended in the aborted attempt to increase the service level to 12-cars in the early 1990s. Those that were cancelled when the project was abandoned due to the recession were completed a few years ago. Work was also carried out on those that were compliant in 1990 but, it seems, were no longer compliant with today’s standards. Most noticeable was New Cross platform B which had further work done on it a few years ago. So, possibly, there is something about Waterloo East platform B which meant is was acceptably long for 12-car trains in the past but isn’t now.
Also necessary, or at least highly desirable, for lengthening trains to 12-cars are a few signalling modifications. These include signalling changes to take into account platform alterations (Waterloo East platform B and one platform at Grove Park for which the signal gantry is already in place). One set of Driver Only Operation (DOO) monitors at Grove Park also needs moving. Also needed are adjustments to multiple track circuits to allow 12-car trains to stand on the Up Crayford Loop Line. Not mentioned in the report is the domino effect taking place here. When one track circuit needs altering that affects the next track circuit up the line, and so that has to be altered as well. This process has to continue until you reach one that can be altered without affecting the next one. As is often the case, what initially appears to be a simple change turns out not to be.
The often forgotten (or ignored) depot issue
Finally, on the subject of 12-car trains, the report mentions the need to reconfigure Slade Green depot for 12-car capacity. No issues are reported in doing so, which makes the residents of LR Towers at least a little bit suspicious. This is because it has previously been reported that a previous Southeastern management attempt to get the DfT to agree to the cost of running 12-car trains on a permanent post-London-Bridge-works basis faltered precisely because of the cost of providing the depot space. Unhelpfully the report states:
5.5.12. Stabling costs have been excluded from the business case in line with other Route Studies
This seems inexplicable. One only has to look at TfL proposal for improving Tube services to realise this can be a critical factor that can turn a favourable proposal into an unaffordable one.
Although the study does not really spell out the issues concerning depots, it does at least mention them. It also lists both depots and stabling locations. The TfL business plan for taking over the metro services from a future South East rail franchise never mentioned depots, yet this would have been crucial as the TfL plan seemed to indicate that a much greater number of longer trains would be introduced.
In the end, it is necessary to look at paragraph 4.8 in the draft franchise specification to find something brutally honest about this issue:
Depots are operating at, or near capacity, which means that new ones may need to be built to enable more, or longer, trains to be introduced on the network.
Bromley North Branch
We have covered the Bromley North branch previously and not much has changed since then. According to the report, there is forecast growth to the extent that it is expected that 10 cars will be needed to run the line in 2024. Before anyone gets too excited, it appears that this is the number of cars per hour, so the 2-car train shuttling between Bromley North and Grove Park every 20 minutes already account for 6 of these 10 cars.
The report mentions an aspiration to provide a service every 15 minutes on this branch. This would be much more beneficial than would first appear since, off-peak, trains would link into the cycle of trains every 15 minutes at Grove Park. Apparently, the existing franchisee, Southeastern, has proposed maintaining one train but having a driver at each end of the train to achieve the necessary fast turnaround time. If this happened then there would be some irony of the shortest trains on the metro network being the ones with the highest level of crewing. Indeed history would almost be repeating itself, as the Bromley North branch was the final service in the former BR South Eastern Division (suburban services area) to retain two crew members on the train. In the end it was the last route to go to Driver Only Operation (DOO) as the Addiscombe branch was worked with guards until it closed.
One can be cynical and suggest that Network Rail would like the idea of two drivers on trains on the branch, as this solution which would not require any action on their part. If a 2-car train running every 15 minutes were adequate (despite a projection that 10 cars, not eight would be required by 2024) then the two driver solution would, at relatively low cost, resolve the main unsatisfactory feature of the branch and avoid the need for some of the more extravagant solutions suggested.
Forecast growth of 100% for the Bromley North branch
Rather amusingly, the Bromley North branch is indicated in the report as the line with the greatest expected growth by 2044 when measured in carriages required. It shows the danger of small values leading to distorted statistics. Replacing a 2-car shuttle with a 4-car shuttle would indeed amount to 100% increase in capacity – the greatest predicted growth of any service in the entire study. Apart from the distortion due to the small numbers involved, bare statistics do not cater for the fact that any capacity increase is dependent on a corresponding increase in capacity on connecting trains at Grove Park. So, apart from anything else, there is a danger of treating the Bromley North branch in isolation.
Metropolitan Curve
At LR Towers, we are pleased to see that our favourite section of track, the Metropolitan Curve (or the Metropolitan Reversible Line to give its proper current name) gets its own mention in this study. For readers who have managed to skip over all the comments in the past about the Metropolitan Curve, here is a short summary:
The Metropolitan Curve spur is, effectively, the third side of Borough Market junction just west of London Bridge. Passenger trains rarely use it, but it was once an important way of getting empty trains out of Cannon Street in morning peak (and, to a lesser extent, into Cannon Street in the evening) whilst avoiding London Bridge. Because of the tidal flow normally present into London Bridge on the Cannon Street side (two lines in peak direction, one contra-peak direction) it is the trains running against the main flow at London Bridge that restrict the capacity of Cannon Street.
The Metropolitan Curve
The Metropolitan Curve was originally triple tracked as the nineteenth-century service pattern resulted in trains always going to Cannon Street on their inward journey then continuing via the Metropolitan curve to Charing Cross, before reversing the procedure on the outward journey. The curve was also connected with a spur to Blackfriars (and from there to the Metropolitan Widened Lines – hence its name). Despite being triple track (not two track as the Route Study states), the one track remaining is on a very tight bend. It was taken out of use as a result of the Thameslink Programme and its future was uncertain.
The Route Study includes the unambitious, but probably expedient, proposal that the Metropolitan Curve should become a siding accessible from the Cannon Street end. This means that a 12-car train could be parked there at the height of the peak. In turn, this means that the capacity of Cannon Street would be one train higher in the high peak than it would otherwise be.
Charing Cross station
Route studies are generally full of well-thought-out proposals. However, the team working on them is surprisingly small and every now and then something slips through which appears to be… well… odd. In the past, for example, we have read about extending the DLR to Hayes and a massive tunnel to supplement the Brighton line in the London built-up area before contemplating any localised surface-level improvements first.
In this report, it does seem that imagination on the subject of Charing Cross – with a suggestion that a relocated Charing Cross station be built on Hungerford Bridge over the Thames. Clearly, the success of the new Blackfriars station has influenced the study team and left them looking to repeat its success. There is also talk of closing Waterloo East station.
Given the useful interchange with Britain’s busiest terminus that Waterloo East already provides, the idea of closing it, even with another station nearby, is quite mind boggling. The benefit to passengers of relocating Blackfriars on the bridge was that it opened up the South Bank. With Waterloo East already in existence, and its closure suggested, one could hardly claim the same benefit from a relocated Charing Cross and the closure of Waterloo East.
Quite what this idea is supposed to achieve is unclear. Certainly, the study does not explain how this could be done without decommissioning, at least temporarily, the popular suspended walkways on either side, severely hampering any construction access to the bridge.
It is tempting to wonder if the proposers know of the severe restrictions in place when it comes to putting any piles in the river in this location, as the tops of the Bakerloo line tunnels are not far from the bed of the Thames here, or of the perpetual fear that there might be unexploded World War II ordnance still buried in the river bed. The likelihood of a bomb being present is remote, of course, but the consequence of disturbing one could be devastating.
One also wonders if the Route Study team are aware of the severe weight restriction on Hungerford bridge itself, which would not be conducive to added platforms. Indeed historically one of the main reasons Southern electrified was not to get rid of steam engines, but to overcome the issue of weight restrictions on Hungerford bridge. This prevented them running steam engines simultaneously on adjacent tracks. Even today the platforms that extend over the bridge are of lightweight construction. In the 1980s half of Hungerford bridge (two tracks and the siding that was on the bridge) was closed for redecking. Despite much lower passenger numbers than today, it was pretty chaotic for passengers. A repeat of something like that today would make the works at London Bridge seem like a minor inconvenience.
Hayes terminating platforms
Less baffling than the Charing Cross proposal, but still somewhat surprising, is the suggestion that in future the two platform layout at Hayes would be inadequate for future (unspecified) additional services. It would seem surprising if the existing platforms could not accommodate 4tph each. One wonders what service is envisaged for the longer term future.
In the same vein, there is, more understandably, concern over conflicting train movements at Orpington if services are going to somehow be increased.
Lewisham Station
Station capacity has not been forgotten and on the London Bridge metro lines there are proposals to improve interchange capacity at Lewisham. For many years Lewisham had interchange passageways beneath the tracks close to the junction itself (the two lines at the station form a ‘V’). These tunnels are narrow – the one leading to platform 4 especially so. When the DLR came to Lewisham, major enhancements were made to the National Rail station to facilitate interchange with it. This also provided an alternative route for interchanging passengers who need to catch their next train from a different platform. Unfortunately, the more recent facilities require a lot of walking and it is not surprising that many people prefer to use the original subways. They may be unfriendly and uninviting, but the distance involved is short.
Subway to and from platform 4 at Lewisham
At Lewisham, it would make a lot of sense if the original subways were enlarged. Alternatively, an overbridge at the same location may be possible, but Lewisham station is already high above ground level so that may not be an attractive option.
Whilst it can be argued that improving interchange at Lewisham is not really necessary, a separate proposal, not mentioned in the Study, does rather depend on this improvement.
Finally, the not-explicitly mentioned option
The report apparently goes to great trouble to hint at, but not spell out, a proposal mentioned in the TfL business case for taking over South East rail metro services. This proposal had the objective of reducing conflict at Lewisham and it was to be achieved by combining the North Kent and Sidcup loop lines to provide a service departing from Cannon Street running via Abbey Wood and returning via Sidcup to Charing Cross (and vice versa). Whilst this would reduce conflict, it would also mean that places like Plumstead and Erith (not served by semi-fast trains) may well be totally denuded of its direct Charing Cross service. The Sidcup line would lose its Cannon Street service but, off-peak at least, the alternative of all trains going to Charing Cross might be welcomed.
In addition to the above proposal, the TfL plan also included concentrating the Orpington services on Charing Cross and the Bexleyheath line services on Cannon Street.
Interestingly, when it came to reducing conflict at Lewisham, TfL also weren’t prepared to spell out what they proposed in their business case. This is, presumably, because they didn’t want to attract negative comment for an idea which would undoubtedly be controversial. Nevertheless, it was very clear from a diagram provided in that document what they proposed doing.
Diagram in the TfL business case for running South East metro rail services
Such a service would certainly reduce conflicting movement at Lewisham, which would make the existing timetable more reliable. On its own, though, it would not add capacity. It would also be much more in line with TfL’s philosophy (and the Turn South London Orange concept) of keeping the routes serving various lines simple and make the passengers change trains if necessary, rather than have a complex network with trains to all destinations and all the problems that brings.
Potential for conflicting moves – Lewisham Junction
One obvious disadvantage of the proposal is the need for more passengers to change at Lewisham – already a crowded station and one not ideally suited to interchange. Hence one reason for the keenness of both TfL and Network Rail to improve interchange facilities there.
The other potential disadvantage is less obvious. Having spent years with a scheme centred on London Bridge that does its best to segregate Charing Cross and Cannon Street flows so one does not impact on the other too much, this proposal neatly restores the dependency by specifically creating an operational route joining the two termini.
The only mention of this proposal in the Route Study is in paragraph 3.8.5, where it mentions the key challenge of conflicting train movements in the Lewisham area. Such statements are repeated in the draft franchise but, again, the proposed TfL solution is not explicitly mentioned.
It is impossible to escape the feeling that everyone knows this is a good idea but is too scared to mention it – let alone introduce it – because they know that it is going to be very unpopular with some people. The ghost of the Wimbledon Loop lives on.
Overall, a disappointment
It is very disappointing to note that back in October 2011 we were lamenting the lack of 12-car trains on the Southeastern metro services. Work on infrastructure changes necessary to introduce 12-car trains was largely completed in the 1990s. Yet here we are in 2017 looking to see if we can have a few more of these by 2024. More disappointing still, there seems to be no real solution offered to even cater for the growth predicted by Network Rail beyond 2024.
In the next part of this series, we will stay in the same geographic area and look at what the report has to say about the long established proposal to extend Crossrail from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet.
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At some point it’s clear either TfL, DfT, or someone else is going to have to bite the bullet of changing the existing route patterns into something simpler and less ‘inter-related’ with other routes. And, like Blackfriars, some people are going to hate it.
Politics getting in the way of running a sensible people-moving system. Again.
Ah, good to see this appear. I’ve been writing my own take on it. I’m curious to know how this compares to SWT’s consultatation and subsequent bidding process? This is of course will have more of Chris Grayling’s stamp on it…
This stood out: “As always seems to be the case with their planning documents, Network Rail seems to be oblivious to the notions of either suppressed demand or deliberately providing more capacity than immediately needed to stimulate housing growth”
This point appears very true with just 4 more carriages for the Bexleyheath line by 2024, and it predicting an average of just 11% growth on Metro routes from 2014-2024 and none at all for the Woolwich line up to 2044.
https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/looking-at-the-next-southeastern-franchise-part-3-no-more-carriages-for-the-woolwich-line-to-2044-and-much-more/
Going for complete Networker replacement but little net increase in carriages?
But I didn’t find the DfT’s document much better. Their housing projections seem conservative to say the least when compared to the London Plan, the GLA’s City in the East report (quoted by the DfT) and SE London borough’s Core Strategy plans, both existing and those now being revised, as I covered:
https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/have-they-got-it-wrong-a-closer-look-at-government-housing-growth-figures-and-the-next-southeastern-franchise/
There’s many examples of growth changing substantially in the past year or two and questions of whether the DfT or NR are on top of this as stated in the article. Charlton has gone from no homes planned in 2004, to 5,000 in 2015, and is now at 8,000+. Yet Ebbsfleet out in Kent seem to garner more attention than most of London, yet numbers there (15k)are dwarfed by SE London (66k+ over the next decade)
Other points of interest – redirecting Angerstein Wharf line at Charlton: https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/charlton-news-demolition-underway-for-new-flats-on-woolwich-road-365-home-development-consultation-and-redirected-rail-line/
But I didn’t see any mention of the Slade Green freight depot approved last month, and how that will limit paths for commuter trains.
Thank you for an interesting article on what is a complex subject. I’ve only skim read the consultation document and the technical appendix to the route study.
It is interesting that you note the study is more readable. I certainly found it to be so. It was much easier to deal with and I also felt, perhaps from my position of little knowledge of these routes, that the NR people had done a reasonable job in looking at the issues. Clearly you’ve spotted some things with your greater knowledge that I’d never spot.
Your point on house building is well made but there is a much bigger problem. One of the people I follow on Twitter and who comments on LR has pointed out that the NR estimates of the scale of planned house building are hopelessly low. There has been a rush of new schemes being proposed in recent weeks and there may well be far more coming. On top of that some committed schemes in build or close to commencement are now larger than NR seems to be aware of. Therefore there must be extremely serious questions to be asked about the analysis of the likely demand along all routes. And this is all before you get to any further stimulus emerging as a result of Crossrail, the release of LU or NHS land or even off the back of NR’s plans. The sense I get is that we have an enormous ticking time bomb here that will readily make a complete mockery of NR’s assumptions for 2024 and beyond. If bidders for the new franchise are not briefed or clued up by the DfT or they don’t their own advice on what is happening to housing then we have all the makings of a disastrous future franchise.
I get a sense that are elements in the NR work where they have taken a view or been told to “hold back” on ideas so that these are left to the franchise bidders to handle. Depot sizes, locations etc would be one example of this. Furthermore things like a final solution for Woolwich Dockyard would seem to be linked to what rolling stock replacement or modification might be proposed. I suspect the DfT want to create “space” for “innovation” (ahem) from bidders hence the lack of a firm direction. It is interesting, though, to see more detail from NR about what TfL’s “Metroisation” would have involved. The contrast with the lack of aspiration from DfT is very stark.
One final comment is that I am left even more depressed by your observations than I was from reading the official publications. I had felt there may be a glimmer of hope of much longer trains running much more consistently but I feel less sure of that now. I do fear that the inner area services are very much “second tier” in DfT’s expectations (see all the hype about improving HS1 services) and that nothing of any great import will be delivered. There is a crucial line in the SE consultation about “lowering the cost of the franchise” which I suspect is the DfT’s overriding aspiration for the franchise.
In terms of depots, is extending Slade Green that difficult? The land beside the existing depot is green belt, but owned by NR. The freight rail depot approved last month is also on green belt, and that will leave about 50 metres (I believe) space between the existing Southeastern depot and the new freight depot. More than enough space it appears for a large number of tracks and buildings as well as access.
As for Lewisham, there’s no explicit mention of opening up the now closed entrance/exit on platform 4. Maybe they didn’t know 800 homes are coming soon on Tesco’s car park, and another 500-1000 just up the road on Leathbridge estate.
Nor did it mention another entrance by Thurston street. Another huge development here on the retail park (about 1000 homes if memory serves) which has been featuring a new station entrance on its consultation material. Do NR know? The authors of this report don’t seem to.
As the article concludes, this isn’t very impressive and suggest the DfT and NR are way behind the curve on housing plans and forthcoming demand. TfL showed more insight.
Agreed that the “standing” criteria seem to have changed & not for the better.
Perhaps this could be corrected by lobbying your MP, I wonder, given that it is, essentially, a political issue?
Similarly, the failure, clearly noted, to address undercapcity &/or providing services in advance, rather than reactively is probably a “political issue too & the magic word here is: “Treasury”.
12-car trains – where? When? … exactly – very dissapointing
Grr I meant[With reference to the entrance/exit at] Platform 4 at Lewisham which was closed around 4 years ago.The new entrance shown in housing plans can be seen in the second image here with a new “station square” https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/lewishams-cluster-of-towers-to-see-new-additions/
AlisonW says “Politics getting in the way of …”
Or history. Nobody is demanding a choice of London Terminal from, say, Chingford. They’ve never had one. But many people in southeastland have had that choice for the last 100 years or so, and they will fight hard to keep it. However inconvenient that is for train operators or planners.
The gap between train and platform on platform 2 at Lewisham is massive. At certain points on the platform it is both height and width.
This could have been resolved before the housing developments around the station got underway. This included diverting rivers.
@ Malcolm – fair comment about lack of choice of terminal. However the commuters in SE London and further afield are being deprived of a choice too. One between a rather dull seeming [1] franchise and a potentially more relevant and expansive option from TfL. Of course they may not want the latter at all but I do rather feel they should have the chance to choose.
[1] as things stand today. May change when the bids are in but I’m not holding my breath.
Re WW, fromthemurky… et al.
One alternative to increasing depot space (but not stabling space) with a larger SE Metro fleet is to replace the networkers with modern higher reliability lower maintenance stock so more stock can be serviced with the existing equipment.
An example can be seen on SWT where replacing the original DC traction equipment with more modern an reliable AC as resulted in enough extra capacity to maintain 30x new 5car 707units as well as few extra cars i the middle of the 458s and 6 extra 458s.
THe stabling space issue is cheaper and more flexible to solve.
If you look at DfT’s statement on their consultation:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/south-eastern-franchise-consultation-launched
Item 1 longer trains and more capacity.
In the DfT consultation document itself:
5.4 Based on what we have heard so far,
our priorities are:
The DfT franchise consultation document does confirm the answer to a perennial LR question on page 24:
I.e. the Bromley South (and beyond) via Herne Hill Thameslink services return to their pre 2009 home at Southeastern where they ran to the Blackfriars bays.
Re: ngh –
“One alternative to increasing depot space (but not stabling space) with a larger SE Metro fleet is to replace the networkers with modern higher reliability lower maintenance stock”
Absolutely. And new stock may have other lower operating costs, and lower capital repayment too. And new trains score well in bid evaluation. And the risks inherent in major upgrade programmes to older rolling stick are avoided. Blithely stating that Networkers have many years of life left, as the article does, does not necessarily reflect reality (particularly as they consist of two distinct builds with different technical characteristics (notably the Hitachi traction upgrade on the BREL/Eversholt fleet).
“An example can be seen on SWT where replacing the original DC traction equipment with more modern and reliable AC as resulted in enough extracadpacity to…”
That was indeed a partial justification. Whether it is ever fully realised we should find out next month when the winning bid is revealed.
Regarding what is said in the article about dates, I would have thought that 2024 is a bit early for the end of the next franchise, but it is the end of Control Period 6 and hence a logical horizon for investment considerations. And 2044 will be the end of CP10 (aka half a century since the split-up of British Rail and the formation of Railtrack).
Fromthe murky….
There is mention of the “Slade Green” freight depot & interaction with a putative CR1 extension, but it’s elsewhere in the report.
WW
Your points about DfT’s lack of ambition &/or allowance for extra housing & transport necessary is probably a left-over from their old “Ministry of Roads” days – also they are probably believing that”Driverless cars will make public transport obsolete” (Again). How long it will take to kill that particular meme I shudder to think.
FromTheMurkyDepths,
Thanks for providing additional details about the housing issue.
I do feel that no-one has really got to grips with Lewisham station – and that is before we talk about Bakerloo line extension. There seems no evidence of any co-ordination with NR, TfL and the local council appearing to implement their own plans without regard to the others. I may be totally wrong but that is how it appears to me.
I removed what I had written about Angerstein Wharf as the article was getting a bit long. I may cover freight separately.
I don’t know how easy or hard extending Slade Green to handle longer trains would be. I was hoping that the study would cover this. As you say, it doesn’t look hard but stabling space do seem to be an issue. Whether this is genuine or making a mountain out of a molehill I do not know. There may also be an issue of getting all the trains out in the morning before the peak period but I presume that just having longer trains would not make this significantly more difficult.
Walthamstow Writer,
I fear we may be back to the days when politicians are deluded into thinking they can provide a list of challenges to potential franchisees and they will relish the challenge and come up with a desirable solution at minimum cost that has eluded everyone else up to now.
It would be interesting to see how many bids they get. I suspect not many.
ngh, Balthazar,
I was expecting my comments on the longevity of Networkers to be challenged but I really don’t see the case stacking up to replaced them.
Trains that were built new, as opposed to cobbled together with parts of existing trains that have been withdrawn from service, tend not to get scrapped early and, if some electric units are to be prematurely scrapped, I suspect there are better candidates.
An alternative suggestion from within the industry is to reconfigure (some of) the existing Networkers as 6-car units. This would be done by removing some of the cabs. There would certainly be challenges as equipment may have to be redistributed between the 6 cars and removing the cab would not be trivial.
The benefits of 6-cars with a cab at each end are that the trains will be marginally shorter. It is not a lot but it is enough so that they can use platforms 4-6 at Charing Cross. Also, because you have fewer cabs you cut down on maintenance and increase stock reliability. It has been suggested that these two points, which would help reduce time spent on maintenance, might be sufficient on their own to justify doing the work. If it was a workable solution it would be much cheaper and resolve most of the issues that mean that new stock is suggested. You will still need to sort out Woolwich Dockyard but in the greater scheme of things that might not be very expensive.
@Balthazar/PoP/ngh – Another thing that weighs heavily in favour of refurb is the effect of discounting. In the refurb now, replace later scenario, the inevitable eventual full replacement cost is going to be 10-15 years away, and so will appear in the calculation as a small fraction of doing it now.
If the Greenwich line does not need extra capacity, then what benefits does the proposed Luton – Rainham service bring, apart from adding an additional London (terminus)?
Is GTR seeing more capacity being required than the RUS?
Does two fewer trains going to Canon Street from the Greenwich line, due to the Thameslink service, permit 2 additional services to Canon Street from elsewhere? Or would the conflicts at the North Kent Junction prevent this, and thus cause a reduction of services to Canon Street?
After saying devolution was not a good idea anymore, this was a golden opportunity to offer something better than TfL was offering, but instead we just have more of the same. Perhaps the reason this study is so vague on possible enhancements is because they know there won’t be any significant amounts of money available for enhancements, and what money is available is more likely to be spent on higher-profile initiatives.
@Chris L: Sorting out Lewisham would be an absolutely massive job, causing huge disruption to all services for years (think London Bridge size). Even then it would work best if the TfL plan is executed.
Platform 2 does have issues, but it’s probably like that due to the freight trains that go through there.
I have slightly reworded the effect of the TfL plan to reduce conflict at Lewisham as it was pointed out to me that there was an instance where I originally referred to Charing Cross when I meant Cannon St. It is the paragraph headed by “Finally, the not-explicitly mentioned option”.
Greg suggests lobbying your MP may “correct things”. No chance. Mine is lobby fodder who will follow the party line. The only area he’s allowed to express an independent opinion on is additional capacity at or downstream of the Dartford Crossing. Because, of course, that’s a spat between two MPs of the same party (at least on this side of the river).
He even answered one of my questions by just forwarding on, without comment, the banal official response from the DfT. So much for representation. Though I did call him out on that one.
Hi – I’ve never understood why the Networks don’t have SDO facility? Don’t the older BREL units Class 455/456s on Southern/SWT have them?
Networkers do have a form of SDO but its never been used I believe. It shuts out the front or rear carriage. Does it still work?
If it does could some derogation to regulations be made to enable it? That will be cheaper than rebuilding Woolwich Dockyard (which can take 11 carriage trains) and Charing Cross, where the platform by car 12 is very narrow when arriving.
That’s still mean doing some other work at other points which seem easier and cheaper.
@Ed: There is a sign at the end of Platforms 4-6 at Charing Cross:
“Networker” is in the blue band and under it “SDO F” as two lines….
But I’ve never ever seen a 12 coach Networker train in those platforms, always 10 coaches or less…
@ Ngh – yes there are nice little references to possibly expanding capacity but the overall theme in the DfT consultation is much more towards bolstering longer distance services and especially those using HS1. The DfT does not have good form in understanding how to properly improve inner area services especially when fares are constrained by a pesky PTE or TfL like organisation.
@ Greg – I don’t see a conspiracy with the DfT’s view on housing. It is much more likely that they are simply not up to date nor are Network Rail. As “Mr Murky Depths” has pointed out the volume and pace of development has picked up considerably in SE London. As is also pointed regularly here and in the article DfT, NR and the TOCs are not as well equipped as TfL to model demand changes and are also not so well “connected” with the strategic thinking emanating from City Hall and the Boroughs. For the sake of current and future passengers we must hope that the response to the consultation highlights what looks to be a serious gap in forecasts.
@ PoP – I suspect you are right about the “new era” we find ourselves in under Mr Grayling and also right about the possible lack of appetite from the usual suspects in bidding for South Eastern. I wonder if the “bidding” will end up as a competition between Govia and Trenitalia (wild guess on my part).
See the sign at the bottom here
RE: Graham H (at 08.55) – but does that consideration weigh on the minds of the people who actually decide whether to refurbish or replace a fleet of trains, i.e. the winning franchise bidding team?
The owner of the asset with an ongoing requirement for the output of that asset will indeed see it that way. However, the team bidding to win a train operating franchise sees an item of rolling stock in terms of:
1. A monthly (say) capital repayment charge to the lessor
2. A monthly operating cost
3. A monthly revenue from selling its capacity
4. A means of satisfying the quality requirements of the invitation to tender
Taking these one by one:
(1) is a function of capital cost, the financing cost and the length of remaining life of the asset – so it is quite possible, under the right circumstances, for a fixed monthly charge to be lower for a new train than an old one, especially when the existing charge for the older one needs to be hiked for the capital repayment of whatever major upgrade it requires, over the shorter future operational life of the older train compared to the new one*
(2) is likely to be lower for a new train than an old one (lower energy use, lower track access charges, lower maintenance requirements)
(3) may well be higher for a new train, as it can be designed for maximising capacity whereas this may not be possible for the older one (e.g. structure or gauging considerations prevent maximum passenger occupancy, door aperture width limits practical capacity)
(4) is very likely to favour new trains
*Noting that we are currently in a situation where older trains are being replaced “early” (as their owners would see it) by newer trains that are assumed to have a “full” life, with capital investment rentalised accordingly over that “full” life. Should the financiers start to worry that this scenario will repeat itself with the next generation of trains, the capital repayment charges for new trains will rise as a result of the shorter assumed working life.
In any case, the Networkers are not actually in the first flush of youth, even if that makes those of us who remember them as the up-and-coming thing feel old.
Re: PoP (at 08.16) – the six-car Networker concept is intriguing but I fear very difficult (= expensive = high rentalised capital charges for the lessee). It has to involve converting driving cars to intermediate vehicle, as a 6-car unit will need at least three motor vehicles and in the case of the Networkers these are the driving cars, but can the reduction in length be achieved simply by replacing tightlock couplers with bar couplers, or does it require complete re-engineering of the drawgear arrangements at the (ex-)cab ends?
Nick @ 12:47
SWT’s 455/456 do not have SDO, and apparently the rationale for extending all the platforms on the main suburban side (via Wimbledon) was that the 455/456 could not ever be economically fitted with SDO.
On the Windsor side outer routes where the stock will be 450, 458, or 707, a few stations are keeping their short platfoms.
RE: Paul S, Nick Biskinis – and the retrofitting to Class 458 (which is technically closer to ASDO* fitment to an older** train than a newer one) is apparently somewhat lacking in reliability.
* ASDO: Automatic Selective Door Operation, i.e. not dependent on the judgement of a staff member to determine which doors open.
*In this case, older = not fitted with Train Management System (although the 458s are so fitted for other functions, the ASDO system does not use it).
@Balthazar -bankers also use discounted cash flow . The difference between them and the department, if there is one, is in the appraisal project life. The Department, because it is buying the railway in perpetuity will assume a rolling programme of asset replacement. Bankers do not usually make such an assumption, but they will be interested in the cash flow generated by the assets throughout their refurbished life, and therefore in the rentals that can be charged for the follow-on franchise,and this is,in effect, the link between DfT’s time horizon and that of the private sector .
Ed,
The trouble with the previous form of SDO, for years common on the Underground, is that it is not current best practice and furthermore does not comply with the [possibility of an accident must be] as low as reasonably practical principle. It did when it was installed because it was state of the art at the time.
I very much doubt if you could get derogation. I am sure they would have tried that if they wanted it. If the SDO were in current use then it might be different but you would be unlikely to get it for something that is treated as new when there is something much better. As far as I am aware there are no situations today in the UK where doors are manually cut out.
Network Rail are hitting a similar problem in spades where they have raised bridge in advance of electrification then the rules concerning electrification clearances are changed without any reasonable warning. Existing overhead wire in use is protected by grandfather rights but that is of no help when the wire isn’t even up yet.
Balthazar,
I am not an expert on these things but I think you are trying to make this conversion to 6-car units sound more difficult than it would be. I would image your first, and possibly only, batch would be created by combining a 4-car 465 and a 2-car 466 which, I presume, wouldn’t have the complications you describe and I don’t really understand.
The plans for Charing Cross, will they always be extending/rebuilding towards Waterloo East? What about expanding north, maybe by moving the barriers towards the road or upstairs/downstairs. I guess the offices overhead aren’t due a replacement and it’ll be almost impossible without that.
RE MikeP @ 11.09 Dartford crossing
New Lower Thames Crossing Announcement. See:
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/news/crossing-news-expected-this-week-122704/
The wait goes on… Politics rearing its ugly head again!
[Can we please all not expand this and keep on topic. PoP]
@Toby: Just not practical, there are the vaults underneath full of stuff and the hotel upstairs… You need quite a substantial concourse as well, hence Network Rail removed the shops in the middle and shifted the toilet around quite a few years ago.
The station shifts a lot of people in the rush hour and any delays/problems fill the concourse as it is, in next to no time whenever that happens….
Another problem is that platform 1 & 2’s island platform is really too narrow to handle non-level access…
Southern Heights,
It might not be practical to move the buffers back but I can’t see why they can’t investigate having a lower concourse as well to help the passenger flow a bit. There is an absolutely enormous nightclub under those arches. The platforms are wide enough in the middle to have stairs and the obligatory lift.
Whilst closing a popular place of enjoyment is never good for publicity, it should be possible to relocate the nightclub elsewhere so that users are not greatly disadvantaged. Whereas station concourses have to be next to the platforms.
Of course, this doesn’t solve the problem of the platforms being only just long enough or even not quite long enough. Nor the fact that they are very narrow at the Hungerford Bridge end.
In regards to the Lewisham routing simplification problem, I wonder if the reason it’s hinted to, but not specifically mentioned, is to ‘encourage’ bidders to suggest & go through with it?
This would enable the franchisee to take the political fallout whilst the DfT & Network Rail appear blameless. The DfT certainly have form with this approach what with the Southern/Mersey Rail/etc Driver Only (door) Operation saga.
Re: Graham H – I’m rather unclear on the subject of our disagreement. All that you say is true. But it is also an established fact that older trains that could have a longer life can be displaced by new build; one only has to look at the East Anglia franchise, where not only stock that could have been upgraded for a longer life (Mark 3s, the majority of Class 321, possibly Class 317), not only stock which had an upgrade underway (Renatus Class 321), but even stock that had been upgraded or had been – near enough -since build (Class 156, 170, 360 and 379) are being displaced by new build.
It must be at least plausible that the same could happen to one or both Networker fleets.
Re: PoP – sorry if I was unclear. I understand there is a length restriction on 12-car Networker formations, such that they can only be formed of 3×4-car Class 465, which arises from the driving cars being sufficiently longer than the intermediate cars that 2×4-car+2×2-car won’t fit (somewhere). If this restriction still applies, then little is achieved by converting a 465 and a 466 into a single unit without somehow shortening the cab ends. I have no idea whether this would be the automatic result of changing couplers to the intermediate type, but I suspect not.
Another issue is that if 466s are involved then you are talking about the Met-Camm/Angel fleet which does not have the Hitachi traction, does not regenerate in braking and is, I believe, considered to have the second-best of the two mechanical designs.
@Balthazar/PoP
I understood the 6-car proposal to be such that a 12-car train has only four cabs instead of eight. Whether you create the extra two cars by removing both cabs from a 466 and inserting it in the middle of a 465 or splitting a 465, removing the cabs, and using two of the cars in each of two other 465s, the outcome would be the same – a six car unit with three powered cars. The latter arrangement would allow an all-Hitachi (or all-Met-Camm) unit and would require only one cab to be replaced per six car unit.
Where you find the hardware to replace the cabs with gangwayed ends is another question, but if the total fleet is to be reduced you may be able to cannibalise some units (presumably the Met-Camm ones if they are seen as inferior).
Conversion of a driving car to a non-driver is certainly not impossible. SWT converted a spare driving trailer to a non-driving power car to replace the one squished by a concrete mixer at Oxshott.
(“Instead of six” that should read, unless there are two 466s in the formation)
@PoP – Isn’t the “not explicitly mentioned” route simplification spelt out fairly clearly – with proposed routes and frequencies – in the technical appendix to the draft RS?
Re the Networkers
Just because they have loads of life left in them doesn’t meant they will stay – the recent Anglia franchise proves that if the bidder makes a convincing enough case then ministers are quite happy to displace even more recent builds like those Electrostars used to Stansted. Also replacing the Networkers might get them brownie points if the displaced units are sent to the Coastway runs from Brighton (with a revised traction package so no signalling mods are needed of course)
Re depot space:-
Some recent awards for new trains have seen brand new depots created and operated by the builders NOT by NR or TOCs. Examples include Northim depot at Southampton, the new dept at Northampton for LM or the Thameslink one at Three Bridges or the new one to be built at Maningtree for the new Anglia fleet. Given the DfTs desire to embrace free market principles telling NR not to consider depot space (and allow new fleet builders to propose solutions) complements that agenda nicely. Yes TfL might have considered depot space – but that is not how HM Government see things regarding the National Rail network and NR do wht HM Government tell them!
Re lack of taking into account housebuilding:-
Well that shouldn’t be a surprise. Since when has NR or the DfT had any say in housebuilding? Outside London that competency clearly lies with local councils or the Department for Communities and Local Government both of which have very little involvement with transport provision. Hence the only two big housing schemes mentioned (e.g. Ebsfleet) are ones which the said Central Government department is supposedly championing. In any case the Treasury would be the first to complain if NR / DfT started spending money on things deemed none of their business. – and housing planning is manifestly not their responsibility, even if it does impact on said departments decisions
Re general moans along the lines of “well TfL would do …”
Once again I fear those drawing up articles for LR tend to lose sight of the fact that due to TfLs linkage with the Mayor and the GLA, TfL is uniquely qualified to do things that no other council or transport body in England (outside what used to be known as the regional PTEs) is able to do. NR, more than ever before does what the DfT tells it to – who are in turn under continued pressure by the Treasury to spend less and interfere less in the workings of the free market. As such it any surprise that this report compares unfavorably with something TfL would produce. It may sound good berating NR for not being TfL – but such a comparison is completely null and void given the very different political bodies each is accountable too. Ultimately to keep the LR community happy and implement the things TFL do, you need Rail Devolution to happen. Until then, tough – you get what the Transport secretary and a free market loving Conservative Government tells you with respect to NR services and its hardly a surprise if people feel they fall short (be it current arrangements or planning for the future).
Re: Phil – you appear to be making the assumption that new trains will automatically be more expensive to the operator than older rolling stock (and so “a case has to be made” to the funding authority). I have been trying to get the point across that this ain’t necessarily so – as it stands now, it is entirely possible that new trains are the rational economic option compared to improving existing ones. Have I been so unclear?!
Re the difficulties of interchange at Lewisham. Difficult to see how extra circulation space can be created. Someone (not sure if it is tfl or LB Lewisham) has just spent a fortune reconfiguring the road layout outside the station – making it even worse but that’s getting off the point. To create extra circulation space between platform 2 (towards Hayes-Hither Green) and platform 3 (from Blackheath) is likely to require closure of the newly rebuilt bus/taxi only road. The new build skyscraper apartments right outside the station mean there is no space available to reroute that road, so buses would no longer be able to stop right at the station. It’s ironic but expanding the rail circulating space could reduce the effectiveness of Lewisham as a transport interchange. Hard to see how to improve things without throwing big bucket loads of money at this….
PoP: Yes, there is a nightblub under Charing X station, though from my distant memory it isn’t “absolutely enormous”. There are, however, also many other facilities under the metals, including a theatre, making the cost of closing them all very expensive.
Regarding depot space, is it possible / practical to “double deck” such facilities? If it can be done for stations it would seem logical that storage could be doubled likewise.
“Re lack of taking into account housebuilding:-
Well that shouldn’t be a surprise. Since when has NR or the DfT had any say in housebuilding?”
It’s not about the DfT or NR having a say in housebuilding plans (though that would be wise in any rational system) but at least looking at what the latest strategic plans from councils are saying. It looks like they havn’t done so – not any latest versions any way. That’s elementary stuff surely?
Re Lewisham – any new platform interchange capacity further eastwards from the existing passages has to cross the River Ravensbourne, as well as the said DLR station, bus stand and sundry tower blocks.
The Bakerloo line extension proposals show the footprint of platforms and circulation areas concentrated at the London end of the station too, so one concludes the requisite capacity upgrades will involve the existing sets of passages. Given the likely passenger transfers from Southeastern to reach Charing Cross and beyond by Tube there, it will have to be substantial… but I suppose that’s for another thread – as is my countering that as a regular bus, bike and car user, my experience is that the new road layout is mostly a great improvement.
Re Bathazar “you appear to be making the assumption that new trains will automatically be more expensive to the operator than older rolling stock”
Not so. Ordinarily engineering logic and a traditional financing approch would say that the Networkers (built early 90s) are good for another two decades at least – this is presumably what you are describing.
However as I highlighted, if the Government are prepared to let the new Anglia franchise and replace the ENTIRE fleet (including Electrostar EMUs barely 5 years old, Desiros just over 10 years old, as well as the BR 80s built EMU + DMU fleet as well as the loco hauled stuff) then to be frank all bets are off as to what might happen in future franchises.
As such its quite possible that the SE Networker fleet could be replaced (either in part or completely) with a new depot built to look after the new stock – as is happening with the Anglia franchise.
@ Phil – dearie me you really do hate TfL don’t you? I haven’t read anything in the article or comments that says TfL are some panacea. There are three points to make about housebuilding. No one is expecting NR to be an expert on this topic as it is not their core competence. However I would expect them to have sought out the best and most timely info they could to support their demand forecasts. If they couldn’t do this then there should at least be a caveat which says that a review would be undertaken and forecasts updated if material differences were found. Secondly they do not operate in some sort of void where they cannot speak to local authorities and their planners. Finally NR rather dug their own grave by splashing their own press release in the context of the Kent Route Study supporting house building and economic growth. People were bound to check to see if their assumptions were correct. I would also add that Sir Peter Hendy was very vocal about transferring some of the breadth of awareness and commercial opportunities that he saw in TfL to NR in order to improve their planning and to raise revenue from building houses on surplus NR land.
I don’t think we need to be told about the need for rail devolution for there to be material change on South Eastern’s inner commuter services. It has been extensively discussed before with a wide range of opinion as to the adequacy or otherwise of TfL’s plans as released to the public. The point now is that Mr Grayling has ruled that option out. He believes his department and the bidders can do better job overall than a split franchise structure would have done. You can hardly expect people not to look at what his department and his “tame” infrastructure company have put in the public domain and then make a comparison. I remain convinced that TfL would have done a better job overall and over the longer term but I equally accept that their chance has gone (for now) and that in a number of respects things clearly went wrong at the last minute in what was put forward (see multiple comments from ngh over different LR articles). We have to hope that against all the signs so far that someone manages to pull a nice cuddly fluffy bunny rabbit out of the hat and that the new franchisee both promises *and* delivers vastly more capacity, better off peak services and has an agreed and funded plan with NR to sort out the pinchpoints and increase station capacity. If that doesn’t happen then I will continue to moan and you can continue to either ignore me or conclude that I’m some sort of deluded idiot for wanting to see better rail services in SE London. 😉
Re Ed @2241
The point is unlike with TfL, there is no easy way for that data generated by councils to be passed to NR. Most local councils in Kent are actually pretty rubbish at detailed planning – I have a friend who works in the field and his stories make it clear the situation is very hit & miss. Some councils have fairly detailed plans while others – under pressure from NIMBYs not to ‘ruin’ the picturesque Kent landscape are deliberately very vague about what might be built and where.
Within London, large developments have to be checked by the GLA and get mayoral approval meaning they can ensure TfL involvement at an early stage and feed back their strategic agenda for the future. This mechanism is entirely missing outside London – the nearest thing to the GLA in terms of overseeing large developments being the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)
Kent is also is a considerably larger area than SE London and has significantly more Councils to consult, particularly as the DCLG (the closest thing to the GLA) essentially passes the buck and is quite content to leave all such decisions to local councils and big property developers to argue over. This fits in well with their idea of ‘small Government and ‘devolving power away from the center’ – but plays havoc for strategic thinking where you actually want to draw up a detailed plan for the whole area covered by the Franchise.
All this significantly increases the workload for NR – and the cost of preparing reports such as this one, which doesn’t go down well with the DfT, who want NR to spend less, not more on things. The DfT also have a habit of trying to shift strategic planning onto Franchisees rather than actually show leadership – the example of Anglia getting an entirely new fleet being an example where the Government essentially told bidders “its up to you” *. As such the DfT may have been quite happy that NR hasn’t taken future planning into account and believes that is the job of future franchise bidders – who are expected to be ‘innovative’ in their plans.
The upshot is this. TfL do what the GLA tell them to do – which includes planning for future large housing developments. NR get told what to do by the DfT – who regard forward planning to be a matter for local councils and developers and nothing to do with them.
*(which rather contrasts with FGW / VTEC who have been forced to take on the significantly overpriced DfT procured class 800s high speed trains rather than several rival rolling stock solutions from other builders that would have cost the taxpayer much less).
@Phil
I’m sorry, but your arguments don’t seem to add up to me. I don’t think any commentator is suggesting that NR should be looking to take into account developments (or possible developments) of 2 or 3 houses, and probably not even as small as 20 or 30. It is the big developments that make a difference. The scope for these is quite limited and every council – no matter how scared they are of NIMBYs – knows where they are, as do their residents. Councils have been under an obligation for some years now to identify sites for large scale housing developments and CLG is ensuring this happens by setting housing targets for each council to achieve. The work needed to identify these is not the great. Nor, really does the fact that Kent has a few (not that many) more local councils than SE London really make it that much more difficult.
It also strains credibility,ity that DfT would wish NR to produce a long term plan but not be bothered if the plan is credible or not by making inaccurate assumptions. If there is no interest in long term strategic planning, why go through the charade in the first place?
@quinelt
“Kent has a few (not that many) more local councils than SE London”
Kent has twelve district councils (plus the Medway Unitary Authority).
South Eastern serves nine London boroughs plus the City, although housing is only likely to be an issue in five of them because the other four (Camden, Newham, Westminster, Lambeth) only have one station each
@Phil -it is extremely easy for NR (and DfT) to accumulate data about forward housing plans. Each local planning authority is obliged to produce a Local Plan; these are being updated as we write. Each LP has to set out how it will deliver the authority’s allocated number of housing units; if it doesn’t, the LP will be rejected at public inquiry (as indeed happened with my own local authority’s first attempt at this). That clarity means maps and tables of at least strategic sites (100+ units in our case – enough to be of interest at, say, station level of granularity). Adding them up to line of route level is the work of half a morning.
Nor, these days, can local planning authorities get away with the sort of vagueness you describe. Since the infamous changes to the PPG16 planning guidance, local planning authorities are faced with the presumption in favour of development unless they can demonstrate otherwise – you may bet your bottom dollar that LPAs therefore do their d—dest to ensure that site selection is tightly sewn up.
Local plans look 15 years ahead. Change will therefore be less noticeable over the much shorter life of an individual franchise.
Re. re-configuring the Networkers: which is likely to be easier, re-building a cab end into a non-cab end, or transferring the traction equipment from a motor car to a trailer? My instinct would say the latter. In which case wouldn’t the most sensible option be to take two 465s and reconfigure them into a 6-car unit and a 2-car unit? Then the 466s and the new 2-car units can be cascaded elsewhere, and the 6-car units kept, to be supplemented by new stock as required.
Isn’t there a problem with the loading gauge of the Networkers, that effectively prevents from being cascaded to other 3rd rail territories?
@John Kellet
What would you do with all those two-car 3rd-rail-only units? As most of the existing class 466s currently work in 10-car formations (with 2xClass 465) they would be redundant in a 12-car railway – even without adding more by converting 465s into 6+2 car formations
There are 93 GECAlsthom (Metrocammell) units, including the 43 2-car class 466s and the 34 outer-suburban 465/9s, and 97 BREL/ABB units.
Graham H is absolutely right about availability of population/housing forecasts. I had to do it for water supply planning reasons back in the 1980s. I was pleased to look up the current populations of those same areas recently and found that my overall totals were almost spot on.
The recent recession will have meant a lot of forecasts will have had to be revised. However, London’s pause in house building was a lot shorter than that elsewhere, and we all know that the population has been steadily increasing whether new housing is available or not. That last factor might have thrown some forecasts into doubt, as the old system of counting house forecasts and multiplying by occupancy forecasts has been made trickier in that the growth rate of multi-occupancy has to be factored in too.
Whatever the difficulties, NR should have easy access to the best data available.
@timbea
Well I was thinking they could be cascaded to lesser-used rural lines around the country, but I confess I’d forgotten about the the third-rail issue… I guess they could be converted to AC, or just scrapped…
No comments on the Metropolitan Curve? Ok, I’ll bite.
Let’s re-instate the old Waterloo-to-Waterloo East connection [SNIP]connect it to Moorgate[SNIP] I’ll put my crayons away now.
[Sorry, may be amusing, but if left this would have provoked explanations, from people who took it seriously, of why it can’t or shouldn’t be done, which would be too distracting. Malcolm]
Andrew M
Please do put your crayons away. One presumes it’s a joke.
Regarding Woolwich Dockyard:
At one point wasn’t there a suggestion to rebuild the station further down the line towards Woolwich Arsenal and closer to the new flats that are replacing the Connaught, Morris Walk and Maryon Road Estates as well the new flats as part of the Charlton master-plan?
RE: JohnKellett – “re-configuring the Networkers: which is likely to be easier, re-building a cab end into a non-cab end, or transferring the traction equipment from a motor car to a trailer?”
… and is either of those options easier than retiring them as soon as possible and leasing new rolling stock that:
– may well have lower lease costs;
– has lower operating costs;
– can definitely have the interior configuration required for the service;
– has wider doors to minimise dwell times;
– does not involve a major and complex upgrade to existing, used equipment
– makes the bidder more likely to win the franchise
…?
I am getting a little baffled at the apparent obsession with a supposed (but in reality non-existent) “need” to keep rolling stock in service when there are likely to be better alternatives from the point of view of those taking the decision, i.e. the franchise bid teams.
A train is a machine that will always be superseded by an alternative offering something better at some point. As I suspect we might see when the South West franchise is awarded next month, and then when the West Midlands franchise is awarded in June.
Maolcom: Be fair! At least he didn’t suggest extending the unmentionable [self-SNIP]!
😉
@Balthazar
The ROSCOs [companies that own trains and lease them to operators] will be as aware of this as you are. Currently it has not been prohibitively expensive to lease new stock because additional stock was needed, and it has been OHLE [overhead line] stock which could be exported if needed. If we reach the point where supply is greater than demand then some ROSCOs are going to have surplus units on their hands which will work out very expensive for them. The risk of surplus units – especially 3rd rail which can’t be exported to many places without significant modification – will push up the price of leasing stock, but it will disproportionately hit brand new stock (high value) and old stock (very high risk) over mid-life (partially depreciated but not undesirable) stock.
From the ROSCOs’ point of view, is it going to be cheaper to modify the Networkers to fulfil whatever specification their next client requires or to buy new and write off the remaining value of the Networkers? This will ultimately determine the cost to a franchisee of leasing the stock.
Moosalot and others. A modified Networker will still be a modified networker with all the other disadvantages it suffers – eg narrow doors. Also, every major modernisation or reconfiguration job I’ve come across ends up costing more and taking longer than was either planned or expected. It’s only when you take a train apart you find out what’s really wrong with it (see https://www.railengineer.uk/2016/07/27/london-underground-train-life-extension/)
The next generation of trains will require wider doors to speed boarding and alighting, proper SDO as discussed here, wide open gangways to help spread out the load, air conditioning and improved performance to reduce platform re-occupation time. If these features can be bought for much the same (£/month lease) any sensible TOC would rather have the new train than some legacy relic, especially one with such a chequered history as the Networker. This, I suggest was clearly what Anglia’s found, and I suspect that the forthcoming SWT contract will see the demise of the newly re-tractioned class 455s.
Before anyone else says it, I accept that improved train performance and air conditioning have an infrastructure cost in terms of power supply, but if the railway is to cope with ever increasing numbers, the performance will be necessary, and air conditioning is expected these days..
@Balthazar -as Moosealot implies, the question of refurb or buy new is very much dependent on the particular case. You can’t generalise. Now we are in the era of post-Rothschilds “indifference pricing”, we can in fact see that not much has actually changed in the way lease prices are set.
Based on my work with banks on the TLK [Thameslink. LBM] stock, we found that lease prices were set basically by what had been charged in the past. There was insufficient liquidity in the market to establish a market price. Banks expected to earn their percentage over the financial life of the asset (usually 30 years; note this is not the same as the economic or technical lives of the assets). Refurbs were factored into the resulting cash flow forecasts provided they maintained the financial attractiveness of the asset vis-à-vis comparable new assets both in terms of maintenance costs and comparability of internal features.
If financiers thought their asset was at risk from new stock and refurbishment wouldn’t be enough to protect them, then they would seek to recover and remunerate their money over a correspondingly shorter period – with the obvious impact on rental prices.
In short, whether refurbishment is more attractive than buying new will depend on the prospective liquidity of the market 15 years in future because that’s what will have set the initial lease price. Tricky.
@Moosealot
“The risk of surplus units – especially 3rd rail which can’t be exported to many places without significant modification – will push up the price of leasing stock, ”
…………which is why every single electric unit built since privatisation for the 3rd-rail operators has had provision for conversion to ac. The pantograph wells are very visible on a class 450, for example.
http://www.freefoto.com/preview/23-64-31/South-West-Trains-Class-450-Siemens-Desiro
Indeed, I noticed this morning that some (but not all) of the new 707s lurking in Wimbledon depot actually have pantographs fitted.
You mention that you have in the past read about the study/proposal to extend the DLR south of Lewisham down to Hayes. Can you give details of where I can find further information on this please?
The owners of some Networkers (Porterbrook perhaps?) recently had an event where they demonstrated various option for the stock. Some were removing many seats, and I think adding SDO was mentioned.
Presumably it’s not too expensive if they were pitching it. I’m guessing it was on the units that had traction changes 10 years ago as they should have a decent lifespan left.
Thingsabout the Networkers though is that their rate of mileage to failure is so low – around 10k if memory serves. Probably the worst of any EMU. Far below SWT stock which is older like 455s which is 10x better isn’t it? SWT seem so much better than Southeastern overall the past decade.
They could be intrinsically poor – but even those with recent traction work are poor, and SWT have turned very unreliable units around, as have FGW.
Re: Moosealot – I will be amazed if any used GB passenger rolling stock is exported!
Re: timbeau – albeit in the case of at least two post-privatisation third rail EMU types the actual practicalities of conversion to overhead electrification are distinctly questionable. I believe the first two 707s have been delivered for type testing on the overhead to demonstrate the flexibility which may be required in future. Not relevant to the Southeastern Networkers, though.
Re: Ed – the Networker owners are Angel (Met-Camm build) and Eversholt (BREL build). What RoSCos pitch and what their customers choose to pay for are of course different things. I also suspect that there are a number of skews in the reliability data, such as the reporting culture at different depots, how incentivised the attribution staff feel to contest failures, and (famously in the case of Salisbury depot, whose very location on the network contributes) how well rolling stock operations and technical support are intrinsically capable of avoiding the triggering of reported technical incidents.
Re: Moosealot at 14.18 – why do you say that a glut of rolling stock will lead to lease charges *rising*? Are you assuming that the three RoSCos formed at privatisation are the only financiers of rolling stock (they’re not) and therefore suggesting that they operate a cartel to keep old trains on lease? East Anglia suggests not (and that’s before we get to South Western which has a higher incentive for bidders to offer new trains, albeit the Desiros have Section 54 protection until relatively late in the franchise).
>Balthazar – you assume that the rolling stock market is liquid and therefore the market determines price. It is liquid only in small niches and at certain times because the Department doesn’t (quite rightly) wish to bankroll enough stock to make a free market work. It is,in fact, a rigged market and has been ever since the ROSCOs were sold.
@ 100&30 – I think we must wait and see what the DfT actually specifies before we go too far in saying what trains will be like for the next franchise. The only thing I’d put money on is a definite requirement for extra new rolling stock for HS1 and probably of a walk through design to cope with the tunnel use restrictions near Folkestone/Dover. Beyond that I’d be very hesitant about declaring that DfT will set the spec to “steer” bidders towards high capacity, lower dwell time stock as they have done for the South West franchise. Is it not the case that South Eastern is the first franchise retendering wholly conducted in the Grayling era? Prior to that the more “hands on” McLoughlin approach has pushed the quality aspect which is partly what has justified the more adventurous approaches to rolling stock replacement. Lower costs and lower interest rates have also helped. I don’t see Mr Grayling as anywhere near as “hands on” as his predecessor, in fact he’s more in the “hands off” mode of the past but not as extreme as Mr Ridley for example. I also think that several rolling stock suppliers are now rather busy with full factories and decent order books and may struggle to meet pressing time constraints (if any are set) for trains for South Eastern. I think we may have run out of “fortuitous circumstances” when it comes to new (non HS) trains being specced for South Eastern.
Thanks to several commenters who have confirmed that it is not exactly back breaking work to find out the scale of house building in each local authority area. I’d also just add that as this article is about “London Bridge Metro services” it is rather spurious to suggest Kent County is a problem when we are talking about 5 London boroughs and possibly Dartford, Sevenoaks and Medway in Kent (reflecting current destinations for Metro services). I’d also like to see some evidence that DfT is directly instructing Network Rail not to do common sense things like “planning” and “forecasting”. If that were the case why were the Route Studies published? Surely Mr Grayling should have cancelled them?
Deon,
London & South East Route Study. 2011? Sadly, I can’t now find it online on the Network Rail website
100andthirty 14:48,
Highly bemused by your comment. You cite the Bakerloo line but here they investigated three trains to establish quite how serious the problem was. They were aware of the scale of work need but they went ahead anyway. In my mind it is an example of the exception[al case] proves[/tests] the rule.
Trains (and road vehicles, buildings, computers and a whole host of other things) get replaced early but only when there is a good reason to do so.
You cite dwell time but, for the most part, the London Bridge metro services are all-stations affairs. The critical point on the network used to be London Bridge in the Charing Cross up direction (only one platform) but the rebuilding work has fixed that. When Cannon St trains call at London Bridge again there will be a problem with the contra-peak direction (only one track) but I would suggest the problem is slowing down for the station stop and then accelerating again – not dwell time.
If you were to, say, run a mixture of stopping trains and semi-fast trains on the Greenwich line it would be different – but who would do something like that?
I think Mr Adrian Shooter of Viva Rail would disagree with you that trains are always in a worse condition than expected. D-stock is nearly 40 years old yet the bodywork is almost perfect. Furthermore the motors are only about 10 years old with many years life left in them. And, not only did they have narrow doors, they had single-leaf doors yet Mr Shooter and others are putting their money where their mouth is and refurbishing them to get many more years life out of them. Surely you are not going to tell me Mr Shooter is misguided?
100andthirty,
Just to add there is a great danger of experts, which you clearly are, seeing things from only your own perspective. As Graham H’s comments testify, there are other ways of looking at things.
Doctors who have become Secretaries of State for Health have, arguably, not done a very good job because they saw everything from the doctor’s perspective and not the patient’s perspective.
Worse still, there are numerous examples worldwide of experts in their field being accepted in courts as expert witnesses yet these people’s failure to understand statistics and see things from a statistician’s perspective has led to many miscarriages of justice.
The rolling stock engineer has valuable insight into this decision making but, like other players involved, their point of view is not the only one that needs to be considered.
@PoP: Isn’t the difference with the Bakerloo Line stock that LUL owns the trains, so it was worth their while putting the money in to repair them? Whereas the Networkers are owned by the leasing companies. It is irrelevant to the future SouthEastern train operator (and the government) whether any leasing company sustains a loss through being unable to find a taker for its existing trains.
Similarly, the D-Trains don’t seem to have any takers yet, so the jury is still out on whether Adrian Shooter was misguided or not (and the fire problems suggest that the refurbishment will end up more expensive than expected).
Re Walthamstow Writer @ 18:18
Yes this article may be about London Metro services – but NRs report isn’t. Said report is about ALL of SE services and as such the inner metro services don’t get special treatment just because TfL / the GLA are better prepared re future development needs.
Now I accept (and have never contested the claim) that NR’s report is light on detail as regards growth on ALL SE services (with the possible exception of HS1) so you have to ask why? As any science student knows knows it is important that the authors are given the correct terms of reference or they will come out with a flawed report.
Given everyone else on here tells me that obtaining reliable and timely estimates on when and where development is scheduled to happen over the next decade and it would be easy for NR to consider it, what else could be the reason? For an answer I reiterate that NR takes its orders from the DfT – and no one else, and they do have a vested interest in limiting NRs ambition for the reasons that follow.
One thing most people tend to overlook is (despite what ministers etc may say) NR already have a significant funding problem on their hands over the next decade or so. A combination of various projects like the GWML electrification running late + significantly over budget, combined with other costs (such as that of signalling renewals) remaining stubbornly high and severe doubts within the industry that the ‘Digital Railway’ will ever give a 40% capacity increase (Roger Ford has an interesting article on the subject in this month Modern Railways magazine) mean NR is actually in quite a bit of trouble. The upshot being that several projects have had to be postponed and ones that were due to be funded in CP5* are now being shuffled into CP 6& CP7 as HM Treasury has made it clear it won’t be bailing NR out.
*(A ‘Control Period’ (CP) lasts 5 years with HM Treasury agreeing in advance a set figure as to how much it will give NR for those 5 years, based on what the NR / the DfT wishes to fund)
I put it to you that if the GLA were so minded and wanted to make savings, one of the easiest things it could do is scale back getting involved in increasing transport capacity ahead of development and merely be reactive once pressures become too great to bear. Yes ordinary users would suffer but the financial bods would be pleased – as would persons of a certain political leanings that development is essentially something for the free market. (Note how many times various Government figures have heralded Ebslfeet Garden City as the future and compare the rhetoric to just how much housing the ‘fee market’ has actually built)
Thus when tasked with coming up for a route study for Kent, its entirely in keeping with its role as a ‘responsible’ Government organization for NR to effectively maintain the status quo as that pleases their political masters and keeps the finances within what the Treasury are expecting.
Finally for the record I actually think TfL have got things right when it comes to planning for future demand and it is Whitehall and the DfT / Treasury who have got it wrong. However adopting GLA / TfL ideas goes against everything the current Government stand for which is all about small Government and transferring as much as is possible to the free market under the mistaken idea that competition is the only way of improving things for users. Rail Devolution could have done much for SE inner services, but that has been sacrificed on the alter of party politics – and the results emerging from Whitehall indicates that the DfT are not about to change their policies to compensate.
“Conversion of a driving car to a non-driver is certainly not impossible. SWT converted a spare driving trailer to a non-driving power car to replace the one squished by a concrete mixer at Oxshott.”
That was in a corridor unit though, presumably?
@PoP/Deon:
The DLR extension to Hayes gets a mention in the Kent RUS, published in 2010, on page 204 however, even at this time the Bakerloo line was seen as more likely (or at least making it into the foreword).
By the publication of the London & South East Market Study in 2013 it had however disappeared as an option.
@Phil _ I doubt you have a shred of evidence to support your assertion that NR has been “mugged” by DfT to avoid considering future growth. Of course, if you look for conspiracies, you will always find them. I happen to know the people who undertook the RUS and their successors and derivatives very well indeed: absolutely no sign of political interference at all (unlike those in NR dealing with HS2, who have been warned off certain matters).
Re Networkers being used elsewhere on the DC network.
The original NEtworkers were the first EMUs built with AC traction motors and in these early applications they tended to generate a large quantity of electrical noise which had the ability to falsely energize certain types of track circuit and potentially give rise to a Clapham Junction style crash. As a result all the SE lines they operated over had the affected track circuits replaced and a ban was placed on Networkers traveling on other divisions (Hence the “No Networker” signs that used be in evidence where the Brighton lines pealed away at Bermondsey).
It was a similar story with the 373s and the class 92s (which is why the latter cannot be used to haul freights via Redhill despite there being con rail throughout this diversionary route).
By the time the Electrostar was built however, AC traction systems had improved significantly and hence there was no restriction on using them on lines where Networkers were bared.
The new traction package fitted to some of the Networker fleet, being a modern design is similarly compatible with the type of track circuits found on the likes of the BML so could migrate there with no significant issues. The un-modified Networkers (as with the Class 92s) remain bared from straying off SE division lines (or the WLL).
(Also the SE networkers have no provision made in their design for any dual voltage capability. The resemblance between them and the 365s is simply that to cut costs, the Networker bodyshell slightly modified to take a Pantograph – nothing else is the same between the two units.
@Muzer
The driving-trailer-to-intermediate-motor conversion was for a class 455. (The donor vehicle was from a class 210). It did have an end gangway, but it is doubtful if it was used as the end gangways on the 210/317/455 units is quite different from the intermediate gangways – I assume components were salvaged from the undamaged end of the written-off car. They did a very thorough job – other than the out of sequence car number there is little to identify that the car, or indeed the unit, is anything other than a standard class 455.
@Pop
“You cite dwell time but, for the most part, the London Bridge metro services are all-stations affairs…..the problem is slowing down for the station stop and then accelerating again – not dwell time.”
This looks like a non-sequitur. Both factors are relevant in determining the number of trains that can be squeezed through a platform in a given time – the minimum interval between trains being the time taken for one train to clear the platform, the next train to arrive at the platform, and the time spent stationary. These three stages are determined, respectively, by the acceleration, the braking profile, and the dwell time.
“D-stock is nearly 40 years old yet the bodywork is almost perfect”.
Aluminium construction helps – ask the owner of any Land Rover or (traditional) Routemaster.
“And, not only did they have narrow doors [sic]*, they had single-leaf doors”
Which is precisely the reason for the early demise of both them and the 1983 stock. What worked with the declining traffic levels of the 1980s doesn’t work now. But smaller door apertures do leave more space for seating, which on the rural lines for which the Vivarail trains are likely to be used, with maybe 1tph if you’re lucky, is a higher priority than platform reoccupancy time.
*(the apertures are smaller, but the individual doors on a D stock train are actually wider than on other Underground trains. This further increases dwell time because they take longer to slide open and closed than two smaller doors would)
@Balthazar
“I will be amazed if any used GB passenger rolling stock is exported!”
It has happened to dmus – some class 126s went to Liberia, most class 109s went to Trinidad, the class 141 railbuses went to Iran (and several prototypes also went abroad),
The Nightstar stock went to Canada – not used, but secondhand nontheless.
The class 465s were, I think, the last class of emu built without an ac capability. The only later types built for British Rail were the 325s, 365s and 373s, all of which were ac/dc.
@PoP 20:45
The London and South East Route Utilisation Strategy from 2011 is here:
http://archive.nr.co.uk/browseDirectory.aspx?root=&dir=%5cRUS%20Documents%5cRoute%20Utilisation%20Strategies%5cRUS%20Generation%202%5cLondon%20and%20South%20East
Is that the document you were referring to? An extension of the DLR South from Lewisham is discussed on page 158.
Crikey – I didn’t realise emotions would run high on the somewhat arcane subject of whether (one or both types of) Networkers will have a long life after refranchising. As one who has tried to outline the reasoning on one side of the fence in particular I feel somewhat responsible. Can we agree that we don’t have a crystal ball and different outcomes are possible, for readons that have been well-explored in this thread?
Re: timbeau – yes, aware of past examples (you could also have mentioned Mark 3 sleepers in Denmark and unrecognisable Mark 2s in New Zealand) and I should have put my amazement clearly in the future tense. I have a great deal of difficulty envisaging any current British passenger stock ever being chosen for overseas use for all manner of reasons, but especially our unique vehicle gauge/platform height/track gauge combination.
*slaps forehead* – “unique” apart from Gautrain of course, but do we really envisage a second lease of life for, say, ex-Anglia Class 321s serving Oliver Tambo International Airport?
Re Balthazar,
Don’t worry I’ll reignite everything later when I have the time to do a decent length comment as there is plenty that hasn’t been explored yet!
Also Thailand as a market for UK spec stock (158 and 360 clones).
@balthazar
In contrast, 75 years ago vehicles ordered by Johannesburg (and Durban) from Metro-Cammell ended up spending their entire working lives in London
http://stories-of-london.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/SA3_1747_SA2-_1739.jpg
timbeau,
And, off-topic, far more important than you might think in the history of London’s Transport. They were 8 feet wide at a time when the maximum permitted width was 7ft 6ins. So special dispensation had to be given. Their use killed the idea that 8ft wide buses were too wide to operate in London so eventually they were permitted in time for the design of the Routemaster to be based on an 8 ft width.
PoP/timbeau
Did they precede the RTW’s then?
Which were also 8′ wide, & only “allowed” on certain routes & very grudgingly by MetPlod, IIRC.
As you say, after that the RM’s could be the same width.
Well in time for the Routemaster – the first 8ft wide buses actually built for London were the RTW-type diesel buses and the Q-type trolleybuses of the late 1940s (the latter not to be confused with the pre-war Q-type diesel buses)
Many of these also found new homes overseas. But we digress. Unless SWT have a use for them (as SE is moving from ten to twelve cars on its metro services, SWT is moving from eight to ten) I can’t see a large secondhand market for Networkers. Even Great Western is having to find new work for its Networker Turbos as electrification creeps westwards
The New Zealand Mk 2 rebuilds demonstrate that in much of the World beyond the UK, British sized rolling stock, used with high platforms, runs on the narrow colonial ‘Cape gauge’, a system also adopted in Japan. Any further pre-loved rolling stock exports to these countries would require new bogies, not so easy for powered vehicles in MUs compared to trailers. For South Africa’s expanding Gautrain service, on standard gauge unlike the rest of that country’s network, I can’t see anything less than brand new trains would be acceptable for such a prestigious operation.
Paragraph 8 and 9 of the executive summary is worth a mention: “The capacity for any additional services into London from Kent is extremely limited. Making the best use of the network to provide the maximum capacity possible per train path is critical to meet the growth projections going forward. When train lengthening opportunities have been exhausted, there are no clear or simple options to provide additional capacity into London. A number of critical bottlenecks would need to be relieved, including central London terminal capacity and grade separation of some junctions alongside possible Digital Railway solutions. Network Rail intends to take commence further development of the strategy to meet projected growth beyond 2024.”
I would suggest that this hints at the need for a more radical intervention, such as new lines, perhaps of the Crossrail variety.
This report seemed to me to be all about subtext.
Thoughts:
1) My interpretation of the reason there are no big plans for increasing frequency on London Metro is (as Stephen C says) there is nothing that can be done. The next 6 years are a breathing space where you sit with a crayon and frantically plan what happens next. There is no money (don’t mention HS2) so planning for a Crossrail 3-type intervention, which would be the most obvious option, is unlikely to gain much traction in Government.
2) Networkers are surely doomed. There’s a diagram showing how a Networker is longer than a 375 thanks to the design of the cab and bodyshell, which is why you can’t get a 12-car in half of Charing Cross (which is bonkers). They are not designed with standees in mind and hence they are uncomfortable in the peaks. They are also not reliable enough for the job anymore (if they ever were).
3) The DfT will surely have set the parameters of the study , for good or ill. There’s no point in putting a £5bn scheme in a Route Study that the DfT is never going to be able to fund…and will then have to answer tough questions from passengers and stakeholders when they don’t.
4) If the housing forecasts are wrong – and I suspect they err on the side of caution – they they can be fixed by the time final report comes out and I have no doubt councils and LR readers will be responding in force!
5) Finally, the study does mention stabling as a problem, albeit obliquely. Officially stabling is a matter for the TOC but clearly NR has a role to play and stabling in the London area is known to be a real problem. Someone asked if stabling can be “double deck”. Well, people raft over stations all the time and it shouldn’t be too difficult to raft stabling sidings, and it would keep the stock dry too…
I shall put my conspiracy theories away now…
@StephenC
I suggest that, while Mike Brown has mentioned a SE-NW Crossrail 3 beforehand to the London Assembly Transport Committee, his budget doesn’t yet stretch to a full CR2 let alone a higher number!
You might alternatively consider adoption on a lesser scale, of the TSLO (Turning South London Orange) high capacity options, such as Brixton Tunnel and a 2nd Lewisham flyover, which benefited South London AND the adjoining county councils.
Whether DfT or TfL-led, a significant simplification of the South London and county colleagues’ range of London destinations would pay strong dividends. The problem is that in South Central and SE lands (but note, NOT SW land), passengers are used to multiple terminal options. The difficulty is that this causes a terminal capacity problem, which reduces rather than multiplies available train slots.
@Jonathan Roberts
Bang on – there have been multiple termini for South London and Kentish folk for more than 150 years so it’s not as simple as just simplifying the service.
Rochester , for instance, has direct trains to Cannon St, London Bridge, Blackfriars, St Pancras, Victoria and Charing Cross in the peak. Many, if not all, of those peeps will have moved down there for that reason and persuading them to limit themselves to Victoria (stuck out West) or St P (Stuck in the north) would cause serious ructions.
@Greg
The RTWs were introduced , so I read, in 1947. The SA-type trolleybuses built a few years earlier were unable to be delivered to their intended customers in South Africa because any available cargo space on ships was urgently needed for other purposes, so they were pressed into service by London Transport, which needed every bus it could get hold of. They were, I understand, allocated to SW Essex (as it then was) because their extra width was seen to be a potential problem in central London, and because there was no requirement for battery-operated manoeuvres in that area – batteries not being included.
Multiple termini, however, reduce the terminal-size problem.
Even after the rebuild, when the “Brightons” will no longer terminate in London Bridge, on the ex-LBSC routes there are platforms 8-18 @ VIC + pf 8-13 @ LBG
Giving 17 platforms – effectively the whole of VIC … but that also takes trains from the ex_LCD area into 1-8.
Even if you could expand the termini, without the expense of “route 7” ( CR3 diving somewhere near Lewisham ) you still have the problem – mentioned in the RUS – of line capacity – I mean where the proposed extra track between Brixton & VIC would be put, I’m very unsure, never mind the Herne Hill & Tulse Hill bottlenecks, much discussed in these fora.
It’s beginning to look like either going round in circles, or worse, ever-decreasing circles, a la Ouzlem Bird …….
@supermacenroe
There are many areas that used to have a choice of London terminus and no longer do so – it is not that long ago that Watford dc Line commuters could travel direct to the City (Broad Street) and the High Wycombe line used to have useful services to Paddington. People do complain, but ultimately they will adapt. I recall colleagues living on the Great Northern line in the early 1980s bemoaning the recent loss of their services to the station nearest our office.
(I wonder what they would have thought if they knew that next year, after a gap of 42 years, there will once again be ECML services to Farringdon, although it is rather academic as the establishment relocated to Wales, and the London office building itself was demolished, in the early 1990s, and my former colleagues will all have retired by now anyway)
Supermacinroe: “Victoria (stuck out West) or St P (Stuck in the north)”
Except that both are on the Circle Line (as indeed are the other terminii except for London Bridge) with good onward services by bus and tube to whatever destination the commuter is heading for. Better integration of suburban routes with TfL options can only help.
Isn’t the real question here of whether mainline rail should be trying to deliver a majority of people to their final destination directly, or to suitable interchanges? Commuters on other lines accept that their journey will be in two parts, so why should SE & S get the extra choice (which, of course, removes possible paths as trains switch routes, reducing carrying capacity overall)
“The best service for the most passengers” should be the target.
Alison W
No doubt in purely Main Line terms you are correct that the benefits of having a single terminus for each line would probably outweigh the disbenefits (albeit with a concomitant increase in pressure on terminal capacity). However, you try and get out of Victoria or KGX/STP on the Tube in the high peak and you will see the benefits to London of using NR metals to take people into the City as well as the North/West End.
Similarly, one of the less well known, but very pertinent, points of the Thameslink Programme is to take people off the Northern Line and straight into the City.
@Jonathan Roberts while Brixton tunnel would certainly help that area, I’m sceptical of the extra capacity generated by a Lewisham flyover given how full the termini are. It seems to me that a new line will become essential for the via London Bridge services, and sooner than expected (the Bakerloo extension not really tackling the issue). My take was a new line that might sit at a lower cost than a Crossrail (discussion on that idea should not be here).
@Alison W
One additional point about multiple termini is that if you have to get from a suboptimal terminus to your actual destination using bus or tube, not only is it less convenient but it is more expensive.
There is a £560 (30%) markup between my point to point annual season ticket and the Z1-6 Travelcard.
Alison W
It’s very noticeable that two London termini have well over 70% of all their incoming passengers walk to their final destination.
Liverpool St & Cannon St.
In the AM peak, that figure will be closer to 90% of course ….
Agree with everyone saying to simplify the termini. If frequencies are high enough, a quick change at London Bridge or Lewisham shouldn’t be too hard. And all these flat crossings should be removed where possible.
Cannon Street should only have metro services via Greenwich and Lewisham/Hither Green – and not to Hayes. These should include the Medway services.
Charing Cross should only have metro services to Hayes and Orpington – via Sidcup at a push. It’s almost there. If it can increase overall frequency by removing conflicts, no Hayes or Orpington via Lewisham any more (Hayes may well end up Bakerloo anyway – which could play a big part in these connections and free up quite a few paths)
Charing Cross otherwise should take over the majority of Kent country services including many from Victoria.
Victoria should become largely metro too – with a sub-category of outer metro services which satisfy the Bromley South/Swanley fast demand along to Rochester. My one thought is about if there is Bromley to Maidstone/Ashford/Canterbury/Coast demand – perhaps now all via Medway, connecting to the direct trains from St Pancras and Charing Cross.
Lewisham could not cope with large numbers changing trains. The layout is worse than Camden Town, and unless it can be fixed, through trains to both (all three) London termini are the only way of avoiding dangerous overcrowding as huge flows of passengers surge back and through the narrow subways. However operationally convenient a split would be, the current arrangements actually suit the needs of the clients.
You can’t increase the number of trains into Charing Cross due to this little thing called: Borough Market viaduct…
Perhaps you can do some magic using ATO and lots more points on the approaches as well as using all tracks bi-directionally. But even then….
NR had a big fight on their hands just to get the current extra two tracks in place. Can you imagine the battle next time, when it might involve demolishing Bridget Jones’ flat? 😉
You can look at the multiple termini issue from the other end with the opening of South Eastern High Speed trains to St Pancras. Previously passengers had used Victoria, Charing Cross, London Bridge and Cannon Street as most suited them, many walking to their destinations in the City and West End. For these St Pancras is as much use as a hole in the head. But look at the trains coming into St Pancras. Now full with the highest rate of growth in Kent. Even taking account of those who work in newly created jobs in Stratford or King’s Cross, there must be an awful lot of people who are prepared to take the faster train, at higher cost, even if it means having to use the tube to got to their final destination.
Southern Heights,
Can we kill this myth? Borough Market is NOT a restriction on capacity. It was once but that is history. We have been through this so many times.
The restriction into/out of Charing Cross is terminating at Charing Cross station itself. The two tracks at Borough Market can handle 28tph. More tracks may not even achieve anything as trains may be easier to sort out on inward approach to Waterloo East going from 2 to 4 tracks rather than trying to sort out complex workings on 4 to 4 tracks (up, up, down, down at London Bridge to up, down, up, down at Waterloo East).
I don’t know what the limiting factor on Thameslink will be but it certainly won’t be Borough Market.
The limiting factor in/out of Cannon Street is a combination the restriction of the throat at Cannon St (3 tracks to 7 platforms) and the lack of capacity in the contra-peak direction at London Bridge.
@PoP
The limiting factor on Thameslink is likely to be dwell time, or capacity at some crucial flat junction (probably the one south of Blackfriars or at the north end of St Pancras )
timbeau: there isn’t a flat junction at the north end of St Pancras. It’s a shiny new grade separated tunnelled junction.
The limiting factor on Thameslink capacity is a combination of core station dwell time and Blackfriars junction. Having said that, even today with a mix of rolling stock and trains being driven by drivers (and not computers), with sharp station work and eager drivers you can get successive trains departing just a little over 2 minutes apart. In times of disruption, it is not at all unusual to see 11-12 trains depart in 30 minutes.
Timbeau/SFD
The way I see it is that ‘All junctions are flat’: the simplest being a single point (switch) . What we tend to label as junctions are often much more and it is the much more that requires grade separation.
My mistake – it is Belle Isle (aka Wilberforce Junction) which lacks grade separation.
RayK: No-one would argue with your observation that a single point/switch can be a junction. Dovey Junction, in mid-Wales, would be an example. But the word “junction” is also commonly used for a place where rail routes converge or diverge, and junctions (in that sense) are frequently classified as flat or grade-separated. This classification helps discussion, because the prospect of changing one into the other can be first discussed in the abstract, without – at first – going into the fiddly detail of exactly what will be built where.
@timbeau, 25 March 2017 at 08:35
“My mistake – it is Belle Isle (aka Wilberforce Junction) which lacks grade separation.”
I think conflict at that flat junction will be more managable, not least because only about half of the total Thameslink core services will be involved. I expect future Kings Cross area remodelling will also look at the possibility of linking slow lines 1 and 2 through Gasworks tunnel directly to the fast lines without Thamelink conflict in the Belle Isle area. The single lead junction at the south Portal of Copenhagen Tunnel, connecting the slow lines to the North London Line incline and St Pancras International is also a constraint in the area.
@Malcolm
Indeed, there are junctions without points (e.g Aller Junction, where the Torbay route joins the main South Devon main line, with no points until Newton Abbott a mile or so further on. Likewise there are points where there are no junctions, such as at passing loops, runrounds at termini etc.
@ Phil – I’m conscious we’ve batted this back and forth but a couple of comments.
I am aware of the industry processes and timescales and the key problems NR is facing. I am aware the future may be horribly constrained in terms of anything new being done rather than coping with the rollover from CP5. I do, however, struggle with your assertion that NR are being deliberately nobbled by the DfT on things like reflecting housing development. I note Graham H’s comment to the contrary.
I suspect the GLA can’t save money by ignoring the reality of what is happening in Greater London. There are a range of obligations that flow from the enabling legislation that require a more coherent, co-ordinated view to be taken and tying land use to transport provision is surely the right thing to do? We are not really in the position where TfL has got ahead of the game where transport schemes are in advance of housing related demand. Almost all the time it is in catch up mode. Barking Riverside is the only place I can think of where bus services are increasing in line with housing growth and where a rail link has to be in place prior to a large scale increase in housing. Battersea Nine Elms is perhaps another example. We might see some more of this with other opportunity areas but even putting the Bakerloo down the Old Kent Road is decades and decades late for all the people who already in the areas that might gain a tube service.
We will see in 2018 quite what the DfT and the bidders for South Eastern have pulled together and what cogniscence they’ve taken of the world outside the railway. I’m not holding my breath. 😉
@ Supermacinroe – NR seem to have opted for the “12 car railway” option for the short term improvement path on South Eastern. I guess that’s fair enough in terms of getting the most out of each path. I agree the peak is constrained but the other issue for me is getting better off peak services running. If you can get that “offer” right then you’re looking at lots of money coming in the door. No sign of that being recognised by the DfT and NR if it was to require any investment to support it. TfL do recognise this as does their evaluation framework.
I don’t think a “CR3” concept would ever come from the DfT and certainly not bidders. It will only ever emerge from TfL / City Hall / business lobbyists but we are a very long way away from that sort of scheme having any level of commitment. I think it will be a massive struggle to get CR2 through the planning phase never mind spades being put in the ground. If NR do come up with a more aggressive approach to raising South Eastern capacity I think even getting that funded will be very difficult – partly because of funding constraints but I also suspect it will not align with the “Grayling” philosophy of “others do it better”. There is a tremendous amount at stake over what NR will be allowed to do in terms of managing and upgrading the railway and there must be people in government just waiting for their chance for “revenge” for the high spending over the last 15 years or so.
timbeau,
Indeed, there are junctions without points
Something the civil engineer might regard as a junction but not the track engineer or the signal engineer.
Surely, a much better and more pertinent example is Borough Market Junction?
Clearly ‘Junction’ is an even more flexible term than I had appreciated. What I was trying to say is that tracks join to become one at points. It is when tracks are to cross that we have to consider whether they are to do so on the flat or their crossing is to be grade separated.
PoP: Yes. Of course the dichotomy between flat and grade separated does not really apply to such a junction. But I suppose it could in theory, as there could be just crossings. I think this might arise on a very constrained site, such as a table-top.
A crossing without points at Porthmadog
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8467/8150760081_5ed90aa121_z.jpg
Historically, there have been others, notably on the ECML at Newark (now with added points) and Retford (replaced by a diveunder)
Junctions like Borough Market with no physical connections are still significant from an operational, as well as civil engineering, perspective because, beyond the convergence point, in the event of an emergency all tracks must be protected.
There were classic “Flat Crossings” – which IIRC is the correct technical term at Earlestown, by Newton-le-Willows, Darlington &, of course, Murrow, where the M&GNJtRly crossed the GN/GE Jt, more-or-less in the middle of nowhere!
What’s the feasible limit of trains into Charing Cross and Cannon St with ATO?
Hypothetically, assuming running with ATO capable stock capable and with SDO.
Not that it probably matters. The powers that be aren’t even considering a majority 12 car service running in a decade based upon the info in the reports.
I was at Victoria where the DfT were handing out leaflets drawing attention to their consultation on Southeastern Metro and with staff on hand to answer questions.
One of their officers was pretty smart and engaging to talk to. He said that in his view the Networkers were good for another 10 years and should be cascaded. Given the demands on Metro services, the Networkers were not well configured for such intensity. We discussed SDO but the impression I had was that though this was possible it was costly so that replacement was a more viable option given that the benefits of SDO new trains is much better than retro-fitting trains for another 10 years.
I see the Networkers as really being for the regional services (what I classified as ‘London Country Rail (Kent)’ in my devolution submission) with Metro services worked by a fleet of Bombardier Metrostars with through carriages and multiple doors (albeit fewer seats). The DfT officer also hinted that the next franchise could include station infrastructure investments such as platform lengthening.
I see this as everything to play for. But if the Networkers are to be kept – the questions should be asked ‘for which network?’
@Nick Biskinis
“I see the Networkers as really being for the regional services (what I classified as ‘London Country Rail (Kent)’ in my devolution submission)”
Networkers are the mainstay on services from Victoria to Ashford and, as a user, I have to say they are entirely unsuitable for journeys of this length. If you are travelling from London to stations between Maidstone and Ashford they are very cramped and uncomfortable. They may well not be right for metro services but they certainly aren’t right for anything longer.
Eddie – the feasible limit for Charing Cross with ATO is the same as it is without, namely 30tph. That is on the assumption that you want to retain some form of performance buffer at the terminus. Trains are allowed a minimum of 9 minutes between arriving at Charing Cross and departing, which allows time for passengers to disembark, the train to be cleared of any dozers, and the departing service to be announced, loaded and dispatched. It also allows for minor delays to be recovered, as all the above can actually be done in around 5 minutes at a push.
Cannon St is different. The constraint is not platform capacity but the layout on the approaches, plus only having 3 lines / platforms at London Bridge. The maximum theoretical capacity is 24tph, and in my view you don’t need ATO to get there, although it would certainly help.
In theory, with the construction of a siding on the Met Reversible, you could get one extra service in during the high peak hour, meaning 25tph. This is suggested in the Kent Route study, and we’re back on topic.
So if you constructed 2 reversible sidings, on a former 3 track formation albeit curvy, could you get 26 tph in the high peak at Cannon Street? Or does someone only foresee the need for 25 tph?
Re: timbeau (24th, 11.10) – the chances of Networkers ending up on the South West franchise would seem to be rather slim given that the franchise contract (award to be announced next month) needs to include a full fleet plan, whereas in principle neither of the Networker owners will know for certain whether they’ll have any of them to lease until around August 2018 when the winning bidder for the South Eastern franchise is announced. So it isn’t possible for either of the SW bids to include the Networkers (unless one of their owners decided last summer – at the latest – that they would not be offering them to the next SE franchise).
@JR: two don’t fit; the one proposed ends up running alongside the 2 Thameslink + 2 Charing Cross lines in the Met Junction area for quite some distance to get sufficient length for a 12 car. The formation is only wide enough for 5 tracks there.
Pedantic of Purley @ 26 March 2017 at 07:54
2timbeau,
Indeed, there are junctions without points
Something the civil engineer might regard as a junction but not the track engineer or the signal engineer.
Surely, a much better and more pertinent example is Borough Market Junction?”
Pedantry of a very high level.
Your honorary Doctorate cannot be delayed much longer. But will it be for engineering or for English?
[Note to everyone. This digression (about points, junctions, crossings etc) is now closed, as are all subdigressions from it. Malcolm]
I wish the customer information systems knew about the 5 minute minimum. All too often a train is shown as on time or a little late, the inbound service arrives at CHX (or worse is turned early at LBG) at the quoted time, but sets off 5+ minutes later still because of the turnaround time.
John B- the issue is that occasionally trains are swapped to enable an outbound that would have been late to leave on time. Nevertheless, the advent of Traffic Management helps, as this can hold all the stock workings and predict such things.
Oh I see. In other words, a train is not announced as delayed and departing late unless it is absolutely certain that there will be no opportunity to undelay it. If it was, then a passenger who might have paused for a quick loo break or pasty purchase (on seeing it announced as late) might miss it.
@Balthazar
” the chances of Networkers ending up on the South West franchise would seem to be rather slim ”
Never say never, but I agree it is unlikely – not only for the reason you give, but as Phil remarked (23 March, 23:18) only the SE lines have had the necessary signal immunisation to cope with interference from their early ac motors (although the re-motored units may be more signal friendly?)
But things can change – and a future rolling stock crisis elsewhere in dc-land could see Networkers find their way there. Stranger things have happened. No-one expected 313s on the Sussex coast, ex-460 vehicles to Windsor, or LM 350s working Southern’s West London Line services.
And talking of strange things happening – anyone spotted which four rolling stock classes are not mentioned as part of the mainland fleet here?http://otp.investis.com/generic/regulatory-story.aspx?newsid=857157&cid=858
I assume 707s are staying. Do they already have WiFi points? 90 new trains with 750 carriages doesn’t go so must include different lengths.
Re Timbeau, Balthazar, Nick B, Quinlet,
Realistically the only new home for Networkers where their performance wouldn’t be an issues and Frachise timing works are:
a) On SE network the Kent Branch lines which already see some use (Sheerness and Strood – Paddock Wood via Maidstone West
b) On the Southern Network, some of the BREL/ABB/Brush/(Hitachi retrofitted) 465/0 & /1 units without the signalling issues could replace the 313s on Coastway services however 6 car train lengths are more useful than 8 unless there are lots of platform extensions and working (to Southern standards) SDO would probably still be needed.
The 465/9s should be gradually replaced by the subleased 377s from GTR that are beginning to appear in SE vinyls on the services out of Victoria (8 units so far).
More substantive posts on Networkers and other SE stock issues with plenty of data and figures to follow this evening…
It is worth nothing that DfT hasn’t said no 455s in the SW franchise rather that no bid without replacing them them would win due to other technical performance criteria. DfT gives the performance criteria and the bidders decide how to meet that along with their own criteria.
In the mean time it is worth remembering that Networker failure rates are 4-5 times* higher than the newest comparable bedded in metro stock on Southern the 377/6s.
*BREL units are 20-25% better than the GEC-Alstom units on failure rates.
The missing four are 458 and 707 (which may already have charging points) and 455 and 456 (which don’t).
It does look like the 455s may be on the way out then – maybe South Eastern could use them (?)
Most interesting though is the mention of charging points on the 442s. Coupled with 18 refurbished units (90 cars) for Portsmouth expresses, this is a very interesting development.
Apart from a welcome improvement in Sunday frequencies, there seems to be little in prospect for the “little people ” on the red trains (like the one I’m sitting on as I write, packed because SWT ran the previous Loop train right round the loop without stopping).
So we are swapping one Scottish operator for another. But is this MTR’s First UK franchise?
Balthazar & PD
So, it would appear that Stagecoach have lost out to worst group …
That’s going to be … interesting.
What do regular users of “First” predict will be the experience of people in LSWR-land as a result, then? Though, IIRC, MTR are reasonably good at this.
Apart from all the promises made, of course?
Taking some of the points:
We will introduce 750 new, spacious train carriages
for the Windsor, Reading and London Suburban routes by December 2020
Which means, presumably, that the 455’s ( & 456 ) are going, but I thought the Windsor &Reading routes just had or are getting new trains?
faster journey times – presumably from better acceleration/braking?
Can someone remind us of any possible NR track/signalling works that might improve this as well? Since they are quoting 8 min off Southampton times & 5 min off Portsmouth.
Re Balthazar and Purley Dweller,
So 18x 442s returning to SW.
455s, 456s and 458s being returned to ROSCOs.
The new stock will be mix of different numbers of cars which was true of both bidders. Likely a mix of 5 and 10 car units with massive capacity boost.
Re Timbeau,
MTR – No TfLrail (to be Crossrail) and joint LOROL operator.
timbeau
Edited quote from MTR …
The Corporation also operates and manages Stockholm Metro, intercity service between Stockholm and Gothenburg and Stockholm Commuter Rail Systems (Starting from December 2016) in Sweden.
The Corporation was awarded the Elizabeth Line Trains Operating Concession.
@ngh
I think you’re right – that’s the only way you can halve the average age of the fleet (from the current 20 years), especially if you are re-introducing thirty-year old 442s. SWT’s newest stock other than the 707s is already nearly 13 years old, and of course will be even older in 2020. (Replacing the 80-year old trains on the IoW would not make a significant difference because there are so few of them)
Surprised the 458s will be going though – they have just gone through an expensive rebuilding programme. They could be converted to ac (although I’m not sure the last six units can, as I understand that these, being formed entirely of ex Class 460 cars, may not have the same versatility as the original 458s have.
The new traction packages on the 455s may find further use – it wouldn’t be the first time traction equipment has been recycled in new units. (Indeed, the electric gubbins under the 442s is already fifty ears old!)
Not sure how 46% improvement in peak capacity will be achieved on the suburban services – 25% by going from eight to ten cars of course. By running ten-car units instead of 4+4+2 you eliminate four driving cabs, giving about another 5% – a 455 driving cab takes up one eighth of a car, and the more space-efficient layout of a 456 cab takes up 1/16, so 6% of both types of unit are non-passenger space.
As the Independent’s Simon Calder puts it….
Waterloo sunset for South West Trains
Massive upgrade 5-28 Aug
Franchise switch 20 Aug
What could possibly go wrong?
@Purley Dweller
“90 new trains with 750 carriages doesn’t go ”
Depends what you mean by “train” – they usually mean “unit”. The new 707s are thirty 5-car units. If these are included, that leaves 60 units and 600 cars, suggesting all the rest will be ten-car units.
Well, on SWT, there are 91 x 455, 24 x 456 and 36 x 458, giving 592 vehicles in total, so buying 750 new vehicles to replace them means a 27% increase in vehicles. With 10-car trains all the time and probably more standing room, you could get to 46% increase in capacity.
Personally, as my journey into Waterloo is 59 minutes (on the Reading line), more standing room isn’t necessarily a good thing. Certainly, I am not looking forward to later this year when the existing 8-car 450’s are replaced with 10-car 458’s because the 458’s have fewer seats overall and even today I don’t always get a seat. Of course, they are promising more trains on the Reading line, so perhaps that will work, but for an hours journey, I want more seats not just more capacity.
@Jim Cobb
This suggests much of the increase in capacity is the increased frequency on the Reading and Windsor lines. No improvement in frequencies on the Inners then.
But at least if we have indivisible 10-car trains the practice of dumping inconveniently late trains a Kingston will have to cease – the bay can only take eight cars.
Surprised that the clapped-out 159s are being kept.
@SFD 26 March 2017 at 22:17
Thanks for your response.
@Jim Cobb
“a 27% increase in vehicles. With 10-car trains all the time …………… you could get to 46% increase in capacity.”
Aren’t you double counting there? The lengthening of each 8-car train up to ten will itself account for almost all the increased number of vehicles.
Re: Jim Cobb et al –
Apologies for the brevity of my previous post – I was in a hurry.
My reading of the First Group announcement I linked to earlier was that the eventual (non-IoW) fleet composition will be:
– “new suburban trains” (750 vehicles in 90 units)
– Class 158 & 159 (existing fleet retained with upgrades)
– Class 442 (18 units, refurbished)
– Class 444 (existing fleet retained with upgrades)
– Class 450 (existing fleet retained with upgrades)
What is currently unclear is whether the 750 “”new suburban” vehicles includes the Class 707s or not. The fleet sizes give no clue since the obvious way of making up the numbers is 60 x 10-car and 30 x 5-car, so the latter could be the 707s but equally might not be.
It does not, however, read to me as if the eventual fleet will contain *both* the Class 707s *and* the 750 “new” vehicles.
It is stated here:
http://www.firstgroupplc.com/about-firstgroup/uk-rail/improving-south-western-railway.aspx
… that all mainland trains will be fitted with toilets, so if the 707s are retained then they will need this upgrade. On the other hand, if they’re not, could south east London beckon, bearing in mind that they share an owner with the (apparently less satisfactory) Met-Camm Networkers?
Hurrah – back on topic!
Re: ngh at 09.17 – 455s, 456s and 458s being returned to *the RoSCo* [singular]. Porterbrook is presumably relieved about the Class 158s & 159s (see also question marks over the future of Class 323 and indeed others in the portfolio).
@ ngh/Greg
So it is MTR’s first (and indeed First) UK franchise, then.
Both LOROL and TfL Rail are concessions.
@Balthazar
So the only station-specific improvement within Greater London is a 30% improvement in Hounslow-Watrerloo. This, I assume, will be achieved by having the extra Reading services call there.
Hounslow is, of course, one of the few areas in London where the SW franchise has genuine competition.
I was amazed by what they did with the Bromley North branch by making the turnaround time shorter. I guess tried this for the second half of the Thameslink programme, as they knew the decreased number of trains stopping at LB will cause problems anyway.
Unfortunately they couldn’t nicely synchronise the trains with the mainline ones, hence even if now the train goes every 12-15 minutes instead of every 20, you will still likely miss your train into the city in the morning. This is (for some of the connections) actually worse than what they had with the old 3 tph scheme.
Also note that the article says that nothing really changed in the Bromley North branch, which is untrue, as in the morning and afternoon peak, it already does the 4-4.5tph scheme, with two drivers to make the turnaround shorter. This includes a timetable which looks kinda ad hoc, and includes some weird options, like sometimes skipping the stop at Sundride Park to make the turnaround even shorter.
Is there anything about extending DOO (driver only operation/driver controlled operation) to the new frnachise(s)? The DfT have insisted on extending it on the Southern routes, and in the Northern franchise, and the Mersey network is also eliminating the guard. Or has the DfT decided to pause the extension of DOO operation?
Although some of today’s comments have a linkage to the supposed topic of this article (could 465s go to SWT, or 707s to SET?), if there is to be an article on the transfer of the SWT franchise (from one non-English operator to another, I note!) can the more SW-specific comments be moved there?
Deon – apologies if I missed it it above:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2009/dlr-horizon-2020-lewisham-catford/
Pendantic – longer trains do make a difference to timings. Firstly, because when there is an increase in speed on a railway line the whole train has to pass that point before it can speed up. So the ten car upgrade on Southern increased timings everywhere because it takes longer to get ten cars out of Selhurst depot at 15mph (and others at just 5mph) as well as across nightmarish junctions such as Gloucester Road (15/20) or Streatham (15). Secondly it changes the ability of the train to accelerate and brake. For example, the East Grinstead line rises steadily from East Croydon to Oxted Tunnel. There are spots where an 8 car car can hit 60 between stops on that climb, where a 12 car can only reach 45. Thirdly, dispatching a longer train takes longer so the dwell time is longer – even if the same amount of passengers as were squashed into a shorter train are getting on or off. Cumulatively these extra seconds make a big difference to the big picture.
Sad Fat – In theory there cannot be “eager drivers” anymore as drivers now drive to a Professional Driving Policy which specifies how they accelerate, brake, dispatch, treat cautionary signals etc. There are no points for trying to keep to or make up time, just an expectation of defensive driving to avoid incidents.
Unguarded – Brian Souter said he wouldn’t have DOO and the idea of private operators running their business as they choose seems to be out of fashion these days. Bidders were asked to price this option. Coming soon once Southern has finally done the dirty work for the DFT I suspect.
707s to SE doesn’t seem wise in the long term (10 years plus) given they are 10 car and SE Metro is almost entirely a 12 car railway once some upgrades are undertaken.
Re: Ed – a fair point under other circumstances but in the unusual situation of the 707s being shortly redundant at this, er, early stage in their lives the idea of procuring additional vehicles to make them into a more suitable unit formation and fleet quantity is just about this side of plausible. No idea if it will happen though!
Can the 707s be easily extended to 6 cars, a DC equivalent to the proposed 717s?
Then there would be a train capable of being lengthen when demand requires.
Just right for SE?
The 717s are to be four cars. Maybe it’s not too late to change the order for the 707s to be the same, with some judicial shuffling of the cars from the 5-car sets already built? Probably not.
I think it’s more likely the 707s will stay, but be fitted with toilets in due course.
According to https://www.siemens.co.uk/en/news_press/index/news_archive/2016/gtr-strikes-200m-plus-deal-for-new-train-fleet-serving-city-of-london.htm
the 717s are six cars.
My mistake – I was thinking of the 710s. As you were.
Re Verulamius, Balthazar et al,
A slight diversion from my intend networker posting this evening but highly relevant.
It very much depends on how the power cabling has been designed it would take an awful lot of work to convert 8car 700s to 12 car ones for example. The 8 car 700s are effectively 2x 4car units for power electrics and the 12car ones 2x 6car. The 6 car also proved to be bridge too far for electrostars with 5 car being the max for similar reasons.
700s in detail Each half of an 8 car has a transformer with 4 secondary windings, one for each traction electronics box which has 2 separate sets in turn powers 2 traction motors, each half on a 12 car has a transformer with 6 secondary windings, one for each set of traction electronics which in turn powers 2 traction motors. So a conversion to 12 car would need 1 extra motor car and 1 unmotorised per half set, a new transformer and lots of extra cabling for traction voltage distribution so do-able but not as easy as it might at first appear.
Each 700 traction motor is 207kw (281hp) and an 8 car has 16 and 12 car 24 i.e. 50% powered axles.
Now turning to the 707s. It appears an epic mistake in spec was agreed when ordering the stock leading to it being one of the earliest withdrawls in recent years if the First MTR rumours are true.
707s have all powered axles in driving cars with 3 trailers inbetween (including the pantograph /transformer car.) So 40% powered axles and traction motors are just 150KW (204hp). So performance wise they are equivalent to a 4car networker that has had an extra trailer car added to make 5 car unit!!!
A 5 car 707 only has 60% of the tractive power of a 5car 377/6 or /7.
Now depending on which transformer (theoretically for AC purposes only but it does have very big effect on the DC distribution architecture too) was used that might effect whether they can easily be lengthened to 6car, 1 option might be to replace the 150KW traction motors with 207KW ones and add a trailer which would give a 6 car unit with Networker like performance or replace the existing transformer (presumably the same as on the 8car 700s half units) and traction & DC power cabling with the transformer with 6 secondary windings (i.e. identical to those on the 12 car 700s half units), all the extra cabling and add an extra motor car.
The 707 spec looks cunningly cheap as it has the bare minimum of everything and looks like it assumed the units would stay in 3rd rail land for their whole life and unlike all the other Siemens Desiro and Desiro City unit won’t have needed software throttling of power draw when on 3rd rail DC.
SE metro services need to avoid these units like the plague.
Epic mistake!
707s certainly have an ac capability at some level as two of them have actually been fitted with pantographs.
The two 707s you mention went up to Hornsey and back one night last week, through the Canal tunnels.
Possible that the 442s will inherit the 455 traction motors? Presumably something has to be done to the 442s to keep them moving over their planned life.
@ngh
Or could you remove a 707 trailer from each unit and insert it into a appropriately powered new build of Desiro City?
@ngh, 27 March 2017 at 21:15
“The 707 spec looks cunningly cheap as it has the bare minimum of everything and looks like it assumed the units would stay in 3rd rail land for their whole life and unlike all the other Siemens Desiro and Desiro City unit won’t have needed software throttling of power draw when on 3rd rail DC.”
Very reasonable for their originally intended duties then, where they would only need to match performance of the modernised class 455 units among which they would have operated on similar SW Metro services under the original SWT plans. Perhaps if the 707s are now leaving SW along with the 455s in favour of a completely new uniform metro fleet, replacement trains may be able to exploit any spare or affordable new capacity in the DC power system to improve performance a little across the board. If they’re of no use on SE then the question remains what to do with the 707s. Perhaps GN might find a few extra Siemens sets useful fitted with pantographs to allow some Hertford loop services to continue to run through through to Letchworth, pending, or even instead of proceeding with the Stevenage additional platform project. Without cab end doors, the units would not be able to work to Moorgate however. so perhaps a new semi-fast pattern to Letchworth via Hertford from KingsCross? GTR would not need all of them for this though and they wouldn’t be suitable for normal working through the T/L core without retrofitting full ETCS/ATO. Their inferior performance would also be a liability among the 8 and 12 car variants on the Brighton line.
Re: ngh – I for one would still like to read your thoughts on Networkers.
I doubt the Vossloh traction packages would be suitable for the 442s – they are configured for rapid acceleration rather than sustained high speed, and each package is only designed to power four 20m cars, not five 23 m ones.
(And there would be 73 left over!)
rree timbeau,
I’ll check the spec but generally agree even if re geared they are under powered
Assuming the same power as the original EE507s at 185kw (252hp) though they are far more efficient. The 442 have EE546 @ 300 kW (402.31 hp).
So 442 has 1600hp but 455 1000hp.
But. the V-K traction motors on the 455s are 0.5t lighter each than the EE507s and axle hung so there is the possibility of mounting them on the trailing bogies so you could have 8 or 12 etc instead of 4, which would also solve some 442 electrical issues.
Realistically 4 motors to replace the EE546s, the question is same power or more, given new modotors will be lighter for the same power…
Re Blathazaar,
I’ll need a couple more hours to finish the post off this evening.
Yesterday confirmed my view that DfT effectively has performance metrics for new stock which has the bar set at CR/TL/CR2 level (no half hearted solutions – or 60% in the case of 707s!). Any new SWML metro stock would have to meet CR2 performance criteria and First/MTR obviously realised it was easier to have uniform fleet given the Kingston loop 455 replacements @CR2 performance spec would then intermingle with lower performing 707s on the via Putney stretch.
I suspect DfT altered the max crowding level in the bid metrics from 0.25pax/m^2 to 0.35pax/m^2 not because of the internal layout but becasue the units lack a bit of grunt when rammed at 190+ pax/car.
If the new 442 motors are trailer bogie mountable, then perhaps the current power cars with their strange interior layout and heavy bogies could be ditched in favour of an additional mk3 HST or loco hauled former trailer. Three of five cars motored in such a way would be a formidable machine. If this is possible why not use the technique make them all up to fixed formation ten car units with further surplus mk3 cars added to double the number of seats for the number of driving cabs available.
@mark T
Interior layouts can be changed, and have been several times on the 442s
@ngh
You could solve that by running 707s on the loop services.
Alternatively, you could separate main and Windsor suburban services to avoid the problems of performance differences between the stocks used, by doubling the Shepperton service (4tph is surely worth having) and running the Loop trains via Richmond only as far as Kingston.
@timbeau, 28 March 2017 at 11:20
“Interior layouts can be changed, and have been several times on the 442s”
To make a conventional full open saloon layout from the motor car, you’d also need to make bodyside changes, although that may be easier than with usual Mk3 monocoque construction, as there’s also an underframe ISTR which helps explain the weight of the vehicle, 54t compared to the driver trailers at 39t and the intermediates at 35t (standard Mk3 trailer + power doors, toilet tanks and power cable). If you could keep the weight of newly motored intermediate cars below 39t you’d have a nice even weight distribution across all axles for a 5-car unit. Is +4t per vehicle feasible with the modern traction equipment?
“Alternatively, you could separate main and Windsor suburban services to avoid the problems of performance differences between the stocks used, by doubling the Shepperton service (4tph is surely worth having) and running the Loop trains via Richmond only as far as Kingston.”
A preemptive move for CR2 as well. Kingston bay might be able to be extended to 10 car by moving the bay turnout and crossover nearer the river, so the whole junction is the other side of the bridge over Skerne Road, which appears to have space for an additional track.
The south east franchise prospectus has been issued by DfT today:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/603480/south-eastern-rail-franchise-competition-prospectus.pdf
@mark Townend
A 15tonne difference between the motor coaches and the trailers can surely be accounted for by the traction equipment alone – compare a class 455: 27t for a trailer, 29.5 t for a driving trailer, 45.6t for a motor coach
“the bridge over Skerne Road, which appears to have space for an additional track.”
I’ve been under that bridge countless times, and never noticed that!
But I hope the bay isn’t going to be extended to ten-car length any time soon, because once the service goes over to ten-car operation, it will then no longer be possible to dump operationally-inconveniently-late trains in it and chuck all the passengers off, so the operator will be forced to actually run the service.
There is a key paragraph from the franchise prospectus on rolling stock on page 28:
‘There are currently three main types of trains used on the South Eastern network, but there is the opportunity to introduce new and/or refurbished trains that are more fit for purpose to the network. For Metro services, these could be the spacious Metro-style trains used on London Overground lines and/or those being introduced on Thameslink Services. Providing more space for passengers is a priority.’
..change in the new franchise will come
from better ways of working which can improve
performance, rather than further very large scale
infrastructure projects.
So as expected there is almost no chance of route separation if it needs money.
Seems one of SE London’s MPs has woken up to the housing numbers in the consultation and got the Government to accept the numbers are wrong.
http://www.bexleytimes.co.uk/news/flawed_consultation_into_south_eastern_rail_is_slammed_by_mp_as_housing_figures_too_low_1_4951528
Wonder if they’ll actually do anything about it?
Some rough power to weight comparisons for some SW rolling stock compared to SE 465s (beware some data from wikipedia)
Class, Cars, Power(kw), Weight(t), kw/car(kw), t/car(t), kw/t
455, 4, 740, 136, 185, 34, 5.44
442(trad), 5, 1200, 203, 240, 40.6, 5.91
407, 5, 1200, 160, 240, 32, 7.50
442(8xmotor), 5, 1480, 191, 296, 38.2, 7.75
444 , 5, 2000, 227, 400, 45.4, 8.81
465, 4, 1199, 136, 300, 34, 8.82
442(12xmotor), 5, 2220, 195, 444, 39, 11.38
450, 4, 2000, 170, 500, 42.5, 11.76
t/car is average vehicle weight across unit. I assumed the 407 cars to be 25% lighter than 450 Desiro vehicles with power taken from earlier ngh comments. Ngh suggested 8 and 12 motor 442 rebuilds using redundant 455 kit, so these included for comparison, assuming all traction gear can be added to a Mk3 trailer (already with power doors and toilet tank) for no more than 4t extra weight.
407s are only 85% of the kw/t of 465s. What stands out particularly is how poor 455s are at only 5.44 kw/t. 442s with 12 motors would be almost up there with the 450s so possibly a good mix with them on the Portsmouth direct.
I’m confused. How can a “consultation” about future services in South-East London take place at the same time as the franchise tendering process ??
Surely the former should have been completed and analysed so that it could inform the latter ??
@timbeau – ok maybe I’m miles out on my weight assumptions for traction equipment. I noted from the 455 job, Vossloh Kiepe claims to save about 0.5t per motor but that’s only 2 tons saving per vehicle:
http://www.vossloh-kiepe.co.uk/vossloh-kiepe-enters-production-phase-for-swts-class-455-emu-re-tractioning-at-eastleigh-depot/
From Angel trains, the difference between driver motor and lightest trailer of a 450 is about 12t:
https://www.angeltrains.co.uk/Products-Services/Regional-Passenger-Trains/22
I’ll revise my power/weight calcs later when I have some time.
2000kW seems a bit far-fetched for a Desiro. 2000hp (1500kW) seems more plausible and is consistent with a number of sources.
I assume the 407 should read 707?
The DfT have admitted they made a “presentational” error, aka a mistake, in planned housing numbers contained within the consultation last week, in a letter to an MP.
They said 36k. I noticed it should’ve been almost double (and possibly more if using Core Strategy’s and updated plans). Apparently it made no impact though…
Here’s the letter from Paul Maynard https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/government-reveal-they-have-underestimated-planned-housing-numbers-in-southeastern-rail-consultation/
Re: ngh at 21.15 – a post remarkably similar to yours in another place links to
https://www.mobility.siemens.com/mobility/global/SiteCollectionDocuments/en/rail-solutions/commuter-and-regional-trains/desiro-platform/brochure-desiro-city-class-707-en.pdf
… which cites the 707’s power at rail as 1.200kW.
However, the Platform 5 stock book (admittedly not known for 100% accuracy) cites 4 x 200kW motors per driving motor car. I guess it is possible that both are true, i.e. that the motors could deliver 200kW but are controlled in the 707 case to 150kW??
There is also a generic Desiro City broxhure from Siemens floating around that (a) gives an alternative 5-car configuration with a fifth motor bogie, and (b) suggests a 6-car formation with an intermediate full motor car is possible. How much of this is marketing puff, however…
Presumably, if the additional vehicles for First SW were more 707’s, they could rearrange the existing units and add more power cars, swapping out trailers for the additional trains. Presumably Siemens and the ROSCO who own them would be more than happy to do this as the alternative would be for the units to be surplus with an uncertain future. Maybe the reason why there is no announcement about where the additional trains are coming from is because First are still negotiating such a deal.
Re: MikeP – the consultation *will* inform the refranchising. The Prospectus (which is *not* an Invitation to Tender, more of an invitation for prospective bidders to express interest) includes a timeline sgowing the process but frankly little of substance. The ITT will incorporate the DfT’s reading of the consultation responses when it is published and issued to shortlisted bidders in September. It is a long process – the new franchise starts in December 2018.
An important paragraph for LR commentators to study is found on page 20 of the ‘South Eastern Rail Franchise Prospectus” linked to by Verulamius
It states:-
“With the completion of the London Bridge redevelopment, no significant infrastructure projects are planned during the next franchise. This provides a period of stability for the alliance to form and mature”.
Surely this clearly shows that NRs ‘do nothing’ approch is no accident – the DfT quite clearly are not planning on any extra infrastructure (other than longer platforms) for coming into service during the next decade – and hint that they prefer (see page 12) the following to create more capacity:-
“We are asking the public whether they would support more radical approaches that would improve the service provided, including options for:
Moving to a regular 15-minute service on Metro routes.
Focusing services on a particular London terminal. These improvements would create a simpler, faster, more frequent, and more reliable timetable. The speeding up of longer distance journeys by providing hourly fast services is also under consideration.”
@ Balthazar – for me there was one interesting page in the Prospectus. The one that showed stations ranked by patronage and then by revenue. The revenue ranking will undoubtedly be the one that bidders and DfT are most interested in. It’s noteworthy how London area stations dominate the usage ranking but are sparsely represented in the revenue list. I was a tad surprised to see that Ebbsfleet to Stratford International is one of the top non London termini revenue flows on the franchise. Suggests that Stratford Int is doing better than is perhaps imagined.
It looks to me that DfT will want four key things in the bids.
– an ability to crush more people on to inner suburban services.
– a series of headline measures that bolster longer distance commuter services into London and maybe better off peak trains to grow revenue.
– a significant improvement to HS1 services to grow commuter revenue.
– all of the above delivered at less cost / higher premium to the DfT.
An interesting challenge given the comment in a previous post about few, if any, infrastructure interventions being planned for the franchise. This is, of course, a rather stupid stance for the DfT to take as it means a lost 10-15 years in being able to lay the foundations for increased service levels in the future. It does align perfectly though with Mr Grayling’s emerging dislike of any significant capital expenditure on the railway.
It’s no surprise London stations dont bring in much when Metro trains have no staff on board and many stations have no barriers. Its a fare evaders paradise.
At least longer distance routes have staff who check tickets.
Fare evasion may well be an issue. But a significant cause of usage and revenue having different rankings as between inner and outer stations is simply the difference in average fares, caused by inner stations having shorter average journey lengths.
Re: WW – fair enough, what I meant is that the prospectus is not a franchise specification (because that’s what the ITT is for).
A couple more thoughts:
1. Is the announcement that toilets will be fitted to all mainland trains under First/MTR SW bringing such facilities to routes that have literally never had them?
2. Is this one way in which the new-look DfT is distinguishing their franchises from TfL operations (and so justifying non-devolution)… and so should we expect it to roll over to South Eastern too?
Re Mark T and Timbeau,
The 350 (LM, TPE), 360 (Anglia), 450 and 444 Desiros have physically identical traction set ups and have 4 powered axles per driving car with each traction motor at 250kW each so total 1000kW per motor car of which there are 2 so 2000KW, however the traction electronics module under each motor car can only supply 865kW (1730kW /unit) and they are software “slugged” to 1500kW/1550kW (cabling limitation at circa 2000A @traction voltage which is effectively slightly lower than othe countires @ 3rd rail voltage in the UK and all Desiro UK are 3rd rail compatible even if shoes aren’t currently fitted) depending on which variant on AC and 1125kW on DC for 450 and 1350KW on 444s due to 3rd rail limitations and combinations.
The 444s and 450s appear to have different gearing however as the 444s have a starting tractive effort of 160kN (with helps result in a lower max acceleration rate of 0.6ms^-2 too) and a 450 has a starting tractive effort of 200kN.
The unsprung mass (axles, wheels, traction motors and a few suspension components) of a DesiroUK (i.e. 450/444 etc) motor bogie is ~2.55tonnes and total motor bogie weight 6.0 tonnes. The new design (and smaller traction motors) class 700 desiro city motor bogie is 2.0 unsprung /4.2 total tonnes.
@balthazar
Indeed, 4SUBs and 4EPBs never had such facilities – difficult to arrange in non-corridor compartment stock anyway! – and the 455s don’t either.
In the words of Alan Williams, when comparing the then-new 455s with their ac cousins north of the Thames: “nice people from Surrey don’t do that sort of thing!”
Where does it actually say that *all* mainland trains will have toilets? Charging points, yes. Wifi, yes.
Re Timbeau,
Mainland (i.e. not IoW) or just mainline?
@ Phil,
well that’s an interesting paragraph – “Focusing services on a particular London terminal. These improvements would create a simpler, faster, more frequent, and more reliable timetable. The speeding up of longer distance journeys by providing hourly fast services is also under consideration.”
As has been pointed out already the problem is that both Charing Cross and Cannon Street are effectively at capacity, both track and platforms, so not much chance of more frequent services there; and for the same reason there isn’t room to accommodate additional ‘fast’ services, which is why the fast services from Ashford now go to St Pancras. The only way to provide additional capacity is CR3 from the Lewisham area, but as has been discussed this is probably unaffordable, and no provision has been made for work sites for tunnelling etc. Does this mark the beginning of the end of London’s ‘World Class City’ status, as we pass the baton to others who haven’t developed themselves to a standstill?
@RogerB The public facing version provides more detail about the hourly fast services. Q12 is “How far do you support, or oppose, reducing journey times to key destinations in Kent and East Sussex, by reducing stops at less well used intermediate stations to create hourly fast services?” From that one can assume these are mostly existing services with skipped stops rather than additional services.
The public consultation and prospectus both have a few issues trying to map the current and future service pattern. The worst is probably page 15 of the prospectus suggesting Shenfield is a South Eastern served station and the Thameslink line from Herne Hill going to the Catford Loop instead of Blackfriars. Not entirely sure how they decided which individual stations to mark out either.
Trying to implement single London terminal would not go down well with passengers particularly at peak times as even the off-peak Hayes all to Charing Cross generated quite a few complaints.
RB
And there are only … how many domestic supposedly-HS platforms at St Pancras? ( TWO! )
At the same time the domestic platforms serving the old MR route (only 4 of them) are going to be swamped with traffic & passengers, assuming that the knitting does get strung sometime before 2925.
Where do you fit all those terminators in, then?
Timbeau/ngh – an infographic at http://www.firstgroupplc.com/about-firstgroup/uk-rail/improving-south-western-railway.aspx says “Toilets on every mainland train”.
@Greg T: how many domestic supposedly-HS platforms at St Pancras? ( TWO! )
Three? (11 to 13 inclusive)?
Greg Tingey,
There is no need for the “supposedly”. And this is not the first time we have had to correct you about the number of HS platforms at St Pancras. You have claimed there are only two before now. There are THREE.
Re Greg,
St Pancras Midland has 4 platforms but only 5tph currently and 6tph after Corby gets juiced so plenty of capacity and also most trains aren’t as long as the platforms so plenty of potential to add capacity there too.
The issue is actually fast paths unless you get EMT to stop at Luton Airport Parkway or similar as they catch the Thameslink faster services too quickly otherwise.
@Greg Tingey
supposedly-HS
The bit I do from Stratford International to St Pancras takes 6 minutes for just over 9km. Where else on the network can you can actually use 90km/h trains within Zone 1-2/3?
Stratford to Camden Road Overground – same route, same distance takes 21 minutes – 3.5x longer at average 25km/h.
Actually I’m rather glad that trains in platforms 11, 12 and 13 do not travel at high speed, due to the proximity of some rather hefty buffer stops.
@Southeastern Passenger. Thanks, I hadn’t read it like that. So, for example, alternate Ashford trains would skip Paddock Wood – Pluckley reducing their service to hourly. Obviously the Men of Kent would love to have back their faster services to the Thames, not sure The Kentish Men would be so happy. Which would be the better use of resources?
Re: GT, ngh – in any case, surely the Midland Main Line platforms at St Pancras have (literally) no connection to consideration of South Eastern services?
Re: Malcolm – like it!
Paddock Wood to Pluckley are all east and south of the Medway, and thus occupied by Men and Maids of Kent (like Ashford and points east). Tonbridge is on the Medway, so presumably some of the station users are Kentish, but this may not matter.
I don’t think it’s about better use of resources, it’s about trying to please everyone, and finishing up leaving everyone half-dissatified. But so long as the franchise holder can take the blame…
Malcolm, I thought I might be allowed a little poetic licence rather than repeat the place names. No chance on LR!
@Roger B
Is there capacity for a stopping service between Ashford and Tonbridge only, to fill the gap left by the skip-stopping London services. Possibly by extending the Redhill services, to provide useful connections to LGW.
@ Roger B 29th March at 13.02.
With Paddock Wood reduced to an hourly service, would the Medway Valley line, which in peak hours is cut back from Tonbridge to Paddock Wood, be left with no trains to connect to in peak hours?
In order for the ‘faster’ services to be significantly more attractive the time savings would need to be at least 10 minutes. Cutting all stations between Tonbridge and Ashford might achieve this, but cutting fewer stations is unlikely to do so. Although computer modelling give passenger number increases for any time saving, however small, it must be doubtful that savings of 2 or 3 minutes would make any significant difference. On the other hand, cutting service levels at intermediate stations from 2 an hour to 1 an hour would certainly make a difference – negatively.
quinlet: Your reasoning is reminiscent of the sorites paradox. If you remove sand from a heap one grain at a time, when does it cease to be a heap? In this case, I think the computer modelling is correct, and your intuition that “savings of 2 or 3 minutes would not make a significant difference” is in error. Or not, of course, depending on what you mean by significant. But if you concede that a 10 minute saving is worthwhile, how can that be, since it is only the sum of a number of “insignificant” 2 minute savings?
I’m not sure why Ashford needs faster services – it already has them, and the handful of people using the stations beyond that don’t get Javelins can change at Ashford (or Dover, Canterbury, etc) if they want to get to London quicker. Add in that significantly more people use the stations west of Ashford that would be skipped than the number east of Ashford who would save a couple of minutes.
Wye+Chilham+Chartham+Sturry+Minster+Walmer+Martin Mill+Sanding+Westenhanger is 189,000+38,320+62,180+78,546+61,952+187,000+43,104+98,500+66,508 = 825,110 passengers in 2015/16, and not all of these would be served by faster trains as it is only 1tph being made fast.
Staplehurst (OK the second busiest station that would be skipped) alone sees more passengers than that and all the stations skipped, save Pluckley, are over 400k passengers/year. You might be able to skip Pluckley.
Malcolm – quinlet is right. Empirically,there is a threshold below which the of any change is trivial. It is a common myth that journey time elasticity is a linear relationship; it is,in fact,much more likely to be some sort of function. It only appears as a linear relationship because the changes on which the relationship is calibrated (for example in the PDFH) are observed over a small range – at that level, even a marked functional relationship can look flat and a straight line be plotted with a reasonable “goodness of fit”. The same goes for most other elasticities such as price and frequency.
There is another,more subtle, issue here. Many investment schemes (not just for rail,but almost always for highways, too) have been justified on the basis of aggregated individual minutes.Sure, a scheme may save 100 000 people 100 000 minutes and that is then turned into 100 000 productive minutes,but,you know, I beg leave to disagree. People faced with a time saving of 1 minute as individuals simply won’t work for that extra minute. They might,of course, if they were paid by the minute to attend, but very few are. I don’t know what the real threshold might be.
Do not be beguiled by Sophists bearing trays of sand…
@Maidstone Jotter, 29 March 2017 at 14:17
“With Paddock Wood reduced to an hourly service, would the Medway Valley line, which in peak hours is cut back from Tonbridge to Paddock Wood, be left with no trains to connect to in peak hours?”
Best solved by extending the Medway Valley services to Tonbridge all day, if there’s platform capacity. Could investigate linking across Tonbridge with the Victoria via Redhill service to save platform occupancy at Tonbridge and better utilise rolling stock. The Southern service today seems to have a particularly long layover, off peak at least. Difficult with different TOCs though, so maybe a transfer of Medway Valley stoppers to GTR? SE had a stab at running Medway Valley trains through to Gatwick and Horsham, back in Connex days I think. I suspect the extra reversals at Redhill were very bad for performance all round however and the service didn’t survive very long.
For many years, Kent County Council campaigned for faster journey times from East Kent. When such services were proposed (or very occasionally even made it as far as introduction) there were then howls of protest from the west end of the county that their train service had been reduced in frequency. The council ultimately sided with the latter, meaning faster train services remained a chimera until HS1 was in place.
Note however that the current franchisee has removed calls at some stations – Teynham, Newington, Sole Street and Farningham Road have all been reduced from half-hourly to hourly off peak services.
Given the presumption for clock face timetables in the documents (clearly the authors are unaware of the 66-minute hour to which SE peak has run fairly successfully for many years) it is difficult to see what scope there is to introduce faster timings without reducing services to less than hourly at some stations. And I doubt that the local politicians will wear that.
@Mark Townend
Through trains to and from the Medway Valley can only use the down platform at Paddock Wood, which creates its own pathing problems.
@Mike 0209
Ah, the infographic is at odds with the text then. And infographics are often wrong, as those who spotted Canary Wharf and Shenfield are labelled as SE stations will have noticed.
I’m a great believer that 100000 * 1 min is worth having, but you’d need to weigh against it the political problem of 10000 * 20 min of those being inconvenienced. I think the latter would be much more vigorous in their objections, so nothing would change. This is the classic lobbying problem
Graham H: We had better not take this too far, or we will get moderated, but I think you may be confusing the study of individual behaviour with the study of the totalled behaviour of crowds. Sure, most of the 60 people will waste their extra minute, but it only need one of them to do be tipped over the threshold into doing an extra hour’s work, to offset the other 59 wasted minutes.
So the straight line for journey time elasticity cannot be applied to a single person, but it can be proposed for a crowd. And if the crowd is big enough, it can presumably be observed.
The other point about any proposed non-stopping at Pluckley (or anywhere else) is that it is not just the travellers from Chilham etc who might benefit. It might also be the tax/fare/payer, if that non-stopping happens to cross a tipping point which gets one more productive trip per day out of a piece of expensive hardware (or an expensive staff member).
@John B – I beg to differ. The extreme case was the £15m we were asked to let IC spend relaying the throat at York, which saved a claimed 15 sec to journey times. We saw no revenue benefits at all – 15 sec wouldn’t even be reflected in the headline journey times (it didn’t trigger the magic York in 2 hours) so how would the punters know that it was worth brassing up for. Even worse, only a handful of trains were scheduled to use that 15 sec, so the actual number of beneficiaries was trivial.
The point is that it isn’t worth saving anything in journey time (except to reduce rolling stock requirements ) unless the punters will pay for it. There is no, repeat no, evidence that the elasticity of price to journey time is a linear constant, and much evidence from practical cases that the relationship is a function. In other words, there is a point on the curve where the amount the punters are willing to pay is so small that it isn’t worth the investment. I grant you that that point may be different in different cases (noteably where journey duration and journey purpose is involved) but there is no evidence that you could turn 100 000 x 1 minute savings into cash – which is the test.
We’ve had this discussion before Graham. I spent my career optimizing supercomputer software, and every change counted, though obviously you stopped when the programming/complexity cost exceeded the gain. But you didn’t need to sell the customer on every element of the package, just the overall cost/benefit. Similarly UK cycling conquered the world by packaging small incremental changes. In both cases there was a way of measuring the performance gain, I suspect your York problem was not the lack of gain, but the measurement technique.
@Graham, John B, Malcolm
I’d guess that the total value of time for a population such as train users follows a probability density function, where connections mean that there is a set of discrete value gains for individual passengers at increasing levels of time savings. So, there is a probability that the value of a generic 15 second time gain is greater than zero but it would be pretty low. In a specific case, it might have a positive value.
In other words, all three of you are correct.
@John B – we have and I suspect there is a difference between computer software and human perception. I agree that there is an issue around aggregation but – we nasty folk tend to take the package apart on Pareto grounds. I’d love to know what form of measurement can turn a 15 sec gain on a 2 hourjourney into pelf.
Graham H: Your “except to reduce rolling stock requirements” is the get-out. Time is always worth saving in any context, but time here might pay twice – once for the passengers, and once for the operator.
And when did you join the “not worth doing anything unless it produces money” brigade, anyway? Most job satisfaction does not arise because you have put something on the bottom line, it arises because you have made the world a better place.
Now whether the world as a whole is better off without a Pluckley stop is of course worth debating. But it might be.
But as several people have said, we’re not going to resolve this abstract point here and now, so we may be better occupied returning to our moutons.
Re: timbeau – there are several sources of information about the First/MTR franchise plans, none of which are identical, but I hadn’t spotted anything that directly contradicts (as opposed to merely not confirming) the “toilets on all mainland trains” bit of that infographic. Which text?
@Graham H
” I’d love to know what form of measurement can turn a 15 sec gain on a 2 hour journey into pelf”
I’ve missed enough connections by 15 seconds, resulting in delays of an hour or more, (and getting compensation for it) to know that every second can cost the operator money.
@Balthazar
Several sources mention keeping the 707s.
https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2017/03/27-first-mtr-beat-stagecoach-to.html
http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/main-line/mtr-joins-first-group-for-south-western-franchise-bid.html
None talk about retrofitting them with toilets (which would be of little use in crush loaded conditions to anyone not wedged against the door, and would actually make the crush worse) although many less-significant improvements such as at-seat power points (also of little use if you haven’t got a seat!)
Quote from the Transport Secretary (at the time of writing)
“Commenting on today’s announcement, Secretary of State for Transport Chris
Grayling said:
“This is great news for rail passengers. FirstGroup and MTR will deliver the
improvements that people tell us they want right across the South Western
franchise area, from Southampton and Portsmouth, to Bristol and Exeter, to
Reading, Windsor and London.”
Curious omission from that list. Has he forgotten that his constituency is in Surrey?
@timbeau
‘I’ve missed enough connections by 15 seconds, resulting in delays of an hour or more, (and getting compensation for it) to know that every second can cost the operator money.’
There is a pretty small chance of this happening but it happened, which is the situation that I was trying to capture.
Time is infinitely divisible and linear for our purposes but the value of time, as Graham and you have pointed out, is anything but.
answer=42: Don’t forget the averaging. That particular 15 seconds cost timbeau and/or the operator a lot, whereas many other instances of 15 seconds cost nobody anything. But averaged out over all the instances of 15 seconds, it will turn out to cost exactly one quarter of one sixtieth of the cost of an hour’s delay (whatever that is!).
@timbeau – of course,but for planning purposes and for constructing business cases, you start from the assumption that the timetable works X% of the time and so you factor in the value of lateness. You do not assume,however,that *all* connexions will fail and all journeys will be late…
@ Malcolm 1505
What you are quoting is classic Xeno’s paradox, by which the hare can never overtake the tortoise. This was worked on the basis that every time the hare halves the distance between himself and the tortoise a half of the distance still remains and the tortoise moves on. On this paradoxical approach the hare can get closer and closer but never quite close the gap. It is, of course, nonsense, as th periods of time get smaller and smaller, too. Agreed it might be tricky to prove categorically the precise threshold below which a time saving becomes trivial, but there are several approximations which might suit. 5 minutes is a good one on the basis that a metro train running less than 5 minutes late is still considered to be ‘on time’. For Inter-City trains it’s 10 minutes.
John B
You can programme a computer to use any algorithm you want. It doesn’t make it true. Half of transport modelers’ problems is that they have a tendency to believe the output of the model without subjecting it to a sanity test – hence DfT traffic forecasts consistently predict a massive increase in car ownership in inner London without any consideration of the fact that there’s nowhere to put them.
Re: timbeau – I’d seen those reports and, august as the IRJ (if not Railnews) is, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I still think it is distinctly possible that the 707s do not feature once the new fleet is in service. And if the 707s are not staying, then they won’t be retrofitted with toilets under the SW franchise so naturally that will not be mentioned.
Personally I put more weight on what is *not* said in the First Group announcement (my post of 27th at 08.04 above) than on rushed online media coverage, but maybe that’s just me.
The primary sources (releases from the First Group and the DfT) make no assurances about the 707s staying as far as I have read so far. Confusion arises (a) from this lack of confirmation, (b) from the fact that the 707s *will* be introduced into service with the last ones I believe arriving after the franchise change, and (c) from a misplaced “well, they couldn’t do that” sense amongst observers (the correct response being: “oh yes, they could – if the price and franchising incentives are right”).
One can’t help wondering whether one of the reasons for the lack of certainty could be that both DfT and First/MTR are well aware of the media storm that would ensue should it be confirmed that the entire Control Period 5 HLOS* rolling stock investment programme (new Class 707s, reformation of Class 458s, traction upgrade of Class 455s and refurbishment of Class 456s) for the SW franchise is being let go rather sooner than might have been expected, albeit that it will be in full operation for a couple of years or so.
*High Level Output Specification (actually not quite sure about the last word…)
@GH – and there’s the case that a 15 second speed up on one leg may not change overall journey time at all if a subsequent connectional leg doesn’t also get retimed. Instead the earlier arrival would would merely add to interchange time. A slacker connection might improve the chance of it being successfully made but it also results in a longer wait under non-perturbed conditions, something that modelling tends to assumes is less attractive than time on the move. In the case of a major junction like York there’s also the concern that a change focused solely on a speed up for one particular service might make overall flexibility and fluidity worse for all traffic if signal overlaps for instance end up being stretched through junctions, blocking other movements to a greater extent than if a lower blanket speed was adopted.
Both Tony Miles and Roger Ford have confirmed that based on briefings from First/MTR that the class 707s are not included in their plans for SWT.
@quinlet 5 minutes late is 5 minutes of every passenger’s life wasted, in no sense is the train on time, the contract with the passenger to get them to a destination in a certain time has been broken, by 5 minutes. Passengers experiencing regular small delays just revalue the benefit the service gives them, and adjust their behaviour to reality, not the fiction of the timetable. Even in the SE’s captive market, that will reduce passenger satisfaction, travelling numbers and revenue as people seek alternative housing and employment.
Similarly 15s gained through a junction remodel is a direct gain to them, whatever they do with that time. You can’t profile every passenger to ask what they did with those 15s each time. Whether it was staring into space, or at a dying relative’s bedside. All you can do is aggregate the times and say that a £15m remodelling will save 1000 man years, and decide whether £15k/man year is worth it.
Of course some time savings will be wasted with increased connection times, but others will allow better connections to be made and give much greater savings. On average, statistics suggest that you get … 15s, which is the sane result from the model
@John B – I don’t think you quite understand how the value of time is calculated.
@Graham, its how I value my time. Are you saying railways don’t value time linearly?
Re Balthazar, Timbeau, Verulamus,
The IRJ article dated from June 2016 so take what it says with pinch of salt.
As regards the Railnews article “talks have been underway with at least two rolling stock manufacturers, and that these discussions will now continue..”
2 manufactures and 2 RoSCos and 1 of the manufacturers appears to be feeling bit nervous about losing to the other 😉
Balthazar @ 2156
You’re right with the word ‘specification’. HLOS has however regularly been expanded wrongly to include ‘Statement’; I suspect that this is because each HLOS came with a separate Statement of Funds Available (SOFA) …
@Balthazar
“the entire Control Period 5 HLOS* rolling stock investment programme (new Class 707s, reformation of Class 458s, traction upgrade of Class 455s and refurbishment of Class 456s) for the SW franchise is being let go rather sooner than might have been expected”
All of which schemes were in order to provide for the extra rolling stock needed for the ten-car project for which the civil engineering work will not be completed until nine days after the franchise changes hands. (Although I’m not banking on any trains, let alone 10-car ones, running on August 29th)
707 – new ten car trains – 300 additional vehicles
458 – rebuilt as ten car with extra (ex-class 460) cars – 60 additional vehicles
456 – for adding to the 455s to make ten car – 48 additional vehicles
455 traction – reduced maintenance requirement, freeing workshop capacity at Wimbledon for the new units .
Someone will be paying for this profligacy – will it be the taxpayer, the farepayer, or the shareholders of Stagecoach, First, MTR, Angel Trains (who own the 707s) and Porterbrook (who own the rest)?
“Focusing services on a particular London terminal…………would create a ………… more frequent……….. timetable.”
Difficult to square this statement with the oft-repeated claims that the constraint on capacity on SE is terminal capacity, not conflicting moves at pinch points like Lewisham. Running (say) all Bexleyheath trains to Cannon Street and all Sidcup trains to Charing Cross would avoid crossing moves at Lewisham, but the same total number of trains would still be using the terminals.
In a similar vein, we have often been told that there is no room for more services on the SW Windsor Lines, but MTR/First seem to think otherwise as they are proposing to double both the Windsor and Reading line services, and provide more direct services to the Camberley line. Even if some of these go via Hounslow, that is an awful lot of extra traffic across the flat junctions at Barnes and the Whitton triangle.
Malcolm, John B,
The cost to the railway of time saving and the value of time saving to the ‘customer’ are two completely different things. Neither is linear; an averaging process will not give a true idea of the marginal costs and benefits. The railway can’t buy a thousandth of a bridge replacement. For ‘customers’ (to explain more my post above) a fifteen second gain will increase the probability that a certain number of passengers will make their connection, if such exists. The same time gain, if no such connection exists, has value approaching zero.
There is time; there is the value of time; and there is the cost of producing that value. They are not the same and they are not measurable in the same way, even in the aggregate.
The arrow reaches its target.
Zeno’s paradox is wrong
– one, because we can see it is wrong
– two, because the ancients didn’t know about infinite divisibility – see Newton, Leibnitz & “the calculus”
– three because, IF time is quantised, then the minimum unit of time is the chronon, which corresponds to somewhere between 6.27×10−24
seconds & 5.39×10−44 s.
Verulamius
So, where will the 707’s go then?
New stock – so they are not going to scrap them.
SE? But the networkers mostly have toilets ( not the nasty 5-car ones though )
“Southern” ???
Conversion to AC traction?
@JohnB – (wearily) -for financial purposes such as raising revenue, any individual’s value of time is what he or she would be prepared to pay for it. That willingness to pay will depend on what the journey purpose is, what’s absolute length might be, and a whole variety of factors. Few, if any of these will have alinear relationship to the time saved: Travelling to see your mother-in-law? Then 15 sec has a slight negative value for you perhaps,but 1500 sec will figure disproportionately higher. Travelling to see your mistress? A positive value (perhaps) – certainly different to previous example, but value may take a downturn if too many extra hours spent in mistress’ company. And so on. Because one is dealing with small incremental changes, suits people to argue for a linear relationship whose reductio ad absurdem is the 15 sec gain, but the reality is that that conceals a whole variety of relationships few of which will (not may) be linear.
The economic argument is different – less time spent travelling means more productive time spent working. Quite apart from the fallacy that people don’t work on trains, a moment’s reflexion will show the absurdity of the argument that the relationship is linear: I go, let us say, to Bristol for a meeting which takes much of the middle of the day. The meeting + travelling takes the whole of a working day. Now save 2minutes on the journey time (IEP I’m looking at you); there is no way I am going to use that 2 minutes either to work longer in Bristol (I’ve had the meeting and prolonging it by 2 minutes isn’t useful) or to return to my office and work (extra round trip time + 2 hours…). But make the time saving 60 minutes each way and I might be able to squeeze in something else productive. Not a linear relationship even if,again,it is probably the only practical option .
In both cases, there is a level of materiality in the change but it will differ between individuals, differ again for their journey purpose, and there will be further thresholds for each relationship depending entirely on practical considerations. The analogy of data processing is hardly relevant – the data doesn’t have different values depending on why it wants to be processed, doesn’t sit around deciding to visit its mother-in-law. That’s something for the data owner…
@greg
Conversion to ac is certainly possible – but who wants a 5-car ac unit with no toilets?
The Overground, obviously, but their 378s are less than ten years old and they already have units on order to replace everything else.
Of the other “non-relief” lines, the Northern City, Merseyrail, and the Cathcart Circle all have new stock on order already. Replacing the 376s on SE by 707s is unlikely to find favour, as it would perpetuate the 10-car problem on what aspires to be a 12-car railway, and the 376 has much more in common with the 375s on SE than the 707s would.
Graham: Also wearily: All these step-functions in an individual’s evaluation of their time are all very well, but it is possible that the sum of a whole lot of step-functions, with the steps generally in different places, could add up, when considering a crowd, to something close to a smooth line.
They might not, of course, and that is why this discussion has probably run its course. But proving that individual responses are not straight lines, however, does not prove that the sum is not.
Even if they do add up to a smooth line, we should remember that the line is only a model, and like all models it leaves out some of the detail. Whether the model is good enough for planning purposes – well, that’s where we came in.
Malcolm – you miss my point – it’s not that this is a smooth line – it is, or at least smoothish in aggregate – it’s that it’s not a straight line but a curve. Curves are also smooth for this purpose…
The examples I quote are not to demonstrate lumpiness, as the point that there are utilisation thresholds and that the reductio ad absurdem of a lot of very small savings adding up to something useful is not,in the human world that most of us inhabit, simply implausible.
@Timbeau: Perhaps some more of the network needs to be electrified?
@timbeau (re: 06:39 post)
Would converting Cannon Street to just metro stock, a seemingly key plank of the ‘one line = one terminus’ plan, eke out a few tph? The counter peak dwell time at London Bridge issue would be less if there’s no long distance stock, perhaps allowing frequency in the high 20s, rather than the low 20s.
@Greg Tingey
Of course Zeno’s paradox screams wrongness – we’ve been thinking within the strong reaction against it (though it took 2000 years for Calculus to come along and successfully disprove it) ever since. In fact, we only know about it from the guys on the other side of the debate, who have become the foundation of western thought.
The first issue you raise against it was the point Zeno was getting at – it was a reducto ad absurdum argument. The second issue of yours is more in the meat of the questions raised by it, though not quite right as Zeno employs the concept of infinite divisibility in another paradox to say that division makes no sense (contra the atomists, who tweaked their theory in response to Zeno) and plurality doesn’t exist. Zeno’s famous paradox is kind of a summation of his thought – place doesn’t exist, movement/change doesn’t exist, division doesn’t exist, numbers are messy, etc. Other than ‘numbers are messy’ to annoy the Pythagoreans, it has next to nothing to do with maths and everything about really out there (as we assume his rivals’ arguments) philosophy.
Malcolm (very wearily)
For the reasons I mentioned, the collective function does not approximate to a straight line. The only exceptions are when the number of possible connections is very large or the time between connections is very small or, conversely, when there are no connections at all and everyone walks to their final destination.
This linearity is not a function of the number of people but of the structure of the network.
@Greg
Interesting. But I was introduced to the limit theorem and hence calculus by way of said arrow.
I won’t waste any more chronons on this.
RE: timbeau, GT – in theory at least, the Desiro City design can be retrofitted with pantograph, transformer, etc. for AC overhead line operation (as has already been demonstrated by the first two of the class), retrofitted with toilets (I understand passive provision has been made*) and reformed into different unit configurations with new-build vehicles including intermediate motor cars (the fact that the original fleet is of such recent build means that this does not hit the asset management problem of the newer vehicles being significantly younger/less worn than the orginals).
*GT – all Networkers have toilets; it is the 376s which are your “nasty 5-car ones” and they are Electrostars. If my suggestion that the DfT might from now be distinguishing its TOCs from TfL by the provision of toilets has any substance to it, then it is the 376s which might have a problem.
It is an interesting question as to whether it counts as “profligacy” if both the HLOS investment programme and First/MTR’s rolling stock strategy were rational responses to the conditions applying at the different times that the respective decisions were made (see my contributions upthread, e.g. 22nd March 13.21 – five days before the South West announcement! – in relation to some of the incentives that apply). I think I first became aware of the 458/5 concept in 2009…
The big driver of the change would appear to be the high value put on new trains in the Invitation to Tender by the DfT.
Bringing the discussion (almost) back on topic, it is interesting to note that, on the East Anglia franchise, Angel Trains is letting the Class 317s go but has picked up the financing of the new Bombardier fleet. Given that Angel is the owner both of the seemingly less-satisfactory Met-Camm Networker build and of the 707s, could we see a similar scenario on the South Eastern involving augmentation and reconfiguration of the latter?
@Graham H, John B, Malcolm, Si, A=42
Collectively we are reaching the reducto ad absurdum point of this subtopic, so I suggest that we acknowledge that and agree to disagree. LBM
Are we ever likely to see the 707s in service out of Waterloo now? The present franchise owners now have absolutely zero interest in getting them commissioned as, until the platform extension work at Waterloo is completed (nine days after the franchise changes hands) there is little work for 10-car trains – and what there is can be done by the 458s. And although the owners have interests in other franchises, I can’t see 707s seeing much use on the East Midland services (diesel-only for the foreseeable future) , or the 125mph ECML and WCML!
Whether the service is going to be neglected in the last few months of the franchise is difficult to tell from experience so far. I arrived at the station this morning to find the information screens dark and a one hour gap in the Waterloo-Shepperton service during the morning peak – so it looks like business as usual!
@timbeau I’m sure the 707’s will be running as planned from later this spring as the ITT demands the higher intenstity service from December 2018. First MTR will I’m sure be obliged to run that service.
@AP
Indeed, but Stagecoach won’t be in much hurry to solve any teething problems, will they?
While there has been some speculation here about the future of the 707s, so far, no-one has decided to speculate about where the 458s will go. I suspect that Porterbrook will be very eager to find a new taker for them so as to justify the amount of work that’s been put into them as part of SWT’s “10-car railway” scheme.
As a small aside, I happened to see a pair of 707s earlier today on a test run. It seems strange to think that they might have to be moved somewhere else after only a couple of years, though my gut instinct (which has been wrong in the past) tells me that they will be retained by First MTR (and dedicated to a particular service group such as the Reading trains).
@Anon E Mouse
Their lack of toilets makes the Reading services some of the least suitable for the 707s. Actually, the Loop services would seem the best fit.
The 458s have at least had some use, both before and after rebuilding. Likewise the retractioned 455s and refurbished 456s.
But the 707s could become another Nightstar or APT-P.
I always put my crayon in with trepidation here given the august company, but could the “somewhat surprising” suggestion over a lack of terminating platforms at Hayes, be in any way related to the Bakerloo extension? As in, bear with me, Network Rail may be interested in freeing up lines into London Bridge, and the consultation for the extension proposed “up to” 20 trains per hour from Hayes eventually. Maybe someone figures with the better the infrastructure already in place, the stronger the case for the extension can be made when the time comes.
Timbeau at 0625.
Waterloo is not actually finished from a civils perspective in August this year. It is a stage in a project that doesn’t complete until Dec 2018. The international platforms re-close after their short period of use in August, and the complete main suburban side 10 car service comes later, in Dec 17.
@timbeau
“Their lack of toilets makes the Reading services some of the least suitable for the 707s.”
…which wouldn’t be an issue if First/MTR do indeed decide to fit all of their (mainland) trains with toilets, including the 707s (if they kept them).
BTW, has anyone else thought about the possibility of the 707s going to Southern to replace some of their 455s? Of course, this may not be as simple as it sounds as it would involve replacing 4 coach trains with 5 coach ones but this would enable a big increase in capacity. (25% + extra standing room)
Have we actually seen an official announcement from First/MTR regarding the 707’s ? The BBC news report on this subject is very alarmist, but does say that First/MTR cannot comment at this stage. The most likely answer is that the 707’s will be reconfigured to meet First/MTR’s requirements rather than being disposed of.
@Ben again – since most commentators expect the Bakerloo to be full from about Lewisham inwards,it would be surprising if NR saw its extension to Hayes as an answer to a maiden’s prayer.
I wonder if we will see any cast off SWT stock moving to Southern Eastern. I remember Brian Souter being reported as saying the 458’s were very unreliable & he wanted them off South West trains. The result was they stayed, but at a lower annual lease price. Could First/MTR be playing the same card with their rolling stock owners?
@AEM: Unlikely… The 455’s tend two work on 4/6/8 routes, so it would be the wrong kind of train on the line….
Bakerloo from Lewisham is planned at 27tph. Could go to 36tph, so a third uplift for Hayes extension.
Re: Anon at 19.17 – remember also that the 458s were a particularly weird acquisition. The original (1996) Stagecoach SWT franchise was a 7-year affair which in those early days meant no new trains (unless Adrian Shooter was in charge). The 458s were a sweetener – the supposed contribution to the greater good that balanced the rather obvious competition issues involved in Stagecoach buying Porterbrook Leasing Company, an ownership strucure that lasted no more than a few years, if that.
I’ve always rather thought that the upshot of this strange arrangement was that (a) SWT’s day-to-day operational staff weren’t particularly bothered about making their rather unwanted new assets work and (b) GEC Alstom Metro-Cammell* took the disastrous-in-retrospect view that since the sale had come about in such an unorthodox way this little fleet didn’t warrant much attention as a slice of slam-door replacement by a more conventional procurement was as good as guaranteed.
The result, of course, was that nobody was interested in reliability growth of what was in fact Alstom’s shop-window product. Ergo: Siemens stepped in to the market to rescue SWT and Adtranz (who, lest we forget, had seen their first attempt at post-privatisation EMU supply lead to the refusal of the TOC actually actually to operate them) cleaned up with two of the three big orders.
*as I think it was at the time
458’s were unreliable when they were first introduced, to the extent that SWT sent them back to the ROSCO for a while, before taking them back. Since then they have got very reliable, regularly topping the reliability charts and won several Modern Railways golden spanners for their category, at least until their conversion to 458/5’s. Even after the inevitable teething problems, they managed to climb back up the reliability charts to get the silver spanner last year, behind the SWT 444’s. The 458’s are more reliable than anything running on SET or Southern.
It is worth noting that last year, the SWT 455’s, 444’s and 159’s all won their categories for most reliable fleets in the Modern Railways competition. First/MTR may be introducing lots of new stock, but I suspect we are going to see a real dive in reliability, both with the new stock and because of the change of management.
Taz: The Bakerloo proposed extension to Lewisham was most recently covered in this article.
@ Timbeau / Si – surely the only practical way that you achieve a step change in terminal throughput is to use ATO / ATP, improve run in and run out times through better track / point design and use stepping back for the crews? Ideally trains with wide trains and lots of them will get people on and off faster than can be achieved today. To be boringly repetitive it is what the Japanese have had to do to shift the crowds they face. The fact the DfT is not contemplating anything like this for South Eastern or anywhere else (with a Central London terminal) shows the lack of imagination on their part (no doubt linked very heavily to not wanting to spend the money). Ironically the two lines that will have such trains and higher capacity signalling are Crossrail and Thameslink with no central London stub end termini at all.
The DfT seem to have taken the decision that, for the moment, they will support the use of higher capacity trains and expect the operator to manage the consequences of that. There is little recognition of the related impacts on platform and station capacity in terms of passenger handling nor the eventual need for rather more radical infrastructure interventions. That’s for sometime off in the (far distant) future.
I am getting a growing sense that the new SWT franchise is going to have some very undesirable impacts for groups of passengers and that there is a (for now) hidden transfer of operational risk to Network Rail. I think we’re in for very interesting times. I can also see exactly the same thing being perpetrated on South Eastern’s next franchise.
If First/MTR is not keeping the 707s/458s (as the online infographic from the horse’s mouth implies with its toilet statement), who will be paying the ongoing leasing costs?
WW – re DfT and lack of imagination. I really don’t know how you could raise speeds in/out of the main termini, and that is the constraining factor on capacity in terms of train paths. For Charing Cross and Cannon St at least, all ATO will do is improve reliability.
@balthazar
“Adtranz (who, lest we forget, had seen their first attempt at post-privatisation EMU supply lead to the refusal of the TOC actually to operate them)”
I had forgot – which Electrostar class, and which operator, and why?
Re: Mike – if the trains aren’t leased, no-one pays any leasing costs (but the RoSCo* may have its own finance costs which still need to be met).
*rolling stock (owning/leasing) company
Re: timbeau – Class 357/0; London, Tilbury & Southend (can’t remember the brand used at the time); appalling reliability.
An omission from my post of 13.01 yesterday: as well as the value placed on new trains in the ITT, the other big change of course was the fall in financing costs. Also perhaps a fall in whole-life costs for new trains that made them look relatively cheaper than a combination of 455/456/458/707.
Re Walthamstow Writer’s 22.12 posting: your view about transfer of operational risk in Kent to Network Rail is interesting, & concerning, in view of Network Rail’s poor performance right across Britain. Can you explain why you think risk is being transferred to them from the TOC?
Re Sad Fat Dad’s posting just above, I always thought that one of the reasons for the poor performance of the new 6 terminal platforms at London Bridge was Network Rail’s unilateral decision to cut the final approach speed limit into the platforms from the previous 30 year’s 25 mph to 20 mph. A driver poster here also said it part explained the problems at the new London Bridge terminal platforms. Why, when the layout was straighter than before, did NR, reduce the speed for a long distance before the platforms by 25%? Where they thoughtless of the consequences for 12 car trains coming in & out?
Jim Elson,
Yes! The up only speed at the country end has been planned as 20 mph at least as far back as 2012. The down only speed at the country end has been planned as 30 mph. How does the down speed compare with earlier eras? What evidence do you have that it is a unilateral NR decision? Remember that opinions do not count as evidence.
Balthazr
Thanks for reminding me ( temporary brain-fade) of the 376 – the “nasty 5-car ones” ..
Meanwhile, are there any more educated/informed guesses as to the likely fate of the 707’s?
Or is it likely to become clearer once the mandatory silence/purdah period is over for the SWT-area lease ?
@WW:
that there is a (for now) hidden transfer of operational risk to Network Rail.
Leading to an excuse to re-privatise if they fail?
Jim Elson,
The changes in approach speeds were the subject of much debate / argument, and are driven by compliance to modern signalling standards, whereas the old layout was comprehensively non-compliant.
Actually, the speeds that apply now on the immediate approach to the terminal platforms are irrelevant. Southern professional driving policy requires an approach speed of 15mph at the platform ramp (If I recall correctly), no more than 8mph (possibly 6mph) at the TPWS grids (which are quite a way from the buffer stops), and then progressive braking to a stop. Ditto for exit speeds, the risk of start against red SPAD is mitigated by TPWS, but the speed drivers are mandated by policy to depart the platforms is 15mph rather than linespeed, I assume for platform safety reasons.
Note that the timetable is built around long standing sectional running times and junction margins that assume drivers will drive to the capability of the infrastructure and their train. It is not constructed around train operators professional driving policies. Operators can (and do) amend their policies in ways that effectively slow the service down, and there’s nothing NR can do about it. Indeed I am aware of examples where NR has subsequently attempted to revise the running times and margins to reflect driving policy (and thus reality), only for operators to a) refuse and or/ b) seek compensation for the resulting extended journey times / reduction in capacity that would result in the timetable.
Whether the theoretical reduction in safety risk to passengers through compliant signalling and the professional driving policy at London Bridge is worth the slower approach and (potentially) reduction in capacity is a rather different subject, and one that I shan’t be drawn on!
Malcolm – re the acronyms, I trust that most readers know what TPWS and SPAD mean.
Re the above interesting comment from sad fat dad, & rayk’s question. The new 20 mph inward & outward limit on the TERMINAL platforms starts & finishes far out from the platforms so it does slow down approach & departure across the critical throat, re the old 25 mph limit. The TPWS limits also affect performance & they are inviolate, but the 20 mph limit is not.
Re rayk’s question. It was a unilateral NR decision. Local ASLEF, on behalf of the surprisingly large number of drivers who are interested & who care, queried it with Southern & pointed out its effect on journey time,(but not capacity). Southern apparently took it up with Network Rail, who said “tough, it stays at the new 20 mph”. So if this account, relaid to me via ASLEF friends, is accurate, it was a unilateral NR decision. We shall suffer it for the next 30 years plus. And by the way, will NR ever remove the redundant London Bridge signal centre so the last of the new 6 terminal platforms can take 12 cars. I am afraid it will stay for ever as a monument to NR’s lack of enthusiasm for bettering the railway. Apologies to NR people who may well spring to their employer’s defence. But removing an old signal box or just part of it, & extending a platform by 25 metres is a tiny issue compared with the work done.
Jim Elson,
And by the way, will NR ever remove the redundant London Bridge signal centre so the last of the new 6 terminal platforms can take 12 cars. I am afraid it will stay for ever as a monument to NR’s lack of enthusiasm for bettering the railway.
This has always been part of the plan. In any case otherwise why bother to make platform 15 around 11.5 carriages long which is what I think it is (may be wrong)?
Stating the obvious. You can only remove a redundant signalling centre which it is redundant. It is still in use. See page 24 of the route study for the diagram that shows how much of the area it originally controls it still controls. In terms of track mileage it is the vast majority. It still controls Bromley North and Hayes for example and also everywhere around Lewisham.
Re London Bridge signalling centre, how do you know it is redundant as a container for signalling control equipment? Moving the operating panels to Three Bridges doesn’t necessarily mean the lower floors are not still vital to the signalling functions in the station area.
I have no inside knowledge, but I wouldn’t rush to assume it will be empty…
So, as a country we have spent many billions of pounds on upgrading the infrastructure to handle more trains, then someone makes an arbitrary decision to reduce the allowable approach speeds, someone else takes another decision that the drivers should keep within that, and we end up with a capacity reduction. One has to ask, who has allowed this to happen?
Anonymike,
There is a difference between an arbitrary decision and a rational decision made where the reason for the decision is not known.
A further point is that some of the investment in rebuilding will have a pay-off other than increased capacity. Increased safety, for instance. I am not saying that the reason for the 20mph limit is safety, but it obviously might be. And pretty certainly the TPWS limits are so motivated.
Any renewal which removes grandfather rights, not just on the railways, will encounter this issue. Slam doors was an obvious one, the shorter turnround (and consequent higher peak frequency and lower costs) was foregone (by law), so as to lower injury risks, even though this meant spending more money.
Sorry, I should have said seemingly arbitrary. As you say, there is probably a good reason for the reductions, no doubt to give a safety margin, but where safety margin is added on safety margin, is this actually providing any beneficial safety improvement? And would tightening up these doubled safety margins provide an increase in capacity?
It’s just rather annoying to read about such things when a fraction of the seemingly wasted cost could substantially cut the 77 minute gaps between services on my commute (doesn’t need any capacity improvement works, just another train or two!)…
My old driver route pack suggests that the speeds going out of London Bridge were 20 rising to 60 and coming in, 60, 35, 20, and 25 over some crossovers. It’s now 20 rising to 60 going out and the reverse coming in. I can’t say I’ve experienced a great difference from the sharp end now the Central side is complete. Southern’s policy is 15 leaving the platform, at the ramp coming in and 6 over the grids, which don’t look as far as you might think from the stops when they are looming at you! From my point of view these are appropriate given the conditions. Passengers will insist on staying unnecessarily close to the platform edges. Or more annoyingly pre-empting the departure board and getting in the way of those who actually want the train coming into the platform, forcing them to make detours near the edge. To say nothing of blocking the view for the dispatch staff, as an aside.
Platform 15:
1. The London Bridge Signal box is still in use for signalling though less than it used to be and it should cease to after the late May Bank Holiday in 2018 when the final bit it will then control south of Lewisham will transfer to Three Bridges. More is transferring in 2017 and 2018 before the final change over.
2. Only the drivers door and front set of passenger doors on a 12 car train are beyond the current end of P15 and all 12 car services that could use it have SDO. Only 7-8metres needed to not use SDO.
3. None of the new equipment will affect the potential to extend the platform in the future.
4. Unless you extend via South London Line Metro services from 8 to 12 car P15 really isn’t a problem.
Speeds:
5. Anonymike “but where safety margin is added on safety margin” exactly the TOC has effectively added 1 or 2 extra margins on top of NR margin so none of their drivers overspeed and trip on the grids (so the TOC doesn’t get the delay minutes attributed to it.) I would agree with SFD and add that as electrostars which are the majority of Southern Stock effectively have speed control increments of 3mph if you want to guarantee <=8mph you have to go for 6mph which is an extra margin beyond the 8mph
6. Re Jim Elson 11:33 – but the whole issue is NR setting limits that include sufficient margin BUT Southern have just added more margins on top of that several times over. The whole issue could be solved by amending southern's professional driving policy. The overspeed grids are actually set at higher speed to give the drivers some oops allowance but Southern don't take this into account either. Why not blame Govia as their policies are the limiting factor?
ngh: speed control increments of 3mph
i.e. 5 km/h… 😉
@ J Elson 0926 – with the usual caveat that I may be completely wrong (!) my reading of the various headlines associated with the First / MTR award suggest that we will see a timetable revamp. Given we have had months and months of comment on here about congestion and dwell times I am therefore intrigued as to where all these faster and more frequent trains are going to appear from. It suggests to me that dwell times and run times and allowances are going to be reduced or put severely under pressure. It also looks to me as if a more intensive timetable will be more difficult to operate thus increasing pressure on drivers to run to time but also signallers to ensure everything is pin point accurate or else there will be delays. A tighter timetable with, I assume, a more complex hierarchy of services (to allow those fast headline jny times to be met) also requires a far more disciplined approach. I am also not a little concerned that given how prone the SWML is to suicides and passenger accidents the ability to step the service down (as SWT do now) and then recover it is also harder with a “tighter” timetable.
First / MTR are not without their challenges too. Avoiding a collapse in rolling stock reliability is key given how impressive SWT have been for many years. It won’t take much for some of the excellence to dissipate if key people leave or objectives shift very slightly. Furthermore such a massive influx of new stock also poses real risks to how the railway runs. Every new stock has its foibles and its bath tub curves and its unique interraction with the infrastructure it has to run on. It will be interesting to see who supplies the new trains because a number of suppliers have pretty full order books and factories – except Siemens who don’t appear to be in First/MTRs favourites list.
It just looks to me as if there are a tremendous number of challenges and not very much practical investment in track and signals and conflict removal (other than the Waterloo works which are already committed). I note also a newspaper report, off the back of leaked NR documents to the rail TUs, that track replacement works have effectively been cancelled on the SWT network. That doesn’t bode well in the medium term if you start to get wet beds, poor quality ballast or decaying sleepers because then you’re into temporary speed restrictions etc. Those asset issues then undermine the abilty to run the timetable.
@ SHLR – I don’t see any grand master plan about privatising NR. I just see something that looks really, really tough to deliver operationally and NR will inevitably be put under pressure as a result. If Mr Grayling wants NR privatised I have no doubt he will try to achieve that more directly than putting a “ticking time bomb” within the South West franchise. He seems to prefer “competitive” delivery vehicles (such as the odd East West proposed set up) as the way to (potentially) bash NR over the head.
Re ngh (and others), and Professional Driving Policy (PDP)
Even more frustrating, is that investigations relating to the issue at London Bridge terminal platforms revealed that the Southern (prop. GoVia) PDP stated 15mph at ramp end, 10mph with 100metres to go, and 6mph at the TPWS, whilst Southeastern (prop GoVia) PDP stated 15mph at the ramp end and ‘under 10mph’ at the TPWS. Thameslink (prop GoVia) PDP stated something different as well. At that time there were Southern drivers driving Thameslink trains (and vice versa) and Southeastern drivers driving southern trains (and vice versa).
You can well imagine the question that was put to the Southern management.
Jim Elson – sometimes the decisions are ‘unilateral’ as they are driven purely by signalling standards. Sometimes they are taken in conjunction with train operators where it is about management of risk. The departure speeds at London Bridge fall into the latter camp, and representatives of the train operators were party to the process of setting those speeds, and their signatures are on the documentation.
London Bridge Box
I’m given to understand ( signalling friend ) that everything, as far as possible is to be removed, if necessary into “cabinets” (etc) as the box itself is not structurally stable over the long term. And thus that it needs to be removed, before it falls into the road below(!)
I think the SE trains guidance is eminently sensible. Even modern speedometers are graduated in 5mph increments and so to try and reliably get to 6mph on a modern speedometer which might just be a display of a circular dial on a flat screen monitor is seriously hard. I would hope that the alliancing that the SoS is requiring will eventually get some common sense between NR signal engineers and the train operators, so that, for example, TPWS protection at terminal ends might be positioned optimally for a particular braking curve.
I would add that grandfather’s rights ought not to be extinguished if new, more generous track layouts are put in. Success is not “compliance with standards”. Success is the appropriate compliance with the sprit of standards by “wise men” (or women). What it requires is for everyone to get round the table to work out what needs to be done to deliver the required capacity, safely. Even in vertically integrated organisations it’s hard but it is possible and is necessary if you want reduced run times and more capacity.
Greg: yes, all the signalling is coming out next year.
The telecomms, however….
Why don’t trains have digital speedometers, or hybrid ones with the digital display inside an analogue ring?
Why don’t trains have on-board route knowledge software, with GPS+dead reckoning that shows an in-cab line speed at all times? I can see why drivers might resist a cruise control based on this, but wouldn’t a nice red/green feedback display give more confidence they won’t trip TPWS, so can they achieve a higher average speed?
John B. Some trains do have a digital speedo with on board route knowledge and in cab line speed – it’s called ETCS.
A minor point but I could not help noticing that the SE consultation document makes no reference to the possible provision of Boxing Day services and also (as far as I know) the new SWT franchise similarly ignores that possibility. If I am correct it does seem a shame that DfT could not envisage such a possibility especially for metro services.
@ Richard B – “we believe this is a commercial matter for train operators” would probably be the proforma response from DfT. Also the small matter, on some lines anyway, of engineering works getting in the way. And before anyone gets cross and states the obvious about sales / people need to travel / events I do support the provision of Boxing Day rail services. It should be a no brainer but TOCs don’t take risks unless the rewards are huge and obvious or someone else is paying them.
Boxing Day is currently a very low cost engineering works day for most routes (alnong with Christmas Day) and unlikely to change because NR would then have to cover costs for rail replacement buses for TOCs. As a result the change would if fares didn’t rise be covered by the TOCS and hence less premium to DfT.
Effectively dead “commercially” on 3rd rail routes.
But why can’t a rule be made that on 3rd rail and other relevant routes the operators should run a Boxing Day service on specified routes unless engineering work made it impractical? No compensation would be payable in the event of engineering work taking place and in these circumstances there would also be no obligation to run a service.
Taking Southeastern as an example to remain on topic, a lot of stations are unstaffed for part of the day anyway so station staffing could be minimal, the trains are DOO and the signalling staff have to be on duty anyway.
@ PoP – I suspect that creating a “special day” where compensation for eng works was not payable would be viewed as step too far and a risk that a precedent would be established that would undermine the TOCs’ ability to “recover” (ahem) costs from Network Rail. Once you start tinkering at the edges of industry wide rules people tend to retreat to the barricades for fear of something worse being inflicted on them. And yes it’s a nonsense and yes in a more rational world it wouldn’t happen but this is what we’ve landed ourselves with. You’ll only get rid of it if there is a much more fundamental approach to industry reform, structure and funding.
Ironically if people were so minded they could make it an interesting challenge for Mr Grayling’s “let’s all be friends and have a group hug” vision for the next South Eastern franchise. “Ok, Mr Grayling, if everyone is now best friends and working co-operatively on South Eastern please ensure we get a decent Boxing Day service”. 😉 Looks like a simple enough challenge and one that could well be popular with passengers. As TfL have not yet managed to get its rail concession services running on Boxing Day (although they are trying to with the Overground) it would be another chance for Mr Grayling to poke the Mayor in the eye over London area rail services.
Re WW and PoP,
As TfL (or rather the operator due to the contract terms with the operator) would want the compensation if they then can’t run Boxing Day it is even less likely than elsewhere (ignoring all the arguing against closures). It would probably also effect the operators overall performance stats and performance payments so could be messy unless there in an alteration there.
It is worth noting that a sensible Boxing Day compromise can be reached between TOC and NR if you look at Gatwick Express which is somewhat helped by no trains elsewhere offering plenty of diversionary routes.
And this article was inevitable…
@SHLR – The attempt to blame TfL is especially poor journalism – clearly a different branch of the Bull family…
Southern Heights,
How depressingly predictable.
Graham H,
But, as far as I am aware, it was TfL who originally suggested this in their plans for London Overground taking over Southeastern – so not entirely unfair.
Notably, the present franchisee has stated they do not intend to offer a changed route pattern (assuming they bid for the next round). A case of the do nothing option might be the more popular one?
@Greg T and others
Dread to think of the civils / disruption in actually removing the LBG box – whilst perfectly understandable for operational reasons – and bitter experience – why this wasn’t done at the same time as the works (and long term closure of St Thomas’ Street), cue the media headlines when this is finally done.
I can’t imagine this could be safely done in the context of a planned blockade(?) so look forward to the shut down of the Southern side when this is scheduled – presumably in 2020 – when we’ll have 24tph through the core anyway so all will be well 😉
@PoP – sorry,I wrote too elliptically – what I meant was that any suggestion that the route pattern should be simplified was to be laid at TfL’s door as if no one else had ever thought of it – so any such idea would be blamed entirely on them.
Re Tim,
“why this wasn’t done at the same time as the works”
because it is still in use and will be till mid 2018…
Prefab concrete is actually quite quick and easy to remove. It could easily be demolished over a series of Weekends without a reduction in services as it could be done with just P14 & P15 closed.
Tim @ 2003: you can dread all you like, but the disruption for demolishing the structure of the box will be limited to, at most, a couple of Sundays with platforms 14-15 out. Let us not forget that the old station roof across all the terminal platforms was removed largely without disruption.
The reason it hasn’t been done (yet) – as stated by several people above – is that it still contains signalling equipment, and signallers. And will do until well into next year.
@ SHLR – inevitable article yes but from what I understand of the “motivation” of some MPs in SE London they’ve done nothing to pressure the government over increasing rolling stock provision in the existing South Eastern franchise. If you make a vaguely critical remark on social media you get blocked. It is, of course, somewhat ironic that Mr Grayling stopped a TfL takeover of these routes that may, in time and with suitable investment, permitted a sensible separation of services and associated increase in frequencies. Now Mr Grayling’s department is in the firing line for simply “dangling” the idea of service separation in one tiny paragraph of a consultation. Odd how previously silent and emolient MPs suddenly find a voice about local rail services when people get completely the wrong end of the stick. Given there is little prospect of any significant infrastructure investment in the new SE franchise the likelihood of any service simplification is very remote.
Still I guess it saves the Mayor an awful load of ill founded and rather silly criticism from landing on his doorstep. It possibly also provides TfL with some insight, if they didn’t already have it, as to what the local populace is like when given some half baked ideas to consider.
The newsshopper article (as much as we might criticise it for lack of proper insight) has served a very useful purpose. Most users of the Greenwich line had no prior knowledge of the timetable changes (at the start of 2016-2018 London Bridge works) that saw them lose Charing Cross services at a stroke. Yes, the small minority of us in this forum knew what was coming – but the vast majority of commuters were in the dark, and some now have less convenient commute patterns.
This newsshopper piece has alerted a far larger number of local rail users to the “terminal simplification” proposal. That wider engagement is a good thing – surely?
WW: ” If you make a vaguely critical remark on social media you get blocked.”
You may well be right about this. But could you clarify, please? Who is making the remarks, about whom, and who is blocking them, and how?
@ Malcolm – I have seen people making fair but critical remarks about the MPs’ lack of public action / comment about extra trains for South Eastern be blocked by one of the MPs. There was no abuse or rudeness just pointed questioning. I find it somewhat odd that MPs are so sensitive that they block people rather than respond or at least acknowledge the point being made. If you can’t deal with fair public criticism you should not a Member of Parliament (IMO, of course).
Clearly a decision was made by the DfT to defer any extra trains being provided on South Eastern in advance of the franchise re-letting. That may have commercial “logic” for the DfT but it does nothing to relieve chronic overcrowding and short formation peak workings on South Eastern.
WW: Thanks for that. But perhaps my question was not clear enough – I am having difficulty envisaging what the platform is on which these remarks can be made, seen, and then blocked by an MP. Was it the MP’s own website? Or if not, how did they implement the block?
@Malcolm – Twitter, dear boy, Twitter (probably). A certain train operator operating in the bottom right-hand corner of London not entirely unconnected with this article is known to do it if questions or comments get too persistent or “aggressive” from their point of view.
(The, err, perps, tend to be people who believe Twitter should be an integrated part of a company’s Customer Services operation, not something entirely separate that points you at an, err, Customer Services website when the questions get too difficult for them)
I havn’t seen MPs blocking anyone. Some though are good and on the ball and others barely respond or seem ignorant (like the Dartford MP Gareth Johnson and James Brokenshire in Bexley)
That they’ve all latched onto this issue is odd considering many ignored the Thameslink consultation which looks to axe the link from Charlton to Blackheath, Lewisham, Waterloo East and Charing Cross.
And it’s the same with other issues such as station staffing, number of carriages etc. No word from most MPs.
Ed. Could it be that said MPs would have much preferred to ignore this entirely. But the sprinkling of publicity (newsshopper and the like) means there are now some constituents who’ve become aware of the potential loss of services and are raising it with SE London MPs. So it’s getting harder for them to ignore…?
It’s time people were told the truth – it’s greater reliability and change trains or same as now and keep your direct services to all terminals. I’m on the Hayes line, give me 6tph all stops to Cannon Street all week and I’ll happily change wherever I need to if I want the West End, just for the convenience of being able to turn up and go. People got used to Tattenhams and Caterhams terminating at London Bridge. Once Thameslink gets going they’ll be plenty of extra trains from London Bridge to Blackfriars etc which is hardly a million miles from Cannon Street; and here’s always the tube from London Bridge and Cannon Street. If you want to keep things as they are, don’t complain when nothing gets better down here. We aren’t going to get the tube penetrating deep into SE London; if we can have 4-6tph on all routes all week that’s pretty damn good. Tube users don’t mind changing lines, nor should we. If the frequency is that good, plus the Underground and Overground connections, that would be far preferable to the strange intervals, skip stops and lower frequencies of today, surely.
Question:
Would it make sense to use the 455 traction motors in the (not previously re-tractioned) SouthEastern Networkers?
Just an observation about these “choices of trains” (typically to West End or City). It’s not actually the choice itself whose removal may cause yells of anguish. It’s being able to go to the station that one is accustomed to go to (and has maybe chosen a job on that basis). But the fact that there is currently a choice means that there is a substantial number of people to be inconvenienced in this way, if things change so that the trains are all concentrated on one terminal.
@ Malcolm – I was referring to Twitter in terms of the “blocking” issue.
Moving on and given I live north of the Thames I really struggle with this bizarre (IMO) desire to retain low frequency trains that trundle round half the world before reaching one of 3 or 4 possible termini. As Anon (2037) says tube users cope with having to change trains and generally enjoy a reliable and very frequent service as a result. I also wonder how much of the attitude is driven by commuters who can’t bear to have “their” train times changing by a nanosecond rather than the needs of the entire user population of the trains *plus* those who would use them if only they ran at frequent intervals. I know the network is all terribly complex, old, worn out with tiny congested stations (all the usual excuses) but there really really needs to be a proper debate about what the S London rail network is there to do and what its genuine potential is if it was upgraded and professionally managed. Nothing will ever change for the better if all commuters do is whinge and moan about ossifying the network in roughly [1] the same shape it has always been.
[1] this acknowledges that some things have changed a bit in some places on the network. Therefore no one needs to pop up and correct me! 😉
Re Answer=42
“Would it make sense to use the 455 traction motors in the (not previously re-tractioned) SouthEastern Networkers?”
No (for many reasons) – the reliability of all the networkers is poor even the BREL/ABB ones retrofitted with new Hitachi traction electronics. The 455s (either SWT or Southern) were more reliable than any networkers even before the SWT started having new motors, traction electronics and controls. The main reason for the SWT work being to reduce the overall maintenance requirement (and increase the interval inbetween maintenance)
[No SE networkers have been retractioned but some have had replacement traction electronics fitted but they retained the original Brush 3 phase variable frequency AC traction motors.]
I will get round to the networker issues posts at some point…
Re: answer=42 – I hope I will be permitted to expand on the subject matter rather than give a glib yes/no opinion (in fact, of course, the correct answer is: all things are possible, but not all things represent value).
To start with, I must say that I am unsure whether people posting on the internet about “new motors” are using it as a shorthand phrase or genuinely believe that “new motors” is a true description of a re-tractioning.
To be clear: the motors are pretty minor. It’s worth noting that Vossloh Kiepe GmbH (presumably due a renaming soon, now that it’s been acquired by Knorr-Bremse) does not manufacture motors, but buys them in. Why? Because the motors are basically a dumb component; the clever bit (= higher value = higher margin) is the electronic control equipment that translates the raw, and highly variable in the case of third rail at least, power supply from the infrastructure into controlled outputs giving diferent power and different speeds to the aforementioned motors to meet the driver’s demand for acceleration (and retardation).
Integrating a re-tractioning on to existing rolling stock is a highly complex process, but the motors themselves are *relatively* straightforward: a question of designing the cases they go in to match the mechanical interfaces of the old ones so it bolts on to the bogie. The big challenge is the interfacing – both mechanical and electrical – of the control equipment, which comes in big cases (= complex structural calculation and design), often with completely different mounting arrangements, and with – for example – particular cooling requirements which may differ significantly from what went before, and may impose hydraulic interfaces as well.
The complete renewal of the system’s electromagnetic signature introduces E-M compatibility questions that need to be answered to maintain the safety of the railway as a whole. Changes to weight and its distribution bring up gauging and derailment resistance questions, and consideration of braking performance.
The process often includes complete replacement of the brake system, in order to realise the potential of regenerative braking (and improve wheel slide protection as a concomitant benefit). Brakes are something of a safety-critical system, so scrutiny is tight.
New auxiliary power supply control and distribution equipment may or may not be required or desirable, depending on the reliability and/or sufficiency of the existing kit.
To come back to the Angel/Met-Camm Networkers, the subject of your question, note that these have four bogies per 4-car unit motored and two per 2-car; a total of 286 motor bogies if my memory and mental arithmetic are up to it. Class 455s have two motor bogies per 4-car – total 182 motor bogies but more importantly suggesting that the individual motors from a 455 may well be overpowered if applied like-for-like on Networkers, and as a result may be overheavy for their bogie structures (ac motors of a given power rating are generally lighter than their dc equivalents, but we are probably not comparing like with like here, and in any case the Networkers already have ac motors from build).
I don’t know whether I am writing things you already know here, but let’s just say that it’s unlikely to be as simple as your query might have suggested to some!
Re Balthazar,
Good reply!
Your Vossloh – Keipe question – I thought they made their own motors as they have done for a very very long time including lots of Tram motors and traction electronics that they supply to Bombardier, CAF as well as for their own trams. [UK examples: Croydon (Bombardier) Manchester (Bombardier) Edinburgh (CAF)]
ABB is the usual 3rd party traction parts and systems supplier in the rail industry (to CAF, Stadler etc).
@WW
I think you make a good point in saying that Underground users have been quite happy (or, at least, reasonably content) with high frequency services that require a change to get to their final destination station, so why are rail passengers in south London upset about losing direct services to several different terminals?
There are probably several things that make the tube users more relaxed about their services at present:
– high frequency really does mean high frequency when you get into the distribution network in central London, with trains at least every 5 minutes. If services were less frequent, it certainly wouldn’t be as attractive
– interchanges all (or almost all) behind the barrier line, frequently easy and sometimes even just cross platform. Introducing changes that require a passage through a barrier line or two (see Waterloo East/Southwark interchange) immediately introduce inconvenience. The opportunities for easy interchange in south London with very high frequency services are limited
– users, particularly from further out in south London or in Kent and Sussex are used to getting a seat when they get on the train and the attraction of retaining a seat to the final destination is very high. As soon as you introduce a change you probably lose this.
– while a surprisingly large number of passengers do walk to their destination from their preferred terminus, for those who do change onto the underground there a change to single termini would mean changing a journey with one interchange into one with two for many.
Only if you could get very high frequency services would the benefits of such a radical change start to outweigh the disbenefits. It’s not just about unwillingness to change for the sake of it.
Anonymous
It’s time people were told the truth – it’s greater reliability and change trains or same as now and keep your direct services to all terminals.
but that was the “choice” presented to the wombledon-loop uses wasn’t it?
Except it wasn’t, of course. No-one tried to really explain the actual alternatives, resulting in the mess we have now. ( I think )
Similarly…
WW
I also wonder how much of the attitude is driven by commuters who can’t bear to have “their” train times changing by a nanosecond rather than the needs of the entire user population of the trains *plus* those who would use them if only they ran at frequent intervals.
As usual, Gerry Feinnes got there first & tells the story, very entertainingly, regarding the regular-interval, frequent Shenfield service …….
quinket
Given that the most likely interchange-point would be London Bridge, I don’t think you’d have to wait more than 150 seconds for a train, anyway (!)
The “other” interchange-point, of course, is likely to be Lewisham (for VIC services) … let’s not go into the problems at that site just now, shall we?
But quinlet, that’s the point. We will never attain tube like frequencies on the main lines because of the need to share terminals and lines with long distance services. Hence the long opposition of Kent etc to TfL running metro services. The best is the enemy of the good. We will never get the best i.e. Self contained high frequency lines connected to the rest of the Underground. So a minimum of 4tph on all routes, all day, all week, is the good compromise. Passengers who get on at Hayes or Belvedere will still get a seat. They’re just being asked to change at London Bridge with the possibility of standing for one or two stops. There will never be a long wait there for a City or a West End train; and then never more than a 10/15 minute wait for a train to their final destination. And Oyster has made the whole thing more seamless in terms of fares, I don’t think of a journey within London as being so much made up of awkward segments any more so much as one longer journey. To me it does smack of being resistant to change for the sake of it and as WW says, the danger of ossifying what we have for ever, whether it is fit for purpose or not. Things change. People are generally more mobile now. Work centres have been developed in Docklands, Clerkenwell, out of town as well as just the West End and City and the transport system needs to change too. It doesn’t strike me as logical or fair to a wider population, that we oppose change because some people have bought a home close to a particular station due to its direct trains to Charing Cross, but and are now being asked to change and wait a couple of minutes at London Bridge instead.
@ngh, Balthazar
Thank you both for taking the time and trouble to answer my question in terms I can understand.
@ Quinlet – Yes I understand those arguments but I said there should be a debate about what the railway *could* do *if* it had substantial investment to allow higher frequency and longer trains on suburban services and on other routes (where necessary). Yes the tube is often very high frequency but if you look at parts of the DLR and Overground you are still talking about 6 tph or sometimes 4. The fact the underlying service structure is (usually) simple and clear is attractive in and of itself. The “Turning S London Orange” report seems to have been sidelined and the debacle over TfL’s South Eastern proposals didn’t help either. We could have had a debate off the back of those proposals but it’s been shut off (presumably to stop demands for money to be spent).
I know some sections of south London routes do have 4, 6 or more tph but the service pattern is complex meaning many origin / destination pairs are only 2 tph which, to be frank, is ludicrous. I have lost count of the journeys I’ve researched where I can rely on frequent TfL bus / rail / tube services to an interchange point and then find I’m stymied on the last bit by a 27 minute wait for a connecting TOC service. Result – journey isn’t made or I have to replan and use buses which are more frequent but slower.
The point here is a sensible, open discussion with users and potential users as to what could be done with meaningful plans and investment. It is not about “doing over” people from Kent or Sussex. It is not even about who is in control of the services. It is about establishing a strategy and way forward to deliver change – assuming the passengers want it. If Thameslink and Crossrail both work well once fully up and running then there is an opportunity to say “that’s what you can get if you spend the money”. Perhaps the people of SE London and Kent would still say “no we want our complicated low frequency trains”? Then fair enough but the current mess with the consultation and predictable “whipped up” commuter frenzy does no one any favours, not even the DfT!
@Anon
But you miss the point that those Hayes or Belvedere passengers will no longer get a seat as they will be part of the scrum at London Bridge, instead of getting on at the terminus at CX as they do at present.
Observe the number of people who travel to Vauxhall but go home from Waterloo.
It is true that Tube passengers manage, but they have always done so and have arranged their commutes according to the network as it is. If you suddenly terminated all Met services at Baker Street, or ran the District to Rayner’s Lane instead of the Pic, there would be a similar set of disgruntled commuters
No doubt some people objected to the diversion of Stanmore trains to the Jub instead of the Bakerloo in 1978. And the proposed Northern Line split is not likely to be popular with Edgwarian City gents or Barnetians working in the West End.
Re: timbeau – is that new word (to me) pronounced “Bar-NET-i-ans” or “Bar-NEE-shuns”?
@Balthazar: The first is probably for the younger, net-savvy, generation. Where the latter is probably for the Baby Boomers…
Any change from NR to Tube would be fiercely resisted, as well as it being a long way from the new London Bridge layout, it would cost more. And while inbound your 4tph service would give you a quick change to your final destination as you’d have a wide range of trains for the short hop, outbound you could be a lot more inconvenienced if you had a 15 minute wait because your short hop didn’t connect. NR are good at planning arrivals a minute before their train goes, changing increases that uncertainty a lot.
And won’t all the extra changes at LBG cause problems with occupancy times, and strain the escalators between islands, because of the foolish decision to not build a new bridge.
Surely no one is suggesting that the people of the SE wouldn’t love to have a tube service from, say, Lewisham, like the one from Stratford, a similar distance out. It’s just a question of who would pay for it. At >£10 per trip just to cover the capital cost I don’t think they would.
Timbeau, someone’s always going to lose out from change, and someone’s always going to gain. If there is a broad acceptance that people are not happy with SE now but no one’s prepared to accept the solutions that are on offer, then they’d better get used to the current state of affairs and stop complaining. And it will only get worse. I’m also of the view that the expectation of a seat for the whole journey needs to be lowered as time goes on. We are going to hit the limits of platform extensions fairly soon in terms of land take and effect on dwell times, and the only answer will then be new lines or make more room inside the train i.e. Fewer seats – which do you think is more likely to happen?
John B, London Bridge isn’t even finished yet. Remember the current route to the Underground is a temporary one. I still don’t see it makes much difference. I used to get a train to Charing Cross then a tube to Marylebone. If my train went to Cannon Street now I could change for a Jubilee line tube to Baker Street at London Bridge instead. I’m merely transferring the trek to the Bakerloo line at Charing Cross to a different location. I would also imagine occupancy times are designed with a large number of people interchanging anyway. As for a potentially longer wait at the interchange, well that could happen, but then we come back to the question of what passengers value and what they are prepared to pay for. It’s down to direct less reliable journey with more potential delays versus indirect possibly longer journey with less delay potential. What is more important? Both have a cost in time terms. If your direct train always ends up losing ten minutes because of an earlier conflicting movement, would you prefer to spend that ten minutes changing trains and not getting stuck en route? Especially if that means your train is less likely to be terminated early, cancelled etc?
It’s part of a broader and inevitable pattern. Increased volumes of human activity of any description always leads to compromises. More cars mean parking has to be rationed. More houses means they have to be smaller and denser developments. More demand for electricity means more power stations. No one ever wants to be the one who gets the sharp end. But someone has to. More rail commuters means journey times increase and chances of a seat reduce. Or we have to change our usual journey. It’s not as if more journey opportunities are not opening up. We have the DLR and the Overground, and soon the full Thameslink scheme and Crossrail which together will increase the number of destinations available from London Bridge in one or two changes and frequent services. We can’t keep having it both ways.
@Anonymous: Unfortunately the loudest voices keep repeating that you can: “Have cake and eat it!”. More reliable, longer trains, to more destinations, faster, bla, bla, bla….
If you ask them how they would accomplish that, they quickly tend to sound like Boris when he sees a bendy bus!
“More houses means they have to be smaller and denser developments”
Greater density yes. Smaller? Not necessarily. London is pretty low density compared to many developed cities. But flats are far smaller than most cities, especially like for like new builds. Even the Japanese manage to build bigger for many new builds.
If London built to densities (and size) of Barcelona, Berlin etc far more could live centrally lowering the strains on transport of course, and if flats weren’t so small there would be a wider range of residents.
Ed suggest dealing with the unusually small average size of new build flats in London.
If flats were built with more floor area, but to the same density (in flats per hectare), then, other things being equal, the blocks would have to be built higher. As developers normally build blocks of flats as high as they are allowed to – to maximise profits – this would mean adjusting the standard for maximum height of residential tower blocks. Just saying.
@Ed, Malcolm: You’re forgetting that most of the flats being centrally are being snapped up, off plan, by investors from Asia, given as the return on them (even without letting them out) is greater than the return via other means…. Many of them are selling them on, even before completion. Somebody’s going to left holding the mortgage deeds at some point and it’s not going to be pretty. This is regardless of the size.
I sure as hell wouldn’t be investing in any of the Luxury developments around Battersea! But then in a little while, after the next financial crash, there could well be some bargains in that area and those residents might even use the Northern Line extension.
SHLR: There are certainly a significant number of flats being bought up by investors, some left empty, and that is cause for concern. But “most of” could be an overstatement – I have certainly not read anything that puts the proportion so high.
Reference to “the next financial crash” also suggests that you think one is imminent. That is entirely possible, but also far from certain. History tells us that financial crashes do happen, but unfortunately they provide no indication at all of exactly when. The only time one can be certainly predicted is after it has already started to happen (and when I last looked at the “financial pages” it had not).
You probably mean “the deeds” rather than “the mortgage deeds”, since people buying things as an investment, particularly from abroad, do not generally use a mortgage.
Regarding the SWT issue, my understanding is that the 707s are most definitely going. First’s idea was to provide a uniform type of train for the entire Main Suburban and Windsor Lines operation (including trains to Reading). The 707s are to serve with SWT until they are replaced by the new train fleet.
Personally, I reckon the 707s together with the 458s would be a handsome replacement for the 455s on Southern, providing both more modern facilities AND more carriages (5/10 cars vs current 4/8 cars). Conversely, I am not sure that adding one or more fleet types into the Southeastern mix (especially in 5/10-car formation) is a good idea.
Regarding Southeastern: I, too, support the view that passengers must be made to understand that having their cake and eating it (i.e. extra capacity AND a choice of London terminus) is simply unaffordable. And with that enormous concourse at London Bridge and high frequencies of trains between London Bridge and both Cannon St and Charing Cross interchanging really is not that bad an option.
Perhaps a ticketing incentive, e.g. P2P (point to point) season ticket with Zone 1 Underground add-on would help incentivise passengers to support this more sensible idea?
A complication to the multi-terminus issue is Victoria. (Which, of course, cannot be reached above ground by changing at London Bridge, and is itself none too wonderful for onward travel to the City or the Wharf).
Certainly removing the big tax on Underground onward travel (for some or all) could help mollify punters. But it would cost (somebody) a lot, unless you can somehow confine it to the “untangling losers” – which would be tricky.
@Malcolm: A proper study would need to be carried out, but I don’t necessarily think there would be as many losers as you might think.
Currently, most commuters into London have a choice of buying an annual travelcard to London Terminals only; and one that includes all travel within Zones 1-6. The difference between these two varies between tickets and TOCs, but is usually under £1000, and is therefore hugely discounted in comparison to the TfL annual Zones 1-6 season, which is currently £2408 (source: TfL). Examples of the price of such an add-on (season ticket calculator, National Rail website):
Maidenhead: £808
High Wycombe: £820
Berkhamsted: £952
Welwyn Garden City: £1208
Harlow Town: £1004
Basildon: £1192
Maidstone East: £672
Three Bridges: £776
Guildford: £828
I have absolutely no idea where the huge variation in the prices of these add-ons comes from.
Currently, those people that use such an add-on probably only do so to make that one trip on the bus or Underground from their terminal to the office and back again. However, they have the freedom of travelling all across London. If a cheaper add-on was to be introduced but valid only on the tube in Zone 1, any bus travel, as well as any travel on the Underground beyond Zone 1 would require these people to use Pay As You Go (or to purchase a TfL season). The question is whether this additional revenue would offset the loss of the revenue from the Zones 1-6 add-on. If it did, such a scheme would actually be revenue-positive, and generate a few losers (who use bus/tube to commute beyond Zone 1 from their rail terminal), but many winners (those who use bus/tube in Zone 1 only). The question is whether the Underground would be able to take on all that additional demand…
@Straphan
An annual ticket to London terminals only is not a Travelcard, but a point-to-point season.
The differentials also exist within London, at least where point to point seasons are still available . Mine, from a Zone 6 station to London terminals, costs £1848, a significant saving when a Travelcard is £2408
However, what you win on the swings…… Although season ticket holders can get a bargain this way, point to point fares are higher – south of the river an off-peak single from Zone 6 to London terminals costs £3.90, and any further into Zone 1 costs £5.40, where on lines using TfL fares it is only £3.10 to anywhere in Zone 1.
(The equivalent figures in the peaks are £6.20, £7.80 and £5.10 – making travel to central London from the southern suburbs “only” 53% more expensive than from the north, rather than the 74% surcharge paid by off-peak travellers)
@Southern Heights/Malcolm. Flats being marketed to Asian investors? You bet…. There are developments on the Isle of Dogs where the marketing hoardings are in Mandarin. Sales launch for new developments being held in Asia before release in London. Come down one evening and see how few lights are on at some of these towers – some are deliberately kept empty and just held as an investment.
Look on the bright side – you struggle to get on the DLR anywhere on the island in the rush hour so at least these new towers aren’t adding to the transport pressure….
I don’t know that Victoria is that much of a problem. The Greenwich line can’t access Victoria anyway so the same route applies to those passengers – tube from Cannon Street or Embankment; and from most lines running into Lewisham there is not much in the way of Vic bound trains anyway – there is a 2tph train from Dartford via Blackheath and this would hopefully become 4tph in a shake up of the timetable.
@timbeau: Indeed, I should have written ‘season’ rather than ‘travelcard’ – apologies for the confusion.
And two and a bit years later, we’re back to square one…
@SHLR
Curious that it is thought that the way to get the existing incumbent to run on time is to tell them to keep trying. The delay would, of course, have nothing to do with getting past the pensions hurdle being argued about in other parts of the network.
James Bunting
To a significant extent punctuality is down to Network Rail and external events, not the train operators. Southeastern performs better than average. Most recent moving annual average ‘on time’ figure is 64.56% nationally and for Southeastern it is 68.67%. That still means one in three trains is late, but in most cases only by a few minutes, that would be neither here nor there on any other form of transport.
Of course it can be here or there if a connection is missed due to the delay…
That said, personally I think the current operator of south eastern is doing rather better than their predecessors. Back in the connex days a 25 min journey from Orpington to London Bridge would take 50 mins at least once a week.
But that isn’t a defence for the utter shambles that has been the franchising process for Southeastern.
@DJL: The ongoing refranchising saga is now reaching epic, having kicked off originally in 2014. It will soon be competing with Game of Thrones.
Ian Visits has some further information on the whole sad tale.
I only had to endure Connex for a few months so I am not sure how it compares, but the 25 minute slow journeys still regularly take 35 for no obvious reason.
My main criticism is that when things go wrong they don’t seem to have a clue. There seems to be a lack of contingency planning.
Re L in S and James Bunting,
Now the LBG works are complete and things have bedded in a judicious timetable recast based on real dwell times would probably sort most of the lateness issues (small dwell time delays multiplied at junctions).
One of the other SE issues was the innovative way of funding signalling improvements has
unexpectedly 😉proved to be rather poor value for money compared to the getting DfT to pay NR to do it method… (not to mention the single vendor not having the best bits of kit/software where a mix ‘n’ match is needed.Much more than just the pensions issue (in reality one part of DfT not talking to another, when all parts of the bidders could so when DfT reaches a pension agreement with ATOC and bidders assume that agreement but that part of DfT doesn’t tell the franchising part).
The interesting bit on SE is actually driver salaries as they have fallen behind those of adjacent TOC and the new local TOC in Crossrail hence some serious pay increase will be needed to stop drivers going elsewhere and that has interesting pensions implications especially for the older drivers. I suspect 2 bidders understood this and one hasn’t.
NGH & others
And so, one comes back to the “Wolmar Question”: “What is Franchising FOR?”
Also, we still don’t seem to have an answer – it’s almost looking as if the politico/ideological “push” for the current Fanchise model has finally, erm, run out of steam.
Muttering appear to be emanating from “well-placed sources” that actually going over to a concessionary model, a la TfL might, just, be a better idea.
Re Greg,
Part of the issue is what I call the % problem.
The franchising model is based on things changing by x% a year. The problems is that after 2 decades and a more than doubling of passenger numbers (overall) is that most of the assumptions are broken and the bidders risk in individual areas has radically changed over that time so the cash sums associated are now rather large to stomach. Hence a reset is needed on what risk is carried where so some is becoming very expensive for private sector to cover vs public and is hence poor VfM* but you then see DfT pushing in the opposite way e.g. the franchising team on pensions.
* i.e. better to shift to a more concession type model.
DfT get this to an extent e.g. looking at GWR to split (but deciding not to on balance) to make the cash sums more workable.
In the SE case TfL finances couldn’t cope with an SE Metro (investment) on an LO type basis as the risk / cashflow numbers are about double what TfL could currently (+ x years into future) deal with and would also cause LU issues on investment. (Hence a GN – Moorgate take over where the investment is mostly done and the network is far smaller is the best short term step for TfL.
TfL still keep under estimating the work (money) need on SE.
The other big issue with franchises is what to put into the contracts as many issues are as a result of the contractual gaps between TOC and other parties i.e. no one is responsible.
@ngh: “TfL still keep under estimating the work (money) need on SE.”, back of a fag packet says roughly one third of a London Bridge?
Re SH(LR),
The exact scope of what is need or nice to have and how you would phase it is a discussion and half itself.
In terms of short term changes:
New / Additional Rolling Stock is leasable but leasing cost would be higher but requiring more subsidy of better fares collection. (i.e. revenue collection need to be addressed quickly what ever happen with new operator so they can recoup the investment needed and then see so longer term benefit.)
Creating or upgrading more Depot /Stabling might be partially financeable as part of a rolling stock deal (depot yes, stabling unlikely) so upfront funding /investment needed.
The station upgrades (gating etc.) would need be fully funded and relatively quickly – the scale is equivalent to all of LO stations so far but in very short period and the SE user numbers / station are often higher so it wouldn’t be low spec and then there are the additional staffing costs – staffing levels would need to be quite high to ensure better revenue collection.
Lewisham will need a rebuild in the £50-100m range to cope with user levels including interchange.
Upto this point a Franchisee or TfL would be doing similar and some of TfL thinking seemed to be along the line of hoping DfT would have noticed how much extra revenue could be brought in.
Southern by comparison is less attractive to TfL because of far better revenue collection from 2009 onwards (which needs to be replicated on SE)
That is all before any timetable changes /infrastructure investments that TfL would love to do .
A quick question, if you don’t have enough room to park all the units at night, could you not just introduce a frequent all night service of max length to keep them out of the way until inter peak?
@AL – actually running trains is quite expensive in terms of wear and tear, fuel, and crew costs, let alone any of the other costs associated with running a train service (eg station staffing, signallers, engineering cover) and in any case, you normally like to have the kit in for inspection/cleaning/emptying quite frequently.
As I am fond of boring people by saying – ‘if you can get the question right, finding the answer is usually quite easy’.
Here no one has attempted to work out what the question is. We have some statements, e.g. ‘lots of trains going through London Bridge in the rush hour are full to bursting’. But this doesn’t naturally lead on to a question.
A possible question like: ‘what can we do about it?’ is far too open-ended to be useful and leads to answers like ‘don’t run trains in the rush hour’.
Can anyone suggest what the question is?
RogerB
The question tending to be addressed is “how do we increase capacity”, with the provisos that it is impractical to make the trains any longer and that there is not an inexhaustible supply of money. That has led to the Thameslink answers of ramming more people onto the train and running the trains closer together, not that that has been fully achieved yet.
There has been some questioning of how to get people to travel at other times, but there will need to be more questioning of how to avoid the need for travel, in order cut back on energy consumption and emissions. Can society be organised so people live close to where they work? That’s not easily achievable in London. Can services such as health and education be provided closer to where users live? That will raise some tricky issues concerning public expenditure and individual choice.
LiS – The problem is “capacity” can mean train capacity, track capacity or station capacity (both terminating and interchanging), so the question isn’t necessarily about capacity, because not all of those apply to all routes.
RogerB – The series of questions I would ask are –
1 – What improvement(s) in passenger experience are you seeking?
2 – How and where is that improvement needed?
3 – What would be the cost of fixing the each of the issues found in q2?
4 – With the limited funds available, what combination of fixes best meets that passenger experience goal?
I suspect the answers are currently “not sure”, “not enough data to answer”, “not worked out yet” and “no idea”. Nevertheless, q1 is a strategic policy decision (so politically difficult), q2 probably requires a lot more data gathering (so technically difficult), q3 should be relatively easy to answer (roughly at least) and q4 is basically a big data problem (assuming you know how much you can spend).
@Londoner in Scotland
“Can society be organised so people live close to where they work? That’s not easily achievable in London. Can services such as health and education be provided closer to where users live? ”
You’ve answered the first question yourself. I travel 7 miles by South-eastern to work in central London, close to Blackfriars. Colleagues travel from Luton, Kingston, Putney, and further. It’s London.
Second question. My kids’ primary school was 15 minutes’ walk away (but see the Mind the Gender Gap thread). My GP and dentist are 10 minutes’ walk away and on the way to the station. You’re not going to change things without compulsory reassignment of people to different jobs, GPs, schools and everything else. That’s the wrong answer on so many levels.
BUT, my company has become much more flexible in the past year or two about working from home. OK, it’s not working in a shop or a hospital or somewhere you actually have to be, but we now recognise that it’s perfectly possible to do many jobs without trundling into an office to use the same quality broadband you have at home.
Presentism is no longer a thing.
Large multinational companies have long realised that — I know people who work at home five days a week, because their ‘office’ is in Hong Kong, Dallas or Stockholm. Obviously the train companies aren’t going to promote that, because it loses them revenue. But DfT, if it had a milligram of common sense, would be working with other government departments, such as DCMS, and other bodies such as the GLA and TfL, to promote remote working more vigorously then ever before.
Re remote working
My present employer, a financial services company who I won’t name but who I would be astonished if a single person reading this hasn’t heard of them, is actively modelling different work patterns, including teams with no-one physically coming into an office. This is being seriously considered for non-client-facing staff. This must also be under consideration in other companies, so there is the potential for significant changes to travelling patterns.
I know people have been saying this for twenty years and more, but this is the first time I have heard suggestions of zero on-site staff