First Group win South West franchise

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Just popped down to Poole station.

 

Not one item of rolling stock has been de-branded.

 

All the SWT leaflets (except for the current Waterloo blockage one) have been removed from the display holders. No sign of any SWR ones though.

[Gwiwer]

Just popped down to Poole station.

 

Not one item of rolling stock has been de-branded.

 

All the SWT leaflets (except for the current Waterloo blockage one) have been removed from the display holders. No sign of any SWR ones though.

 

Same here.  Someone has removed every brochure and timetable from the rack which was well stocked this morning.  Which means that because the station is unstaffed no timetables are now available.  The existing ones were only Monday-Friday until 19th August anyway - nothing in hard copy has been produced for the weekend services.

 

And nothing is de-branded.

 

Also noted that RTT continues to refer to "South West Trains" and uses the same letters SW to identify trains running for South Western after the changeover tomorrow and in the week ahead.

[Chris116]

Also noted that RTT continues to refer to "South West Trains" and uses the same letters SW to identify trains running for South Western after the changeover tomorrow and in the week ahead.

I would expect it to stay as SW for the whole of the franchise, after all Virgin Trains East Coast is still GR from when the franchise was Great North Eastern Railway.

[great central]

 

 

Also noted that RTT continues to refer to "South West Trains" and uses the same letters SW to identify trains running for South Western after the changeover tomorrow and in the week ahead.

I'm pretty sure that the standard abbreviation for East Coast is still GR as in GneR

[lmsforever]

I note on the BBC News that our friendly(?)  RMT are threatening more disruption even though the new company has said two people on all trains these people really are luddites.

[PaulRhB]

I note on the BBC News that our friendly(?) RMT are threatening more disruption even though the new company has said two people on all trains these people really are luddites.

Thank you for a sweeping statement as there are quite a few RMT members on here and we aren't all luddites!

Contrary to that he refused to confirm it in this BBC story

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40886238

 

Unsurprisingly that has raised hackles with the Southern debacle and a lot of guards worried about their jobs.

 

Think before you class us all as luddites

[John M Upton]

This has been passed to me by a 'reliable source'. An artist's impression of the new livery.

[jim.snowdon]

Actually, think about the composition of the sentence. I read it as not the staff who are being called Luddites but the leadership of the RMT.

 

Jim

[Peter Kazmierczak]

This has been passed to me by a 'reliable source'. An artist's impression of the new livery.

FB_IMG_1503168259331.jpg

Oh dear.....

[Talltim]

And

[John M Upton]

Bland....

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Having passenger doors in different colours (albeit contrasting to comply with disability legislation), is going to be confusing to some.

[brianusa]

Why not just paint it malachite green and be done with it and perhaps put L& before SWR!

 

Brian.

[PaulRhB]

Actually, think about the composition of the sentence. I read it as not the staff who are being called Luddites but the leadership of the RMT.

 

Jim

Unfortunately not what it says though Jim which is why he got a polite bit of sarcasm. We know there are militant elements but that type of statement tars us all when many are moderate and use the union for what it was created for.

We get fed up with such statements and being dismissed as trouble makers as I pointed out it was in direct contradiction of his earlier statements which I offer for balance vs the Luddite comment.

[Gwiwer]

This has been passed to me by a 'reliable source'. An artist's impression of the new livery.

That image has also been seen by myself arising from normally reliable and trustworthy sources. At this stage the logo looks amateurish and the livery drab (as is often the case with First Group) but it's neither confirmed nor been sighted personally. I do question the visibility of what might be substantially black trains.

[corneliuslundie]

"Driver, guard and passengers all equally bored watching the clock tick away their lives."

 

They will have to get back to discussing station gardens and the signalman's prize marrows.

Jonathan

[Gwiwer]

The new people already have a Wikipedia entry including that dreadful logo

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Western_Railway_(train_operating_company)

[jjb1970]

If any MTR people start getting involved 'close up' they'll probably run off weeping into their rice wine.  MTR is the company which called in consultants when it became seriously concerned about a decline in punctuality on its network as it was suffering an increased number of trains arriving 10 seconds (yes, seconds) late and they decided the decline had to be stopped.

 

Quite right too!!  

 

In all seriousness this is the sort of attention to detail that seems bonkers to people but it's a characteristic of some Asian countries. When I went to Korean and Japanese ship yards it was like entering a different world. New build projects were scheduled almost to the hour and an anal attention to detail and QA was set up to get things right, on time and avoid rework and warranty issues. I was used to European yards where the attitude was (and still is) that if you build something like a ship then s**t happens and you have to expect things to go wrong, in the Korean and Japanese yards if things don't go to schedule and commissioning trials are not just a confirmation that whatever is being commissioned works then all hell breaks loose and it's like the Spanish inquisition to find out what went wrong and adjust systems to avoid a repeat. That's not to say that things don't go wrong, they do (and quite often as it happens) but compared with yards over here it is night and day and the difference in attitude to dropped balls is striking to say the least. A lot of people laugh at it and think it a bit crazy but it has resulted in their yards building ships a lot more quickly and to much higher standards than yards in most of the rest of the world.

[Gwiwer]

If the MTR component is at all influential then watch out for an epidemic of stop-skipping to maintain punctuality. That is one technique they have used in their Melbourne franchise where they maximise their profit by punctual running and " reliability" but leave passengers behind all the time. It is so bad there that the renewal (due in November) specifies they may not omit stops as a means of achieving performance targets.

[Southernman46]

Grey !!  feckin hell  !!   of all the colours ..................  going to look great in the November drizzle in the cutting at Putney  

Edited August 19, 2017 by Southernman46

[jim.snowdon]

If the MTR component is at all influential then watch out for an epidemic of stop-skipping to maintain punctuality. That is one technique they have used in their Melbourne franchise where they maximise their profit by punctual running and " reliability" but leave passengers behind all the time. It is so bad there that the renewal (due in November) specifies they may not omit stops as a means of achieving performance targets.

Which is why, as I understand it, the rules for measuring punctuality have been/will soon be altered to include intermediate stops, not least so that train operators cannot weight the figures in their favour by achieving on time arrivals as a result of loading all the recovery time into the final stage into the terminus. The Southern routes into the London termini are all very congested and require a high level of timekeeping (and timetabling) discipline if they are to deliver the performance in terms of shifting the passengers.

 

Jim

[Gwiwer]

5O77 wil be the last SWT working here and one of the last of all. The 01.40 empty cars from Shepperton arrives Strawberry Hill 9 minutes later where it reverses in the platform where the driver changes ends.

 

It then departs at 01.58 as a Stagecoach SWT working to the depot but arrives there as a First SWR train at 02.02.

 

I'll set the alarm

[wombatofludham]

And

IMG_1653.JPG

 

If that is the livery I quite like it.  On the plus side (a) It doesn't include any pink (b) It doesn't have the Flying F logo plastered all over it © it isn't retro.  Sorry, retro looks cack on modern vehicles, we need to get over it. Oh and (d) it ain't green.  

 

On the downside, we lose the differentiated family of liveries SWT had, whereby there was a common style but longer distance trains had different applications to those on outer and inner suburban routes.  I liked that, it was clever whilst retaining a common theme.

 

To me the new scheme if it is what is shown says efficiency, business like and focussed.  Ideal for a commuter railway.  Let's hope the management and workforce are able to deliver high standards to reflect the new identity.

[caradoc]

If the MTR component is at all influential then watch out for an epidemic of stop-skipping to maintain punctuality. That is one technique they have used in their Melbourne franchise where they maximise their profit by punctual running and " reliability" but leave passengers behind all the time. It is so bad there that the renewal (due in November) specifies they may not omit stops as a means of achieving performance targets.

 

Stop-skipping/running express is a recognised and perfectly valid method of restoring normal service as quickly as possible; Say, for example, a train on a diagram with 5 minute turnrounds at each end (ie no scope to regain time) is running 10 minutes late. If nothing is done that train is likely to remain 10 minutes late on every leg of its diagram, delaying every single passenger using it, to say nothing of the delay it will cause to other services. If however that 10 minutes can be regained by running express further delay is eliminated; Certainly some inconvenience is caused, but to the smallest possible number of passengers. And, in the UK at least, missed station stops are recorded and any such train counts as a part cancellation, so nothing is hidden. 

[62613]

Think before you class us all as luddites

I suppose that calling them Luddites is in every respect correct this time; after all, the original Luddites, in Nottingham and The West Riding, were getting all het up about machinery allowing unskilled labourers to do their work more cheaply.