primitivepeople

Interesting news this morning - this is the Beeb's version of it:

( National Express loses East Coast rail franchise )

This is hardly unexpected - there's been speculation about it for ages - but I think it's happened far sooner than expected, and it goes to show what a mess National Express have managed to get themselves into. Less than two years ago, they took over the East Coast route from GNER, who couldn't pay their premium payments to the government. NX bid even higher, and - surprise surprise - they can't pay them either.

The whole thing reeks of utter stupidity. For starters, it shows that the funding model for the railway places far too much risk on the franchise holders, who in turn have been stupid in risking so much to get hold of prestigious franchises - the East Coast is seen as a glittering prize, and NatEx have risked bankruptcy to win it. GNER were so desperate to keep hold of it that they collapsed and nearly took Sea Containers with them.

Second, there has to be something seriously wrong when one of the busiest lines in the country - where trains are still packed, despite the recession - can't make any money because the industry is so fragmented, and so much money flies around to be split up among several parties, all fighting for their slice of the pie. When the structure we work under was revealed in 1994, I was very cynical about it working. Only surprise as far as I'm concerned is how long it took for a TOC to fail like this - and then it happens twice in two years, on the same route.

I think the government is right not to renegotiate - these companies took stupid risks, and if one franchise gets away with not having to meet its obligations, the other eighteen will be clamouring to do the same. But...surely the time has now come to say enough is enough - the fifteen-year experiment with privatisation has failed. We have a decent railway at the moment, but it's been a desperate struggle to get there, and it could have been done so much more easily and cheaply without all the crap we've had to put up with. It was an ideologically-driven piece of lunacy thought up by a Tory government in its death throes, and Labour has done far too little to sort out the mess. Now it's too late - if they don't do something immediately, Cameron will get his grubby mits on it next year and screw things up even more.

The industry's entire funding model is about to collapse, and that means we're all in trouble.

Well, while the East Coast route heads into a nationalised abyss and an uncertain future, I decided to go and take a look at a brand-spanking-new bit of the railway today, by travelling on a service that only started running on Monday. It's SouthEastern's new domestic high speed service to Kent. The full service starts in December, with trains from St. Pancras to Ashford, Canterbury, Dover and Ramsgate, but for now, a preview service is operating on Mondays to Fridays, with most trains going from St. Pancras to Ebbsfleet International - with a few carrying on to Ashford. The trains have a maximum speed of 140mph (approx 225km/h), which is slower than Eurostar at 186mph/300km/h, but still faster than all our other domestic express services, which have run at 125mph, with no increase in maximum speeds since 125mph trains were first introduced in 1976. So...this modest increase is exciting. It's a massive improvement on the existing 90mph services to Kent, though, which take forever - approx. 80 mins from London to Ashford. The new service takes a mere 37 minutes.

Anyway, waffling aside, I've been itching to ride the new trains, and did so after work today. I wanted to go all the way to Ashford, but I was pressed for time, so I just went to Ebbsfleet and back (journey time 17 minutes). I showed up at the newly-opened platforms 11 to 13, and found one of the shiny new class 395 trains waiting for me...


Exterior #1


Exterior #2 - High Speed logo


Interior

The trains were running practically empty, as Ebbsfleet isn't really a particularly useful destination in itself, but it was a good opportunity to take pictures and enjoy the experience in peace.

First impressions of the train were good - they're pretty comfortable, with good aircon (vital on a day like today) and the seats are spacious and well laid out, with most of them giving a good view from the window. There's power sockets for laptops under them, but you'd miss them if you weren't looking. There's no first class - but the train is considered a "premium" service. Fares are about halfway between first and standard class levels, which is about £4 more on a day return to Ashford, but for a journey more than twice as fast, there may well be lots of people who consider it worth the money.

Proof of the pudding came in the eating, though - departure. The thing accelerates incredibly fast - you can really feel it, it's way quicker than other high-speed trains in the UK, which can go almost as fast, but get to their top speed a bit sedately. It reminded me, almost, of an aircraft take-off run - you get pushed back into your seat a little. The on board announcements were very planey as well.

Almost as soon as you leave St. Pancras, you enter a tunnel, with a short open section around Stratford, then in tunnel again to Dagenham. In tunnels the train can't reach maximum speed due to wind resistance issues, and there's only a short open section before you get to Ebbsfleet, so the train has to slow down again to stop there. The full 140mph comes on the Ashford runs. However, on the short open section I managed to get a GPS reading, and clocked us at 130mph. As I say, it's the phenomenal acceleration that makes the train so impressive, and journey times so quick. It was very comfortable and quiet even at high speeds.

I only spent a few minutes at Ebbsfleet before heading back again, but here's a shot of the train while it was there.



The station felt a bit strange - it didn't look very British! This is mainly because all the lineside infrastructure is based on French TGV technology, and so it looks a lot like a French station. :)

Anyway, back to St. Pancras again at amazing speed. I can't wait to try a full-length trip to Ashford. Really, really impressive in just about every way - when do we get to build High Speed Two?