Trenitalia teams up with First Group

[snoggle]

Trenitalia have formed a bidding partnership with First Group for the upcoming refranchising of East Midlands and also the West Coast Partnership that takes over VWC / is shadow operator for HS2.

www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/trenitalia-joins-firstgroup-to-bid-for-uk-franchises.html

Interesting development and shows they're keen to get their teeth into UK Rail. Wonder what Italians make of it all?

[TNL33036]

Quite a large amount of rail work to win and embark on if they successfully do so, quite a fair amount of work for First to potentially win themselves considering they lost quite a few franchises around two years ago.

[snoggle]

Jan 24, 2017 17:11:01 GMT TNL33036 said:

Quite a large amount of rail work to win and embark on if they successfully do so, quite a fair amount of work for First to potentially win themselves considering they lost quite a few franchises around two years ago.

Well First struck lucky (or unlucky) with Great Western. They've managed to cling on to that franchise for a very long time and extricate themselves from a potentially financially damaging franchise extension commitment. They need to do well with Transpennine given the commitments there and it will be interesting to see if they manage it or not - a lot of dependency on Network Rail improvements.