With the announcement of the new UK government planning to nationalize the UK Rail network and bring the remaining TOC under public control once their contracts expire I'm expecting this to make the licensing situation easier for DTG and or 3rd parties to be able to make the routes that they previously couldn't because of not being able to acquire the licenses for those operators but I'm interested in getting other people thought's on the matter
I never realised that was on the manifesto, certainly very low key. Well it certainly raises some interesting questions so far as train simming is concerned. Could go either way with everything opening up, alternatively a blanket refusal could kill contemporary UK projects stone dead. And the last thing a fledging National Rail organisation setting itself up is probably going to want to deal with, is Matt’s plaintive phone call from DTG Towers asking, “ Hello sir, can we get out and about on the WCML do some research for our train game?” Of course in reality having worked on the real railway for 41 years before retiring I saw more reorganisation than cooked breakfast, including privatisation and Railtrack then going back to Network Rail. The one common factor is that most of the people doing the work stay the same, maybe get TUPE’d to another company but other than the top brass the chances are a renationalised GWR for example, you will be talking to the same people in PR and Ops as when it was private, with the same views and conceptions on dealing with a leisure software house.
There was a lot of disgruntled new MPs yesterday travelling by train to London as so many of them, (particularly those from up North, SW and Midlands) had had their trains cancelled due to staff shortages etc, I think it brought home to them the state of service delivery currently 'enjoyed' by many a northern, non-levelled up commuter!
I suspect nothing will change really, even if they are owned by a national body, there will still be operated under companies like GA/ LNER and the likes, but funded by the government. So they will still be looking to protect their image or be the same beaurocrats who don't want to deal with outside parties
Yep ScotRail are implementing a temporary timetable from tomorrow reducing services due to dispute with drivers and they’ve been under gov control for a couple years.
Presumably limited time to get some of these operators in the game, as once in public ownership "under a unified brand" there won't be the opportunity to use historic private company liveries... fingers crossed the new unified branding looks good, as there's potentially much less diversity coming in UK stock aesthetics
Not knowing how the rail network is organized in the UK currently, I THOUGHT it was that the UK gov't owns the RAILS, but it was "leased" out to the companies to run trains on. Is that not the case? That sounds like what the moderates proposed doing...just... "better" (tm) as all politicians usually claim. Or was there a plan to actually nationalize the whole system (equipment, personnel and all?) I read about the elections in the UK, but wasn't really following Labour's platform very closely.
Basically that, But they want to bring it all in house, so government owns the tracks, trains, staff and stations
I seem to remember the Blair administration promising something similar, but it never happened. Is my memory correct?
As long Eurostar is not purchaising all those companies and represents the new great public, im not worried .
They created Network Rail out of Railtrack, but I don’t recall any initiatives to bring TOC’s back into public ownership. At the time, 1997, I was working for (South) Wales and West which was originally owned by the Prism group, then changed hands to National Express than again to Arriva all under the overwatch of a Labour government.
Not that I have seen One Brand (GBR) is the plan, Fragmentation is seen as a cause of performance issues. For instance an EMR gets a driver Sickness at LIverpool where they dont have a Train Crew depot nearest driver could be in Nottingham which is miles away, the net result is a train stuck in a platform that cant be moved by any spare driver at Liverpool. Thats just one example, another is all the incompatibilty of train types, this causes issues with training, traction knowledge and attempting to couple up to clear the line. The only private TOCs will be open access and Freight. The rest will be branded as GBR, I cant speak for Scotrail and TFW mind as they are Devolved operations and I am guessing may stay as they are. Its likely to be a very different railway in 5 years time if the Government see this through.
They were meant to Nationalise and didnt with the TOCs, I suspect it was to expensive, this time many TOCS are already in Public hands and many end their terms in the next few years that are still privately operated.
Been working for the railway long enough to know that sweet FA, or at least, Sweet FA of actual well thought out change will occur. If it does, I'll eat my hat
Not being funny, in my opinion, there is no way the railways can go back to how they were; it was dismantled in such a way that it will never become what it was. Over half the infrastructure has gone, no freight and no parcels included. Closest to nationalisation will be similar to when sectorization happened.
While we will see a lot less liveries in future, there should be a degree of sectorisation going on, for example InterCity was seperate to Network SouthEast, which in turn was seperate to Regional Railways. LNER is already publicly owned, I really hope they go full old school with the naming / branding, keeping LNER and GWR, bringing back LMS etc.
They have only just managed to talk the talk with the idea, and I'll be honest I still haven't fully grasped their plans, so I would wait to worry about this issue until they actually walk the walk.
I think nationalisation would be a real big change, I’m definitely not confident betting on real big changes within 5 years. That’s my take. I don’t think it will be long before the phrase “same old same old” takes total hold.
Apologies for not really contributing to this.. I don't really know what to think at the moment. But.. what about TfW - I couldn't help but notice they're not on that diagram?
Y'know.. despite TfW being my local operator, I always forget they're owned by the Welsh Government - even though it should be common sense really....
Watching this from the US is going to be fun, sorry my UK friends here. It probably won't be for you.
Still, it's surprising DTG still haven't made a TfW route even though it would be easy to gain the license.
Yeah, it's disappointing too.. for me at least, I would give anything to have my local line in game.. preferably before the 197s entered service, so we could get 150s, 153s, 158s, 175, 67s/DVTs and so on.. sadly nowadays, the 175s are no more and the WAG set only runs twice a day at not-so-great times. (My local line is the NWCL, so the TSW route would be Chester to Holyhead, or ideally Crewe to Holyhead - but that would be way too long)
80s or 90s would be good, in the 80s it had similar traffic to Blackpool line. In the 1990s it was one of the last lines to see regular loco hauled non Intercity services. At one point 37s were hourly from Crewe mixed in with 101s, Sprinters, Pacers and HSTs.
I have travelled on this route multiple times and it definitely deserves to be featured. If not to Holyhead, then I would suggest for it to start it from Crewe as well, and head to Llandudno Junction and Llandudno, as that is quite a scenic part of the route. It would provide plenty of service variety. Especially with the CRE-CTR corridor as it would include TfW between them
it can either get better or not change tbh, I don’t see how they could make it much worse, delays, cancellations and expensive tickets have already been here for a while.
Yeah, we get plenty of railtours and (although not so far this year) we usually get a good bit of freight, slate from Llandudno Junction and Penmaenmawr Quarry, plus there's a new intermodal yard opening soon! Definitely a route I would happily pay a good sum of money for, without hesitation!
Curious why you say "easy." Quite a few companies I thought would be "easy" and Matt has said they couldn't get the licenses for. Is ANYTHING involving the government "easy"? ;-)
Must be, considering we have 4 public owned operators in TSW (ScotRail, LNER, Northern, Southeastern).
Not sure why on earth TPE hasn't been used yet, given they are also DFT OLR. Would be a great opportunity for Newcastle -> York, TPE 802 as main train (only requiring small changes from 801 and a new livery and interior). Could then do layered LNER 801. DLC Northern 158 (re-skinned). DLC option for XC voyager if they ever get the licence. Though tbh with the TPE 802 not being an entirely new train, would be good for the voyager to be included free of charge.
Would the "national consolidation" have any impact on these other already public entities? Are they just operators, or do they do track maintenance, depots, etc too?
It's worth noting that the partial nationalisation is in fact a Conservative project started a number of years ago, and that the operators taken over by the OLR have not affected licensing agreements in any way. As we do not know how GBR will be branded, there is little reason to speculate at the moment because it'll still be the DFT doing licensing, and they have allowed it to happen for years. Many of the brands that are currently licensed for TS and TSW were done so through the DFT, who own the brands of most existing and past franchises.
Of course back in the days of BR all trains had a uniform livery. I don’t suppose we’ll ever see that again, it would make UK railways as uniform as German railways and would be a shame. Though DB have a terrific variety of rolling stock which compensates a bit, I do prefer the variety of paint schemes in the UK now.
You say small changes but it's still a significant amount of work for dtg to remake the model since it's not identical
It's not as significant as you may think. DTG already have the 80x bodyshell. They would just need to adjust the livery and model the interior.
There are more changes than that to be made. For a start engines, but there are also various other differences between the 80xs.
I'm aware of the differences between the 801 and 802, and travel on them very often. Small changes relative to creating a brand new unit. They have strong foundations in place already.
Have no doubt in that mate, my response was just to whoever said it would just be a change of livery and interior.
If they were to adapt the 5 car 801 into an 802, they would have to rework the cab, interior seating, livery, update the other middle cars to feature diesel engines (801 has only one car with diesel, 802 has three) and the 802's added brake resistors, and that's just the visible model, not going into Simugraph. A lot of people question why the 801 exists, some see it as just a downgraded 800 without diesel functionality. It isn't. Removing those diesel engines made it lighter and therefor slightly higher performing under electric power. It would be easier to just take the 801, duplicate the emergency engine two more times and turn it into a 800, as opposed to turning it into a 802. The engine power would need to be dialled up, the weight adjusted, the brake resistor modelled, and a few other things alongside all that. It's like gutting out a car right down to the chassis and basic bodywork, then replacing everything about the interior and engine. You are one step away from just outright getting a new car. The work required would be about the same if not even more resource intensive than converting the 47 into a 57. Bottom line, even though at face value the 801 and 802 might as well be twins, from the standpoint of both the visible model and the Simugraph underneath, the 802 might as well be a completely new train as practically nothing about it could remain untouched from the 801.
