Great Western Invitation to Tender issued today (Friday 27 July 2012)

[whole diary]

[Southern Stag]

I note that Bristol Temple Meads and Reading are to be managed by Network Rail from 2014. Hopefully this won't be like the slightly farcical 'management' of Birmingham New Street, where you have Network Rail doing despatch, Virgin selling tickets, London Midland manning the gateline and doing revenue protection and CrossCoutry doing Customer Service.

OK, there are less TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) involved at Bristol TM^‡(resolve) and Reading, but I wonder what the division of duties will be between lead TOC and NR^» (Network Rail - home page)?

Also that stations Salisbury-Southampton will hopefully be transferred to SWT^▸ (South West Trains) before the start of the new franchise.

[Btline]

...and thereby extend journey times to St Ives from the east by getting on for half an hour.

Not if the journey time has been reduced by half an hour to Penzance by the cutting of stops.

Besides, most St Ives passengers are be Lelant car users from my observations.

[paul7575]

OK, there are fewer TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) involved at Bristol TM^‡(resolve) and Reading, but I wonder what the division of duties will be between lead TOC and NR^» (Network Rail - home page)?

There's no national standard for division of responsibilities as far as I can tell.  If you were to use Waterloo as the comparison, I don't see NR staff involved much with the train service there at all.

It's probably more to do with who gets all the rent from the 'station shopping centre'.

Paul   

[TheLastMinute]

There's no national standard for division of responsibilities as far as I can tell.  If you were to use Waterloo as the comparison, I don't see NR^» (Network Rail - home page) staff involved much with the train service there at all.

Same with Paddington where the ticket barriers, train dispatch, first class waiting room and ticket offices are run by FGW^▸ (First Great Western). Network Rail do have a few customer service staff plus the passenger assistance buggy, but that seems to be the limit of their operational involvement.

It's probably more to do with who gets all the rent from the 'station shopping centre'.

In truth, that probably seems fair considering the amount of investment going into Reading right now and Bristol TM^‡(resolve) over the next few years.

TLM

[TheLastMinute]

This caught my eye in the ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender)...

4.3.2.2 Franchise Geography

The Franchise Agreement (paragraph 2.2 of Schedule 1.6), sets out the routes over which the Franchisee is permitted to operate. This has been based on those of the current franchise plus two further routes that have been added following receipt and review of suggestions from Bidders prior to the issue of the ITT. The additional routes over which the Franchisee may also operate if they so wish are:

• Southampton Central to Poole from May 2017 onwards only; and
• Banbury to Stratford upon Avon.

Bidders are free to operate trains over these routes, subject to fulfilling the other requirements of the Franchise Agreement. Such services will not form part of the TSR^▸ (Temporary Speed Restriction). By accepting Bids which include plans for such services, the Department does not guarantee it will support future applications for track access on these routes. During Bid assessment the Department may risk adjust revenue or cost assumptions if it believes the Bidder has taken an unreasonable view on any future allocation of track access rights.

So it seems that at least one bidder is considering these new routes, i.e. the reinduction of the Oxford to Stratford upon Avon scrapped in 2004 plus a (what I think would be) a through service between Westbury or maybe Bristol and the Hampshire & east Dorset coast. If this comes off, I think they would uncover an fairly sizeable market as travelling to the south west from Bournemouth is a bit at the moment. Interesting ideas...

TLM

[Btline]

Perhaps Chiltern want to hand over their route to Stratford to free up capacity? They are already running down the service to Kings Sutton, angering commuters and sparking fears the station may be axed:

http://www.banburyguardian.co.uk/news/local/fighting-to-keep-trains-running-1-4099661

Was Stratford slower via Oxford? (I assume so)

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) definitely wants to run from Oxford to Stratford. It contributed last year a significant cash sum to the appeal to pay for a study into othe possible reopening of the Honeybourne/Stratford link, I believe it was ^10,000. A senior member of FGW has said that Oxford and Stratford has similar tourist traffic.

[IndustryInsider]

Was Stratford slower via Oxford? (I assume so)

It was certainly slower than the Evergreen Stage 2 proposed timetable which had a Chiltern service every 2 hours taking 1h50 to 1h55m.  Not much difference between the current timings (around 2h 10m on average) and the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) service though.

FGW definitely wants to run from Oxford to Stratford. It contributed last year a significant cash sum to the appeal to pay for a study into othe possible reopening of the Honeybourne/Stratford link, I believe it was ^10,000. A senior member of FGW has said that Oxford and Stratford has similar tourist traffic.

A very senior member of FGW staff told me that they were certainly interested in Stratford again, but I got the impression that it would be a service to complement the Chiltern offering rather than replace it.  That may all change of course, but I'd have thought that there was a market for one or two prime timed HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to run for tourists during the summer from Paddington with probable calls at Slough, Reading, Oxford, Warwick and Stratford - though I'm not sure the same winter market exists, and I'm really unsure as to whether the Honeybourne link is worth the substantial investment that will be needed to overcome problems south of the station.

[Btline]

Having both operators is a bad idea as it doesn't really add to the frequency. People will turn up t Pad or Mar and it's still a 2 hourly service.

It's why having extra trains from Shenfield to Liverpool Street high level on Crossrail is barmy. In the evening, where do commuters go? The Crossrail platforms for 12tph or the high level platforms for 6tph?

[eightf48544]

Changing the subject has any one worked the TV stopping service pattern? ~I could find no reference to Taplow and I'm too thick to make any sense of the Service Requirement tables.

It's why having extra trains from Shenfield to Liverpool Street high level on Crossrail is barmy. In the evening, where do commuters go? The Crossrail platforms for 12tph or the high level platforms for 6tph?

I would suggest commuters within walking distant or arrive by bus will go to the high level  I asumme that at least some of the High Level trains will be Southend, Clacton etc. semis.

Moorgate people will enter the West end of the Crossrail station it's that long!

Circle/Met people will probably go to the highlevel but Central line passengers will either stay underground or go through to Stratford or have got on Crossrail already furhther West.

Also don't forget we will have an even more bizairre situatation at Padd. With 24tph Eastbound in the peaks and only 10 tph coming out onto the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) Westbound. Plus an unknown number of High Level semis from stations East of Reading.

Crossrail is a disaster West of Padd especiialy if they waste money building the turnback sidings at Maidenhead and have electrified Marlow and Henley. Hence my post on the Battle of Taplow2018.

[LiskeardRich]

It does state 1tph extended to penzance, There almost certainly isnt capacity between st erth and penzance to have 28 tpd plus mainline services

I've had a look through both the Invitation To Tender and the Train Service Reruirement documents and can't find anywhere saying only one train per hour in either and the main document refers to extending all 28 trains.  It also wouldn't be impossible to path the additional services (off peak there is only 1 tph from Penzance to Plymouth), running time St Erth to Penzance is only ten minutes.

but the ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) also mentions half hourly services between Pz and plymouth, this plus half hourly st ives services would mean a train every 15 mins, dont think signalling will allow this without major upgrades

[Zoe]

but the ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) also mentions half hourly services between Pz and plymouth, this plus half hourly st ives services would mean a train every 15 mins, dont think signalling will allow this without major upgrades

The signalling itself may cope with running a train every 15 minutes from Penzance to St Erth but the single line east of Penzance doesn't help if there are delays and another issue would be the fact that down trains from the branch would have to use the up main platform although this is not within the clearing point so it would be possible to accept a train from Penzance even if a train from the branch is occupying the up platform.  Regardless of this though, the invitation to tender clearly says that the St Ives services will only be extended through to Penzance if the half hourly Plymouth service does not go ahead.  It's either option 6B or 7A, not both.

[Btline]

None of them will be Semi fast. There will be 6tph from Liverpool Street HL to Shenfield calling at all stations.

I still think it defeats the object TBH^▸ (to be honest). You should be able to turn up at the station either on the platform or on a concourse near the platform.

You're right about Paddington. Going to Slough or Maidenhead? Do you head upstairs on downstairs? Completely defeats the high frequencies.

A mess.

[TonyK]

The way some of the ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) is written, with grammatical mistakes and no obvious signs of proof-reading, makes me suspect that substantial redrafting work was being done right to the last minute. Look at pages 117 - 8 for instance:

The overall level of services between Plymouth and Penzance is specified in the TSR^▸ (Temporary Speed Restriction) at current levels. However, discussions with Bidders and analysis of loadings have suggested that within this level a TSR minimum level of six weekday through services between London and Penzance would be provide a better balance of local versus long distance provision.
However, stakeholders have stressed the value of this connectivity, and the Department is therefore this Priced Option requires the provision of the following specification: nine weekday through services each way between London and Penzance. These services can be provided instead of local services as long as the overall TSR minimum is met.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Agreed: the more I read the ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender), and the associated briefings and documents, the more it becomes rather painfully clear that they were all 'rushed out' at the last minute.

For example, see the Stakeholder Briefing document:

The consultation document for the proposed Great Western franchise was issued by the Department on the 22 December 2011, and closed on the 31st of March 2012. The new Great Western franchise is expected to commence on in July 2013.

The Department for Transport announced the names of the four short-listed bidders for the new franchise on 29 [check] March 2012.

The ITT sets out the bidding process and the specification for the franchise along with the scope of the issues bidders will need to consider when formulating their responses. Bidders are required to submit their final bids to the Department on xx October 2012 and it is expected that the Department will make an announcement of the preferred bidder to operate the franchise in February/March 2013.

Once submitted to the Department, in October 2013, a process of bid evaluation will commence using published procedure and industry best practice including the EFQM RADAR scoring model. It is expected that the winning bidder will be announced in February/March 2013 and that the new franchise will commence operations in July 2013.

Pure gibberish!