ECML franchise fails .... again....

[Coryton]

It seems like the basic problem is an unrealistic expectation of profit/cost profiles in the Virgin bid is the issue this time around.

 

Sad to say I gave up using the service several years ago. The cost of two pre-booked returns to King's Cross from Durham was eye-watering. We were heading for Paris and it made sound economic sense for us to drive to Ashford, park in the secure Carpark and drive back rather than use the ECML. In fact the petrol and parking charges came to just under half the cost of one return ticket to KX.

 

I don't know if it's still the case, but there used to be special tickets available for journeys to London if they were part of an international journey (e.g. connecting to Eurostar) which were a LOT cheaper at peak times than the regular walk-up tickets. I think they could be purchased separately from the Eurostar ticket but you had to show some evidence of the Eurostar trip to use (and maybe also buy) them.

[jamie92208]

I don't know if it's still the case, but there used to be special tickets available for journeys to London if they were part of an international journey (e.g. connecting to Eurostar) which were a LOT cheaper at peak times than the regular walk-up tickets. I think they could be purchased separately from the Eurostar ticket but you had to show some evidence of the Eurostar trip to use (and maybe also buy) them.

They still exist but can only be bought with the Eurostar ticket.

 

Jamie

[lmsforever]

I wonder how things would be now if GNER had survived the parent companies meltdown, they had a different view towards  passengers and the service on trains plus would DAFT have allowed them to continue providing such a superior service. DAFT have one attitude now money money and more from anyone who takes on a franchise and if they can avoid not putting it back towards the network they will.Civil servants are not the people to specify services stock etc we need a proper rail authority run by railmen(women) working with the industry to provide us with a decently priced service.But this will never happen because the traveller would benefit and we cant have that can we!

[MarkC]

I wonder how things would be now if GNER had survived the parent companies meltdown, they had a different view towards  passengers and the service on trains plus would DAFT have allowed them to continue providing such a superior service. DAFT have one attitude now money money and more from anyone who takes on a franchise and if they can avoid not putting it back towards the network they will.Civil servants are not the people to specify services stock etc we need a proper rail authority run by railmen(women) working with the industry to provide us with a decently priced service.But this will never happen because the traveller would benefit and we cant have that can we!

GNER were the mutt's nuts as far as I'm concerned. What a superb service they offered.

[royaloak]

 I believe that was a joke...

 

Elsewhere in his email, he talks about the performance of the IEP - recently a video was shared that purported to show an IEP accelerating away from Chippenham (I think) compared to a HST at the same location. The IEP seeming to be faster. But the question is, which reaches 125 mph first?

No need for the 'first' on the end.

 

Its a great video, it shows that an IET on full power accelerates faster than a HST in notch 3, big deal.

[Mike Storey]

I wonder how things would be now if GNER had survived the parent companies meltdown, they had a different view towards  passengers and the service on trains plus would DAFT have allowed them to continue providing such a superior service. DAFT have one attitude now money money and more from anyone who takes on a franchise and if they can avoid not putting it back towards the network they will.Civil servants are not the people to specify services stock etc we need a proper rail authority run by railmen(women) working with the industry to provide us with a decently priced service.But this will never happen because the traveller would benefit and we cant have that can we!

 

I am not sure what history you are using? I was part of GNER at its early stage. I was later also part of the Railtrack team that had to assess Sea Container's financial stability subsequently. 

 

GNER used the existing BR management's strategy as to what you needed to do and could do, in terms of customer service and pricing strategy (using a chap the Intercity sector had recruited from the airline industry to further exploit market pricing, known as fuselage p&l in their terms). What SeaCo, in the form of James Sherwood, brought was style - he used a Dutch/italian designer who did their work on their chain of the world's most expensive hotels, as well as the British part of the Orient Express) and a willingness to use their capital to gain market share.

 

By the second franchise bid, most of the ex-BR most senior hands had been seen off. They then put in an enormously optimistic bid on which many of us old lags would have demurred. They won but then lost badly. This was absolutely f-all to do with the parent company, whose eventual demise was some years later and down to a number of other factors, of which I am quite familiar. 

 

I can only point out the familial connection between SeaCo's chosen CEO of GNER, Christopher Garnett ( a very determined and respected manager, but only of tyre production and cross channel ferries plus Eurotunnel to that date)  and an ex-Minister of Transport, Peter Bottomley, his brother-in-law. Virginia Bottomley is his sister. I can also only point out that GNER's bid was just £1m better than that of Stagecoach at the first franchise (whereas ours had been some £90 million worse), For two independent bids to have arrived at so close a figure in such a competition is unheard of. The bids for the second franchise were nowhere near as close. SeaCo also failed in its two bids for other routes after the first GNER win. I make no allegations nor do I insinuate anything. Indeed, I have worked with Christopher subsequently and he is of the highest integrity amongst the many I have worked with or for. I would point out however that many questions surround the past history of James Sherwood's business dealings, particularly the strange demise of his original business partner. I have no idea whether these open questions are justified. What he certainly did do was to preserve a number of historically valuable vehicles to create the British Orient Express set, and he gave and organised the attraction of many millions of dollars to help preserve Venice (where he had bought the Cipriani hotel). So a lot of good came from his work. He has since been forced to sell almost everything.

 

But I would most definitely assure you that what GNER "did" (apart from their branding) was almost entirely what the existing but failed BR management buyout team would have done anyway, and were beginning to do, restrained only by the lack of capital for training, station investment and fleet conversion available under BR (or rather Treasury) auspices.

 

So the question "what would GNER have done" is not quite the question you should be asking. The issue is what realistic expectation of increased passenger demand should the DfT be assuming both with and without the planned infrastructure and train set changes, and how should they react to unrealistic (or perhaps over-optimistic) bids? Clearly the previous policy, of accepting the word of any private bidder, and then expecting them to take the entire risk, has not worked for years. It has failed again with Stagecoach/VT. So, counter to Roger Ford's apparent dominance of the wisdom of how to run railways, we are back to the renegade Wolmar's "what are franchises for?".

[Bomag]

But I would most definitely assure you that what GNER "did" (apart from their branding) was almost entirely what the existing but failed BR management buyout team would have done anyway, and were beginning to do, restrained only by the lack of capital for training, station investment and fleet conversion available under BR (or rather Treasury) auspices.

 

So the question "what would GNER have done" is not quite the question you should be asking.

 

Yes it is a pefectly acceptable question. It does not matter if GNER extrapolated what ICEC were doing, what is valid is to ask what would have happend if the GNER quality of service had been maintained while the number of services had been increased. As a regular user of the dining service the changes made by Nat Express and beyond were quite frankly bonkers from the customer's perseptcive; they deliberately turned away custom. EC before Virgin were quite canny in adjusting to outside preasures, such as haveing tickets marketed as standard but haveing a freeish upgrade to 1st, just the thing for organistions in the public sector who had banned 1st class travel for political reasons but where getting an hour+ work of effective work without falling fowl of DSE was worth the extra. Virgin dumped these earlier in the year. Even when you do get to travel 1st the service is disorganised; on a recent fairly full peak service from KX to Leeds they had not served tea by the time we were approaching Newark - several of us asked for a tea, to which the reply was the train is too full and we don't have time to serve tea or coffee. The guy on the bar was puzzleed when a queue of five people turned up from first asking for tea and coffee; he said that he would have given them for free in the past but Virgin have banned it (banned in total or just when there is at seat service was not stated).

Edited December 20, 2017 by Bomag

[MarkC]

Yes it is a pefectly acceptable question. It does not matter if GNER extrapolated what ICEC were doing, what is valid is to ask what would have happend if the GNER quality of service had been maintained while the number of services had been increased. As a regular user of the dining service the changes made by Stagecoach and beyond were quite frankly bonkers from the customer's perseptcive; they deliberately turned away custom. EC before Virgin were quite canny in adjusting to outside preasures, such as haveing tickets marketed as standard but haveing a freeish upgrade to 1st, just the thing for organistions in the public sector who had banned 1st class travel for political reasons but where getting an hour+ work of effective work without falling fowl of DSE was worth the extra. Virgin dumped these earlier in the year. Even when you do get to travel 1st the service is disorganised; on a recent fairly full peak service from KX to Leeds they had not served tea by the time we were approaching Newark - several of us asked for a tea, to which the reply was the train is too full and we don't have time to serve tea or coffee. The guy on the bar was puzzleed when a queue of five people turned up from first asking for tea and coffee; he said that he would have given them for free in the past but Virgin have banned it (banned in total or just when there is at seat service was not stated).

And there is one big problem in a nutshell - customer 'service' is lacking. That would almost certainly not have happened under GNER. The rot started with NatEx and has continued to fall.

[david.hill64]

The last time I used East Coast was when it was under direct control. On a packed Sunday lunchtime London - Edinburgh service, all food had been sold out before Peterborough with no restocking en-route. That was a singularly unpleasant experience in a tatty first class Mk 4. 

 

Not the best advert for customer service.

[Supaned]

So let's turn the question around - what does the passenger (customer) expect from a train service on the route?

 

Are they prepared to pay for some of those niceties above and beyond the basic principle of conveying them from A to B in a safe & hopefully timely manner?

[Bon Accord]

So let's turn the question around - what does the passenger (customer) expect from a train service on the route?

 

Are they prepared to pay for some of those niceties above and beyond the basic principle of conveying them from A to B in a safe & hopefully timely manner?

 

Haven't we always been paying for it, the only difference now being the profit margin of the operator has increased as they've made the onboard levels of (dire) service near unrecognisable from where they were a decade ago?

[jjb1970]

Public transport is just another commodity. I am sure people would like all the finery but I suspect most would value lower fares and a train going where they need to go at the time they need to go there as being more important.

More and more of what we're once inter City services seem to be glorified commuter services which is causing companies to try and build trains capable of operating as both long distance trains and as outer suburban people movers.

[david.hill64]

So let's turn the question around - what does the passenger (customer) expect from a train service on the route?

 

Are they prepared to pay for some of those niceties above and beyond the basic principle of conveying them from A to B in a safe & hopefully timely manner?

I expect that most people take safety for granted: few would choose the train because they believe it to be a safer mode of transport. So if you are travelling long distance - 4 hours or more - then you would I think expect:

 

1. A seat
2. A toilet
3. Refreshments available

Moreover, these days you are also likely to expect wi-fi connectivity and an at-seat power supply. 

 

None of the above are unreasonable expectations for an inter-city service competing against other travel modes. You would also hope that the seat is comfortable, the toilet clean and that there is a choice of refreshments.

[Zomboid]

I think journeys need to be a bit less than 4 hours for that list. More than about 2 hours for refreshments, and about 20 minutes for a seat...

 

Since you mentioned it, my sister in law chooses the train for safety reasons. She was on the train at Ufton Nervet and because she survived it she's a firm believer in trains being a safe way of getting around, but being in a train crash means she's now scared of flying. Possibly not a common reaction to such things!

[Zomboid]

Double post

Edited December 20, 2017 by Zomboid

[enginelane]

Reading through the thread it seems that the system is busted. Politically it cannot go back to a national rail system because private competition is best. However private companies then moan about other operators cutting into their services. Operators moaning they bid too much originally and wanting to redo contracts. Trains being ordered by daft which train companies do not seem to want, contracts signed by officials who are supposed to be skilled at these things so that the train builder gets a very very good deal as told UK is only a small market - realistically how big is Japan in terms of track? and we have sidings full of trains now sat whilst us northern types are rattling around in Pacers etc etc.

 

What is the main function of the rail network? Make money, move people efficently, safely and at a reasonable cost? It seems that the

Two are not compatable and whilever we try to do both we will always be in the same position

[david.hill64]

I think journeys need to be a bit less than 4 hours for that list. More than about 2 hours for refreshments, and about 20 minutes for a seat...

 

Since you mentioned it, my sister in law chooses the train for safety reasons. She was on the train at Ufton Nervet and because she survived it she's a firm believer in trains being a safe way of getting around, but being in a train crash means she's now scared of flying. Possibly not a common reaction to such things!

I agree: the point about 4 hours related to my original moan about being on a London-Edinburgh service with no food. (At my age being away from the loo for more than 2 hours is not an option..........................)

[Mike Storey]

Yes it is a pefectly acceptable question. It does not matter if GNER extrapolated what ICEC were doing, what is valid is to ask what would have happend if the GNER quality of service had been maintained while the number of services had been increased. As a regular user of the dining service the changes made by Stagecoach and beyond were quite frankly bonkers from the customer's perseptcive; they deliberately turned away custom. EC before Virgin were quite canny in adjusting to outside preasures, such as haveing tickets marketed as standard but haveing a freeish upgrade to 1st, just the thing for organistions in the public sector who had banned 1st class travel for political reasons but where getting an hour+ work of effective work without falling fowl of DSE was worth the extra. Virgin dumped these earlier in the year. Even when you do get to travel 1st the service is disorganised; on a recent fairly full peak service from KX to Leeds they had not served tea by the time we were approaching Newark - several of us asked for a tea, to which the reply was the train is too full and we don't have time to serve tea or coffee. The guy on the bar was puzzleed when a queue of five people turned up from first asking for tea and coffee; he said that he would have given them for free in the past but Virgin have banned it (banned in total or just when there is at seat service was not stated).

 

It would have still gone bust.

[Chris116]

I used to enjoy my trips on the Directly Operated East Coast Trains. The food and service were excellent and well worth paying the extra for. Recently I made a trip to York for the day. In the morning we were first stop York and did not see any catering staff until near Peterborough when we were asked what we wanted to eat. A little later tea and coffee were brought round but if you had orange juice you could not have a hot drink as well. My mushroom arrived ten minutes before the rest of my full English breakfast. The staff were obviously run off their feet and I never did get another drink. Based on that experience I will travel standard class and get a McDonald's before I get on the train. On the way home in spite of a good choice on the menu of hot snacks it turned out that most were not available and what was called Mediterranean Chicken did not appear to have any chicken in it. Drinks were more plentiful on this journey but with 35 minutes to Kings Cross the staff appeared upset with those who had not finished their drinks. Another case of get something before you board and travel in standard class. On both trips the staff appeared totally over worked and I spoke to one of them who said the crew sizes have been drastically reduced and the amount of food they are supplied with has also been reduced so that on an Edinburgh to London train by York they never have the full range available.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Chris116

[Coryton]

 EC before Virgin were quite canny in adjusting to outside preasures, such as haveing tickets marketed as standard but haveing a freeish upgrade to 1st, just the thing for organistions in the public sector who had banned 1st class travel for political reasons but where getting an hour+ work of effective work without falling fowl of DSE was worth the extra. 

 

There was also the ticket you bought for a specific train but could actually use on any one....because they weren't supposed to invent their own walk-up tickets but could do what they liked with train-specific ones...

 

Though I'm not sure this was DOR.

[phil-b259]

I used to enjoy my trips on the Directly Operated East Coast Trains. The food and service were excellent and well worth paying the extra for. Recently I made a trip to York for the day. In the morning we were first stop York and did not see any catering staff until near Peterborough when we were asked what we wanted to eat. A little later tea and coffee were brought round but if you had orange juice you could not have a hot drink as well. My mushroom arrived ten minutes before the rest of my full English breakfast. The staff were obviously run off their feet and I never did get another drink. Based on that experience I will travel standard class and get a McDonald's before I get on the train. On the way home in spite of a good choice on the menu of hot snacks it turned out that most were not available and what was called Mediterranean Chicken did not appear to have any chicken in it. Drinks were more plentiful on this journey but with 35 minutes to Kings Cross the staff appeared upset with those who had not finished their drinks. Another case of get something before you board and travel in standard class. On both trips the staff appeared totally over worked and I spoke to one of them who said the crew sizes have been drastically reduced and the amount of food they are supplied with has also been reduced so that on an Edinburgh to London train by York they never have the full range available.

 

As ever frontline staff suffering for blunders (or deliberate attempts to drive away / alter passengers expectations) of higher management or strategic policy decisions at franchising level.

 

Sadly in the UK it seems that unless they can turn a individual profit, having staff is seen as a 'burden' on corporate profits / Government subsidies. The way Toys'R'Us (UK division) has behaved with regards their pension scheme or the rise of 'outsourcing specialists' (whose sole purpose seems to be to screw workers over so as to improve profits / reduce subsides for their masters) shows up what the pursuit of 'free markets' and 'competition' does in this country. Not that the rich and powerful, the city spivs or the political class stuffed full of Lawyers, accountants and Political studies junkies actually care..... it has all done very well for them after all.

[Bomag]

There was also the ticket you bought for a specific train but could actually use on any one....because they weren't supposed to invent their own walk-up tickets but could do what they liked with train-specific ones...

 

Though I'm not sure this was DOR.

 

Probably taling about the same ticket - west yorkshire executive single - only available to/from KX and did not show up on booking systems when going to LU Z1, I only found it on the system about halfway through the DOR operation (2013) but it could have been introduced earlier. Normally I only used them going northbound in the evening peak to give flexibility in which train I could take and still have an expectation of getting a seat. From Leeds in the morning there was never the same problems except for the 07:00.  

[Coryton]

Probably taling about the same ticket - west yorkshire executive single - only available to/from KX and did not show up on booking systems when going to LU Z1, I only found it on the system about halfway through the DOR operation (2013) but it could have been introduced earlier. Normally I only used them going northbound in the evening peak to give flexibility in which train I could take and still have an expectation of getting a seat. From Leeds in the morning there was never the same problems except for the 07:00.  

 

Not sure. I found a copy of fares guidance for staff on-line somewhere and it mentioned this ticket and explained why it worked the way it did. I'm pretty sure it was a document from the DOR days.

[Mike Storey]

As ever frontline staff suffering for blunders (or deliberate attempts to drive away / alter passengers expectations) of higher management or strategic policy decisions at franchising level.

 

Sadly in the UK it seems that unless they can turn a individual profit, having staff is seen as a 'burden' on corporate profits / Government subsidies. The way Toys'R'Us (UK division) has behaved with regards their pension scheme or the rise of 'outsourcing specialists' (whose sole purpose seems to be to screw workers over so as to improve profits / reduce subsides for their masters) shows up what the pursuit of 'free markets' and 'competition' does in this country. Not that the rich and powerful, the city spivs or the political class stuffed full of Lawyers, accountants and Political studies junkies actually care..... it has all done very well for them after all.

 

I share your sentiment, but to be objective, BR was slashing catering staff (along with others) and in many cases the catering offer, well before the TOC's.

[JDW]

I agree with many other people on here, I don't travel frequently but have to say that standards seem lower now than under GNER.  Its unforgivable not to have the full range of food available or sufficient staff to provide a first class service (although, that said, compare it to first class on a TGV for example, which amounts to a bigger seat, with no extra level of service etc included).  I enjoyed the restaurant service when making long journeys, but it has to be something worth using and paying for.  If not (or if it becomes poor) then people will just do as someone else said above, and buy before they board.  which of course then strengthens the argument to do away with on board catering "because people tend to buy before they board"...

 

For me, a long distance rail service should be more like this: http://transportdesigned.com/railjet-beating-european-jetset-game/ than trying to be the same as a budget airline or Megabus.