ECML franchise to be broucht back under Public Ownership

[Reorte]

No, please..... Let's design our own liveries, not just look back wistfully into the past.

Why not? That's a bit of a change for the sake of change argument. There are all sorts of reasons for choosing a particular livery, and ruling it out simply because it's been used before doesn't make much sense. Let them all be judged by their own merits. A sense of heritage and history is a perfectly valid reason for choosing a livery. Not saying for a moment that it should be the only one but "new for the sake of new" certainly isn't a reason I can ever get behind. The biggest reason for not is that I can't imagine them working all that well on modern trains.

If the original LNER were still in existence, there would be no chance that they'd be using 1930s paint schemes as we hurtle towards the 2020s.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think you can say that for definite. Long-established companies change their branding at their peril, beyond minor details. Look how long Coca-Cola have had essentially the same branding, with only minor tweaks for example. Of course some have changed, but if you're successful and well-recognised changing that can seriously backfire. If you're trying to get out of a big mess then a company might resort to that sort of reinvention. Edited June 25, 2018 by Reorte

[melmerby]

Picture of a rebranded unit:

 

https://twitter.com/railcamlive/status/1011186951490293763/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Frailcam.uk%2Fsite%2F

 

Looks like a full size patch over the Virgin logo

 

Keith

Edited June 25, 2018 by melmerby

[rockershovel]

But it's publicly owned so it must be cheaper.........

For a given value of “cheaper”.... one thing that has become obvious over time, is that “cheaper” is defined in terms of “direct cost to that activity alone”. Hence we achieve “efficiencies” and “savings” by abandoning training and development.

[Zomboid]

Why not? That's a bit of a change for the sake of change argument. There are all sorts of reasons for choosing a particular livery, and ruling it out simply because it's been used before doesn't make much sense. Let them all be judged by their own merits. A sense of heritage and history is a perfectly valid reason for choosing a livery. Not saying for a moment that it should be the only one but "new for the sake of new" certainly isn't a reason I can ever get behind. The biggest reason for not is that I can't imagine them working all that well on modern trains.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think you can say that for definite. Long-established companies change their branding at their peril, beyond minor details. Look how long Coca-Cola have had essentially the same branding, with only minor tweaks for example. Of course some have changed, but if you're successful and well-recognised changing that can seriously backfire. If you're trying to get out of a big mess then a company might resort to that sort of reinvention.

The product has changed vastly though. The comparison with green and blue steam engines pulling wood (or wood effect) bodied coaches to a modern train doesn't show much more in common than the track gauge. I'm sure a 1948-2018 LNER would have kept some elements from its history, but it would probably have been through several iterations along the way.

 

For me, the new(ish) Southern brand is a believable continuation of the original and the current GWR isn't ridiculous either, but a faux-teak mark 4? That kind of design was old hat at the time, never mind 80 years later.

 

Obviously some brands do stay fundamentally the same, bar a few tweaks, for decades. The Union Pacific's Armour Yellow is an example of that, but it's also very much the exception.

[Reorte]

Sure, faux teak Mk 4s would look rather ridiculous, which is a good reason not to do that, it's the "shouldn't do it because it's old" argument I was arguing against, as well as change being inevitable. Coach liveries would almost certainly have changed in the case of the LNER, but possibly just to match the locos, or the locos would stay the same and the coaches changed (with some combination of the two by the time we got to almost universal multiple units). Or they all might've changed, I wouldn't really say one or the other was inevitable.

 

At any rate there's a perception of a more glamorous railway back then which it doesn't have now, so to get that image (which is handy from a marketing perspective) you need to look to the past. If the current railway manages to get that image in the public mind then there'll be less marketing reason to refer to it. I know it was only a few high-profile trains that came close to matching that image in reality and that the day to day railway was very different  but that's marketing for you. The marketing of the time did the same thing, only it used the contemporary railway because, accurate or not, there was an element of public perception of it like that to build on. Liveries are a part of branding and publicity, historically this was arguably even more obvious since the less public-facing goods trains usually got much more mundane paintwork.

Edited June 25, 2018 by Reorte

[Barry O]

all the ex Virgin stock in Leeds yesterday and this morning have had their Virgin lettering removed but no LNER (or is it LYR - London and York Railway?). First thing is.. cheaper ticket prices have all gone up...let us see how long it is before the gang of 3 cutting maintenance costs (just as the last "Government but not Governement" team before Virgin did....

 

worries me when  a bunch of those well known bean counters are part of the management "team".

 

Baz

[lmsforever]

Green and cream would look good was it not the excursion colours?

[Reorte]

Green and cream would look good was it not the excursion colours?

The only pre-privatisation coaching stock liveries I've ever liked much are maroon and Inter-City executive, although there are doubtless all sorts of Victorian ones I've never seen in colour to have an opinion on.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Is the ECML “publicly owned”, or just managed pro tem by a public body?

 

The ECML is part of the national railway infrastructure, owned and managed by Network Rail, under the auspices of the DafT.

i.e. "publicly owned".

 

I think you may be referring to the Intercity East Coast rail franchise, now held by LNER, which is one of the operators who run services on the ECML?

 

LNER, who hold the ICEC franchise, is a privately registered company owned by the DfT.

It's managed by.....surprise, surprise.......the management of LNER, who are basically the former VTEC management team (no doubt, plus and minus a few faces).

If I've read it properly, they are overseen by the operator of last resort consultancy, employed by the DfT, if not directly by a specific DfT team.

 

 

Did VTEC actually PAY for new rolling stock, are there finance agreements, who ACTUALLY owns the new stock?

TOC's don't usually own rolling stock, but lease it instead.

The finance and lease arrangements are written so that they can be transferred between successive franchise holders.

 

VTEC would have been paying the leasing fees for their train fleet and now LNER will have taken over that same lease.

 

The new stock, in other words the new fleet that will be supplied under the IEP, is, and will be owned by Agility Trains, leased to the ICEC franchise holder.

However, the finance that will be paying for the trains, is coming from an international finance consortium, managed by a division of HSBC International.

 

The banks and finance companies that have stumped up the money include....

 HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Mizuho and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd., Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation and the European Investment Bank.

 

.

[melmerby]

all the ex Virgin stock in Leeds yesterday and this morning have had their Virgin lettering removed but no LNER (or is it LYR - London and York Railway?). First thing is.. cheaper ticket prices have all gone up...let us see how long it is before the gang of 3 cutting maintenance costs (just as the last "Government but not Governement" team before Virgin did....

 

worries me when  a bunch of those well known bean counters are part of the management "team".

 

Baz

Two trainsets passed at Peterborough this evening (Class 91 + set & a HST) and both looked to still have the Virgin branding.

 

Keith

[cravensdmufan]

 

The ECML is part of the national railway infrastructure, owned and managed by Network Rail, under the auspices of the DafT.

i.e. "publicly owned".

 

I think you may be referring to the Intercity East Coast rail franchise, now held by LNER, which is one of the operators who run services on the ECML?

 

LNER, who hold the ICEC franchise, is a privately registered company owned by the DfT.

It's managed by.....surprise, surprise.......the management of LNER, who are basically the former VTEC management team (no doubt, plus and minus a few faces).

If I've read it properly, they are overseen by the operator of last resort consultancy, employed by the DfT, if not directly by a specific DfT team.

 

 

TOC's don't usually own rolling stock, but lease it instead.

The finance and lease arrangements are written so that they can be transferred between successive franchise holders.

 

VTEC would have been paying the leasing fees for their train fleet and now LNER will have taken over that same lease.

 

The new stock, in other words the new fleet that will be supplied under the IEP, is, and will be owned by Agility Trains, leased to the ICEC franchise holder.

However, the finance that will be paying for the trains, is coming from an international finance consortium, managed by a division of HSBC International.

 

The banks and finance companies that have stumped up the money include....

 HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Mizuho and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd., Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation and the European Investment Bank.

 

.

Lots of finance companies, consortiums, banks, leasing companies, solicitors,,Infrastructure companies, contractors etc,etc,etc ,involved - all with the noses in the trough getting large slices of cake.

 

Much simpler, and more cost effective, under British Rail.

Edited June 25, 2018 by cravensdmufan

[Ron Ron Ron]

Lots of finance companies, consortiums, banks, leasing companies, solicitors,,Infrastructure companies, contractors etc,etc,etc ,involved - all with the noses in the trough getting large slices of cake.

 

Much simpler, and more cost effective, under British Rail.

 

 

So how would a latter day BR be able to afford £8 billion plus for what is just one fleet of trains?

They, or the government, would have to go out and borrow the money.

The only way very large amounts of finance can be raised, is through a mixed portfolio of lenders.

There would be no way of avoiding that.

 

I'm sure the whole procurement process could have been much simpler and probably cheaper, but there would still be lots of legal and financial contractual matters that would have to be tied down.

With so much at stake, every party involved needs to cover its own risks and protect its interests.

 

 

.

[The Stationmaster]

Lots of finance companies, consortiums, banks, leasing companies, solicitors,,Infrastructure companies, contractors etc,etc,etc ,involved - all with the noses in the trough getting large slices of cake.

 

Much simpler, and more cost effective, under British Rail.

 

Especially when the part of BR I worked for at the end of its existence was getting its new trains financed by a consortium involving six banks some of which were UK companies and some of which had HQs which almost half a world east of the UK.  We even had to do a final 'trouble free trip' on top of mileage accumulation of 'trouble free running' before the consortium would release the money to pay for each train.

[rockershovel]

So.... the only meaningful difference between the last stages of nationalisation, and privatisation/franchising/whatever term is applied, is that Beardy et al make a profit from the tax-payer, and the training structure has been largely abandoned? Doesn’t sound like much of a return, to me.

 

I don’t really have a problem with the leasing issue. BR must have lost a fortune, building new steam designs and ditching them after very short service lives. Its financial record with introducing diesels, must have been pretty dire if anyone dared look or ask. Apart from the notable success of the HST, is there ANYTHING BR introduced in the way of rollling stock that worked as intended, to budget? Applying engineering discipline in the form of not paying for things which don’t work as intended, seems to me to be quite reasonable.

 

The impression I get, is that this country’s engineering strengths are in civil engineering, not mechanical design and development. All right, let’s play to that. There are precedents for utility contractor frameworks; let’s have a nationally organised contracting framework, with overall strategic development and planning and a national training scheme which all contractors buy into without option, and which doesn’t tie personnel to particular employers. Let’s have a thorough purge and substantial abolition of the “agency” system, at the same time, contributing to the effective reform of our chaotic tax system as a side benefit.

 

Rolling stock should represent best practice. It can be bought, built, leased, won in a raffle or found under a gooseberry bush, as seems best, but there should be a direct preference for home-based companies to provide and sustain, the infrastructure upon which effective strategic control depends (as is largely the case in Europe, Asia and elsewhere).

 

This leads directly to a system in which management skills, the supposed USP of the private sector, are employed on a defined-return basis with defined levels of risk and return, under overall strategic control. If they can’t make money on that, let’s have better managers.

 

Note that “managers” and “expertise” aren’t synonymous.

 

Politicians, of any hue or stripe, should ABSOLUTELY NOT have functional control of this, except to uphold overall strategy.

 

Really, all the above are observations on how more successful countries organise their rail networks. There seems to be a great deal of accumulated historical evidence, to the effect that railways are a national asset, but fiendishly difficult (or outright impossible) to make profitable. As has been mentioned previously, the most durable brands are those with logical functions; Southern has long since been defined by over-crowded, short-haul electrified commuter services; Great Western, or something very like it, is the logical outcome of the geography of the region. The ECML is actually similar; apart from the current shenanigans (and they aren’t new, considering past events like the Race To The North), something very like it dates from the earliest days of railways.

 

However you look at it, it’s inescapable that the “free market” has had a fair innings, and isn’t the complete answer. This shouldnt really surprise anyone; nationalisation wasn’t the complete answer, either. Let’s see what ensues.

[Clearwater]

Rockershovel

 

Can you clarify whether you believe in state planning or letting the best solution evolve? Your long post above is internally inconsistent, eg on asset procurement. What is the free market unless it’s lots of different people each trying to come up with best practice?

 

If you want workers to continue to work on the same job and transfer employers as management changes - that’s what already happens and is covered by TUPE legislation.

 

David

[rodent279]

I don’t really have a problem with the leasing issue. BR must have lost a fortune, building new steam designs and ditching them after very short service lives. Its financial record with introducing diesels, must have been pretty dire if anyone dared look or ask. Apart from the notable success of the HST, is there ANYTHING BR introduced in the way of rollling stock that worked as intended, to budget? Applying engineering discipline in the form of not paying for things which don’t work as intended, seems to me to be quite reasonable.

 

Whilst I'd agree that a lot of money was spent on new steam that didn't fulfill its intended lifespan, and that early modernisation diesels weren't wholly successful, I think there is plenty that BR introduced that worked as intended.

 

For a start, notable diesel classes such as 20's, 37's and 40's, all built in substantial numbers, and some still in service not far off 60 yrs on.

The MK1 coach is an underrated success story. I wonder how many lives would have been saved had the trains in the Harrow accident been all Mk1's, instead of mostly wooden framed, steel panelled.

 

We could and did produce quality rolling stock, that did, and still does its job as intended. Yes there were failures, big, embarrassing, expensive failures, but that is not because we're aren't good at producing the stuff-very often it's because we don't use it as intended.

[HillsideDepot]

To suggest that the HST has "worked as intended," shows a short memory. Yes, for their overall life they have been successful, but in the early days there were problems with the late delivery of power cars resulting in sets of trailers being parked up. Then the WR hit on the idea of a generator van to get at least one set mobile.

That generator van then proved itself useful when the power cars had engine and cooling problems. In hot weather it wasn't unusual for WR sets to be running "one engine only", whilst the Eastern fitted extra filler pipes through the radiator grille to enable platform top ups of coolant along the way. The missing section of grille is still visible on ex ER cars today.

 

And don't forget that 43167-43170 were experimentally re-engined with Mirrlees Blackstone MB190 units as early as 1987. That those engines remained in just four cars suggests they didn't offer great advantage over the Valenta, but to experiment with different engines at 10 years old indicates they weren't "working as intended".  

 

That's not to say that they haven't done well, but they certainly weren't as good as many people now think.

[rockershovel]

Rockershovel

Can you clarify whether you believe in state planning or letting the best solution evolve? Your long post above is internally inconsistent, eg on asset procurement. What is the free market unless it’s lots of different people each trying to come up with best practice?

If you want workers to continue to work on the same job and transfer employers as management changes - that’s what already happens and is covered by TUPE legislation.

David

Do you mean “believe” as in the Nicaean Creed or US Constitution, or as in the conclusion of accumulated observation?

 

After many years in the oil industry, which is about as “free market” as it gets in some respects, my considered opinion is that left to its own devices the “free market” DOES NOT, inherently, evolve “best practice”. I offer Piper Alpha, Herald of Free Enterprise, Deepwater Horizon and Potters Bar as examples.

 

The “free market” also pursues its own interests, with no necessary focus on doing any given thing. Herein lies a direct contradiction, or conflict of interest, because the taxpayer has no intrinsic interest in whether any given group or individual derives a profit, and there seems to be considerable reason to believe that the railways principally serve to create wealth and profits for third parties - which may be in the wider interest.

 

It’s also clear that strategic direction of policy and control of the market, trumps free enterprise in certain respects. The Germans blatantly favour their rail construction sector. The Dutch have a minister charged with the interests of their marine construction sector; the Norwegians have Statoil.

 

TUPE has been covered elsewhere, with the observation from a number of contributors that whatever happens at handover, the effect over time is invariably progressive erosion of pay, conditions and training.

 

Good intentions are notoriously unreliable as a paving material. Your beliefs are your own. I simply offer the observation that considered impartially, “uncontrolled free market” has had ample opportunity to make its case, and has not done so, any more than wholly state-owned and controlled.

[rockershovel]

To suggest that the HST has "worked as intended," shows a short memory. Yes, for their overall life they have been successful......

 

That's not to say that they haven't done well, but they certainly weren't as good as many people now think.

I wouldn’t dispute that, but it’s not a bad end result, is it?

[Ron Ron Ron]

... but there should be a direct preference for home-based companies to provide and sustain, the infrastructure upon which effective strategic control depends (as is largely the case in Europe, Asia and elsewhere).

A preference for home based companies is not supposed to be allowed under EU competition law.

Some might say we ( the UK) have suffered by playing with a straight bat under those rules, whereas others haven't.

Under ever closer union, the ability of individual national governments to have such power is meant to be deminished or removed entirely.

 

.....However you look at it, it’s inescapable that the “free market” has had a fair innings, and isn’t the complete answer.....

There's a very good argument to say that the "free market" has not been allowed to operate properly or freely.

The ever increasing levels of government (DfT) micro management and meddling hasn't resulted in the sort of freedom that the market would need to be judged fairly.

Just because one car breaks down, do we say all cars don't work and we must go back to the horse and cart?

 

 

Ron

[Trev52A]

Apologies for showing this again (it's also on the Class 800 thread) but here's an example of an LNER Azuma on display outside the Discovery Museum in Newcastle taken last week (22nd June) at the start of the Great Exhibition of the North.

 

No actual running number is visible anywhere as far as I could see.

 

 

Trevor

 

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

Rockershovel's point about a national strategy highlights a major shortcoming in the governance of the UK, particularly when it comes to infrastructure.

Everything is done, or not done, in a piecemeal fashion, without attempting to establish wider ambitions and goals and then setting a course of action to achieve them.

 

The decision a decade ago, reconfirmed a few years later under a new administration, to do a U-turn and start a rolling programme of rail electrification wasn't exactly set out as a carefully planned long term national project.

The lack of strategic planning and subsequent problems encountered have led to piecemeal curtailment and cancellation of a piecemeal set of projects.

The national infrastructure commission was meant to be the start of sorting out the lack of strategic planning, but as ever, not given any real teeth or power.

[locoholic]

A preference for home based companies is not supposed to be allowed under EU competition law.

Some might say we ( the UK) have suffered by playing with a straight bat under those rules, whereas others haven't.

Under ever closer union, the ability of individual national governments to have such power is meant to be deminished or removed entirely.

 

There's a very good argument to say that the "free market" has not been allowed to operate properly or freely.

The ever increasing levels of government (DfT) micro management and meddling hasn't resulted in the sort of freedom that the market would need to be judged fairly.

Just because one car breaks down, do we say all cars don't work and we must go back to the horse and cart?

Ron

All this free market nonsense doesn't and will never apply because the railways don't make a profit and are too important to be allowed to properly fail.

 

Great long lists of banks who pay for our trains should prompt the question "What's in it for them?" They're not charities. Their profits come from the fares and taxes that we pay. BR "couldn't afford" new trains because the governments of the day chose not to fund BR properly. Any analysis of the more recent PFI schemes reveals that they represent very poor value for money in the long term. The attraction was the government looked like it was making new schools and hospitals appear without harming their borrowing figures -something for nothing, in other words, which is always too good to be true. Leasing rolling stock is exactly the same.

 

As RMWeb is meant to be politics free I'm surprised that this thread hasn't been locked, as it seems to have descended into a never-ending cycle of thinly veiled praise for Thatcherite free markets and Old Labour nationalisation!

[62613]

A preference for home based companies is not supposed to be allowed under EU competition law.

Some might say we ( the UK) have suffered by playing with a straight bat under those rules, whereas others haven't.

Under ever closer union, the ability of individual national governments to have such power is meant to be deminished or removed entirely.

 

 

There's a very good argument to say that the "free market" has not been allowed to operate properly or freely.

The ever increasing levels of government (DfT) micro management and meddling hasn't resulted in the sort of freedom that the market would need to be judged fairly.

Just because one car breaks down, do we say all cars don't work and we must go back to the horse and cart?

 

 

Ron

I think Rockershovel was talking about the 'Free Market' in general terms. The reason for the quotes is because the market isn't free; it never has been. For it to be so, all the players in the market would have to have the same access to the same information at the same time, in order to act in a rational way. That clearly doesn't happen.

 

Government regulation, in general. Which regulations would you get rid of?

[Ron Ron Ron]

Rockshovel,

I think it's you who has made it "political" and expressing a very polarised view.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Ron Ron Ron