The night mail, no more

Or the penny post.

I blame e-mail.

I understand the nostalgia thing, but it's a plc company, it's not making money, it has to uphold a universal service, while being severely restricted to what it can do charging wise, and it's profit making sections are subject to competition, and it has to provide it's services for 11.5p?!

On radio 5 today, apparently there are loads of trucks and lorries running practically empty, so they're improving that side of their logistics.

and what Vicky said re: logistics, it's all about the trunking, with the road journeys they can send out mail both ways therefore increasing loads on the same number of trucks, esp. if they're running virtually empty lorries at the mo, which is just wrong in logistics terms.

I don't doubt that the TPO service was not cost effective but I think that is due to that way that sorting offices have been restructured not due to the inherent cost of the TPO service. Royal mail has be backed into this corner by the EU, the government, and by its own incompetence during the 90s.

The decline i belive can be traced to when the Mail trains stopped using urban stations and as with all railfreight has had its heart ripped out by the closure, destruction and selling off of urban frieght yard and by the lack of an effective intermodal frieght system that is compatible with urban areas.

but it's not Ed and the people that are running it are having to make the best of a bad job that they have inherited. the chances of getting it back into public hands are slim to none.

2) we are only in this situation because of where the Royal Mail has loacted it distribution hubs, and not even that. The Sheffield/SouthYorshire, distribution centre is right by the sheffield- doncaster rail line, in the Don valley, but no rail link was put in so if mail is to go by rail it has to be loaded into a lorry and taken to doncaster before it can be put on a train. This pattern is repeated throughout the country.

3) Road transport is disproportionately cheap, it is subsidised through general taxation (road building an maintenance) to a much greater degree than rail is.

4) sometime ago Royal mail stopped loading mail on to both ordinary passenger trains and TPOs at ordinary stations (some large terminii excepted), in city centres. Ordinary passenger train s now very rarely have mail vans as a result.

Rather than give up on rail, the government, if it is serious about moving frieght from road to rail (it wants to see an 80% increase by 2010), then it should provide the money to reverse the changes that have made transporting the mail by rail uneconomic and inefficient.

oh and birthday cards to my mother.

So what you appear to be advocating Ed is a raising of postal costs to pay for uneconomic practices to satisfy a nostalgic urge that mail = rail. WHy should the mail service pay for the breaking up of the rail system. And who is to say that if and when saif rail system is finally sorted out, the mail won't go back (though I've got to say at the moment it is pretty unlikely). An empty rail train is much more environmentally damaging and economically defunct than an empty rail van.

you are all mateless losers who have never had sex

because they're not full enough already? and also you're going to need the vans at the other end, unless all the sorting depots are integrated into the rail system.

Ed, basically this ain't going to work, it's innefficient and would require huge amounts of subsidy, which you won't make up from raising post prices as there is no way they can get away with it, just look at the fuss caused when they raise price by a penny.

The alternative for you Ed would seem to be to build a time machine and kill Dr Beeching, or maybe just live in the past where I reckon you'd enjoy it far more.

The problem with bunging mail sacks on an empty train is the aforemention lack of mail - even goods coaches. Since the rail is run on a profit basis (which I know you also disagree with) this will require an empty carriage (cos you can't just bung mail sacks in a passenger compartment).

Mail train leaving London sorting office to Glasgow would leave about 11-ish to arrive Glasgow 4am-ish in time to get pre sorted mail out for first post. Said mail train returning at 4:40am will get to London way after the first post delivery deadline so not feasible (this is what used to happen with the 2nd class post of course). Removal of mail train should also logically also mean removal of 2nd class post.

I'm not sure Ed would like it in the past that much. They'd throw stones at him for having dirty hair.

Noone has tried to make rail frieght effiecient, for mail or anything else, this is why it is not used. I'm not really criticising the Royal mail , although heaven knows it must take some blame. I'm criticising an industry that is still using methods that date from the victorian era and lacks the slightest degree of innovation.

what the logistics lorries should do is advertise their huge amount of unused space — generally they are only carrying abt five parcels per lorry anyway — and fill it up with "delivery-passengers" booked on "mailrail" journeys which in fact only ever existed on timetables

once the trains no longer have to WORRY about passenger comfort etc, they can be run smoothly and efficiently and emptily, never once having to stop at those stupid "stations" (they could even be robotised hurrah, then their total elimination will be unnecessary)

Don't forget manpower when thinking about costs....

Nick, who's hoodwinking Chris?! We haevn't even discussed it, so it aint me!

Well if Peter Noone was trying to make the service more efficient no wonder it didn't work. He should have stuck with Herman's Hermits (can I get my ten pounds now please).

"I'm not really criticising the Royal mail , although heaven knows it must take some blame" = I am criticising the Royal Mail. Let's sic Vicky on him. And Chris can talk about Supply Train - i mean Chain - Solutions in the background. Flexibility - in my day we didn't know the mean of the word (Half Day CLosing on Wednesday Hurrah!)

he said that he and his colleagues earn a fortune running this route, almost daily (and south also i guess) for passengers who miss their connection on the welsh coastal trains

No, I think the solution to the problem is to close the motorways, then build railway lines along the routes of the motorways. This would then solve the logistics problem, coz the railway lines would be in the right places for the distribution centres.

I would time travel back further than Beeching and kill whoever invented the internal combustion engine so that the choice was rail vs. canal vs. horse and cart. Rail would win, obv.

WHat about the knock on effect of online shopping (less mail, but more weight). A postie I know in Brighton now refuses to deliver books, she just puts the slip throuygh the door.

Infernal combustion engine more like.

Generally, though, Ed is right: rail has become 'uneconomic' because the Royal Mail has moved away from city-centre sorting offices. The main sorting office in Edinburgh used to be right in the heart of the city, on the corner of North Bridge, with its own access into Waverley station next-door. Now, it's in a residential area between Edinburgh and Leith. It's right next to a railway line, but with no rail facilities. Giving it rail facilities would involve electrifying a couple of miles of branch-line, which no doubt the R. M. would be unwilling to pay for.

As The Guardian pointed out today, the R. M.'s tactics over this look a little odd. Their rail contract doesn't expire for another three years; but half way through it they decided to demand that EWS (the railfreight company that operates their trains) drop its prices. When EWS tried to come to a compromise, the R. M. just said 'sorry, as you're not going to do what we asked we're cancelling our contract over two years early'.

worldwide waterweb: joint CEOs ed, mark s, jon tickle

That's the sort of thinking we want Mooro, futuristic!

The report on the Clapham crash is also to blame, because it greatly increased the amount of paperwork and actual work involved in making minor signalling alterations.

The transfer of the Railway Inspectorate from the Dept. of Transport to the Health & Safety Executive has also made matters worse in this regard.

(to be fair the railway inspectorate belongs in the HSE really)

It's definitely a combination of several factors that have put the railways in the bureaucracy-stifled state they're in - privatisation being the biggest, of course, but the move of the R.I. and over-reaction to Clapham being two others.

'For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?'

No lorries can (legally) keep up with the Royal Mail's trains either, of course.

No lorries need to go as fast as trains. That's what the planes are for. In country the size of Britain, speed is not the issue.

shit! hadn't thought of that!

''Julio, have you ordered goods online? Haven't you seen that terrific Elton John ad?''

only music N but most of my recs are bought in rec shops (I'm a rockist abt these things). elton john ad= reason for killing post office.

55 Euro Cents = 42 British pents, which is actually quite favourable (is it still 38p for a Euro letter - and that's pretty much just a poostiecard).

Hmm, trimphones.

Better yet, charge tolls on the roads and use the revenues to improve rail service.

Aah. I was thinking of telegraph poles. Do they still have those? I haven't been paying attention.

(I think the Telegraph uses yougov.com these days).