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Title: Staff benefits lost with nationalisation Post by: grahame on May 25, 2025, 15:57:40 From Railway World (https://railwayworld.net/2025/05/25/paying-the-price-for-swr-nationalisation/)
Quote Spare a thought for those of us who will this weekend (25 May 2025) lose a major rail travel benefit as a result of South Western Railway (SWR) becoming the first rail operator to be nationalised by the Labour Government. Over the past five years a major benefit for me of working part-time for a FirstGroup company has been an annual allocation of cheap day rover tickets that are valid on any of the First rail operations and, importantly for me, SWR. But the change of ownership at SWR means losing that valuable perk that comes with role as a Rail Replacement Coordinator, although it will continue to be available on First’s two other franchises, GWR and Avanti, until they too are taken into the public sector. Not so lucky are the many thousands of SWR staff, who will lose their entitlement to all of these Rover tickets as they have now become part of the public sector, and are no longer be employees of FirstGroup. [snip] After five years, I will bitterly miss the SWR Rovers that allowed me to begin longer distance trips with a cheap early morning journey to Waterloo, and it seems all the more regrettable when I realise that I will be back working for SWR next weekend (31 May 2025) on bus replacement duty! Title: Re: Staff benefits lost with nationalisation Post by: ChrisB on May 25, 2025, 16:03:27 My understanding is that SWT(R) staff retain benefits over SWT metals but have lost them over First Group metals.
The DfTO TOCs have agreed a replacement arrangement over their routes, but of course needs DfT agreement. They are still waiting… Title: Re: Staff benefits lost with nationalisation Post by: Surrey 455 on May 25, 2025, 21:14:39 Annual season ticket holders lost a nice perk when SWT became SWR. Six free all day tickets anywhere on the SWT network per year. I can't see that returning with a change of ownership.
I seem to recall GWR used to do something similar in the mid 2000s, although that may have been linked to not meeting the punctuality targets in the Passenger Charter. I had some nice long day trips with both operators which I wouldn't have otherwise made due to the normal cost. This page is printed from the "Coffee Shop" forum at http://gwr.passenger.chat which is provided by a customer of Great Western Railway. Views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that content provided contravenes our posting rules ( see http://railcustomer.info/1761 ). The forum is hosted by Well House Consultants - http://www.wellho.net |