Which rail body sets times / routes?
 

Quick question for the knowledgable railways types on the forum.

Just exactly which body decides on routes, timetables etc? I've just seen the new timetables for my commute and they two train companies who operate on my line have decided that I don't need to leave work any later than 6pm from December. If I do, then I have to go another station down the line to change train back to my station AND pay an additional cost for the extra distance. Neither of the train operators can tell me why they have scheduled things this way, but it leaves a good 100+ commuters to my station a bit screwed.

If anyone knows which body sets the timetabling requirements, I would love to know as I have some helpful and constructive feedback to throw their way! ;)

I don't know which body decides on routes, timetables, etc. but you should certainly contact Passenger Focus, formerly known as the Rail Users Consultative Committee.

It's the Strategic Rail Authority I believe that sets requirements for routes/timetables.

NewbieRunner has pointed you at another good contact though

Apparently the SRA closed shop in 2006.

Ha ha :D 2006 was the last time I had a season ticket for a rail service ;)

Try the Office of Rail Regulation then

Thanks for the helpful leads. I will see if I get anywhere down those routes. I doubt it will make any difference for the next timetable, but if you don't ask, you don't get!

Might be worth getting your fellow 100+ stranded commuters to write in/complain too. The more the merrier.

Funnily enough, that's the next plan. That said, 85% of the timetable changes are positive though. Just a bit badly implemented in the evening rush hour.

Well as long as the 23.55* vomit comet still runs you're be fine...:D

* Replace time of the last train here...

The Department for Transport and Network Rail are responsible for the December 2008 timetable changes. People at Network Rail produce the timetables in conjuction with the Train Operating Companies. The DfT acts as sponsor. The Rail Regulator attempts to ensure the process is fair.

A lot of the December 2008 changes are due to the new Very High Frequency timetable for the West Coast Mainline. The paths given to Virgin have had lots of nasty knock-on effects for other operators. There have been many complaints about Manchester local services being badly affected.

I live in Nuneaton and we've been well and truly shafted by the DfT. My regular journey to Liverpool will now take twice as long and involve two trains.

I know of people that live in Stafford and work in Nuneaton who now find they will get home from work 2 hours later than previously.

Anyone who uses the WCML and starts/ends/connects via stations in the Midlands is probably going to find their journey impacted.

The trains will be running at higher speeds, which is good; but the government is of the belief that by also removing two intermediate stops from each journey, the extra 4-6 minutes saved will increase capacity generally. The flaw in their argument is that capacity is not short throughout the whole day, only at key times, and those times will continue to be over-crowded. The forecast growth in demand will not be spread evenly over the day.

In fact, even though Manchester-London services are being increased from 2 to 3 per hour, the bulk of the weekday daytime services only see seats being filled because Virgin are selling them at heavily discounted rates starting at £1 each.

I'm particularly incensed that, after years of promises of improvements, I'm now finding that most of my journeys are only practicable if I drive, which I really don't want to do.

Thanks for that post - very useful indeed. I saw something in the paper today that mentioned that Stockport folks were unhappy with the new Manchester timetables. Makes sense, although in their case they have plenty of trains anyway.

I feel for you in Nuneaton, sounds like you have been shafted over. I lived in Milton Keynes for 5 years and the gradual Virgin Trains 'enhancements' (fares up almost 100% in 4 years and no peak time trains) convinced us to up sticks and move away as the commuting became too much.

I stopped using Rugby for pretty much the same reason. By the time we moved house about 5 years ago, my season ticket had shot up to about £6.5k and that was on top of at least 6 months of post Hatfield aggro.

Now we live on the Midland Mainline which is just slooooow, although we are promised a 4 minute journey saving from December. Of course, the journey times are still slower than when they used to run steam locos up and down and before BR was privatised.

This is spot on.

The process is carried out by consultation and negtiation between the train operating companies and Network Rail but in accordance with promises made when franchises are awarded and in accordance with criteria set since the award of a franchise by the Department of Transport (this would take account of constraints set by larger public interest projects such as the West Coast Main Line and CrossRail).

Firstly, Network Rail issue initial restrictions imposed on the network by any planned engineering works.

Train operating companies then calculate best options based on traffic statistics, desired frequencies and taking into account any committments made during the franchising process (e.g. more frequent services or increase in rolling stock units on each service). How the companies do this is up to the operating companies. They presumably use computers to model passenger movements within their franchise. At the end of this process they make a bid to Network Rail for slots consistent with their access rights and committments.

Network Rail then allocates capacity in such a way that conflicts between operating companies are resolved. This could involve balancing high speed long distance with local services, e.g. Birmingham New Street is a notorious problem. More more recently this has become more complex because of open access rights over heavily used sections, such as the London to Wrexham route which lies outside of a franchise. Network Rail use neural network models to plan the best conections between defined nodes on the network but public interest decision criteria based on satisfying maximum passengers are also taken into account.

After a timetable is issued train companies can appeal through a formal process, though as slots are limited this effectively becomes a negotiation over timings and number of journeys.

Once all conflicts have been resolved, Network Rail issues the final timetable.

Interesting you mention the particular problem of Birmingham New Street. One of the effects of the new timetable is to force many more journeys to connect there.

For example, Rugby-Carlisle, Leicester-Liverpool, Northampton-Preston, Burton-on-Trent-Crewe. All should be possible via simple connections to the high speed WCML services, but from next month, at most times of day, passengers are likely to be routed via Birmingham.

Thanks for the heads up on the timetable changes. Glad I noticed this thread as it is pretty useful to have a heads up (a regular journey I make is London-Preston)... my journey time will be cut to just 2hrs 8/12 minutes between the two stations (down from around 2hrs 30)... a few minutes less to enjoy my cider on my way home, but probably a good thing (now if only they offered virgin airmiles...)

So, the West Coast Mainline looks to be finally getting towards a faster speed.