L’ente regolatore delle ferrovie fa inversione di marcia sui piani per far funzionare il “treno fantasma” da Manchester a Londra
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-12-01/rail-regulator-does-u-turn-on-plans-to-run-early-morning-ghost-train-to-london
di BestButtons
13 commenti
That didn’t take long!
> The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has rowed back on its decision to prevent Avanti’s weekday 7am service from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston from carrying passengers.
> The rail regulator previously said allowing Avanti West Coast to run the service would “harm the overall performance for all passengers” due to the potential for congestion on the West Coast Main Line.
> From December 15, the 7am service – nicknamed the “ghost train” – would have been forced to run with only staff on board so that it could be easily moved or delayed to alleviate pressure on rail services.
> But on Monday, the rail regulator reversed its decision.
> A spokesperson for ORR told ITV News: “We have taken account of all the evidence and feedback, and we have given Network Rail and Avanti the go-ahead to arrange for the 7am service to continue running with passengers.”
> The regulator added: “Although it could have a negative impact on reliability and punctuality of services on the West Coast Main Line, we understand the importance of this service and we’ll support its continued operation.
Good news to those who needs and uses the service.
Now do the Rory Sutherland idea of allowing people to travel on a train even if they booked a later/earlier one, if there are empty seats.
It is utterly insane this isn’t already just default if you’re running a train service.
If you U-turn on a Ghost train is that an Unmurder on the reorient express?
Still not the right decision.
It was the OA service that was causing the problems, by pushing the Manchester service into the firebreak path.
They’ve U-turned on the Manchester train, but the OA service is still in there causing problems. So now we’ve given up the firebreak path completely — and Euston at 9am in the morning is not a station that runs smoothly.
Surely the could have seen how shit the optics on this would have been in advance? Wait nevermind
Remember that the number one priority of senior Civil servants in any government department is to avoid embarrassment.
Actually doing anything at all – risky, might cause embarrassment if the thing doesn’t happen. Might cause embarrassment if lots of people don’t like the thing if it happens.
Developing ‘strategies’, ‘objectives’, ‘industry engagement’ on stuff – excellent, this is just talking, nobody can be embarrassed.
When something is in the media because of stupid decisions by civil servants – row backwards as hard as possible.
Edit – also this reminds me of the climate of Treasury pressure dft is under, not that long ago they actively tried to close down on-train WiFi; and they actively tried to close down ticket offices. The latter I listened at a conference while industry leaders I respected tried to justify this thinking – decision making that is so staggeringly, mind bogglingly idiotic I just cant even.
Here we are this is the same group of people doing this stuff
The lack of capacity shows the need for HS2 to be built to Manchester
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/empty-trains-to-euston-highlight-why-scrapping-hs2-to-manchester-makes-no-sense-85860/
If the intention was for it to be easily “moved or delayed”, surely that would have knock-on effects for staff on that service anyway?
Why is it doing a U turn, you can drive them from both ends.
Why is the regulator making operational decisions anyway? Surely they should be concerned with regulatory issues and let Network Rail and Avanti decide the best way to run services efficiently?
Government logic 101
If we didn’t run any trains at all, time keeping would be 100%, the government would celebrate a job well done
Good news. Ghosts are scary.
The ORR is one of the worst regulators in the UK. Very slow moving (even by Civil Service standards), hopelessly risk averse and lacking real expertise throughout – especially the Engineering departments.
This would all be okay if they accepted their lack of knowledge and worked with other regulators and even those they regulate to support them – but instead they try to cover the inadequacy by slowing down everything and taking months to respond to simple emails.
I do feel bad criticising them, as their pay scales are so bad – it’s almost not their fault – but it’s something that needs addressing if we are to fix our broken Railways.