Northern in crisis talks?

[Mag_seven]

Perhaps I should have been more specific: the Crewe - Airport - Piccadilly service is a good thing. The madness comes from running it on from Piccadilly through to Liverpool. Better to have a break in service in Manchester as the number of through passengers from Cheshire must be minimal.

Yes I must admit the Manchester-Liverpool bit is a bit pointless and does mean the import of delays and the risk of stopping short of Crewe e.g. at Alderley Edge as I witnessed the 16.28 Crewe Liverpool do last Friday night.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y22085/2018/11/02/advanced

These parts of the service are of value. The same goes for the hourly service between Manchester Airport and Wilmslow on Sundays

Only gripe I would have with the Sunday service is that from Manchester Airport it generally arrives at Wilmslow at xx.12 just in time to see the tail lights of the xx.11 to London Euston depart! That would never happen in Switzerland!

 

[northwichcat]

Arriva PLC = Arriva Public Limited Company. A company can be a PLC, like Arriva, without being listed on a Stock Exchange.

Note a company can have a listing on a Stock Exchange even if does not have any shares issued to public, ie can be listed in respect of debt issues only. TFL is not a standard company at all, it is a statutory corporation. It does however have debt listed on the London Stock Exchange, and as such is required not to mislead the market, which is why it is under investigation by Financial Conduct Authority in relation to its statements in July that Crossrail was on time.

I know what PLC means but @142Pilot suggested there's no shares anymore even though every limited company - both private and public has shares.

 

[matt_world2004]

Arriva could get compensated for the strike action but it's been claimed as of yet they've not tried to get compensation.

So because they made the choice not to claim they are now in financial trouble.they only have themselves to blame.

 

[142Pilot]

I know what PLC means but @142Pilot suggested there's no shares anymore even though every limited company - both private and public has shares.

The point being it's not on the stock exchange, and therefore isn't available to public listing.

But thanks for playing.

 

[142Pilot]

And also, arriva only has one shareholder as I understand it - that being DB.

You can't unlist a company without buying all of the shares. They then become one share until you decide to diversify the company stock - AFAIK DB haven't done so.

Unless I'm completely understanding it wrong.

 

[HH]

It's much easier to get additional items in or changes to an IAD/IRAD if there are known changes between submission of bid and award. Otherwise it is a bit of a bun fight between the DfT and the winner. But the prize to getting your IAD/IRAD right isn't an ability to claim against NR for non delivery of those items through Network Change - that takes far too long and with no guarantee of getting your full compensation. It now becomes a "Event of Change" under the FA. TOCs are no longer prepared to go through the tortuous NR Claims Panel procedure for bid risk so usually, under the FA, the DfT pays the TOC direct by re-running the bid models for an IAD/IRAD failure. This exact process is going on elsewhere in one TOC right now.

Change is going one everywhere right now for CP6. And for plenty of other reasons beside; it's not an unusual process. However, there is a clear demarcation on Change under the Franchise Agreement and Network Change. TOCs are not able to cherry pick between the two. Oh and there's plenty of Network Change claims happening right now, as well.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Yes I must admit the Manchester-Liverpool bit is a bit pointless and does mean the import of delays and the risk of stopping short of Crewe e.g. at Alderley Edge as I witnessed the 16.28 Crewe Liverpool do last Friday night.

The Manchester-Liverpool via Chat Moss has run for years and is part of the base interurban service at both ends of the route.
Since the diversion of the semi-fast Liverpool-Airport service over to the CLC route it has been extended to Crewe, and replaced a Piccadilly-Airport-Crewe service.
In my book that is a more useful service, and will be more efficient than shorter shuttles.
It avoids a reversal from the west at Oxford Road/Piccadilly.
The same principle applies to the Alderley Edge-Wigan, Hazel Grove-Blackpool etc.

 

[Lemmy99uk]

I’ve had a half hour of ‘Googling’ to try and get more information on these ‘crisis talks’ but information seems to be sparse.

In fact it looks like other news agencies and television news channels seem to have totally ignored it. You would have thought that the potential collapse of a franchise the size of Northerns would make national news.

Could it be the a Telegraph have got the story wrong? Northern will obviously be discussing changes to the subsidy profile as a result of the non-delivery of the infrastructure improvements, and this will probably be an ongoing process. If anything, the crisis would be within the DfT who will have to negotiate with the treasury for more funds.

 

[Bantamzen]

I’ve had a half hour of ‘Googling’ to try and get more information on these ‘crisis talks’ but information seems to be sparse.

In fact it looks like other news agencies and television news channels seem to have totally ignored it. You would have thought that the potential collapse of a franchise the size of Northerns would make national news.

Could it be the a Telegraph have got the story wrong? Northern will obviously be discussing changes to the subsidy profile as a result of the non-delivery of the infrastructure improvements, and this will probably be an ongoing process. If anything, the crisis would be within the DfT who will have to negotiate with the treasury for more funds.

Reading between what lines there are, I am starting to suspect this is more about Northern preparing DfT for the claiming the compensation it has seemingly not demanded yet.

 

[Starmill]

In my book that is a more useful service, and will be more efficient than shorter shuttles.
It avoids a reversal from the west at Oxford Road/Piccadilly.

The service used to run through to Stalybridge, which was probably more efficient than turning at Manchester Vic (which it did anyway, for years) and offered better performance benefits than going through to Crewe. This would be the best solution if the route had been electrified.

Running through from Crewe via Manchester Airport beyond Piccadilly doesn't seem necessary, or wise.

 

[js1000]

The Manchester-Liverpool via Chat Moss has run for years and is part of the base interurban service at both ends of the route.
Since the diversion of the semi-fast Liverpool-Airport service over to the CLC route it has been extended to Crewe, and replaced a Piccadilly-Airport-Crewe service.
In my book that is a more useful service, and will be more efficient than shorter shuttles.
It avoids a reversal from the west at Oxford Road/Piccadilly.
The same principle applies to the Alderley Edge-Wigan, Hazel Grove-Blackpool etc.

It seems efficient to run a through service between Crewe/Manchester Airport and Liverpool (as opposed to a Manchester shuttle and commuter service on the Liverpool side) but in practice it is an extremely unreliable service. If something happens on the Liverpool side, it imparts delays/cancellations on the Manchester side and vice versa. Same with the Blackpool and Barrow services from Manchester Airport thanks to increased congestion at Piccadilly 13/14. The comparison in regards to punctuality pre-May and post-May on many commuter stations between Crewe via Manchester Airport and Liverpool is stark.

 

[northwichcat]

So because they made the choice not to claim they are now in financial trouble.they only have themselves to blame.

There's logic to claiming when the dispute/franchise ends as they don't yet know what effect the RMT action will have long term. It could be when Saturday services resume usage is higher than usual or it could be passengers are permanently scared off.

 

[HullRailMan]

So you think that they are purposefully allocating worse stock because that's just what they feel like doing on the day and they think nobody will notice? Are you suggesting that Northern have a whole raft of 'good' rolling stock in reserve that they just refuse to use? That the DfT actually gave them surplus new stock years ago and they haven't mentioned it? Tell me more!

I’m merely suggesting that they allocate appropriate stock to an appropriate route. Of course day to day alterations will happen but the changes since May have been permanent.
I’m well aware that Northern doesn’t have any quality diesel stock but it does have u it’s designed for commuter services and units designed for longer distance services.

 

[yorksrob]

In 2016 GTR was ‘bailed out’ with amended contractual terms repeatedly and sustained it’s conversion of conventionally operated routes to a new driver and OBS model. The disruption in the South was the most significant that had been seen in decades. SWR also continues to suffer strikes every weekend, subsidised by the DfT. It is not reasonable to assume that the government is picking on the North of England. It is also easy to forget that the changes to operation are what the DfT believes are best for passengers, not (just) for RMT members in the long run. However, there should be nothing wrong with the government attempting to run a more customer focused and efficient railway.

Wherever it is, it is a poor use of taxpayers money paying companies not to reach an agreement.

I don't care whether the Goverment feels that a railway with a second person on every train except the miniscule number of occasions where a guard doesn't turn up, is more customer focused than a railway in which a second person has to be on every train in all circumstances. It's not worth years of extra disruption and personal expense to me, and I don't want my taxes spent on it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Nothing on the BBC Six o'clock National News or on the BBC North-West local news about the matter of the title of this thread.

 

[B&I]

The Manchester-Liverpool via Chat Moss has run for years and is part of the base interurban service at both ends of the route.
Since the diversion of the semi-fast Liverpool-Airport service over to the CLC route it has been extended to Crewe, and replaced a Piccadilly-Airport-Crewe service.
In my book that is a more useful service, and will be more efficient than shorter shuttles.
It avoids a reversal from the west at Oxford Road/Piccadilly.
The same principle applies to the Alderley Edge-Wigan, Hazel Grove-Blackpool etc.

More useful and efficient in theory, but in practice kibboshed by thr ongoing Castlefield Cataclysm. But for reasons I have pursued to quite tedious lengths on the Piccadilly 15 & 16 thread, a Chat Moss-Piccadilly service is crucial, notwithstanding how many posters on here seem to consider that the Chat Moss end of the service can be happily pruned with no adverse consequences.

 

[matt_world2004]

There's logic to claiming when the dispute/franchise ends as they don't yet know what effect the RMT action will have long term. It could be when Saturday services resume usage is higher than usual or it could be passengers are permanently scared off.

Couldnt they claim for what they believe their direct losses are now and claim for the remaining figure later. Although morally I don't believe they should have the right to claim for post strike losses. As this acts as a disensentive to market the railway to drive demand. Also I wonder how much of their losses are due to their revenue enforcement policies scaring off customers. The £80 penalty fakes when there are limited ticket buying facilities at a station for example.

 

[Carlisle]

it is a poor use of taxpayers money paying companies not to reach an agreement.

It certainly would be, in an environment with both a responsible union and employer, but that’s not where we are right now.

 

[yorksrob]

It certainly would be, in an environment with both a responsible union and employer, but that’s not where we are right now.

No, a responsible Government should be applying pressure on both sides to come to an agreement (particularly where agreements have been reached elsewhere) not egging them on into never ending industrial action, and certainly not with taxpayers money.

 

[Meerkat]

Winning the dispute might be cheaper for the taxpayer in the long run....

 

[yorksrob]

Not if all the passengers disappear and there's no more revenue....

 

[RT4038]

Not if all the passengers disappear and there's no more revenue....

Reduce services and close some lines?

 

[Darandio]

Reduce services and close some lines?

Which would result in a raft of union strikes.

 

[Robertj21a]

Which would result in a raft of union strikes.

So what ?

The RMT already calls strikes regardless of common sense - a few more will only confirm the general view of the public towards them. Perhaps the government will look again at making the railways an essential service.

 

[RT4038]

Which would result in a raft of union strikes.

Bit like now then. And posters on his forum wonder why Government is reluctant to increase the size of the network.....?

 

[Darandio]

So what ?

The RMT already calls strikes regardless of common sense - a few more will only confirm the general view of the public towards them. Perhaps the government will look again at making the railways an essential service.

I agree. But I never want to see a situation where there has to be a strike over reducing services and closing lines.

 

[Robertj21a]

Bit like now then. And posters on his forum wonder why Government is reluctant to increase the size of the network.....?

Indeed. It's not going to be too surprising if all the industrial action by the RMT doesn't lead on to a formal review of the current network by the government. I can guess that a mini-Beeching exercise would see off quite a few of the lesser-used lines across the country (and, of course, all those RMT members who have been on strike).

 

[RT4038]

So what ?

The RMT already calls strikes regardless of common sense - a few more will only confirm the general view of the public towards them. Perhaps the government will look again at making the railways an essential service.

The railways are already an irrelevance for freight traffic (lost an almost total monopoly to almost nothing) and the same will happen with passengers with autonomous vehicle technology. Their current antics will merely accelerate their irrelevance to most of the population.

 

[yorksrob]

Reduce services and close some lines?

That would be bad for me personally, and bad for the Northern economy and environment.

 

[Robertj21a]

I agree. But I never want to see a situation where there has to be a strike over reducing services and closing lines.

Time is ticking away and TOCs (and governments) have only so much patience before something snaps......