Greater Anglia legal Action?

[3141]

My alarm bells started ringing when Brian Souter got a £90m bailout at EMT...in the good times.

I must admit that I hadn't been aware that EMT had needed a bailout, but as this is, I think, the third time you've referred to it recently, can you direct me to where it was discussed on these forums, or some other source?

 

[gingerheid]

There is of course another reason why less people might be using GA; they are becoming awful.

I commuted from Cambridge North to Ipswich for a while. Admittedly modern ways of working did cut maybe one journey a week from what I might otherwise have taken.

The fact that I started driving whenever possible, and now have a part week flatshare and take the train once a week at most is entirely down to the service being awful. I'm far from the only person in the office using the train less for the same reason.

 

[JamesT]

I must admit that I hadn't been aware that EMT had needed a bailout, but as this is, I think, the third time you've referred to it recently, can you direct me to where it was discussed on these forums, or some other source?

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/emt-bailout.68719/ appears to be it. Though that refers to a figure only half as much, but presumably the adjustment to subsidy was repeated later?

 

[HH]

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/emt-bailout.68719/ appears to be it. Though that refers to a figure only half as much, but presumably the adjustment to subsidy was repeated later?

It's not really an adjustment to subsidy, it was part of the 'cap and collar' mechanism that was standard at the time. The same cap and collar mechanism that meant some franchises paid extra money to the government. It's not a "bailout" if it's part of the contractual mechanism.

GTR is a completely different matter. DfT has time and again failed to exercise the rights it has against the franchisee, which effectively amounts to several bailouts. From what I hear, it probably goes beyond that, but understandably both sides are staying very quiet.

 

[3141]

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/emt-bailout.68719/ appears to be it. Though that refers to a figure only half as much, but presumably the adjustment to subsidy was repeated later?

Thank you for that - and HH for the reminder that the EMT contract included the cap and collar arrangement. So it wasn't a bail out but a contractual payment. Perhaps Arctic Troll's dislike of Brian Souter affected his recollection.

 

[hwl]

It's not really an adjustment to subsidy, it was part of the 'cap and collar' mechanism that was standard at the time. The same cap and collar mechanism that meant some franchises paid extra money to the government. It's not a "bailout" if it's part of the contractual mechanism.

GTR is a completely different matter. DfT has time and again failed to exercise the rights it has against the franchisee, which effectively amounts to several bailouts. From what I hear, it probably goes beyond that, but understandably both sides are staying very quiet.

GTR have a mountain of evidence on how DfT screwed up before GTR even took charge and quite often DfT made the worse choice on decisions early on when they had to chose. Often with no decent analysis of the full consequences. not agreeing to spend X million 6-8 years ago pre-ITT to sort an issue is still causing passenger detriment today, the cost of not spending X then now totals many multiples of X so far, repeat across multiple issues.

 

[43096]

My alarm bells started ringing when Brian Souter got a £90m bailout at EMT...in the good times.

My alarm bells go off as soon as a) the word bailout is used and b) Brian Souter is named individually rather than Stagecoach.

I rather suspect it was not a bailout at all but an agreed cap and collar clause in the contract (I challenge you to provide evidence otherwise) and that this is just another example of one of your diatribes.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I rather suspect it was not a bailout at all but an agreed cap and collar clause in the contract

It was two massive payments because EMT got their sums wrong. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck...

Brian Souter is named individually rather than Stagecoach.

Souter (and Gloag) IS Stagecoach. Or are we going to get more drivel about "institutional investors" (who have very few shares in Stagecoach, 95% of the company's shares being owned by private individuals).

 

[43096]

It was two massive payments because EMT got their sums wrong. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck...

Souter (and Gloag) IS Stagecoach. Or are we going to get more drivel about "institutional investors" (who have very few shares in Stagecoach, 95% of the company's shares being owned by private individuals).

It's clearly a pointless exercise trying to have any form of rational debate with you whilst you persist with your attitude.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It's clearly a pointless exercise trying to have any form of rational debate with you whilst you persist with your attitude.

So two £45m payments because EMT got their sums wrong AREN'T a bailout? If they're not a bailout and not about privatising profit and nationalising loss, what are they?

"Contractual payment" isn't an answer, especially as the payment was made under the threat of both legal action and "handing the keys back". Just as the same payments on SWT were.

So come on, what is "irrational" about questioning a £90m handout the same year the largest shareholders, Souter and Gloag, took dividends of, er £90m out of the business?

 

[3141]

It would be very useful if you told us where clear information about these payments and the reasons behind them can be found. "Two massive payments because EMT got their sums wrong" might be a bail-out, but it might also be your interpretation of payments made under "cap and collar" which was part of the franchise agreement.

Did Souter and Gloag's £90 million dividends come from EMT or from the Stagecoach Group? Did other Stagecoach shareholders also receive dividends in proportion to the number of shares they owned? Like 43096 I have difficulty taking your statements at face value because of your well-publicised hostility to Brian Souter and Ann Gloag.

 

[Wivenswold]

While I completely understand the hostility towards the Souter/Gloag (and I would urge anyone interested to read about their support for Clause 28 back in the day) I think Arctic Troll can be assured that his opinion is noted and that we can move the conversation back to Greater Anglia. I would suggest that there would be many willing participants to a separate thread on the history of the Stagecoach empire.

 

[321over360]

The view that I get is that NR seem to do one task at at time in any given possession and feel they can come back and keep asking for more access. Until NR do more than one task in a possesion and the operators insist on this weekend travel will be disrupted.

The previous MD had the right idea of only allowing eight weekends per year of all day blocks with some extended maintenance at the start and end of the day on Sundays when traffic was at its lightest. I would say the execution was questionable, eight weekends was probably too few but the current number of blocks is far too many.

The thing is the GEML has had extensive weekend engineering works, although predominantly on Sundays for the last 20 years near enough as I can recall during the FGE Days of having Sunday Engineering Works which continued through the NXEA days and now into the GA days, its as if the NR Engineering Works are being done so badly that there is always the case for them to happen throughout most weekends of the year, and generally of the last few years, most weekends there has been works south of Ingatestone mostly for "crossrail works" yet they have shown no sign of ending what with Crossrail years behind schedule, personally the GEML has suffered as a result of engineering works that personally shouldnt be so often as if NR, or Railtrack had done the works better in the first place, then they wouldnt need so many weekend possessions, and it does deter people from travelling on the line over the weekend especially if they live north of Ingatestone as they end up on a coach to Newbury Park and then onto the toxic central line for the rest of the journey into London rather than onboard an airy Class 321 or MK3 Loco Hauled train but with Crossrail several years behind schedule and no realistic opening time or conclusion of works, this is definitely going to have a major impact upon any GA Timetable as lets face it, Liverpool Streets TFL Rail platforms should have been freed for upgrade works by now as TFL Rail services should now be running into the tunnels from Stratford and not into P16-18 at LST as they still do, which is going to hamper GA doing any major changes to their timetable until these platforms have been released from Shenfield metro services.

Personally if GA are going to have any setbacks to their improvements to GEML service which have been affected by TFLs mismanagement of the Crossrail scheme then GA should seek compensation from TFL for their inability to have delivered Crossrail which should be operational NOW but wont be for at least 2 years minimum, yes this will then hurt TFLs finances but lets face it, it will provide a wakeup call to TFL to actually ensure each project they undertake is properly managed unlike at present where so many projects have been mismanaged including Crossrail.

 

[3141]

Personally if GA are going to have any setbacks to their improvements to GEML service which have been affected by TFLs mismanagement of the Crossrail scheme then GA should seek compensation from TFL for their inability to have delivered Crossrail which should be operational NOW but wont be for at least 2 years minimum, yes this will then hurt TFLs finances but lets face it, it will provide a wakeup call to TFL to actually ensure each project they undertake is properly managed unlike at present where so many projects have been mismanaged including Crossrail.

If GA successfully seek compensation from TfL, the further weakening of TfL's finances will not be in the interests of the millions of people who use TfL every day. Large amounts of time would be spent by both GA and TfL, diverting attention from the public transport services they are there to provide. I think those are factors that ought to be thought about very carefully by anyone who advocates "compensation".

 

[321over360]

If GA successfully seek compensation from TfL, the further weakening of TfL's finances will not be in the interests of the millions of people who use TfL every day. Large amounts of time would be spent by both GA and TfL, diverting attention from the public transport services they are there to provide. I think those are factors that ought to be thought about very carefully by anyone who advocates "compensation".

But if TFLs failure to deliver a scheme on time due to poor mismanagement within TFL (Which is becoming a common theme these days with so many projects behind schedule due to mismanagement) is affecting another TOCs ability to deliver on changes which would benefit those travelling on the rest of their network then surely TFL should be required to provide compensation to the TOC who has suffered through TFL Negligence. At the end of the day TFL has only got themselves to blame for the fact they are in the financial mess they are in, lower revenue since Ken Livingstone stupidly gave children free travel on buses which later extended to the tubes which has left a hole in the finance, and i bet someone will say but this helps hard off families, yet what if these "hard off families" are able to give their kids enough money each day to buy chicken and chips or red bull etc, when a child could be charged 40p per journey each hour with a daily cap of £1.20 which is less than the average cost of chicken and chips. Seriously if TFL wanted to sort their finances out then the Mayor or previous mayor should be held accountable for wasting TFL Money on pointless schemes, BoJo being a guilty culprit with so much money wasted on Cycle Superhighways which draw zero revenue, on the awful Boris Buses (NBfLs) and the overpriced and pointless Emirates Airline, and with our current mayor so busy getting as much media spotlight but unable to actually sort anything, it is no wonder that TFL these days equates to Totally Failing London as TFL is a joke and cannot provide any reliable service on all bar the DLR which is the only reliable TFL Route (though it is run by keolis amey ie privately)

 

[3141]

Well, it looks as if somebody should be suing Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan.

 

[321over360]

Well, it looks as if somebody should be suing Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan.

all useless mayors of London

 

[whhistle]

The thing is the GEML has had extensive weekend engineering works, although predominantly on Sundays for the last 20 years near enough as I can recall during the FGE Days of having Sunday Engineering Works which continued through the NXEA days and now into the GA days, its as if the NR Engineering Works are being done so badly that there is always the case for them to happen throughout most weekends of the year, and generally of the last few years, most weekends there has been works south of Ingatestone mostly for "crossrail works" yet they have shown no sign of ending what with Crossrail years behind schedule, personally the GEML has suffered as a result of engineering works that personally shouldnt be so often as if NR, or Railtrack had done the works better in the first place, then they wouldnt need so many weekend possessions, and it does deter people from travelling on the line over the weekend especially if they live north of Ingatestone as they end up on a coach to Newbury Park and then onto the toxic central line for the rest of the journey into London rather than onboard an airy Class 321 or MK3 Loco Hauled train but with Crossrail several years behind schedule and no realistic opening time or conclusion of works, this is definitely going to have a major impact upon any GA Timetable as lets face it, Liverpool Streets TFL Rail platforms should have been freed for upgrade works by now as TFL Rail services should now be running into the tunnels from Stratford and not into P16-18 at LST as they still do, which is going to hamper GA doing any major changes to their timetable until these platforms have been released from Shenfield metro services.

That is quite possibly the longest sentance I've ever seen!
Someone needs to learn to paragraph too.

Whether people think it's right or wrong, there will be a derogation or dispensation (they practically mean the same) on stock that is planned to be replaced (IE stock already built, being built or will be built very soon) past 2020.

 

[HH]

all useless mayors of London

Have there been any good ones?

 

[LAX54]

But if TFLs failure to deliver a scheme on time due to poor mismanagement within TFL (Which is becoming a common theme these days with so many projects behind schedule due to mismanagement) is affecting another TOCs ability to deliver on changes which would benefit those travelling on the rest of their network then surely TFL should be required to provide compensation to the TOC who has suffered through TFL Negligence. At the end of the day TFL has only got themselves to blame for the fact they are in the financial mess they are in, lower revenue since Ken Livingstone stupidly gave children free travel on buses which later extended to the tubes which has left a hole in the finance, and i bet someone will say but this helps hard off families, yet what if these "hard off families" are able to give their kids enough money each day to buy chicken and chips or red bull etc, when a child could be charged 40p per journey each hour with a daily cap of £1.20 which is less than the average cost of chicken and chips. Seriously if TFL wanted to sort their finances out then the Mayor or previous mayor should be held accountable for wasting TFL Money on pointless schemes, BoJo being a guilty culprit with so much money wasted on Cycle Superhighways which draw zero revenue, on the awful Boris Buses (NBfLs) and the overpriced and pointless Emirates Airline, and with our current mayor so busy getting as much media spotlight but unable to actually sort anything, it is no wonder that TFL these days equates to Totally Failing London as TFL is a joke and cannot provide any reliable service on all bar the DLR which is the only reliable TFL Route (though it is run by keolis amey ie privately)

This weekend however through trains to London although the big job is out in Suffolk East Suffolk Junction and Woodbridge / Felixstowe 2335 Sunday to 0440 Tuesday.
(Major Projects, Patrolling, S&T Point work, URFDO Inspections & Structures Examination) Morston Hall AHB's close this weekend for installation of an OD crossing, will re-open on 29th May

 

[SilentGrade]

GEML has suffered as a result of engineering works that personally shouldnt be so often as if NR, or Railtrack had done the works better in the first place, then they wouldnt need so many weekend possessions, and it does deter people from travelling on the line

Except for the fact that many engineering works are done in order to complete scheduled maintenance tasks, which by their very nature are cyclical and have to be done consistently on a rolling basis to avoid trains flying off the tracks. It isn’t a simple case of one possession and jobs done

 

[Elecman]

Except for the fact that many engineering works are done in order to complete scheduled maintenance tasks, which by their very nature are cyclical and have to be done consistently on a rolling basis to avoid trains flying off the tracks. It isn’t a simple case of one possession and jobs done

Oh dont spoil the armchair experts views with reality!!

 

[306024]

Completely replacing the 1949 overhead line equipment over four tracks for about 15 miles may have had something to do with all those possessions. Then more recently there has been the remodelling of Shenfield to a layout that has little resemblance to what was previously there. The rebuilding of the A127 Southend Arterial Road bridge at Gidea Park isn’t a simple job, right where Gidea Park Jn has also been renewed. All that is before the various changes needed for Crossrail, though there has been a tendency to blame everything on Crossrail work when some of that work has in fact been under the cover of other possessions.

The GEML has no significant diversionary route for most of the stations, and with Felixstowe Port on the patch there must always be a cross country route open for freight diversions. Coasting was used on a few occasions to avoid bus substitution, but the locations where that is suitable is limited. There is still some major work to come (e.g. re-wiring Stratford), and with a sub standard 10 foot (the spacing, not literally, between the main and electric lines) in a lot of places track renewals will still require some bus substitution.

The good news is as a result of all this for the first time in many years four tracks are available between Liverpool St and Shenfield for most of Sunday from the May timetable, allowing GA trains to be speeded up and TfL trains to run to a regular pattern. Nothing on Crossrail (yet) is delaying any GA timetable changes, so all this compensation talk is at best purely hypothetical.

 

[Bald Rick]

Completely replacing the 1949 overhead line equipment over four tracks for about 15 miles may have had something to do with all those possessions. Then more recently there has been the remodelling of Shenfield to a layout that has little resemblance to what was previously there. The rebuilding of the A127 Southend Arterial Road bridge at Gidea Park isn’t a simple job, right where Gidea Park Jn has also been renewed. All that is before the various changes needed for Crossrail, though there has been a tendency to blame everything on Crossrail work when some of that work has in fact been under the cover of other possessions.

The GEML has no significant diversionary route for most of the stations, and with Felixstowe Port on the patch there must always be a cross country route open for freight diversions. Coasting was used on a few occasions to avoid bus substitution, but the locations where that is suitable is limited. There is still some major work to come (e.g. re-wiring Stratford), and with a sub standard 10 foot (the spacing, not literally, between the main and electric lines) in a lot of places track renewals will still require some bus substitution.

The good news is as a result of all this for the first time in many years four tracks are available between Liverpool St and Shenfield for most of Sunday from the May timetable, allowing GA trains to be speeded up and TfL trains to run to a regular pattern. Nothing on Crossrail (yet) is delaying any GA timetable changes, so all this compensation talk is at best purely hypothetical.

Excellent post. (Although it’s over 20 miles of 4+ track 1940s OLE that has been / is being renewed to Shenfield, and another 9+ of 1950s kit to Chelmsford. That’s before the Southend Vic Line).

 

[306024]

Excellent post. (Although it’s over 20 miles of 4+ track 1940s OLE that has been / is being renewed to Shenfield, and another 9+ of 1950s kit to Chelmsford. That’s before the Southend Vic Line).

Too kind . Yes I was only counting Forest Gate Jn to Shenfield, as that is what has resulted in most of the buses. At the weekend if you can get trains to Stratford there is far less commercial impact. The forthcoming Southend line blockade, which has divided opinion, should put a big dent in that work too, but Stratford remains the big challenge.

 

[Class 170101]

Excellent post. (Although it’s over 20 miles of 4+ track 1940s OLE that has been / is being renewed to Shenfield, and another 9+ of 1950s kit to Chelmsford. That’s before the Southend Vic Line).

On that basis I would not expect to see a possession of that length and only piece of NR machinery and one 'division' of the Orange Army within it. Unfortunately in some cases exactly that has been witnessed and sometimes nothing at all, just the protecting stop boards.

 

[Bald Rick]

On that basis I would not expect to see a possession of that length and only piece of NR machinery and one 'division' of the Orange Army within it. Unfortunately in some cases exactly that has been witnessed and sometimes nothing at all, just the protecting stop boards.

In which case get yourself a job in the planning section of Network Rail and change they way it’s done!

 

[cmovcc]

There is of course another reason why less people might be using GA; they are becoming awful.

I commuted from Cambridge North to Ipswich for a while. Admittedly modern ways of working did cut maybe one journey a week from what I might otherwise have taken.

The fact that I started driving whenever possible, and now have a part week flatshare and take the train once a week at most is entirely down to the service being awful. I'm far from the only person in the office using the train less for the same reason.

it's them putting up the car park prices by 60% this year that annoyed me, I've gone from going in three/four times a week peak to two off-peak

I'm not the only one too... last year parking was difficult on days other than Monday/Fridays, now it's easy every single day

nice own goal there in an attempt to increase revenue

 

[jayah]

I agree that this sounds logical, but are there actual statistics to back up the fall in commuter numbers? My understanding was that there was a one year "blip" in 2017, but than the railways (including commuter lines) returned to growth in 2018.

There is some good stuff about this on the London Reconnections site. Trip rates have been falling for some time, masked to a degree by rising population.

Interesting the model was changed for SWR - that didn't seem to work out well either.

Essentially they knew the model and still bid. It was probably only designed to say if Brexit went wrong and 500,000 jobs left London the line would move.

It is only a model and like all the other models it won't be even close to accurate, especially where societal and technology changes mean we don't live in a steady state world where you can graph rail journeys, population and white collar employment and fit a formula around them.