2023 AGM Report
SALRUA held its AGM on 14 May 2023 at Oddfellows Hall, Leamington. There was a fair attendance by members. Presentations were made by Chiltern, West Midlands and West Midlands Rail Executive as well as by Fraser Pithie for the Friends of the Shakespeare Line.
Key issues discussed included the impact of ongoing industrial action by the RMT (since settled) and ASLEF, poor reliability of West Midlands services, mainly due to crew non-availability, the ageing Chiltern train fleet and its replacements and the ticket office closure proposals.
The 2024 AGM will be held on Wednesday 17 May 2024 from 7pm. The venue is the same, Oddfellows Hall, 22 New Street, Leamington Spa CV31 1HP. An important item to be discussed will be SALRUA's finances and future direction; this is covered in more detail in the Membership News section below. Please attend and make your voice heard.
TRAIN OPERATOR NEWS
Chiltern Railways
The present Chiltern franchise agreement ended in December 2021 and since then they have operated under a Direct Award by the Department for Transport (DfT) to run the London to West Midlands services for 6 years. The DfT will hold revenue and cost risk but Chiltern must continue to be a 'Good and Efficient Operator'. Uncertainty over future franchise arrangements and government transport policy makes planning for the future difficult.
There is still a significant funding gap between revenue and costs as passenger numbers are still below pre-pandemic levels; breakeven is not expected until 2024/25 when passenger journeys are expected to be around 22 million annually. New working practices, especially working-from-home, continue to impact passenger numbers.
Chiltern held a Stakeholder Conference in High Wycombe on 12 September, attended by about 45 representatives of various interested parties including SALRUA.
The main issue facing Chiltern is that they are now running the oldest train fleet in the country, one which, apart from an experiment battery-hybrid unit, is entirely diesel. Chiltern have outlined proposals for its future fleet but to date no orders have been progressed so the old trains soldier on, in the face of increasing problems with maintenance and spare parts availability. Chiltern does continue to score highly in reliability and punctuality but age will start to tell. Stock shortages in particular are becoming an issue as maintenance needs lead to some sets not being available when needed creating overcrowding. A recent report in Modern Railways magazine suggested that ex-Trans Pennine Mark 5 carriages, former East Midlands Meridian class 222 diesel multiple units (DMUs) or class 175 DMUs from Transport for Wales are possible future additions or replacements for the Chiltern fleet.
On the staffing front it was noted that Chiltern has an older than average workforce so planning for managing large numbers of staff retiring was also an issue.
Chiltern has suffered the impact of a number of infrastructure failures, notably the short-notice closure of Nuneham viaduct just south of Oxford in early April 2023 which completely closed the line southwards to Didcot for two months with a resulting significant increase of demand on the CR Oxford to Marylebone route, met by adding 4,000 extra seats on Oxford trains but at a cost of reduced capacity for Birmingham trains. The closure of the Chiltern Aylesbury depot for two weeks while urgent civil works were undertaken on a nearby culvert also caused significant operating problems.
Despite these issues Chiltern continue to enjoy higher than average levels of customer satisfaction and we are fortunate in having perhaps the most comfortable trains in Britain serving us.
May 2023 saw a major timetable change with almost every train time changed. Improvements have included a 15-minute commuter timetable into Birmingham from Dorridge in conjunction with West Midland Trains, an almost 2 trains/hour service between Birmingham and London on weekdays and Saturdays with over 3,000 additional seats. Additionally train formations have been adjusted on weekdays to reflect reduced commuter demand and increased off-peak travel.
Ongoing industrial action by ASLEF continues to disrupt services, both in terms of complete cancellations and service disruptions due to work-to-rule/overtime bans.
A new Chiltern timetable starts on Sunday 2nd June 2024 and has relatively few changes, when compared to the previous timetable. Primarily, a small number of services have had their times changed by a few minutes with the aim of improving overall punctuality.
West Midlands Rail Executive has asked for views on the Leamington to Stratford service which is currently 2-hourly. SALRUA has responded, noting the importance of Stratford as a tourist and commuting town.
West Midlands Railways
As we are only too well aware, West Midlands Railways has had significant issues over the last two years, mainly due to a shortage of drivers because of an almost total interruption to its driver training programme; WMR have said they lost 25,000 driver training days to the pandemic, with 8,000 days missed on the Snow Hill lines alone. This, coupled with higher than average retirements, meant that WMR have been struggling for drivers to meet what have subsequently been recognised as overly ambitious schedules introduced in May 2019.
WMR introduced changes to their Snow Hill services from May 2023, highlights of these are:
At that time WMR calculated they were then now above establishment across all WMR depots, and driver related cancellations (due to unplanned absence) would significantly reduce. In a recent article in Modern Railways the WMR MD Ian McConnell painted a rather rosy picture of their services, saying their 'driver recovery plan' was complete but in the real world driver training is still an all-too often excuse for cancellations and overcrowding. So far this year they have made improvements and cancellations due to staff shortage are becoming less common on the Snow Hill Lines. Many major cancellations are due to problems outside their control, such as signal failures or trespass, most often on the Worcester side of the route however there is still seems to be a staff problem on the Kenilworth Line.
West Midlands services are also badly affected by industrial action, with Sunday services in particular affected as these depend on staff volunteering for service.
Cross Country
Cross Country services through Leamington continue on an hourly basis with no sign of a return to the 30 minute schedules of pre-pandemic times. Some trains are formed of two units rather than one offering a greater chance of getting a seat but these seem to be reducing.
OTHER NEWS
Price Increases
March saw another price rise for rail users with an average increase of 4.9%, above the then inflation rate of 4%. For off-peak travel a Super off-peak return valid for 1 month from Leamington to London Marylebone rises from £36.40 to £38.20 (£24.00 to £25.20 with a railcard) while a day return by Chiltern from Leamington to Birmingham Moor Street is now £12.90 (£8.50 with a railcard).
For longer journeys we would again highly recommend looking at split-ticketing, splitting a journey into sections with separate tickets for each section. As long as a train stops at the end of each section then multiple tickets for one journey can be used, and often the savings can be significant. Websites such as Split My Fare (https://www.splitmyfare.co.uk) will search for ticket combinations and all tickets can be bought in one transaction.
Delay Repay
Both Chiltern and WMR now operate Delay-repay for delays of 15 minutes or more. More details can be found on their websites. Cross Country compensation is available for delays of 30 minutes or more.
Ticket Office Closures
In July 2023 Train Operators proposed changes to the majority of rail station ticket offices in England, potentially leading to the closure of almost all existing Ticket Offices, replaced by automatic ticket machines and bringing staff out from the offices to be available to assist customers. Chiltern's proposal was to close all station ticket offices and to expand the open-plan 'reception desk' concept from stations such as Bicester Village and Oxford Parkway to all staffed stations, with staff coming out 'from behind the glass', with the expectation that staff will be available to help customers at the same times as they are today. Under West Midland's plans ticket offices in their current form would close over the next three years, but customer information centres would be retained across the network (our nearest is Birmingham New Street) to enable staff to be available where WMR felt customers most needed them, on platforms and concourses to help with journey planning, finding the right ticket and supporting passengers with accessibility needs. Mobile teams would move between stations and would be deployed to offer extra help where needed. Ticket vending machines will be upgraded to make sure customers can still buy the most popular tickets at stations and many staff will have hand-held devices. New customer 'help' points would also be introduced at stations as part of the proposals.
SALRUA, along with many other organisations identified a number of significant issues with these proposals and made a detailed submission highlighting these concerns.
The outcome of the public consultation was a huge backlash against the proposals, with over 750,000 responses, 99% of which were objections. The main issues identified were ticket machine reliability, how to buy tickets in future, how to get travel advice and information, and how disabled passengers would get assistance.
The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said the "government had asked train operators to withdraw their proposals" after the public transport watchdogs, Transport Focus and London TravelWatch, announced that they would formally object to all of the closure proposals. Considering it was the government and the Department for Transport that was the driving force behind these proposals the whole exercise can only be considered as an embarrassing and time- and cost-wasting U-turn which risked pushing more people away from the railways.
A recent experience at Leamington highlighted the weakness of the proposals. A SALRUA member entered the station to find long queues at the ticket office because the ticket machines were only accepting cash and not issuing pre-booked tickets; we wonder what the situation would have been without the ticket office. Bedlam!
STATION NEWS
At Leamington the new timetable has allowed Stratford trains to now start from Platform 1, enabling cross-platform interchange from northbound trains.
At Warwick the long-awaited work to install lifts to provide step-free access has been delayed as construction work has unexpectedly unearthed foundations from the original 1852 station. Network Rail has said the remains were not recorded in the plans for the current station, which was built 130 years ago, being constructed on top of the original 1852 station's foundations. New plans have had to be drawn up to fit the lifts in. The work was originally expected to be completed by January next year but will now be delayed and no doubt costs will rise.
Work however is finally underway at Dorridge where the ticket office and waiting room is being sympathetically refurbished to a GWR colour palette, the flooring contractors are on site presently so the reopening is not too far away. It is looking very good and links in with the two refurbished Waiting Rooms already in place. This project has been driven and significantly funded by the Friends of Dorridge station, supported by Chiltern and others.
MEMBERSHIP NEWS
A newsletter is planned for later in the year.
2024 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The 2024 AGM will be held on Wednesday 15 May, from 7pm. This will be at the same venue, Leamington Oddfellows Hall, 22 New Street Leamington CV31 1HP
ANNUAL SUBSCIPTIONS
Subscriptions are currently £5 per annum and are due from April. If you have yet to renew or would like to join please either contact us at enquiries@salrua.org for details as to how to pay by electronic transfer (the preferred option) or send cheques (payable to Solihull & Leamington Rail Users Association), not cash, to our Membership Secretary Reg Banks, 49 Shelsley Way, SOLIHULL B91 3UZ.
SALRUA, like many similar organisations, is facing increasing costs, especially postage costs. Future finances and subscription levels will be an agenda item at the forthcoming AGM. SALRUA has not increased the membership fee for 14 years, thanks to a large part to the generosity of members making additional donations for which we are very grateful; sadly reducing membership numbers have meant that costs are now exceeding income and so we have to consider how SALRUA goes forward. One option is to offer the choice of communications such as newsletters via the website and by email or by post. We welcome the views of the membership.
The Committee who like to thank all members for their continued support in these challenging times and we wish you all well.