I've seen videos on YouTube from a lot of British content creators ( like Geoff Marshall and Nick Badley to name a few ) and always wondered the same thing... How on earth do these trains make money with like 4 people riding them!!! ( Someone reviewed a Pacer a while ago, and he was one of the only two passengers onboard ) How do they manage to pay the driver, guard, maintenance staff, station staff, security staff, engineers, management, and all the expenses related to fuel / electricity, spare parts etc ? Not to mention the cost of building the infrastructure & purchasing the rolling stock in the first place. In my part of the world, it would be impossible to maintain a taxi service, let alone a train service with that amount of ridership. And forget profits ! So, my question is - If your government is paying for it, then how is it sustainable ? If private companies are paying for it then what profits are they getting out of it ?
I imagine they probably make their money of off more mainline service like if your on about the Northern 142 Pacer with very little people going on them I would suspect that they make the Money of off Leeds - Manchester, Leeds - Sheffield with their more up-to-date 802s, 185s, etc.
Example: What we'll do as an example is we'll say each fare is £10 just to put the example out One Class 142 Commuter + 4 Passengers = £30 (Per Journey), One Class 802 Mainline + 200 Passengers = £2,000 (Per Journey), One Rush Hour Class 802 Mainline + 500 Passengers = £5,000 (Per Journey), One Rush Hour Class 142 Commuter + 20 Passengers = £200 (Per Journey) Now when you add it all up it comes to around Per Year So For 1 Decade They'd Make: That's not including what they would already have. Then they'd only lose a small portion for paying the staff. That's likely where their money comes from.
Well, we have very high railfares in the UK (highest in Europe) and yes, the trains are run by private companies (with the exceptions of Northern Rail, LNER and Southeastern as they are now government run). They make profit by charging those high fares and paying low wages for the lower staff such as on-board staff, cleaners etc. Also, train companies are partly subsidised by the government to run the routes they operate on. There's also the fact that most train operating companies don't actually own the trains they run. They are leased by companies to the train operators so that saves costs on buying new stock for the fleets. As for track improvements, infrastructure etc, that is managed by another company who puts out contracts for the work (Network Rail) and only a very small portion of the ticket price is actually for maintenance, improvement etc.
Quite often we tend to get these vloggers (or whatever they call themselves) using the trains during the emptiest hours and also (especially in the last one) it seems that these may be from during lockdown restrictions as you can see people wearing masks. I can tell you now especially during the rush hours, weekends and school holidays the trains are regularly packed. At the company I work for passenger numbers have long since surpassed what they were before lockdowns so these aren't a great representation of what things are like now really. The two videos below display how passenger numbers (at least from my experience) have been more recently: Video1 at about 10:25: Video 2 at 6:45:
Thanks... So, what I get is that railways in the UK are basically a public service. Doesn't matter if or how much money they make, they're running for the public's sake.
Thanks Matt... Should admit that's quite different from what I had seen before... So some trains make profits & others don't. But TOCs have contracts to run all services regardless of the patronage they receive?!
That's alright mate. How much profit a service makes depends on the time of year and events (football matches etc), for example in the school holidays some services may be packed and raking the money in but then during the term time that same service may make less profit (if at all). I am not great at explaining things but in the most simple way possible there is something called a Train Service Requirement which specifies the amount of services the TOC needs to provide during the Service Term and this is based of a train plan written up by the TOC but there are so many loopholes and exceptions to it as well I believe. As I say this is way oversimplified but being brought up with BR and always being on the face of the railway, not in the offices, I've never really fully grasped the current system well enough to explain (I have literally just learnt the minimum amount that I can glide through with) so if anyone else can give a much better more detailed explanation feel absolutely free, though I should say do it at your own risk! Hope this helps!
Yes, trains are classed as public transport, the same way as buses are. Unlike other countries though, our railways and buses are not government run.
I regularly travel to York from Stamford and both the Cross Country services to/from Peterborough and the LNER ECML services are regularly packed now.
Fare revenue goes to the Government, who pays the TOC a fixed fee for operations. Passenger loads from a recent trip were quite high at parts, I did have a quiet service but that was down to engineering works meaning the normal connection was missed (basically the order the trains passed through the interchange was swapped for that week) - so instead of the busy fast, I ended up on the local which was initially about 10 people on board, but picked up more en route.
