DB Schenker livery released

[welshdragon]

http://railexpress.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... -new-look/

Well, the Wisconsin Central ivery on EWS locos will soon be replaced by this 'vibrant' livery.
But according to Modern Railways, this economic crisis is hitting hard on the railfreight industry , so, and passenger numbers are now declining, with quite a few Train Operating Companies finding cost cutting measures - NXEC/EA cutting their restaurant cars, Crosscountry doing away with the shop in their voyagers.

Things are also not looking good for the Departmemt for Transport, as yet again the announcement of the new Intercity Express procurement's favoured builders have yet again been pushed back, and the future of the project in uncertain times.

There is a lot more going on behind the scenes. i've on;y fcoverd the things i have remembered, but my god, this 'depression' when it surfaces, will hit hard.
With a pinch of salt. pick up this mont's Modern Railways or Rail magazine, and see if you agree with me.

[Dave]

Rumours that National Express will hand back the "keys" to all three of their franchises (NXEC, NXEA and c2c).

Just rumours, mind.

[Hyronymus]

How surprising, the DB Cargo Red spreads to the UK too. Not sure if the yellow crashnose makes it any more beautiful.

[Kevo00]

Well, lets hope that the tabloids don't pick up that they have renamed English Welsh and Scottish Railway to DB Schenker and are painting the trains in DB red!

More seriously, I still think the railways could be the next industry to hit crisis point in this recession. Amazed though that companies are cutting back on revenue opportunities - especially CrossCountry, who might increase sales in the shops by cutting the prices to a sensible level, though its true that the staffing costs are quite high compared to the number of purchases made.

Wouldn't surprise me if Nat Ex hand back their franchises, considering that GNER couldn't afford the £1.3bn premium payment required in a boom with expanding passenger numbers (though admittedly with their parent company falling into difficulty), it seems unlikely that Nat Ex can afford £1.4bn in a recession. The East Anglia and c2c premium payments must be equally massive, considering their consumer routes.

I'm very worried about the future, because I would expect under a Tory govt as we may see from 2010, patience could soon run out with the rail network as a drain on public funds and we might start to see closures etc., which would not be very clever in the long run. I wouldn't trust a fourth term Labour either.

[andel]

I wouldn't trust a fourth term Labour either.

You obviously know little about Labour. Investment in the railways right now would mean jobs. Its one of Labour's key things. The tories are known as the 'do-nothing' party. Labour can and will bring us out of this recession. After all, Labour believes in nationalised services and a fair country for all. It was the tories who privatised the railways and the steel and the coal and the buses and...

[welshdragon]

What Kevin has said is wrong in a way, having read the railway press since the beginning of this crisis i have seen that the focus has shifted back to railways - a kind of U Turn, during the oil price rises rail was one of the better options for both passenegrs and railfreight, but since this 1/3 increas in railfares the DFT has yet again shot themselves in the foot, and are not being hellped by the stupidyly managed Network Rail. That is who i think will suffer, Network Rail,

It has simultaneously messed up massive projects, and yet, the Office of Rail Regulation just hands them a big fat fine.

I don't think the tories (should they win the next government) will close lines, they can't. If they did then they wouldn't last long, if anything they may well get the footholds in for High Speed 2!

[Chrill]

It looks.. very boring. And regular. And average. To comment on the actual livery

[Kevo00]

I wouldn't trust a fourth term Labour either.

You obviously know little about Labour. Investment in the railways right now would mean jobs. Its one of Labour's key things. The tories are known as the 'do-nothing' party. Labour can and will bring us out of this recession. After all, Labour believes in nationalised services and a fair country for all. It was the tories who privatised the railways and the steel and the coal and the buses and...

Piffle. Labour clearly hope that somehow the recession can be ended as long as cheap credit becomes available again. This may be so temporarily (though its not proving to be the case) but will just store up an even worse crisis for the future. The only way out of this recession is meaningful economic development, not the state employing as many people as possible.

Labour do not believe in nationalized services. The abandoned their commitment to nationalization in 1994 when they changed Clause IV of their constitution. Labour have also continued the privatization project of the Tories, they completed rail privatization, privatized defence R&D (QinetiQ), and vastly increased the level of PFI activity within the public sector, particularly in health, education and the civil service. Network Rail, Southeastern, Northern Rock, RBS and HBOS/Lloyds were all nationalizations that took place in crisis situations. Labour politicians have tended to be quite close and cosy to those in the private sector over their time in government and have even turned a blind eye to private sector under performance in many areas of public activity, not least the railways. The railways are already making a lot of people redundant but I don't see the government investing to save their jobs. Don't forget the government's income is falling because of the recession and national debt is at record levels - the bail-outs have to stop somewhere, and it may well be that we simply can't afford to keep open all of the rail network that exists today.

What Kevin has said is wrong in a way, having read the railway press since the beginning of this crisis i have seen that the focus has shifted back to railways - a kind of U Turn, during the oil price rises rail was one of the better options for both passenegrs and railfreight, but since this 1/3 increas in railfares the DFT has yet again shot themselves in the foot, and are not being hellped by the stupidyly managed Network Rail. That is who i think will suffer, Network Rail,

It has simultaneously messed up massive projects, and yet, the Office of Rail Regulation just hands them a big fat fine.

I don't think the tories (should they win the next government) will close lines, they can't. If they did then they wouldn't last long, if anything they may well get the footholds in for High Speed 2!

Agreed with the first paragraph as far as the poor management of Network Rail goes, but my point is that the previous growth of passenger and freight rail use was closely correlated with economic growth, particularly with more people commuting around London and more imports and energy use, and that if these things fall off there will simply be fewer passengers and less freight to carry, which will put pressure on the industry's margins. This is an especial problem in passenger operation as operators do not get to keep much of their gross profit as they have to pay NR for track access, their stock leasing co, and the DfT in premium payments. Not surprisingly a lot of operators are probably at risk of slipping into unprofitability as fewer people are commuting. Notice that the banks were very quick to quit stock leasing after the Lehman Brother's collapse - including Santander, who did not trade in sub-prime mortgage securities, and are thus one of the more solid banks out there.

As for the Tories, well I think they could build HS2 and close lines. At present journeys on the system are very concentrated towards the south-east, and something like 50% of the system carries 80% of the journeys. Many of the unattractive lines are in Northern or Western England, Scotland or Wales, all areas that the Tories are unpopular in and are unlikely to win seats in in the next election. They may no longer be able to touch Scotland or Wales, but they could probably choose to close a lot in England where they are never likely to win seats and most people drive anyway, so are unlikely to be affected by such cuts. The way I see it unless the industry can seriously rein in costs, it could well become a target for a government facing severe public spending constraints, which the government is likely to after 2010, whether Tory or Labour. I don't support the making of such cuts, but its not hard to see the financial and economic case for them.

[Beardie]

Look i don't know much about EWS, or whats going on here so here is some noobish questions. Is this going to be there new paint through out all stock?, and also is not a coincidence that the logo is the national German train logo? Same company? and does this mean that most freight on the country will be run by them?

[LaSeandre]

Yes, EWS are now owned by Deutsche Bahn, and in fact have been since 2007.

[JamieLei]

Look i don't know much about EWS, or whats going on here so here is some noobish questions. Is this going to be there new paint through out all stock?, and also is not a coincidence that the logo is the national German train logo? Same company? and does this mean that most freight on the country will be run by them?

DB Schenker is indeed owned by DB - Deutsche Bahn, the German National Railways. It's the freight arm of the group, which bought out EWS some time back, but retained the branding until now (bar the 2 Class 60 Teenage Cancer Trust units). In fact, EWS was owned by a Canadian Company, which painted the British trains in their livery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:110-1063_IMG.JPG).

EWS by the look of it don't have so much of a Monopoly as they used to - Freightliner and DRS have expanded significantly in recent years. The post contract is now held by Freightliner I believe, after EWS' fees were deemed too ridiculous.

[Beardie]

Ok Thanks guys, just a bit weird though isn't it having the German Government own a large proportion of English freight transport industry? Thats why i was confused.

[Ameecher]

EWS was owned by a Canadian Company, which painted the British trains in their livery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:110-1063_IMG.JPG).

Call yourself a Geographer!? Wisconsin is in the USA!
Alright alright, Wisconsin Central are owned by Canadian National Railway (CNR) which makes it all the more confusing!

[Kevo00]

Ok Thanks guys, just a bit weird though isn't it having the German Government own a large proportion of English freight transport industry? Thats why i was confused.

Not really, nowadays its just a company owned by the German government rather than working on behalf of it, and they intend to privatize at some point. Such investment in the UK by foreign State-Owned Enterprises is not unusual - NS (Dutch railways) at least part own Northern, DB also own Chiltern, EDF, the French national electricity company owns the former London Electricity. Cross border liberalizations like this have been encouraged by the EU in recent years - DB also face increasing competition in the German rail sector, and for them it makes sense to invest abroad to diversify. I believe EWS were already branching onto the continent a little before DB bought them for the same reason.

[CSXT8785]

Maybe 90029 can be repainted back into the DB colours it had before, now that was a smart looking loco.

[RFT]

Ok Thanks guys, just a bit weird though isn't it having the German Government own a large proportion of English freight transport industry? Thats why i was confused.

Not really, nowadays its just a company owned by the German government rather than working on behalf of it, and they intend to privatize at some point. Such investment in the UK by foreign State-Owned Enterprises is not unusual - NS (Dutch railways) at least part own Northern, DB also own Chiltern, EDF, the French national electricity company owns the former London Electricity. Cross border liberalizations like this have been encouraged by the EU in recent years - DB also face increasing competition in the German rail sector, and for them it makes sense to invest abroad to diversify. I believe EWS were already branching onto the continent a little before DB bought them for the same reason.

My understanding is that the main reason behind DB buying EWS was that EWS had access deals to operate in France (as euro cargo rail) that DB were finding very difficult to get by other means.

[JamieLei]

I'm hoping that DB actually decide to run to St Pancras. They've been thinking about it for a while now, but it's mainly the safety restrictions that's a pain.

Or they could buy out Eurostar as they've been doing to A LOT of things - and then run Eurostars through to Berlin!

[broodje]

I don't think there are a lot of people who want to travel by rail from Berlin to London, flying is cheaper and a lot faster.

But RFT is right, the French market is very protected and a lot of freight companies are having trouble getting a permit to haul goods on French rails. Last week I also heard the story that DB is thinking about buying Eurostar, so they also have aces to the French international passenger market.

Oh and Kevo00 the NS (Dutch railways) are not a state company, they are a private business. They do have the monopoly on the core railways in the Netherlands though, and as a trade off for that the state is the single share holder of the NS. If all goes as planned this should change in 2015. In 2013 the international passenger market opens up, and in 2015 the contract between the NS and the Netherlands ends. Who knows maybe we get First operating the intercity lines around Amsterdam by then .

[andel]

In 2013 the international passenger market opens up, and in 2015 the contract between the NS and the Netherlands ends. Who knows maybe we get First operating the intercity lines around Amsterdam by then .

You had better pray not then.

[JamieLei]

It's only really Great Western that they messed up. They did a great job of ScotRail and an goodish job of FCC.

Plus if it's only the international market, you'd need A LOT of capital to invest in 187mph trains which only the state backed operators such as SCNF/DB etc could afford.