North Western Trains never went bust. FirstGroup just bought out the other shareholders in Great Western Holdings and made it their own company.
That rather glosses over the huge losses North Western Trains incurred (including a "black hole" in the finances) and the fact First only wanted the GW franchise, and fought very hard to not have to take on NWT too.
Northern Spirit didn’t go bust either, the parent company MTL (tin pot bus company from Merseyside) was bought by Arriva
MTL were drowning in debt and would have gone under within days if Arriva hadn't bought them. Northern Spirit was the big cause of the difficulties.
No more insistence on this that and the other. More reward if you win a franchise and do well, and more risk to you if you get it wrong. Maybe more Merseyrail type management of urban services.
Merseyrail, and London Overground, are prescriptive concession agreements. So under that model- one I think is the best compromise as the Tories will never sack off the fat cats- there's more insistence on things, not less.
For "intercity" operations, there needs to be prescriptive conditions because, otherwise, the operators will take the mickey. We've seen that with Virgin and with VTEC, peak restrictions getting longer and more ridiculous (on what planet, exactly, is 3pm peak time?). We've also seen it with XC and their blanket 0930 off-peak restriction regardless of where you're travelling to. And those examples are in a regulated market; imagine what they'd do without restrictions!
Two of the worst TOCs for delays and cancellations at the moment (Northern and LNR/WMT) are having issues due to a poorly written timetable that nobody here ever thought would work and surprise, surprise it didn't.
This. Also TOCs put stupid rosters together, with minimal PNB time and no recovery allowances between duties, and then try and blame NR for the inevitable delays.