It's back!

For the past three weeks now, Great British Railway Journeys has been showing on BBC2 in the early evening, presented by Michael Portillo. The format is unchanged from that shown last year, which proved something of a shock hit for The Beeb.


Basing much of the commentary on the Bradshaw's Guides of the mid-to-late Nineteenth Century, Portillo is once again retracing the steps of the Father of the Rail Guide & Timetable to see how the towns, cities and villages mentioned in his c1860 Bradshaw's Guide have changed. The piano-based theme to the show (and the variations thereof) adds to the feel of the programme, with a definite train resonance; and this second series is also available in HD, which offers some superb clarity with the overhead helicopter shots.

Portillo has proved himself once more with his depth of knowledge and genuine interest in the railway, not to mention his eagerness to learn just how important the railway was to British industry in Bradshaw's day. For someone who would naturally be more interested in the trains themselves, the 30-minute episodes are most interesting, despite their lack of railway-related facts.

In fact, the only group of people I remember (politely) criticising the first series were fellow rail enthusiasts, who were appalled to see quite horrendous continuity errors when switching from Portillo's on-train narrative to that when he alights at the next station. This has not been improved upon and so expect to see letters in next week's railway magazines. It is a little cringeworthy, for example, to see Portillo leave one of Grand Central's Class 180 Adelantes after all previous aerial shots of the specific leg being of a Class 91 (operated by NXEC, no less). A bank of old overhead shots is being drawn upon, in addition to the new stuff being filmed.

To be honest though, this doesn't bother me as much as other rail enthusiasts. Fundamentally, the programme is not about the specific traction types on which Portillo travels, nor is reference ever made to them. It is about the railway's effect on the country's prosperity from 1840 until Bradshaw's last guide before his death and a comparison (where possible) with today.

Another fortnight's worth of episodes remain and I for one will be tuning in.

Basket Case

What's not made known in the 'red tops' is that the former Labour government agreed a number of years ago for the 50/50 split between taxpayer/passenger governing who funds the railways to change to 25/75 by 2014, representing a better deal for the taxpayer, who will be funding less of the railway than before, though greater burden is placed directly on the passenger through fare increases - the only real way such a balance can be addressed in such a relatively short space of time.

This is one of the reasons why the latest round of train fare rises has been permitted. What precious few commuters there are left (thanks to the recession) are being forced to pay increases of up to 13% in some cases. This despite the RPI+1% formula, which rises to RPI+3% next year.

There will long be the argument from the road lobby that train passengers alone should fund any improvements to their network and so increased fares should be expected, as they are finding at the petrol pumps of late, but an argument slightly aside from this that got me thinking was aired by 'Industry Insider' in his latest anonymous column in RAIL magazine.

There is much hand wringing that while there have been greater volumes [of travelling passengers], unit costs have not declined. This displays a lack of understanding of where BR was at the time of privatisation. It had made draconian cuts to infrastructure capability, resulting in lengthy headways between trains on all but the busiest main lines, and reduced the rolling stock fleet to cater for the then level of demand.

This, then, is one argument for why the money needed to be literally poured into the industry has increased year on year but the benefits supposedly reaped in overall savings as a result have not followed suit. It's an argument I'd not really considered before and one that shows the lack of foresight the former nationalised railway industry had. Could we really still be paying for the condition in which it was privatised?

With very recent passenger growth of 34% being recorded at Northern, it is no wonder the level of money being poured in has had to be at the level is has and that the government wants to reduce this, or at least its contribution to it, by from 50% to just 25% by the end of the next three years.

Another feature of the legacy train operators were bequeathed by BR is the Fares Basket system, set up at privatisation to permit operators to correct fares anomalies and to respond competitively to local conditions. The Fares Basket has been slightly altered over the years, but effectively fares contained therein can be raised by the advertised formula - this year being RPI+1% in most cases, plus a further 5%; however these must be offset by fares increases of well below the advertised RPI+1% formula on others. The result must be an average of RPI+1% across each operators' regulated ticket types.

With July's Retail Price Index, on which this month's annual fares increase is based, being 4.8%, a further 1% plus the option of yet another 5% has seen many regulated fares shooting up by 10.8%. Southeastern's passengers face an even greater increase, as the formula here is RPI+3% (to pay off the building of HS1) so fares have risen in some cases by 12.8%. Coincidentally this is the same increase the RAC revealed petrol has risen by over the past year. There has to be much lower increases elsewhere to ensure the average ticket increase is no more than RPI+1% but you can bet your bottom dollar these will not be the busy commuter flows in and out of large cities.

Non-regulated fares can, as ever, be increased without a cap, which was too tempting for First Capital Connect recently, who admitted to a 46% fares hike on a range of tickets that would 'only' affect 0.3% of its daily passengers. Which begs the question: if so few are to be affected, what possible significant financial gain will the company possibly feel as a consequence?

Last year, the Fares Basket was held to ransom by former Transport Secretary Lord Adonis, who would not offer any further flexibility other than the RPI+1% formula, which in most cases forced operators to reduce regulated ticket prices as July 2009's RPI was below -1%. The Coalition government has not been so tight with its parameters and loosened the former Lord's grip on what the train operating companies can do, by effectively reinstating the leeway in the Fares Basket.

And then there's the fabled Page 26 of Sir Roy McNulty's Interim Report on efficiency savings within the rail industry. Local branch lines form part of regional franchises which cost the most 31.1p is currently paid by the taxpayer for every passenger mile on a train service in this category, compared with 7.3p for long-distance franchises and 4.8p in London and the South East. Could line closures really be on the cards when patronage has boomed so much (and will be guaranteed to do the same when the country's finances are back in the black)?

LEYTR Comment: We believe the government is taking a hard-line view on this: patronage growth of 34% in some cases is at such a level that draconian fares increases are both right and proper to not only invest the sums needed to provide for these additional travellers and to offset the reduction in the sum taxpayers invest to the pre-determined level of just 25% by 2014. It was a decision taken by the previous administration after all and one the current Coalition simply will not shy away from one bit. If anything, the Basket Fares system could be relaxed further, with greater discretion afforded train operators provided they still average the advertised (public) figure. We're surprised the Coalition hasn't used the argument raised by 'Industry Insider', then we realised that it was on the Tories' watch that BR was allowed to get into the mess many believe it did.

Grass is greener?

Both m'colleague and I are reasonably rare in the transport enthusiast fraternity to have an equal interest in both rail and bus/coach. This has not always been the case for either of us, but for a good number of years now, our interests have been in both modes in equal measure. What we have found is that there are far fewer hardened railway men who take an interest in buses than there are bus men who do in rail.

The rail industry is so vast that there's more than enough going on daily to occupy even the most hardened enthusiast, while the bus and coach industry's fragmentation can be daunting to follow at times, plus there are areas where rail and bus/coach overlap or compliment each other, with rail usually being the dominant party and so attracs the attention of bus men.

However, neatly observed this week on Railway Eye was Stagecoach's recent press release in which the company boast their investment credentials with a multi-million pound order for over 300 new buses. A rare glimpse of the rail industry's observers doffing their hat to their bus and coach counterparts is demonstrated wonderfully in the screen grab below:

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Love or loath the privatisation and deregulation of the bus and coach industries, the worrying trend in expenditure by our regulated railway could well have been mirrored by the National Bus Company had Mrs T not got her way.

Underskin

Annie Mole's Going Underground blog is always an entertaining read. Drawing on her own perspective of the Tube network in London and the willingness of friends, contacts and fellow bloggers to provide their own, makes for a very unique blog indeed. She recently reviewed her top 10 blog posts of 2010 and the following took our fancy.

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It seems people are willing to make Tube maps even of human anatomy. Very clever indeed.

Quote of the week

Best Impressions' website gets the gong for its downloadable pdf that offers those visiting its offices directions if travelling by car:


At least there's pay and display near by!

Hoist by their own petard

Currently, First is the only transport group to publish its bus operations' punctuality figures. The average across its nation-wide network is below that decreed acceptable by the Traffic Commissioner offices, falling below the 'window of compliance'. It is partly because of this that the company found itself before Scottish Traffic Commissioner, Joan Aitken, at the end of last year, being her largest 'scalp' of the year. Even more tragic for First is that it was its Aberdeen bus operation that was summonsed.

Scotland has more VOSA Enforcement Officers than any other region in Britain and it is because of this that Ms Aitken claims she spends most of her time working with bus and coach operators to ensure punctual and reliable bus services continue to operate.

Joan Aitken has six enforcement officers at her disposal

Punctuality figures for October-December 2008 saw Firsts Aberdeen record 83.7% of journeys commencing on time, with the equivalent period for 2009 saw this drop to 77.2%. Intermediate punctuality for both periods was 73.6% in 2008, dropping to just 66% in 2009. The The guidelines are for 95% of all journeys to operate within the 'window of compliance': up to 1 minute early and 5 minutes late. It is for this reason that Ms Aitken called the company to a public inquiry.

Ms Aitken's main 'beef' was the company's request to introduce emergency timetables, following planned industrial action and that this reduced service was to continue after the strike had ended, thus allowing the company breathing space. She deemed this totally unacceptable and ordered the manging director to re-introduce full service at an earlier date. She did show sympathy towards the operating environment in which First Aberdeen finds itself, with no agreement in place with the City Council to introduce bus priority measures, though ultimately took the view that the company had been complacent to 'hide behind the omissions of others'.

She felt that the company's own published data showing so few journeys departing on time should have set alarm bells ringing. Ms Aitken firmly told the company that they were now on her radar and that she would issue the company with a final warning and urge it to work with all available parties to improve performance.

LEYTR Comment: You have to feel a little sorry for First. Obviously the city the transport giant calls home having a bus operation with laudable punctuality, as published with evidence from its own figures, is one thing, but there will be many at King Street (and probably a little higher up the food chain) wondering whether they should have been so candid with their punctuality figures after all. If they published them in the hope that Stagecoach, Go-Ahead, Arriva et al would do they same, they were sadly mistaken. Inferences made by Ms. Aitken claim that it was this published data that saw the company brought before the Inquiry. Removing the punctuality data would send out all the wrong signals, not least to the Traffic Commissioners, who would view this removal very suspiciously indeed.