FirstGroup issued a tender yesterday for the supply of rail passenger seats. The tender is for between £15m and £20m of new seats for existing and future FirstGroup train operating companies for 4 years.
Can they physically do that ?
What I mean is that there are "obligatory" maintenance schedules and the trains can't physically do any more mileage can they , or are they doubling services ?
I'm just not sure how they can half break the fleet that's all.
As far as the additional train investment goes , 21 baby pendos , why would Dft be waxing lyrical about First adding 12 extra trains when Virgin "proposed" 21 ? That doesn't make much sense to me. Would Dft really set themselves up as sitting ducks like this ?
Just had a thought - are Virgin going to run their units into the ground before hand over in hope of First inheriting a half-broken fleet so Beardie can point at them and go "A-hah! Told you so!" when they run into reliability issues?
*dons tin-foil hat*
Admittedly most of my once-a-week journeys to and from London were in first. The onboard crews were exceptional - particularly the Preston teams who usually manned the services that I boarded at LTV.
Customer Service and culture were the things that I had an interest in, in my day job. The way that Virign's on board teams worked together and engaged with their customers was remarkable - I often wished some of it could have been injected into the public sector organisation that I worked for.
When my organsation eventually 'banned' first class travel, although obviously not as visible, the staff were no less focused.
What I find completely dispiriting is the belief by some here (and in the Railway press) that in December, you'll be able to stick a new uniform on these people and everything will be the same. It won't, and to suggest it will be mises the point that a 'vanilla' get what you're given railway is no longer what the customer wants.
Just had a thought - are Virgin going to run their units into the ground before hand over in hope of First inheriting a half-broken fleet so Beardie can point at them and go "A-hah! Told you so!" when they run into reliability issues?
Turnaround times could be tightened, but it looks like Virgin are proposing roughly the same level of service as First but with around nine fewer trains - even if you start "stepping back" at Euston, I can't see how that'd be feasible.
Is the "we would get rid of Voyagers" stuff just smokescreen/ misunderstanding?
Virgin planned on replacing all 21 voyagers so just replacing the sane amount. First will keep all 21 voyagers plus the new 11 trains so 32 trains in totalas oppose to virgins 21
If Virgin were to win and were replacing the Voyagers outright, where would they go? CrossCountry?
In my opinion CrossCountry need the rolling stock more than West Coast anyway, but I'm not sure Baby Pendos would solve WC's capacity problems, perhaps somewhere in the middle would have been better for both bids - order the new trains, and give some but not all Voyagers to XC?
Pretty much my thoughts on the matter, with the proviso that Virgin should just be graceful losers.I personally haven't had any problems with Virgin Trains or First Group.
We just need to let First get on with the job & if it goes belly up, then the franchise will be re-let.
I find that hard to work out myself, not sure if trying to intergrate the diagrams better may help, ie you could have a London - Glasgow - Birmingham diagram. This would of course mean 6 coach pendo's going to London but off peak this will be sufficent capacity on many routes. Likewise joining up the London - Birmingham and Birmingham - Scotland daigrams may help. But the maths doesn't work.
Direct to Stirling? Is that and ORCATs raid on East Coast. I am sure with the slack in East Coast diagrams they could easily respond to that. Take for example the 0800 London - Edinburgh service, arrives (1225) It is not needed until the 1400 Edinburgh - London service, (although it could be pushed back to 1430) if the 0900 service covers the 1400 return. East Coast could make a return to Stirling in that time with no extra stock.
Blackpool and Bolton will be electrified by 2016 so keeping the 21 Voyagers does not make sense. A larger fleet of 6 car Pendolinos would be required to make use of the new Lancs electrification.
Nobody would be giving any trains to anybody, except back to their owning ROSCO, who would then have to try and find someone to take them.
Spare Voyagers doesn't automatically mean extra Voyagers on XC. I expect the XC franchise will be tendered on a similar basis to the ICWC one, where the DfT will specify a minimum service level and the bidders will be able to introduce more stock and services if they wish, but at their risk.
We've only got three and a half years left of the current XC franchise - the next one might see some Voyagers replaced (if Manchester - Southampton is properly electrified before long)
All the Voyagers are off-lease at the end of XC franchise so the new franchisee (if they keep the same map) will have a blank sheet of paper..
Something that has just occurred to me.
Virgin only bid on long-distance Inter-City franchises. If they want to prove themselves as a customer-focused operator (which is what they trumpet themselves as), why do they not bid for a commuter route, such as Thameslink or Greater Anglia?
Something that has just occurred to me.
Virgin only bid on long-distance Inter-City franchises. If they want to prove themselves as a customer-focused operator (which is what they trumpet themselves as), why do they not bid for a commuter route, such as Thameslink or Greater Anglia?
ORCATS raid on ScotRail maybe, but not East Coast they only have one service in each direction calling at Stirling.Direct to Stirling? Is that and ORCATs raid on East Coast.
They won't have long to arrange replacements, if the franchise is only awarded a few months before hand though
VWC Pendolinos and Voyagers are an exception, because DfT have guaranteed they have to be used by the incoming franchisee until 2022 and 2016 respectively.
A fact probably lost on most of the signatories of the e-petition.......
Aren't the Pendos owned by the ROSCO?They'd only need to replace them if the incoming francisee didn't wish to re-negotiate and continue the lease. It would be better explained as they are required to be leased by Arriva for use on XC until at least 2016. That doesn't mean they have to stop being used in 2016, as LNW-GW Joint's post could imply, because nearly all normal rolling stock leases are end dated at franchise expiry anyway. VWC Pendolinos and Voyagers are an exception, because DfT have guaranteed they have to be used by the incoming franchisee until 2022 and 2016 respectively.
Aren't the Pendos owned by the ROSCO?
Couldn't the ROSCO choose to sell the Pendos to Virgin (for export) instead of entering into a new lease with a lessee judged to be risky?
Backed by the Dft for the route until 2022 so no.Aren't the Pendos owned by the ROSCO?
Couldn't the ROSCO choose to sell the Pendos to Virgin (for export) instead of entering into a new lease with a lessee judged to be risky?
(I'd sign with Virgin Media if there was cable here, for high-speed broadband and to get TiVo)
Virgin 'raised concerns earlier'
Sir Richard Branson has denied claims made by the Transport Secretary that he only raised concerns over the rail franchising system after Virgin lost the bid to continue running the West Coast Main Line.
In a letter to the Financial Times, the Virgin boss said he has been in contact with the Department for Transport for "more than two years" over the process.
Last month the Government announced that Virgin Trains had lost out to FirstGroup in the bidding war to run a new 13-year franchise of the line from December.
Justine Greening said last week the process had been "fair and well-established", and the FT reported she said Virgin "raised no concerns with [the] process until it emerged that they had lost the bid".
Sir Richard wrote: "The truth is we did and have been in dialogue with the Department for Transport for more than two years on the issues around the invitation to tender.
"Furthermore, we had expressed our views to the Conservatives in several meetings while they were in opposition.
"In particular, we focused on the assessment and deliverability of risks involved in such long and volatile franchises, as well as seeking assurances on our long held view that bids were typically won by aggressive revenue commitments from bidders relying on good spreadsheet skills rather than good rail business sense."
Anybody connected with it should be prohibited from saying anything while the judicial review is on.Bransons hit back at allegations hes only crying foul because he lost, he claims hes raised the issue numerous times over the last two years during the tendering development process and consultations, even as far back as holding private briefings with the Conservative party over the issue when they were in opposition.
Bransons hit back at allegations hes only crying foul because he lost, he claims hes raised the issue numerous times over the last two years during the tendering development process and consultations, even as far back as holding private briefings with the Conservative party over the issue when they were in opposition.