16. More train ticket booking confusion & is new plan for HS2 sunk already?

Coming up on today's show, we're all about railfares and tickets today with the Fares Experts expert at the Manning Seaks 61's Mark Smith, joining us to shed light and understanding on LNR's new simpler Fares pilot. The return of the Great British Rail Sale, but is it really great? And is it a sale? Is which magazine correct that tickets from ticket-vending machines, TVMs are twice as expensive as online tickets? We also cover the lifting of land safeguarding on HS2's route north from Birmingham, is it a fatal blow? The eagerly awaited proposal from northern mayors and the street and undyburne them that government seems to have kicked into touch without even waiting to see what it is. And rail disruption on 363 days out of 365 in the western region. But is it as bad as it sounds? Normally we measure delay minutes. Oh, and Richard is going to explain why he branded defence secretary grant-shaps the very essence of a blithering idiot on Twitter. They're raising a prospect which isn't likely it's the fact that it happened. Welcome to Green Signals from me Nigel Harris and me Richard Boucher. And we're at it again, pluttering about trains Richard, I always look forward to these recordings. Well me too, I think this is going to be a belter of a show they'll have to say. We said it every week but it's always true. It is always true. The railway continues to provide us with good material and Mr. Shaps certainly does but we'll leave that for now. If you're enjoying Green Signals do give the episode a thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube where an increasing number of our audience is gathering by the way and please hit that subscribe button. This really does help us to grow the show and do lots more of what you want and enjoy. You can also visit greensignals.org and sign up to our mailing list there so that we can let you know when we publish new episodes and we also send out some exclusive content now and then too. You don't want to miss that. We love your comments too. We get so many now and it's really fun reading and keeping up with them and you notice one that really made you smile Richard other. We actually got a couple of weeks ago from Stephen Kettle who said this and I'm not going to try the accent or my wife who is Australian will never let me forget it. He said this great episode guys I was listening to this as a podcast in my youth with my colleague in Tasmania. He was wondering why I was giggling to myself. I explained to him that we've been talking about the doubling of the line to Felix Stowe, one of the biggest container ports in Europe since for what seems decades. Now I've got to say Nigel the when we started this podcast if you said a guy in Tasmania would be listening to our show whilst driving with his mate in a yut now that's a pickup truck for those who don't speak Aussie discussing the Felix Stowe branch I would have said that would be unlikely but we clearly have international reach and that's really reassuring and gratifying isn't it and every day's a school day I know you know what a yut is. I didn't before and you're right if you added tempted the accent Richard I think Madeline would have been not feeding you for quite a while. So we do reach the parts that other podcasts can only dream about and we shall carry on in that spirit meanwhile to our Tasmania audience good day. No seriously. These things have to be done. No this week's show and it's been a heck of a week with fares in the headlines hasn't he Richard? It has rail tickets fares they're always contentious they're always going to be contentious let's face it but it just feels as if the railway sometimes doesn't help itself the mystery that's booking train tickets seems to have got even more mysterious a bit really with LNER announcing a pilot to make train fares north lot simpler but it's a trial because it is a trial it's pilot which most commentators seem to believe has done the opposite which is not like LNER at all is it? No. So what's going on there anyway I'm glad it's not just me I always struggle with the different fares and all the rest of it might as well be in Sanskrit to me. We do need a fares guru for this so we're delighted to welcome back one of our most popular guests thus far the rail ticketing oracle man himself seat 61's Mark Smith who by the way was our very first guest on green signals back in episode four so welcome back Mark. Well thanks for joining us again Mark there's an awful lot we need your expertise on this week so let's start with LNER so they've made this announcement to have simpler fares okay and nobody's going to disagree with that and on the face of it what they announced look it looked great three simple fares that did seem to meet the requirement of what we all want to which was a fully flexible ticket a semi flexible ticket and an inflexible one that you know that you could call like any time off-peak and advance whatever all with good prices to match I mean what's not to like but it does come with a catch doesn't it? Yeah it does I mean let me say first of all that as we all know LNER is one of the best operators got a lot of time for them they seldom put a foot wrong but in this case I don't think they're coming up with with certainly what the passenger wants or indeed a system that would work everywhere in the UK what they've done is from the beginning of February on the flows from London to Newcastle, Berwick and Edinburgh they've reduced their fares simplified them down to just three fares or one way now that's actually a good thing in itself but what most of us in the fares world had been expecting was that those three fares would be fully flexible semi flexible and inflexible in other words anytime off-peak and advance covering all the bases if you like giving people a complete choice across the spectrum of fares what LNER have done is leave the anytime and create two advanced purchase fares two inflexible non-refundable fares one of which has a little bit of flex and they've called it the 70 minute flex advance fare because you can book it for a given train and then use it freely on any train up to 70 minutes beforehand and 70 minutes afterwards and the reason it's 70 of course is to accommodate those quirks in the timetable where it's not quite a 60 minute interval you know it's where it's one hour two minutes or one hour five minutes they've 70 minutes before and after on the face of it being able to pay 20 pounds extra for your advanced ticket to be valid on the trains before and the trains after seems quite attractive and in itself it probably is but to do this they've replaced the off-peak and super off-peak fares and if if you look at prices London to Edinburgh super off-peak was 87 pounds and it was a fixed price it was refundable it was valid on any operator it's called inter-availability it was valid via York on any alternative route that took you through York so it was quite flexible in terms of route and you knew it will be there it was good for any train at weekends and off-peak trains during the week so you could use it anytime on the Saturday anytime on the Sunday the new fare that replaces it is not that difference in price it's variable priced I've seen prices of 76 pounds 82 pounds 95 pounds 119 pounds but it's non-refundable so only valid for a two hour 20 minute time slot it's only good on L&R and it's only good on the direct route so it is much more restrictive in the off-peak price so from a passenger point of view if we accept that the anytime is really price of business travel as it's unaffordable for us ordinary mortals all tickets are now non-refundable so you lose your money it's fine losing 20 30 quid with an advanced ticket but when it gets up to 200 pounds that's a lot of money to lose if the organizer of your event cancels on you or shifts date and it's a lot more restrictive we've lost affordable flexibility that's that's the problem and now you can't so you can't go by any other route you can't you know it's incredibly restrictive and when you said you said at the beginning there that L&R is a is a great top we all we all of them and so what is there a possible explanation looking at this from their point of view why they might have done this when I said we're speculating okay but yeah what might they have done this there are a lot of advantages for the train company in fact in many ways this is a fair structure that means train company needs but not passenger needs at the moment that 87 pounds super off peak from London to Edinburgh is a ceiling they can't price advance tickets on a Sunday or a Saturday any higher than 87 because as soon as it gets any winner 87 you may as well pay 87 that's exactly the unlimited availability now they can price at 95, 82, 119. So they can price up higher at weekends. Now you can see that's not really an advantage for the passenger, is it? But it is an advantage for the operator. And what they will say is that they can smooth demand profiles. You know, the cliff edge pricing, where the off-peak suddenly becomes available and that isn't, yeah, they can do. Again, that's not something that passengers worry about, but it's something that train companies do. And this new structure does allow them to do that. I sounds a very producer-led argument. I mean, is there anything in this from a customer? Is there anything that a customer might look at and go, "Actually, this is better than what I had before?" Anything. Well, if you're traveling at short notice and need flexibility, there is no upside. It's all downside. If you were booking two or three months ahead, you've now got the option of paying 20 quid more than your advanced ticket. So you might be paying 60 quid instead of 40 that far ahead to give you a little bit of flexibility. That might be a good thing in no circumstance. But if you suddenly need to go to Edinburgh now, or next in the next few days, it's pretty much all downside. So is there any consequence of this then for medium and shorter distances? Because one can see how from a train company point of view it might make sense on long distances. But does this replicate across all journeys on their network? Well, at the moment, it's only for London to Newcastle, Berwick, and Edinburgh, which in railway terms are long distance. And I think this is another problem with it. If we see this as a pilot for something that could be rolled out elsewhere across the rail network, I don't think it can. Because let's take some extreme examples. If you're flying to Australia, you are probably prepared to see what flights cost and work your entire trip around the flights you can get. So your need is for transportation. Very short distances, and we'll take an extreme example, Oxford Street to Baker Circus on the Bakerloo Line. It's about mobility, and you don't expect to book an advance, you don't expect to commit to a particular tube train weeks in advance. You expect there to be a service when you need it. It's about moving around mobility. Trains cover that spectrum. They cover the border between those two. So what you get away with in terms of making passengers conform to what the train operators needs are on the long distance routes might not work for short distance routes. I can't see this working on Stephen-Ij to London or even Peterborough to London and probably up Grandtham to London. That means if we're going forward into a nationwide simplified fare system, if you're going to have this system on long distances, a different system for short distances, possibly a mixture of the two for medium distances, and I think we're getting back to complexity. Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, Nigel, yeah. Richard, your point earlier, because you and I have talked about this in many aspects of the rail where you use the expression producer led, which you've used many times. Is that not just truly extraordinary that we've just heard Britain's formal stecks per on fares saying this is very good for the train operator, but it's not good for the passenger. What about all that BS we've had for ministers and everybody about putting the passenger at the heart of everything we do? Just listening to the two you're talking there, you said there must be a reason they've done this. I'm just going to go up one morning and just come up with this. Mark's coming to bat. If it was rolled out nationally, it wouldn't be a good thing for the passenger, but it would be good for revenues. Is it possible that the FT's behind this? Well, we don't know, do we? So I said is it possible? Well, anything is possible. Anything is impossible. Do you know what though? You raise a very important point about affordability and the gap between the money that comes from fares, income from fares and the money that then has to be funded by grant or subsidy from the Treasury. That gap's quite big at the moment. It's bigger post-COVID. This may be quite a neat way of helping fill that gap, but that doesn't necessarily help, well, it doesn't help the passenger at all, as Mark's saying. So it potentially conflicting objectives here and that's a real concern. The thing I find really odd about all of this is that this is not a repatious private sector commercial operator. This is Elinia, who public sector and outstandingly good. But normally, it's like a private sector company in terms of the imaginative approach as Mark said at the start. It just doesn't feel like Elinia. It does feel very odd indeed. Mark, is that anyway, without saying like consumer organisation, is there any way that folks can gain the system? Is there any way round this at the moment? Well, at the moment, yes, there is, because it only applies to these specific flows, London to Newcastle, Berik and Edinburgh. If you buy a Super Off peak for £87 to the Haymarket, which is one stop beyond Edinburgh, break of journey is allowed. You can use it between London and Edinburgh. It's always £87, which can in some circumstances be less than this new fair to Edinburgh. And it's refundable. And you can break your journey and it's validating the operator and any permitted route for a York. So yeah, you can. In the longer term, if only our role is out to all the routes, of course, you'll need to look further. Perhaps daisy chaining, split ticketing, shorter distances to get the flexibility and the refundability or using a Glasgow to London any permitted ticket, which is set by a Vanity, which is also valid by Edinburgh. So that's a used great phrase there, daisy chaining, split ticketing. So basically coming up with building your journey with lots and lots of segments, the very opposite of simplification. Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of other quirks with this new system. For example, some would have pointed out on Twitter the other day, who they wanted a first glass ticket on the 540 and there wasn't that the cheapest one was 213. So they bought this new fair on the 548 slow train. It can be used 70 minutes before. So of course, they then used it on the 540. So you buy a ticket for a train you don't want in order to use it for a train that you can. So it's not entirely without some counter intuitive bits and pieces. And similarly, if imagine you want your 17 plus or minus 70 minutes flex entirely on the later side of the train you want. So if you wanted the 12 o'clock, you'd actually book the 1300, which would allow you to use the 12 o'clock or indeed the 1400. But only people in the know are going to do that sort of thing. Absolutely wrong. Nobody else is going to do it. Listening, having listened to the discussion principle of between you two, I think, you know, maybe I'm just being the long term cynical suspicious journalist Richard, but your comments about wanting to close the gap on what the railways cost it and the tax pay support. We know that they want to do that. And I just wonder if they're not sitting there quietly at the DFT saying if we get away with this on LNER, we'll roll it out to all the intercity network. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the concern, isn't it? It's not unreasonable want to want to close the gap, right? No, but I, but we would probably say the best way to do that is to run more frequent alarms. It's not actually grow the number of passengers. So it's not an unreasonable objective. This just seems like a slightly peculiar way of doing it. So look, LNER, we love you. We love you. Everybody currently on this call absolutely loves you. We can't see how the passenger benefits from this. We can see how the train company could, but we can't see how the balance of passenger benefits. So come on, come and tell us, come and have a chat and we'll go through it. But in the meantime, hit or miss, this looks like a big miss from a passenger point of view. And it pains me to say that, though, LNER, but there we go. Right. Well, I was going to say that's laid that one to rest, but it doesn't. It's put it on the whole for a doubtless future, a future discussion, hopefully, maybe even without a NER. That neatly brings us on to the Great British Rail Sailies back. Mark, remind us what the first sail was all about. When was it? And was it any good? And was it even a sail in the sense that the typical consumer would understand it? Or was it yet more smoke and mirrors? Is it a good thing? It's back again. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. They have made a lot of half-price advance tickets available. Okay. Yeah, you have to be quick, because you've only got a less than a week window in which to book them. I think off from memory, it's the 23rd of January to the 29th of January that they have to be booked. And they're for travel basically in February and until mid-March. So like many transport companies, it's a pretty dead month of peppering, isn't it? So stimulating some sails is not a bad thing. If you've got a rail card, though, rail card discounts don't apply. So you're getting a 50% discount, but you would have got a 33% - 34% discount anyway. Okay. So not more smoke and mirrors. This one actually is in the passengers favour. It is. I mean, it's a sail. If you can take advantage of it, advantage of it, then absolutely great. It's just a shame that we see things like this from DFT instead of a little bit more strategy and long-term thinking. It is short. I'm gratifying if you can look. Is it short? turn crowd pleaser but you know what it's not a bad thing as a result so so taking the box for that okay let's give them that let's not be too miserable it is in the passengers interest if already in the short term so we never hit on this one then Richard I think yeah so we've got one one miss and one hit so then that that leads us on to I suppose the final fair story of of this week which was the the report by which the consumer association magazine and they ran a piece that said that ticket vending machines which we know in the trade as DVMs but all those machines that you see at stations are twice as expensive as buying your ticket through other channels especially when it comes to advanced tickets now because which has got a lot of cred okay and let's face it who doesn't love a good rip-off story so print news editors ram with it in quite a sort of big way and without sort of being challenging anything I suppose it's it mean is it is it true is it is it correct to say if you buy your ticket from a TVM it's gonna cost you twice as much or actually is it a little bit more complicated than that month well you know seeing that headline I think it was a hundred and fifty four percent higher prices if you buy them from the machine well of course the face value it looks like you you pay 24 quid for your cheap day return to London at the ticket office and they charge you 50 quid plus at the ticket machine of course we know that that can't be the case they must be seeing different ticket types and fair types at the ticket office or online than they're seeing at the ticket machine because we know that a 24 quid ticket at the ticket office is 24 quid from a ticket machine so looking into this a bit further which we're using the train line dot com as the online comparison and the train line dot com has built-in split ticketing system so a lot of these differences were down to not the ticket machine charging more but look if you split ticket do a bit of research you can get it the price down so the message isn't ticket machines bad the message is split ticketing can be good the other thing is that a lot of long distance operators sell advanced tickets even on the day of travel so which went to some small stations with the sort of ticket machine that that exists at my local station typically designed to sell cheap day returns to London they looked for a long distance ticket and of course these machines aren't connected to the timetable they're not connected to the reservation system they can't do advanced tickets with reservations so online you found an advanced fair and the ticket machine you just got the walk-up fair so that was the other reason so the other headline should have been ticket not all ticket machines can do advanced purchase tickets check online which is a more sensible thing to say there's a lot of there are a lot of fears and normal is out there especially now we've got 20 different pricing managers pricing bits of the network and there are also some routes such as London to Bath Bristol Cardiff fire the salt spray you know the slow route the slow and easy route with cheaper fairs that can be difficult to find on ticket machines because ticket machines are there to sell you the easy quick mainstream fairs I don't think which went into that greatly I think most of it was this split ticketing on train line and advanced purchase tickets so slight slight not a little a little selective then perhaps in terms of in terms of the data that was compared because as we know if you but a ticket will be the same price in the ticket office as it is on a machine but if it's a different ticket it might be a different price yeah and they also found cases where ticket machines have got timers in them that prevent you buying off-peak tickets during the peak and this this if sometimes the time is a badly set sometimes you turn up at quarter to ten to use your network card and the thing sells you a ticket without the network card discounted just ignore you put in the card but ignore you because of the time as so this can also be a problem with with ticket machines so for folks that really want to know what the sure fire way of getting the cheapest possible ticket if you have to kind of put it into you know less than a minute right what would be what's the sure fire way of making sure that you know you've got the best available test fair yeah well it certainly is worth checking online because you will then see advanced tickets and it's worth checking a split ticketing site because although you weren't always find a split ticketing benefit you will on a lot of routes either where you're crossing the peak off peak time boundary or on cross-country journey such as from the southwest and northeast it's it's endemic is it still a case mark or was it ever the case is it's an urban myth I'm quoting now that you'll always get the best fairs on the operator's own site sometimes you will find promotions on the operator site that are highlighted that are difficult to find or not available on other sites but it's only if there's a particular promotion the main advantage for using an operator site is first of all they don't charge your booking fee like a lot of third-party retailers and secondly if you book on the LNL website you can choose your exact seat from a seat map but only on LNL trains and if you book on the Avante website you can choose your exact seat from a seat map on the Avante trains but only booking Avante trains on the Avante website and what I find these days is that people what used to be seen as a nice to have choosing your seat is now something people expect now they're seeing it in the airline world as almost as standard yeah and again the sort of side point or it's not a side point is it important point yet another illustration that ticket officers have an important role to play because if you want to go and ask someone that's where you got to go. We've fairs this complicated and ticket machines having severe limitations yes ticket offices definitely still have a role we've got our fair system is far too complicated just to leave it to self-service channels that's the that's the long and short of it just one last point on TVM's mark is the program availability this sort of stuff that you've talked about is it a choice by the train operators are they just ancient machines which need replacing and it's a sign of obsolescence what's the issue with them? Well my local station is Chilton and the machines are there really to sell cheap dare to return to London that's where 90% of the people are going that's what the machines are designed to do they were designed to cue bust relatively few people are going on a long distance journey and most people who are going from Chilton line stations and on a long distance journey have booked in advance and and booked online so Chilton isn't thinking in terms of ticket machines with reservations and timetables in hell and the air if you get a King's Cross of course their business is advanced purchase and reservations they've got ticket machines that do all that is the case then that the the it is a statement of the obvious that the ticket machines are just operate it specifically not regarding the network as a network which people are buying tickets might otherwise want to see it I think that's absolutely true I mean I thought that if the government do want cost savings we're currently employing over 20 different web developer teams maintaining 20 different websites the passenger even if they all sell the same ticket to the same prices as I've just said you've got to go to the LNAR website to choose your seat on the LNAR train you've got to go to the Avante website to choose your seat on a Vante train they've all got pros and cons and some have best practice some don't why don't we just have one national site that has all the bells and whistles all the best practice allows you to choose your seat on all the different intercity operators should be that would actually be a saving and a bit was that that was the thing that GB railway transit yeah decided to not do recently they just a band and that very I have no idea why no okay so we're back we're back to where we always were with fares start with a clear vision devise a strategy and then work out a fares reform package and implement a whole series of actions to create simplicity and as part of that and only as part of that do something with your channels which includes ticket offices exactly as with any venture you decide the strategy and then the tactical implementation don't you usually usually it's best that way around yeah unless you the DFT and on that depressing note mark thank you for that yes thanks so much now on to some other news it's come our way this week Richard there's been a flurry of concern and disappointment that sexually a state mark harbour try not to say that through a gritted teeth but it's becoming increasingly difficult have to say has lifted the safeguarding of lamb needed for HS2 phase 2 what is going on is it a fatal blow is it the end of the line for 2A and beyond no it's not but it's very disappointing and it doesn't help but neither is it unexpected so it's worth trying to unpack it a bit okay I think the first thing to say what is safeguarding okay good question it's it's a term for part of the planning system that helps protect large-scale infrastructure projects such as roads or railways, particularly the ones that are long distance and are going to cut through an awful lot of land and different planning boundaries, if I can call it that. And it's designed to protect them from conflicting developments, particularly if they extend over a long period of time. Okay. So in the context of HS2, safeguarding created a statutory mechanism by which local planning authorities along the line of route, had to consult. So by law, they had to consult HRT, on any new or undecided planning applications which fell within the remit of the safeguarded area. There's kind of different kind of surface, there's all sorts of stuff, but basically anything that impacted what was designated safeguarding HS2 limited had to be consulted. So to stop B&Q building a superstar that impinges across the line road. And HS2 had the right to go, no, right, if it was on the safeguarded line. Okay. Understood. The directions, they're called direction, safeguarded directions, also triggered what are called blight provisions. So if you were somebody on the line of route and suddenly discovered you were now in a safeguarded area, you had the ability to apply for compensation because you'd been blighted because you couldn't do anything anymore. Okay. Got it. So that's basically what safeguarding is. So now that it's been lifted, the obligation on local planning authorities to consult with HS2 on phase 2A has gone. So in theory, someone could now apply for planning within the phase 2A limits and start building something that HS2 limits who would rather than didn't. But that process takes quite a bit of time. So there's no reason to get the right amount of that. Yeah. I mean, you know how long planning can take? Well, it's not like the sun are going to watch buildings appear tomorrow morning. It's not like that. And into your question, does it mean, is it the end of the line of the project? No, because the act is still on the statute books. And until such time as it is, I think there are time limits for the powers on land. HS2 Limited has the power to compulsory purchase land. So if a future government, you know, who knows, decided to go back ahead with phase 2A, then it doesn't start HS2 Limited from acquiring the land. But it might be more expensive because if something's been built, it might have to be removed or if something's implanting, there might have to be some compensation or whatever. So in short, it's definitely not great that it was lifted, but it's by no means fatal. So that's where we are on safeguarding. That's a relief. It is a relief. But it begs the question then, because it sounds all terribly interesting, but it's quite theoretical. I mean, it's somebody really going to get it back on track. Well, as we discussed on a recent podcast, Andy Burnham and Andy Street, who are the metropolitan, metropolitan mayors for Birmingham and Manchester, respectively, have been working hard to come up with a scheme to try and create real momentum behind a new line with new capacity, and therefore, presumably, higher speeds because it would be pretty daft to build a brand new line between Britain's biggest cities and not take advantage of building a quick one, right? And the Sunday Express at the weekend got very excited about this. Front page news, wasn't it? Front page news, big picture of an HS2 train, all terribly exciting. And it said, "Hs2, back on track." And we thought, "Well, you know, what's happened?" "How did we miss that?" "How did we miss that?" And it said on the cover this, secret government talks being held next week, so that's the week we published this podcast, to get the scrapped HS2 high-speed line, rail line, back on track, across party plan, that's presumably referring to the fact that Andy Street's Conservative and Andy Burnham's Labour has been drawn up to complete the northern stretch of the line, ensuring the private sector puts most of the massive bill, not taxpayers. That's Tosh, right? That is absolute Tosh. I was waiting for that. Well, that's putting it politely, right? I know it's a Sunday Express, and therefore this new story has got all the intellectual rigor of the Bino and about the day. But this is rubbish. And I shall explain why. Can I explain why? I mean, I don't want to get bogged down in this book. I don't think there's anything going to get in the werevy were you explaining that now, Richard? Probably not. No, you're quite right. But thank you anyway. There are only two sources of income for the railway, principle sources. There are so, when I said this on Twitter, I got somebody go, are we asked, but what about car park and advertising? Yeah, I get. I've been waiting as well. Well, but in terms of the big sources, it's fairs, or if you're a freight operator, it's the the money that people pay to freight companies, but it's fairs use income and subsidy. I even got in trouble for saying that, oh, it's not a subsidy. It's an investment. Well, it's not really an investment in the capital. It's actually a grant. Let's call it a grant. So it's fairs and grant. That's it. And this notion that private money is a third source, is kind of one of the greatest delusions myths, if you like, of railway finance. It's not, it's just, it's an invest, that is genuinely investment. It might be equity. It might be debt. It might be alone, but it has to be repaid. The private sector is looking for a return on its money. So the idea that the private sector might invest in this new line, because I agree with that, that is perfectly possible. Right. There's no reason why the private sector can't finance it, but they will need to be repaid. And it comes from those two sources, fairs and subsidy strogram. That's it. But otherwise known as balkers rule, I seem to recall some. Yeah, Roger Ford, very kindly christened it balkers law, but I mean, something not. It's not difficult. Is it? No, it's not. It's amazing how many people don't understand it. So for the Sunday Express to say, the private sector puts most of the massive bill, not taxpayers, not true. Well, and it beg us belief that they think that you think, do they really believe it? Is it just nonsense? I've always asked that question myself, but I've heard people who worked within the railway industry, kind of go, but private sector, what about private sector money? Yeah, it's just alone. How they're going to get it repaid? It's dead, dead, simple guys. Two sources of principal income. And if the private sector invests, they're going to want to return from one of one of both of those two sources of income. I mean, I've cycled through balkers law on numerous media interviews over the end. I've usually extended it a bit and said, you know, if you boil this down, it either comes from fairs or it comes from taxpayers, which actually means it comes from the same place because both of those things come from your wallet. One way or the other, you either pay your fair or your taxes are so different. Yeah, that's true. But the reason for separating them is that the tax pay is a bit comes from people who don't necessarily use the railway. I know, but I'm just making the point. It is all coming from from those, you know, but that's how it now it is possible. There are some projects where there might be some genuine private sector contributions. So sometimes some schemes, a lot, this happens a lot with road schemes. So what are called section 106 grants where a private, you know, if I want to go and build a new Aldi supermarket out of town, the local authority might say, well, I'll let you do that, but I want a new round about there and I want a traffic scheme there. And they, you know, the developer has to pay for that. So that stuff can happen. And you remember John Smith, when he was on the show, talked about that in the context of some small freight facilities section one is needed. He did. He did. Can actually be. So I, it's one of those things where there are some exceptions, but they tend to prove the rule, which is that most of it comes from those two sources. And just before moving on referencing your earlier comment about the, the two counties, new mainline north, you said, you, it would be a bit no more whatever it was you said to build it without increasing the speed. To which I offer you east west, which is not only not only got no greater speed, but it's not even electrified. So, but they are that's, that's government, just a side comment. I also noticed that that intellectual giant grant shaps weighted into the debate yet further. They're quite white relevant to him as defense secretary, mudding the waters still further. And bringing out your inner victim, El Drew once again, Richard. Well, yeah. And the background to this is most curious pride. So when the prime minister scrapped HS2 North, I face to a and B, let's call it that without apparently consulting anyone it is seen. And he street was one of, who's the mayor for Birmingham, West Middleton. Sorry, was one of those who understandably went pretty ballistic. I mean, at one point he was threatening to quit. But after deciding not to do that and work with others to look at options, he said options, he said this delusion or not, I believe through this work, either work he's been doing with Andy Berner, a high speed link, a high speed link between been Birmingham and Manchester can be revived. And then he said, I am convinced we can find a way to get back on track. Okay. Good man. And that was a problematic statement really for number 10, because Andy Strade's a conservative man. So Richie Sonneck said, this, I say this to Andy Street, and man, I have huge admiration and respectful, which I should do because he's very good. I know we have different views on HS2, but I also know we can work together to ensure a faster, stronger spine, quicker trains and more capacity between Birmingham and Manchester. So that was basically, well, come on, then come up with your ideas. So Andy Street, together with Andy Burnham, have no doubt been working really hard in the interim. And we're apparently due, this is the Sunday Express, saying this, to hold secret talks with Mark Harper this week. So it must have come up, there's a hell of a shock to Andy Street to hear Grant 's chaps say this to Harry Hawke, the VTV news of the weekend. Northern mayors this week say they're going to meet with the current transport secretary to try and revive the northern leg of HS2. Have they got any chance of doing that? No, the decision has been made and the money has been going to be spent elsewhere. I think it's something like 36 billion pounds and that will pay for a lot of infrastructure transport projects around the north and people will see the benefit much more quickly than if that leg was being completed. So I'm afraid I fear that from their point of view, they're raising a prospect which isn't likely to be back going to happen. I mean, so that was Grant's chaps, Defence Secretary talking to Harry Hawke and the VTV news. I mean, how incredibly condescending. I mean, this is not some local parish council of Mr. Chaps whose ideas you may not have even heard yet and which you're dismissing as a waste of time. This is an elected conservative mayor of one of the largest conurbations in Western Europe and Chaps actually says there, as in Burnham and Street, raising a prospect that isn't likely, in fact, isn't going to happen. I mean, seriously? Grant Chaps will no doubt, well, I suspect I don't know. So let's not say what he's going to say. That's up to him. But he may claim that he was talking about the specific project that is HS2, whereas the street and Burnham plan is about new capacity in a new line between Birmingham and Manchester. And that's a different thing. But that's why I said, I suspect only a blithering idea would try and spin that, wouldn't they? Blithering idiot. Love it. It's, I don't all I'd say about that, Richard. It is a bit mild, but you can't call him what we'd really like to call him on here, I guess. Well, I'm disappointed with the whole thing. I mean, and if I, but if I were, and he's street, I'd be more than disappointed. I would think he's been on the phone because there was no equivocation about Chaps answer was it was no, that was the first word in that quote is it like it happens. It was pretty clear. What's he going to do next, try and ground him for a week and send him to the bedrooms to have it been naughty? Right, let us talk about rail disruption, not for the first time. This time on network rails, whales and western region. Now, this last piece in use is one with some really very eye catching and potentially damaging stats though. So Richard, I must stress, I think, that we need to be careful with how they're interpreted, but there's no reason why we shouldn't reflect what's been said and what's going on. And then we can get into it a bit more detail later on. It's no secret that whales and western region has been suffering with some seriously poor performance. GoRR is already investigating this and there's been more and more disruption in recent weeks. But last week, we saw the response to a freedom of information request put in by commuter Matt Stracken on the same website incidentally that listener Richard Humters used to ask about soon acts helicopter use. And that's what do they know? So we'll stick the link on our blog for anyone who's interested to check that out. Anyway, Matt asked network rail to provide a number of statistics relating to all lines between Redding and London Paddington. He wanted to know specifically, it was a very detailed question, how many days featured disruption caused by, you ready? Signal failure, points failure, overhead wire damage, broken or damaged rails in industrial action, weather related issues not related to the above and any other delays. And he asked to specify what those were. Matt was pretty savvy and asked to exclude any delays caused by fatalities. So all the numbers reveal railway performance in its boldest sense or like they're all. And he wanted the latest 12 months of data available and the same months between 2018 and 2019. And last week network rail replied, Richard. It did reply. And but it's worth mentioning. I mean, certainly on this podcast, we are absolutely obsessed with balance and context. So a few things are worth mentioning. First of all, delays are not normally calculated in the way that they were they asked for the data. We'd normally do in delay minute, delay minutes. So how many, you know, how long was the delay, what, how many minutes did it cause? Not the number of delays. Yes. And the stats that I think we've seen cover any length of time. So it could be seconds, right? It literally could be seconds. So that's worth bearing in mind. But with that caveat, between December 1st, 2022 and November 30th, 2023, the worth 363 days on which there was an element of disruption, however long it was between Paddington and Reading. And it was points failures on 200 days, broken damage rails 175 days, signal failures 97 days, and wires 90 days, which I mean, that's the slight concern because it's a relatively new piece of infrastructure and we taught not that long ago about the level of engineering that's gone into that at the overhead. Anyway, as you said, the ORA is investigating the forms on the line that'll determine whether or not network rails complying with its license obligation in the region, whether it's doing everything, it, it, it should be to deliver acceptable for forms. Now, it must be said back to this context point again. We know that on some sections of the Great Western Mainline, there's a lot more traffic in recent years. It's been used a lot more, so it's bound to be. It is. I had not realised and we don't have the specific numbers yet, but we're going to get these. The HS2 stone trains, for instance, obviously very heavy, you know, they're, they're a relatively recent feature, right? So that's, that's a big issue. But there's also been quite a lot of investment in this line as well. So, you know, there's a balance there, climate issues, definitely don't help. I mean, we've got our resilience, I think, is increasingly becoming the word of the day, word of the week. You know, what's the railway doing to deal with resilience? We know that's an issue on these lines. But, nonetheless, you know, the figures aren't great. So it will be fascinating to see what ORA discovered. But I mean, I'm kind of more interested in seeing what, what, you know, network rail are actually thinking, it'd be very professional about this. They'd look, you know, we've got to do things. We're going to, we're going to sort it out. And I must also say, credit where it's due. I traveled up from London, sorry, I traveled up from Chippenham, my, my new local station. I've still trying to remember that. It's not just a field anymore. From Chippenham to London on the 0615 on Monday morning, the night after storm, Esher. And we know how serious that had battered the railway. And I tweeted a picture of the departure board at Chippenham and about five past six because it showed absolutely everything on time, which given what happened the night before was jolly impressive. So, well, done all, but nonetheless, as you said, this is the some worrying numbers here. And they do need to be investigated, which the ORA are doing. But we must make sure we get the complete context on it. Because if there are some of those delays that end to seconds, they're largely irrelevant. But, you know, in terms of the overall performance, but maybe indicate, you know, sort of straws in the window jobs that need doing. So let's or something more serious, you know, that's, that's for it could be something really quite serious. So let's rule nothing in on nothing out. Let's let's find out more and we shall return to this. Indeed. And talking of things to return to the quiz. Yeah, it's becoming really quite popular this, you know. I think we must have gone with a slightly easier question last week than the one the previous week or that I thought was a great question actually. But we were inundated with answers. I literally inundated. We were all kept really busy, say, well, they the first, well, they the first. We've worked out with the first is by the way, but it was incredible. And many, many, many people got the right answer. And the question was, what took place for the very last time on the British Rail network on the 4th of October 1971? We had some really good guesses that weren't quite right but the correct answer. was it was the last on the move mailbag exchange from a traveling post office at TPO on the railway and it took place at Penrith on the West Coast mainline. So that's one where the train doesn't start, it had the line sign equipment, it either dropped the bag in a basket or it picked it up off a pole, right. So it was the last time that happened. Dozens of you got the correct answer, literally dozens. But the first out of the hat was Mike Hughes on Twitter X, well done Mike. Not got the mugs, yeah, must chase that, but at least you know your one. Well done Mike. Well done indeed. So this week's quiz. Again, usual rules, first person to send us the correct answer, either as a comment on YouTube or Spotify or by email or to tweet or whatever, gets a shout out on the show this week's question. This is probably a speed test, this really, because I think most a lot of people will get this, but nonetheless, between which two cities did the Orient Express originally run? Oh yeah. If you think you know, ping us an email, comment, first one, you know, whatever the, you chose a method of telling us is, and once again, the first one I received gets a shout out. And maybe a mug if the supplier gets their act together? If you were probably the client, he's just out. Okay, just one last, and I'm not sure whether is a piece of information because it's a very vague memory. As you know, I used to be involved on the great central railway, the director and chairman of the development company. And I was also a driver, and I seem to remember that a pennery th line side equipment is that, which is now a corn on the GCR. Interesting. I couldn't swear to it's just an idea. Somebody will correct me instantly. I'm pretty certain that the great central or one of the railways that has recreated the mail drop. So maybe they've, yeah, I don't think you're misremembering. If it's not the pennery th equipment, it's some, some equipment because I'm pretty certain that the GCR have recreated. Oh, they have amazing. Oh right. Okay, that's for sure. It is because I've said, and the equipment is originally it's not some fabricated look alike news because I've been looking on a number of occasions to actually drive the TPO on a mail drop, which of course, as passengers aren't involved, it can run slightly faster. And in fact, you have to run a bit faster to get the clean pull of the bag off the pole. Apparently you could pull the pole over there otherwise. And it is a real thrill. It is a real thrill accelerating through corner. I remember doing it with the the 04280 one thing. And sort of really accelerating fast through there and glancing back down the the train and seeing one bag coming out and the other one in. I've also been looking to be inside the TPO. And that's really excited with the doors open. There's a socket great lever that the staff pull to swing the net out and it picks up chips on out. And really educational, of course, you know, and it's worth looking up the 1936 Royal Mail Film Night Mail, of course, to get the full story on that. Absolutely. On TPO's very far reaching film unit. And post office was lucky in at the famous point you'd have a WHO or non-it staff who wrote it. So there you go. Right, that's all we have time for this week. I shall stop waffling. Hope you've enjoyed the show. Don't forget to give us a thumbs up and subscribe so you get notifications when new episodes drop. And as we do more and more, that's the best way to ensure you never miss anything new. We don't want you to do that. But for now, that's it. So until next time, it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from me. [Music]