Great Western Coffee Shop

In the latest Rail magazine(issue 674) in article on future rail franchising it says that the secretary of State for transport Philip Hamond has issued a stark warning to future rail franchise bidders,"If you have spent the last ten years screwing us,then dont spend too long filling out the pre-qualification form".FGW?

Virgin Trains?

Can someone explain what the problem with VT is? I've heard so many rumours about them blackmailing the Daft etc.

From a passenger's point of view, they operate an excellent service.

In firm agreement on that last point of yours Btline. I travelled with VT today, and after leaving my mobile at Manchester Piccadilly I was mightily impressed with their excellent response to my predicament. Phone and bignosemac were reunited inside 70 minutes at Stoke-on-Trent.  ;D

I'm with woody on this, they were all at it. I think the only company I have sympathy for is GNER.

It's common knowledge what SML tried to do as it's parlimentary record, and was royally rewarded for doing so.  ::)

VT on the other hand never got that far although they were a bit fortunate that a number of fitters didn't turn up for work one day and delayed some work which took the hit in the press.

SML?

Agreed. I would be more than happy for them the win the next West Coast franchise. Probably slightly unfair of me to question whether Philip Hammond had Virgin Trains in mind when he made that statement simply because the whole West Coast franchise was a bit of a mess because of the upgrade undertaken in the early days by Railtrack completed by Network Rail. Whether Virgin Trains took advantage of this in negotiations with the dft when adjustments were made to the franchise terms over the years is open to debate by those who know more about it than I do.

In the phrase "Philip Hamond has issued a stark warning to future rail franchise BIDDERS",notice the word BIDDERS is in the plural so he is clearly referring to more than just one operator.
  As railway research expert Professor Rod Smith on the need to address the failings on the railways said in an article on 4 May 2011 "I often wonder how it is that companies are allowed to take huge amounts of money out of a system that is being subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of ^5 billion a year? That is a complete scandal. It^s the laundering of public money into banks^ coffers."
http://profeng.com/columns/where-privatisation-went-off-the-rails
Enough said.

It's the Wolmar question "What are Franchies for?"

DaFT obviously don't like VT because they got the Pendelinos strenghtened to 9 and now 11, when it was obvious they didn't want to be tied to VT because they had to give then  time to get some pay back for the extra cost of rolling stock and the disruption of WCML upgrade.

I think VT has got some very canny lawyers and would amost certainly challenge DaFT in the courts if they didn't get the franchise.

Sorry - lost on both the above points! What do you mean?

I hope VT get WC and EC, so the horrid NX/EC grey/purple livery can be removed! They run a passenger focused service - no coincidence that Chris Green was CEO for a while then! Although VT's would have to get used to barriers in the North East!

 I've not read the article in question, but perhaps you could debate that the previous Tory
 administration were at fault.
 Surely if the various transport companies were able to exploit the system in place, then you
 could argue the original 'privatise the railway' bill was flawed.

 In my opinion this was shown by the incompetence of Railtrack.

This is in a dream, presumably?  VT have no more or less right than any other bidder to get the new franchise.   

Paul

Last time the EC franchise was being tendered, it was suggested that VT could not get both EC and WX on competition grounds. 

I can see lawyers and the courts being involved in the next round of franchises.

The tendering process and the actual franchise contracts are so wordy and cover so many volumes that they are are lawyers paradise.

I think VT could plausably argue that as they put up with the West Coast modernisation, the post Hatfield Railtrack fiasco, introduced the pendelinos and the VHF timetable and increased passenger numbers by a very large % that they should be allowed to reap the rewards for the risks they took keeping the service running and subsequently introducing new trains and the VHF timetable.

I don't really like any of the TOCS (except perhaps Chiltern) so have no desire to see any of the existing TOCs get any franchise unless they are prepared like Chiltern to invest heavily in infrastructure and new stock. Then they could have a 15/20 year franchise provided they delivered the improvements contracted for.

I think you are mistaken.  I suggest Virgin have never taken on any financial risk at all. For a significant part of their existence they were on a 'cost plus' management contract.  Every new timetable or delayed upgrade has resulted in franchise variations.

It was widely reported that it was Virgin who refused to introduce the extended and new trains without additional subsidy for the extra risk involved.  They can't have it both ways...

Paul

This could also be a warning for the likes of connex/veolia-transdev who are still on the lookout for opportunities so no doubt bidding for franchises in UK. Could also possibly be aimed at not necessarily companies, rather individuiual management teams that may still be in charge that have messed aroud the dft.

Privatisation only works for the public benefit when there is real competition and there is hardly any real competition within Britain's railway network. Without competition, there must be regulation and that is what Britain's railways have in plenty and this inflates costs an discourages enterprise. Even current tory ministers have acknowledged that the Rail Privatisation Act was a serious mistake that has ended up with tax payers paying out more than in the old BR days. The only form of public transport privatisation I know of was for buses in the Netherlands (when I was there 30 years ago!). Bus companies tendered to run services for a fixed price with fares going to Government. No competion between contractors but much better co-ordinated public transport that the Dutch, at that time, seemed to appreciate. But Britain could not learn from the Dutch. As in so many other areas, Britain always has to be different to every one else!

That Dutch example sounds remarkably similar to how Transport for London organise their bus services.