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"East Coast rail franchise bidding process begins"

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  1. PS
    Member

    Don't know the detail, but there's a suggestion in several of the articles reporting this that Network Rail will fail to deliver the infrastructure improvements that Virgin/Stagecoach was told would be in place.

    Therein lies one of the key problems of the privatisation model - Network Rail is supposed to be delivering improvements across the entire network; operators bid on the basis of these improvements being made to schedule; then Network Rail (seemingly invariably) fail to deliver on time, thereby giving the operator the opportunity (sometimes justified, sometimes not) to say we can't deliver what we promised because the infrastructure doesn't allow it, so you (Network Rail/Government) need to bail us out/compensate us/let us off our commitments.

    Network Rail is owned by the government and, to put it mildly, does not have a good track record when it comes to infrastructure delivery.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  2. gembo
    Member

    @ps, of course when British rail was privatised the Tories argued that having a separate infrastructure organisation and then different private providers would make things more efficient. Strangely. When the post office was privatised the first time, BT was sold as both infrastructure organisation and provider. So as we know they just make this stuff up to suit themselves.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  3. steveo
    Member

    Or not bother and walk away if it's not going well.

    hmmmm...

    Posted 6 years ago #

  4. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    A friend of mine was an actual venture capitalist in the nineties and participated in the Major privatisation of rail.

    Even he regarded the railways as a 'natural monopoly' at the time and thought the whole thing was a farcical scam. Ditto the 'Royal' Mail.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  5. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Timely intervention.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  6. unhurt
    Member

    "the railways run as a public service as part of an integrated transport strategy"

    What extreme socialist madness is this?

    P.S. They handed out paper booklet menus - "Taste the Landscape" - for the trolley on the Glasgow train this afternoon. Print version is full of random images of Plockton etc. The actual menu text is up as a pdf here if you want to question who the audience for this might be. I made a FACE.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  7. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I'll have the deep-fried cringe with a portion of shoulder chips.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  8. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Let's do the time warp....again.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  9. crowriver
    Member

    This quote is worth repeating for posterity here:

    ---

    Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, said: “This is the third time in 10 years that a private company has mucked up the east coast main line. In contrast, when it was run in the public sector, it returned £1bn to the Treasury."

    “That shows what we have been saying all along - that Britain’s railways should be run, successfully, as a public service, not for private profit. Because they can’t do it. Virgin and Stagecoach have managed reverse alchemy - by turning gold into base metal, and profits into losses on the east coast.”

    ---

    Posted 5 years ago #

  10. gembo
    Member

    Reverse alchemy indeed

    Posted 5 years ago #

  11. chdot
    Admin

    To some extent I don’t care who owns/runs the railways as long as they do it well.

    I wish the EC trains still had the nice blue GNER livery!

    Taking money away (as profit) from routes that ought to be easy to make money on can’t be good. Of course the argument used to be that ‘private interests will bring in cash and expertise’. Not sure that ever happened.

    ‘Everyone’ hates Network Rail for major work overruns and general intransigence. NR is the nationalised version of RT which was the privatised version of BR. Some continuities, some changes.

    The bit of the railway that is largely forgotten about are the companies that actually own the trains. They got them cheap and leased them back to desperate train running companies, for a fee...

    Might be a good idea to take back ownership of the rolling stock.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  12. Blueth
    Member

    Whatever happens the whole lot should be under one management so train companies can't blame track companies for delays.

    That might also do away with the nonsense I once experienced near London where an incoming train, having been delayed on the outward journey, did not stop at any stations in order that it could reach the terminus on time and therefore not incur a penalty. Not much point a train being on time if it's empty and the passengers have to sit for another 45 minutes.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  13. toomanybikes
    Member

    "temporarily" renationalised

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/16/east-coast-rail-line-to-be-temporarily-renationalised-virgin-stagecoach

    Posted 5 years ago #

  14. Ed1
    Member

    Good news when it was last re-nationalised went down to London at a good price quite a few times since then taken plane as too expensive.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  15. amir
    Member

    Will the Azuma trains still be coming?

    Posted 5 years ago #

  16. Morningsider
    Member

    amir - yes, Agility Trains have a 27.5 year long contract with the UK Department for Transport to provide the Intercity Express trains. The DfT will make the use of these trains a requirement of the next East Coast franchise - or whatever replaces it.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  17. kaputnik
    Moderator

    DoT have fallen for the retrobranding fad too by naming the new franchise LNER, reviving the 1923-1947 London (and) North Eastern Railway brand. They've forgotten the and though, and called it London North Eastern Railway. Make of that what you will.

    London AND North Eastern made sense in the context of the railways that formed it, and that it served London AND the "north east" (of England), if you allow for Scotland being referred to as the "north east". London North Eastern kind of doesn't, given London is almost the most easterly point on the route, and it doesn't serve north eastern London.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  18. chdot
    Admin

    By email.

    “

    It has been announced today that on the 24th June 2018 the East Coast Main Line will transition to be operated by LNER - London North Eastern Railway.

    The service will continue to run as normal. Your travel plans won’t be affected and all train times and customer experience will remain the same.

    Any tickets you have already purchased for Virgin Trains East Coast will be valid with LNER and you can continue to purchase tickets as normal.

    We’ve loved serving you for the last three years and know the business is in a really good position thanks to the positive transformation we’ve started.

    Kind regards

    The Virgin Trains East Coast team

    “

    Posted 5 years ago #

  19. chdot
    Admin

    Posted 5 years ago #

  20. chdot
    Admin

    “DoT have fallen for the retrobranding fad too by naming the new franchise LNER”

    Yes, but no doubt as with some other rebranding, it doesn’t mean anything...

    Posted 5 years ago #

  21. chdot
    Admin

    Someone was quick -

    “

    Not to be confused with the new franchised operator, starting in June 2018 to replace the previous franchise.

    “

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_and_North_Eastern_Railway

    Posted 5 years ago #

  22. Tulyar
    Member

    Of course in all the smoke & mirrors stuff few realise that the operation of ECML as LNER is not re-nationalised. DfT has set up a contract with SNC-Lavalin (Canadian company)and Arup (UK-ish). Grayling carefully used words like Control (vs Own) and Partnership

    The big let downs by DfT and Network Rail on delivery of track & trains are spoken of sotto voce - although I'm grateful for that as the 8 minute train ride vs 25 minutes cycling along the A602, is still in place after a threatened closure to permit the main line timetable to be delivered

    Questions
    - 1 Who actually has the ORR licence to operate trains
    - 2 This means the May 2018 timetable changes haves just gone out the window....

    Posted 5 years ago #

  23. Morningsider
    Member

    Tulyar - I see London North Eastern Railway Limited
    (previously known as DfT OLR1 Ltd) (previously known as GW Railway Ltd), has various operating licences from the ORR.

    I imagine the May timetable changes will go ahead - NR would blow a gasket if they tried to change that now!

    The Tories just had to get rid of Directly Operated Railways and replace it with something more likely to line the pockets of their fat-cat chums.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  24. LaidBack
    Member

    Watched news covering the newly branded LNER train being piped into Waverley. Interviews with Grayling and RMT union rep.
    What STV news missed was failure to have any representation from Scotland on this new publicly owned service. I doubt BBC would pick up this either but I'm prepared to be corrected.

      From today's National.
      Union chief Manuel Cortes said Scotland should have a seat at the table given that the line has more than 300 miles of track north of the Border and serves stations including Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness.

      Cortes, who is general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), said: “It is typical of the pure anti-public sentiment held by privateer Tory Grayling that LNER will be running trains across Scotland without any Scottish representation on its board.

      “But it’s also indicative that whatever Ruth Davidson thinks, Westminster Tories hold Scotland in contempt. Imagine taking East Coast back into public ownership and not even considering Scotland should have a right to a voice at the table.

      “The man’s not fit to run a bath let alone a railway.”

    Posted 5 years ago #

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