Charter trains under threat

I'm happy enough to sign a petition against the proposal for unlimited fines, but I do feel the current status quo is perhaps ripe for some kind of change. The reality we have to accept is that the mainline railway is not an extension of a heritage line where the heritage operation is the key factor. We are indulging our hobby and in too many cases causing real disruption to important travel for the general public. If one of our trains sits down and someone on a service train misses a plane, or a job interview they could end up seriously out of pocket with no chance of getting their money back, and with TOC's all too ready to make it clear when its a charter causing the problem, the negative PR potential is huge.

However run well and prudently, heritage charters add a lot of pleasure and also add to the overall rail economy - so the challenge is to have a system which allows this to continue whilst deterring the less well run and imprudent operations. Are some operators/locos really luckier than others with their failure rate or is "luck" being made by those who set loads reasonably within the capabilities of their locos, and those who cover every last inch twice to make sure the loco is mechanically sound, or the rolling stock is fully up to scratch?

So if a proposal was made whereby the current system were to continue for the first few incidents (few being defined in terms of the number of tours operated and a reasonable expected failure rate) and then after that the full fine kicks in, I personally think that would be hard to argue against. The flat rate low fine for everything in unlimited numbers does nothing to put pressure on any unnecessary risk taking which is contributing to more incidents than absolutely necessary.

Probably an unpopular view but still!

 

There seems to be a curious contradiction from the forum on this issue. If Network Rail have to pay out big compensation because of the current level of fines then that's money coming (mainly) from the taxpayer. On just about 100% of similar issues most people who declaring this to be a waste of public money and an example of the government getting its priorities wrong!

I'm not quite sure why NR should pick up most of the fine if a charter train causes massive delay. Perhaps increase the level as £5000 seems pretty low to me.

 

It would be interesting to see the figures, and the figures are already available to those with access.

I would hazard a guess that if you break down bits of the charter industry you would find the picture fairly pleasant...

DBS and VSOE with London based trips cause virtually no delays
WCR and Jacob at Fort William had a bad day with a couple of Scotrail part cancellations

but

The notable failures where the operator had a poor if existent contingency plan would be the biggies.

I remember a few years back a 47 failed at Rhyl on a midweek charter just as busy trains were heading in off the coast. The delay mins racked up very very quickly as the driver struggled to shunt and run round the tail loco. That to me was a day where the back up plan for West Coast was not fit. The run round took far too long and the delays and cancellations were massive. The 2 hour delay to the charter knocked on to Virgins timetable for much of the day as the Voyagers are used very intensively.

 

E-petition signed and sent round the office for more signatures.

 

Good post. I think if the tax-payer was aware of this subsidy there'd be hell to pay. I'd raise the cap to a level that would guard against the very few 'silly money' events and then add a few bob per ticket to go into an 'insurance fund' to pay for the more frequent but cheaper penalties.

 

Out of curiosity, where did that daft Forster woman go when FGW got shot of her ?.

 

The key document appears to be the consultation on the ORR website, closing date January 28th - it seems not to have been posted in this thread so far. (It opened in November, so someone did well to spot it in time) The most effective action to take may be to respond to that, and turn to the e-petition if the ORR come back with an unwelcome decision.

Not read it myself yet - will go through it properly between now and the 28th...

 

Going to need more than the 3099 signatures currently.

The challenge with these e-petitions is this. If you get over 100k signatures, then they will take note. If you only get a couple of thousand, then you have confirmed that this is an issue that only a small niche of the population care enough about.

Might have shot ourselves in the foot here and done more harm than good.

 

That's a bit unusually negative ?
The post has only been up a week, for a niche subject 3,000 isnt bad.. there's still plenty of time yet.

Unless of course behind the scenes believe they can handle it.. in which case they should come out and say so.

 

Please don't quote me on these numbers, but I believe “they” multiply the number of e-signatures by between 10>15 to guestimate the number of people who will be effected.

If you multiply 3099 by 15, you get approx 45>50k, which by total coincidence is the estimated combined readership of HR & SR mags (a lot of people subscribe to both, so you can’t just add the two readerships together)

Not trying to be the voice of doom; just merely pointing out that unless you are confident of being within reach of the magic 100k signatures, it is sometimes best not to confirm just how (comparably) little mass public support a motion has.

I hope I am proved wrong!

 

I agree 100k signatures is a lot, not impossible, especially if it were given traction and publicity.
it was this line..

why is the petition a bad thing ?

 

Speaking generally..... If the powers that be look to see that only 5000 people took the time to sign the petition, then it confirms to the group wanting to make the change that the change will effect a small number of people (voters) and hence it is safe to go ahead with said change.

Whereas, without a confirmation of the number of people effected either way, it allows persons doing the negotiating to claim that the change will effect ( for example) 1/4 million people who traveled on charter trains in 2012.

Im not saying do nothing, but when you are dealing with a government entity, a large part of the decision comes down to how popular/unpopular the change will be.

This is just my take on it. I am not involved in the conversations with the ORR in any way.

 

lfair enough, tbh I think this is a storm in a tea cup any way.
NR has far more things to be concerned with than less than 0.005% of its income and will cost 0.006% of its income to save.

 

I think it is poorly worded and doesn't really make a valid case. It talks about (from memory) '1000's of trains'. In which case, that's 100,000's of passengers. So it would take only a very small precept on each ticket to cover most of the delay penalties.

It makes the charter market sound like a bunch of whingers who think the rest of the country should subsidise our hobby - the press could have a field day if they get wind of it.