Franchise changes

yes, have read that on the BBC website! Very interesting to see Corby re-opened, despite the fact many diversional services pass through the station, or whats left of it from the 1990 re-opening...

Think the West Midlads Trains will be a totally different livery... which means new signage, new uniforms, new marketing persona...

DfT said no.Shame really as it was a good fallback if the WCML was up the spout.

IF the Chiltern to Birmingham bit has been reported accurately it is bound to end up in the courts. Birmingham is not only a legal requirement of the Chiltern franchise, it is a large source of income. To remove that would alter the premium profile significantly. So much so that I wonder if the reporter got the details round his neck......


Edit - having rummaged round a bit, it seems that Chiltern will continue just as they are - what they will NOT get is the LOCAL Birmingham services currently run by Centro, these going to the new franchise.

So it's Stagecoach and Govia. No surprises there then, except once again the size of the premiums both are prepared to pay.

I will be very upset to see turquoise trains go up and down the ECML. It's a shame that Stagecoach got the midland mainline as they had an agreement with the GNER management.

Arriva. Hmm.

What was wrong with GNER precisely? They had a bit of financial trouble but altogether they were a decent company.

Solely the inability to double their financial bond when the goalposts were moved after the game started.....

From my many journeys on GNER would say that GNER are indeed a fine TOC, although their HST's are looking very old and drab.

From the local paper, the only mention on the GNER franchise is that I'll have a few more trains calling at Peterborough ;D

All I need is a 2330 from KX at weekends and a daily 0500 from Peterborough please

I wonder how much the franchise itself can do. Those near-mythical reliability figures in some Asian countries are usually paired with much higher (past) investment in the infrastructure.

I doubt you they can reach the same efficiency on a network where every upgrade has to be done on the cheap and it is held together with tie-wraps and duct tape.

There are about 5000 flats above the depot at Kowloon Bay. The land was provided free by the government so the railway made all the profit.

The reliability on both MTRC and KCRC is achieved through a management dedicated to improvement. Old systems get replaced quickly and without political interference. For example, Platform Screen Doors were retrofitted to improve safety and reduce on-platform temperatures. Maintenance systems are closely managed and new techniques adopted to improve efficiency. A good relationship is maintained with the media.

The traffic levels are such that each train carries 2.5 times the numbers carried in London. Delays are recovered very quickly because the temperatures are so high that passengers would die if they were allowed to sit on a stalled train for an hour like they are in London (although responses are improving here).

The staff are highly motivated and management has a free hand to develop new ideas and techniques which prove a benefit to the system. Even the passengers behave better - there are few incidents of drunken crime or robbery, there is no graffiti and there are a couple of suicide attempts a year compared with London's two a week.

Why can't we do all this here? Partly culture and partly politics but we could make huge improvements if the management structure was different. Separating the infrastructure from the operator was a big mistake.

Finally, in Hong Kong they have a "can do" mentality. Here we have a "can't do" mentality. [takes deep breath after near rant]

Big loss for the bearded one - or is he getting the ECML and loses the XC as a result?