F Great Eastern : "It's very much a case of watch this space in relation to this and may end up being a case study on why operational teams and bid managers and commercial management need to work hand in hand, rather than the GA approach which seems to be the commercial and bid managers plough their own furrow and make the promises and bold claims, without consulting those on the operational side, whilst the operational side are told to make whatever they have work regardless of the practicalities of it.
GA will have to almost certainly either keep some of the older stock on for several years longer than they first planned to deal with these issues whilst they procure additional rolling stock, or keep them on for the life of the franchise to address this issue and this you would think, would have serious implications on Abellio's sums and perhaps someone there has realised this."
Yep. We dont know the premium payment schedule as that is commercially confidential, but rumour was that other bidders bid £600m less over life of the franchise. The jury is still out, but the evidence is mounting of a franchise with big problems. There are various obligations in the Franchise Agreement that read as if the bid team were over-enthusiastic, including Brantham, fitting of 96 platforms with beacons to allow 12 car 317s by 31 Oct 2018 (presumably never going to happen), extending various platforms to accommodate 10 car 720s by 1 Sept 2018 (no one knows if will ever happen = 317s to run to Hertford East for the duration?), entire fleet with wifi by 31 Dec 2018 (see clause below, seems unlikely).
4.1 "by no later than 31 December 2018 and throughout the remainder of the Franchise Period, provide the Mobile Communication Services in accordance with Schedule 13.1 (Rail Industry Initiatives) in both first class and Standard Class Accommodation on all of the Train Fleet used for the provision of Passenger Services"
And by way of reminder TSR2 is due May 2019 and TSR3 May 2020. TSR2 requires only relatively small enhancements, see below, have to see if they will be delivered. TSR3 is full recast, with many more services. No drafts have ever been published, have to see if deliverable in practice. Assuming new fleet delivers better acceleration and breaking may be possible to squeeze them in, but reality is that dwell times need to increase as at most secondary stations are 30secs only which is undeliverable and needs to be increased to 1min, and also new IC / Airport units are 1 door only per carriage, 10 per train, where a 8 car unit currently has 16, 12 car 24. Also now that Crossrail is late I think that means platform extensions at LivSt originally planned to be done Summer 19 will be delayed, not sure how that affects capacity and ability to deliver the May 2020 timetable.
All this is in addition to the introduction of all the new trains with all the commissioning and staff training that goes with that. It is a tall order.
TSR2 enhancements are:
- Hertford East 2TPH to 3TPH off peak only
- Southend Vic 3TPh to 4TPH off peak only
- Norwich Cambridge hourly extended to Stansted Airport all day
- LivSt Ipswich hourly semifast extended to Norwich all day
- introduction of STAR