Monthly Archives: February 2015

The Pacer change hits Northern

27 Friday Feb 2015

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Today the department of Transport issued the ITT (Invitation To Tender) for the new Northern Rail franchise which is due to start on April 1 2016. The ITT sets out the minimum requirements which must be included by bidders in their proposals. Not entirely unexpected was the ITT committing the franchise winner to withdraw all the 4 wheel ‘Pacer’ DMUs (class 142 & 144). Originally the DfT had resisted this idea due to the extra cost to the franchise (over £200m*) but Ministers have decided to override the DfT.

You can find the full ITT here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/northern-franchise-2015-invitation-to-tende

This means the BR built Pacers will be phased out of Northern service by 31st December 2019. However, it’s not the end of the road for them as they might just possibly be cascaded elsewhere – unless other ITTs (such as the future one for Wales) also prohibit their use. As it is, Pacers will remain in use with Arriva Trains Wales & First Great Western – for now.

Interestingly, the ITT also contains this:

‘5.4.2.2 The Department requires a Franchisee who will procure and bring into service, no later than 1 January 2020, a minimum of 120 new carriages that are capable of being used to operate Passenger Services on non-electrified routes. They must be designed with future demand and users’ needs in mind, with a clear focus on passenger comfort and with a thoroughly modern passenger environment and exterior look. These must be newly-built (not re-using components from existing rolling stock) and, unless the Bidder intends for them to be hauled by a locomotive, must be capable of operating under their own power for significant distances on non-electrified routes’.

Does this preclude Serco-Abellio from signing up to use Vivarail’s ‘new’ DMUs which would be converted from former London Underground D78 stock? Earlier this week I was chatting to Northern’s MD Alex Hynes who certainly can’t be described as a fan of the converted trains. He wouldn’t be offering them in any future ITT. The question now, is – would anyone else?

The announcement also pulls another rug from under anti Hs2 campaigners. They’ve always tried to suggest that Hs2 will suck investment money from the existing network. The Northern ITT has proved how hollow their claims were.

* A letter from Permanent Secretary to the DfT Philip Rutnam to Transport Minister Patrick McLaughlin asks for formal guidance on the issue of Pacer replacement. In his letter, Rutnam states the cost of Pacer replacement will be ‘just under £250m over the life of the franchise’. The letter can be found here; https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/407753/dft-permanent-secretary-to-sos.pdf

Hs2 Action Alliance & the art of telling porkies

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, Railways, Transport

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We’ve seen in the last few weeks how Stop HS2 have resorted to blatant deceit in their desperate attempts to breathe life back into their failing campaign, with a fabrication about major locations such as Runcorn, Preston and Wolverhampton losing all direct services to London. Whilst this fantasy has been well and truly scotched, one striking observation is that those anti-HS2 groups with some pretensions to respectability did not try to pick it up and run with it. Apart from the facts of the matter, as set out in Prof McNaughton’s presentation to the HS2 Hybrid Bill Select Committee, if even HS2 Action Alliance (HS2AA) won’t touch a scare story, we can be pretty certain that “scare story” is a bit of an understatement. And something tells me that this Amersham-based organisation is more than a little wary of the risk of being associated with Joe Rukin’s antics these days.

But even if HS2AA aren’t quite bosom buddies with Stop HS2 any more, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be hanging their head in shame, having form on this issue themselves!

Last year, a number of different local newspapers ran stories, identical apart from the name of the location in question, that their main town or city had a better train service in steam days than it would be left with after HS2. These identikit stories came from HS2AA, courtesy of their Director of Local Campaigns Peter Chegwyn. And of course one of these shock horror (insert name of location) stories featured Coventry.

Now, what is instantly clear is that Mr Chegwyn hadn’t done anything so basic as to check out what service Coventry did have in steam days. In 1957/8 (that is, the last year of a full service before the WCML was disrupted by electrification works), Coventry enjoyed a grand total of just eight express trains per day to London, of which even the best needed more than 1½ hours for a journey that now takes a couple of minutes over the hour. Nothing whatsoever, however crudely twisted, supports any suggestion that Coventry would revert to that level of service after implementation of HS2.

That it can only have come from the campaigners’ dirty tricks box is the kindest thing I can find to say. As tactics go, it’s not a bad one of course, as the instinctive response that Coventry would indeed have as good a service as in steam days hardly sounds very good.

But, as we now know, Professor McNaughton’s presentation clearly showed two limited-stop trains per hour to London. That’s as many trains in four hours as HS2AA imply it would have in a day. Clearly, it isn’t the three trains per hour that Coventry, essentially because it is on the way to Birmingham, enjoys today, but the question is what service is appropriate for a city of such a size and distance from London. And two trains per hour is the same as Bristol has now from its city centre station, Temple Meads.

As for speed, no doubt those trains will make one or two extra stops, at worst adding less than 10 minutes to the journey time, so again HS2AA’s comparison with steam fails. The average speed from Coventry to London, even with those extra stops, would be higher than from Bristol Temple Meads today.

But apart from contributing traffic to justify the service level, those extra stops, at major residential and employment centres such as Milton Keynes, are the up side for Coventry. It works in reverse as well. Birmingham should be a very convenient airport for the major business and residential area of Milton Keynes, but only one of the three Virgin Euston – Birmingham trains per hour calls at Milton Keynes. So on the way put you probably have either a lot of wasted time before your flight or a good chance of missing it, whilst on your return you risk waiting 59 minutes for a train home. But even if there might be only two fast trains per hour after HS2, when both stop at Milton Keynes the service effectively doubles, and a half-hourly service makes a pretty fair airport link.

Once the West Coast Main Line has these currently-neglected flows as its prime markets, the service between these major locations improves radically, for the benefit of workers, shoppers and leisure travellers alike. But that doesn’t make for cheap headlines.

The anti Hs2 campaign’s numbers don’t add up, again (social media edition)

22 Sunday Feb 2015

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On their website, the High Speed 2 Action Alliance make the claim that ‘There are over 172,000 households located within 1km of Phase 1 of HS2, and at least the same again for Phase 2 – meaning over half a million people  impacted by these proposals’. Half a million – wow! – that’s a lot of angry people then, surely? They must be queuing up to protest about Hs2. I mean – if we add all those folks supposedly opposed to Hs2 for ideological or financial reasons, that must be over a million, yes?

Not a chance!

The truth is that, for all the various claims made by anti Hs2 supporters, there’s very little real opposition on the ground. I’ve illustrated this before in a previous blog where I looked at the death of their ‘action group’ network. https://paulbigland.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/the-anti-hs2-campaign-dying-by-degrees-pt1/

In this one I’m exploring their daft claims of mass support further.

One would think that with all these stout yeoman folk of England up in arms it would be easy to get huge groups of them together in protest. That’s certainly the impression the anti Hs2 mob try to give, aided & abetted by sections of the media who’re too lazy to fact check or who support them.

But where are these folks in reality? As they can’t be found in mass demonstrations or packed meeting halls up & down the land, perhaps social media will give a clue? Actually, it does, but it’s not a revelation anti Hs2 campaigners will like. Nowadays, social media is one of the easiest ways for those interested in a campaign to engage & show their support so you might be forgiven in thinking that Facebook & Twitter must be teeming with people outraged by Hs2. The problem is, the anti’s numbers don’t stack up here either. Don’t forget that not everyone following an anti group will be supporting their aims. Many folk will be doing it just to see what they’re up to. Their real support will be lower than the numbers I’m quoting (of course, this applies to pro Hs2 groups too).

Let’s start with the Twitter followers of the main anti Hs2 groups:

Hs2 Action Alliance (@hs2aa): 3,199 followers

StopHs2 (@stophs2): 4,112

I’ve also included both of StopHs2’s leaders.

Joe Rukin (@joerukin): 1,857

Penny Gaines (@penny_gaines): 399

51M (@51M_Hs2project): 610

The umbrella group Action Groups Against Hs2 (AGAHST) don’t have a Twitter account but they do have a supposed ‘Campaign Director’, Deanne DuKhan (@DuKhanD) who has a massive following of err, 654….

Still, surely they can do better over on Facebook can’t they? Wrong again. In 2011 it was estimated that over 30 million UK citizens had a Facebook profile, that’s double the number of UK Twitter accounts. And the scores on the anti Hs2 campaign’s doors?…

Hs2aa: 2,168

https://www.facebook.com/HS2AA?fref=ts

StopHs2: 6,415

https://www.facebook.com/STOP.HS2?fref=ts

51M: 393

https://www.facebook.com/pages/51m_HS2project/218611348167462

It’s worth noting that 51M’s FB account hasn’t been updated since the 1st June 2011.

AGAHST haven’t even bothered with Facebook but their derelict website (where they’re still plugging an epetition that closed in August 2012*) can be found here: http://www.betterthanhs2.org/who-we-are/

Now, what was that tosh about a ‘relentless’ & ‘growing’ campaign again? Whichever way you look at it, the one thing you can’t find is any real majority support for a campaign against Hs2 – anywhere – except in the imaginations of the dwindling number still opposing the project.

*Incidentally, that epetition got a grand total of 26,262 signatures.

UPDATE (10th March 2015)

Oh dear! At today’s Hs2 Committee hearing, Denham Against Hs2 Chairman Frank Partridge  let the cat out of the bag about the number of Hs2 ‘Action’ groups. The likes of Hs2aa are still pretending there are over 90. Frank admitted to the Committee that the real number is ’40 to 50′ – around half the numbers claimed! More proof (if it were needed) that the campaign’s been exaggerating the size of its activist base.

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry corner, c/o ‘Skimbleshanks’

19 Thursday Feb 2015

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My friend ‘Skimbleshanks’ has sent me this gem. Poetry corner is looking like it’s going to be a regular feature!

Windbag Music
With apologies to Louis Macneice

It’s no go the anti-mob, it’s no go the Nimby’s,
Half the time they’ve pants afire, their arguments are flimsy.

Prof McNaughton went to town, spoke to the Committee,
Rukin twisted what he said, just made himself look silly,
Joey tried to spin a tale, of trains per hour at Runcorn,
But even Wharf and Weston know a loser when they see one.

It’s no go Stop HS2, it’s no go the Alliance,
Because of Rukin’s porky-pies they are no more affianced.

Wellings then re-tweeted Joe, had a gipsy’s warning,
Wouldn’t dare another go at tweeting his outpourings.
So he teamed up with Transport Watch, called down the mummy’s curses,
They hate the railways so much they’d turn them into buses.

Tett and Gillan looked at that, didn’t like the answer,
Good enough for you and me, but not their Chiltern manor!
What can we think, when he don’t know,
What’s Current Price or Present Value?

It’s no go for 51M, it’s no go for Stokesy,
‘Cos you can’t add trains at Milton Keynes by adding seats to Glasgow.

It’s no go the IEA, it’s no go B’leeben,
That they’ve no answer to rail growth don’t take much concealing.

It’s no go the Batty Man, it’s no go the brickie,
It’s no go the sour-butt nor the Paper Geordie,
It’s no go the driverless car, it’s no go super Broadband,
If you hang your hat on those you need your head examined.

It’s no go the load factor, it’s no go the PIXC;
Traffic’s growing year on year, HS2 will fix it.
Traffic’s growing day by day, it could go on forever,
Stick your head in the bloody sand but that won’t change the answer.

Skimbleshanks, who is now retiring to sleep on a mailbag by the stove in the Porter’s Room

More on the Rukin rumpus – with added slides!

19 Thursday Feb 2015

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Who said “A lie will be half way round the world before the truth has got its boots on”? If it wasn’t Joe Rukin of Stop HS2, it must be his motto, as launching porkies on the world is his speciality. But his addiction to dashing out scare stories from left field has now bitten him very firmly on his backside.

On Wednesday last week, Professor Andrew McNaughton gave evidence to the HS2 Select Committee about train service plans for HS2 itself and the classic railway after implementation of Phase 1 of HS2 in 2026. The committee, especially Sir Peter Bottomley, questioned him intelligently and perceptively, and all seemed very happy with his evidence, given orally but with supporting detail on a set of presentation slides. Here’s a link to them:

Click to access A_McNaughton_Presentation_11_02_15.pdf

Well we can’t have that can we, said Joe, and promptly blogged the most stupid and deceitful piece of nonsense ever to emerge from his StopHS2 stable. The trouble is, he did so on the basis of high-level summaries given orally, forgetting that the committee were looking at the slides as well.

Hence when Prof McNaughton referred to “non-stop” trains, as opposed to local and commuter trains, Joe rushed into print with the fatuous suggestion that HS2 intended to withdraw stops at all stations except London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. Amongst the stations Joe listed as “losing” direct trains to London were Stockport, Wilmslow, Preston, Runcorn, Crewe and Stafford. But even if he couldn’t see what was on the committee’s screens, Joe could have troubled to look at the “Economic Case for HS2” document which has been in the public domain since October 2013. Because there as Figure 27 he would have seen the “HS2 Phase 1 train service for demand modelling” which clearly shows HS2 trains linking those stations to Euston just as Virgin trains do now, just faster.

And when the Select Committee published those presentation slides today, it turned out that is exactly what they had been seeing. Poor old Joe. He’s been to enough Select Committee hearings, notably to be slapped down for waffling, he knows how they take evidence, how could he have overlooked what might have been on the slides? Deliberately for the sake of a cheap scare story, that’s how.

But it gets worse for him. Joe went on to claim, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that all long-distance WCML services to Euston would be withdrawn. But as the slides clearly show, long-distance services will remain for those routes and stations not receiving an HS2 alternative. Chester and stations to North Wales? Present and correct. Stoke and Macclesfield? An hourly direct train to Milton Keynes and Euston. Coventry? A half-hourly service, both calling at Milton Keynes for commuters to that major employment location, and leaving Coventry’s post-HS2 service to London as frequent as, and faster than, Bristol Temple Meads has now.

But Joe’s scare falls flattest on its face when he claims that Wolverhampton and Sandwell & Dudley would lose their present hourly London trains. Because there in black and white (OK, in yellow) is the plan, not just an hourly train as now, but two limited-stop trains every hour to Euston. Yes, the service Joe claims will be lost is actually doubled.

With a respect for fact like this, Joe’s totally unsubstantiated claim that this means “£8.3 billion of cuts to classic services” might be considered suspect by the most innocent of readers. And they would be right. It is true that in the Economic Case analysis (table 9 on page 78) is a figure of £8.265 billion, labelled “classic line savings”. So what’s that all about? Well first, it refers to the full network in Phase 2, not Phase 1. Then, it’s a Present Value, that is, 60 year’s worth of annual sums all rolled into one. So the annual figure relevant to Phase 1 will be a lot – and I mean a lot – smaller. Which is why Joe doesn’t quote it.

But whatever it is, is Joe right to paint this as “cuts”? Got it in one, no he isn’t. Go back to the beginning, and remember that, apart from the new Curzon St services, the HS2 service for Phase 1 is basically the present Virgin pattern unplugged from the WCML at Handsacre and plugged into HS2 to Euston instead. So we have, for instance, an HS2 train every hour that runs from Liverpool, calls at Runcorn and Stafford, and then on to Euston on HS2. The cost in terms of fuel, maintenance, crew and fleet leasing should be charged to HS2, no-one would dispute. But that train replaces a Virgin service that calls at Runcorn and Stafford, then to Euston on the WCML. So of course the saving from replacing that train with the HS2 service should be deducted from the cost of running the HS2 train. Same stations, same destination, and faster. What has been “cut”? Nothing.

Well done, Joe. Nothing like putting your foot in your mouth and shooting yourself in it. The Select Committee know what they were shown by Prof McNaughton, they know how Joe twisted it, and they know his true colours. The real losers in this are the people Joe claims to represent.

More shadow boxing from Dugher…

19 Thursday Feb 2015

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Yesterday the Shadow Secretary of Transport climbed back on his populist soapbox in an interview with the New Statesman

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/exclusive-michael-dugher-promises-public-control-railways-under-labour

Trotting out the usual trite lines, Dugher alleged that “”Privatisation was a disaster for the railways”

Really? Let’s look at the evidence. There’s no doubt that the early days of privatisation were a mess but that was over 20 years ago. No-one misses Railtrack but Labour put them out of their misery 13 years ago. Since then the railways have gone from strength to strength. We’re seeing record numbers of folk traveling, massive investment in the network by the private sector (something that British Railways could only dream of) and we haven’t had a single passenger killed in an accident since the Grayrigg derailment in 2007. So, if that’s a ‘disaster’ can we have more of it please.

The truth is, this is more grandstanding from Dugher. He’s offering nothing more than anodyne phrases that are meant to press electoral buttons. He goes on to say “”I’m not saying let’s go back to some sort of 70s and 80s British Rail, I don’t think sensible people are, actually” So, what is he offering?

Nothing of substance.

He adds that “I’m adamant about putting the whole franchising system, as it stands today, in the bin”

OK, so what are you going to replace franchising with & how will this improve the way the railways operate?

He fails to say.

We’re expected to vote for a party that proposes major changes in the way the railways work without a clue what they’ll do instead. Apart from trite phrases about more ‘public control’ (for this read more centralised micro-management by the Department of Transport) what is Dugher actually going to do. The old phrase ‘the devil is in the detail’ has never been more appropriate. Where IS the detail?

The more I hear of Michael Dugher, the more I hear of those who care about the railways switching votes.

 

 

 

An example of how Hs2 will benefit the North

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

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I’m writing this whilst travelling on Grand Central’s 06:55 service from Bradford to London Kings Cross. I’m a regular user of their trains as they get me from Halifax to the capital in just over 3 hours. They’re comfortable with very competitive fares and have free wifi throughout the train. The West Riding services first started running in May 2010. In the early days passenger numbers were sparse, nowadays they can be full & standing – even in First Class!

Grand Central’s trains are popular with both business and leisure travellers as they offer the residents of Yorkshire a fast direct service to London that allows you to go there & back in a day if you want to. As an aside, GC regularly top the Passenger Focus poll as Britain’s highest-rated long distance train operator for customer satisfaction.

But, hang on – this is something the opponents of High Speed 2 say is what’s bad for the North. They claim Hs2 will suck all the economic life out of the North & only benefit the capital. This train (and me) are perfect examples of why this is nonsense. You see, for 25 years I lived in London. Now I live in Yorkshire – and the only way I can make that possible is by better rail connections between the two. A lot of my work is centered on London. If I don’t have easy access to it I have to move closer or move back. As it is now, I can command a London wage & transfer that spending power back home to Yorkshire. I’m not alone in this as the growing numbers of business travellers using Grand Central’s trains attest to.

So, next time you hear Hs2 opponents like Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman banging on about how Hs2 would be bad for the North, remind them of the success of Grand Central & how it’s allowed Southerners like me to move away from London – & bring our prosperity with us.

An ode to Joe (Rukin)

16 Monday Feb 2015

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A friend has just sent me this. It’s too good not to share with the world so, enjoy!

Joe Rukin told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;
He hasn’t, from his Earliest Youth,
Had the least Regard for Truth,
And in what’s written by Joe Rukin,
Reality don’t get a look-in.
*************************************
Now, for his waffle we must pity,
The HS2 Select Committee.
They once, in fact, last Wednesday,
Knowing he’d have much to say,
On things that views are keenly sought on,
Interviewed Prof A McNaughton,
Who set out with alacrity,
The truth about Capacity.
“We can’t have that” cried Rukin J,
And scrambled into print to say,
From Runcorn, Stockport and Wilmslow,
No more London trains would go,
While Coventry would have none left,
And Wolverhampton be bereft,
(Well, actually he went on Twit-ter,
won’t that won’t fit).
But Joe forgot, the silly Clown,
That long ago had been set down,
The service pattern to be run,
By Trains on HS2 (Phase 1),
And what makes Joe sound rather comic,
Is all in “The Case (Economic)
For HS2”, where plain to see,
Is “Trains per hour for Stockport – 3”
Then “Wilmslow – 1”, and “Runcorn – 2”,
And something similar for Crewe.
***********************************
Well, if that sets Joe’s pants alight,
There’s more – the interesting sight,
Of PFMv4.3,
(Pron. Pee Eff Emm vee 4 point 3),
“Assumptions Report”, which shines a lamp on,
Trains per hour for Wolverhampton,
Now just one to London Town,
But as page 44 sets down,
(And surely this will tickle you),
These will be “cut” from one to TWO!
************************************
Lazy journos wanting free
Copy, have a friend in he,
Who only fools those silly men,
The IEA and Beleben.
But by the sensible and learn-ed,
Rukin and his gang are spurn-ed.

Shimbleshanks, with apologies to Hilaire Belloc

 

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Rail modernisation spells the death knell of the oil lamp & semaphores at Banbury

16 Monday Feb 2015

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One of the last outposts of traditional semaphore signalling has heard its death knell today. Siemens Rail Automation has been awarded a £40 million contract by Network Rail to renew life-expired signalling equipment from Leamington Spa to Heyford. This will see the signals & signalboxes at Banbury North & South replaced by Siemens’ Trackguard Westlock computer-based interlocking. The modernization will mean improved headways between Banbury and Aynho Junction, as well as a rationalised layout at Banbury Station to improve operational flexibility and minimise on-going maintenance requirements.

The project is expected to take 22 months.

Banbury has long been an oasis of former GWR lower quadrant semaphore signals, although some were converted to upper quadrant by BR. Some of the signals were still illuminated by paraffin lamps, a practice dating back to the dawn of the railways. Here’s a selection of pictures showing what will disappear:

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p638949268/h5af7f476#h5af7f476

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p638949268/h5af7f44c#h5af7f44c

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p5959592/h53571a28#h53571a28

 

 

 

 

Posted by | Filed under Railways, Signalling, Transport, UK, Uncategorized

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