I do wonder whether VT will walk away from the rail industry. Sad that we will have nothing but former bus companies running the majority of the network
If Virgin were such a good franchise then you do realise that Stagecoach had half of the franchise?
And what about DB (who run XC, Wales & Borders and Chiltern), Keolis (Southern, Southeastern, London Midland franchises and Transpennine Express), Abellio (Greater Anglia, Northern Rail and Merseyrail), MRT (LOROL)?
You could argue that there are more "train" companies running TOCs nowadays than before?
I know Branson is a driven, winner but is it too much to ask for him to just shrug his shoulders, accept losing and walk away with a scrap of dignity?
Yes.
Expect the pram to be well and truly empty by Tuesday morning.
And me too! NX might be trying to flourish under what is essentially ex First Group / Stagecoach / Virgin management, but at the end of the day they'll still be National Express - So expect cost cutting sneaking everywhere including greater use of vinyls and bodge job repairs - And i still can't forgive them for both the fiascos of East Coast and 'ONE' / National Express East Anglia
Yet National Express did a great job on ScotRail and Midland Mainline and seem to be doing rather well on C2C.
Many companies who've run more than one franchise have had mixed results - National Express aren't unique.
I do wonder if a timetable recast could merge the wolverhampton terminator with the Birmingham-Scotland trains and thus save running an extra train per hour between Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
I know its a tiny tiny drop in the ocean... but every little helps?
It's a busy route and the fewer trains ICWC run between Brum and Wolves the smaller share of the revenue they will receive, so it wouldn't make commercial sense.
It will depend on the minimum number of services the TOC is required to operate between the 2 destinations. Some Virgin services effectively operate this way with a London-Birmingham service then forming a Birmingham-Scotland and recall the ITT gave the flexibility for bidders to come up with alternative ideas. But agree with 8 other services an hour can't see it being too much of a problem outside the peaks.
I didn't think the DfT would take too kindly to being expected to bankroll the cost of running an extra service on what amounts to an ORCATs raid.
The DfT won't be bankrolling it and the service already exists so it isn't an ORCATs raid. TOCs want to make money, especially when they have to pay the DfT £5-£7 bn over 15 years, so they are not going to just voluntarily give up a slice of a lucrative flow so they can transfer a unit to some other service.
Running a combined London - Birmingham - Wolverhampton - Crewe - Glasgow/ Edinburgh service would free up a train, allowing it to be deployed elsewhere (extending or doubling up other services).
In the scope of the WCML franchise the reduction from 2/8 to 1/7 of the New Street - Wolves ORCATS money (in a subsidised PTE) area might not be that great and could be offset by gains to be made elsewhere.
Plus you'd give Milton Keynes/ Rugby/ Coventry an hourly link to places further north (Crewe/ Wigan/ Preston).
So get rid of say 1 or 2 1st class carriages and convert them into standard, that would increase revenue and you lose say 2 members of staff, that has to be better then the mass cull that Farce group will probably do
That's what I'm talking about - there are surely some practical cuts that could be made to the current over-provision of First Class service (considering the number of people paying full First Price fares seems to be nosediving).
Despite Branson's "mass cull" claims, I'm sure First could amend things to the kind of level that FGW have without going all the way to running Pacers on Euston services (which some on here seem to be suggesting will happen!).
