SENRUG Chairman has written a follow-up letter to Arriva CrossCountry, this time to MD Andy Cooper, appealing to him to reverse the proposed cuts planned for Morpeth from December 2008...
Dear Mr Cooper
Development of CrossCountry Franchise
I was interested to read the interview with yourself in Modern Railways May 2008 edition “CrossCountry Concentrates on Core Routes”, particularly your plans for fleet enhancement, dealing with over-crowding and management of luggage.
As Chairman of SENRUG I was invited back in early 2007 to attend presentations to local stakeholders organised by the North East Assembly from all 4 bidders for the CrossCountry franchise. Whilst I am not naïve enough to think that feedback from North Eastern stakeholders might have effected the DfT’s final decision on franchise award, it was apparent to me even at that stage that Arriva was the only bidder to indicate it had robust plans to deal with the over-crowding issue, which as a regular user of the route I consider to be the greatest challenge facing the franchise by a significant factor. In that sense, I acknowledge Arriva’s final win of the franchise is well deserved.
There was some negative feedback from other delegates both at the time and later, when your plans were unveiled following the announcement of your win, about the withdrawal of the shop, reduction in disabled toilet provision and re-introduction of HSTs, but personally I fully agree with the sentiment that these are all a cost worth bearing to crack the over-crowding issue.
One thing I would however urge though is that you do not “dumb down” rail travel to the poorer service levels provided by shorthaul airlines, particularly with regard to luggage. The article quotes you as making the comparison to airlines who specify how much luggage a passenger can take (and charge extra accordingly). The bewildering number of different allowances and excess charges levied by different airlines is one reason why I believe passengers are deserting the short haul flight and returning to rail. Points like the fact two passengers travelling together can not share a luggage allowance on certain airlines result in many people believing the airline policies have nothing whatsoever to do with managing space restriction but are more a way of increasing fare revenue, and worse still, deliberately misleading passengers over the true cost by quoting headline base figures to which numerous surcharges are then added.
I know I have no need to point out to you the advantages of rail travel compared to a shorthaul flight. The price you see is the price you pay. The journey time you see is generally what you experience (no 2 hour check in). You need not hand your luggage over to a mysterious baggage handling service from whom you have little guarantee it will be returned, and poor recompenses but further delay if not. You can take with you what you can reasonably carry. No need to panic you might be half a kilogram overweight and then charged more than your original fare in surcharges. Those of us active in campaigning for increased use of rail travel are continually making these points to a sceptical public on behalf of the rail operators. Please don’t make this task more difficult by throwing away a key advantage of rail.
I acknowledge there is always a minority who might abuse the superior and less restrictive advantages of rail travel, but few people take more than they can carry and the system is therefore largely self regulating. It is a key advantage of rail and worth guarding carefully.
If I can turn now to an issue where Arriva’s approach is finding considerably less favour and that is the reduction of CrossCountry services at Morpeth from the December 2008 timetable change. The background here is that Virgin, the previous operator, did not have any stops at Morpeth prior to 2005. Service was introduced in response to requests from SENRUG and others in Winter 2005, initially 2 trains each way per weekday. The service was commercially successful and following further campaigning from SENRUG, was increased to 4 trains each way per weekday from 2006. We have seen steady increase in patronage not just on these trains but across the rail market as a whole at Morpeth as rail has increasingly become viable alternative to car.
But it seems the DfT franchise specification was drafted during 2006 and simply copied the existing service provision at the time. Thus we understand your franchise specification requires you to operate just 2 stops, against which you intend to cut back from the current 4 to 3. Better than the franchise requirement but worse than the existing service level. Furthermore, the reduction from 4 to 3 trains per day each weekday will have a greater impact than a simple 25% reduction because the proposed retiming of the remaining services puts them very close to the National Express services (within 20 minutes in one case) and returns to the scenario where there is no intercity service at Northumberland’s premier and County town for large sections of the day.
In case you have not already seen it, I enclose a further copy of my letter to Gavin Bostock of 19th November 2007. This demonstrates that no technical advantage is gained by withdrawing the stops as your draft timetable shows the trains which have the stop removed still take as long to make the Newcastle – Edinburgh run as to when the stops are in place, and with no alternative stop substituted. This fits with our understanding that Virgin selected the trains that currently stop on the basis of slack in the available departure slots at Newcastle and arrival slots at Edinburgh, which could be used to commercial advantage.
We are somewhat sympathetic to the view that CrossCountry is not primarily a local operator. We understand the greatest markets from Morpeth to be York and Edinburgh, both of which are intercity runs of over an hour. I would particularly stress the Edinburgh market as trains are less busy north of Newcastle and the Morpeth stops are a way of filling seats and increasing fare revenues on the extremities of the network. I would also add the stated intention of not wishing to be a local provider is completely incompatible with the plan to re-time one of the 3 CrossCountry trains in each direction that do stop at Morpeth to run 5 minutes (southbound service) and 8 minutes (northbound service) before the local services. Nothing could be better designed than to encourage local commuters to switch to the CrossCountry service, exasperating the overcrowding problem on your trains, whilst reducing the spread of intercity services at Morpeth throughout the day.
Gavin Bostock’s reply to my letter of 19th November implied your plans could be reconsidered if a commercial case could be demonstrated. We and other stakeholders in the area believe a commercial case can in fact be articulated. Yet my understanding is that Arriva have declined to participate in a meeting the County Council sought to organise in which SENRUG and other stakeholders would have participated, and at which the case for Morpeth (and other issues) could be discussed.
I do urge you to urgently reconsider the Morpeth issue. It’s an emerging and growing market for rail, as demonstrated by a number of factors: The County Council’s plan to extend the station car park and to improve road access to the station. Northern Rail’s introduction of additional services over and above their own franchise specification. The DfT’s announcement re Access for All funding for Morpeth. And my own meeting with Rail Minister Tom Harris at which the case for re-introduction of passenger service along an adjacent freight line was presented. SENRUG’s follow up event on 7th June this year is being attended by 130 stakeholders including our MP, MEP, Leader of the Council, numerous other Councillors and BBC TV. It seems everyone except Arriva is seeing the growth in rail at Morpeth and acting accordingly, so I do hope you will take note of the points in this and my earlier letter. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kindest regards
Dennis Fancett
Chair, SENRUG: The South East Northumberland Rail User Group
