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Post by joefrombow on Aug 9, 2019 5:13:09 GMT
Oh how times change. TOCs used to make a killing from a captive audience, commuters. The completely foreseeable era of home working has resulted in a dramatic drop in commuter numbers. GA are in a legal battle with, among others, the DfT trying to reduce their contributions. That's around 5 TOCs struggling. I can see Boris backing a return to British Rail, it's the sort of big patriotic gesture that he thinks will keep him in No.10. If they can find a new way for their friends in the city to make money out it, then it'll happen. It's a big shame for the staff though, they're a great bunch on C2C. Hopefully it gets sorted c2c I find is probably one of the best franchises partly down to it's small size but also ran very well everytime I use it anyway a few times a year even though the Essex locals probably disagree , but something's got to give NXEC & VTEC gave up the East Coast franchise , VTWC not in the running for the West Coast and GA trying to change what they have even though Abellio has just won the EMT franchise , I think a change is coming for the way these are awarded or a change to the whole franchising system , seems to me they have a lot more risk now than they did in 90s when it all started what changed ? Let's hope a change comes but hopefully not in the form of "Borisrail" .
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Post by TNL33036 on Feb 10, 2020 10:59:25 GMT
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Feb 10, 2020 22:15:53 GMT
I had a feeling this was coming, it was reported many months ago that finances weren't in the best state in that company.
Should Trenitalia leave the c2c franchise then I wonder if they'd pull the plug on the West Coast too, which would be ironic seeing as it was initially asked that all bids have an operator that has experience of high speed services and it was Trenitalia who brought this to First's bid.
There is talks of a renogiciation however that doesn't seem to have worked for Virgin East Coast or Northern so unless there's a dramatic change here they'll probably flogging a dead horse. However it is interesting that the OLR is already preparing to potentially step in and take over when that usually isn't considered until a far later stage when things are usually much worse. Unless this really is worse than what it sounds like at c2c.
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Post by routew15 on Feb 10, 2020 23:43:07 GMT
It definitely feels like the operator of last resort is far from a last resort, now more than ever.
I don’t know if the DfT is trying to bring all the poor performing franchises (LNER, Northern, SWR, Southeastern and Essex Thameside) in house, before re-letting them after the Williams Review where contracts can be let under these preferred conditions. Id imagine the problem with this would be, would many reputable transport companies have confidence in the train franchising after having the rug pulled from beneath them...
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 10, 2020 23:55:34 GMT
It definitely feels like the operator of last resort is far from a last resort, now more than ever. I don’t know if the DfT is trying to bring all the poor performing franchises (LNER, Northern, SWR, Southeastern and Essex Thameside) in house, before re-letting them after the Williams Review where contracts can be let under these preferred conditions. Id imagine the problem with this would be, would many reputable transport companies have confidence in the train franchising after having the rug pulled from beneath them... Maybe if they know they can't renegotiate franchise agreements, maybe they won't go with such crazy offers in the bidding process. If you are a losing bidder and find 18 months into a contract it is being renegotiated, that must really pee you off, as you were right, they would never make it work for that price
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Feb 11, 2020 11:45:44 GMT
It definitely feels like the operator of last resort is far from a last resort, now more than ever. I don’t know if the DfT is trying to bring all the poor performing franchises (LNER, Northern, SWR, Southeastern and Essex Thameside) in house, before re-letting them after the Williams Review where contracts can be let under these preferred conditions. Id imagine the problem with this would be, would many reputable transport companies have confidence in the train franchising after having the rug pulled from beneath them... Maybe if they know they can't renegotiate franchise agreements, maybe they won't go with such crazy offers in the bidding process. If you are a losing bidder and find 18 months into a contract it is being renegotiated, that must really pee you off, as you were right, they would never make it work for that price I think of one of the biggest issues with c2c is that the expected passenger numbers did indeed rise. Shortly following the contract award in 2014 National Express hoped to increase passenger numbers by increasing stops at intermediate stations such as Barking, Upminster and West Ham and boy did that happen. It got so uncontrollable that people in Essex and Thurrock started to complain about the crowding and so c2c removed these extra stops. However just as they did that there was a flare up from Barking and Upminster and I know at Barking the campaigns went as far as government to bring the stops back so they effectively had no choice. Naturally this has led to people from out in Essex working from home more often or in the case of Southend and Shoeburyness probably switching to the GA services. The reason this has all happened is that despite numbers had initially increased as hoped, the infrastructure to support it was not there at all. There's only so much you can do with 2 units of 12 car 387s to bolster the timetable. There has been speculation on other sites that this might actually be one of the reasons National Express sold the franchise to an unsuspecting buyer then left the train market as they could see it coming a mile off - despite they only had one last franchise at the time they certainly had the experience to make a decision like that. You still get flare ups on twitter where the users from out in Essex and Thurrock are complaining they can't squeeze onto the trains because of overcrowding with people who are alighting at Barking and Upminster, you can understand their frustration. However then with the state of the Underground which is the alternative you can't quite blame everyone. The other day it took me 10 minutes to travel from East Ham to Barking on the District Line as we had to stop around 5-6 times due to the platform at Barking being occupied. The way to fix c2c is debatable, the OLR probably won't be able to change much if they do take over. c2c were named the most punctual service in the capital two weeks ago so there's not much to improve in terms of service already offered. The line out of Fenchurch Street is already utilised to maximum capacity in the peaks with trains leaving every 3 minutes from each other. The obvious solution would be to increase the number of cars on all trains however at Fenchurch Street there's a case of multiple trains sharing the same platform in the peaks so you wouldn't be able to do that either. If you remove the Barking, West Ham and Upminster stops you'd just cause another flare up somewhere. It's almost as if this line is doomed to fail now.
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 11, 2020 12:17:27 GMT
Maybe if they know they can't renegotiate franchise agreements, maybe they won't go with such crazy offers in the bidding process. If you are a losing bidder and find 18 months into a contract it is being renegotiated, that must really pee you off, as you were right, they would never make it work for that price I think of one of the biggest issues with c2c is that the expected passenger numbers did indeed rise. Shortly following the contract award in 2014 National Express hoped to increase passenger numbers by increasing stops at intermediate stations such as Barking, Upminster and West Ham and boy did that happen. It got so uncontrollable that people in Essex and Thurrock started to complain about the crowding and so c2c removed these extra stops. However just as they did that there was a flare up from Barking and Upminster and I know at Barking the campaigns went as far as government to bring the stops back so they effectively had no choice. Naturally this has led to people from out in Essex working from home more often or in the case of Southend and Shoeburyness probably switching to the GA services. The reason this has all happened is that despite numbers had initially increased as hoped, the infrastructure to support it was not there at all. There's only so much you can do with 2 units of 12 car 387s to bolster the timetable. There has been speculation on other sites that this might actually be one of the reasons National Express sold the franchise to an unsuspecting buyer then left the train market as they could see it coming a mile off - despite they only had one last franchise at the time they certainly had the experience to make a decision like that. You still get flare ups on twitter where the users from out in Essex and Thurrock are complaining they can't squeeze onto the trains because of overcrowding with people who are alighting at Barking and Upminster, you can understand their frustration. However then with the state of the Underground which is the alternative you can't quite blame everyone. The other day it took me 10 minutes to travel from East Ham to Barking on the District Line as we had to stop around 5-6 times due to the platform at Barking being occupied. The way to fix c2c is debatable, the OLR probably won't be able to change much if they do take over. c2c were named the most punctual service in the capital two weeks ago so there's not much to improve in terms of service already offered. The line out of Fenchurch Street is already utilised to maximum capacity in the peaks with trains leaving every 3 minutes from each other. The obvious solution would be to increase the number of cars on all trains however at Fenchurch Street there's a case of multiple trains sharing the same platform in the peaks so you wouldn't be able to do that either. If you remove the Barking, West Ham and Upminster stops you'd just cause another flare up somewhere. It's almost as if this line is doomed to fail now. In that case c2c and DfT have to decide the more profitable option, and the others will unfortunately just have to suffer if you can't keep everyone happy.
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Feb 11, 2020 14:26:10 GMT
One of the various news articles on the matter says that Trenitalia is asking for a bailout otherwise is threatening to leave the West Coast partnership alongside the c2c, with the news surrounding HS2 today it would be quite a blow if Trenitalia did leave. I wonder what the governments stance on this will be.
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 11, 2020 14:32:12 GMT
One of the various news articles on the matter says that Trenitalia is asking for a bailout otherwise is threatening to leave the West Coast partnership alongside the c2c, with the news surrounding HS2 today it would be quite a blow if Trenitalia did leave. I wonder what the governments stance on this will be. Think there would be uproar if we bailed out a foreign state owned company. Goes back to my original post ... companies and DfT need to be more realistic with their franchise commitments and terms. At the same time the unions need to wake up to the fact that working practices need to be brought into line with the 21st Century, not languishing in the 50s and 60s.
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Post by TA1 on Feb 11, 2020 17:45:50 GMT
One of the various news articles on the matter says that Trenitalia is asking for a bailout otherwise is threatening to leave the West Coast partnership alongside the c2c, with the news surrounding HS2 today it would be quite a blow if Trenitalia did leave. I wonder what the governments stance on this will be. Think there would be uproar if we bailed out a foreign state owned company. Goes back to my original post ... companies and DfT need to be more realistic with their franchise commitments and terms. At the same time the unions need to wake up to the fact that working practices need to be brought into line with the 21st Century, not languishing in the 50s and 60s. Can you elaborate on what working conditions need to be bought into the 21st Century?
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 11, 2020 18:48:17 GMT
Think there would be uproar if we bailed out a foreign state owned company. Goes back to my original post ... companies and DfT need to be more realistic with their franchise commitments and terms. At the same time the unions need to wake up to the fact that working practices need to be brought into line with the 21st Century, not languishing in the 50s and 60s. Can you elaborate on what working conditions need to be bought into the 21st Century? Virtually everything ... you should hear them on railforums ...
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Post by ServerKing on Feb 11, 2020 21:57:08 GMT
Can you elaborate on what working conditions need to be bought into the 21st Century? Virtually everything ... you should hear them on railforums ... At the moment unions can strike at the drop of a hat... I think guards on trains are important, but sometimes it could be over a new technology, uniform change, change of shift, pay rise not being enough... stuff that most of us in other careers wouldn't have the same leverage on our employer to cause chaos whenever we want. Corbyn, plus the other losers vying for his job are coming out with rhetoric of backing every union and every strike. Imagine if Labour were in power, would they back a strike on the trains that could cause their government to lose more money?! As regards Trenitalia throwing its toys out of the pram and walking off, the mess Italy is in financially, I'm not surprised. Italy want to now take UK's place in the EU and be taken seriously, which makes as much sense as 19th placed West Ham demanding a Champions League place once the football season's done It's a shame, because C2C is run well, but this is a handy way for Boris to fight Labour at their own game by nationalising bits of the railway franchise by franchise. Whether he wants a TfL-style setup for National Rail of whatever the network will be called (like how Arriva run the Overground for TfL, but in their livery and their fare structure) remains to be seen. But another franchise collapse is like the Queen dealing with yet another Royal scandal or high profile divorce amongst her children just when you want stability. South Western Railway is next for the chop, so I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year, most of the franchises could be Government run, with a handful of successful private ones Interesting times. Boris is coming up with all soorts of weird and wonderful things, a road tunnel, plus bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland... HS2 is being built, makes you wonder where the money is coming from for this (plus 4000 electric buses)
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Post by TA1 on Feb 12, 2020 16:34:47 GMT
Can you elaborate on what working conditions need to be bought into the 21st Century? Virtually everything ... you should hear them on railforums ... I read what’s written on RUK, however, I was seeking your personal opinion on what working conditions need to be bought into the 21st century.
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 12, 2020 16:49:18 GMT
Virtually everything ... you should hear them on railforums ... I read what’s written on RUK, however, I was seeking your personal opinion on what working conditions need to be bought into the 21st century. The whole it has worked for the past 70 years so why should we change it attitude ... and dare to question anything you just get ganged up on and abused, and if you reply to them you get mass accusations of trolling ... that attitude speaks a lot of the rail culture to me ... bully those that dare to question your protectionist working practices.
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Post by redbus on Feb 12, 2020 23:54:42 GMT
We have to decide what the ToCs should be. Are they managers and therefore have a simple management contract to run the line, or are they risk takers. If they are risk takers as has generally been the case, then when they have judged the risks correctly the ToCs make lots of money, but if those risks are misjudged then there can be large losses. It is up to the ToCs to put in an attractive bid and get this right. We don't ask for the profits back when the get it right and make lots of money, so why should we bail them out when they get it wrong? If a ToC pulls out and the OLR has to take over, so be it, that is capitalism and the way we choose to run our railway. There are other ways (arguably better) to run the railway if we don't like it.
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