There was also I have been told the problem of the DfT (or whatever it was called then) throwing in the Grand Central open access bid without allowing GNER to review its bid.
GNER might have been able to manage away from Sea Containers if the bid had been revised.
No, that's not how it went.
Grand Central put in a Track Access application to the ORR, which GNER and the DFT objected to. The ORR approved the application, under their strict criteria.
GNER were already in bother with their revenue before GC and the launch of their yield management system was a bit of a disaster as it actually suppressed their expected yield predictions, to the amusement of other operators. They were starting to get into serious problems, even before the likelihood of GC taking some of their future revenue.
When you bid for franchises, you have to take Open Access into account as you are on risk for it and you usually don't get a chance to vary your franchise revenue line if they do come in. GNER didn't take any OA into account in their bid but, like Hull Trains, The Grand Central revenue was actually not a huge amount for GNER to cope with but when you are struggling you don't want to have to struggle some more as it is/was the future profit line that takes the hit.
The ORR decision went to the High Court and the Court, after a lengthy discussion, decided in favour of GC and HT, who were also dragged into the case. Indeed, it was a historic flow analysis submission by HT that showed how much extra revenue had been generated by OA (comparing north of the Humber flows to south of the Humber flows) and how little abstraction from GNER (& others) took place, if at all, on the key HT flows. As a result of that intervention, GNER had to withdraw their abstraction argument on the first night of the hearing and their case never really recovered after that.
Thanks for the explanation.
