Scotrail franchise award 2015

[Craig2601]

What were the other competitors to Abellio’s bid and what were there franchise commitments? I imagine first will have put in a bid but did anyone else.

 

[swt class 450]

I believe that there were five bidders in total as follows:

• Abellio
• Arriva
• First
• MTR
• National Express

Hope this helps.

 

[Deltic1961]

I used to criticise First but Abellio are far far far worse.

 

[Craig2601]

Thank you - does seem like first were the better operator in Scotland although we have still to see the full benefits of the class 385/HST.

 

[scotraildriver]

There is no comparison between the 2 franchises. First only had to manage day to day operations. Nothing changed during the franchise. Abellio have had to deal with major infrastructure projects (Winchburgh closure, Queen St closure, Dundee rebuilt, A to I redoubling), late electrification, 385 problems and late delivery, late HST delivery, 365 introduction at the last minute etc etc. I'm not sure First or anyone else would have done a better job. Comparing apples with pears. In fact given the very aggressive management style we worked under at first i suspect there may have been much less goodwill from staff under First and possibly a worse situation.

 

[swt class 450]

I definitely agree that First did a much better job than Abellio at running this franchise.

 

[47271]

You may find this old thread useful, it takes you through the whole story from mid 2014 onwards.

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/scotrail-franchise-abellio.103634/

 

[Craig2601]

You may find this old thread useful, it takes you through the whole story from mid 2014 onwards.

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/scotrail-franchise-abellio.103634/

Cheers, just what I’m looking for.

 

[whhistle]

I definitely agree that First did a much better job than Abellio at running this franchise.

Comparing one franchise that has completed and another that is still fairly new?
That's like judging a film on the first 10 minutes, or judging a pizza after just one bite.

 

[swt class 450]

Abellio Scotrail took over on the 01/04/2015 almost four years ago. That is not fairly new. That is more than enough time to know that Abellio are rubbish and that First were much better (they were still not excellent but they were a lot better than Abellio are).

 

[Clip]

Abellio Scotrail took over on the 01/04/2015 almost four years ago. That is not fairly new. That is more than enough time to know that Abellio are rubbish and that First were much better (they were still not excellent but they were a lot better than Abellio are).

Did First have as many issues as Abellio are having with closures and late arrivals of trains as outlined in #5 ?

 

[HH]

Knowing both companies fairly well, I think that Abellio have to take some of the blame for the downturn in overall performance, but they've also had to cope with a number of events that were not of their own making. From the outside it's difficult to ascertain just how much of the hurt is self-inflicted.

 

[47271]

For me the problem with Abellio is their apparent lack of capacity to anticipate consequences of decisions, or lack of them.

A few examples that are obvious to me as a passenger:

- Not enough traincrew leading up to the December 2018 timetable change - they must have been able to see up to a year beforehand how that would play out.

- Failure to plan and build peripheral works for HST introduction - depots, sidings etc. Never mind the chaos of the introduction of the HSTs themselves, which can be more readily pinned on an outside contractor.

- Retiming of relatively infrequent trains by a minute or so to tip them into full price fare bands - 0914 Perth-Queen Street and 1809 Queen Street-Perth are the two that spring to mind. Either they're totally gormless and can't see how that might be received, or they're at it. Neither state is desirable.

- The idea that they could get away with charging First Class fares using 380s on the E&G by sticking a bit of leather trim round a few seats.

The last one may appear utterly trivial, but it's symtomatic of the 'what were they thinking about when they did that?', or 'are they so arrogant that they take us for fools' that comes to mind repeatedly with Abellio. With First I often thought 'cheap' or 'naff' but it was never difficult to follow their logic.

 

[InOban]

Doesn't the franchise specify that First be provided on E-G trains?
And they may not have anticipated the loss of trained staff to other Operators. After all, I assume that none of the other four passenger companies, norr any of the Freight operators, have training academies in Scotland. It's much cheaper to poach them.

 

[47271]

Doesn't the franchise specify that First be provided on E-G trains?

It does, but they had to suspend that while they were running a mixture of 170s, 380s and then 365s ahead of the 385s arriving in quantity. But not until they tried tarting up a few seats on a 380 or two.

 

[HH]

And they may not have anticipated the loss of trained staff to other Operators.

The Head of Train Planning moved internally in First before the end of the last Franchise. I imagine he was a big loss to ScotRail; been around since BR days.

 

[Craig2601]

A separate point but I noticed that Abellio cleaners are very poorly paid on the Greater Anglia franchise compared to the ones at Scotrail - with their higher wages a remnant of First. Staff benefits arguably better with Scotrail staff allowed to use other first franchises. Abellio have also not been replacing workers after they retire and trains now receive a deep clean less than under first. However, Abellio have improved on the first franchise in a few areas but I think overall it was better under first.

 

[snookertam]

I think what is becoming apparent is that Abellio have bitten off way more than they can chew in Scotland. A Dutch based rail firm whose only other franchise is in the East of England. With each passing month it is becoming clearer that they are out of their depth and have no appreciation of the diversity of the ScotRail franchise.

Actually my impression is that the franchise is almost in two parts, the way it was when operationally it was split into 'Strathclyde' (everything from Central High Level - commuter and SW rural routes - and the cross city routes through Partick) and 'Network' (Everything from Queen Street - Edinburgh northwards). These definitions were done away with around the time of the Airdrie/Bathgate line reopening - this effectively extended a Glasgow commuter service into Edinburgh - which meant that the ScotRail network as a whole was no longer in two easily defined parts.

The bulk of that former 'Strathclyde' seems to have escaped the bulk of the problems as far as I can see. The only real issue is that the class 314's have outlasted their planned 2018 withdrawal date, and this has caused a few grumbles on the Inverclyde routes, but overall reliability doesn't seem to have nosedived in the manner that it has in the former 'Network' section. There may be capacity problems starting to rear their head, both in terms of service frequency and train lengths, with their ability to meet growing demand an emerging issue. However, it is on these more intensely worked routes that they seem to have their niche.

I think the main issue is the promise of two major fleet introductions at the same time within the old 'network'. Even if both were delivered on time and without a hitch, it's still logistically a big task. To then be caught out with delays to both projects whilst units were going off franchise has left them treading water. It's almost as if their project managers live in a perfect world where everything goes to plan - or perhaps their senior management pressure the project teams into unrealistic delivery timetables.

I've always had my doubts about replacing class 170s with an almost 40 year old HST, refurbishment or not, and despite the complaints about the design and layout of class 170s for the routes that the are used on, I would have thought an internal upgrade of these units may have been more suitable, allowing them to run in multiple to deal with capacity issues. In fact, I believe this was part of the First Group bid to retain the franchise.

Instead as a result of the delays they've had scramble around for interim units, meaning last minute training of crews to work services, in the case of the HSTs has left them with traincrews without traction knowledge but not enough units for which crews do have knowledge.

There have also been suggestions that there have been changes to the maintenance regimes which have resulted in less frequent exams leading to decreased reliability.

Nor do I think they understand that they operate in some of the most sparsely populated areas of Britain, which means just cancelling trains at the drop of a hat without at least attempting to run the service with some delay is not suitable. And cutting traincrew diagrams back to the bare bones also leaves them with nowhere to go in times of disruption.

I think the Scottish Government are hoping this will all go away after a while, for that to happen they are dependent on the introduction of the refurbished HSTs to gather pace immediately, which has not at any stage looked like happening. I really don't think they're out of the woods yet, but at the same time I would be amazed if the Scottish government were to do anything unless forced under severe political pressure. Things will have to get pretty bad before they get involved.

 

[Deltic1961]

Some good points there.

Maintenance is definitely an issue. Every single day short notice cancellations due to "train faults" and even today major disruption at Arbroath for that reason with people being stuck for hours.

 

[Mingulay]

I think what is becoming apparent is that Abellio have bitten off way more than they can chew in Scotland. A Dutch based rail firm whose only other franchise is in the East of England. With each passing month it is becoming clearer that they are out of their depth and have no appreciation of the diversity of the ScotRail franchise.

Actually my impression is that the franchise is almost in two parts, the way it was when operationally it was split into 'Strathclyde' (everything from Central High Level - commuter and SW rural routes - and the cross city routes through Partick) and 'Network' (Everything from Queen Street - Edinburgh northwards). These definitions were done away with around the time of the Airdrie/Bathgate line reopening - this effectively extended a Glasgow commuter service into Edinburgh - which meant that the ScotRail network as a whole was no longer in two easily defined parts.

The bulk of that former 'Strathclyde' seems to have escaped the bulk of the problems as far as I can see. The only real issue is that the class 314's have outlasted their planned 2018 withdrawal date, and this has caused a few grumbles on the Inverclyde routes, but overall reliability doesn't seem to have nosedived in the manner that it has in the former 'Network' section. There may be capacity problems starting to rear their head, both in terms of service frequency and train lengths, with their ability to meet growing demand an emerging issue. However, it is on these more intensely worked routes that they seem to have their niche.

I think the main issue is the promise of two major fleet introductions at the same time within the old 'network'. Even if both were delivered on time and without a hitch, it's still logistically a big task. To then be caught out with delays to both projects whilst units were going off franchise has left them treading water. It's almost as if their project managers live in a perfect world where everything goes to plan - or perhaps their senior management pressure the project teams into unrealistic delivery timetables.

I've always had my doubts about replacing class 170s with an almost 40 year old HST, refurbishment or not, and despite the complaints about the design and layout of class 170s for the routes that the are used on, I would have thought an internal upgrade of these units may have been more suitable, allowing them to run in multiple to deal with capacity issues. In fact, I believe this was part of the First Group bid to retain the franchise.

Instead as a result of the delays they've had scramble around for interim units, meaning last minute training of crews to work services, in the case of the HSTs has left them with traincrews without traction knowledge but not enough units for which crews do have knowledge.

There have also been suggestions that there have been changes to the maintenance regimes which have resulted in less frequent exams leading to decreased reliability.

Nor do I think they understand that they operate in some of the most sparsely populated areas of Britain, which means just cancelling trains at the drop of a hat without at least attempting to run the service with some delay is not suitable. And cutting traincrew diagrams back to the bare bones also leaves them with nowhere to go in times of disruption.

I think the Scottish Government are hoping this will all go away after a while, for that to happen they are dependent on the introduction of the refurbished HSTs to gather pace immediately, which has not at any stage looked like happening. I really don't think they're out of the woods yet, but at the same time I would be amazed if the Scottish government were to do anything unless forced under severe political pressure. Things will have to get pretty bad before they get involved.

I think that's a very good summary.

It's hard to understand how the passengers have endured all the disruption and promise of so much only to be delivered in some cases worse than before. If the Scottish government don't act it's because they have no idea on how to make it better so just issue the odd order to appear to care and be in control. Or they feel they are in part to blame as instrumental in the Abellio franchise appointment. In reality my train was cancelled this morning and it was dirty. The remains of a discarded banana skin under the seat. Black. 4 days old ? Longer ?

There seems no desire to hold Abellio to account now on even fixable stuff like train cleaning.

And as passengers we are told that passenger satisfaction is in the high 80s% and train punctuality is similar. Not the experience of passengers and in 20 years of daily commuting never been asked or seen anyone complete a passenger survey. The rail industry stats are frankly a nonsense. So at every stage the passenger is just left to get on with putting up with an industry absorbed by its own benefit for managers and paralysed by a fragmented network where progress is glacial and optimism is thin on the ground.

 

[HH]

I think what is becoming apparent is that Abellio have bitten off way more than they can chew in Scotland. A Dutch based rail firm whose only other franchise is in the East of England. With each passing month it is becoming clearer that they are out of their depth and have no appreciation of the diversity of the ScotRail franchise.

I think the main issue is the promise of two major fleet introductions at the same time within the old 'network'. Even if both were delivered on time and without a hitch, it's still logistically a big task. To then be caught out with delays to both projects whilst units were going off franchise has left them treading water. It's almost as if their project managers live in a perfect world where everything goes to plan - or perhaps their senior management pressure the project teams into unrealistic delivery timetables.

They're making much bigger changes to the fleets in the 'East of England' (where they are also behind). It's easy to be wise after the event, but the fleet changes aren't really that big.

Equally, TS did not like the 170s being used on longer distance routes - they wanted "InterCity" trains. Are the delays to the ScotRail fleets down to Abellio?

There seems no desire to hold Abellio to account now on even fixable stuff like train cleaning.

Nonsense. The Squire regime is still in operation, so they are fined if the trains aren't clean.

Not saying Abellio are doing a great job, but some of the complaints are just a wee bit ridiculous.

 

[Mingulay]

They're making much bigger changes to the fleets in the 'East of England' (where they are also behind). It's easy to be wise after the event, but the fleet changes aren't really that big.

Equally, TS did not like the 170s being used on longer distance routes - they wanted "InterCity" trains. Are the delays to the ScotRail fleets down to Abellio?


Nonsense. The Squire regime is still in operation, so they are fined if the trains aren't clean.

Not saying Abellio are doing a great job, but some of the complaints are just a wee bit ridiculous.

Like all things railway when it comes to statistics and regime. Who checks it ? Who reports it ? What actions follow and what fine is levied. Bottom line. The trains are dirty. So whatever squire is. Who ever the The Squire is , he isn’t ever on my trains!

I accept and sympathise with Abellio in that the some of travelling public in Scotland are slobs. But there is no attempt to address this behaviour by encouraging better practice. On board announcement and some nameing and shaming would go along way. But if there is litter under seats and of long standing then clesrly the squire regime is not fit for purpose. Stations no better.

Take my hat off to some train staff. Some guards remove litter. But as a passenger so do I and not my litter. Can’t abide folk leaving thier food debris on tables beside a bin. Also. Banning the Metro would go a long way. Green option as well. Just more discarded litter!

 

[scotraildriver]

The aim is to clean every train on arrival at the terminal station such as Queen St. In reality this does happen most of the time. The sad fact is that by the time it reaches Edinburgh it is a midden again. Every single train. Weekend trains often resmble a war zone after one journey. Ive never left a depot in the morning with a dirty train.It is getting worse. Nobody cares anymore. There is simply no respect. Just dump your crap, it's ok someone else will clean up after you. Frustrating doesn't come close.

 

[68000]

Like all things railway when it comes to statistics and regime. Who checks it ? Who reports it ? What actions follow and what fine is levied. Bottom line. The trains are dirty. So whatever squire is. Who ever the The Squire is , he isn’t ever on my trains!

https://www.transport.gov.scot/public-transport/rail/service-quality-incentive-regime/#

I wonder if you have ever challenged some other passenger about the litter they are leaving behind, as well as them putting their feet on the seats. I have and I will not be doing it again... some people just do not five a f

 

[433N]

The aim is to clean every train on arrival at the terminal station such as Queen St. In reality this does happen most of the time. The sad fact is that by the time it reaches Edinburgh it is a midden again. Every single train. Weekend trains often resmble a war zone after one journey. Ive never left a depot in the morning with a dirty train.It is getting worse. Nobody cares anymore. There is simply no respect. Just dump your crap, it's ok someone else will clean up after you. Frustrating doesn't come close.

To be fair, I had a 10-15 minute walk around Waverley station with coffee cups the other day without finding a bin (even in the waiting room). That is pretty frustrating too.

 

[Highlandspring]

There are no public bins at the Waverley due to the station’s security category. There are many mobile cleaners; you can leave your rubbidh for them or, if you can find one, hand it to them.

 

[68000]

I was on a train this morning to Coatbridge Central and was looking for a metro on the train but none to be found. There was a ScotRail guy walking through the train with clear bags picking up rubbish and those metro papers. He also had a cloth in a smaller plastic bag in his pocket and cleaned some of the metal behind the seats.

The floor at the doors were wet but considering the weather this morning, that is understandable

 

[Highlandspring]

Like all things railway when it comes to statistics and regime. Who checks it ? Who reports it ? What actions follow and what fine is levied. Bottom line. The trains are dirty. So whatever squire is. Who ever the The Squire is , he isn’t ever on my trains!

SQUIRE auditors are employed by and accountable to Transport Scotland. They most certainly are auditing ‘your’ trains regularly.

 

[tbtc]

I think what is becoming apparent is that Abellio have bitten off way more than they can chew in Scotland. A Dutch based rail firm whose only other franchise is in the East of England. With each passing month it is becoming clearer that they are out of their depth and have no appreciation of the diversity of the ScotRail franchise

You go on to make some interesting points, but I feel I'd have to defend Abellio here - they did run the Northern franchise for a dozen years (a fleet of hundreds of trains, serving over five hundred stations - from the bleak rural stations like Dent to the commuter lines into cities like Manchester/ Leeds).

Northern is probably the closest TOC to ScotRail that we have in terms of complexity/ geographical area/ diverse markets (Northern is actually bigger than ScotRail in terms of fleet size and stations served, with additional complications caused by significantly more interaction with other TOCs and the UNharmonized conditions that staff were on, having come from First North Western/ Arriva Trains Northern).

There are things to criticise Abellio for, sure, but if they can run Northern for over a decade then I don't think it's fair to say that they'd have no appreciation of managing a diverse TOC.

 

[Mingulay]

https://www.transport.gov.scot/public-transport/rail/service-quality-incentive-regime/#

I wonder if you have ever challenged some other passenger about the litter they are leaving behind, as well as them putting their feet on the seats. I have and I will not be doing it again... some people just do not five a f

As it happens I do

Mostly folks respond in a positive way or say nothing and pick up

One time a guy did jump me and there was a tusstle

Cant let one d@ck head intimidate you. He just embarrassed himself