National Express, the new management in charge of running train services on the East coast rail has sent warning signals to airliners operating in the area. It has declared that in the coming years, many of the passengers on the London-Edinburgh route would switch over to trains from air travel.

The new operator of East coast rail has forecasted that the network would add another 14,000 seats over the next two years and this should throw up the possibility of a direct competition with airliners. Around 25 trains will be introduced during the period at an investment of £44m.

The route between London and Edinburgh has been the prime target for the train company. The train journey time of 4 hours and 20 minutes comes close to that of air travel and this is the route where NE is looking to pinch the airliners’ pockets.

NE feels that there isn’t too much difference in the journey times and with the kind of opposition airliners are receiving regarding pollution, it could work to their advantage. But in my view, at the end of the day, passengers care for time and fare and not too much for the rest.

The train company is in the process of introducing smart ticketing services and other sophisticated services to provide various types of information to passengers. These enhancements could very well work in their favour to take travellers away from the airlines.

Barely a month after announcing revised compensation for delays and cancellations of trains, First Great Western has assured the government that it would invest £29m which includes hiring staff, adding new trains and increasing compensation for passengers.

FGW had recently doubled compensation to passengers against delays and cancellations of trains. Apart from that, the company has decided to increase the compensation by 50% over the existing one.

The troubled Cardiff – Portsmouth route will see new light in five 3-carriage trains that are getting added on to the existing fleet. More details on new trains are awaited.

A new set of additional staff would be hired to service passengers at different points of their journey. FGW has set aside £4m for training new staff.

Also, bowing to pressure from More Train Less strain pressure group, FGW has decided to offer extra discounts to customers in days to come.

All the actionables undertaken by FGW are done with a goal of appeasing passengers and increase their ratings on customer satisfaction. Steps in the right direction are always positive but the positive impact they have on the services remains to be seen.

The passenger train service Cardiff and Ebbw Valley resumed today after being in exile for over 46 years. The last time a passenger train ran on this rail link was in 1962. Presently, only freight trains run on these tracks.

18 miles of track has been re-laid and upgraded to ensure that passenger trains between the two cities ran freely and safely. An estimated £30m has been spent on tracks.

Trains run hourly from each city starting from 6.30 GMT in the morning till 10.40 GMT in the evening, Monday through Saturday. On Sundays, there will be seven services in each direction.

Trains will stop at Newbridge, Risca, Pontymister, and Rogerstone while it runs between Ebbw Vale and Cardiff. Construction of train stations at Llanhilleth and Cross Keys are in progress.

This train link is expected to boost several sectors like tourism and jobs in the Wales area.

The re-opening of this train service was originally scheduled in December before it got delayed by two months.

In what could be termed as a disturbing trend for airliners, it has been reported that trains have become the No.1 choice for transportation for people in the UK. Planes come a distant second and that too, reluctantly.

The train connection within Europe seems to have outclassed its aerial competitor. Excellent fast trains like Eurostar between countries in Europe have ensured that trains would secure the prime position for travelling. This is coupled with cheaper fares offered on trains when compared to ‘usually relatively expensive’ flights. Also, travelling by trains would ensure that travellers would have extra money that could be spent while holidaying. Plus, there is the evergreen agitation against airliners regarding air and sound pollution.

Although there has been a steady increase in air travel for the past four decades, the rate of increase has dipped drastically since 2006. The fall in number of flyers is limited to UK alone and the trend hasn’t spread to rest of Europe (as yet).

Here are some numbers regarding current air travel:

Half of the UK population do not fly at all in any year - those who do take more than two return trips on average.

Regional airports have continued to grow at a faster rate than London airports, and in 2006 handled 42 per cent of passengers at UK airports.

First Great Western train company has decided to double the compensation for season’s ticket holders on counts of unreliability and unpunctuality. This move comes as an aftermath to a call for a fare strike by Pressure Groups on the 28th of January.

Ticket holders for this year will get a free renewal for 2009 if the failure to appear to the stadium is owed towards public transportation.

FGW has doubled the compensation amount from 5% - 10% to 10% - 20% of the ticket value which could amount up to £800 for those holding season tickets. The More Train Less Strain Pressure Group had called for a regional strike on Monday following FGW’s pathetic record with their train service.

Meanwhile FGW spokesman has stated that the company would be working with Network Rail to sort out the problems with infrastructure and schedules. Also, the company admitted that their service has not been up to the mark in the past 1 year. While the company’s honesty is appreciated, there is not much sympathy they can draw towards themselves by making such statements.

Words don’t mean anything especially in the transport sector. FGW might have got a second chance to prove their ability, but it could last too short if no improvements are seen. Money compensation cannot and will not compensate for the loss incurred by not being at games.

via BBC

Presently, people travelling internationally through Eurostar crossing UK, had to buy Eurostar tickets on their website and UK domestic tickets on a different website. Now, thanks to Fujitsu, Eurostar tickets for international and domestic journeys can be bought on the Eurostar’s website and also on seven train operator’s systems in the UK.

So, in essence, travellers plying from France, Italy or any other European destination can buy all their tickets together as one fare on Eurostar.com.

The different rail operator’s networks that are integrated are Chiltern Railways, East Midlands Trains, First Capital Connect, Hull Trains, London Midland, National Express East Coast and Virgin Trains.

Before this year ends, Fujitsu plans on extending the integration to several smaller UK cities with bigger cities like London and have through-fares to the rest of Europe.

Jamel Chandoul, head of distribution and commercial systems, Eurostar said: “This is one of a number of key customer service initiatives designed to make the whole travelling experience for passengers as easy as possible. With this new ticketing system many travellers can now book their entire journey from their local mainline station to Continental Europe through one joined-up service – making their Eurostar experience even better.”

This linkage is a welcome change for many of those travelling into UK through Eurostar from other European states. They are guaranteed on connections between different train networks and need not face any ambiguity in train travel.

via Press Release

The suggestion by the department of transport to run trains throughout the year including weekends, bank holidays and festivals received a major boost with unions backing the plan. Weekends and holidays are usually scheduled for engineering work on the trains and tracks and if the daily trains become a reality, then the engineering work might have to take a back seat or find a narrow slot when the trains aren’t running.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union (RMT) didn’t provide a cold shoulder as was expected but instead insisted on extra compensation on weekends and holidays.

Probably UK is one of the very few places around the world which stops all necessary transit means on weekends and holidays. Other countries run their services round the clock, throughout the year. It’s high time that UK gets in the groove of the present world and plan their maintenance work as and when needed.

Earlier this year, trains halted on New Year’s break after a scheduled maintenance job was left incomplete. This should be a good indicator that the present system isn’t modernized enough and still needs plenty of rework.

Train drivers are like everybody else. They eat, drink and do all things that a commoner does. Come Christmas and the New Year’s Day, they are bound to drink heavily and have a hangover in the morning, just like a common man. If the rules don’t permit high alcohol levels in blood while working, should there be a problem calling off work the next day? People in administration don’t think on the same lines and instead impose fines on the rail company for not running routes due to shortage of staff. Is there justice?

Network Rail system on the west coast connecting England and Scotland faced several delays and cancellations owing to shortage of at least 20 specialists between Christmas and around the New Year’s Day. The government decided to impose fines amounting to £20 million for the irregularities in its services.

The train company has rich alcohol limits imposed on its employees. Rail workers will not be allowed to work if their blood contains 80 milligrams alcohol for every 100 milliliters of blood. This has prompted rail workers to call off work as they were fearful of losing their jobs after turning into work.

I honestly don’t see a solution to this problem. It’s not right to ask rail workers not to drink excessively during holiday season and at the same time, they are expected to work the following day. Rail companies should consider hiring workers who are teetotalers or at least non-alcoholic to work especially around the Christmas season.

National Express(NE) East Coast, a subsidiary of NE has begun operations today after winning the tender in August this year. The East Coast Main Line connects England and Scotland. The tender was awarded to NE after GNER had failed to satisfy the contract.

Here’s some blast from the past: National Express has bagged the contract to run rail services between London and Scotland. They were awarded the contract by the department of transport after GNER failed to pay the government an assured sum of £1.3bn. GNER, a US based firm had run into financial troubles which resulted in non payment to the treasury to run the rail services.

NE has made commitments to the transport authority regarding continuous improvements and growth on this route during the signing of the contract. It has promised to provide free internet on its trains as we had reported earlier.

Also making news is the introduction of TransPennine Express which began its operation today between Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. This route was earlier held by Virgin Trains(VT) and a change in the Cross Country franchise had created significant disparity between the authority and VT.

There seems to be no moral parity with trains in the UK. While new infrastructure and trains are getting added internationally, domestic train fares are being raised from the New Year ’s Day. The average jump is expected to be around 5% which may sound minute but some routes have faced raises up to 15%. The association of train operating companies (Atoc) has sensed that more commuters have started using trains and this is the best time to cash in.

A weekly season ticket from Hayes in Kent to London will rise by 14.5% from £24.80 to £28.50. A similar ticket from Bexleyheath into the capital will go up from £25.10 to £28.50 or 13%, and for commuters in Ashford, Kent, a London-bound journey will rise by 10.5% from £78.30 to £86.50 a week.

The reason for the rise in fares is far from acceptability. Atoc states that the increase is done to fund improve infrastructure and invest on trains. We all know why the fares go up: higher profits.

Many families who live on a tight budget will be worst hit by the rise; also commuters who have no choice but to travel by trains. The rail companies have far more to offer with better service and quality amenities owing to the rise.

via BBC