Abellio wins West Midlands franchise

[Old Hill Bank]

Long time lurker, 1st time poster...

I've been keeping a close eye on the West Midlands bid for quite a while, as someone who works in graphics and who is interested in branding and visual design...and I've been excited about a 'regional' livery for the West Midlands since the idea was first brought up.

Unfortunately, the implementation of this operator change has been abysmal, and so much of it makes no sense to me, someone who is engaged. I dread to think what the average passenger thinks.

My local station, Canley, is served solely by London Northwestern Railway - but is branded as a 'West Midlands Railway' station...what? All the messages and visuals add value to a brand that apparently, no passenger from Canley will ever interact with.

Another station further along my route (Marston Green) is served by both WMR and LNwR - but is branded as a LNwR station.

Add on to this that there is also the Network West Midlands 'n' branding as another layer on top of all this...it's becoming so confusing!

It is all so strange, I posted the following on our facebook site some time back just to demonstrate how crazy it is.

How to confuse the population, here are some definitions that may help people understand the terms and responsibilities.

wmtrains or West Midlands Trains :-

The company that will take over the operation of rail services from current operator London Midland on the 10th December 2017. They will have two brands, not one:

"West Midlands Railway" for inner and outer suburban services centered on Birmingham e.g. Snow Hill lines, Hereford, Shrewsbury and Rugeley

"London Northwestern Railway" for services to London Euston, Stoke, Crewe and Liverpool.

West Midlands Rail :-

An organisation formed of representatives from the Metropolitan councils of the inner West Midlands and the surrounding Shire Counties:

This organisation has assisted the DfT in specifying the contract for the new franchise and will have an input to the management of it. This organisation at some point in the future may take over full rail franchise management in the Wider West Midlands.

WMCA/West Midlands Combined Authority Including sub division TfWM/Transport for West Midlands:-

The West Midlands Metropolitan Councils and some surrounding local authorities with an elected Mayor, this organisation has no direct influence over rail services in the West Midlands but there is an overlap with West Midlands Rail that people understand needs to be sorted.

Bottom line is that our trains will be operated by wmtrains under a contract to central government.

I hope this helps those of you who have not been students of this metamorphosis.

 

[the sniper]

There are quite a few cancellations today on the south WCML due to lack of train crew. LM seemed to have got this sorted but here we are again. This sort of thing often seems to be related to staff morale, are the rumours of DOO already having an effect or am I reading too much into it? (Probably!)

Saturdays in the run up to Christmas are quite awful to work, I imagine today will be particularly bad for people being out on the p***. So that'll put people off working their Rest Day today.

 

[Darkinsider]

deleted

 

[capoldi]

Is the Network West Midlands branding appearing at the re-branded stations?

It's still on the station signs themselves, as well as on road signs etc. The amount of logos which a passenger will see now at a station like mine is incredible - National Rail arrows, NWM logo, West Midlands Railway logo, London Northwestern logo - all ,in their own way, correct. It needs an overhaul, and I thought that "West Midlands Rail" (not wmtrains, or WMR) was the answer.

I hope that someone, somewhere, decides to just peel away all the layers and look at what we have with a sensible passenger focused mindset.

 

[t_packer]

It's still on the station signs themselves, as well as on road signs etc. The amount of logos which a passenger will see now at a station like mine is incredible - National Rail arrows, NWM logo, West Midlands Railway logo, London Northwestern logo - all ,in their own way, correct. It needs an overhaul, and I thought that "West Midlands Rail" (not wmtrains, or WMR) was the answer.

I hope that someone, somewhere, decides to just peel away all the layers and look at what we have with a sensible passenger focused mindset.

West Midlands Railway branding is great for outside the West Midlands Metro County - but the whole thing seems to have gotten worse not better inside. Network West Midlands was fine as it was, it was on buses, trams and trains and used to be the only logo you’d see at stations. Now it’s gone from Snow Hill but is still on other stations - it’s all rather confusing for everyone.

I think TfWM’s idea is to abolish NWM and just have West Midlands Railway, Buses and Rapid Transit - and use a variant of the West Midlands Railway logo as its own. But it seems we’re in this weird in between period and it makes no sense.

 

[XCTurbostar]

I hope that overtime the West Midlands trains brand will become simpler not more complicated. I know the overall aim is to make it two separate operating units in preparation for it to be devolved to the West Midlands Authorities. But, not even the parking websites make sense. https://uk.parkindigo.com/en/west-midlands-railway
If you look at a station like Nuneaton which has London North Western Railway only, on the website under “Public Transport” it shows it as London North Western Railway but if you go to a station like Litchfield Trent Valley which has both.. its shows as West Midlands Trains? Yet there isn’t actually ANY services which are branded as that..

 

[pt_mad]

Does anyone know what the top speed of the Aventuras working from Liverpool will be? What will be the possible top speed of the design of the rolling stock? (Even if they can't actually do this speed on the route in question). And will they run at 110mph at any point on Liverpool services?

 

[LOL The Irony]

Yeah. They are going 24 hour soon, part of their franchise agreement.

IMO EVERY operator should have a 24/7 365 social media. It's the best way of getting a quick response.

 

[sjoh]

Does anyone know what the top speed of the Aventuras working from Liverpool will be? What will be the possible top speed of the design of the rolling stock? (Even if they can't actually do this speed on the route in question). And will they run at 110mph at any point on Liverpool services?

Design speed :110.
Top speed achieved on routes operated by them:110 - including between Stafford and Weaver Jn i believe.

 

[JordyWM]

West Midlands Trains being used for service information on Google Maps Transport.

 

[pt_mad]

Design speed :110.
Top speed achieved on routes operated by them:110 - including between Stafford and Weaver Jn i believe.

Do they operate on the fast lines here?

 

[DenmarkRail]

West Midlands Trains being used for service information on Google Maps Transport.

Apple maps is still using the old 'LM' graphic, but says operated by WMTrains

 

[sufian123]

RTT or trains.im shows it as LM West Midlands Trains. NRE show all services as West mids railway

 

[crosscity]

....
If you look at a station like Nuneaton which has London North Western Railway only, on the website under “Public Transport” it shows it as London North Western Railway but if you go to a station like Litchfield Trent Valley which has both.. its shows as West Midlands Trains? Yet there isn’t actually ANY services which are branded as that..

Lichfield TV is the last stop on the Crosscity line, so does indeed have a West Midlands Trains service, or is it West Midlands Railway? I'm confused too! I was looking at websites during the week. I was expecting to be able to buy tickets from the 'Railway' website, because that's what the trains have been branded, but it's the 'wmtrains' website that sells tickets. I know it's all to do with the difference between the public body and the private train operator. The confusion didn't arise with 'Centro' or 'Network West Midlands'.

 

[387star]

Let's be honest brands are a mess at the moment

Swr and gWr have conflicting brands

 

[pt_mad]

Design speed :110.
Top speed achieved on routes operated by them:110 - including between Stafford and Weaver Jn i believe.

Wouldn't 125mph stock have been sensible? Non tilt. So that post hs2 phase 1, if some sections north of Stafford are raised to 125mph for non tilt (hs2 trains), LNR stock could achieve these speeds as well.

 

[387star]

Speaking of branding the advertising boards (quite high up ) at the closed kings cross Thames link STILL display decade old FCC posters proclaiming the arrival of St Pancras in December 2007

 

[387star]

There is also FCC branding on the sponsorship of plant boxes at Harlington and Flitwick

Any other sightings of forgotten about obsolete brands?

 

[6Gman]

When the Global Gathering festival used to take place and many attendees travelles vis Stratford on Avon some train crew booked annual leave let alone decide not to work Rest day. Just too much hasle.

For some reason I've never understood there seem to be a shortage of Rest Day volunteers for Saturday late turns on the Birmingham - Liverpool service.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

There is currently a lot of negativity surrounding the new franchise, but they need to be given a reasonable amount of time to get things right - be that operationally/branding/etc.

General public seemed to hate LM, yet they scored very highly in passenger surveys, especially in the last few years. Yet LM gave Abellio access to diddly squat until handover time - LM issued Abellio a statement stating that they would not be allowed to contact any LM staff until they transferred over. This might not seem much, but they only received copies of the staff contracts on Monday morning - they couldn't even find out how many units were under maintenance and unavailable to them. I know they will have been issues with staffing today as as of Friday, only 3 conductors were 'available' for today - something Abellio themselves won't have known about until it was too late to resolve. As I'm fairly new to the industry, I still find it so strange that the T's & C's of the employees contracts really do screw over the companies coming in....I will enjoy all the perks whilst I can

We all know it's true that they are interested in DCO/DOO, but the current fleet do not support it, so it will be a few years until that question really gets asked.

Let's give them a few months to get their feet under the table, I know I am as interested as anyone else to know which of their plans will come to fruition, and which promises they will break first

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why is it not part of the franchise agreements to allow access to key information prior to handover date?

 

[satisnek]

Had my first experience of the new franchise today. Nothing big has changed yet - the station nameboards have had 'London Midland' taped over, some orange posters have appeared (personally I prefer green to orange, but appreciate that some may think the opposite), Anne was announcing the new company, somewhat clunkily, and Julie on the train had gone generic, with no mention of any TOC at all. One of the aforementioned orange posters said something like "No smoking, vaping or bog snorkeling on stations or trains", but I was unable to read the small print underneath it from where I stood. Uh, jokers eh? I thought that those Virgin people had cornered the market with that kind of thing.

I could see some justification with the change from Central Trains to London Midland since it involved an alteration to the franchise map - we lost Barmouth to Yarmouth but gained London to Liverpool - but this time it's just money whizzed up the wall, money which could be better spent on useful peripherals like station staffing and revenue protection. Sorry, no enthusiasm from these quarters.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is one of those joke no smoking posters at Bletchley, and it is completely counter to the professional and non brash image the Helvetica like font in the logo presents.

TBH, it looks to me like their marketing department management are either aged about 10 or a bunch of clowns. Bring back David Whitley!

 

[The Planner]

Wouldn't 125mph stock have been sensible? Non tilt. So that post hs2 phase 1, if some sections north of Stafford are raised to 125mph for non tilt (hs2 trains), LNR stock could achieve these speeds as well.

No, as I very much doubt anything between Stafford and Crewe will be upgraded.

 

[Mordac]

By staff, primarily, in that context. You see a guard so rarely on the south WCML (it's a specific few who bother doing tickets these days) that the passengers probably already think it's DOO anyway.

Definitely, there's a few real stars among those few, including a really attractive lady guard who absolutely goes out of her way to help people. It's a shame more can't be like them. As someone who was used to the friendly and always present guards on TPE, it's an amazing culture clash.

IMO, they should cover Twitter whenever they run trains, many companies do even just for customer service purposes, let alone assisting with incidents. I had hoped the new franchise would bring improvements here, but sadly not.

Good to see 15 minute delay repay now though.

Too bad the delay repay website is completely broken! I keep trying to submit a claim, and when I try to input my train time, it laughably tells me there are no scheduled trains between Coventry and Northampton at 1721!

 

[Mordac]

Heard the dogbox to Nuneaton being announced by the automagical lady at Coventry as London Northwestern Railway. This was then announced by a human almost immediately afterwards correctly as a West Midlands Trains service. I know COV is a Virgin station, but come on...

On a brighter note, saw a roving cleaner when I boarded at Northampton today. Had never seen any in an LM service, ever.

 

[the sniper]

Definitely, there's a few real stars among those few, including a really attractive lady guard who absolutely goes out of her way to help people. It's a shame more can't be like them. As someone who was used to the friendly and always present guards on TPE, it's an amazing culture clash.

Got to respect the TPE Guards, there's obviously a good culture empowering them.

 

[NewcastleOne]

Really like the West Midlands Class 172 but not sure about the Class 350 London north western

 

[pemma]

So based on Modern Railway's awards the West Midlands 323s have the fastest incident recovery (based on primary delay per incident) out of the first generation new EMUs, yet they are the trains the new franchise is off-loading: http://www.modern-railways.com/2017/11/27/spanners-reward-winning-fleets/

 

[ChrisHogan]

So based on Modern Railway's awards the West Midlands 323s have the fastest incident recovery (based on primary delay per incident) out of the first generation new EMUs, yet they are the trains the new franchise is off-loading: http://www.modern-railways.com/2017/11/27/spanners-reward-winning-fleets/

Unable to meet the franchise spec. for the CrossCity line during the winter leaffall period. Both Govia and Abellio reportedly proposed replacement fleets for CrossCity.