A good mate is currently working on the railways. It sounds like a total shambles. Tomorrow they will be building a “simple” brickwork manhole on a cover slab for the third time as the previous two “brickies have built it wrong 😯
It’s a catalogue of errors day in day out with stuff being done several times and I’m sure the one picking up the bill will be the end user.

South West Trains have lost thier franchise down here on the coast, oddly they have been a bazillion times better than Southern who are utter tossers.

Go figure what ever you want out of that…

Train tickets are so expensive for political reasons and because the train companies take huge sums out of the system.

Shambles implies it’s not a complete cluster f***.

Bikebuoy

That’s disappointing reading. I use SWT a fair bit and apart from the usual random abominations of broken down freight trains (which aren’t their trains) at Woking gridlocking the network for a week and the odd leaf related meltdown i find them quite decent. The staff are courteous (almost without exception) and the time keeping is half decent.

Southern a much more mixed experience and a biblically higher cancellation rate for the services I use.

Ming the Merciless – Member
Shambles implies it’s not a complete cluster f***.

To be fair that is probably closer to the mark.
Some of the stuff he tells me is just ridiculous, the amount of men to do certain jobs, the amount of over engineering absolutely everything and the amount some of them get **** paid is obscene!
I suppose it’s just jealousy really but I don’t think I could stand working amongst it.

I use SWT Mon-Fri to commute into London. They’re not too bad although it doesn’t take too much to screw up then whole network out of Waterloo. That’s mostly down to the shoddy signalling kit though.

My fear about the new franchise award is that the SWT region will now be expected to roll out the driver operated doors policy which has caused all the industrial aggro on Southern and made that network a disaster.

Chinese company have teamed up with First to win the South West Trains franchise, doesn’t bode well for future prices and i imagine it’s caused a major stumbling block in any future government re-nationalising the UK rail network.

MTR are heavily embedded in current rail franchises, it’s not that different to DB, SNCF etc from operating all the other franchises.
NR processes can be fairly painful, GRIP doesn’t really align to current RIBA work stages and has restrictions on deliverables, which causes issues.

That’s mostly down to the shoddy signalling kit though.

Good point.

Signals presumably aren’t even their kit anyway (guessing as it’s track hardware it will be Network Rail) although they can bring our 4th world standard commuter lines to a total standstill.

Train tickets are so expensive for political reasons and because the train companies take huge sums out of the system.

Really, please link us to the proof.
As a percentage of turnover, they make very little – typically 2% or less. Far less then Supermarkets, who are the leaders on cutting margins.
To see where the money goes, maybe ask some questions of the DfT who make all the monetary decisions. Then to Network Rail, who own/ maintain most of the infrastructure. How much has the GWR electrifications costs over-run by now? That has nothing to do with the Train Companies, it is a government controlled body. Has anyone been sacked yet because of the appalling loss and waste of money on the GWR line. I doubt it.

Trains owned by train leasing companies or as merseyrail are doing the local councils.

Tracks owned and maintained by Network rail,using contractors not employed directly by network rail, stations owned by network rail and leased to the train operating companies who then fail to maintain them properley to save cash,

Network rail own a few of the larger stations and do maintain them, but using outside contractors.

Then we have the train operating companies who run the franchises for limited amounts of years.

Followed by various open access operators who are able to run trains around the country, and also the numerous special trains, eg vintage or enthusiast trains operators

Finally we have network rail running its own infrastructure trains, and the freight operating companies.

all with their swathes of management, shareholders, and different ways of fleecing the fare paying public.

Well you know what they say. “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing six times”.

MTR contract shows again that nationalisation is fine as long as it’s another nation.

The use of contractors is out of control, literally buy cheap buy twice (or three, or four times) means it costs much much more than if it was done in house (NWR).

But we’re leveraging the efficiencies of the private sector, that’s what the free market does, right? Otherwise that manhole would be constructed entirely of ten pound notes paid for by YOU THE TAXPAYER.

I would like to be the first on the thread to blame Thatcher. Really.

Southern Rail boss salary increase

😯

I would like to be the first on the thread to blame Beeching. Really.

Fixed.

As a percentage of turnover, they make very little – typically 2% or less. Far less then Supermarkets, who are the leaders on cutting margins.

A small percentage doesn’t stop something being a whopping amount of money.

Supermarkets generally take 5%. Unlike most big food suppliers who try to run at 10%.

While squeezing their suppliers at <2%.

And yet Tesco is seen to be evil…

I see Waterloo is in carnage mode again today following a “track defect”. And they’re looking to run more trains into the station later this year, presumably all using the same shoddy rail infrastructure.

Waterloo is getting a massive track rebuild in the summer. So, no, it won’t be the same shoddy rail infrastructure it’ll be all new.

My wife and I used to work for network rail. Some stuff they do is genuinely very good but man are they inefficient and wasteful overall. The amount of money wasted and the senior mgt team ‘talent’ is shocking. And as above some people make so much money it is obscene.

I would like to be the first on the thread to blame Thatcher. Really.

Earnest Marples and corruption are to blame. Beeching did the job he was tasked with by the Macmillan government.

Train tickets are so expensive for political reasons and because the train companies take huge sums out of the system.

Absolute rubbish. Profits from running train services are small and most investors are not remotely interested – I know I have looked at both rolling stock leasing and franchise operation. Virgin/Branson ran trains for PR. To be honest the biggest incentive for nationalised railways is that they must be subsidised as its impossible to make a commercial profit from them.

Virgin/Branson ran trains for PR

Of course he did. Is that why he refereed to the West Coast Mainline as “a licence to print money“?

Beeching did the job he was tasked with by the Macmillan government.

Absolutely, and he also introduced container traffic to the railways, which is responsible for a massive reduction in road traffic.

I thought freight was generally moving off rails and on to road?

Train tickets are so expensive for political reasons and because the train companies take huge sums out of the system.[/I]

This x100.

All that privatisation has achieved is to add profit for various shareholders along the way at the expense of ticket costs. The rail network was badly in need of remedial maintenance by the late 1990s, so along came New Labour with PFI…

Shafting people who use railways has been a favourite of politicians of most parties for several decades

Waterloo is getting a massive track rebuild in the summer. So, no, it won’t be the same shoddy rail infrastructure it’ll be all new.

Waterloo is just one bit though.

Woking this morning was an absolute joke. SWT seems to do a good job normally but when it goes wrong it is a good demonstration of how incompetant the people that run these rail systems are.

Overrunning engineering works at Waterloo – wtf does that happen – enough people on a high enough rate should be able to complete the work in time – so lots of trains terminating or full and standing.

train rolls in – full and standing – announcer says an extra service will be stopping in 5 minutes so only those that can squeeze on get on this train. 5 minutes later the train that was suppossed to stop, and has quite a bit of space on – doesn’t.

How can this misscommunication happen in this day and age ? It happens every time there is a screw up on the lines.

How can I know where the bus I want to catch is on its route but the staff on the platforms don’t know where the trains are ?

How can there be signal failures in this day and age – put up redundant sets of signals for a start.

OK, the companies have to make profits but they are in a monopoly position. But if it was nationalised it would be just as bad, maybe worse.

And if there was an alternate ooption they would sort things aout rather quicker as they would be bleeding passengers.

There was somebody who, a few years ago, suggested that railways are a massive waste of space because they occupy valuable land but are not used for 99% of the time. He was shouted down by those who (rightly) said that railways are an important part of a nation’s infrastructure and must be key to the economy no matter how inefficient but when you look at railways as a costly asset that actually returns very little revenue, I’m beginning to think the bloke was actually right.

Yeah, Waterloo. What about past the station ? As per turnerguy above, one little incident and the whole network is chaos for the rest of the day.

Carnage? Shambles? It ain’t the meat, it’s the (lack of) motion.

Doubling up every signal…really? Extra cost to install, test, maintain plus the possibility of miss reading by train drivers (some areas are already packed with signals)

Overrunning maintenance could be discovering additional or more severe issue, decades of under investment have led us here and it’s being dealt with but people moan when things don’t work and people moan when things are shut to be put right. Can’t win.

Maintenance should be brought back in house rather than paying huge amounts to contractors.

The whole concept is screwed. Not to say that private rail can’t work, but our system makes no sense. The subsidies paid to the franchise holders are greater than the amount they pay for the franchises, but we still pretend they’re paying us. We rushed to reprivatise the succesful East Coast Rail, while other countrys’ public rail providers profit from our franchising- Abelio, Deutschebahn, Arevia, Kelios… Our public money effectively goes straight to their public companies. And private of course, East Coast was making us about £200m per year, now we pay Virgin £80m per year.

(and guess what- since Virgin took over East Coast Rail customer satisfaction has dropped by 6%- they were the highest in the country previously)

That’s all just direct, quantifiable financial costs- leaving aside high ticket prices, knock-on losses due to delays and cancellations, the impact on business and industry from not having a cost-effective railway…

so along came New Labour with PFI…

I don’t think PFI was ever used for rail? Do you know differently?

How can I know where the bus I want to catch is on its route but the staff on the platforms don’t know where the trains are ?

I don’t know about infra, subsidies, contracts and all that bollocks but ^this^ really boils my piss, WTF can’t they keep you updated?
“On Time”
“On Time”
“On Time”
“On Time”
“On Time”
<time the train is actually due>
“On Time”
“On Time”
<5mins after due time>
“Due in 40mins”
Grrrraaaarrrrrgh!

How can I know where the bus I want to catch is on its route but the staff on the platforms don’t know where the trains are ?

I went to catch my first bus in about 20 years last week. It didn’t turn up so we had to get a different one and walk the rest of the way. That’s the last time I bother with a bus.

There are many bus tracker apps for mobile phones and a phone number you can ring to ask where your bus is , are usaully publisised on the bus stop timetable.

Sometimes due a rtc a bus is delayed or turned back early, even breakdowns and passengers taken ill all have an effect on journey times, thats why most major comapnies have a tracker app, or live internet tracking.

We were staying at the sister in laws. She explained that it doesn’t turn up, shouldn’t need to track them.

Currently standing room only on my commute out of London, lot of people sitting on the floor, it’s not even busy, as it’s Easter.
Seat this morning but trains delayed again, only 15 mins late but it adds up

I post give grand a year for this shit

Glad I’m not a Southern user…
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/10/southern-rail-boss-double-pay-rise

They system is entirely corrupt,

But ya know its just how we post-fathcha Brits do things, I suspect Brexit will fix things

To be honest the biggest incentive for nationalised railways is that they must be subsidised as its impossible to make a commercial profit from them

Jam, are you in favour of nationalised rail?

I think that the problem the UK has is the drive to reduce costs to increase profit over everything else. This means companies are under pressure to select the lowest bid, which means that suppliers are under pressure to come up with the lowest bid. So they cut their own costs as much as they can.

Upshot is that supplier employees are pressed as hard as they can to do more for less, eventually they give up cos it’s shit and go and do something else. High employee churn means low skills and unpleasant working environments mean low incidence of giving of shit.

End result – shit product and demoralised workforce.