Pathing and Timings for Steam Charters

Not being NR or any other employer specific and mod hat off...

The thing is Frank in these times of equal opps in all things employment related, applicants are scored on the CV/application form they submit and point scoring at interview rather than having an excellent previous work record showing they have the ability to do the job, are reliable, can take the initiative and get on with the job when things go up the creek without reverting to contacting upper management.

Neil, not teaching me uncle Frank to suck eggs... :biggrin1:

 

No Ralph - the spending of the £35bn strengthening existing routes, and rebuilding or replicating some lost in the sixties is the best use of scarce resources as even the government seem to be slowly "U" turning towards as they postpone HS2 again.

London to Manchester via Crewe, Stoke, Derby or Sheffield and everything that goes with similar route augmentation right across the network is the answer - not some ten minute saving consultants and contractors get rich quick scheme.

 

So true, if HS2 is built you can bet 75% of the monies involved will go in payments to 'consultants' , experts and PR.

 

You think if they quadrupled sections of the MML, WCML they won't hire consultants to identify which ares should be upgraded ?

Consultants are a fact of life... Either that or have too many over paid employees and not enough work to do that later become bloated and paid off with excessive pensions for life...
you could always offer more full time employees and pay them less... but Bob Crow doesn't like that.

Consultants maybe short term expense.. but a short term expense is cheaper than a long term expense.
Consultant productivity tends to be higher too.. after all their boss is able to apply charles darwin to the less intelligent / over paid ones...
The Employment Act prevents Charles Darwin enacting this for the full timers, that become another sad fact of life sat around the feeding plate waiting for that pension for life...whilst their exasperated manager hires a consultant to ensure the job, on time on budget actually gets done without a strike.

I generalise of course.. and in minority expect it's my turn once again to receive the half empty glass of vitriol.

 

Given that 40% of the price quoted for stage 1 of HS2 is "contingency/optimism bias" (the later is a technical Treasury term!), the cost of building a brand new line from London to Birmingham is actual put at about the same as the WCML rebuild for 1995 onwards - probably less if you adjusted that for inflation. It is precisely the cost - and disruption - of the WCML rebuild, which ended up not delivering what was promised, cost much more and took much longer - that lead to look at the method used by the ighways Agency to upgrade roads like the A74 and A1 to motorway status - biuld a new formation nearby for much of the route. Once you arrive at that, the extra costs of "high speed" is comparatively small.

That is not to say that the projected cost of HS2, Stage 1 isn't still higher than actual costs of comarable lengths of line built/being built in Europe suggests it should be - and consultants are probably a factor there. Oddly, the French can build a 160 km line under what we might call PPP/PFI - see LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Notice also the length of time to build it!

Steven

 

Perhaps we should put this into context. Go on the National Rail website (or any other booking website) and try to book a journey for say six months time with Virgin/TransPennine etc - you can't. I understand that NR have given a committment to TOCs to release paths no more than 12 weeks in advance - that is the farthest ahead that you can book on any website. That is when the various TOCs are aware that the track is open and clear - even normal scheduled services. Engineering gets in the way from time to time. So the Big railway TOCs don't take your money until they know they can run the train.

Rail Tour companies advertise months and months in advance without actually knowing what paths are open to them. When they do find out there may be a surprise and significant difference from the time they have adverstised and subsequently sold. Is this mis-selling? - some would say it is. I would put it down to poor and inaccurate marketing. Maybe the Tour companies should take the bookings but not the money until they can tell the customer exactly what they are buying and it is a product that they actually want given any changes. That gives the customer the chance to withdraw if the product is not as advertised in the first place.

I can hear the objections now that Tour operators need the cashflow - but the industry needs the goodwill and good business practices or people will start to walk away.

 

I guess that's were the previous comments about the Charter section at NR come into play.

 

:rant: Once again I find myself having tickets for a charter train with no confirmed timings as Nitwork rail haven't yet issued them. :frusty:

This means that I can't arrange my plans for getting to and from the joining point next Saturday (16th) at present. That isn't quite so bad

as it is more local to me, but the following weekend I'm also booked on a trip which requires travelling to and from London to join it, outline

times for this at present allows me to get there and back the same day, albeit needing an early morning and late evening return train.


If I book these now in advance I can get a reasonable deal, but in doing so I couldn't get a refund on them if the tour departure times from

Nitwork rail vary too much from the outline ones the tour operator would like. If the timings arrive 3 days before the trip then the advance

fares will have risen, or I might not even be able to get there and back in time the same day and as I do not have the resources for

overnighting then I'd have to cancel my tour booking, provided the tour operator would allow me to on those grounds. :noidea:


It really is about time the timings division of Nitwork rail got their act together and issued timings at least 2 weeks before a tour, or I will

be even more reluctant about booking tours in the future, especially ones requiring me to travel a fair way to the start and end point.


Off for a pint of Batemans XXXB now to calm me down.:thumb:

Dave B