rail

Decarbonising London’s Rail Termini

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A photo of the outside of London King's Cross station, one of the 10 London Rail Termini

Yes, I’m writing about transport in London again, even though I live the best part of 200 miles away. This time, it’s about the ongoing efforts to get diesel trains out of the capital, and what progress is being made. I’m going to look at each of London’s rail termini in turn, and see what proportion of trains are running on electric power.

Background: London’s air quality problem

London, like many cities, has had an air quality problem for centuries. There was the Great Stink in 1858, the rise of pollution during the Industrial Revolution, and more recently, emissions from transport. Though I’ve never lived in London, I’ve made regular visits over the years, and still remember having black snot from the poor air quality.

The good news is that air quality in London is improving. Over the years, the Ultra-Low Emission Zone has expanded to cover just about all of London, and reduced the number of polluting vehicles on the road. Improving air quality has been a particular aim of mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, who has even written a book about it (sponsored link). It’s worth a read – it’s relatively short but gets the message across.

But the ULEZ is just about road transport. Today, I’m focussing on rail transport, and specifically looking at the twelve key London termini. Long-distance rail travel in Great Britain is generally focussed on London, and so if you get rid of diesel trains from London, you also get rid of them from other parts of the country too.

Cannon Street

Starting alphabetically, Cannon Street is the first terminus, and one that I personally have never been to. For many years, it was never open on Sundays, although it has operated seven days a week since 2015. All the trains to Cannon Street are operated by Southeastern, who only operate electric trains. So, Cannon Street is fully electrified – probably a good thing, as it’s an enclosed station with low ceilings.

Charing Cross

A little further west along the River Thames is Charing Cross. Like Cannon Street, it too has low ceilings due to over-site development, and is also only served by Southeastern. So, no dirty diesel trains here either.

Euston

Euston was controversially rebuilt in the 1960s as part of the then British Rail’s upgrade of the West Coast Main Line. This included electrification, and so nowadays almost all of the trains which operate from Euston are electric. Avanti West Coast operated a few diesel services to Chester and onwards to North Wales, but are being replaced with new Hitachi bi-mode trains that can operate on electric power as far as Crewe in Cheshire.

There may be some diesel visitors to Euston on occasion, as services that would normally call at Paddington are diverted to Euston during construction work at Old Oak Common. This includes the Night Riveria Sleeper, and some of GWR’s Hitachi bi-mode trains that may have to run on diesel power as they navigate through their diversionary routes.

Fenchurch Street

Fenchurch Street is the smallest of London’s rail termini, with just four platforms. It’s another one that I’ve never been to, as I’ve never needed to go to places like Tilbury or Southend. If I did, I would be able to catch an electric train there courtesy of c2c, whose entire fleet is electric. Indeed, the lines out of Fenchurch Street were some of the first to be electrified using overhead cables in the late 1950s.

King’s Cross

Being from Yorkshire, King’s Cross is the London terminal I’m most familiar with. Most (but not all) of my rail journeys to and from London include King’s Cross.

Though overhead electric wires were strung up for commuter services in the 1970s, the wires didn’t go north of Peterborough until the 1990s. Even then, British Rail still operated a mixture of electric and diesel trains (the venerable High Speed Train) and this persisted until very recently. Their replacement came in the form of more of Hitachi’s bi-mode trains, introduced by LNER. Such trains are also operated by open access operators Hull Trains and Lumo (although Lumo’s trains are all electric).

The outlier is another open access operator, Grand Central. Whilst they operate a small fraction of the services from King’s Cross, at present, they’re all still diesel-powered. That’s due to change, once again thanks to Hitachi who are building some tri-mode trains that can run on electric wires, batteries and diesel. The order for these was only announced a few weeks ago, so it’ll be 2-4 years before we see the back of the last purely diesel trains from King’s Cross, but there’s good progress being made.

Liverpool Street

I’ve only ever been to Liverpool Street mainline station once, which was to use the Stansted Express back in 2009. That was, and still is, an electric train, and indeed all the trains that operate from Liverpool Street are electric. Well, almost: Greater Anglia has a small fleet of bi-mode trains, which for once are not made by Hitachi but by Stadler. Occasionally these run to Liverpool Street, although their main stomping grounds are across Norfolk and Suffolk running regional services. In any case, they should run on electric power when available, so we can tick off Liverpool Street as being electric.

London Bridge

London Bridge underwent a stunning rebuild in the 2010s. I used the old station a bit pre-rebuild and it was awful – the new station is much better.

In the 1930s, the then Southern Railway invested in extensive electrification of its lines, using the third rail principle. Instead of overhead wires, a third metal rail is added to the outside of the two running rails and trains pick up power that way. As such, almost all of the railways in the south-east of England are electrified. Indeed, many have never routinely hosted diesel trains, having gone straight from steam to electric.

However, a handful of lines didn’t get electrified, including services to Uckfield along the Oxted Line. Therefore, there’s a small fleet of diesel trains that serve London Bridge.

Marylebone

Oh dear.

We were doing so well, weren’t we? Seven stations in, and all were either completely electrified, getting there, or had just a handful of diesel services. And then Marylebone has to ruin everything for us.

Okay, so Marylebone is quite a nice London terminus. Whilst not as small as Fenchurch Street, it’s still quite dinky and less overwhelming than some others. It survived closure in the 1980s, and Chiltern Railways has been one of rail privatisation’s few success stories, with new services, new stations and improvements to infrastructure. Indeed, if you want to get a train between London and Birmingham, and don’t mind it being a bit slower, it’s much nicer going from Marylebone to Birmingham Moor Street.

But Marylebone isn’t electrified – at all. Every service that terminates there is a diesel train. And it shows – the last time I was there, there were advertising boards proudly telling us that they had air purification technology built into them. But this wouldn’t be necessary, if the trains that were calling there didn’t spout diesel fumes.

There have been some lacklustre efforts to improve the situation – one of Chiltern Railways’ trains was modified to be a diesel-battery hybrid, and it could use its battery at low speed and in stations. Alas, this was never rolled out to other trains in the fleet. Also, the oldest of Chilterns’ trains are now around 30 years old and need replacing, so putting up electric wires would be timely to prevent a new order of diesel trains.

One issue is that trains from Marylebone to Aylesbury share track with London Underground’s Metropolitan Line services (a relic from when the Metropolitan Line went all the way to Aylesbury). These lines are owned by Transport for London, and electrified using a unique four-rail system. Any electrification scheme would need to take this into account, especially as TfL probably won’t want overhead wires stringing up over their infrastructure. Dual-voltage trains, which can run on both overhead and third-rail electrified lines, are a thing and are used daily on Thameslink services, for example, but this would need careful planning to work out.

Moorgate

Moorgate is a London terminus, albeit of just one line nowadays – the Northern City Line. Historically, this line was considered part of London Underground and was grouped with the Northern Line, and so it’s electrified.

Until the 2010s, some Thameslink services terminated here too, but these were axed to allow platform extensions at Farringdon station. They too were electric though.

Paddington

Paddington was a latecomer to the electrification party (which sounds like a round from I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue). The first electric trains started in the late 1990s, and even then, it was just the new Heathrow Express service. However, the announcement of the Great Western Main Line Electrification project allowed it to catch up, with electric wires extended all the way from Airport Junction in West London across the Welsh border into Cardiff. However, that project also went massively over budget, and as such, lines to Bristol and Oxford never received their wires.

Whilst some electric trains run from Paddington, the majority are those Hitachi bi-modes again, which can run on electric power where available and switch to diesel if needed. This has meant that Paddington has moved from having only a handful of electric trains in the 2000s, to being almost entirely electric now. There’s just a handful of commuter trains at peak times that use diesel Networker Turbo units, and the Night Riveria Sleeper train, which uses diesel locomotives. Perhaps, in future, the Night Riveria will be hauled by bi-mode locomotives, such as the new Class 93 and Class 99 locomotives under construction.

See Marylebone? It can be done.

A photo of St Pancras station in 2007

St Pancras

The rebuild of St Pancras for High Speed One services was excellent. I have vague memories of the tired old station, and now it’s much better.

However, there are still a few diesel trains plying their trade at St Pancras. These are the trains which take the Midland Main Line up to Sheffield and Nottingham. This line should have been electrified in its entirety by now; instead, it’s being done on a piecemeal basis and currently the wires are projected to stop just south of Leicester.

The good news is that new trains are on order – and yes, they’re yet more bi-mode trains from Hitachi, although they’ll be slightly different than the units used by other operators. And East Midlands Railway has introduced electric trains from Corby into St Pancras – impressive as Corby station only re-opened in 2009.

Victoria

Victoria is big and confusing. I’ve used it a few times and can’t say I’m a fan. But all the trains that run from Victoria are electric, so that’s good.

Waterloo

Until the Elizabeth Line came along, Waterloo, with its 24 platforms, was the busiest station in the UK. Now it’s third, but still very busy.

It’s also a bit like London Bridge, in that the vast majority of trains are electric, but a handful of diesel services limp on to serve places beyond the reach of the third rail network. Doing something about these services is more pressing than those from London Bridge to Uckfield, as the trains are older and due for replacement. Various ideas have been floated around, but it seems probable that we’ll see existing electric trains getting batteries bolted onto them, and some discontinuous electrification to charge them up. That could be some of the new Class 701s, which have had one of the most protracted entries into service of any new train, or some Class 350s which are about to go off-lease from London Northwestern.

Conclusion

Overall, the majority of train services into London are already electric, including all services to seven of the twelve stations. Of the remaining five, diesel trains make up a small number of services at three of them, and we’ll likely see the back of the last remaining diesel trains at King’s Cross and St Pancras by the end of the decade. The lack of any sort of electrification at Marylebone is a bigger problem to tackle, but then Paddington has gone from being all diesel to almost all electric within 30 years; indeed much of that progress has been within the last 10-15 years. It’s also clear that bi-mode trains have a future until further electrification outside the capital takes place.

My life in railcards

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A photo of my current Disabled Persons Railcard, and an older Young Persons Railcard

Over the years, I’ve had five different types of railcard, to get discounted travel on Britain’s railways. I guess it’s one way of showing how my life has changed over the years.

Staff privileged travel card

Before he retired, my dad used to work for the railways, and this meant that he got free and discounted rail travel for himself and his dependents – i.e. myself and my mum. It was a pretty good deal: 20 days of free travel per year. Except each ‘day’ was actually 48 hours, so (for example) an outbound trip on a Saturday with a return on Sunday would only use one ‘slot’. These were recorded by writing the day on a credit-card sized piece of card, which was paired with another piece of card with my passport photo on.

Once the 20 free days were used up, or if I was saving them, I could get 2/3rd discount on any other tickets.

I was able to hold onto the card until my early 20s – basically, the point at which I was no longer a dependent of my parents and earning my own wage. I miss the days of being able to simply jump on a train to London from Bradford, to attend something like Open Tech, without having to pre-book tickets or worry about the cost. Oh, and did I mention that I was able to travel in first class too?

There were limitations. First class travel was for off-peak only, and there were no seat reservations. Indeed, I would have to give up my seat to a paying passenger if required. But considering how much long distance train fares cost even then, it gave me a lot of freedom in my early adult life. I have travelled first class since then – our return trip from St Andrews, and some London trips where we won upgrades using Seatfrog – but it’s not a frequent occurrence.

If you’ve read this and thought about a career in the railway industry, just be aware that staff travel privileges have almost certainly changed and may be nowhere near as generous as this nowadays.

Young Persons Railcard

Once I was self-sufficient – or at least, earning my own money through work – I had to get my own railcard. At the time, this was the ‘Young Persons Railcard’ but it’s now known as the 16-25 Railcard, which are the age ranges it’s open to. Like most railcards, it costs £30 per year, and gets you a 1/3rd off any train fares, with some exceptions. It does work at peak times, as long as the discounted ticket would cost £12 or more.

Despite the name, you can buy a 16-25 Railcard if you’re 26 or over, as long as you’re in full-time education. And, it doesn’t expire on your 26th birthday – indeed, you can buy one the day before your 26th birthday and it’ll still be valid for a year.

26-30 year-olds can now buy the 26-30 Railcard, but this wasn’t available when I was in that age range. It offers the same discount as the 16-25 Railcard, but it’s digital-only and not available as a physical card.

Two Together Railcard

I wrote about this one in 2014, when it was still a trial in the West Midlands. Thankfully, the Two Together Railcard trial was deemed enough of a success for it to be rolled out nationally, and so Christine and I have had a few of these. As the name suggests, it allows two named people travelling together to get a 1/3rd off rail fares, but can only be used off-peak.

As it’s £30 to buy the card, I remember someone (probably Martin Lewis) doing a stunt at Euston station one day, finding two random people travelling to the same destination, and have them purchase a Two Together Railcard. Even though they were complete strangers, the £30 cost was less than the 1/3rd saving on the two tickets.

Friends and Family Railcard

Children under 5 travel free on the railways, but they need their own ticket from age five onwards. So, the next railcard we had was a Friends and Family Railcard. With this, you save 1/3rd on adult fares and 60% on child fares, and it’s valid for 1-4 adults and 1-4 children travelling together. Ours is a digital railcard and so it lives in the Trainline app, and can be used by myself and/or Christine when we’re travelling with our eight-year-old (and potentially up to three of their friends). For most of the UK, it can be used at any time, but it’s not valid for journeys within London and the South East during peak times.

Disabled Persons Railcard

I fully expected to carry on using a Friends and Family Railcard until our eight-year-old turned 16 and would need their own railcard (see above), but then I found out I was deaf. The definition of ‘disabled’ is quite broad for the Disabled Persons Railcard, and includes anyone who uses a hearing aid – even if your hearing loss isn’t severe or profound. I suppose this is because Railcards are a commercial paid-for product offered by the rail industry; I’m not (yet) eligible for a free bus pass, for example, which would be paid for by my local authority.

As with other railcards, you get a 1/3rd discount, but with no time restrictions. As such, I can use it on my commute to work, and in the year that I’ve had it, it has paid for itself several times over. You can’t (yet) use it to buy season tickets, so I have to purchase a return fare every day that I’m in the office. If another adult is travelling with you, they also get a 1/3rd discount too – they can be a friend, family member, carer, or anyone else really.

You do need to demonstrate that you’re eligible for the card; in my case, I had to email a PDF form to my local authority who stamped and returned it for me, to vouch for my deafness.

We’ll still keep our Friends and Family Railcard, as this ensures discounts for our eight-year-old too, but we’ve no longer any need for a Two Together Railcard. And, unless there’s some way that my hearing can be restored in future, I probably won’t need a Senior Railcard when I reach 60 either. Assuming that railcards are still around in 20 years time.

Kirkstall Forge – Yorkshire’s newest station

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A photo of the platforms at Kirkstall Forge railway station

Earlier this summer, Yorkshire gained a new railway station on the outskirts of Leeds. Called Kirkstall Forge, it’s located on the Airedale and Wharfedale lines which offer commuter services from the Aire and Wharfe valleys into Leeds and Bradford. And on Wednesday, I went to have a look at it.

Kirkstall Forge gets its name from a large forge that used to exist on the site. It was demolished, leaving a huge area of brownfield land, ripe for development. And it happened to be right next to a railway line. So the site’s developers contributed a sizeable amount of money to ensure that a station could be built. After all, houses near railway stations tend to command higher prices.

The station has been a long time coming; plans were first drawn up 17 years ago in 1999, but it wasn’t until 2014 that all of the funding became available. Construction started later that year, although its location on the River Aire’s flood plain put its opening back to June.

As it was a nice day on Wednesday, I walked to the station from Leeds, along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. It’s about five miles and took me a bit over an hour to get there. Of course, I was about a third of the way there before I realised that Google Maps wasn’t showing a footpath from the canal towpath to the station. Thankfully, a quick Google search verified that there was indeed a path to link the station to the canal. Indeed, thanks to the footbridge at the station, access to the canal in this area is now greatly improved.

The station itself is nothing special. Two platforms, a footbridge with lifts, a couple of waiting shelters, some seats, a ticket machine and a passenger information system. The latter two of these were out of order, showing a scrolling message about checking the paper timetables. Welcome to 2016, everyone.

Considering that a train passes through the station every 10 minutes in each direction, surprisingly few actually stop there. The basic service seems to be hourly in each direction, to either Leeds or Shipley and Bradford Forster Square. A handful of services instead go to Ilkley or Skipton, but these seem to be limited to peak times.

It might seem a bit of a waste then, to spend millions on a station with such a basic service. But then, there isn’t yet much to serve here. Whilst I’m sure that the forge site will be covered with hundreds of new houses in a few years, right now there was only a little construction taking place. Still, I was not the only person to catch the train towards Bradford, at around 4pm.

Kirkstall Forge, for now, retains the crown of Yorkshire’s newest station, but not for too much longer. South of Bradford, Low Moor station is under construction, on the site of the ill-fated Transperience museum, and is due to open next year. Well, hopefully – it’s already behind schedule after an uncapped mine shaft was found right where one of the lifts was due to be installed. There’s still a big gap in the Bradford-bound platform, at time of writing.

Scott managed to visit Kirkstall Forge before me and wrote about it – and I largely agree. Maybe in a few years, the station will be able to better justify its existence.

A new dawn for trains in the North

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144 Crossing the River Calder

Today is April 1st – and whilst that’s normally an excuse for news outlets to publish satirical articles to wind up their audiences, today it marks a new chapter for train services in the North of England. The two key rail franchises – Northern, and TransPennine Express – both change hands today, with promises of major improvements to trains, track and stations.

‘No growth’

The previous Northern Rail franchise started in 2004, and was awarded to a consortium of Serco (to whom all your base are belong to) and Abellio, a subsidiary of Dutch state railways. Controversially, this was a ‘no growth’ franchise, awarded on the basis that there would be no expected growth in passenger numbers over the original seven year period of the franchise. As such, the franchisee was not required to make any investments in new or additional trains, or run extra services.

As it happened, passenger numbers did grow, year on year, even during the 2008-2009 financial crash. In ten years, passenger numbers at Northern Rail stations (including my home station of Sowerby Bridge) have near doubled, and services have become increasingly overcrowded. To Northern Rail’s credit, whilst no brand new trains have been introduced, some additional trains have been brought in from elsewhere in the country where they had become surplus to requirement. Northern Rail has also held onto older trains, rather than scrapping them, to maintain capacity. Consequently, train services have more carriages, more seats, and in most cases run more frequently now than in 2004.

So whilst Northern Rail has managed to go above and beyond its minimum requirements, I think it’s fair to say that it has merely been ‘coping’ with increased demand, rather than making an effort to generate new demand. And it’s not done much for its reputation for running old, increasingly-tired looking trains – many of which, bar a change in seat covers, still sport their original, 30-year-old interiors.

In particular, Northern Rail has been well-known for having a large number of Pacer trains. These were introduced as a mostly temporary measure in the 1980s, by taking Leyland bus components and bolting them onto single-axled freight wagons. 30 years on, and they still make up around a third of Northern’s fleet, despite having shorter carriages and poor ride quality.

TransPennine Express

Earlier in 2004, another of the north’s rail franchises was awarded to a consortium of First Group (based in Scotland), and Keolis, a French transport company partly-owned by SNCF (French state railways). Keolis was a minority partner in the joint venture and so the franchise was known as ‘First TransPennine Express‘ (FTPE), even though First Group operated its other franchises on its own (First’s Hull Trains is a joint venture, but it’s an open access service, not a franchised operator). Unlike Northern Rail, this was a growth franchise, and saw the introduction of 51 brand new Class 185 diesel trains, built by Siemens in Germany. Some nearly-new Class 170 trains were also brought in, and so within a few years the entire FTPE fleet was made up of modern trains.

Whilst some growth was accounted for, actual growth turned out to be much higher. FTPE was controversially denied permission to add a fourth carriage to its new Class 185 trains, nor was it able to procure any additional trains, and so overcrowding became a problem. This was eased somewhat recently, when 10 new Class 350 electric trains were introduced for its services on the West Coast Main Line between Manchester and Scotland following electrification work west of Manchester.

Northern administration

Whilst both franchises were extended beyond their original periods, ultimately the time would come to hold new open franchise competitions to choose new operators. Most franchises in the UK are awarded by the government’s Department for Transport (DfT), with the exception of Scotrail and the Caledonian Sleeper (awarded by the Scottish Government), Merseyrail (awarded by Merseytravel) and London Overground (awarded by Transport for London). The various metropolitan, district, city and county councils of the north clubbed together to form a new organisation called Rail North, and successful lobbying has meant that the new replacement franchises have been awarded jointly by Rail North and a new DfT office in Leeds. This means that control of the new franchises happens in the north of England, by staff who actually use the services, and not by ministers and civil servants based in London. Crucially, both new franchises will anticipate growth in passenger numbers, and reflect changes in passengers’ expectations.

Arriva Rail North

The Northern franchise was won by Arriva – originally a British bus company that now operates several other rail franchises (CrossCountry, Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways, London Overground and the Grand Central open access service) and was taken over by Deutsche Bahn (German state railways) a few years ago. Arriva operated one of the predecessor franchises to Northern Rail – Arriva Trains Northern – but this new franchise will not resurrect the old brand. Whilst the franchise will still be called ‘Northern’, there’s a new logo and I expect that trains will get new liveries in due course.

As part of the new franchise, there’s a commitment to withdraw the old Pacer trains by the end of 2019. They can’t be disposed of straight-away, as it will take time for replacement trains to be brought into service, but December 2019 is a practical deadline as well as a tactical one. From the 1st January 2020, all revenue-earning passenger trains in the UK must meet accessibility regulations; the Pacers don’t, and the cost of modifying them is likely to be prohibitive. Whilst withdrawing them from the Northern network is a franchise commitment, if some vehicles can be modified, they could end up elsewhere in the country.

To compensate for the loss of Pacers, some additional trains will be transferred from the TransPennine Express, Great Western and Scotrail franchises, but there will also be over 90 brand-new trains introduced. A contract for these was given to Spanish manufacturer CAF, and will see new 2 or 3 carriage Class 195 diesel trains, and new 3 or4 carriage Class 331 electric trains being introduced from 2018 onwards. CAF built Northern’s existing Class 333 trains in a joint venture with Siemens, as well as the Class 332 trains used on the Heathrow Express services. The trains will be built in Spain, rather than Britain, but Britain’s two trainbuilders (Bombardier in Derby and Hitachi in County Durham) have nearly-full order books and so there’s little spare capacity for them to be built here, even if this might help Britain’s beleaguered steel industry.

Arriva Northern’s remaining trains will be deep-cleaned and refurbished, with free wifi available on all trains once the equipment has been installed. Currently, just a handful of Northern’s trains offer wifi, and these all operate on electric commuter services in the Leeds area. Some services will be branded ‘Northern Connect’ – these will be the ‘intercity’ services and will offer seat reservations and the newest trains – something I hoped for in a blog post back in 2014.

Same old brand new you

The TransPennine Express (TPE) franchise was won by First Group outright this time, rather than as a joint venture. I expected there to be very little change from day one, but there’s a new logo and livery being launched today. The first two trains have already had the new look applied to them overnight. Interestingly, despite the franchise being awarded to First outright, the ‘First’ branding has been dropped, although this is in line with Great Western Railway (another First franchise) and Hull Trains, where the overt First branding has also disappeared.

Whilst FTPE invested in new trains around a decade ago, this new franchise will also see new trains, in the form of 19 Hitachi AT300 bi-mode trains (which will probably be Class 802 when delivered). Sporting five carriages, these will be much longer than TPE’s existing trains, and have a faster top speed of 125 mph (200 km/h). As bi-mode trains, they will use electric overhead wires where available, but will be able to fall back to diesel engines on lines which have yet to be electrified. These should arrive by the end of 2019, and will be built at Hitachi’s Newton Aycliffe plant in County Durham.

Whilst TPE have only ordered 19 new trains for now, they will have the ability to order extra trains should the need arise, as long as there is a business case for them. This should avoid the issue with the previous franchise, where FTPE were not able to order extra carriages despite issues with overcrowding.

New stations and infrastructure

Infrastructure like stations, track and signalling aren’t in the remit of train operating companies like First and Arriva, but changes to these will have an effect on the new franchises. In West Yorkshire, two new stations are under construction – one at Kirkstall Forge near Leeds, due to open imminently, and another at Low Moor, south of Bradford and just off the M606 motorway which will open this summer. Further new stations are likely, including one at Elland, one of the largest towns in the region without its own railway station.

Over in Manchester, work has started on the Ordsall Chord, a new link that will allow trains heading west from Manchester Victoria and Salford Central stations to loop back towards Deansgate, Manchester Oxford Road and Manchester Piccadilly. This will allow services from the Calder Valley to continue to Manchester Airport for the first time, and link Manchester’s two major railway stations. The Calder Valley line will also receive capacity improvements, allowing trains to run more frequently, and the TransPennine route via Huddersfield and Stalybridge to Leeds is due to be upgraded and electrified over the next 8-10 years.

High Speed 2 and High Speed 3 are also due to come into play over the next few years, although plans are not as progressed as the other upgrades.

No Subsidy

Some explanation as to why the previous franchises had lower levels of investment (or none at all) are to do with taxpayer subsidies. Northern Rail was one of the most heavily subsidised franchises in Britain, and FTPE was also in receipt of a small level of subsidy. The subsidies were required as income from fares (i.e. passengers buying tickets) would not be sufficient to cover the costs of running the trains. Whilst there’s an argument for withdrawing services that are not commercially viable, there’s also an argument that some services are important even if they lose money, and in any case, withdrawing train services has been very controversial ever since the 1960s.

Government policy is to try to shift more of the burden of train running costs to passengers, rather than taxpayers, and the aim with the two new franchises is that, by the time they both end, neither franchise will need a subsidy. In TPE’s case, the opposite is expected to happen, and so First will have to pay a premium to the government, rather than receive a subsidy. With Arriva, it should roughly break even, or receive a drastically reduced subsidy.

This is where Rail North’s lobbying has been effective. Their aim is to break the subsidy cycle – train services have been subsidised because they can’t attract enough passengers to be commercially viable, but there hasn’t been enough investment to make them commercially viable. I hope they’re right, and that investment in services will unlock latent demand. That way, both passengers and taxpayers will benefit, especially if there are no major rises in train fares.

Driver-only operation

An appropriately-timed press release by trade unions suggests that there are plans for some of Arriva’s trains to lose their guard. Currently, guards are responsible for opening and closing train doors, ensuring that the train is safe to depart stations, and for checking and selling tickets. It’s possible that, to cut costs, some services will move to ‘Driver-only operation’, where the driver takes over the safety and door operations. This will require trains and stations to be modified, with door controls installed in drivers’ cabs and CCTV cameras on trains and stations so that the driver can see the doors. But it means that guards can be replaced by less-qualified (and therefore cheaper) revenue protection officers on trains, who are freed up to just sell and check tickets. Some trains may not even have anyone else on board other than the driver.

Driver-only operation is widespread on commuter services in the south-east, and, as well as being cheaper to run, it’s arguably better for train reliability. I’ve experienced trains being stuck at stations with the doors shut for some time (up to 30 seconds) because the guard has been busy selling a ticket when the train has arrived; if that happens at multiple stations, then it can add up. But, trade unions are right to lobby to protect their members jobs (and I speak as a trade union member myself), and there are benefits to having a member of staff available to help with passenger concerns. It’s an issue that I feel neutral about.

Day 1

So, today was day 1 of the new franchises. Whilst TPE are rolling out their new brand very quickly, I gather that Northern are taking a steadier approach. It’ll be a couple of years before the major changes in Northern’s train fleet take effect, so in the meantime it’s likely that the trains will retain their current liveries (but with the new operator logo). The old ‘Northern Rail’ logos have already been removed from trains and stations, but staff will still wear their existing uniforms for the time being.

Travelling to work this morning, there was very little to show for the change in franchise, apart from the guard having a name badge in the new brand, and drawing attention to the new Low Moor station as we passed it at speed. As old trains get refurbished, and new trains arrive, I expect that the rebranding exercise will ramp up.

After being neglected for so long, it’s good that Northern rail users will finally see some decent, large scale investment in their railways. My only worry is that these improvements may not be enough – whilst the new trains are welcome, by the end of this franchise, Arriva Northern will have only made a net gain of around 16 trains, unless more are sourced from elsewhere. We shall see what happens.