Great Western Coffee Shop

A Joint Venture between FirstGroup and Trenitalia UK has pulled out of the
bidding for the East Midlands franchise.
 
In a statement, the companies said the decision was made so they could
focus on a joint bid for the West Coast Partnership.
 
This leaves Abellio, Arriva and current franchise operator Stagecoach in
the bidding for East Midlands, which is due to be awarded in April 2019
ahead of an August 2019 start.
 
The current deal is a Direct Award that is due to end in March next year,
but there is an additional 1-13 reporting period extension available to the
Secretary of State if required. A further DA is planned from March until
August next year.
 
A FirstGroup spokesman said: “FirstGroup, alongside our bidding partner
Trenitalia UK, has decided to withdraw from the East Midlands franchise
competition in order to focus on our joint bid for the West Coast
Partnership franchise. This is an exciting opportunity to be the first
operator of HS2, as well as run conventional West Coast services from
London to Glasgow.”
 
The Invitation to Tender (ITT) for East Midlands is due to be issued in
late April and should be published in May.
 
<https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/first/trenitalia-withdraws-east-midlands-bid>

Bidding for franchises has become extremely expensive, to the extent that there are few entrants into the competitions, and amongst those few entrants, you'll find a number of partnerships rather than individual companies.  Even incumbents are not bidding in some cases.

On of the suggested benefits of splitting the GWR franchise was to enable more bidders to be attracted rather than it only being available as a huge entity to the big boys, but I do wonder how much of the process of bidding is scaled in proportion to the franchise, and how much is a fixed size element of admin and paperwork no matter how big the franchise is.   In a slightly different arena (Community Rail) I was noting a potential merger into a superCRP in one regions of the north of England ... and can appreciate the temptation to be able to carry out a single set of admin tasks across a bigger rather than a smaller area.

I wonder how much of the decision to withdraw the bid for the East Midlands Trains franchise is down to the fact that the DfT will be leaving the franchise with a lack of rolling stock. The current HST fleet operating for EMT can’t be used from 2020 and there’s no replacement stock on order.

Splitting the GWR franchise is the most stupid idea I've heard for a long time, and quite a lot of people are against it. The EMT franchise is in the poop as someone else as said lots of non useable HST's, and not enough 222 Meridan's to replace them, which means another costly order of new stock, although i'm suprised, as I would have thought First would add it onto their 802 orders.  I do worry about them bidding for the West Coast again(deja vu), who's not to say Branson will throw his toys out of the pram again and First will be back in the red.