Smoke & Mirrors

At the end of January the Department for Transport produced its Rolling Stock Plan for 2009-2014, an incredible work of obfuscation and confusion. It appears to promise that by 2014 TOC's in England & Wales will receive an additional 1,300 vehicles. However, it is not at all clear that this will be the case as rather confusingly the notes to the table produced on the DfT web site appears to indicate that some of these vehicles will be cascaded from other operators. In fact it is just about impossible to unpick what are new vehicles and those that are cascaded.

It would appear from the press coverage that I have read that the 1,300 vehicles, while indicative, is a net gain figure. In other words, it does not include vehicles that would be cascaded between operators. However, if this is true, why are the notes attaching to the Rolling Stock Plan at pains to point out that some of the vehicles shown will come from cascades between operators? It seems a deliberate attempt at generating a confused picture and it is hard not to feel cynical towards a government department, which seems to have such a ill-formed attitude and understanding of rail.

Another source of confusion I found contained in the DfT's press release about government funding for the Birmingham New Street development. In the notes it mentions that Arriva-operated Cross Country Trains will receive an additional 40 vehicles in the next year, however according to the Rolling Stock Plan, Cross Country will receive just 6 extra DMU vehicles.

Other anomalies abound in the Rolling Stock Plan. For example, it is suggested that East Midlands Trains will receive just 3 vehicles in the period to 2009-2014! The table does not show existing franchise agreements for new vehicles and does not include vehicles for the Intercity Express Programme, Crossrail or Thameslink. In addition it shows 106 new vehicles for Intercity West Coast, which indicates that the additional 2 cars per Pendolino set will not be delivered until after the end of the current Virgin franchise. In fact the requirement should be 104 vehicles as the Pendo involved in the Lambrigg crash has subsequently been written off.

It all adds up to a rather muddled and confused picture so typical of the DfT's pronouncements on rail, where its policy seems to be an exercise in confusion. Maybe by 2014 we'll actually have a clear idea of exactly how many 'new' vehicles there will be.

No raving about rovers and rangers

A couple of weeks ago I decided to take advantage of a First Great Western Oxfordshire Day Ranger ticket to explore the line between Reading and Banbury and stop off at a few places in between. I'd only heard about this ticket from an article in The Railway Herald and there were no details, when I checked, on the National Rail web site. To give First Great Western their due, this ranger along with a selection of other rovers and rangers was detailed on their web site with a nicely coloured and simple to read map, which could be downloaded, showing the areas of validity. Two important pieces of information were missing though. No mention of whether this of the other rangers/rovers could be purchased with a Network Railcard and perhaps more importantly whether they are valid on other operators' services. I sent off an e-mail to First Great Western via their web site in the week before I was due to use the Oxfordshire Day Ranger and still, some two weeks later, I am waiting for a reply.

Similarly, I sent an e-mail to London Midland earlier in the year about whether they still offered Rover/Ranger tickets as Central Trains/Silverlink had done. In contrast to FGW, there is no information about this type of ticket on the LM web site. An e-mail query, which had to be chased produced a rather terse response. Yes, they are still offering Rovers/Rangers and they will be producing publicity in due course. Why not now?

It seems from my experience that most rail companies don't want people to know about their Rovers/Rangers and try their best to keep them secret. I did have an enjoyable week a couple of years ago using a 'West Midlands Rover' but that caused problems as not all the staff I encountered on my travels were aware of its validity.

Personally I think the range of rover and ranger tickets is excellent and if taking a day out where you want to visit several different places or just want to enjoy a number of trips, they represent great value. They should be publicised more and at least every TOC's web site should have details of the rovers and rangers they issue and/or accept on their services. If FGW can do it, albeit with some misgivings on the information provided, why can't everybody else?