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First Group wins the West Coast.


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BBC Report mentions 'more services'; I wonder where these will run. Euston/Birmingham and Euston/Manchester is already 3 trains per hour, so maybe half-hourly Euston/Liverpool ?

 

The reaction from the RMT is somewaht predictable.........

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10 minutes ago, caradoc said:

BBC Report mentions 'more services'; I wonder where these will run. Euston/Birmingham and Euston/Manchester is already 3 trains per hour, so maybe half-hourly Euston/Liverpool ?

 

The reaction from the RMT is somewaht predictable.........

 

Yep two trains an hour to Liverpool . Maybe some more to North Wales Llandudno mentioned . Looks like could be another order for bi modes .   I am a little sorry Virgin were ruled out because of the pensions issue . I think they’ve been one of the better operators, but give First  a chance . Interestingly I thought their business model was to get out of Franchising . Presumably they bid on this one before that was decided. 

Edited by Legend
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First have not been a roaring success on SWR, though from what I can tell GWR isn't too bad.

 

Are the bi-modes replacements for the voyagers, or in addition to? 13 would seem on the face of it to be enough to run the North Wales service, and the 10 EMUs would, if they're full length, probably eliminate diesels from fully electrified routes.

 

Hitachi can, I believe, do tilting trains. I think they've done some in Japan, so a tilting 800 isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

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Do the increased services proposed need more paths from London? If so how will they be fitted in? Or for example will Liverpool get services extended from Wolverhampton?

Yes, Llandudno, Gobowen and Walsall for new services. Llandudno can presumably be extension of services to Chester, if any terminate there, or possibly Holyhead services diverted. Gobowen will presumably be by extension of the two services a day to Shrewsbury. Or of course they could go all the way to Llandudno.

There are some weasel words about the franchise agreement  such as " "significant move away from the previous flawed franchising system" and would use a forecast revenue mechanism (FRM) - which offers protection against shortfalls in estimated revenues - to avoid a repeat of the issues that affected the previous East Coast Main Line franchise." No mention of the pension risk issue. It reads to me along the lines of "We can't afford this one to go belly up so we will guarantee you a profit whatever happens". Or am I being too cynical?

It also makes big assumptions about the HS2 construction timetable, presumably an agreement made before there were no bids for the Birmingham station job.

Jonathan

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Also to be the operator of HS2 when it opens.

This will surely affect the decision on new trains as it will take the fast  London -Birmingham traffic off the WCML.

Edited by melmerby
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2 hours ago, Iron Horse said:

I thought I read somewhere this morning that there were to be services to Llandudno and Gobowen.........I might have dreamed that I guess :o

 

Yes I read the gobowen bit too (and Walsall) 

 

im wondering if the existing shrewsbury service will run through to wrexham in the future?

 

gobowen was always a busy station for WSMR so I should think direct london services will be welcomed by the locals again

 

iirc llandudno used to have a virgin voyager service that coupled up with a Holyhead one in the jn (I may be wrong on that one) 

 

as for walsall I wonder if the proposed gobowen service will run (as virgin wanted to do a few years back) gobowen-shrewsbury-wolves-walsall-sutton Park-nuneaton-london 

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2 hours ago, caradoc said:

The reaction from the RMT is somewaht predictable.........

 

They (and Labour) have literally become automatons, putting out generic statements calling for the railways to be nationalised in response to any railway related news stories. 

 

The one rent-a-quote missing from the news story is Branson. I'd expect that he'd be putting his oar in, as happened last time he 'lost' the WCML. 

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All these extra services to Wales, is this to create feeder paths into Birmingham for HS2 when they pick up running that.

 

Interesting that the West Coast moves into a management contract at the outset of HS2 so that they can simply run that line whilst putting a lot of focus into HS2.

 

It's a long contract so I guess that is what is attractive to a group like First and all that transformation is where the money is.

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I assume most of the traffic at Gobowen must come from outside the village - pop 3270 in 2011 - I hadn't thought of serving it via Chester but that would be possible.

But the current morning service from Euston arrives Shrewsbury 12.50 and departs back south 15.34 so plenty of time to get to Gobowen and back, minimal extrar cost for the operating company.

And yes, why not split at Chester for Holyhead and Llandudno - or at Llandudno Junction for that matter.

Walsall is a bit different.  Best served by extending a New street terminator I would have thought. Also frees up platform space at New Street. I imagine NR would like that very much.

Jonathan

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There's already a website (public, but seemingly aimed at staff in the FAQ):

https://www.westcoastrail.co.uk/index.html

 

Strange that they've got something out so quick (I suspect the decision was made a few days or even a week ago), yet the East Midlands Railway website is up and down:

http://eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk - yesterday it displayed a fully functioning website, now it's just a holding page.

 

Branding for West Coast seems to be a very dark navy, possibly black (my monitor may not show the true colour) and orange.  Sort of makes me feel a bit nautical / shipping / boat theme.

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41 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

There's already a website (public, but seemingly aimed at staff in the FAQ):

https://www.westcoastrail.co.uk/index.html

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Strange that they've got something out so quick (I suspect the decision was made a few days or even a week ago), yet the East Midlands Railway website is up and down:

http://eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk - yesterday it displayed a fully functioning website, now it's just a holding page.

 

 

Branding for West Coast seems to be a very dark navy, possibly black (my monitor may not show the true colour) and orange.  Sort of makes me feel a bit nautical / shipping / boat theme.

 

 

Will there be a conflict with West Coast Railways over the name ? - Will WCRC object, or will the new franchisee try and force WCRC to relinquish its identity as other large companies have tried to do, even when the minnow existed first ?

 

Still, they could always paint their shiny new trains sludge brown :)

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1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

I assume most of the traffic at Gobowen must come from outside the village - pop 3270 in 2011 - I hadn't thought of serving it via Chester but that would be possible.

But the current morning service from Euston arrives Shrewsbury 12.50 and departs back south 15.34 so plenty of time to get to Gobowen and back, minimal extrar cost for the operating company.

And yes, why not split at Chester for Holyhead and Llandudno - or at Llandudno Junction for that matter.

Walsall is a bit different.  Best served by extending a New street terminator I would have thought. Also frees up platform space at New Street. I imagine NR would like that very much.

Jonathan

Could it not be worked with a Euston>Wolves> Shrewsbury> Gobowen> Wrexham> Chester> Euston and V/V diagram?

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3 hours ago, big jim said:

 

 

 

iirc llandudno used to have a virgin voyager service that coupled up with a Holyhead one in the jn (I may be wrong on that one) 

 

 

 

We’re never coupled up any booked Virgin services at Llandudno Junction, the last VT Llandudno service which ran from 2004 till 2008 use to follow the 1500 Pendo drag around 1520. 

 

Platform 4 just about holds 10 car voyager, platform 1 & 3 can easily hold a 10 car for splitting but platform 1 is the only platform that permissive working is allowed in the Up (Chester) direction only if anything needs to attach. 

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1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

I assume most of the traffic at Gobowen must come from outside the village - pop 3270 in 2011 - I hadn't thought of serving it via Chester but that would be possible.

 

my dad lives in ellesmere and he used to use WSMR, you also have oswestry traffic and looking slightly further afield the A5 corridor toward corwen 

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Hello all,

 

Interesting.

 

In terms of the branding/livery, the Pendolino fleet is going through a full repaint and being outshopped in a pale grey with black roofs.  The only overt branding is the vinyl flowing silk motif, overlaid with the Virgin logo, on the driving cars.  

 

Won't the new operator be expected to retain the base colours, and just add new vinyls with their name, similar to LNER's approach to the Mk4 fleet on the ECML?

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

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45 minutes ago, DIRTY DIESEL said:

 

We’re never coupled up any booked Virgin services at Llandudno Junction, the last VT Llandudno service which ran from 2004 till 2008 use to follow the 1500 Pendo drag around 1520. 

 

Platform 4 just about holds 10 car voyager, platform 1 & 3 can easily hold a 10 car for splitting but platform 1 is the only platform that permissive working is allowed in the Up (Chester) direction only if anything needs to attach. 

Splitting/ joining at Chester makes sense, in that the front portion could then run fast(ish) to Llandudno Junction and then presumably Holyhead, and the rear portion could follow along and call at the stations that some VT services miss, such as Prestatyn on its way to Llandudno.

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