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West Coast Franchise speculation

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KashmireHawker

KashmireHawker

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I note that on the 6th anniversary, of First originally being awarded the next Franchise, they still interestingly have Horizon Trains Limited as an active company, which makes one think that in the unlikely event that First/Trenitalia win; particularly with the recent suggestions of the former selling up there rail business to the latter: that brand name may actually come to use.
 
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route101

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Was on the 0737 from Glasgow to Wigan , and was surprised to see a at seat trolley after Carlisle , catering staff must of got on here . Very seldom see trolley on VTWC , are they doing more often or how do they decide what services to have a trolley?

Another note , last week was on a 9 car pendo to Glasgow , seem to recall its mostly 11 cars to Glasgow .
 
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route101

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LNW-GW Joint said:
Was it a via Birmingham service?
That service is more mixed than the directs, but often 11-car too (and the odd Voyager).
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Was the 1630 from Euston to Glasgow .

Few days ago , was on a brum to Glasgow service , and that was 11 car.
 
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whhistle

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KashmireHawker said:
Horizon Trains Limited as an active company, which makes one think that in the unlikely event that First/Trenitalia win; particularly with the recent suggestions of the former selling up there rail business to the latter: that brand name may actually come to use.
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If they did, I guess it would have to be HZT.
HT has already gone.

I suspect First won't get rid of their rail business.
Buses yes. If they were going to [get rid of trains], they wouldn't continue painting stock (wasting money as others say) into GWR colours. And then where would they be as a company? Wound up?
 
Aictos

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whhistle said:
If they did, I guess it would have to be HZT.
HT has already gone.
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Very doubtful after all, National Express East Coast, East Coast, Virgin Trains East Coast and now London North Eastern Railway have all used the TOC code of GR which was used by GNER so in any case, I just see the existing WCML services using WC as Virgin Trains has used all these years and HS for the High Speed 2 services.

It would be no different to GTR's Southern, Great Northern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express all having their own codes.

If they DID wanted to use a new code for the West Coast Partnership and First/Trenitalia did win then it would likely be HZ not HZT as TOC codes are usually two letters not three!
 
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whhistle

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Class 403 said:
...TOC codes are usually two letters not three!
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Rarely see East Midlands on this forum described as EM.
Nearly always see it as EMT.
Or GWR for example.
ATW, GTR, SWT, LNR, WMT, VWC occasionally.... not many that have two.

You seem to have thought I suggested the letter code for use in some sort of official capacity, which I'm not sure why or where you got that from in my post :s :P
 
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On realtimetrains West Midlands Trains and London Northwestern services are still listed as LM.
 
Aictos

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whhistle said:
Rarely see East Midlands on this forum described as EM.
Nearly always see it as EMT.
Or GWR for example.
ATW, GTR, SWT, LNR, WMT, VWC occasionally.... not many that have two.

You seem to have thought I suggested the letter code for use in some sort of official capacity, which I'm not sure why or where you got that from in my post :s :P
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I was referring to sites such as Real Trains Times and CCLDB which do use two letter codes and so was referring to these sites using HZ instead of HZT.
 
ForTheLoveOf

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KashmireHawker said:
Well it looks like regardless of the winning company, the return of London, Midland and Scottish Railway as the operator's name is inevitable, with the DfT having filed LMS as a Trademark last November: https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00003270382
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I wouldn't mind that brand coming back - the only issue then being the potential for confusion amongst passengers who have a (by that point) LNR-only Advance accidentally taking a "LMS" service (if it's branded in the same was as LNER is now). Or will they do the LNR thing and only use the abbreviation for shorthand ticket restriction codes?
 
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pt_mad

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And London, Midland and Scottish only tickets, and someone turns up with an LNR ticket who still thinks LNR is London Midland...
 
DenmarkRail

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I can easily see VT pulling out if they are forced to use a none Virgin name... Essentially they only bid to expand their brand.
 
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pt_mad

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DenmarkRail said:
I can easily see VT pulling out if they are forced to use a none Virgin name... Essentially they only bid to expand their brand.
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Presumably the best they could use would be 'LMS, Operated by Virgin Trains', and to use their own livery colours with the operated part as large as possible on the trains. Although that would seem somewhat of a contradiction to the LMS name.
 
Aictos

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pt_mad said:
Presumably the best they could use would be 'LMS, Operated by Virgin Trains', and to use their own livery colours with the operated part as large as possible on the trains. Although that would seem somewhat of a contradiction to the LMS name.
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Something along the lines that Transport Scotland has dictated on their trains which has a standard livery then on the doors it has Scotrail operated by First/Abellio/RailUK etc there's no reason why the DfT can't mandate this for TOCs under their watch.
 
Aictos

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Bletchleyite said:
Which they don't themselves help by continuing to use the LM code.
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Doesn't seem to matter on the ECML where the GR code originally used by GNER has now been used by National Express East Coast, East Coast, Virgin East Coast and now LNER - The only confusion on the ECML was caused by Virgin Trains taking over the ECML as people couldn't tell the difference between VTWC and VTEC.
 
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mmh

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Is there anywhere other than the journey planner on webtis "mixing desk" booking sites (I like them, are Transpennine Express and the hidden GWR one the last left) that someone will see the two letter codes? I've never seen one on a ticket.

Things like "VTWC + Connections" could definitely do with being clearer though. Perhaps the move towards acronym brand names might help with that. If a brand name is longer than maybe three or four syllables it's rubbish - or at least it makes for overly long automated announcements (at many stations mentioning it is pointless and should just be dropped)
 
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cle

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Is there any more capacity to run additional services due to Norton Bridge? If so, could that be added - and could it run from Euston? Or Birmingham? Or both?
 
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js1000

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I despise the recent trend to reverting to GWR, SWR, LMS etc.

I know many traditionalists like it but I feel it's a desperate PR ploy by some folk in the DfT to try to pass off our railways as being operated by the government knowing full well how many passengers hate the current public owned railway/private operators.

The real intentions are not honourable.
 
ForTheLoveOf

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js1000 said:
I despise the recent trend to reverting to GWR, SWR, LMS etc.

I know many traditionalists like it but I feel it's a desperate PR ploy by some folk in the DfT to try to pass off our railways as being operated by the government knowing full well how many passengers hate the current public owned railway/private operators.

The real intentions are not honourable.
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Those companies were always private operators, so how is the government passing them off as government operated? If anything, LNER for example is the opposite - they are being passed off as just another private TOC when they are, in fact, quasi state run.
 
bramling

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js1000 said:
I despise the recent trend to reverting to GWR, SWR, LMS etc.

I know many traditionalists like it but I feel it's a desperate PR ploy by some folk in the DfT to try to pass off our railways as being operated by the government knowing full well how many passengers hate the current public owned railway/private operators.

The real intentions are not honourable.
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Surely at least part of the intention is to stop all the nonsense rebranding happening on a revolving door basis? Certain franchises have been more plagued by this than others. Will be interesting to see what becomes of the c2c brand when the time comes - personally I despise it and think it sounds very out of date, yet for some reason it not only seems to stick but seems pretty sacrosanct.
 
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PR1Berske

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I'm wary of topic drift, but, yeah, I'm less cynical. It's one of those topics where it's "damned if you do...". Constant rebranding, logo changes and associated replacing of colour schemes gets some people in a very bad frame of mind. If the DfT is engineering a situation where "LNER", "LNW", "LMS", "WaB/Ca'rG" never change, it should placate the criticism of money wasting on every franchise renewal.
 
DenmarkRail

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ForTheLoveOf said:
Those companies were always private operators, so how is the government passing them off as government operated? If anything, LNER for example is the opposite - they are being passed off as just another private TOC when they are, in fact, quasi state run.
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LNER isn’t state run, it’s state owned... On a more simple note, I thought the point of privatisation, was to give operators free reign, not tell them how they can brand themselves. Market research suggests people couldn’t care about traditional names and respond better to brand names, like Virgin.
 
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