More from BBC Devon

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c6x2zgx2y4ljo

 
Today the 0722 was the usual two 150s. 166s on the other two services. Six three car turbos and a three car 158 on Paignton.

A three car 158 could be coupled  to a 150. I think I have seen it at Paignton.

The 175 is expected to operate 3+2 on the 0722 and a method of working cutting out a complete unit at the smaller stations.

 
Good. Not that the BBC wasn't being rational in fantasising the railway terminating at Braunton with connecting (electric) bus services over the hilly bit.

 

That would be a bus from Braunton to Barnstaple [Road/Junction] these days.

Looking back to 1965, there were trains from Braunton to Exeter at 07:23 and 08:28, with an extra from Barnstaple Junction at 07:05. They reached St David's at 08:10, 08:50 and 09:51.

By 1967, there was an 08:18 from Braunton into Exeter at 09:32 and the following train wasn't until 11:35.   There was an 06:50 from the Junction arriving in Exeter at 07:49

Today, no trains from Braunton.  From Barnstaple Junction at 06:25, 07:22 and 08:35 arriving St David's at 07:30, 08:35 and 09:43.

 
I've got it. 

From the BBC:


 

 
See if you can land this article before it's edited to correct a reference to a 'Train from Braunton'.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c933k8eypknpo

 

It is incredibly opaque trying to work out who owns (as opposed to operates, or maintains) IET trains. A very old table https://www.railengineer.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Table-1-Hitachi-800-802-orders-V3-Avenir.pdf suggests ownership split between Eversholt, Angel Trains and Agility Trains.  WikiPedia (quotes below) - though it could be just loose words - suggests that Hitachi Rail will own new units to be delivered for open access enhancments in 2027; Hitachi Rail, as I understand it, are already a major player in Agility Trains.



First (group) did actually own a few of the HSTs - not sure which ones they were, whether they have been scrapped, sold, stored or are still owned and leased to Scotland, Nigeria or Mexico.

** image of that Rail Engineer table:

 

There's no such thing as an 803xxx IET.  If you mean 8003xx then, no, I don't think they own any of them.

 

In some ways, "nationalisation" could just be considered to be a change to one element of the system.  Freight operation, rolling stock provision and leasing, station buffets and I suspect advertising will remain private.  Fare systems such as regulated fares and Network Rail don't really change as they are nationalised anyway, and I suspect that cleaning and security contractors aren't being nationalised. On GWR, the cleaning contract is with the OCS group and is reported to run until June 2027, for example.

 

A configuration of that nature has the potential to get very messy indeed, and this suggests "nationalisation" (in its true sense) is already unravelling.

 

Presumably they will be able to lease them out at very high rates to the new operator.   Train leasing where there is no alternative fleet is very lucrative.   Confirmed by some of the very expensive lease extensions that have happened in recent years.    

It's not a competitive market, it's take it (the high price) or go without, and without a decent pool of universal alternatives, pay up seems to be DfT default short term option.

 

First Group becomes a RoSCo ... supplying to the DfT's companies.  The old rule about not being both the operator and the owner of the stock (for the most part) goes away when the company is no longer the operator, and First Group open access operators could take a commercial decision to have a portfolio of rolling stock in excess of their needs and hire the rest out to the HMG operators.

 
It will also be interesting to see what happens to First Group-owned assets currently being used by GWR....don't they own some of the 803xxx IETs for example? I've been told that they're staying in the train plan after Dec 13th, by someone who possibly is high enough to have heard....

 

Shareholder's money (and that's, perhaps, your and my pension pots) is there son that it can be an engine for the company to invest and provide more money over time as value and dividends.  Where there's only a short time before a cutoff after which the gains from investment won't come to your shareholders then, yes, the company won't build. 

The temptation must be to use their resources (including income from operation) to build for the longer term, which perhaps means vibrant markets from London to Carmarthen (from Paddington), Stirling (from Euston) and Hull and Edinburgh (from Kings Cross) where there is potential for significant ongoing healthy income without the need to support loss-leader service and trains line the - perhaps - 04:57 Plymouth to Gunnislake.

There's a further temptation when doing stuff that will last longer term for others to do so at as high a price as can be reasonably charged to increase the shareholder benefit, and where there's a resource shortage to auction it to the highest bidder.  That's the way it's designed to work, and that ripples down too so that other suppliers *to* GWR can also charge a market rate for scarcity resources, and not what it really costs.

As Webmaster, I should point out these are my own musings and do not suggest a forum's view on the system.

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Now - take a local or regional train from ... Par to Newquay, Bristol to Portishead, Swindon to Westbury, Exeter to Barnstaple or any other non-intercity route.   
* It's shorter than a London to Plymouth train so it needs more staff per passenger carried
* The fares per mile are typically regulated lower
* The miles are covered slower, so the "take" per seat per minute is less, even at the same mileage route
* The route is shorter so there are more turn around times when the train is idle
* They are commuter-y routes with a much sharper peak than the intercity stuff
* Flows tend to be one way in the morning and back in the evening - no revenue one way even in peaks
* Higher proportion of unpaid fares / fewer barriers and shorter time to engage with people

Many of these may not be very significant on some lines, but compounded that make an order of magnitude difference.

Edit to add another reason that intercity trains are so much more lucrative for the TOCs

 
Railtrack seem to spend all their money on renewals, but if someone pays them to build a passing loop such as Newquay branch they will do it. If GWR/First Group paid them (it's what shareholders money is for) they would build. We might have had more loops in Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset.

GWR are not interested in the Southwest unless dragged screaming and kicking by third parties. It's just a loss l(fee)ader for the main line.

 

But surely the infrastructure elements are the responsibility of Network Rail, and funded by them (ie. us!). Coincidentally, today is the 25th anniversary of the announcement of the intention to take Railtrack back into public ownership on "a very good day to get out anything we want to bury".

The current rolling stock crisis has also been precipitated by the Government's order to GWR to reduce its leasing commitments, resulting in the cancellation of the class 769 programme (although may simply have been a trial run for the current problems with the 175s) and reduction in its fleet, and the Government decision to curtail the Oxford and Bristol electrification, so that GWR have ended up operating a reduced Electrostar fleet and retaining Turbos in the Thames Valley.

There's still every reason to criticise aspects of GWR's performance, notably the inconsistent standard of passenger information as constantly highlighted by posts on this forum. But we do need to bear in mind that First Group/GWR primarily have (and have had since 2022) a time limited management contract. It is unreasonable to expect any substantial capital investment from them, and its not their responsibility when it comes to track and fixed infrastructure. Hopefully when GBR is one unified body this might help, but comments such as DfT waiting to see the outcome of the procurement of rolling stock in Scotland before undertaking further procurement, and that the new Trans-Pennine battery trains are due to enter service in 2034 do not give hope of an early improvement.

 

But then that is the very way the system has been designed to work. 

* The operator has been able to invest his own money if he wishes and can see a return to him on that.  And we've seen that done on longer franchises such as Chiltern in its earlier phases.

* The local authority or wider taxpayers can invest is they get a return in a more buoyant local economy - more local business, more local tax, etc

* Third parties can invest if they get a business return - for example a developer building a new station at Bristol Brabazon or Cranbrook to be able to turn open countryside or a derelict site into more valuable land for houses.

I've seen it suggested in Devon / current topic that the movement of 6th form education from across North Devon into Exeter has lead to a rather significant rise in train (wannabe) or bus (oops!) traffic from Barnstaple, and because that's where the rise came from, the funding should come from the educators.    Who knows - perhaps the 175 program that's not (it seems) gone as planned HAS been partly funded by the education department?

 
You invest to get a return, but GWR see no return in the South West but are prepared to ride on the backs of others. Taxpayers, Stakeholders, third parties.

Some more passing loops and increased services would give them more passengers, more revenue.

This applies to SWR as well. They were under the same umbrella once long before nationalisation.

They just don't seem to see what is happening to a city like Exeter which has become a hub for most of Devon, Somerset, and Dorset.

 

I verged on just adding a 'like' to IndustryInsider's post, but I then thought better of it: that would be too simplistic.

The fact of the matter is, with their commercial parent group First looking at re-nationalisation of their railways from December 2026, they are rather unlikely to spend anything they don't have to in the meantime ...

CfN. 

 

Why would they?

 

Yes, because those three groups always got on so well together under British Rail, didn't they! 

 

Indeed the problems of the interactions between the interests of a private operating company and other parties WILL go away - there will be no private operating company any more.    Magic.  Of course, there will be a new management at the DfT ... and what they do and how they do it is the $64,000 question

 
Looking from left field, I recall a heritage train running to Windemere.   And I learn from an Internet search that a Hastings Diesel unit visited Barnstaple on 25th June 2005 - https://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/railtours/2005tarka - and presumably there's no real reason why one of those couldn't be hired out to the Tarka Line now that it has returned from Sheffield Park.

Loading might still be a problem - even with a six car Hastings unit, so many enthusiasts would be drawn that even at that length it might overload ...

 

Of course it will: that's the whole point of re-nationalising the railways.

Pay attention, at the back of the classroom there! 

 

I loved to see it. Also the EU in the south west, a poster from 2018:



Edit: Postimages seems to have derailed, let's see if it comes back and the above image appears...

 
There is one 175 running today 113 on mileage accumulation and is 80 minutes late at the moment.

There now seems to be a problem with brake applications after the sunflower problems; which incidentally never arose last December in those dark winter days of operation on the Newquay branch.

There is a definite problem between management, unions, and train crew. Will it all magically go away this December?

 
The 0722 from Barnstaple was meant to be, by now, a 175 five car train but that looks further away than ever.  A way was worked out to lock out one unit for some stops.

As for investment by GWR in the south west; they have rebuilt Exeter Depot but that has an indirect effect on better services. They did spend money on Exeter Central because the staircases and ticket gates were a safety hazard, and new doors to the ticket hall at Paignton station untouched by the recent fire.

For twenty years they were reluctant to spend their own money in the Southwest.  The (I hate to say it) EU kick started the half hour Paignton service. Government money through various agencies built the new stations and Okehampton line. GWR did run a Sunday summer service (it must have been safe) to Okehampton paid for by Devon County Council. GWR have not paid for the Newquay investment.

Here is an interview from the GWR strategy director that just mentions third party funding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-NLuAzRVXU&t=1287s

 

That's just robbing Peter to pay Paul - IETs are already being pinched from other routes to run (for example) Bristol to Oxford services, resulting in shortforms elsewhere, I presume there is a finite supply or is there a magic train tree? (to go with the magic money tree?) 

Given the constant and dismal "more trains than usual in need of repair at the same time" excuse, maybe it just needs someone to extract the digit from the orifice when it comes to maintenance to make more units available?

I think GWR are probably doing the right thing in laying on road transport - at least they're not just leaving people stranded - and surely someone could have foreseen that this service would be under exceptionally high demand during termtime?

 
If, as seems obviously to be the case, this overcrowding is associated with one particular service how difficult would it be to provide an adequate number of coaches to deal with the passenger demand?

A brief look at RTT indicates that the service, 0612 from EXD, is generally run with 2 x 150's or one of a 3-car 158, 165/1 or 166/2. Each of which provides, according to t'interweb, 294, 207, 276 or 288 seats respectively. I have no idea by how much the passenger count could be increased by adopting the Japanese approach to standing passengers!

Possible solutions  & Questions:
Recast early morning rolling stock allocations, cancelling a lightly used local service if such a thing exists, so that the 'out & back' service is run with 6 cars and seating capacity is increased to 441, 414, 552 or 576. Does the infrastructure permit 6 car trains? Does GWR have enough early morning on-train staff to allow paired 165/166 services.

Run the service using an IET! Are IET's even cleared over the Tarka Line? - the web computer says 'No'. A 5-Car 802/0 would be pointless as it only provides 326 seats (if 1st is binned); a 9-Car 802/1 - 647 seats - would do the business. But could it keep to the timetable?

Run an additional service roughly 30 minutes earlier or later, or possibly even both, which I guess should be doable with passes at Crediton and Eggesford, to spread the demand. Survey potential passengers to establish which train they would definitely have to use to get to Exeter at their required time and , if necessary, implement queueing at BNP to stop overcrowding - GWR must know the absolute number of pax each type of stock can safely carry.

 

Of course they would.

 

But in the dying days (months, years) of a franchise / management contract, would not any company with shareholders take the same view of investment?

 
Unless someone else is paying GWR don't invest in the southwest.

 
Reports from the North Devon Line Promotion Group tell me that the 07:23 from Barnstaple to Exeter has so many passengers wanting to use it that there isn't room for them all, and coaches are being laid on direct from Barnstaple to Exeter Central to carry many of the student passengers who have planned to use the train.

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I have restrained myself from adding armchair comment from afar onto their social media - but I can't help seeing an irony in a "promotion group" having helped promote a service to the extent it is broken.