Don't first group (1) want to give up FGW▸ and (2) also want east coast
I cant see them getting east coast AND west coast or either of them in addition to FGW
So vacman, you still wouldnt get free travel if they gave up FGW
I can't find the comment at the moment from another meandering thread, but it would seem that we'll be seeing a lot very stupid bidding going on again. First want out of their current franchise commitments, all their backers say keep your eye on the buses, supported by serious industry commentators. They then start bidding for other work in the rail industry.
Virgin(not Virgin) have made a fortune from their T&C's due to
WCML▸ upgrade cock ups, they weren't that good at actually running anything.
The only company people wanted to continue to run trains were on the
ECML▸ and they were thrown off on a technicallity, not that they weren't doing a good job.
Total b*ll*cks, and will be again. Not holding out much hope on who wins the next one.
I've not looked but are the franchise documents in the public domain, if not they should be.