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Franchise pre-qualifiers

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Blindtraveler

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for me, virgin on the west and first on the east. Fcc wil have a job retaining what they have down there so although the north end of the ecml wil be a first dominant area that will change. Tpe, love m or hate m will most likely stay as it is unless the northern franchise review carvs it up. As for northern, stick with the status quo, there good at it! Whats gunna make or break the east anglia is how wel some of the basics are done. Get them rite and it should stay in the same hands long term.
 
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shinkansen1966

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WillPS said:
Or Chiltern? One of the only franchises to show any sort of entrepreneurship?
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It helped that Chiltern were given a 20 year franchise agreement.

And that BR did most of the donkey work on line beforehand with new rolling stock and new signalling.

Still, it shows what can be done with £200 million: 90 min journey time between the UK's two biggest cities later this year. How far did £200 million go on the WCML upgrade ? Probably a new bit of platform at Milton Keynes.
 
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RobShipway

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I am sure I read recently that TPE was to become part of the Nothern Franchise when the Northern Franchise is relet, is this correct?
 
A

ainsworth74

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The services on the various TPE routes were operated by a combination of Arriva Trains Northern and First North Western, but the brand of TransPennine Express was first used by Northern Spirit (which became ATN) until First Transpennine Express took over the routes as a separate franchise in February 2004 then later on in 2004 (December I think) ATN and FNW were merged into the current Northern Rail franchise.
 
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TDK

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The Planner said:
I bet there were a few German chins being pulled off the floor too, would be interesting to see which side of the operation did the bid, Arriva or DB.
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It was DB Arriva ;)
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Zoe said:
I expect Virgin will be in pole position to retain the West Coast franchise. Both the Great Western and East Cost franchises were retainted by First and GNER when they were retendered at the end of the first franchises. Don't forget also that Virgin completely replaced the fleet of trains and introduced the VHF timetable.
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I would imagine it was the Dft and not Virgin who paid out for the pendos and voaygers! All VT did was heavily clain againt NR and the Dft for the late completion of the WCML earning £1M per week!!! This will not be forgotten
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merlodlliw said:
How Arriva told its people they lost out, names etc removed


Team








Arriva plc
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Disappointing news this morning. This is in the public domain now.
Best regards

If it was the Arriva gang bidding I am not surprised they were were not shortlisted - maybe this will wake DB up in Germany and make them realise what they have inherited!
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This is off the BBC News website:

Shortlisted firms include FirstGroup and Stagecoach, both based in Scotland.

Dutch firm Abellio and an alliance of the French transport companies Keolis and SNCF have also been selected


No mention of VT
 
Ivo

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They are covered by "Stagecoach"; it's like mentioned earlier - Stagecoach are Scottish so they are considered the bidder to northerners, not Beardy Branson.
 
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Zoe

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TDK said:
All VT did was heavily clain againt NR and the Dft for the late completion of the WCML earning £1M per week!!! This will not be forgotten
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Virgin may not have directly paid for the Voyagers but the complete replacement of the fleet was in their franchise bid. The other franchise bids may not have been as bold in their plans. The agreement was the Virgin would introduce the new trains and Railtrack would upgrade the line to 140 mph. Railtrack failed to deliver so it's only fair that Virgin be compensated for this.
 
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merlodlliw

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If it was the Arriva gang bidding I am not surprised they were were not shortlisted - maybe this will wake DB up in Germany and make them realise what they have inherited! end quote TDK.


The bidding was Arriva,Sunderland. TDK Ill P.M. you the full set of messages to Arriva senior staff over losing out. This will be later this evening.


Bob
 
shinkansen1966

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Zoe said:
The agreement was the Virgin would introduce the new trains....
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Virgin offered to run the West Coast Main line and to take over the service from British Rail. No one forced them.

Zoe said:
so it's only fair that Virgin be compensated for this.
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The compensation came from us, taxpayers. Which ever way you dice it, Virgin took no financial risk when they asked to run the WCML. Throughout, we've guaranted the service.

Same with National Express EastCoast. Over the lifetime of their EastCoast franchise, they offered to pay us £1 billion for the right to run the EC rail service. Scarcely a year and they walked away loosing just £72 million. Where's the remaining £928 million they owe us ?
 
shinkansen1966

shinkansen1966

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Zoe said:
It was Railtrack that failed to keep their side of the bragain so why didn't they compensate Virgin?
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Agreed. Railtrack screwed up. But who paid the compensation ?

Virgin offered to run the WCML and said, (in effect), if Railtrack screw up, we'll get our money from the taxpayer instead. And this is what happened. So what was the point of privatising the railways if the taxpayer still ends up paying ?
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TDK said:
Was railtrack not government owned?
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Railtrack was not government owned. Railtrack was a publically quoted plc. Listed on stock exchange. You could buy and sell shares in it. Just like BP, HSBC or Tesco.
 
Aictos

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Interesting to learn via a staff briefing that although First Group has pre-qualified for the InterCity West Coast franchise they didn't apply for the Caretaker Greater Anglia franchise, sounds like they had common sense not to apply for the Anglia franchise.

Anyway roll on Autumn when we find out who the successful bidders are, :)
 
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Zoe

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As for NXEC, the alternatve would have been to renogtiate the franchise. If they had done that then they would have set a prescedent the likes of FGW and SWT to do the same.
 
RPI

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First are one of the better companies by the evidence out there really, with the exception of FCC maybe, FGW, FSR, FTPE haven't gone around closing ticket offices (a la govia, stagecoach), or removing buffets (a la stagecoach), poor industrial relations (arriva, govia), or pulling the plug on services with 48hrs notice (DB), scrapping restaurants (EC).
 
tbtc

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RPI said:
First are one of the better companies by the evidence out there really, with the exception of FCC maybe, FGW, FSR, FTPE haven't gone around closing ticket offices (a la govia, stagecoach), or removing buffets (a la stagecoach), poor industrial relations (arriva, govia), or pulling the plug on services with 48hrs notice (DB), scrapping restaurants (EC).
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Transpennine didn't have any buffets/ restaurants to close. They can afford to pay a higher salary to get the "Cream" so industrial relations are less of a problem. Also they only "operate" the bigger stations where staffing is still justified so don't need to close ticket offices.

Scotrail are on a very tight leash, so have little scope to make any cutbacks. Also worth pointing out that they never ran any restaurants/ buffets either, and that (as Scotrail has remained the same franchise since privatisation) there's none of the "two tier" problems you get at other TOCs. One of the ways the Unions have skilfully manipulated the situation is to highlight differences in conditions between the "inter city" and "local" parts (e.g. XC) to try to get everyone on the higher rate. This isn't an issue at FSR. However it will be an issue with the new Northern franchise (if the TPE boundaries close) with the Unions insisting that everyone be put onto the "higher" TPE wages/ conditions...
 
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HYPODERMIC

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Realistically, what are the chances of Virgin losing the WCML? Even if First made a better bid, I wouldn't be surprised to see the DfT choose Virgin entirely on the basis of them being a safe pair of hands and a relatively hassle-free operator.

Personally though, and speaking purely from the perspective of an industry enthusiast, and not actually a commuter, I'd love to see a First West Coast and a Virgin Great Western, just for curiosity's sake.

There is one practical advantage to Virgin losing the WCML - such an outcome might well intensify the competition come the ECML tendering, as it would be Virgin's last chance to secure a franchise for potentially many years indeed.
 
djw1981

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ainsworth74 said:
Add to that their performance on TPE (which was awarded best TOC of the year last year I think) and on Scotrail and I have to say First to my mind are one of the better operators out there.
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TPE is a joint ventiure between first (55%) and Keolis (45%)(SNCF) so Keolis do have proven form in UK. GoVia is also a Keolis operation (35%) with go-Ahead (65%). Go-ahead being listed seperately on bids to Keolis indicates the end of the JV?
 
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shinkansen1966 said:
Railtrack was not government owned. Railtrack was a publically quoted plc. Listed on stock exchange. You could buy and sell shares in it. Just like BP, HSBC or Tesco.
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Except of course that Steven Byers didn't force BP, HSBC or Tesco into administration and replace it with a Quango responsible to no-one, i.e. Network Rail. Younger readers may wish to catch up with the following report from 2002.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...-attack-Byers-over-handling-of-Railtrack.html

My Byers later described himself as "a taxi" who would do whatever anyone paid him to.

Of course Railtrack was far from perfect, but this whole episode stank.
 
transmanche

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ApAp said:
The Abellio logo (they took over Travel London buses from National Express) contains the Nederlandse Spoorwegen logo which seems to be based on a similar concept to the BR logo.

So the tickets will have the BR logo and the trains (if they get the franchise) will have the Dutch Railways logo on them, unless they use a different brand for their train services.
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Which they probably will - as they do for Northern Rail and Merseyrail.
 
317 forever

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I agree with an earlier post that it would have been simpler to extend the East Anglia franchise until 2013 then relet it for 15-20 years. You can imagine the new franchisee next year being up in arms about losing the operation a year later. Ironically, I recall finding the WAGN livery style on outer suburban class 317s reminding me of Stagecoach! As Greater Anglia and c2c both come up for renewal in 2013, I wonder whether these will be integrated into a combined East of England franchise?

I think it is because DB/Arriva already run Chiltern and Cross Country that they did not pre-qualify for West Coast. I had already read that TrenItalia had bid to run the line. I am surprised that First have prequalified for West Coast as they already run TPE (albeit with Keolis) and ScotRail, and are considering walking away from Great Western in 2013.
 
AlterEgo

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I think many people have no idea how the bid process works. It's a SEALED bid - therefore once the final bids are in front of the DfT for consideration, they have no idea whose bid they are looking at when they peruse each one.

Whoever makes the most appreciable bid wins.

It won't be given to Virgin "because they're a safe pair of hands", nor to First for their "good employee relations" etc.

Because the DfT have no idea who's submitted the successful bid until they then unveil the name at the top of the bid.
 
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swt_passenger

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HYPODERMIC said:
Realistically, what are the chances of Virgin losing the WCML? Even if First made a better bid, I wouldn't be surprised to see the DfT choose Virgin entirely on the basis of them being a safe pair of hands and a relatively hassle-free operator.
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Others have explained that the franchise bids are anonymous, but I'd suggest that if it's at all possible DfT will do everything to avoid Virgin renewing.

Assuming that DfT reckon Virgin are a safe pair of hands defies logic - they've spent the last 10 years fighting each other behind the scenes - which ultimately led to the Pendolino lengthening project being organised for after the change of franchise. That tells us something surely?
 
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