Pacers to get a life extension project.

They will do it with inadequate funding so it fails. Thus creating a narrative of " re nationalisation does not work"

Yay, company that can't organise a piss up in a brewery taken over by the people who contracted a ferry firm with no ferries.

True that the ECML service inherited was never bad so I don’t expect it’ll be easy to succeed in this instance unless the bar is set very low. Still, a positive step.

True that the ECML service inherited was never bad so I don’t expect it’ll be easy to succeed in this instance unless the bar is set very low. Still, a positive step.

True, but post National Express, the ECML service was much improved IMHO.

Bloody socialists!

Pacers to get a life extension project.

Was what I was saying just minutes after the announcement - what will now happen to all those trains they were meant to be refurbing?

Bloody socialists!

Well exactly.

Marxists / Communists / Stalinists etc

Socialism - hey who'd have thought that the neoliberals would embrace it? Well they've got no choice as this version of capitalism is doomed. The 'market' no longer works, and this is a baby-step admission.

More to come. Tinkering at the seems currently.

Oh I think we all know how this will play out.

It'll now have a load of 'investment' in that it'll be given loads of government funding

Then once its had stacks of taxpayers money thrown at it, it'll be handed back to one of their mates a suitable private sector operator, probably with a big fat subsidy

Corporate welfare, innit?

I predict that it will have no positive impact for most of us that have to use Northern Rail.
There will be some well publiscised improvements that will benefit a small number of routes.
At least Arriva wont be making any money out of running such an appalling service though.

The issues faced are more deep seated than just the Northern Rail franchise failing too  EMR and Trans Penine also can't run a reliable service on our line (as in the evening services I have to rely on are NEVER on time.  NEVER).

So unless there is major investment in the infrastructure that underpins it all, I can't see the service we get improving.

They obviously need a way of transporting dissenters to the northern gulags.

This shit is designed to keep the dissenters in their position of servitude. They get there via the uppy-downy lines.

So unless there is major investment in the infrastructure that underpins it all, I can’t see the service we get improving.

And everyone who has the misfortune to try to travel around the north knows this, full well.

Unfortunately we're all going to get a £200 billion commuter line from the Midlands to London instead, that'll be finished when my kids, presently at school, are about to retire.

This is apparently what the country is crying out for to 'rebalance its economy' and 'level up' (which is the phrase all Tory MPs have been ordered by Dominic Cummings to repeat every ten seconds)

So unless there is major investment in the infrastructure that underpins it all, I can’t see the service we get improving.

Sadly +1 to that.

Unfortunately we’re all going to get a £200 billion commuter line from the Midlands to London instead

It's great how beyond Birmingham they clearly couldn't decide which city to chose from between Derby and Nottingham, so they put the station between the two. I suppose at least Toton has a big ASDA and Tesco to serve the inevitable commuter estates that'll pop up all around it...

beyond Birmingham

hahahahahahahahahahaha.

 

They will do it with inadequate funding so it fails. Thus creating a narrative of ” re nationalisation does not work”

It's doomed to fail regardless of the funding it gets. Once nationalised it becomes a political chess piece run by people you wouldn't trust to run their noses. Nationalisation doesn't fix any of the problems that a privatised service has had (as it never really did well enough to "enjoy" any of the problems of private ownership). Nationalisation won't fix aging infrastructure, it won't fix lack of capacity at stations, lack of routing, lack of stations, lack of services at peak times, over capacity at off peak times, capped pricing, high running costs and so on.

The only way nationalisation works is to keep it out of the hands of government, away from 5 year life cycles, and free it up to run services which make money and ditch the ones that don't. ECML has done well with the first two but runs on the most modern part of "our" network, running the highest & most constant demand services between destinations where driving to your local station and getting the train isn't a longer, more expensive, less convenient option than just driving, and where the probable destination has the best coverage from the most reliable and heavily funded public transport network in the UK. On top of that when the franchise was stripped public transport (or any other sort of investment) in the North wasn't really political.

Northern on the other hand runs services on a network genuinely falling apart, where some lines are electrified and some aren't, with different signaling etc. providing services often slower than driving, more expensive than parking, from places you don't live to places you don't want to be (want to go to anywhere not in the middle of anywhere but Manchester Sheffield or Newcastle that's served by their network? Yeah you want a car for that) where demand far exceeds capacity at rush hour then trains run empty for 7 hours until 2 hours of high demand over again. On top of all that, you've government who want to be seen to be "leveling up" the UK so won't be running this at anything like the same arms length in areas the oposition has a vested interest in so won't let it lie.

You can't fix that trough a different business model.

What @dangeourbrain said ^^.

To be fair to the beleaguered Northern, it's not entirely their fault. When Arriva took on the franchise they were promised infrastructure investments, they were buying new rolling stock (from CAF in Spain) and that's simply not been delivered.

Half of the improvement for Manchester (Ordsall Chord) was delivered but without the other half (two new platforms at Piccadilly) to make it work properly. None of the promised electrification has happened so they're forced to use ageing diesel models. The new trains have been late, beset by reliability issues and the ones that are here need time for testing and driver /maintenance training.

And that is all set against a background of decades of underinvestment from Government.

Northern on the other hand runs services on a network genuinely falling apart

Agreed.

With rolling stock falling apart.

The service is shit because of decisions by the UK government, and publicly owned bodies.

You can’t fix that trough a different business model.

Also agreed.

I would like to see the railways fully publicly owned again, but letting Northern take the blame for failures in the publicly owned network, and because of inconsistent and poor decisions made by the government, is no path towards learning what has gone wrong in order to make improvements.

It was never going to work. It’s the franchise that picks up the dregs of everything. It’s got no winners. All the good stuff that could cross subsidise and maybe make it viable as a whole in its area is in east coast, transpennine, west coast etc etc. And The boundary it’s so big and random. It could only have been drawn in London by someone who’s never been.

It could only have been drawn in London by someone who’s never been.

Don't be silly, the random boundaries would be straight lines then. Has history taught you nothing?

As above, it wasnt all the Northern managements fault.
New trains are being delivered now, slowly, and are at least 6 months late.
The DfT gave them an awful franchise, and didnt allow investment until fairly recently, they had calculated that there would be no growth in passenger numbers, whereas around 40% more people wanted to use the Northern network, for which there just were not enough trains or staff to cope.
They are under staffed, and cannot seem to train enough staff to run all of their services.
On the other hand, they are losing big money, so now the taxpayer will be paying that bill.
Arriva were happy to hand back the keys.
The main bulk of the staff will stay the same, even up to senior management, so it really will be a case of no change here.
Things will improve, as the new trains enter service, and network rail (already nationalised) sort out their problems with the infrastructure.

Oh I think we all know how this will play out.

It’ll now have a load of ‘investment’ in that it’ll be given loads of government funding

Then once its had stacks of taxpayers money thrown at it, it’ll be handed back to one of their mates a suitable private sector operator, probably with a big fat subsidy

Corporate welfare, innit?

This is how I see it.

Don't forget the conservatives canned the idea of East Coast Mainline electrification. So you can thank them for a total lack of investment in infrastructure whilst securing shareholder returns and confidence.

dangourbrain nailed 90% of what I was going to post, so thank for saving me the effort. Pretty much spot on.

Apart from all those Brexiteer supporters who will now claim "taking back control" actually means re-nationalising the rail network... because British Rail as was, was a real success story wasn't it.

Next I hope is Southern Rail are stripped of their franchise too, just for the fact they're incompetent bunch of backscratching miserable morons...

Next I hope is Southern Rail are stripped of their franchise too, just for the fact they’re incompetent bunch of backscratching miserable morons…

To some extent this is even more screwed up...even working out which operator.
And most of us just want to get OUT.... preferably without going through London

New trains are being delivered now, slowly, and are at least 6 months late.

(I work for CAF...)

Don’t forget the conservatives canned the idea of East Coast Mainline electrification

That was done in the late 80's/early 90;s.
Do you mean the MML?
That has been cut back, so the last 80 miles are not being done in the foreseeable future, though there is hope it will be coming back in Control Period 7, or possibly added on earlier into CP6, which runs until 2024.
(Control Periods are time periods that the Government/DfT/Network Rail plan for capital spending.)
The full MML route was dropped after the debacle of the GWR ,and the Manchester-Preston electrification schemes. GWR is still not finished, so 3 years late now.
Surprisingly, MML electrification has proceeded toward Market Harborough with no significant delay, as have the many track upgrades that are taking place to allow more trains on the route.

I would like to see the railways fully publicly owned again, but letting Northern take the blame for failures in the publicly owned network, and because of inconsistent and poor decisions made by the government, is no path towards learning what has gone wrong in order to make improvements.

At the moment, that narrative suits the Government perfectly. They've swept to victory on a load of "borrowed" northern votes and thay're spreading the message that they're here to save the day - conveniently brushing under the carpet that fact that for the last 20 years they've barely considered The North to exist and given it no money.

Many of Northern's failures are a direct result of Government failures - failures to plan, predict, invest and deliver on any new infrastructure and failure to write a decent franchise agreement. But for the moment, it suits Government to pin the blame on Northern, pretend that they're sweeping in to fix everything and appear north-friendly for a little bit. Appease all the voters who were taken in by their lies.

And then they'll palm it off on [s]one of their mates[/s] some other private operator to rinse it for all it's worth again.

Used Northern Rail a bit recently, some new trains have arrived, unfortunately these new 3 coach trains are too long for a lot of the platforms. You have to look at the new in coach screens to see which doors will open, the same screens that say 'out of service'.

How can Victorian platforms be too short for 3 coach trains! Thats Network rail at fault.

Replace Northern Rail with Scotrail and you wouldn't be far off the mark.

Same problems with infrastructure up here but at least you guys see it when EVERYONE is running late. With a single operator and priority given to long distance (non-Scotrail) services it's still blamed solely on the operator when it's Network Rail at fault.

Same problems with infrastructure up here but at least you guys see it when EVERYONE is running late.

I think you give the representativeness of STW too much credit.

I'd wager most people don't know network rail exist beyond some vague notion and, in likelihood they only see one or possibly two operators, one local (a la northern) and one long distance (lner).
The long distance operators are by and large pretty good by comparison and you rarely notice their being late except when it allows you to make your connection because your local service is 15min late.

Of course we see SW trains on the news but laugh at the Southern Faries complaining as their trains are cancelled. Hell they're cancelled with a reason given, you don't get that on Northern, but more than that, they're cancelled hours, even days or weeks in advance ours aren't even cancelled in real time, the delay on the service just ticks up, the tanoy tells you it's 10 minutes delayed then the thing vanishes from the board as if its somehow whisked through the station silently without a single person on the platform noticing.

The southerners of course don't see Northern running 86% of their trains through Manchester Oxford Road late or cancelled in the news as, despite saying Oxford in the name, its north of Watford so only exists in the sports column.

Anyhow, I'm sure I've read on multiple threads that scot rail (and public transport in general) is perfect, runs for fares even a victoriana street urchin could afford and on time from every hamlet north of Gretna thanks to massive investment of public funds by your socialist utopian devolved government? 😉

Hang on, wasn't taking stuff back into public ownership going to bankrupt the nation and be bad for consumers?

Not totally based on folk here, we know a good few folk down south who know the difference between a signal problem and operator problem.

Dunno what the rest was supposed to mean, Scotrail isn't all that. Doesnt have cut and shut buses rolling about so I guess that's something.(we got rid of all our ancient stock when it kept going on fire)

A couple of considerations:

We don’t have a privatised railway, given that HMG tightly regulate everything we have a privately run state railway. Changing the franchisee is unlikely to solve may of the problems (and I live in a Northern Rail area).

Secondly, the only government HMG doesn’t trust to run railways is itself, given that most of the franchises are subsidiaries of other countries’ state owned rail operators.

Used Northern Rail a bit recently, some new trains have arrived, unfortunately these new 3 coach trains are too long for a lot of the platforms.

Which route? I’ve only seen the 2 coach ones (Leeds to Manchester via Rochdale); they’d cunningly put a 2 car one on for a rush hour service out of Leeds and it was like a sardine tin.

Todmorden to Leeds, 2 different journeys, Preston to Todmorden.

Improve the bridges and stations. And get some of those shiny double-decker carriages. Think of the money they could make using the current model of ramming the trains full of people, well over capacity to sit. Bare coin to rake in there.

The point that keeps being made is that it’s not that simple; due to the Victorian infrastructure we can’t have double decker trains as the tunnels aren’t high/wide enough, and reboring them is prohibitive, even if you could raise all the bridges.

I gather that, for the electrification work through Bolton they had to dig out the railbed to make clearance for the OHLE, never mind anything else.

Double decker will never happen. You'd have to literally destroy and rebuild every single bit of existing rail infrastructure in the UK. Tunnels, bridges, stations, access/egress routes...

Single decker is far better on regional routes anyway. You only really need a DD on massive cross-continental routes that take a couple of days plus.

I know, i'm not a ****ing idiot. It was steeped in sarcasm.

Shame, they're missing a trick. Could charge even more for the privilege of standing on an overcrowded train. Ah well, i'm sure rolling the turd in some new glitter will make people believe it's shiny and new...

You'd still expect Victorian stations to be able to cope with the new three carriage trains. Trouble is lots of the platforms were fenced off and allowed to fall into dis-repair when they were only servicing the sprinters, Network Rail should have re-opened these old platforms to cope with the (late) arrival of the new 3 carriage trains.

Who needs double deckers?

Nigel Evans our Ribble Valley Tory MP wrote in his recent election manifesto that the Tories would promise "the biggest road-building programme ever for Lancashire".

I wrote and told him that the fabled Northern Powerhouse hadn't got a chance with that kind of idiocy around.

Single decker is far better on regional routes anyway. You only really need a DD on massive cross-continental routes that take a couple of days plus.

The commuter services I've seen get on just fine with double-decker carriages

It will now be used as a political football to reinforce their message that they suddenly care about you lot up North, I wouldn't hold my breath!

You’d still expect Victorian stations to be able to cope with the new three carriage trains. Trouble is lots of the platforms were fenced off and allowed to fall into dis-repair when they were only servicing the sprinters, Network Rail should have re-opened these old platforms to cope with the (late) arrival of the new 3 carriage trains.

They're having to rebuild those lost sections they demolished a decade ago all over Wales! It's one of the reasons we still have the old converted lorry chassis trains running. They were meant to be decommissioned at the beginning of last year but you still hear them squealing along every day. The new trails are parked up waiting for all the platforms to be re-extended. They do rotate which of the new ones are in use where they fit but there's always at least half of them parked up for no reason.

It will now be used as a political football to reinforce their message that they suddenly care about you lot up North, I wouldn’t hold my breath!

That's exactly what it is.

There's been a few articles over the last couple of days in the Manchester Evening News noting that not a lot is going to change anytime soon.

They've highlighted the various infrastructure failings.

The new trains are parked up waiting for all the platforms to be re-extended. They do rotate which of the new ones are in use where they fit but there’s always at least half of them parked up for no reason.

Not passed testing, not got sufficient drivers trained for them all, not got space on the network to accommodate them, not got long enough platforms. There are plenty of reasons that they're there.

They had no choice but to keep some of the Pacers. Either you use Pacers and at least have a semblance of a service or you have no service at all.

Dunno what the rest was supposed to mean, Scotrail isn’t all that. Doesnt have cut and shut buses rolling about so I guess that’s something.(we got rid of all our ancient stock when it kept going on fire)

You've just taken most of the East Coast Inter City 125 stock which is older than the Pacers so I wouldn't crow too much.

Saying that, 125's are ace.

Had wandered why the brand new trains seemed to be parked up all the time at Skipton (For going on 6 months I reckon). Said before though, we're lucky on the Airedale Northern line as the stock is decent and usually on time. Couldn't really work out why we were getting a bunch of new trains when our older (but by no means old) Siemans had just been refurbed and are still nice trains to travel on.

It’s one of the reasons we still have the old converted lorry chassis trains running. They were meant to be decommissioned at the beginning of last year but you still hear them squealing along every day. The new trails are parked up waiting for all the platforms to be re-extended. They do rotate which of the new ones are in use where they fit but there’s always at least half of them parked up for no reason.

They arent lorry/bus chassis. Or even converted wagon chassis. The first lot were built using a body design that made it look a little like a bus body. They are not modified buses, the bodies are totally different, but do have some fittings the same, as the company (Leyland) built buses.
They have not been scrapped yet, due to the manufacturers of the new rolling stock not keeping their promise of delivery last year, so the older rolling stock has been reprieved for up to a year to cover the late delivery of the new stock.Its either Pacer trains or no trains in both Wales and Northern.
The rail operating companies cannot really be held responsible for this, it is the manufacturers who have not kept to their Contract.
There are many new trains stored at the moment, as the introduction plan has gone awry due to late delivery. Each train has to do a certain mileage before entering passenger service, 5000 miles springs to mind, though it may be lower. This is to ensure any faults are sorted before they enter service. Recently, Bombadier of Derby sent out a new train that had over 100 faults on delivery. The train operators are again at the mercy of the manufacturers, who are doing a shoddy job.
Drivers also need training. The newest trains are far more technically challenging, and faults have been found in software that makes the trains immovable, so, drivers have to do a more indepth course on running and diagnosing faults on the new trains, to ensure a reliable service.

You’ve just taken most of the East Coast Inter City 125 stock which is older than the Pacers so I wouldn’t crow too much.

I was talking about the old 303's which had a nasty habit of exploding or catching fire. I'd take a Pacer over one of those!

Was actually quite happy to see the old Sprinter and Turbostar stock down in Leeds last time I was there, no shame attached to those (and a **** load easier to get a bike on). Anyway, the 125's came from Great Western, hence the extensive refurb required (not a patch on East Coast last time I was on one).

The point that keeps being made is that it’s not that simple; due to the Victorian infrastructure we can’t have double decker trains as the tunnels aren’t high/wide enough, and reboring them is prohibitive, even if you could raise all the bridges.

Don’t need to raise bridges just lower Track 🙂

We Used to be good at this stuff in the 1800s but now seem Incapable or unwilling to think of innovative solutions.

That's because in the 1800s we had a vast pool of cheap, exploitable labour that we had no duty of care for.

It could be done but it would be cheaper to rip it all up. There is a vast difference between digging down a couple of feet for overhead wires and digging the sort of clearances a double decker and wires (because why wouldn't you?) would require. Which, as it happens, may well require a wider loading gauge and so would need to be extended out the way as well.

We Used to be good at this stuff

And as well as an expendable workforce, the Victorians  cared little if your house or village was in the way.

Problems on Northern:

It's a toxic, broken company in which every single department is hostile towards the others.

Training is abysmal. There's no training resources - everything given to staff was produced by previous holders of the franchise apart from the CAF (builders of the new trains) training stuff put together by Northern which is laughably poor. About 80% of the problems with the CAF trains are user error. This is the first significant fleet of new trains ordered without a simulator for training and assessment. There is no manual given to drivers for these trains, they are instead told to carry their course notes around with them for reference. The course notes are shockingly poorly written and full of errors and omissions.

The actual build quality of the CAF trains is bad. Cab doors that come open at 100mph.
Door locks that need superhuman strength to open. AWS alarms that will cause drivers to fail their hearing tests on medicals they are so loud. Emergency alarm buttons that come off in your hand virtually every time. Wipers that last a month before expiring. The electric trains cause interference problems with the overhead lines even when they're just stabled, affecting other trains.

Further to training, at some larger depots only a fraction of drivers are competent in their own rostered work, leading to rostering inefficiencies and the 'shortage of drivers' excuse. This is BS of the highest order - at one of the traincrew depots that's the most afflicted, the number of drivers required (establishment) is 182 and the actual number of drivers, including a dozen trainees, is 228. By no stretch of the English language is that a shortage of drivers. It's a shortage of competence. At that depot there are over 5,000 training days outstanding before all drivers are fully competent in their own work. This is a figure that was in only triple figures fifteen years ago.

Maintenance of trains - the largest maintenance depot used exclusively by Northern is at Newton Heath in Manchester. The entire culture there is, at best, patching things up so they never quite run out of work. Even the brand new trains are quickly filthy because the cleaners, and their supervisors and managers, are so used to spending a quarter of their allotted time or less performing their booked cleaning tasks that even a brand new train in service for a week looks filthy when it comes off depot because it's never seen a hoover or a cloth, only a litter-pick. This culture is ingrained and I hope that the OLR lift the lid on Newton Heath depot in a meaningful way.

Arriva came in in 2016 with a franchise agreement that was unrealistic and an extremely aggressive fiscal management policy. There were huge cuts in budgets and industrial relations suffered. Don't be taken in by the infrastructure projects being delivered late or not happening - Northern still had to, and did, put together a trainplan that was viable by way of the number of trains and staff they had to be able to 'diagram' them sufficiently. Unfortunately the number of trains out of service or failing in service due to poor maintenance causes the short-formed trains that make travelling a misery, and the fact only a fraction of the workforce are competent in a their rostered work leads to the huge inefficiencies and 'shortages' of drivers which are bunkum - while trains are cancelled with this excuse there are dozens of drivers sat playing cards in mess rooms unable to do their work because they're not trained.

Was actually quite happy to see the old Sprinter and Turbostar stock down in Leeds last time I was there, no shame attached to those (and a **** load easier to get a bike on). Anyway, the 125’s came from Great Western, hence the extensive refurb required (not a patch on East Coast last time I was on one).

Think a lot of the LNER HSTs are going to EMR. I was lucky enough to travel on one of the last HST services up to Edinburgh and then got an Azuma back. Yes the Azuma is nice and quiet and well lit and has lots of nice stuff but the comfort of the 40 year old HST was something else. Same with the new CAF Northern units. Got one into work this morning. Rock hard seats vs the sofas on the 158s. How is a man meant to get 45 minutes kip to and from work each day?!