Great Western Coffee Shop

I've not checked the figures quoted against the source quoted or checked any of the operators not listed, but FGW look are in no healthy financial state:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=48672

Hardly surprising then that FGW want to hand back the keys in 2013 if they are making a loss now before the big premium payments kick in

Those figures are quite old: for example, Chiltern's are dated January 2010, meaning they refer to 2009.

And, as far as I know, figures for First's different TOCs aren't available, except as a whole for First Rail as a whole. If I'm wrong, I'd like to be shown where they are publicly available!

Accounts are available for First Group's individual companies. That is required by law for any registered company. The ^12m (-^12.8m according to accounts lodged with Companies House) operating loss figure for First Greater Western Ltd is from financial year ended 31st March 2009. For year ended 31st March 2010 First Greater Western Ltd made a profit of ^9.4m.

Accounts for year ended 31st March 2011 are not yet available. Those from 2010 were published on 2nd November 2010.

Company accounts are available online from Companies House (http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk//index.shtml). A small charge is payable per document.

If anyone would like a copy of the First Greater Western Limited Accounts and Financial Statements from 31/03/2010 send me a PM with email details and I'll forward a copy of the .pdf. Gratis!

If you read the accompanying notes on that website, it is quite clear that most figures quoted aren't current

I take it, ChrisB, you are referring to the website that can be found by following the OPs link to RailUK Forums and not Companies House?

sorry, yes!

Interesting that First only clear ^5million, The government certainly does well from the privatised railway... franchise payments, then tax on profits at the end of it!

Perhaps the title of the thread should be changed to "FGW success story - ^12.5m loss to ^9.4m profit...."  ;)

Sorry, meant to do exactly that when this thread first appeared but couldn't remember how to use the various moderator's button thingies to achieve it... Sorted now though!

Not really the year before they made ^10m profit - so maybe it should say "2009 financial year - what went wrong at FGW?"

Points of note are the FGW directors took an average of a 9% pay cut over the previous year and total revenue was up so more money got spent.

Am I right in saying FGW were reporting a big reduction in off peak travel to and from London due to the recession?

yup....and didn't they get fined that year too?

Mark Hopwood has said that there were various reasons for the loss. Business was not up to the franchise expectations, due to the recession (bankers, etc. in London being made redundant and therefore not travelling and people who used to travel first class down grading to standard.)
I suspect that the lost business was probably more concentrated on the Reading/Paddington commuter business as the Cotswold Line has not seen such losses of travellers. The last published figures for Cotswold Line stations showed a reduction in numbers on the previous year but that was almost certainly due to the line being closed for business for two weeks for infra structure works.

However, ahead of the First Group agm, it was reported that revenue across their rail franchises was up 8.5 per cent in April, May and June, whereas bus revenue was near-flat.

See http://www.firstgroup.com/corporate/latest_news/?id=007261

It says about them being keen to extend the TPE franchise, which isn't surprising as not many franchises have so few empty seats at off-peak times.  However, from what's been reported DfT want to split up the TPE franchise as follows:
* Manchester Airport to Scotland route to the West Coast franchise
* Blackpool, Barrow and Windermere services to the Northern franchise
* Manchester Airport to Cleethorphes to the East Midlands franchise
* The North TPE routes which go through Manchester, Huddersfield and Leeds to go to either the East Coast or CrossCountry franchise.

May I ask where this DfT plan has been reported?

It's available on the DfT website, at http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/intercity-west-coast-franchise/draft-invitation-to-tender-attachment-g.pdf

Er... I've not read it word for word, but where in that document are the references to the DfT splitting up the TransPennine Express franchise as suggested by northwesterntrains?

Fair point: having read through that document in more detail now, it's not covered in any detail - but it is referred to, on page 12.

I've not checked the document linked to in the above but I'm sure that the suggested splitting of the TPE franchise is across different documents.  I think to get the complete picture you need to look at the West Coast RUS, the Northern RUS, the electrification RUS and the Manchester Hub document.

There's also some consultations that looked in the railway franchising system, which came to the basic conclusion of less franchises equals less money spent on the bidding processes so going forward there should be less franchises not more: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/rvfm-jacobs-franchising-march2011.pdf

Aren't RUSs drawn up by Network Rail though? Something that the DfT don't have to follow if they choose not to.

That applies to consultation documents also.

The point I'm making is that there are various reports, consultations, aspirations, internet chatter etc, but nothing from the DfT saying, "they want to split up the TPE franchise."

Manchester Airport - Scotland is not to be included in the next Inter City West Coast franchise. Which is expected to be 14 years in length.

The most likely thing to happen, I believe, is the TPE franchise running until 2017. By that time East Midlands, East Coast, Northern and CrossCountry will all have been re-tendered. Of course the DfT could attempt to align franchise end dates with various extensions so as to bring about consolidation, but I don't see the current Government wanting to have less franchises. Just some reform of the franchise model and process.

The NW electrification announcement by DfT did explicitly state that Manchester - Scotland would be removed from TPE, and run as a 'micro franchise'.  I'm not aware of a formal DfT announcement of anything else to do with TPE, although break up is also a McNulty report proposal.   

I don't think it is correct to say DfT are not involved in a new RUS though,  DfT is definitely consulted about them, and AIUI NR would be highly unlikely to publish a proposal in an RUS which DfT were not reasonably OK with...

Paul

^9.4m is peanuts for such a high turnover!

It's probably just me referring to the wrong body by the time there's DfT, Network Rail and ORR.

The Manchester Airport to Blackpool route is set to be run by the same rolling stock as other North West lines which are set to be electrified (likely 319s) so moving that route to the Northern franchise would have logic - then Barrow and Windermere services are interworked by Blackpool services so again there would be logic in moving them across.

Then you'll have just 5 routes left as TPE so unless you start moving routes in the other direction (e.g. York-Blackpool, Selby/Leeds to Manchester Vic or/and Leeds to Morecambe) then the TPE franchise will be very small.