West Midlands Mayor Wants WMT Franchise Stripped

KashmireHawker · 23 Dec 2019

Andy Street, the elected Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands has made a big intervention, within the running of West Midlands Trains services as he has this morning called for the franchise to be ended, IF dramatic improvements aren’t made by January 31st.

Do see his full statement, that he released in a series of tweets via the quoted one below.

https://twitter.com/andy4wm/status/1209011608191717377?s=21

The current service provided by West Midlands Trains is WOEFUL. I have lost all faith in WMT's ability to run our network. If not sorted by midnight 31/01/20, I will formally ask @transportgovuk to STRIP WMT of the franchise.

For full accessibility and without the quote, do see the image for the full statement from the Mayor of the West Midlands.

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Djgr · 23 Dec 2019

KashmireHawker said:
Andy Street, the elected Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands has made a big intervention, within the running of West Midlands Trains services as he has this morning called for the franchise to be ended, IF dramatic improvements aren’t made by January 31st.

Here is his full statement, that he released in a series of tweets via the quoted one below.

https://twitter.com/andy4wm/status/1209011608191717377?s=21

Good luck with that. As he says in his Tweet people have been trying without success to get rid of Northern for months. Ironic that he is a member of the political party who gave us all this madness on the railway in the first place!

STKKK46 · 23 Dec 2019

1. Bring forward next May timetable change.... that would cause absolute chaos in itself bringing forward a timetable change. There would be clashes everywhere.
2. Skipping local stops helps return to a normal service. Admittedly it is done probably too often, but it’s the easiest way to get back.
3. Pretty sure WMT don’t set the fares in this instance, could be wrong.

YorkshireBear · 23 Dec 2019

I'd be waiting until the may timetable change that's their opputunity to fix it.

Bletchleyite · 23 Dec 2019

They could not bring forward the timetable change (it is in fact December 2020 that allegedly contains the supposed fixes) but they could and should implement an emergency timetable with planned cancellations and rediagram their crews and units.

All 3 problem TOCs need to do this.

Ferret · 23 Dec 2019

Pretty unhelpful intervention from Andy Street tbh. But then he’s a politician, and that’s what they do. See Andy Burnham for details...

Bletchleyite · 23 Dec 2019

Ferret said:
Pretty unhelpful intervention from Andy Street tbh. But then he’s a politician, and that’s what they do. See Andy Burnham for details...

Whats unhelpful about it? The service has fallen apart and urgent emergency measures are needed.

underbank · 23 Dec 2019

Djgr said:
Ironic that he is a member of the political party who gave us all this madness on the railway in the first place!

Equally strange that Labour had 13 years in power to change it but chose not to!!

jtuk · 23 Dec 2019

If whoever comes in is limited to running the same services with the same rolling stock and same staff then I fail to see the point. No idea how many franchises we've been through where I live but it's still the same undersized 323s running the same frequency and times as they were 25 years ago. Only difference is the prices

Ferret · 23 Dec 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Whats unhelpful about it? The service has fallen apart and urgent emergency measures are needed.

-Bring forward May’s timetable change - well, as somebody else said - that’ll create all sorts of chaos.

-End the cutting out of stops during late running. Ummm, how does he expect service recovery to happen? Would he prefer a late service at 1000 to still be causing knock on delays at 1730 and beyond?

Politicians never cease to amaze do they? Pontificate about things they know nothing about, all for likes on Twitter.

We’ve spoken elsewhere about measures that can be taken to help. While I agree that the WMT service needs improving, Street hasn’t got anywhere close to suggesting something that works. DfT specified a service that isn’t deliverable - Andy Street suggests giving them total control is a way of making that better?

underbank · 23 Dec 2019

Ferret said:
Pretty unhelpful intervention from Andy Street tbh. But then he’s a politician, and that’s what they do. See Andy Burnham for details...

Not at all. It's how politics works these days. You have to shout the loudest to get heard. Look at Farron who got the WCRC shuttle on the Windermere line after the May 18 timetable fiasco. That didn't happen by writing a letter - it happened because he made a lot of noise and the locals voted in huge numbers for him as his reward! Andy Burnham is doing wonders to highlight the problems in the North - you can't just sit back and wait for the decision makers to get around to you.

As an example, our local Labour council closed our village library. The parish council wrote an objection letter during the consultation period. They also wrote to local councillors asking them to help save it. A petition was signed by 1500 local people in local shops and pubs. Several hundred people filled in the online consultation questionnaire. It closed anyway. After it closed, I was one of a handful of locals who started a pressure/protest group to get it re-opened either by the council or by a local voluntary group. We made a lot of noise - all over social media, local radio, local newspapers, leaflets through every door in the village, lobbying every local city and county councillor, repeatedly writing, emailing and phoning the local council officers responsible for libraries. Over a hundred locals squeezed into a local parish council meeting usually only attended by a handful to complain about their lack of any proper objections/complaints which shocked them and forced them into supporting our group. Started threatening legal proceedings for what we claimed was a breach of procedure. Basically, made a complete nuisance of ourselves for a few months. Finally, after being stone walled, we started being listened to, and eventually the village library was re-opened by the council. All the while, our parish council just sat back and watched aghast, their only response ever being "we wrote to complain". It's just not enough these days, you need to make your voice heard. The people "in power" whether elected representatives or civil servants or quango staff will happily do their own thing for an easy life if you let them.

The Planner · 23 Dec 2019

Bletchleyite said:
They could not bring forward the timetable change (it is in fact December 2020 that allegedly contains the supposed fixes) but they could and should implement an emergency timetable with planned cancellations and rediagram their crews and units.

All 3 problem TOCs need to do this.

That isn't as simple as it sounds, to do that you are taking people off the day job at both WMT/LNWR/others and NR to deal with that. That puts Dec 20 in jeopardy and you spiral out of control again.

Ferret · 23 Dec 2019

underbank said:
Not at all. It's how politics works these days. You have to shout the loudest to get heard.

I’m sorry, you appear to be uttering the ramblings of a deluded madman! Politics works? :lol:

Seriously though, I know what you mean, but the idea that Street or Burnham can fix things is hilarious. As indeed Street demonstrates in his list of proposals that WMT rightly laughed out of the room.

cambran · 23 Dec 2019

Some simple management of disruption would help a bit. Last Saturday we travelled from Leamington to Kenilworth. I was already aware that one of the two workings was cancelled all day, so planned accordingly. Arrived at the station at 14.40 for the 14.45, showing 3 late on the screens, then showed as delayed. Looked on realtime trains, to find that at 14.03 an empty stock movement from Coventry to Leamington had been put in, clearly replacing it although at that time the screen was still showing delayed. The help point wasn't answered. Subsequently I found that the service did not resume until 18.45.
This was a busy service on the day, with the outward train already packed with Rugby supporters on the way out.
Surely with the service already reduced to 2 hourly absolute priority should have been given to maintaining the other working, even if it involved cancelling something on a more frequent service, and there can be no excuse for not announcing a cancellation until 45 minutes after it was known

mrcheek · 23 Dec 2019

Do elected Mayors actually do anything other than call for TOCs to be stripped of their franchise? Seems to be a major part of their job.....

underbank · 23 Dec 2019

Ferret said:
Seriously though, I know what you mean, but the idea that Street or Burnham can fix things is hilarious. As indeed Street demonstrates in his list of proposals that WMT rightly laughed out of the room.

No one expects them to fix things. It's all a matter of putting pressure on the people WHO CAN fix it. It's about getting the problems higher up the agenda.

Bletchleyite · 23 Dec 2019

Ferret said:
I’m sorry, you appear to be uttering the ramblings of a deluded madman! Politics works?

Seriously though, I know what you mean, but the idea that Street or Burnham can fix things is hilarious. As indeed Street demonstrates in his list of proposals that WMT rightly laughed out of the room.

The TOC could shut him up by fixing things, of course, or not having made such blindingly obvious errors to start with.

Ferret · 23 Dec 2019

underbank said:
No one expects them to fix things. It's all a matter of putting pressure on the people WHO CAN fix it. It's about getting the problems higher up the agenda.

Then why does he want to bring it under his control? The pitch there is he is suggesting he can fix it. Like any politician, he’ll be in for a rude awakening when he tries.

Ferret · 23 Dec 2019

Bletchleyite said:
The TOC could shut him up by fixing things, of course, or not having made such blindingly obvious errors to start with.

Who specifies the service level and timetable? Not that I’m absolving certain TOCs of all blame, so please don’t misconstrue my words, but lets make sure we get the right culprits. All of them.

Djgr · 23 Dec 2019

underbank said:
Equally strange that Labour had 13 years in power to change it but chose not to!!

Indeed, but it is a lot harder to fix things than it is to not break them in the first place!

yorkie · 23 Dec 2019

KashmireHawker said:
For full accessibility and without the quote, do see the image for the full statement from the Mayor of the West Midlands.

View attachment 71888

As mentioned three times previously, just another reminder that blind people are not able to read text that is contained within images; if you are to make it fully accessible, please use plain text. Thank you

hkstudent · 23 Dec 2019

mrcheek said:
Do elected Mayors actually do anything other than call for TOCs to be stripped of their franchise? Seems to be a major part of their job.....

The Mayor does sit in the West Midlands Rail Executive, which manages the West Midlands Railway (but not London Northwestern) jointly with DfT.

Djgr · 23 Dec 2019

hkstudent said:
The Mayor does sit in the West Midlands Rail Executive, which manages the West Midlands Railway (but not London Northwestern) jointly with DfT.

Does joint management with the DfT ever give you any meaningful power?

LNW-GW Joint · 23 Dec 2019

David Brown (MD of Northern) was just on Radio 4 defending Northern's performance against demands for it to lose the franchise.
His argument is that 70% of the infrastructure promised by DfT for the franchise has not been delivered.
I'm not sure how he arrives at that figure, or what in detail those features were (eg P15/16 at Piccadilly).
But his gist was that the DfT/TfN spec for the franchise was unchanged so they had to attempt to deliver it.
He acknowledged the franchise would change in 2020, either with an OLR setup or Arriva running a different spec.
But he warned that none of the underlying issues for the railway in the north had been solved, and a change of operator wouldn't automatically fix everything.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool CR Mayor) weighed in with a demand for franchise removal, because the service under discussion was from Southport.
Northern's own issues over crazy training programmes, poor diagramming and badly performing new trains weren't mentioned.

Nobody mentioned TPE and its similar (or worse) performance level, though that was not significant in a debate about services at Southport.

It looks like Andy Street has joined the Metro Mayor club to pressure DfT into action.
While Andy has the local WM railway operation in his electoral purview, I don't think it stretches to all of the LNWR operation (ie London, Liverpool).
DfT's problem is that it wants a solution that fits with the Williams review proposals (whatever they are).
It also doesn't want to lose control over major transport spend in a big chunk of England (impacting HS2/NPR policy, for instance).
I think we are heading towards a devolution battle royal in the new year...

sprunt · 23 Dec 2019

Ferret said:
Who specifies the service level and timetable?

Who signs up to run the franchise, implicitly stating that they are capable of delivering that service level and timetable?

gazzaa2 · 23 Dec 2019

underbank said:
Equally strange that Labour had 13 years in power to change it but chose not to!!

The service up north was nowhere near as bad 10 years ago. It's the last 18 months that have been horrendous on several Tocs (Northern, TPE, WMT/LNWR and arguably Cross Country)

2018 timetable in particular has caused widespread chaos.

If all these tocs are failing at once then DFT or Network Rail have to be accountable.

jimm · 23 Dec 2019

KashmireHawker said:
Andy Street, the elected Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands has made a big intervention, within the running of West Midlands Trains services as he has this morning called for the franchise to be ended, IF dramatic improvements aren’t made by January 31st.

As well as a timetable change, something else is coming up in May...

The second West Midlands mayoral election will be held in May 2020 to elect the Mayor of the West Midlands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_West_Midlands_mayoral_election

This is probably not unrelated to a recent intervention from a well-known transport policy-maker, the West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner John Campion...

THE REGION'S police and crime commissioner has hit out at the "unacceptable" problems on trains throughout Worcestershire and said public safety could be put at risk by overcrowded carriages and platforms.

https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/new...-says-police-crime-commissioner-john-campion/

Who, quite by chance, is also up for re-election in May 2020.

Ferret · 23 Dec 2019

sprunt said:
Who signs up to run the franchise, implicitly stating that they are capable of delivering that service level and timetable?

Ummm, did you miss the bit where I said the TOCs or rather TOCs aren’t blameless when you decided to do a selective quote? It’s a double-edged sword; overambitious bidding by prospective TOCs based on unrealistic specs from the DfT. It’s incontrovertible fact that this is what’s happened; please tell me we haven’t got to have a pointless debate on that?

Ferret · 23 Dec 2019

jimm said:
https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/new...-says-police-crime-commissioner-john-campion/

Who, quite by chance, is also up for re-election in May 2020.

A remarkable coincidence, isn’t it?! Of course, this is lost on some of the posters here, who haven’t spotted that Street (and Burnham) are just playing politics for their own gain. They don’t actually give a toss, any more than they have workable solutions.

gazzaa2 · 23 Dec 2019

Ferret said:
Ummm, did you miss the bit where I said the TOCs or rather TOCs aren’t blameless when you decided to do a selective quote? It’s a double-edged sword; overambitious bidding by prospective TOCs based on unrealistic specs from the DfT. It’s incontrovertible fact that this is what’s happened; please tell me we haven’t got to have a pointless debate on that?

They both over promise and under deliver.

DFT/cabinet office for electioneering (been general election every other year for a while, with trains a political football) and a TOC to win a bid.

West Midlands Mayor Wants WMT Franchise Stripped

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