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This train should not exist, and, if were up to the train company, it wouldn’t, but
it’s not.
You see, in the UK, trains work off a franchising system where the UK government awards
contracts to different private companies to operate rail services.
For example Virgin Trains East Coast operate the east coast route, ScotRail
operates most trains in Scotland, TransPennine express operates many trains to and from Manchester,
and there are about two dozen other operators, but this particular train that
shouldn’t exist is operated by Chiltern Railways.
They mostly operate trains to smaller towns between
London and Birmingham and all of their trains to
London terminate at Marylebone station… except for one—this one.
This particular train operates from the nearby London Paddington
station—the terminus for Great Western and Heathrow Express services.
But Chiltern railways has to operate services to London Paddington
because this document says so—their franchise agreement.
This document is basically the contract between the railway company and the
UK government so to modify this document they have to ask the government and, as we all
know, sometimes governments aren’t very efficient.
So here’s your super simple guide to closing a railway route in Britain.
Step one: perform a “transport appraisal.”
This is basically an analysis of the effects that the line closure will have
on passengers, the environment, and the economy.
The strait-forward three stage fourteen step process of creating a transport appraisal
is explained in this handy 35 page document featuring
this super user-friendly flowchart.
Once you’ve completed that, just give it to the UK
Department of Transport who will analyze your analysis.
Step two: publish your proposal of closure including the findings of your transport
appraisal six months before the proposed closure in one local newspaper circulating near the
proposed closure and in two national newspapers for
two weeks continuously.
Step three: open a twelve-week consultation period including public
hearings where anyone who disagrees with the closure can protest.
Once you’ve completed those three easy steps, then you’ll hand everything
over to the Office of Rail and Road who will decide
whether or not you can close the line.
As you might have been able to tell from my not-at-all-sarcastic explanation, it’s not
easy to close a franchised rail route, but nowhere
in the agreement does it say how often Chiltern Railways has to operate their route to Paddington—it
just says they need to.
So they operate it… once per day.
Now compared to the US where cities as big as Houston, Texas only see three
trains a week and have stations that look like this, a daily service from Paddington
probably seems normal, but the station this service
goes to, High Wycombe, sees 95 trains a day from the
normal London station—Marylebone.
One train per day is nothing for a UK train route,
especially from London.
Chiltern Railways, like many other train companies, have decided it’s
just easier and cheaper to operate an infrequent service to fulfill their franchise agreement
instead of going through the rather expensive formal
closure process.
But some rail companies have pushed the boundaries of what is considered “service” to
an extreme.
Northern’s franchise agreement requires them to operate a train between Stockport
and Stalybridge which they fulfill by running one train, one-way, once per week.
Between Stockport and Stalybridge there are two stations
which are therefore serviced by one train per
week.
Closing stations is just as difficult as closing lines so they won’t do it.
Denton station therefore recorded only 144 passengers in
the past year while Reddish South saw just 94.
Thirty miles to the north, London Midland is required
to operate services to Barlaston Railway Station, but companies are allowed to temporarily operate
rail replacement buses during maintenance.
This company, however, has interpreted “temporary” as 13 years as they’ve operated rail
replacement busses to this station since 2004 to fulfill their obligation.
The Chiltern Railways service from London Paddington to High Wycombe is definitively
unprofitable.
On many days there are zero passengers.
On the day this footage was filmed, there was only one.
This bureaucratic closure process is meant to protect the public by preventing
companies from closing unprofitable smaller stations, but in reality most of what is does
is make these ghost trains.
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