Analysis
Boxing Day services?
Most big stores are open for the sales to get under way, so why make life difficult for shoppers? But it’s also the best time to carry out essential engineering. PAUL CLIFTON seeks the views of the experts
MOST passengers assume there will be no trains on Boxing Day.
That’s almost true, but not quite: ScotRail, Southern, Chiltern, Southeastern and Stansted Express will run limited services on a small number of routes.
For many years the Heathrow Express kept going… but not this year. And Gatwick Express will not run at all between December 23 and early on January 2. Southern will operate a limited airport link to London Bridge instead.
Yet signal boxes and control centres the length and breadth of the country are staffed and operational. Engineering trains run up and down as Network Rail takes advantage of the quiet time to carry out more than 350 maintenance and renewal projects. NR says they will involve 25,000 workers.
So the ability to run services is there. And it’s a surprisingly sensitive subject, given that it is raised every festive season without fail.
When asked about the merits of Boxing Day trains the Rail Delivery Group, which represents the industry as a whole, said the subject was a matter for Network Rail. Asked the same question, Network Rail said it was a matter for the Rail Delivery Group.
Fortunately, train operators are more open.
“Realistically, if you are going to run a Boxing Day service on Great Western, it’s about moving people in and out of London. That’s where most of the demand is,” says GWR Managing Director Mark Hopwood.
“The challenge for us is that we’ve had very substantial engineering work each Christmas, and that has prevented us running anything.
“I’d like to think that was coming to an end this year. But having seen the plans of our friends at HS2 for constructing things at Old Oak Common, I’m not entirely sure that will be the case.”
“Southern has a history of running Boxing Day services,” says Govia Thameslink Railway Deputy Chief Operating Officer Alex Foulds.
“Obviously it is a very reduced service, and we are expecting lower demand. But we expect the services to Gatwick to be busy with airport traffic, both passengers and crew. And we expect a steady stream of people in and out of East Croydon, where it is a big shopping day.
“The contractual position with the Department for Transport is that we run these services out of London Victoria. But we can’t do that because Network Rail has a big engineering blockade. Victoria will be closed. We have the advantage of having two terminal stations serving broadly the same series of routes, so we can work around that.
“We do not take the revenue risk on our GTR contract, but in previous versions of this franchise where we did take the risk, running trains on Boxing Day was normal.”
Jane Lee, head of media at South Western Railway, tells RAIL: “We had to do a consultation exercise on whether there was demand for Boxing Day services. It was done this summer.
“It concluded that although there was interest in seeing some services, there was not a business case for them. There wasn’t sufficient evidence that the market was there.
“And this Christmas we have a lot of engineering work as well, so the decision was made not to do anything. But we have made a commitment to look again in 2020.”
In fact, as Lee pointed out, there’s every chance that a timetabled service this Boxing Day would have ended up as a bus replacement. Old
switches and crossings at Waterloo are being replaced on December 23-28. Beyond the complete shutdown on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, half the station at a time will be closed.
There’s also major work at Vauxhall and at Guildford, with the refurbishing and strengthening of the railway bridge on Farnham Road.
The closure of Victoria will bring added pressure, with many passengers expected to change at Clapham Junction to use Waterloo instead.
“Because passengers know there normally isn’t a service on Boxing Day, the market has not been obvious,” says SWR’s Lee.
“Just saying you have people in the signal box to run the engineering trains almost explains why you wouldn’t justify running a passenger train!”
A Network Rail spokesman said he could only have the passenger train debate if train operators were actually bidding to run services on Boxing Day. As they have not done so, NR takes advantage of the lull to do its biggest engineering tasks of the year.
He said that Network Rail does not determine the timetable, and there’s very little over the Christmas period for its schedulers to do.
NR has issued its standard Bank Holiday arguments in all news releases. The one covering Waterloo is typical: “Our ‘team orange’ engineers will be working around the clock throughout the festive period, delivering vital work. The network is around 50% less busy over the festive period, so while there’s never a good time to cause disruption, fewer people will have their journeys affected.”
NR is investing around £150m in Christmas work. Last year it spent £220m, and £200m the year before. One of its biggest projects is near Liverpool Lime Street, for which the station will be closed for several days.
“If you have a railway with no big work planned and access to London, you ought to look at a Boxing Day service,” says GWR’s Hopwood.
“We know people turn up at Great Western stations on Boxing Day not realising that there are no services. The retail environment has changed - a lot of shops are open for the first day of sales.
“Of course, you would need union agreement. Most terms and conditions don’t provide for working Boxing Day. But it’s not insurmountable, as Chiltern has shown. And when I was running c2c we had a Boxing Day service.
“The challenge for the industry is that the natural time to do a blockade is Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The reality is that there is a big dip in the number of people travelling, and those who do travel tend to have more adaptable plans compared with commuters on normal weekdays. Plus, road alternatives are much more difficult on a normal working day.
“There’s a pretty comprehensive set of engineering works this year, particularly around London, that make it difficult to run anything. And if you have a whole load of additional costs, can you cover those with the revenue from passengers? I suspect most operators could not.”
“It is a frustration for passengers,” concedes GTR’s Foulds. “There is always a balance to be found between doing engineering work in block or a piece at a time. Network Rail has been able to explain to people that closing an asset for a period is, in the long term, the best way of doing things.
“On the Brighton Main Line we have been blocking it to facilitate work a lot this year, and providing buses to bridge the gap. There is a broad acceptance that this is better than closing every night for months on end.”