Fares fair?

[Andy W]

My experience with governments of both political colours is that the Treasury calls the shots and they are not rail friendly. A lot of that seems to go back to the modenisation plan and what they perceived as a waste of the taxpayers money in that process and not delivering what had been promised to them at the time - a paying railway. They have been cynical about rail ever since.
I have seen squeezes put on BR by both Tory and Labour governments as part of their overall economic policy and the reason we "saw" a lot of it in the 1980's is that there was very little left to squeeze and it was becoming a bit obvious!
By the time I had become a railway finance manager myself, I felt it at close hand in 1990 when the money shutters came right down as the economy went into reverse. You had to really argue for money to be spent on basics, like train maintainance in my case, and several projects got curtailed. On Chiltern we just about got the total route modernisation done, with some cuts to infrastructure projects, but on Thames we lost quite a bit. South West lost their super DMU's and had to make do with the 159's.
Politicians on all sides like to portray this period for the railway in different ways, to suit their own viewpoint or to play on peoples prefered views, but I remember it as just another time when Central Government cut our funding and the railway had to make the best of it.

[StevieG]

As I seem to remember it, there was a fair amount (if not the majority) of opinion, by about '92, when sectorisation was well in, that BR was making the best of it, was mostly heading in the right general direction and, but for privatisation, would have continued doing so, to the industry's benefit.
Probably all was not well in all the sectors mind you, but Network SouthEast (well the Great Eastern div. anyway) appeared to get itself into fair shape, with the Div. Director being ostensibly in charge of ALL functions in his area - ops., Tract.& RS, S&T, PWay, Electr'n & Plant, the lot! - - ..... Before the 1st April 1994 loomed on the horizon.

[52A]

ATOC have announced fares increases from 6.6% from January. More money for shareholders, aren't our privateised railways wonderful.

[Andy W]

Probably not this year - at least 95% looks to be going via the "pass through" mechanisms straight to the Treasury. In some companies it will be the whole lot.

As a colleague of mine said today - "We used to be railwaymen - now we are just tax gatherers"!

[cambois]

Andy W comments about South Western having to make do with the 159s. Regional Railways lost them as they were on order as 3 car 158s largely as growth units following the success of the Express network They representing a huge move forward as previously only 2 car units had been ordered (we had to operate on the basis of only 2 new for 3 old to get new units). Then the capital funding was withdrawn so there no money to pay for them. NSE retained their capital funding for replacing the class 50s on the Exeter route (presumably because it was such a good opex cost saving), but had not got any units ordered. So the 158s became 159s and the rest is history.

I bet Northern, Gt Western or East Midlands Trains would quite like more 3 car 158s now!

But as Andy W says it was all about dancing to the treasury tune, as it is now, except today the sums of money are much larger, but the public/private contract that is franchising is a lot more "sticky", so money cannot be taken out in quite the way it used to be.

Given the scale of the increases there is a real risk of volumes falling as people are priced off, in which case TOS could lose cash, and be worse off, depending on the exact wording of the "pass thro'" clause in their Franchise Agreement.

[Mr Bunt]

ATOC have announced fares increases from 6.6% from January. More money for shareholders, aren't our privateised railways wonderful.

6.6% is only an average. Some so called "regulated" fares on Southeastern will be going up by an eye watering 12.78%

Anyone interested in learning how these fare increases are calculated and permitted should look at

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.9549

[notice the "ConWeb" part of the address - that cracked me up, as rail fares these days amount to little but a con! A Freudian slip by ORR perhaps?].

The system is absolutely lunatic. Most TOCs can raise regulated fares by RPI + 1% + up to 5%, Southeastern and a few others which have twisted the Rail Regulator's arm very hard (economists quaintly call that "Regulatory capture") can do it by RPI + 3% + up to 5%. I believe the July figure is the RPI one used each year, and for 2010 that was 4.78%. The only stipulation is that their total "Regulated Fares Basket" revenue mustn't rise by more than RPI + the applicable percentage.

I can gain a small amount of solace though by knowing that later this year I'll be travelling on a period return ticket bought in December for £38, and valid for a month, then using it to travel back in January when the same ticket would cost at least £40.20 if not more. That's one at a loony fare with a price differential of £5.80 between adjacent stations with the higher fare applicable to the one nearer my destination, so I'll be booking from the one further away to save money

Another loony aspect of fares and ticketing appears to be peak restrictions in the London area on travelcards and off peak returns. These only apply to destinations outside the London fare zones, at least on National Express East Anglia. Consequently between 16:29 and 18:34 you can travel from, say, Liverpool Street to Enfield Lock but not from Liverpool Street to Waltham Cross (the next station down the line) using a travelcard or off peak return. I assume this is because London Underground has no off peak fares of its own and therefore no peak restrictions.

The word "con" keeps cropping up in connection with fares and ticketing TfL's website has a downloadable fare zones map, with the file name "lon_con.pdf". You just couldn't make it up if you tried could you?

[PinzaC55]

"6.6% is only an average. Some so called "regulated" fares on Southeastern will be going up by an eye watering 12.78% "

Sorry to sound like a political animal (I am not) but there's some comfort in the thought that a large number of the people stung by those fare increases will be those who voted for the current junta and indeed for the architects of privatisation

The great thing is, of course, that they can't whinge "******* British Rail!" any more.

[Deltic18]

Whilst I cannot condone the fare increases, and am really glad I don't have to travel on South Eastern, how many protests have there been lately about gas and electricity rises that are way above inflation. Just another quick one, Tell Sid was British Gas, not British Telecom.

Keith

[Mr Bunt]

"6.6% is only an average. Some so called "regulated" fares on Southeastern will be going up by an eye watering 12.78% "

Sorry to sound like a political animal (I am not) but there's some comfort in the thought that a large number of the people stung by those fare increases will be those who voted for the current junta and indeed for the architects of privatisation

The great thing is, of course, that they can't whinge "******* British Rail!" any more.

Thanks for that. I hadn't looked at the shadenfreude angle.

There's a lot of comfort in thinking that the majority of people in the Tory heartlands of Kent and Sussex are now about to be screwed by Southeastern. They voted for it though ... and of course after the Frogs running Connex [there's that word con again ] cocked up their franchise and had it withdrawn they had a nationalised railway there that was among the most efficient TOCs in the country too! Then the "Noo Labour" government decided to privatise it for a second time

Memories of a Pink Floyd concert at Earls Court I was at in the mid-eighties spring to mind. One of their offerings there was "Mother", and when it came to the line "Mother should I trust the government?" the roof was almost lifted by a shout of "No!" from the audience

[Mickey]

I was forgetting all those privatizations from the 1980s blur into 'one big mess' from this distance in time.

[PinzaC55]

"By the way Keith no.9018 Ballymoss was my favourite Deltic followed by no.9012 Crepello, no.9020 Nimbus, no.9001 st Paddy and no.9000 The Royal Scots Grey "

"Cough"@PinzaC55

[Deltic18]

Here's the latest press release from the DFT which is quite amusing. By the way, nice one Pinza!

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/clientmicrosite/C ... bjectId=36

Keith

[PinzaC55]

Ah politicians and their promises.Dontcha love them? Didn't Blair or "2 Jags" promise a few trillions would be pumped into the railways once?