I really can't believe the Government will want the GTR franchise to be taken over by an Operator of Last Resort. They can get away with it on the East Coast as it's a relatively small, simple operation, but GTR as well I'm not so sure. It would be also play to the unions and nationalisation agenda which I'd have thought a Tory Government would be keen to avoid at all costs.
Could they appoint another private operator. Would anyone really be willing to take it on?
I suspect what we'll see is plans for the break up of GTR, and maybe ending the contract earlier than planned. It wouldn't surprise me if we end up with:
- Moorgate services to TfL
- Southern Metro to TfL
- Cambridge/Kings Lynn and maybe Peterborough fasts that run from Kings Cross to LNER/New East Coast Partnership
That would leave the remainder to be let as two franchises:
- Southern - services from the southern London Terminals
- Thameslink - the services that run through the core.
I think this may be a case of having to say something, with the shambles ongoing and seemingly getting worse.
How would a replacement management structure be sourced at short notice, and what would they actually do? Sadly many of the mistakes were made months or years ago, and whilst GTR is definitely one of the worst operators, the finger of blame lies rather closer to DFT in my view.
Until someone at DFT level acknowledges and accepts that the fundamental problem is with the *Thameslink Programme* there is unlikely to be much improvement IMO. If there had been no Thameslink Programme then there would almost certainly have been no TSGN franchise, and by definition no GTR!
I’m note sure I could see any private company wanting to take on the franchise in its current form - it really is now a total poison chalice. At best put it back to Southern/Gatwick Express and Thameslink/Great Northern.
It’s so hard to hold anyone accountable for this mess. The programme predates Grayling for sure, it predates the current government, and it goes back to the Labour years, albeit a Labour almost unrecognisable compared to today. And how does one hold faceless civil servants to account, who are supposed to be politically neutral? Meanwhile both Grayling and GTR (and Horton) have also proven themselves to be at best ineffective.
I suppose a lot will depend what happens from 15th July. One presumes the main difference will be tailored driver rosters and train diagrams. But still a service woefully inferior to pre-20th May even if it runs 100% to plan, which given the mess we’ve seen in the last few weeks I think is a massive if, and not one I’d be willing to bet much on.
It’s clear some very incompetent people have been let loose on this project at various stages, and hopefully at the very least they will never find themselves in such positions again. Reading through some historic posts on this forum by certain people, one individual in particular, is certainly amusing, although not sure whether to laugh or cry at times. This is what happens when some incompetent children try to join some dots on a map with no clue about the realities of what they tried to do.
Unfortunately the most realistic answer to the question of where do we go from here, is that quite simply never in a million years should we have got here in the first place. One hopes some of the “total fleet replacement” type new franchises are keeping any eye on all this too, with perhaps a cautionary feeling about trying to change too much in a short space of time.
