The Parliamentary/Ghost Bus Service- Part III.5

Following yesterday’s news that the DfT have made the decision that the “parliamentary bus” is to be replaced with a rail service again, we have now received a report containing the details of their intentions.

The report we received stated that a modification to the South Central Invitation to Tender (ITT), has been issued. This franchise is due to commence on the 20th September 2009 and the shortlisted bidders are currently:

• NedRailways South Central Limited (NedRailways Limited) 
• NXSC Trains Limited (National Express Group plc) 
• Southern Railway Limited (Govia Limited) 
• Southern Trains Limited (Stagecoach Group plc)

They are now required “to supply an ‘at least weekly’ service, serving Ealing Broadway to Kensington Olympia and West Brompton to Wandsworth Road. The train is required to be shown in publicity material and on station displays and “will ideally” run between the hours of 0700 and 2300.” The report also stated that the “ITT modification made clear that the incumbent operator of the franchise (Southern) will have set up route knowledge and route clearance.”

So the sections of track in question have been transferred from the Cross Country franchise into the South Central franchise and this causes some additional problems for the shortlisted bidders. The service to Ealing Broadway from Kensington Olympia, you would assume would just be a diversion of one of the current East Croydon to Milton Keynes Central services, which run via Kensington Olympia. However these services are run by electric units (377s), unfortunately the route they would have to take between Kensington Olympia and Ealing Broadway would require diesel traction, as most of the route they would take between the West London Line and the Great Western Mainline is unelectrified. The only units Southern have that are diesel powered are their 171 units which run the services between London Bridge & Uckfield and Brighton & Ashford International. This new requirement is going to be a burden for both Southern and the new franchisee who will have to divert one of these units to a far reaching section of the network at least an hour from its core route. 

The funding for both the route familiarisation and the additional franchise requirement train service, is we are presuming, coming from the DfT in the form of a slightly increased subsidy, however the service is likely to be run at its minimum, to keep costs low and thus the overall franchise bid economically attractive to the DfT. This is likely to mean a once a week service, probably at a fringe time, late night, as this will to cause least disruption to the services the 171 units already operate. So the end to the story is a hollow victory for the public. We have managed to prevent rail closure by stealth, but without actually regaining a meaningful service.

Finally we have also received an answer on who is funding the £500 a day bus service that is being run in place of the rail service. The Shadow Transport secretary Theresa Villiers asked a “Parliamentary Question” directly to the DfT relating to this issue.

Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) on which routes parliamentary trains within the meaning of the Railways Act 1844 are running; 

(2) how many rail replacement bus services are funded directly by his Department. 

Paul Clark [holding answer 14 January 2009]: There are no parliamentary trains within the meaning of the Railways Act 1844.

Mindful of the requirements of relevant legislation, the Department for Transport is currently funding a rail replacement bus service between Ealing Broadway station and Wandsworth Road station. This service, which is a temporary measure until the Department can arrange a replacement rail service in this area, has been operating since 14 December 2008.

Other than the aforementioned service, no rail replacement bus services are directly funded by the Department. London Midland provide rail replacement bus services in place of all trains to Barlaston, Norton Bridge and Wedgewood. The costs for these are part of the overall subsidy payment for the London Midland franchise.

So basically the DfT ARE directly funding the parliamentary service and the money IS going straight into the pockets of Arriva,via their subsidiary Tellings Golden Miller who tendered the service out to themselves.

 

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The Parliamentary/Ghost Bus Service- Part III

The saga continues today with the news that the DfT has finally bowed to pressure from all sides and is now going to reinstate the train service. This follows on from the letter we received stating that was always their intention.

London Travelwatch stated the following article surrounding the issue on their website

 

The Department for Transport (DfT) has agreed that the weekly bus service that is currently running between Ealing Broadway, Kensington Olympia and Wandsworth will be replaced by a train service after pressure from London TravelWatch and Passenger Focus, the national rail watchdog. 

In December, the Arriva Cross Country service between Birmingham and Brighton was withdrawn, and replaced by a weekly bus service. London TravelWatch argued that a proper closure procedure, with full consultation, should be implemented before a bus service could replace an existing rail service. 

Sharon Grant, Chair, London TravelWatch, said: “We were always unhappy with the solution to run a weekly bus, and received complaints from passengers. After months of pressing the DfT, we are delighted that there is agreement that a bus service is not an adequate replacement for a train service, and that a full, legal closure process would have to be undertaken before this arrangement could be made permanent.”

However, the DfT has yet to confirm the details of any replacement service.

Sharon Grant continued: “The devil, of course, is in the detail, and we will be looking very closely at any solutions the DfT provide, to ensure that it is provides passengers with a useful service, as well as being cost-effective.” 

http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/news.php?id=631

 

We will have to wait to see exactly what sort of service the lines in question will receive but I think the DfT do now realise that they cannot ignore or bypass the laws put in place to protect rail services in this country.

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Newsrail Express 384

Next edition of Newsrail Express, number 384 this time

URL: https://frpp.tso.co.uk/Newsrail/337889.pdf

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Proposed ticket office closures set to reduce choice and increase queues

As you’re probably already aware, several TOCs – notably Southeastern Trains (SET), South West Trains (SWT) and First Capital Connect (FCC), have announced plans to massively reduce staff numbers. SWT tried to claim that the jobs were “management, administration and other roles”, however the BBC revealed that this was not the case (see: Frontline train jobs will be cut). SET made a similar claim. Both SWT and SET claim that “reduced growth” is the reason for this, which is absurd – they are admitting that there is still growth, so why cut staff if their business is still growing? Perhaps they predict that the economic downturn will result in a reduction in passengers in future, and they are pre-empting this now, in order to sustain profits?

SWT proposed massive reductions in ticket office opening plans, these plans were “mostly” rejected (see: Cuts to ticket offices rejected), but the fact remains that some closures are going ahead. FCC are proposing draconian reductions (see: Move to stop ticket office cuts ) which prompted the RMT to launch a campaign against the cuts.

Whenever I visit Waterloo or Victoria stations, the queues for purchasing tickets are enormous – surely they should be increasing staff, at stations such as these, not reducing them?!

So what does this mean for passengers? Well, the TOCs think that people should buy online, use ticket machines, and – in the not too distance future – use smartcards for journeys in the London area, therefore less staff are needed to sell tickets. But at many stations I see ticket machines with no queues yet passengers choose to queue to speak to a real person.

It is now the case that, in order to get good value fares over certain routes, splitting tickets may be necessary. Or, in order to get fares down from extortionate levels for ‘InterCity’ journeys, you have to book in advance. Or maybe you want to purchase a Rail Rover/Ranger.  Or a group may wish to take advantage of GroupSave discounts. These products are not available from machines.

We at theticketcollector do not want to see any job losses, nor any reduction in ticket office opening hours. But if the TOCs are to press on regardless, then they should at least be forced to allow the purchase of the entire range of walk-on fares from ticket machines, and that includes all rovers/rangers, all discounts including GroupSave, all add-ons including PlusBus, and purchasing tickets from any destination to allow combinations to be bought.  And all this must be implemented before any TOC is permitted to proceed with any of their proposed cuts. Anything less is simply unacceptable.

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The Parliamentary/Ghost Bus Service- Part II

Following on from our article regarding the Department for Transport’s absurd “Parliamentry Bus” currently running Tuesday’s Only from Ealing Broadway to Wandsworth Road, in place of a train service, over three sections of track which have lost their rail services, we have recieved information stating the DfT has been forced into a massive U-Turn. The following is a copy of a letter that has been passed to us detailing the department’s intentions.

 

Dear Mr

 

Thank you for your letter of 2nd December regarding the withdrawal of the Brighton to Manchester CrossCountry service. As Franchise Manager for CrossCountry I have been asked to respond to your letter to Robert Devereux. I apologise for the delay in responding to your letter.

 

The department is not proposing to discontinue services over the sections of track to which your refer. We are currently looking at demand in order to ascertain how frequent the train service over these sections of track should be. As I mentioned in my previous letter, a rail replacement bus service is currently operating between stations located close to these sections of track. This bus service is intended to be a temporary measure, and the Department intends that it will run until train services can be reinstated over the sections of track. Because the Department is not proposing to discontinue train services over those sections of track , the provisions of section 24 of the Railways Act 2005 do not apply in this case

 

Yours sincerely

 

Debbie Brent

Franchise Manager, 

Cross Country Trains. 

It seems that due to pressure from Passenger Focus (who have now taken up the case) and media coverage of the issue, the DfT have now declared that the bus is a “temporary measure” as opposed to a serious attempt at a line closure. This is contrary to reports in the media stating the DfT had no plans to reinstate a train service and the following in The Telegraph seemed to sum up their views pretty clearly.

A DfT spokesman told the newspaper: “Consultation revealed a lack of demand on this line and for now a reduced replacement service will serve those passengers who still want to travel on this route.”

The re-instated train service that is to be introduced, is almost certainly going to be run by Arriva Cross Country, the only other TOC that could feasibly be involved is First Great Western and they have not been asked to undertake a cost report for this particular service. If XC are to be the operator of the service, it will need to join up with their existing network at Reading, and thus we are likely to see a Birmingham (or beyond) to Reading service extended to Gatwick Airport, as a turnaround at East Croydon could not be accommodated due to capacity issues. This would allow the service to cover all relevant sections of track that have lost their rail service sufficiently enough, to satisfy the minimum statutory service requirement.

 

The DfT backtrack is surely another embarrassing incident for a department facing huge pressure at present, with the third Heathrow runway decision due any day now, causing mass controversy.

 

We are still waiting for our FOI request to be returned, when this is completed we will post a full update hopefully with answers to many of the questions raised in both this and the previous article.

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Newsrail Express 383

As promised here is the latest issue of Newsrail Express.

Issue 383 has been published at the following URL:

https://frpp.tso.co.uk/Newsrail/337201.pdf

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Liability for getting you home

I recently made a return journey from York to Cottingham after a day out, and was in possession of a Cottingham-York Off-Peak Day Return, purchased that morning on the outward train. I had checked the times for return journeys the day before on nationalrail.co.uk and tpexpress.co.uk, and found the following itinerary to be the last combinations of services I could catch to get me back to Cottingham that day:

York 20:29 NX
Doncaster 20:55

Train continues to London Kings Cross

Doncaster 21:20 HT
Brough 21:58

Train terminates at Brough

Brough 22:16 TP 
Hull 22:36

Bus terminates at Hull

Hull 23:00 NT
Cottingham 23:06

Train continues to Beverley

This was slightly contradictory to published material released on the Hull Trains website, which advised passengers to change at Selby for a bus. However, by doing this, my expected arrival into Hull wouldn’t have been until 2300, and therefore I would have ‘officially’ missed the train to Cottingham. I therefore decided to trust the online route planner, which gave me generous connections of 18 minutes at Brough and 24 minutes at Hull.

I made my journey as planned. All seemed fine until the approaches to Selby, where it became clear that there was a problem. According to the train manager, there was a ‘Northern unit stood unattended in the platform ahead’ (although after some research, it is clear that this was most likely a Transpennine Express service that had just terminated from Manchester Piccadilly). A member of the onboard team passed through the train to find out whether passengers were ok, and to provide assistance. I asked her whether I would be provided with a taxi at Hull if I missed my connection at Brough, and as a result, at Hull (the 2300 was the last service). She advised me that she would fetch the train manager to speak to me.

A few minutes later, the train proceeded into Selby station, although there was no sign of the train manager until he announced that all passengers should ‘alight here for a bus to Hull’. Knowing that I would definitely miss my bus at Brough, I made the decision to take their advice and catch the bus from here. The traincrew was attempting a quick despatch so there was no time to ask them whether I should simply continue to Brough. The bus trundled along and arrived into Hull at 2259, but in the coach station section of Hull Interchange. I therefore missed the train by around a minute.

I proceeded to the station manager’s office to request a taxi home. However, this is when the real problems started. I explained the situation to him and he made a phonecall, presumably to the control centre of one of the TOCs. However, he returned a few minutes later and informed me that neither control, in other words, those of Hull Trains and Northern Rail, had authorised me a taxi. When I asked him why, the reasons where extremely surprising. Northern Rail had claimed that there was a later service I could have caught from York at 2142 which would have got me into Hull in time for the 2300. However, this was simply not the case – this would not have arrived into Hull until 2305. Meanwhile, Hull Trains control had refused on the grounds that it was not recognised as a ‘valid connection’, and I hadn’t made myself known to the train manager. He said that there was nothing he could do to help me. I knew that they had an obligation to get me home if it was the railways that were at fault, so I persisted.

I told him that the Northern service that had been referred to by control was not due into Hull until 2305 and thus wouldn’t have got me back into Hull before the Cottingham train. Meanwhile, the idea that the connection was invalid was, in my opinion, completely wrong. I showed him the journey plan that National Rail Enquiries had provided me, and after looking it up on his system, he even agreed that this was the case. Sadly, after calling back Hull Trains, they didn’t agree with this, and still persisted to believe that the connection was for some reason ‘invalid’. They also claimed that it wasn’t their responsibility as I hadn’t seen the train manager, although I pointed out that I had been told that he would get back to me and didn’t.

Eventually, the station manager authorised a taxi personally as Hull Trains couldn’t contact the train manager of the 2120 service from Doncaster.  However, he warned me that if I attempted this journey in the future, a taxi wouldn’t be provided – why was this?  The railways were certainly responsible for getting me to my destination. Secondly, I was criticised for relying on online journey planners, including their own website!  If a passenger can’t rely on this information, who can they turn to?

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The Parliamentary/Ghost Bus Service

As you have probably already heard the Department for Transport removed the requirement for Brighton services in the Cross Country franchise. Due to this action, three sections of track have thus had their passenger services withdrawn; these are Acton Poplar Junction to Acton Wells Junction, Acton Wells Junction to Willesden West London Junction and Latchmere Junction to Factory Junction.

The DfT decided instead of going through the process of a rail closure for these lines- both costly and time consuming, it would instead introduce a “parliamentary” service once a week, in order to keep the line officially open. However the DfT didn’t stop there, by exploiting a legislative loophole, they have been able to run this service not as a train but as a replacement bus service.

Before 1985 this would have been illegal, as the Transport Act 1962 (a successor of The Railway Regulation Act 1844) only permitted the Railways Board to provide an alternative to a rail transport service, by road, for the carriage of, goods, or if a rail service had been “temporarily interrupted”. In this circumstance the service has not been interrupted but discontinued. The Transport Act 1985 remedied that problem with the following replacing the statute held in 1962 act:

the Railways Board shall have power to secure the provision by other persons of services for the carriage of passengers by road where a railway service has been temporarily interrupted, or has been discontinued.

This gave the Railways Board considerably more power with the addition of just four more words. The addition of “discontinued services” allowed any rail service that was easily expendable to be replaced by a bus, on the whim of economisers at the Railways Board.

These powers transferred in the Railways Act 1993 to the Franchising Director, (appointed to sell the original passenger rail franchises to the private sector), although transferred, the powers themselves did not, in this instance, change. However the next transition for the powers was to the Strategic Rail Authority in the Transport Act 2000 This transfer also included a change, it gave them an even larger scope with the addition in the statute of:

Where it is not practicable for a service by road to correspond precisely to the railway service, which has been interrupted or discontinued, it may deviate from the route of that railway service.

Even where it is practicable for it to do so, the route and stopping places of a service by road provided where a railway service has been discontinued need not correspond precisely with the discontinued service so long as it broadly corresponds with the discontinued service in terms of the localities it serves. 

*There was a similar clause in Transport Act 1985 but it was not as expansive as the latter clause.

So now they could- discontinue a rail service without a formal rail closure notice and consultation, replace this with a bus that could run just once a week in each direction and then finally deviate that bus from the original route it was actually replacing. 

The final transition of these powers was to the DfT in the Railways Act 2005, which is where they lie now and it is their actions that have left us with the fiasco we are in now.

The bus in question runs Tuesdays Only 09:45, from Ealing Broadway to Wandsworth Road, neither of which were Cross Country stations, or had previously been receiving the withdrawn service. It calls at one intermediate station, Kensington Olympia, this is the only station of the withdrawn service the bus does call at. When it arrives at Wandsworth Road, it stays there for 2 hours 20 minutes, for no apparent reason (the driver has to bring a DVD along to escape the boredom) and then returns back to Ealing Broadway at 13:15.

The bus costs the DfT and Arriva Cross Country £500 per day (we are not sure how this is split as when asked, the DfT refused to comment) and will never carry a single genuine passenger. The reason for this, is that it is not advertised in a single public publication. The National Rail Timetable, the usual source for these types of services, has drawn a blank and it has been confirmed, not to have been entered into any other official railway system either. When the DfT were spoken to about this they claimed they had only just realised themselves the service was not in the public timetable and they were in the process of advertising the service at the stations the service calls at. How very competent of them.

My problem with this replacement bus service is not so much the blatant waste of taxpayers money or even the lack of passengers it will carry but the dangerous precedent it carries. The process of line closure has specific guidelines that must be satisfied before official closure, these guidelines do not make it easy for the body wishing to withdraw the service and rightly so.

The procedure is outlined currently in the Railways Act 2005 and the basic points that must be covered are as follows:

• give notice of its proposal for closure to the national authority, if it is not itself that authority

• publish a notice, in two successive weeks—

  (a)in a local newspaper circulating in the area affected by the proposal; and

  (b)in two national newspapers.

• hold a consultation with the following: the national authority for the purposes of that section, if the proposal affects Wales, the National Assembly for Wales, if the proposal affects Greater London, the Mayor of London, every Passenger Transport Executive whose area is affected by the proposal, every local authority in whose area there are persons living, working or studying who appear to the person carrying out the consultation to be persons affected by the proposal, the Rail Passengers’ Council, if the proposal affects its area, the London Transport Users’ Committee,  every person designated by order made by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this Schedule as a body representing interests of railway passengers, every railway funding authority appearing to the person carrying out the consultation to be a party to financial arrangements that are or may be affected by the proposal, every person providing railway services who appears to the person carrying out the consultation to be affected by the proposal, every person providing station services in relation to a station affected by the proposal. 

  all of the above also are sent a copy of the notice and a summary of the initial assessment report on the closure.

• after carrying out all of the above, either withdraw the proposal or refer the proposal (with or without modifications) to the Office of Rail Regulation.

By taking the actions we have seen the DfT proceed with, all of the above is avoided and the preventative checks involved, bypassed. The laws introduced to protect the public’s interest are now serving to allow the DfT to bring in line closures, in all but name.

You might think this is the first instance this has occured, unfortunately the predecessor to the DfT, the SRA, did exactly same when withdrawing the passenger rail service on the Sheepcote Lane Curve (direct services between Reading and Waterloo via Kensington Olympia). The rail service ran Mondays to Thursdays only, 20:16 Pembroke Dock to London Waterloo (arriving 04:13) and Tuesdays to Fridays only, 05:05 London Waterloo to Maesteg (arriving 09:11). The SRA felt that its passenger figures were too low to continue funding and its original purpose to serve early morning Eurostar’s, no longer relevant, due to there being “no equivalently timed service that satisfies the low demand” that the service brought.

The rail service was duly cut in May 2004 and, surprise surprise, replaced with a road service, in this case a taxi that ran at the ridiculous time of 03.45 from Kensington Olympia arriving at Waterloo at 04:13 once a week. The return journey departed London Waterloo at 05:05. The SRA believed that the temporary taxi service fulfilled their legal obligation to run a passenger service over the line, pending the decision on closure by the Secretary of State. 

The decision to close the line was signed by the Minister of State with responsibility for Rail and London at the DfT, at the time this was Tony McNulty and in his closure letter he made the following point

I note the point LTUC made in their report about providing replacement taxis before consent to proposed closure had been given, and I would encourage the SRA in future to maintain the railway service until after the proposal has been consented to, wherever this is practicable.

Evidently the DfT do not wish to listen to their own advice now that the responsibility for buses replacing rail services has transferred to themselves. What an organisation!

 

Please watch this space as a follow up article on this issue is due to appear once our Freedom of Information act request for further answers has been satisfied.

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Newsrail Express

Newsrail Express is an internal railway magazine detailing important retailing news for ticket offices, travel centres, on-train staff, rail-appointed travel agents and industry information providers. It is currently published fortnightly.

On the new blog we have decided to link to each addition to keep readers up to date with ATOC and TOC specific railway ticketing information.

Newsrail Express 382: https://frpp.tso.co.uk/Newsrail/337072.pdf

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Inflation Busting Rail Fare Rises

With the current round of rail fare rises now implemented, we have been subject to some extortionate fare rises this time around. Regulated fares, normally Weekly Season tickets and the Off-Peak or, for shorter distances, the Anytime Return, have risen by an average of 6% (RPI + 1%).

Now with the latest inflation figure putting the RPI at 3.0% (November’s figure) and December’s figure predicted to be less than 2.0% continuing onto 0% in mid February, this is blatantly incorrect. With the credit-crunch ensuing and unemployment rising, this is the last thing passengers need.

The source of the problem is ATOC’s insistence on using July’s RPI figure as their basis for regulated fares rises. This does not reflect inflation at the time of implementation of the fares rises, and while I realise calculation of every fare in the fares manual is no mean feat, the introduction of the computerised Fares and Retail Publications Portal (an electronic fares manual), must surely mitigate past problems of having to submit to printers deadlines for the old paper fares manuals.

A more sensible approach would be to use October’s figure which comes out on around November 20th each year. This gives enough time to update the system (this year the FRPP was updated on 1st December) and crucially is way before the cut-off date when the first of the new fares are used, currently two weeks before implementation, on fares that start after the date of the rises.

On the subject of fares rises, for a second year now South Eastern Trains have been allowed to increase fares by an extra 2% to pay for the High Speed 1 line improvements. It should be noted that the extra 2% is regardless of whether you benefit from the scheme or not. Stations that receive no benefit from HS1 are lumbered with the cost of the line, as a result of a funding crisis suffered by London & Continental Railways who were unable to cover its costs solely from Eurostar operations. Even stations who are receiving a reduction in direct services (stations between Ashford and Tonbridge) will have the extra 2% rise, ridiculous!

Finally nice to see the BBC have got their reporting accurate with this story, stating that operators such as London Midland are “freezing” fares in January 2009 while Cross Country are increasing unregulated fares by 11%, what they fail to mention is that London Midland had already had their fare rises in the September round of fares changes and in the process introduced more restrictions to boot.

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