ITTs are publicly available. They don't need to be told by anyone.If 50+ people on RUK knew DOO was on the cards in the ITT then it shouldn be news to the RMT.
I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to put asterisks in, but yes FCC didn't do a very good job on the Operations side and it probably got worse after they lost. Senior people start looking for new jobs, etc. It's a natural course of events. As a bidder you have two options - try to get the DfT to give you some coverage or assume the worst. DfT seem no longer interested in the former (and they've never been interested in actually holding outgoing TOCs to their contract, which specifies that they have to leave the franchise 'in a fit state'), so it was up to Govia to assume the worst.If you read the rolling stock issues parts of the report it very much appears F***t left them plenty of issues to resolve. The train reliably graph for TL & GN on page 7 show issues when through the roof on TL as soon as bids were delivered for example.
Also plenty of long term issues not resolved or even attempted by F***t. e.g. PIBS at St Pancras.
TL 377/2 & /5s being far less reliable than SN units when the took over.
Minimal heavy maintenance on 319s before takeover leading to backlog.
The hangover of F***t imfamous "no sundays" contract
GTR /SN did screw up the Jan and May 2015 timetables with the 24 vs 22tph issues at LBG but they had been told by NR in advance...
Also hints that F***t didn't bother to try to retain or recruit drivers before the handover.
Of course bidders can be tempted to do the opposite in order to win, or they can make errors - TSGN was a very complex bid and I've seen errors in driver numbers on much smaller franchises.
To me the list looks like a bunch of excuses - everyone knew (or should have known) that FCC didn't have enough drivers, that there were RDW issues, that there was a holiday backlog and that a number of drivers would have to be hired from day 1 for the upcoming Rolling Stock cascade. Without seeing the current driver turnover rates it's impossible to know whether it really is an issue, but it was known that there were a substantial number of drivers who were in a position to retire at any time (i.e. they had already worked 40+ years and therefore could get the maximum pension).
Either they did plan for these things, in which case the list is just covering up for the real reasons for cancellations, or they failed to, in which case they are incompetent. I also wonder how First can be blamed for the abysmal performance on Gatwick Express (which is far worse than on Thameslink).
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Can a franchise really be lost for speaking out about something? I wouldn't have thought so.
Given that they are almost certainly in breach of their performance metrics, then they are relying on DfT accepting their excuses and plans to improve things, so yes, speaking out could conceivably cost them the franchise.
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