Franchise Announcement

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

So, more like this then:



 

[ChrisB]

Turbo maintenance will eventually all transfer to St Phillips Marsh, meaning ecs moves for exams & faults.

[IndustryInsider]

Exams and heavy maintenance may well do, but I'll happily wager that light maintenance faults, stabling, refuelling, and emptying of CET^▸ (Controlled Emission Toilet)'s will remain at Reading for those sets that stay behind, as will the first two of those at Oxford.

[ChrisB]

Oh yes, I was referring to medium & Heavy maintenance, not nightly work

[ChrisB]

From the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Press Release, not as I can see picked up by any outlet...

The company will expand the use of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) brand, currently used in its long distance First Class carriages and will rebrand before the start of the new franchise in September.

[JayMac]

Forgive the continued light relief, but I spotted two EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) in Somerset today. And there were overhead wires in place.



And the overhead wires...



Washford transmitting station. Also home to a small zoo.

 

[bobm]

I knew telling him to get out more was a mistake....

[Rhydgaled]

I very nearly started a new topic for this, but changed my mind...

I am frequently trying to remind pepole about the potential IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) Capacity shortfall, especially with regard to the South Wales routes and the Cotswold Line, because I am hugely concerned about this and feel something needs to be done. We now have a new 'direct award' agreement but I cannot find the service level commitment detailing the service FirstGW will provide. Prior to the direct award announcement, I read rumours on another fourm that the requirement for First Great Western to operate crowd-busting services to provide extra summer Saturday services to Tenby and Pembroke Dock could be dropped under the new contract. This would mean four years with the already streched no-growth Wales & Borders having to cover services. The line requires three diagrams (ATW^▸ (Arriva Trains Wales (former TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company))) cover one with a class 150  2-car unit, the other two with 2-car 'Pacer' DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit)) whereas FirstGW provide two 8 coach IC125s...

Can anyone find the new service level commitment and settle the matter one way or the other. A critical decision over Intercity rolling stock is supposed to be made in June by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), but with no MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) at present I cannot use that channel to try and obtain all the facts before having to write to the new transport minister via my new MP.

[ChrisB]

Shouldn't you (also) be writing to the Welsh Goverrnt about their lack of service spec to ATW^▸ (Arriva Trains Wales (former TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company))) Then? Why is it purely a FGW^▸ (First Great Western) issue?

[Richard Fairhurst]

Can anyone find the new service level commitment and settle the matter one way or the other.

That should be FOIable, no?

[Rhydgaled]

Can anyone find the new service level commitment and settle the matter one way or the other.

That should be FOIable, no?

Thanks for the suggestion, I didn't think of that. I've now asked for the Franchise Agreement and Service Level Commitment for the new direct award using the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) FOI^▸ (Freedom of Information) online form. I hope they reply quickly.

Shouldn't you (also) be writing to the Welsh Goverrnt about their lack of service spec to ATW^▸ (Arriva Trains Wales (former TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company))) Then? Why is it purely a FGW^▸ (First Great Western) issue?

The ATW franchise does not expire until 2018, and was let on a no-growth basis (by Westminster I believe, not the Welsh Government who I think didn't have devolved responsibility for specifying the franchise at the time). As far as I understand it (and I may be wrong since I do not know the details and haven't read the franchise agreement) ATW have no obligation to provide additional services/capacity if other franchises (eg. ICWC^▸ (InterCity West Coast) or GW^▸ (Great Western)) withdraw services in the Wales & Borders franchise area. Additional services outside ATW's base obligations (Fishguard and Holyhead-Cardiff services) have come at a high cost to the Welsh Government, eg. ^1.4m for Fishguard. Admittedly I do not have an understanding of the costs involved, but I get the impression ATW is in a position to charge what they like for increments and I wouldn't be supprised if that ^1.4m is the full cost of providing the service, meaning any and all additional fares revenue from the service is pure profit for ATW.

Even if they do have an obligation to cover withdrawal of FirstGW services, where can they obtain the necessary additional rolling stock by May 2016? In the longer term, you could argue that the new W&B franchise should be given responsibility for providing the additional summer capacity instead of FirstGW, but withdrawl of the FirstGW service before the end of the current ATW NO-GROWTH franchise is, I think, a different matter.

[ChrisB]

With hourly bi-modes (except for the all-stations stoppers) - some of which will be 10car - I think you'll find it's a net gain of seats on the North Cotswold...

[Rhydgaled]

With hourly bi-modes (except for the all-stations stoppers) - some of which will be 10car - I think you'll find it's a net gain of seats on the North Cotswold...

Did you read IndustryInsider's post that I linked to above? The analysis of the diagrams DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) used to calculate how many units to order (yes, yes, I know they are not actually what will be implemented, but they are the asumption used to order the stock) showed reductions in seats compared to current services at all of the following stations:

• Hereford (6.3% fewer seats)
• Great Malvern (24.4% fewer seats)
• Worcester (Foregate Street) (9.7% fewer seats)
• Moreton-In-Marsh (20.2% fewer seats)
• Swindon (9.5% fewer seats)
• Swansea (10.3% fewer seats)
• Cardiff (1.4% fewer seats)

Some Cotswolds stations are thus the worst hit (though I guess that depends on how many all-stations stoppers there are). Only two services each way to Worcester (one through to/from Hereford) were shown to be 10-car.

[ChrisB]

The bi-modes (apart from that Hereford 10car) are only scheduled to trip as far, I believe, as Shurb Hill in Worcester - hence the drop in seats to Foregate Street, Malvern & Hereford - but those stations don't need the capacity currently - have you seen the empty HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) going to Hereford from Worcester? You could get them all easily in a 2car turbo.

Somewhat surprised at the 20.2% drop in seats at Moreton, and can't see how they worked that out. Every train is stopping there in the future timetable, so a glaring error methinks

[grahame]

I think we may have mentioned this before, but are the numbers of seats here counted as "number of seats departing to London"?   If so, and the train calls at multiple stations, you're double or treble counting.

Lets take a hypothetical example

3 trains run from A calling at B and C to London, each with 500 seats. So that's 1500 seats from A, 1500 seats from B and 1500 seats from C.

3 new trains with 600 seats take over.   The first train calls at A and B, the second at A and C, and the third starts from B and calls at C.  So that' 1200 seats from each of them - "20% fewer seats".  Except .. total capacity from A B and C has risen by 20%!

Don't you just love statistics.

The example is pertinent - there are plans to skip Swindon, for example, and to make trains have fewer stops - so my logic may be more that just statistics!