TPE franchise to move to OLR

[Tetchytyke]

For a number of years Alston at Chester have managed to keep the 175s in relatively fine fettle despite their short comings.

Yet the 175s were catching fire when Alstom at Chester were maintaining them for FNW and ATW. It’s almost as though both the 175s and 180s are just terrible trains.

Not that the unreliability of a small fleet of notoriously unreliable trains which will be turned into baked bean cans within a year or two determines whether the ownership model of an operator is good or bad. Same applies to the 230s- do remind me how LNR are getting on with theirs on the Marston Vale.

Not really. It was still a 75mph, largely single track railway. Whilst the Turbos were undoubtedly a step-change from the preceding first-generation DMUs, the real transformation came when Chiltern masterminded the plans to turn it into a 100mph double track express route.

Laing had the perfect setting to achieve their aims- a 20 year franchise and a largely self-contained route. And they really can’t be faulted for fixing the mistakes BR made in the 80s, understandable that the decisions may have been at the time.

The improvements on their outer-suburban commuter network haven’t been quite so marked, not just on the Aylesbury line but also between High Wycombe and London.

It’s also telling that they aren’t anywhere near the same level these days, with there being a gradual decline since DB bought Laing and lumped Chiltern into Arriva. Not to mention naughty things like using their Open Access operator to meet Chiltern requirements.

 

[RollingStock19]

Nothing more than a scape goat. I'd look at the head first rail as the heart of the problems.

Cant be all that bad, their open access companies dont do to bad!

 

[tomuk]

Yet the 175s were catching fire when Alstom at Chester were maintaining them for FNW and ATW. It’s almost as though both the 175s and 180s are just terrible trains.

Yes the 175s (even more so the 180s) were not well built by Alstom but despite occasional conflagrations Chester managed to keep them in service for the last 20 years without 3 fires in close succession leading to an emergency fleet withdrawal. This dramatic fall in availability is under TfWs watch.

Not that the unreliability of a small fleet of notoriously unreliable trains which will be turned into baked bean cans within a year or two determines whether the ownership model of an operator is good or bad. Same applies to the 230s- do remind me how LNR are getting on with theirs on the Marston Vale.

Firstly West Midlands Trains are operating under DfT control and are required to find budget savings.

The Marston Vale 230s were only marginally reliable due to a rather large number of frequent engine changes with the collapse of VivaRail the excessive costs and ongoing risks of doing this would have fallen to WMT. In the face of this and a requirement to save money they bailed.

They only took on the 230s in the first place under pressure from local West Midlands stakeholders who had also loaned money to VivaRail, WMT found a better solution for the Leam - Cov - Nuneaton line where they were going to be used originally so went with Marston Vale as the 230s would only be required as a stop gap until EWR.

 

[Krokodil]

So a good day today then. How many sets are the overall, eight? You would think that more could be diagrammed. Was the dragging brakes issue about two weeks ago?

You know full well that some sets are in for door mods or refurbishment. Do tell me how many delay minutes were incurred by a pair of light engines having to be shunted into a siding at Bangor, and how many passengers were delayed by these light engines - in round numbers, please. Do you think that a train that made its own way into a siding without being declared a failure or requiring a 1Z99, and from which not a single passenger had to be evacuated qualifies as a major farce?

By the way, TfW ran 630 trains to PPM so far today. More than seven major English operators combined. The Welsh and Scottish government-run operators must be doing something right, as they don’t have strikes or overtime bans in place.

The DfT let Thameslink go to end-to-end crewing for reliability. I wouldn't rule it out totally.

I suppose that quite a few people in the DfT (and in Parliament) use Thameslink to get to work. They've therefore got a vested interest in its reliability. And of course the consequences of delays on Thameslink have a significant knock-on effect on the core.

 

[trainophile]

I wonder whether the TPE booking engine and app will be maintained after the takeover. I know it's a minor concern on the scale of things, but the app is so useful for e-tickets when I buy them through TPE.

 

[yorkie]

Existing contracts will continue to run for the duration of the contract.

 

[tomuk]

By the way, TfW ran 630 trains to PPM so far today. More than seven major English operators combined. The Welsh and Scottish government-run operators must be doing something right, as they don’t have strikes or overtime bans in place.

Yes ranked third from bottom with a PPM of 80% compared to a nation figure of 93%

 

[Confused52]

Existing contracts will continue to run for the duration of the contract.

Does that include the existing Train Service Requirement (TSR), which I note does not include the extension of the Manchester-Cleethorpes service to Liverpool Lime Street. Presumably short running on the South Route by avoiding the CLC, from Piccadilly to Lime St via Warrington Central, has not affected their bonus calculations and may have made that route a prime target for cuts for that reason. Will the behaviour change under OLR because the contract will change from the Existing National Rail Contract to an OLR Service Contract do you think?

 

[yorkie]

Does that include the existing TSR, which I note does not include the extension of the Manchester-Cleethorpes service to Liverpool Lime Street. Presumably short running on the South Route by avoiding the CLC has not affected their bonus calculations and may have made that route a prime target for cuts for that reason. Will the behaviour change under OLR because the contract will change from the Existing NRC to an OLR Service Contract do you think?

I don't know; it is possible some contracts have a clause which could be invoked in these circumstances, but this would be the exception rather than the norm.

I expect there are people on this forum who know the answer to such detailed questions, but they may not necessarily be able to divulge that.

(On a separate note, could you edit your post to elaborate on some of those abbreviations/acronyms please?)

 

[Krokodil]

Yes ranked third from bottom with a PPM of 80% compared to a nation figure of 93%

Try revising your percentages by basing them on the LTP timetable, rather than whatever survived the 10pm cull. Let's face it, Northern and TPE are hardly going to be affected by congestion when they have barely mustered 200 trains between them today.

How many delays were due to overcrowding with TfW picking up passengers from all of those English operators who aren't allowed to offer a reasonable settlement to their staff? You seem determined to distract from TPE's woes by going "but what about TfW?" when the latter has managed to deliver almost all of their advertised timetable in the last 12 months, without blocking multiple through platforms at key interchanges with crewless trains.

I can think of an Avanti service (well past the peak of their woes) that managed to run its full journey just once in a week. Guess who took their passengers on the other four days? The same operator whose services were crowded out between Manchester Airport and Manchester Piccadilly today and yesterday because TPE couldn't run a service of any description, and Northern just ran 1TPH, conveniently 10 minutes behind the TfW offering.

 

[tomuk]

Try revising your percentages by basing them on the LTP timetable, rather than whatever survived the 10pm cull. Let's face it, Northern and TPE are hardly going to be affected by congestion when they have barely mustered 200 trains between them today.

How many delays were due to overcrowding with TfW picking up passengers from all of those English operators who aren't allowed to offer a reasonable settlement to their staff? You seem determined to distract from TPE's woes by going "but what about TfW?" when the latter has managed to deliver almost all of their advertised timetable in the last 12 months, without blocking multiple through platforms at key interchanges with crewless trains.

I can think of an Avanti service (well past the peak of their woes) that managed to run its full journey just once in a week. Guess who took their passengers on the other four days? The same operator whose services were crowded out between Manchester Airport and Manchester Piccadilly today and yesterday because TPE couldn't run a service of any description, and Northern just ran 1TPH, conveniently 10 minutes behind the TfW offering.

I'm not trying to distract from TPE's woes it seems more that you are trying to justify TfWs poor performance by saying they aren't as bad as the worst performing TPE and Avanti. I'm just countering this narrative that Tfw are some sort of paragons of virtue.

 

[Krokodil]

They're doing a damned sight better than the company who are the subject of this thread. How they are doing in versus a fully electrified metro system (Merseyrail, TSGN, take your pick) running on modern TCB infrastructure isn't really a valid comparison.

They did of course have to pick up the pieces following the zero growth franchise awarded to ATW, with less time to get their act (PRM, refurbishments etc.) together than Northern had.

 

[baza585]

They're doing a damned sight better than the company who are the subject of this thread. How they are doing in versus a fully electrified metro system (Merseyrail, TSGN, take your pick) running on modern TCB infrastructure isn't really a valid comparison.

They did of course have to pick up the pieces following the zero growth franchise awarded to ATW, with less time to get their act (PRM, refurbishments etc.) together than Northern had.

They are less of a shambles than TPE but that ain't saying much.

They are amongst the worst of the TOCs on many measures.

The fact they are a public sector organization doesn't exempt them from criticism, in my book anyway.

 

[bearhugger]

I wonder whether the TPE booking engine and app will be maintained after the takeover. I know it's a minor concern on the scale of things, but the app is so useful for e-tickets when I buy them through TPE.

Northern have fairly recently started doing e-tickets rather than m-tickets through the app/website so hopefully it will be maintained.

 

[317 forever]

I wonder whether the final First TransPennine train will run normally, run short, be pulled from the timetable or be cancelled?

My hunch is the 4th of those.

 

[Danfilm007]

I wonder whether the final First TransPennine train will run normally, run short, be pulled from the timetable or be cancelled?

My hunch is the 4th of those.

"This train has been cancelled due to a lack of available franchises"

 

[185]

"This train has been cancelled due to being Transpennine Express"

....it'll be an 11-seater transit van driven by Taaj out of Come fly with me. "You get me?"

It looks like the silliness will continue, I hear most senior managers - the heads ofs and directors are TUPEing to OLR. That really shouldn't happen, and I feel an urgent question should be asked by the politicians as the whole point of contract termination was to stop the mismanagement.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

It looks like the silliness will continue, I hear most senior managers - the heads ofs and directors are TUPEing to OLR. That really shouldn't happen, and I feel an urgent question should be asked by the politicians as the whole point of contract termination was to stop the mismanagement.

It’s not up to the politicians to decide - the whole point of TUPE is to protect the staff when one contract ends and another one starts. You can’t just protect some staff and not others.

I think we have enough industrial relation issues on the railway at present without opening another can of worms.

 

[nr758123]

I wonder whether the final First TransPennine train will run normally, run short, be pulled from the timetable or be cancelled?

My hunch is the 4th of those.

Using the ludicrous "short notice change to the timetable" excuse.

 

[Killingworth]

It’s not up to the politicians to decide - the whole point of TUPE is to protect the staff when one contract ends and another one starts. You can’t just protect some staff and not others.

I think we have enough industrial relation issues on the railway at present without opening another can of worms.

In due course we'll probably see some staff moving on as their jobs are removed or redefined, probably encouraged to go with an attractive redundancy package. That's what usually happens in such circumstances but it's too near confirmation of the decision not to renew for such details to have been worked out yet.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

In due course we'll probably see some staff moving on as their jobs are removed or redefined, probably encouraged to go with an attractive redundancy package. That's what usually happens in such circumstances but it's too near confirmation of the decision not to renew for such details to have been worked out yet.

Agreed!

The OP’s suggestion that TUPE shouldn’t apply to a random selection of staff goes totally against the protection of T&Cs that unions have been fighting to keep!

I hear most senior managers - the heads ofs and directors are TUPEing to OLR

You do really misunderstand how TUPE works, it is for all staff employed by a business being taken over. You can’t randomly select which ones it applies to - it’s one of the battles the unions have been having to protect staff’s conditions!

 

[swt_passenger]

You do really misunderstand how TUPE works, it is for all staff employed by a business being taken over. You can’t randomly select which ones it applies to - it’s one of the battles the unions have been having to protect staff’s conditions!

I think there’s always been a certain amount of confusion about TUPE application.
IIRC in a thread some years ago a forum poster seriously thought the TU stood for ‘trade union’, and it only applied to members!

 

[Killingworth]

I think there’s always been a certain amount of confusion about TUPE application.
IIRC in a thread some years ago a forum poster seriously thought the TU stood for ‘trade union’, and it only applied to members!

I was in an organisation that decided to save money by outsourcing over 250 jobs and we were given about 3 months notice. The new company declined to take on some of us, too expensive, so we were given notice of redundancy and our jobs were relocated within the UK. About 10 days before the TUPE and redundancies, after we'd had a big goodbye party, it was all called off. The non-TUPE'd retained staff were delighted. The no longer redundant were certainly not as they were deployed to inferior roles on retained salaries. However many of the best had already found better jobs elsewhere, redundancy payment or not (I could retire).

The railway industry game of musical chairs is due a new round. Check back in 12 months and see where the music stopped.

 

[A0wen]

You do really misunderstand how TUPE works, it is for all staff employed by a business being taken over. You can’t randomly select which ones it applies to - it’s one of the battles the unions have been having to protect staff’s conditions!

That's not correct - it depends on the nature of the takeover and whether the jobs are needed moving forward.

So if the organisation doing the takeover already has, for example, a Finance Director and HR director then these roles can legally be put at risk of redundancy at the point of takeover with the justification being ETO (Economic, Technical or Organisational).

If only part of an organisation is being taken over or sold to a new owner - an example from a while back was when Sovereign Bus sold part of their Stevenage operations to Luton & District, not all Sovereign drivers would have been subject to TUPE as some of the work was being retained - not all employees may be offered TUPE as some will remain with the original employer.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

I think there’s always been a certain amount of confusion about TUPE application.
IIRC in a thread some years ago a forum poster seriously thought the TU stood for ‘trade union’, and it only applied to members!

I remember that post!
I’m not quite sure why the OP thought it would only apply to some grades at not others, the point is worker protection so they aren’t out of a job with no notice. Again I’m not sure why the OP thinks some staff aren’t deserving of this protection!

Of course it is worth noting it only applies at the point of transfer, there is nothing to stop the new employee proposing changes immediately or starting redundancies.

Staff are of course allowed to reject the TUPE which basically gives severance on the date of the of transfer with no notice period or payments. Staff have up until the last minute to reject the TUPE which has been know to lead operators short of staff at the very last minute.

In some cases the board/some of the board are employed by the owing group which means TUPE does not apply to them.

That's not correct - it depends on the nature of the takeover and whether the jobs are needed moving forward.

So if the organisation doing the takeover already has, for example, a Finance Director and HR director then these roles can legally be put at risk of redundancy at the point of takeover with the justification being ETO (Economic, Technical or Organisational).

Whether the jobs are needed going forward is irrelevant. The incoming business is not allowed to pick and choose. All staff employed by the previous business are protected by TUPE. It is only employees who can reject the TUPE not employers.

However you are spot on in your second point as I elaborated in another post, TUPE only applies at the point of transfer. You can immediately after transfer be placed at risk of redundancy.

In many cases there may be a deal done where the the person involved knowing there is no future in their employment rejects the TUPE and effectively resigns or is immediately put on gardening leave.

 

[tomuk]

....it'll be an 11-seater transit van driven by Taaj out of Come fly with me. "You get me?"

It looks like the silliness will continue, I hear most senior managers - the heads ofs and directors are TUPEing to OLR. That really shouldn't happen, and I feel an urgent question should be asked by the politicians as the whole point of contract termination was to stop the mismanagement.

That's how OLR works they just appoint a couple of senior directors, almost non-execs, and possibly back fill the CEO position if they have fallen on their sword or have 'escaped' back to the owning group.

 

[WatcherZero]

Whether the jobs are needed going forward is irrelevant. The incoming business is not allowed to pick and choose. All staff employed by the previous business are protected by TUPE. It is only employees who can reject the TUPE not employers.

However you are spot on in your second point as I elaborated in another post, TUPE only applies at the point of transfer. You can immediately after transfer be placed at risk of redundancy.

In many cases there may be a deal done where the the person involved knowing there is no future in their employment rejects the TUPE and effectively resigns or is immediately put on gardening leave.

Thats not how TUPE works, it only protects terms and conditions of workers who continue to have a job or being made redundant immediately before or after a transfer. Workers can be made redundant during a TUPE'd transfer of ownership if the consultation on worker requirements post acquisition starts at least 90 days before and completes 30 days before the transfer of company ownership occurs.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

In respect of TUPE, I think a lot depends who you are actually employed by.

If you are employed by "First Transpennine Express Ltd" then you will automatically TUPE across to the new "Transpennine Trains Ltd".

If however your contract of employment is with, say "First Group PLC" or any other part of the parent company or any other business, then you will not automatically TUPE over.

It is often the case that Managing Directors and other senior directors are employed by the owning group rather than the TOC itself so those people may not automatically TUPE over.

Of course there are a number of other issues with removing TPE from First, which will need resolving by OLR.

Most of TPEs core business functions are carried out by other parts of the Group.

TPE has no payroll department - this is all carried out by GWR.

TPE has no big IT department, and I think has no IT employees. If I remember correctly the small IT team actually work for Group not TPE.

TPE has no large HR department which deal with recruitment for example, this is handled by Group centrally, with just a small team of local HR staff at TPE.



These are all functions which will need to move away from First and need to be absorbed elsewhere by another company, or additional staff etc recruited to do it all inhouse. Either that or you pay First to carry on doing those functions in at least the short term.

 

[185]

You do really misunderstand how TUPE works, it is for all staff employed by a business being taken over. You can’t randomly select which ones it applies to - it’s one of the battles the unions have been having to protect staff’s conditions!

What absolute nonsense. As mentioned above, if the new owner chooses to appoint its own 'competent' replacement execs, to replace those who crashed the boat into the iceberg, that's entirely their choice, with redundancy offered to those they choose not to retain. Given the way TPE has been mismanaged, OLR should eject the entire exec team and all heads of departments.

 

[Krokodil]

Given the way TPE has been mismanaged, OLR should eject the entire exec team and all heads of departments.

The MD responsible for the mismanagement was moved on long ago. Matthew Golton was the one brought in to clear up the mess. The DfT straitjacket limited his ability to progress in this regard. He may well appreciate a return to GWR though, he's aged a decade under the stress.