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INFORMED SOURCES October 2006

Ten decisions where industry struggles

Some decisions are blindingly obvious but somehow the trees get lost in the wood

While the industry wrestles with its long term future, no one seems willing or able to take what would once have been straightforward decisions. Here are ten of them in no particular priority.

1) Free the Selhurst 13.

First Capital Connect is getting an awful kicking because it has more bums than seats in the evening peak. On the Thameslink route only the Class 319 has the dual voltage capability, plus the retention tank toilets, needed to run through the central tunnel.

Most of Southern's 20 Class 319s spend their days running around in DC mode only. So why not transfer 13 to FCC?

Southern has the Class 319s on lease until 2009 and you can't break contracts. True, but if DfT Rail wanted to make a difference, Director General Mike Mitchell could drop a broad hint that if Southern wanted to remain in his good books it should sub-lease 13 Class 319s to FCC pronto.

What could replace the Class 319s? Well, the Class 458s will be off lease in February next year – or perhaps not. Alternatively, SouthEastern has a dozen Class 508s which will soon be surplus to requirement.

Why might it not happen? Leasing the Class 319s would cost around £4million a year which DfT would have to pick up under FCC's franchise agreement. Lifting the evening peak restrictions on Thameslink could also reduce FCC's revenue.

So expect a lot of good intentions.

2) Bin EDS

Network Rail must have a macro in its corporate word processor that inserts ‘currently unaffordable' after any mention of ERTMS – the European Rail Traffic Management System. I don't know of anyone in Network Rail who thinks this euro-boondoggle has any relevance to Britain ' main line railways, at least in its current state of technical and commercial development.

That Network Rail has this albatross round its neck is a legacy of the turn-of-the-century safety hysteria. In 2001, Professor Uff and Lord Cullen, men of great eminence and reputation but sadly lacking a sense of proportion, held their Joint Inquiry into train protection systems. The Inquiry recommended that the European Train Control system (ETCS), the signalling subset of ERTMS, should be installed on the East Coast Main line ‘by 2005 or 2006'. All lines carrying trains above 100mile/h should be fitted with ETCS ‘not later than 2008'.

And so on and so on. That production kit was not available, that the timescale was unrealistic, that ETCS did not meet the Transport Department's safety investment criteria and so on and so on, was irrelevant. The inquiry had made Recommendations and the industry lined up to comply.

So a project team was set up. It laboured mightily on studies and evaluations. It published annual reports. One of the results was the Early Deployment Scheme ( EDS ) which would install ETCS on the Cambrian Lines and test the hardware, software and brand new operating principles on a handful of DMUs and even fewer Class 37s.

Then Network Rail took over responsibility for ERTMS from SRA . The annual reports stopped. EDS went out to tender. None of the bids were attractive, no doubt because the ERTMS manufacturers would rather deal with customers with high speed lines and serious money to spend.

One day, if and when ERTMS delivers the promise of low cost radio based cab signalling off the shelf, then will be the time to adopt it in the UK . Meanwhile, informed signalling sources are in agreement that it would be hard to specify a less relevant test site for a high speed cab signalling system than the Cambrian lines.

Network Rail is reviewing the whole ERTMS programme this autumn. In the meantime it should put EDS on hold. And if the review turns out as expected, bin it.

Why might it not happen? Has Network Rail's board the intestinal fortitude to write finis to Uff-Cullen?

3) Oyster for Commuters

While DfT Rail has reached some sort of rapprochement with Transport for London over ITSO and Oyster, I suspect it is more non-aggression pact than peace treaty.

DfT may think it is buying time for ITSO to become established. Meanwhile TfL is busy selling more Oyster cards.

While it is going to take a very long time to roll out Oyster or ITSO across national rail, there is an enclave ripe for a TfL takeover. That is national rail season tickets.

If you pay several thousands for a season ticket, you get a paper card with a magnetic stripe. Daily use wears out the stripe and you then have to queue to go through a manual check.

So why not an Oyster based season ticket? It would not require all the expensive back office revenue management set up. A simple splurge code saying ‘I am a valid ticket until the end date' would suffice.

And, I am told by my ticket gurus, before the Train Operators fitted Oyster readers on their gates, you could have the Oyster hardware in a flexible card with a mag-strip on it, thin enough to go through the existing readers on gated stations.

Why might it not happen? The IT wonks will turn up their noses at such a bodge. But if the Mayor could see commuter votes in it, who knows?

4) Replace Pacers

Pacer reliability is not getting significantly better. And it is this, rather than ambience or performance, that justifies their withdrawal.

However, contrary to the misinformation from the Community Rail fraternity, Pacer rentals are cheap. Even Chinese-built DMUs would cost significantly more.

Time for an old fashioned cascade. Instead of wasting human resources on HST2, which has lost momentum since it became the InterCity Express Project (IEP) and the real HST fleet is being life extended to 2020, DfT Rail should be developing a rudimentary traction and rolling stock policy. This would include new DMUs coming in where they are affordable and Class 150s dropping down to replace Pacers.

Why might it not happen? DfT Rail finds beating up the ROSCOs and satisfying the incipient Gresley/Stanier Syndrome among its technical staff more rewarding. It would also cost money.

5) Clear the way

Another of those nasty little secrets the industry keeps to itself is that freight is a two trick pony. When Ministers boast about freight growth, they fail to mention that it is almost exclusively down to coal and international containers, two market sectors where the steel wheel beats the rubber tyre hands down.

Table 1

Freight carryings (billion tonne km)

Source: National Rail Trends

This is neither a good thing, nor a bad thing, just the way the world is. But Table 1 indicates where the railway should reinforce success.

In its recently published Freight Route Utilisation Strategy ( RUS ) Network Rail highlighted the Felixstowe-Nuneaton gauge enhancement project as a priority. The aim is to complete it by 2014.

There is a cross reference to the scheme in the Cross London RUS where there is a clear and growing conflict between running freight from the East Coast container ports to gain access to the West Coast Main Line and Mayor Ken's aspirations for high frequency passenger services.

At £130 million Felixstowe-Nuneaton gauge enhancement is almost petty cash by Network Rail's spending levels and represents just 5% of DfT's direct annual grant to the Company. Port operator Hutchinson is committed to covering the gauge enhancement costs to Peterborough as part of the Bathside Bay Development. But most of the expenditure is on capacity enhancement and funding has yet to be determined.

Why might it not happen? ORR is currently reviewing freight access charges. The scheme is not funded in the current Control Period. TfL needs to get involved.

6) Sorting out Scottish coal

This is another freight decision and the hardest to implement. Hauling imported and locally mined open cast coal from Scotland to the Yorkshire power stations is good business for the freight operators. But in national terms it is a waste of resources.

In a joined up world the most efficient way of getting imported coal to the power stations would be through the port of Immingham . Rail would then provide a classic Merry-Go-Round (MGR) shuttle service over the final leg, using existing lines designed for heavy haul freight including the route from the port to Doncaster

Alternatively, if the status quo is to be maintained, the Glasgow & South Western and the Settle & Carlisle have to be upgraded to take the daily pounding of Class 66s and 25 tonne axle load hopper wagons. Restoring the existing Regional Railways specification for the S&C every few years is not cost effective.

Why might it not happen? The well organised freight lobby will scream blue murder if asked to pay the true infrastructure cost of Anglo-Scottish coal. It is tonne km that bring in the revenue and MGR from Immingham would be high on efficient use of traction and rolling stock, but low on tonne km. Joined up thinking by DfT's Rail and Maritime activities might break the impasse.

7) Engage brains on cross London trains

Thameslink 2000 is predicated on pushing 24 trains an hour through the central stations. To do this you need to get passengers on and off the train sharpish if station dwell times are to be short and reliable.

This means at least two pairs of doors per side, with large vestibules and 2+2 or even longitudinal high density seating. But the same trains are expected to run from Bedford , Peterborough and even Kings Lynn to Littlehampton, Brighton and Ashford.

There is a pretty fundamental mismatch here which needs sorting out. Either you have a high density cross city inner suburban type RER operation or a long distance commuter railway.

Why might it not happen? Separation of responsibility for infrastructure and operation. Too much momentum.

8) National fulfilment needed

Here's an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand you can buy some really cheap tickets if you book in advance. On the other, as ORR recently pointed out, in the latest survey the national rating for satisfaction with value for money has fallen to 41%, matching previous lows in Spring 2001 and Spring 2005.

What must deter many travellers from buying in advance, particularly those offers available up to the late afternoon of the previous day, is what the e-commerce industry calls fulfilment. Relying on the post to deliver your tickets means committing several days ahead. Machines at main line stations are no use if the first leg of the journey is by another operator.

There are all sorts of ways of getting round this multi-leg journey problem. Coded authority to travel texted to mobile phones, unique bar codes you can print off and scan to verify, a serial number you type into a machine at your local station. What matters is that 7% of the 21 st Century has gone and railways are still locked in Edmonson card mode.

Why might it not happen? As the saying goes, getting ATOC to agree to anything is like herding cats.

9) Channel Tunnel freight imbroglio

On 30 November 30 the Minimum Usage Charge (MUC) paid by the British and French Governments to Eurotunnel will end. The MUC, was part of the Railway Usage Contract (RUC) signed by the two governments in 1987 and includes £52million a year for freight, shared by the British and French Governments.

Under the RUC, freight charges after 30 November will be based on a fixed element representing a proportion of Eurotunnel's operating costs plus a charge per net tonne carried. The fixed charge is £12 million a year and at the current low level of freight traffic the per tonne rate would bring in £20 million a year.

Of course, it is not quite a simple as that. There is a bulk rate which is one third of the non-bulk rate. But other than some trial loads of aggregate there is no bulk traffic through the tunnel.

With International traffic down to five trains a day each way - around 1.6 million tonnes a year, these figures equate to around £8000 per train for the 30 mile journey. EWSI has spent 18 months trying to negotiate an economic rate with Eurotunnel and has proposed £300 per train. But has now had to advise customers that it can't provide haulage rates for any services after 30 November.

DfT expects freight services through the tunnel to run on a commercial basis and will not extend the current support. Any new agreement would require state aid agreement from the European Community.

But the RUC and the MUC is an artificial construct designed to bring government money into the Channel tunnel Rail Project behind Margaret Thatcher's back. With the ending of the MUC Eurotunnel should start pricing railfreight on a commercial basis – as with its shuttles.

Why might it not happen? Eurotunnel has too much on its plate to bother with five trains a day. Some still think EWS is bluffing. Can DfT Rail move fast enough?

10) Preserve the Class 92 fleet

If EWS is forced to pull the plug on its International Service it has to hand back the associated assets including the 39 Class 92 locomotives which it operates jointly with French Railways. Meanwhile Eurostar is in the process of selling its seven Class 92s which went into store at Crewe in 2000 when overnight international services were abandoned.

Forget about the dual voltage capability and the unique Channel Tunnel certification, the Class 92 is a 5MW Co-Co and if we are serious about West Coast Main Line Capacity and EWS' Big Freight Railway that's the sort of grunt you need to keep longer trains moving at speeds that don't wipe out paths.

A fleet of 46 heavy haul electrics is a unique asset which needs to be exploited. There needs to be a policy to keep the fleet in being.

Why might it not happen? Inertia and short sightedness.

Continues.........