Great Western Coffee Shop

Philip Haigh @ Rail tweeted this, this morning.....


Anyone care to decipher this.....

_{Edited heading in light of splitting this off from the 180s allocation discussion and merging into GC/DB thread}

Referring to the 'Red Paint' it's rumoured DB are about to take over Grand Central but I doubt we'll see 180s and HSTs been taken out-of-service to be repainted in DB livery anytime soon considering the reliability problems which have got worse in the past few weeks.

One of the two out-of-use (East Coast) 180s has gone on a short term loan to Grand Central.  Hull Trains have subleased a 180 off GC, so I don't know why Hull Trains haven't just loaned the out-of-use 180 themselves.

Yes, that's probably the point - DB buying GC who have 180s/HSTs of course....

Have just read that grand central have been taken over by arriva/DB, i think it's a terrible shame and something unique has been lost and going off cross country it's customers should be worried

Sorry here's the source

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2011/11/04-germans-buy-openaccess-operator-grand.html

I heard yesterday....;et's hope they survive longer than the first open-access operator that DB got their dirty paws on....

Interesting rumours.

What this thread once again emphasises is what a mess DaFT have got into over the  allocation of exisiting and purchase of new rolling stock, for both capacity enhancements and replacement of worn out units such as the Pacers.

There was a piece on I think you and yours where they discussed how Pacers could be made disability compliant in 2018! Whcich would mean they would be around until at least 2025!

I think even Roger Ford has ceased trying to make sense of DaFT figures.

Theres an Arriva press release as well.

http://www.arriva.co.uk/arriva/en/media_centre/press_releases/2011/2011-11-04/

Paul

GC have announced that DB subsidiary Arriva have taken over the company for ^20 million.
http://www.grandcentralrail.com/arriva

There's a specific thread somethere...

How long before DB/Arriva announce they can no longer sustain the losses at Grand Central? This years accounts showed a loss of ^8.5 million, with Net liabilities (money owed to creditors minus assets) of ^37 million.

Closing Grand Central would give DB/Arriva a nice little pool of rolling stock to use elsewhere. They've done it once before......

It sure is a possibility, though less likely I'd have thought as it really would be awful publicity for Arriva/DB if they were to do the same thing twice, and the two Grand Central routes have much more potential.

The Sunderland route is supposed to be making a profit and  yes the Bradford service is making a loss at the moment but paassengers numbers are supposed to be rising.

I wonder what the effect will be with the DB/Arriva Alliance rail open acess proposals.

Could we see Grand Central getting brand new trains if an order is placed for those polaris trains, if some of the Alliance rail proposals get the go ahead.

They've applied to ORR to re-route the Bradford service via Mirfield instead of Pontefract to speed it up.

Or seen as a foot in the door for the East Coast franchise

Not necessarily, GC now lease all their stock in the normal manner.  (They originally owned their HSTs, but sold them to a normal Rosco to fund the new engines.)

Paul

But surely DB/Arriva are now the lessee. If they decided to cease the GC services would they not be free to deploy the stock elsewhere?

I can't see Angel Trains preventing the lessee from deploying them elsewhere, if the lessee wanted to. There may be contractual small print to overcome, but Angel Trains are in the business of leasing trains, not seeing them in store.

If Angel got a whisper that the HSTs were no longer needed they might prefer to lease them to the East Coast operator, who also seems to need more HSTs at least at the moment. 

All I'm saying is that they wouldn't automatically be able to transfer them within Arriva or DB, it would be down to the Rosco to agree.

Don't think the locals around Arriva head office in Sunderland would be too happy if their London link were to be removed, plus the directors now have a free first class direct service to their meetings in London. (Not that I'm a cynic)