Great Western Coffee Shop

Awarded to National Express

Anyone but First so I am happy. Branson misses out again, very surprising. Was sort of expecting Virgin/Stagecoach would get East Coast after losing XC which just goes to show there is no consistency whatsover with the awarding of franchises. Hopefully that will mean that when the GW franchise comes up for renewal in a few years time that someone else gets a chance to run it.

And finally a victory for Bowker. Lets hope they improve on what GNER has done over the past 11 or so years and not screw it up.

For National Express response to award of ECML Franchise see ;-

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=200708140715100375C

You base this statement I assume on the preformance of First on the Western Region. It may surprise you that First are preforming well on Transpennine ( best in it's class last year) and Scotrail. Also investigate the preformance of the Eastern Region since First lost the Great Eastern franchise and I think you'll find that it has slipped in the ratings of staff/customers. We will never know what the GNER part of the railway would have been like under the First banner unless NEx are unable to meet their financial targets. NEx have to pay the treasury MORE money back than Sea Containers had to and we all know how hard they found that task.

Just remember that it's not all doom and gloom within the First Rail empire.

I'm sure its not all doom and gloom in the wonderful world of First and yes I do base that statement on the performance of their Western region franchise. This is not branded as the worst rail franchise in the UK for nothing...with help from Dft and Network Rail of course.

I also base it on the complete pigs ear they have made to buses in the Bath and Bristol area over the years - high fares, cut services and up until recently a poor fleet of buses. Yes its a bit narrow in terms of experience of only part of their empire, but having travelled on GNER a number of times I would not have wanted a company who has done nothing to improve travel in the region in which I live to possibly screw up another good part of the network.

Wessex trains (NEX company) wasn't perfect but our local services have gone down considerably since First took over them.

I agree they are doing well with Transpennine but who wouldn't with an almost completely new fleet of trains. That franchise is also in partnership with another company Keolis.

So one hand yes Im happy First have not been awarded any of the recently announced franchises. But Im also sad that they are not fit enough in my opinion to take on any further franchises until they sort out FGW. Once they do I will be more than happy to congratulate them on gaining new franchises. Its nothing personal.

First don't get everything right in Scotland

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6919805.stm

Apologies if this doesn't work, but just google bbc first scotrail fines

Up until very recently, FGW was the responsibility of the FG Finance director, whilst TPE and FS where the responsibility of FG Operations director.

http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/articles/rail/570.shtml

The reason for this is quite simple, FG did not care about FGW operational performance, but it's financial performance. FGW has the distinction of paying the government over ^1.2 billion pounds, whist both TPE and FS receive subsidies. If the East Coast line had been awarded to FG it would have been another 'cash cow' where financial performance was paramount. As things stand, I believe that Arriva are paying way too much for this Franchise, and consequently the quality of the service they offer will deteriate.

I can't blame FGW for everything that goes wrong, but what it is responsible for does go wrong often, (breakdowns, severe overcrowding, delays, poor planning to handle engineering overruns, etc)  that they must be held to account. I'm quite sure that if FGW had their franchise removed for incompetance, FG and others would reconsider how they run rail franchises in future

Did you mean National Express rather than Arriva Simon? Either way, to be paying more than GNER were committed to and in less time is a huge gamble by NEX. But it is a far more straightforward franchise than GW and even in an economic downturn the East Coast mainline will always see plenty of traffic. Still a lot of money to pay to the government for the privelege of running this franchise though.