National Rail Shakeup

[Dave]

The service on Bumble Hole and Wombourne was rubbish for a start, so if it was better, then It would be more, also the servcie on the Halesowen railway would be faster than before

Longbridge-New Street takes 20 minutes, it would be another 10-15 minutes from Halesowen. It would cost more money to run it. The bus is way better and is more central to Halesowen.

The services on the Bumble Hole and Wombourne matched the demand - which was never there, both lines were built as freight lines and so were never near anything. The Bumble Hole Line, apart from Old Hill High Street, ran through farmland and coal mines. The Wombourne Railway didn't run anywhere near the named stations - it was a total joke of an operation and it was little wonder it only lasted seven years.

The South Staff line should not be a light rail line but a heavy rail NR line

Why?

You're totally out of touch haha.

[Dave]

Have you ridden a 139? Haha. The units they've proposed for this project are entirely different anyway.

I don't think you understand - Halesowen-New Street via Longbridge IS direct. To get to New Street via Old Hill would probably take as long.

Wombourne is NOT a town! The modal shift to buses is more than adequate for this type of traffic.

[Dave]

By the way it's the South Staffs line, Staffs being an abbreviation of Staffordshire.

[Griff]

Have you ridden a 139? Haha.

I have seen pictures and been on it and it is only a little better than a Pacer, 172s would be better

Why would you need to say you've seen pictures of it, if in fact you've been on it? It would have made more sense to say 'Yes, I've been on the Class 139' than say 'I've seen pictures of it! .....and been on it'

You troll.

I also love how he says 'Wombourne is a very large village', which is precisely what Wikipedia says about it. haha.

[JGR]

Becuase te 139s are as rubbish as the Pacers

Passengers aren't rail enthusiasts and mainly care about getting places, not how hip their train is.

[61653]

It would be faster if it was directly by rail from New Street to Halesowen and we should consider the railways as a public service, not a business

Ok, considering the railways as a public service. There's the cost of rebuilding all these lines in the WM and similar projects in every large town and city across the country from the Potteries to Perth. All this costs money, as does refurbishing the current routes across the country (and electrifying the ENTIRE network for your Pendolinos- These will cost maybe £1m per carriage thanks to economies of scale). Then you need nationwide 1,000s of train drivers on a starting salary in the ball-park of £30k, plus ticket and station staff, signalling engineers and operators, a much larger PW maintenance department (and the equipment they use), so that's an awful lot of expenditure even if over time people would relocate to new housing developments along these routes to increase the farebox revenue. Even if you were to totally crack down on tax evasion (which is illegal) and tax avoidance (which isn't) and have the likes of footballers, senior bankers/executives and F1 drivers(who'll all run off to Switzerland anyway!) paying something like 90% tax, there's not going to be a whole lot of money left for EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE COUNTRY!

As for Wombourne, the branch line would link the town to the rest of the West Midlands

The Bumble Hole line could be part of the South Staff project, since it serves residental areas

I believe Mr. Worley already blew you out of the water on these points and I'm not sure how your response es even fit for purpose, but never mind.

Why? You're totally out of touch haha.

Becuase the 139s are as rubbish as the Pacers[/quote]

How is that relevant?

[Dave]

Have you ridden a 139? Haha. The units they've proposed for this project are entirely different anyway.

I don't think you understand - Halesowen-New Street via Longbridge IS direct. To get to New Street via Old Hill would probably take as long.

Wombourne is NOT a town! The modal shift to buses is more than adequate for this type of traffic.

I have seen pictures and been on it and it is only a little better than a Pacer, 172s would be better

Wombourne is a very large village the size of a town and Halesowen is needs to be served by rail

Wikipedia is wrong - Wombourne is a very small centre surrounded by moderate amounts of suburban housing, which in the Midlands is not traditionally served by the railway - this won't change and never will.

Halesowen is well served by local and mid-distance bus routes and is within fifteen minutes of its nearest railway stations (Stourbridge Junction, Lye, Old Hill and Cradley Heath) by car or indeed the bus.

You're talking out of your rear end haha.

172s are heavy and expensive for a railway that would only just about justify three services, very light maintenance and probably lighter loadings. But you'd know better.

[JamieLei]

Also we must be realistic here about how many people would use a train if a service was provided. Let's think of best case scenario, with perhaps, a 10min frequency and 90/100mph rolling stock. Oh wait, we already have those in the Midlands on the Cross City and Stourbridge line.

Now let's think where some of the most frequent bus routes are in the Midlands. Number 9 (Stourbridge, Lye), Number X62/63 (Selly Oak, Longbridge), 45/47 (Kings Norton). Not to mention all the buses that pelt it up the Sutton Coldfield, the express buses to Walsall and the comparative failure of the Midland Metro because the 74/79 bus is already good enough along that route anyway and stops in a better place in the City Centre.

People won't automatically switch to the train it's there, especially if there's a good, frequent bus service already. (Of course, we could talk about connections to National Rail (it's one of the main complaints about the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway) but in the end, people generally want to go to their nearest shopping centre and workplace, not to London every day). Of course, passenger numbers went through the roof on some carefully planned reopenings such as Ebbw Vale and Alloa, but we mustn't extrapolate their success to any random village in the country.

[Dave]

Yeah but you see there's a reason they reopened stations there - because there was a demand for it, and that demand was maintained.

There's no demand about anything here haha.

[Kevo00]

And indeed, Ebbw Vale and Alloa are not exactly villages.

[JamieLei]

How's Corby getting on?

[Pilot]

There you go.
Annual rail passenger usage
2009/10 115,372
2010/11 176,706

[GurraJG]

Alan: I concur with you in that there is a need for a better public transport system in this country. However, what I don't understand is why we should spend tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds on improving and building new railways when we could spend a fraction of that money on improving bus services to small settlements which are likely to see very low rail usage?

[JamieLei]

There you go.
Annual rail passenger usage
2009/10 115,372
2010/11 176,706

Not amazing but not too bad. That's 480 per day. Assuming about 10 departures, that's about 48 on each train, filling 2/3 of a carriage. But the growth rate looks good and there's no reason why that couldn't double or triple in a few years as people get used to having a station on their doorstep.

Alan: I concur with you in that there is a need for a better public transport system in this country. However, what I don't understand is why we should spend tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds on improving and building new railways when we could spend a fraction of that money on improving bus services to small settlements which are likely to see very low rail usage?

Cause buses don't have an on board shop, a first class meal service, or go 80mph of course! Also because Alan doesn't then get to take lovely photos of them.

[EXTspotter]

When I saw those figures and then went onto wiki and saw the population of Corby, comparing that to another place in a similar situation, Paignton, a town of similar population with only terminating services and a much less frequent "express" service to major population centres than Corby, and the numbers don't really make sense.

Paignton had 472,000 passengers last year compared to Corby's 176,000. Adding to this, the fact that many journeys into the Paignton sphere of influence involve bus travel or car usage to Newton Abbot as it gets a much more frequent service means that the number of journeys should be even higher in Paignton shows that train travel hasn't penetrated passenger transportation market in Corby as much as it should, even bearing in mind the newness of the station/service. Compare that to Warwick Parkway, another relatively new station which is serves a settlement with a smaller population. Both Corby and Warwick Parkway are about 90 miles from London, so distance shouldn't affect journeys too much, and whilst Warwick Parkway also offers services to Birmingham, its annual passenger numbers (461,000) are more than double that of Corby's. On top of this, Warwick has 2 railway stations whereas Corby only has one hence Warwick's passengers are diluted across 2 stations vs Corby's which would use the one station.

Maybe Corby just needs a few more years...

[JamieLei]

Warwick Parkway is special though. Chiltern obviously knew that it was going to make a hell of a lot of money from the outset, hence why they built the station with their own money. I can't instantly think of another station in the UK that a TOC has actually built themselves.

The reason it works is that it's actually not aimed at people in Warwick. Well it sort of is, but they're not the main target. There are a hell of a lot of very high income dormitory villages around the Birmingham/Solihull Urban Fringe (Dickens Heath, Wythall, Henley in Arden etc) for whom Warwick Parkway is the most accessible station for London. It might take them 15-20 mins to drive to Warwick Parkway, but it takes me longer than that to get to Snow Hill on the bus! Furthermore such people are highly likely to run down to London every other week, if not every week or twice a week on business. It might Chiltern's unashamedly business-orientated express runs call only at Moor Street, Solihull, Warwick Parkway and London Marylebone, skipping the pretty big population centres of Warwick, Leamington Spa and Banbury.

[Ameecher]

[quote="Alan "Pie in the Sky" Fry"]And for god sake I am not a troll and Wombourne might be a village, but it is the size of a town, just like Milton Keynes is a town, but the size of a city[/quote]
Errr... MK is a city...

[quote="Alan "Pie in the Sky" Fry"] also are you sure you have clearly worked out the rpice of my plans?, because a crackdown on past and present tax evasion and tax avoidancewould raise hundreds of billions and higer taxes even more money, so there is plenty of money to go round all public services[/quote]
Bit difficult when you haven't given us figures other than Red Top headline grabbers.

[quote="Alan "Pie in the Sky" Fry"]I fell that all railway based busways and trams networks should become (heavy rail) rail lines again[/quote]
But that's just p***ing money up the wall for no reason!

Why should we improve buses (most of which will go towards the profits of buses companies anyway), when we can provide a better service on a rail service to that area, also the bus network (overall, in areas like London and some other major cities it is fine) is in an even poor state than the railways

You could nationalise the buses as well... I'd rather somebody made a profit than money was poured down a very deep hole for no reason.

[Kevo00]

Also I am not wasting money, I am providing a decent (and public) service

You are wasting money. On public services that no one wants. Good management is all about moving resources from where they are wasteful to where they are needed. This is true regardless of whether you are in the public or private sector.

[Pilot]

[quote="Alan "Pie in the Sky" Fry"]I fell that all railway based busways and trams networks should become (heavy rail) rail lines again

But that's just p***ing money up the wall for no reason![/quote]
Yes, I would prefer the Manchester Metrolink to be back as Heavy Rail, plus converting Manchester Central back to a Railway Station, However, the Metrolink has done wonders to Public Transport in Manchester, especially in the City Centre. The Metrolink has inticed a lot of people to get the Tram to work, meaning that the roads are less congested (there still bad though) than they would be. Also, the Metrolink has a much higher frequency (every 6 mins in Peak, 12 the rest of the time) than rail did, and even though Capacity is lower than when it was BR, the Trams are never overcrowded so much that you can't get on or off. I am a Supporter of Rail expansion, however, I also believe that the Country doesn't have much money to spend on Projects, and that tiny villages of 200 people getting a Train every 10 mins to be the most Stupid thing ever. All Rail Expansion should be carefully planned, like the Airdrie-Bathgate or the Alloa branch, not just "Oh, theres a village there, why not give it a Railway with 10 min frequency"

[Hitperson]

it's a very sad state of affairs, my previous years at uni i would train it there and back during term time and at christmas/easter but this past year i have been driving instead, the basic result is 1: i'm saving money, 2: i'm getting to my destination faster (usually half and hour earlier than if i had taken the train and 3: i'm far less stressed.

the big aspect though is the cost of train tickets, i cannot believe how much they have gone up, certainly it is far more now than the cost of fuel is for the journey.