West Coast Partnership: Awarded to First Trenitalia

[RealTrains07]

It's not different at all. The West Coast and East Coast franchises were both joint ventures with Stagecoach. I'll repeat again, Stagecoach were involved with three competing franchises at the same time.

Arnt we talking about the 3 in scotland specifically though and bearing in mind stagecoach only had 3 for 3 years then back to 2 and now 1

 

[Darandio]

Arnt we talking about the 3 in scotland specifically though and bearing in mind stagecoach only had 3 for 3 years then back to 2 and now 1

Are you still talking about the First East Coast operation as well?

 

[EE Andy b1]

I dont disagree, Wonder how they will word it though cause its not like they can say london midland scottish railway in the announcements is it or london midland

"The train now boarding on platform 13 is the London, Midland & Scottish Pendolino service to Manchester Piccadilly"

 

[RealTrains07]

Are you still talking about the First East Coast operation as well?

Yes by next year first have:
1) west coast
2) tpe
3) east coast operation

 

[Aictos]

"The train now boarding on platform 13 is the London, Midland & Scottish Pendolino service to Manchester Piccadilly"

Common sense says “The train now boarding on Platform 1 is the 18:10 LMS service to Edinburgh.

No need for the Pendolino or London, Midland and Scottish references at all.

 

[RealTrains07]

"The train now boarding on platform 13 is the London, Midland & Scottish Pendolino service to Manchester Piccadilly"

I cant see them use that wording

Be interesting if first use their name in it

 

[adrock1976]

A simple and straightforward naming would be "Intercity West Coast".

Being as the franchise will be solely operating Intercity trains, I feel that is the best one. Also, I remember it was that branding in the days of British Rail was well.

 

[transmanche]

"The train now boarding on platform 13 is the London, Midland & Scottish Pendolino service to Manchester Piccadilly"

Would you hear: "The train now boarding at platform 3 is the London North Eastern Railway Azuma service to London King's Cross"?

My guess is it'll be like on the East Coast: so London Midland & Scottish is the Sunday name and LMS the name in everyday usage.

 

[Darandio]

Yes by next year first have:
1) west coast
2) tpe
3) east coast operation

The latter is largely irrelevant as a small open access operation and leaving EMT aside, is therefore no different than when Stagecoach had the ECML and WCML.

But I do sense we'll see the argument crop up time and again in the coming weeks/months. It's nothing to do with competition though, it's because it was fine when the trains had Virgin on the side but now it just won't do when the trains are operated by First.

 

[rich.davies]

Gobowen is a railhead for Oswestry, which is a bit larger. The new service only makes sense to be as an easy extension of an existing service. As pointed out by @LNW-GW Joint, the map on the DfT's website shows it to be an extension of the daily Wrexham service, the stock for which comes from the depot in the morning, and goes straight to the depot again in the evening. Extending it to Gobowen doesn't directly impact any other diagrams, it just needs it to spend less time at the depot. Low hanging fruit, and all that...

I gather this morning service will not pick up at Wrexham while on it's way to Gobowen, or pick up at the intermediate stations after Gobowen on it's way back to Wrexham.

 

[krus_aragon]

I gather this morning service will not pick up at Wrexham while on it's way to Gobowen, or pick up at the intermediate stations after Gobowen on it's way back to Wrexham.

Presumably the train will go to Gobowen as empty stock, like it does to Wrexham now. Chirk and Ruabon aren't included in the DfT's announcement, so that leaves the question on whether it will set down at Wrexham in the morning (and pick up in the evening) or not. Is this what you had in mind?

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Likely to be announced similar to LNER and announced as either “the train now standing at Platform 5 is the 14:25 London Midland Scottish service to Liverpool Lime Street” OR “the train now standing at Platform 5 is the 14:25 LMS service to Liverpool Lime Street”

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I gather this morning service will not pick up at Wrexham while on it's way to Gobowen, or pick up at the intermediate stations after Gobowen on it's way back to Wrexham.

That's exactly what I would expect.
Joins a Holyhead portion at Chester for a 10-car run to Euston.
It will also save annoying the residents of Watery Road by not needing to rumble away in the reversing loop at Wrexham.
The ECS currently returns to Crewe the same way, but it must be a similar mileage via Shrewsbury and Whitchurch.

 

[mmh]

Lengthy operator names aren't that unusual.

"London Midland and Scottish" is the same length as "London North Eastern Railway" and "London Northwestern Railway," the latter is routinely said in full.

(And only slightly longer than many others, e.g. Great Western Railway, London Overground etc.)

 

[Edgeley]

Hurrah - goodbye and good riddance to beardy Branson.

In an ideal world the new operator would bin the 390s and replace them with comfortably pleasant trains.

 

[RealTrains07]

Hurrah - goodbye and good riddance to beardy Branson.

In an ideal world the new operator would bin the 390s and replace them with comfortably pleasant trains.

Completely pointless, why remove newer modern trains that tilt and have a fast acceleration to replace them with slower trains that cant tilt and have cheap uncomfortable seats

 

[RealTrains07]

Lengthy operator names aren't that unusual.

"London Midland and Scottish" is the same length as "London North Eastern Railway" and "London Northwestern Railway," the latter is routinely said in full.

(And only slightly longer than many others, e.g. Great Western Railway, London Overground etc.)

And yet the 1 reason London northeastern railway is announced as LNER is to avoid confusion with LNR

If the name is LMS it should be said as London midland scottish with railway at the end. Makes it sound more official and less odd

 

[driver_m]

Taken from WNXX. Tony Miles has asked the question about the shop and apparently, it’s staying. So the 25000 seats in place of 23310 (standard only?) seats as now sounds ‘cozy’. Include first class in the number of seats and it sounds like it would be very low density. He’s also mentioned separately that the 397s ARE being tested at 125 on the northern stretches of the WCML

 

[RealTrains07]

For those of us who dont know?

Whats been said about seat changrsby first?

Whats the problems with it?

 

[StaffsWCML]

Hurrah - goodbye and good riddance to beardy Branson.

In an ideal world the new operator would bin the 390s and replace them with comfortably pleasant trains.

Yes lets make the service worse. May as well bring back the old 75Mph Diesel Trains or Steam.

Then knowing the management team at First Group, that probably could happen.

Should be fun getting to London with the 2 WCML operators being absolute crap now. Cant wait until December! as if dealing with the sheer incompetence of WMT (LNR) on a daily basis, the alternative option will now be First Group or if I go the MML more sodding Abellio nonsense. The sooner these cretins go out of business the better.

Better get used to some long distance driving.

 

[driver_m]

Yes lets make the service worse. May as well bring back the old 75Mph Diesel Trains or Steam.

Then knowing the management team at First Group, that probably could happen.

Should be fun getting to London with the 2 WCML operators being absolute crap now. Cant wait until December! as if dealing with the sheer incompetence of WMT (LNR) on a daily basis, the alternative option will now be First Group.

With respect, you or anyone else currently have no idea what the management team will be, so instead of condemning blindly, why don’t you wait and see who they actually appoint first? By all means be sceptical, but let’s see who gets the job....

 

[pdeaves]

In an ideal world the new operator would bin the 390s and replace them with comfortably pleasant trains.

Yes lets make the service worse. May as well bring back the old 75Mph Diesel Trains or Steam.

I'm not sure how you make the link between 'comfortably pleasant' and 'make the service worse'. Can you not have fast (tilting if necessary) comfortably pleasant trains?

 

[rich.davies]

Presumably the train will go to Gobowen as empty stock, like it does to Wrexham now. Chirk and Ruabon aren't included in the DfT's announcement, so that leaves the question on whether it will set down at Wrexham in the morning (and pick up in the evening) or not. Is this what you had in mind?

Yes, in simpler terms.

 

[mmh]

And yet the 1 reason London northeastern railway is announced as LNER is to avoid confusion with LNR

I'd doubt that. There are no stations served by both of them.

 

[mmh]

Yes, in simpler terms.

I can't see anyone bothering with implementing set down / pick up restrictions at Wrexham. Likewise at Deganwy!

 

[Edgeley]

The 390s are stuck with their small windows. Maybe it's possible to do something with the seating but I'm not sure it would change the overall ambience.

 

[RealTrains07]

I'd doubt that. There are no stations served by both of them.

People still do get confused with the names, see it all the time on twitter

 

[NoMorePacers]

FirstGroup seem to have the Sadim Touch - everything they touch they ruin (like South Western or FCC, or not even GWR is that good).

 

[RealTrains07]

FirstGroup seem to have the Sadim Touch - everything they touch they ruin (like South Western or FCC, or not even GWR is that good).

You wonder why the unions arn’t happy

 

[Journeyman]

I imagine that in a post-HS2 world tilt will be a thing of the past on the WCML. On the southern part, all the fastest trains will be on HS2, on the northern part all the principal trains will be non-tilting HS2 sets, surely no justification for maintaining tilt for secondary services. Nobody has UK gauge tilting trains in their catalogues, let alone tilting bi-modes and the numbers involved hardly make coming up with a bespoke design worthwhile.

I've certainly seen speculation that HS2 will fundamentally change the nature of WCML services to the point that it will become a 110mph long-distance commuter railway.