Railway franchises in the coming year

[Joseph_Pestell]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

The John Major administration was a strange period. He was appointed as a “safe pair of hands” to manage the Conservative Party, 

 

And, 30 years on we have still not learned the constitutional lesson. Being a good party leader does not qualify a person to be a capable Prime Minister (and vice versa). The roles can even be incompatible.

[rockershovel]

16 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

And, 30 years on we have still not learned the constitutional lesson. Being a good party leader does not qualify a person to be a capable Prime Minister (and vice versa). The roles can even be incompatible.

 

Ermmm.. not quite. John Major’s crucial failure was that, in the pinches, he failed to distinguish between constitutional duty, national interest and Party interest. He allowed the Europhile faction, led by Clarke and Heseltine, to direct the agenda rather than risk splitting the Conservative Party; a clear conflict of interest. 

 

It’s not the personal aspect; he was fully aware that Clarke and Heseltine had orchestrated the defenestration of Mrs Thatcher and that he would follow, if he did not toe the line; he also knew that they held the initiative over the profound Conservative fear of “splitting the Party”. 

 

This is why the US Constitution, deriving from the same roots, has a President elected in his own right and a bi-cameral legislature in which the British concepts of “in office” and “in opposition” don’t apply in the same way. 

 

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

This is why the US Constitution, deriving from the same roots, has a President elected in his own right and a bi-cameral legislature in which the British concepts of “in office” and “in opposition” don’t apply in the same way. 

 

 

And look where that has got them! US politics has got so poisonous that compromise and moderation simply doesn't exist - an extreme president backed by the hard right wing of the republican party, the Senate under control of the same and incapable of providing proper checks on the president plus a Congress under the control of Democrats more interested in bringing down Trump than actually trying to find workable compromises.

 

Quite frankly the American Political structure is an excellent display of how NOT to do things. The whole point of Government is not about the cult of celebrity - its governing on behalf of citizens of the UK. We are far better off for not having a 'president Thatcher' or president Blair' or 'President Boris'.

 

Yes the UK parliamentary system does have its faults - but the way to resolve them is not to reinforce the 'them and us' or 'if you are not for us then you must be against us' mentality (which has wrecked American politics) its to try and encourage more compromises and coalition building amongst elected representatives.  That would be more easily done if we didn't have the 'first past the post system' but even with that obstacle, UK politics is way better than the situation in the US.

Edited February 18, 2020 by phil-b259

[phil-b259]

13 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

Ermmm.. not quite. John Major’s crucial failure was that, in the pinches, he failed to distinguish between constitutional duty, national interest and Party interest. He allowed the Europhile faction, led by Clarke and Heseltine, to direct the agenda rather than risk splitting the Conservative Party; a clear conflict of interest. 

 

It’s not the personal aspect; he was fully aware that Clarke and Heseltine had orchestrated the defenestration of Mrs Thatcher and that he would follow, if he did not toe the line; he also knew that they held the initiative over the profound Conservative fear of “splitting the Party”.

 

 

Not so!

 

The whole point of electing major as leader of the Conservative party after Thatcher was forced out was that he should LOSE the 1990 general election. That would allow him (and the pro- Europe faction who helped get rid of Thatcher) to be booted out of the Conservative leadership in favour of the right wings preferred candidate - the young right wing firebrand that was Michael Portillo.

 

People might have forgotten these days, but before Portillo started exploring railway lines with Bradshaw and colourful shirts he was seen very much as the embodiment of the next generation conservative right wing, Eurosceptic politicians that would carry on Thatchers legacy - which was why his defeat in the 1997 General election, in a supposedly safe Tory seat was such a  shock and why many were so jubilant at his loss.

 

That Major actually won the 1990 election was a great surprise to the party - and much as with the EU referendum, there had been very little thought as to what might come next if the expected outcome didn't happen.

Edited February 19, 2020 by phil-b259

[caradoc]

Maybe difficult not to when discussing railway franchising but this is getting very political !

[mdvle]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Quite frankly the American Political structure is an excellent display of how NOT to do things.

 

One needs to be somewhat careful to separate out the US system, and the way voting works for said system.

 

Like any system, the 3 groups of power (House of Representatives / Senate / President) have pros and cons (and note Congress is the combination of the House of Representatives and the Senate, though many are unaware of that or ignore it).

 

The real problem is that the method of electing 2 of those bodies is inherently and deliberately undemocratic - the President via the Electoral College, and the Senate via the 2 people per state regardless of population.

 

Remove the imbalance in the electing of the Senate and many of the problems go away.

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Not so!

 

The whole point of electing major as leader of the Conservative party after Thatcher was forced out was that he should LOSE the 1990 general election. That would allow him (and the pro- Europe faction who helped get rid of Thatcher top be booted out of the Conservative leadership in favour of the right wings preferred candidate - the young right wing firebrand that was Michael Portillo.

 

People might have forgotten these days, but before Portillo started exploring railway lines with Bradshaw and colourful shirts he was seen very much as the embodiment of the next generation conservative right wing, Eurosceptic politicians that would carry on Thatchers legacy - which was why his defeat in the 1997 General election, in a supposedly safe Tory seat was such a  shock and why many were so jubilant at his loss.

 

That Major actually won the 1990 election was a great surprise to the party - and much as with the EU referendum, there had been very little thought as to what might come next if the expected outcome didn't happen.

 

Thats exactly what I said, wasn’t it? 

 

“.. The John Major administration was a strange period. He was appointed as a “safe pair of hands” to manage the Conservative Party, during what was expected to be a period of internal recrimination and faction fighting in opposition. He then surprised everyone by winning a narrow majority, which eroded to nothing over time and ended in the greatest electoral defeat of the 20th Century. “ 

 

My feeling is that Portillo drew the correct conclusion from his defeat, which William Hague went on to demonstrate during his leadership; that in the very different political climate of that time, with little popular interest in the EU, no Freedom of Movement, the CommonWealth Immigration Acts of 1962-71 and Primary Purpose legislation still in place, it was too soon for a Right-wing, nationalist Conservative Party to succeed. 

 

Mrs Thatcher had outlasted her welcome, but she had actually moved much closer to the Common Market is a strictly economic sense. John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty in early 1992, so the agenda was fairly clear for the 1992 Major administration - push through railway privatisation as quickly as possible, before they could be overtaken by one of the numerous catastrophes which could befall any administration with a minimal majority and no fixed term. What WAS lacking was any coherent planning, but the Conservatives knew that the problem would pass to Labour, sooner rather than later. 

 

Majors tactical error was not to call a General Election after the Railways Act. 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

One needs to be somewhat careful to separate out the US system, and the way voting works for said system.

 

Like any system, the 3 groups of power (House of Representatives / Senate / President) have pros and cons (and note Congress is the combination of the House of Representatives and the Senate, though many are unaware of that or ignore it).

 

The real problem is that the method of electing 2 of those bodies is inherently and deliberately undemocratic - the President via the Electoral College, and the Senate via the 2 people per state regardless of population.

 

Remove the imbalance in the electing of the Senate and many of the problems go away.

 

... but note that the various PR systems used in most European countries, contain varying degrees of “voting for the Party” and the appointment or allocation of candidates from those parties, BY those parties. The US system does, at least, attempt to provide transparency of “who voted for who”. 

 

Of course, any electoral system can only return the candidates presented to it. 

[royaloak]

11 hours ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

 

Would you have thought that in 1948? Why is reinventing BR impossible? Your remark requires justification, IMHO. On the face of it, there appears no real reason—now that we have left the EU—why BR cannot be reinvented, and if it did a good job of running the network, why not? Or is there not sufficient management expertise available any more?

Because no Government would be stupid enough to have a 'Nationalised' industry where one group of workers going on strike would be able to basically paralyse the Country, privatisation was all about divide and conquer, I am not saying that was the reason for privatisation but I am sure it did have a bearing on it.

[Joseph_Pestell]

11 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

Ermmm.. not quite. John Major’s crucial failure was that, in the pinches, he failed to distinguish between constitutional duty, national interest and Party interest. He allowed the Europhile faction, led by Clarke and Heseltine, to direct the agenda rather than risk splitting the Conservative Party; a clear conflict of interest. 

 

It’s not the personal aspect; he was fully aware that Clarke and Heseltine had orchestrated the defenestration of Mrs Thatcher and that he would follow, if he did not toe the line; he also knew that they held the initiative over the profound Conservative fear of “splitting the Party”. 

 

This is why the US Constitution, deriving from the same roots, has a President elected in his own right and a bi-cameral legislature in which the British concepts of “in office” and “in opposition” don’t apply in the same way. 

 

 

You seem to be agreeing with me rather than disagreeing. We both seem to be of the view that the "Executive" should be elected separately from the "Legislature".

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

You seem to be agreeing with me rather than disagreeing. We both seem to be of the view that the "Executive" should be elected separately from the "Legislature".

 

We seem to be converging, yes. I believe the American solution has the merit of rendering the President immune to being ousted for internal Party reasons, which is a problem in the British system because of the inherent conflict of interest. 

[phil-b259]

15 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

We seem to be converging, yes. I believe the American solution has the merit of rendering the President immune to being ousted for internal Party reasons, which is a problem in the British system because of the inherent conflict of interest. 

 

It works the other way round too!

 

There are plenty of more moderate Republicans that are privately pretty critical of president Trump - yet cannot do much about it precisely because the role of President is separate to the Senate / Congress and can only be removed outside of an election through impeachment. Trump thus knows he doesn't have to pay that much attention to said moderate Senators or Congress as they are extremely unlikely to be able to remove him from office.

 

Yes the UK setup does leave the head of the Government vulnerable to party infighting - but simply by virtue of them being an MP like the rest of the House of Commons there is far more scope for MPs to influence the direction of the Government than in the American system.

 

Ultimately you need to remember why Governments exist in the first place - to serve the citizens of the country and not act as some sort of virility symbol or as a means to cultivate the cult of the individual (something which is steadily ruining society as a whole).  The ability to be removed by your colleagues without the need to start court proceedings is thus a great way of keeping ambitions in check.

 

[The Stationmaster]

On 17/02/2020 at 17:19, rockershovel said:

What is meant by “The basic idea is that a group of rail services, with a certain degree of specification regarding which trains are required to be run but with some freedoms remaining on which to make commercial decisions which might enhance the profitability the franchisee will achieve.”? 

 

“A group of rail services..” WHAT? Operate as a coherent whole, to overall strategic direction? Operate as the franchisee thinks fit? Operate at commercial rates? Operate at specified rates? Must be maintained by the operator, fit to be passed to their successor? 

 

 

During the recent “Matter of Britain and Europe”, a term was bandied about - “magical thinking”. It appears to mean “an unrealistic belief that desired outcomes, often not clearly defined, will appear for no readily identifiable reason” and this also appears to apply in considerable degree, to rail privatisation. I’ve never understood quite WHAT the John Major administration envisaged as emerging from their mad dash to privatise before the electorate expelled them, as was clearly inevitable by then.

 

There have been 'groups of rail services' for a lot more years than I can remember - I think it dates back to at least Barbara Castle's time as Minister of Transport and it was of course a key part of BR's reorganisation on a sector basis instead of geographical Regions.  To be blunt you really do need to catch up with the reality of the commercial organisation of a passenger  railway - over much of the world.  How on earth do you think passenger train timetables have been specified and prepared for the past century or so (and longer)?  My mind is boggling.

 

On 17/02/2020 at 19:56, rockershovel said:

Exactly. It’s my firm belief that the basic concept, that private management can inherently produce a profit from any rail service, is fundamentally flawed. I’m also certain that rail privatisation was carried out by the John Major administration for ideological reasons and no clear overall strategic vision for the actual process of operating a mass public transport network, ever existed. 

 

I firmly believe (and indeed, Stationmaster appears to circumnavigate this above) that fragmentation and casualisation of the workforce has been a primary goal of privatisation, throughout. In context, that “efficiencies and savings” are primarily achieved by wage erosion, loss of training and opportunity, and loss of job security. This poses particular problems for any government facing election, because the electorate generally, don’t support this; why would they? 

 

There is also the matter of “socialisation of risk, privatisation of profit”, an interesting phrase which appeared in the public debate post 2008. Again, this has little to commend it to those voters, who persist in their stubborn belief that the function of government, is to govern the country in the common interest. 

 

All attempts to resolve this conundrum subsequently have foundered on these rocks. 

I didn't even talk about casualisation of the workforce, let alone 'skirt around it' and if I were to we need to consider where and how it has been caualised.  And it hasn't been casualised when it comes to the. core of railway operation.  The main casualisation has been infrastructure work although some of that has been drawn back by NR.

 

But you can't have the penny and the bun and on one hand moan about BR management (which in general was pretty good and in some cases exceptionally good) and the dead hand of state control (or unionisation) while criticising on the steps which were taken by private companies to reduce costs of certain types of work.  and don't forget it was the private sector, and in most cases new to the railway industry which introduced casualisation.  But then if it had been going on elsewhere in Europe on railways what was necessarily so wrong with introducing it to the UK (apart from a potentially abysmal control of standards which was in large part down to private contractors seeking to cut costs)? However the interesting fact is that even with casualisation and (in some cases poor control of competence standards) personnel accident rates have significantly reduced.

21 hours ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

 

Would you have thought that in 1948? Why is reinventing BR impossible? Your remark requires justification, IMHO. On the face of it, there appears no real reason—now that we have left the EU—why BR cannot be reinvented, and if it did a good job of running the network, why not? Or is there not sufficient management expertise available any more?

Simple and it all comes down to the way people have developed and learnt through their career and training.  In 1948 four professional organisations with not just vertical integration but more importantly staff who had worked across a variety of disciplines, especially in the case of many senior managers and officers had also had the experience of a recent, six year period of fairly unified control by various committees.

 

That range of expertise no longer exists in much of the industry for a variety of reasons.  True people in senior positions have moved between operating companies but not many have moved to and from the NR part of the industry. But critically, and perhaps even more importantly, the relationship with the shareholders/board of directors is very significantly different with that part of the equation being replaced by direct political dictat and Civil Servants with little or no experience of what they are dealing with (just look at the trains they have ordered, just look at the timetables disasters they have created, and so on). Aare there really the necessary strong willed and experienced people in the industry to deal with that part of the picture when they have effectively been working under direction and with little or no chance for argument?  That is why you can't recreate BR - we'd be starting from a completely different place on a radically different playing field.

 

During the privatisation process I worked for an operator who became a 'GoCo' - a Government Company completely independent of the rest of BR virtually from the start of the privatisation process in 1994.  Our MD responded to a senior Civil Servant in the Dept of Transport - a senior Civil servant who let the railway people get on with running the job without taking any broad policy principles down to a detail level of interference.  It worked well because both sides knew where they stood and respected the capabilities of the other.  Now look at the way DafT has behaved in recent years and the trail of disasters - as a GoCo we weren't told what employment practices and policies we 'had' to apply, we weren't told what methods of train working we had to apply, we weren't told what to do with our rolling stock or what commercial policies to apply beyond our basic remit.  Just look at the trail of disasters, strikes and collapsing timetables at DafT's hands as a consequence of dictating or trying to dictate such things.  Would DafT change if the railways went under complete state control tomorrow - somehow I doubt it.  Would senior railway managers have the courage of their convictions and experience to tell DafT (when) not to interfere? 

 

 

[rockershovel]

I’m unclear why you should think that I’m “moaning about BR management”. 

 

On the whole I had quite a high opinion of the nationalised industries I encountered, principally the NCB. They could be quite impossible in some ways, but they were very competent technically, and has achieved this from a very low level - the coal industry was absolutely exhausted by 1945, twenty years behind the times. They never managed to resolve their labour management problems, probably no one could have but they achieved some quite brilliant technical successes when they had a clean slate (as at Selby) and their equipment was world class by the 1960s. 

 

I dont doubt that you are correct about the dispersal of ability and structure since privatisation. The oil industry did  much the same thing when BNOC was abruptly tossed aside. Civil engineering is plagued with it. 

 

DfT seems to be a bastion of that 1980s fallacy about “a good manager can manage anything” and I get a strong impression of micro-management by people lacking the necessary experience in depth.

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by rockershovel

[mdvle]

5 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

There are plenty of more moderate Republicans that are privately pretty critical of president Trump - yet cannot do much about it precisely because the role of President is separate to the Senate / Congress and can only be removed outside of an election through impeachment. Trump thus knows he doesn't have to pay that much attention to said moderate Senators or Congress as they are extremely unlikely to be able to remove him from office.

 

There are few moderate Republicans at this point, in large part because Trump's base is the Republican base, and without giving in to that base they don't make it through the primary to even stand for election each time (or have the money to fight an election).

 

5 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Yes the UK setup does leave the head of the Government vulnerable to party infighting - but simply by virtue of them being an MP like the rest of the House of Commons there is far more scope for MPs to influence the direction of the Government than in the American system.

 

Sort of.

 

The President in the US actually is in many ways limited, with Congress holding most/much of the powers.

 

For example every year at this time the President presents his budget for the following year - and Congress spends much of the rest of the year entirely rewriting it to reflect what Congress wants and ignores the President's wishes.

 

So as long as they are willing to deal amongst themselves, the members of Congress end up having far more power to get things done than the President does as they control the purse strings.

[rockershovel]

.... which is interesting, because among the various shocks passing through the British system at present, is a rebalancing of the relationship between the PM (who determines the legislative programme for the coming Parliamentary session) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (who is head of the Treasury, and so, controls the purse strings). 

 

That will certainly bear on events in the rail sector. 

 

 

[ess1uk]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51896169 

interesting

[mdvle]

Not a surprise.

 

As I have posted in the North American section passenger operators in Canada and the US have been cutting service levels to reflect fewer riders, with Amtrak using a Saturday schedule for the M-F service in much of the north-east US and VIA cancelling half of its corridor trains.  Commuter trains in the Toronto area are seeing a significant cut in services starting Wednesday, with the Toronto airport train service being cut to 30 minute interval from 15 minute.

[rockershovel]

5 hours ago, mdvle said:

Not a surprise.

 

As I have posted in the North American section passenger operators in Canada and the US have been cutting service levels to reflect fewer riders, with Amtrak using a Saturday schedule for the M-F service in much of the north-east US and VIA cancelling half of its corridor trains.  Commuter trains in the Toronto area are seeing a significant cut in services starting Wednesday, with the Toronto airport train service being cut to 30 minute interval from 15 minute.

 

That doesn’t surprise me. It’s increasingly difficult to see justification for train services exceeding 300 miles or so, in a relatively sparsely populated country. 

[Nearholmer]

The near future for franchises must involve widespread relief from contractual obligations as:

 

- people adopt an ‘is my journey really necessary?’ Attitude to reduce exposure to the dreaded, causing farebox income to drop like a stone; and,

 

- staff illness reduces capability.

 

I imagine a focus on maintaining a basic service to allow essential services personnel to get to work.

 

Then what?

 

Reapplication of the contract terms that both sides probably wish they hadn’t been so daft as to sign-up to in the first place?

 

Only idiots would go that way (so it might happen!). It ought to offer an opportunity to shift to something much more sensible, using contract models that are widely used by both public and private sectors to buy other services.

[The Stationmaster]

On 17/02/2020 at 19:56, rockershovel said:

Exactly. It’s my firm belief that the basic concept, that private management can inherently produce a profit from any rail service, is fundamentally flawed. I’m also certain that rail privatisation was carried out by the John Major administration for ideological reasons and no clear overall strategic vision for the actual process of operating a mass public transport network, ever existed. 

 

I firmly believe (and indeed, Stationmaster appears to circumnavigate this above) that fragmentation and casualisation of the workforce has been a primary goal of privatisation, throughout. In context, that “efficiencies and savings” are primarily achieved by wage erosion, loss of training and opportunity, and loss of job security. This poses particular problems for any government facing election, because the electorate generally, don’t support this; why would they? 

 

There is also the matter of “socialisation of risk, privatisation of profit”, an interesting phrase which appeared in the public debate post 2008. Again, this has little to commend it to those voters, who persist in their stubborn belief that the function of government, is to govern the country in the common interest. 

 

All attempts to resolve this conundrum subsequently have foundered on these rocks. 

1.  The aim of privatisation as carried out in Britain was NOT to 'inherently produce a profit' and it is a fallacy to suggest that it was.  In fact the aim, as expressed by Treasury officials and outside financial advisors. was to 'reduce the cost (to the Exchequer) of railway passenger services'.   It can be seen of course - although to some extent influenced by how you look at it - that such an aim has not exactly borne fruit!    There was also a key, and in the minds of many railwaymen critically important, aim of separating out infrastructure costs - a problem which had bedevilled the industry for years,  that aim has undoubtedly been almost wholly satisfied.

 

2.  No need to circumnavigate the matter of fragmentation and casualisation of the work force.   There was a strong point of view that infrastructure maintenance costs on BR were excessive and that introducing more (i.e. complete) privatisation of the work would achieve financial savings.  Let's not overlook that some of this work in various continental countries, e.g. Germany, had been carried out by private contractors for many years for such important jobs as track tamping.  Similarly everyday permanent way work, including patrolling, had been in the hands of private contractors on BR for years - e.g. in the case of the London Division of the WR substantial stretches of quadruple track main line had been contracted to Eagre (latterly Grant Lyon Eagre) since the 1960s.

 

The casualisation and fragmentation was almost entirely a consequence of the way tasks were staffed and managed by the companies whichtook over various parts of infrastructure work - no doubt because that was the way they already operated in the building and civil engineering industries.  To say it was 'a primary goal' is somewhat misleading because nobody, in all the meetings I was involved, ever mentioned it - and those meeting included all the Treasury teams and outside financial advisors who were working on the financial structure of privatisation.  It might have been seen as an unspoken consequence of letting in contractors who always worked that way in other fields but it was definitely never stated to be an aim and the fact that it started seems generally to have caught Railtrack unawares that it was going on. because nothing had been put in place to control what many saw as 'cowboyisation'.

 

3.  One interesting fact of privatisation of the rail industry is that on many categories remuneration has massively increased since privatisation, especially where there are marketable skills such as Drivers.  An aim of 'wage erosion' certainly was never voiced as a consequence although 'cost reduction' very definitely was because outsiders tended to regard BR as bureaucratic and therefore over manned in many areas.  Oddly on many practical and operational comparators with other railways in Europe, and elsewhere, BR was very efficient if measured in terms of effective use of resources and infrastructure and of staff numbers - the politicos neatly sidestepped that one.

 

In fact having worked. closely with various departments of other railways in Europe, and beyond, I would not argue with that.  Some, for example SNCF, are grossly inefficient compared with pre-privatisation BR while most had excessive amounts of infrastructure for the number of trains they were handling especially when compared with what BR was achieving with much less.  It all depends how you measure efficiency and most folk outside the industry work on far more simplistic bases than looking at hard factual comparisons.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The near future for franchises must involve widespread relief from contractual obligations as:

 

- people adopt an ‘is my journey really necessary?’ Attitude to reduce exposure to the dreaded, causing farebox income to drop like a stone; and,

 

- staff illness reduces capability.

 

I imagine a focus on maintaining a basic service to allow essential services personnel to get to work.

 

Then what?

 

Reapplication of the contract terms that both sides probably wish they hadn’t been so daft as to sign-up to in the first place?

 

Only idiots would go that way (so it might happen!). It ought to offer an opportunity to shift to something much more sensible, using contract models that are widely used by both public and private sectors to buy other services.

Provided there is a cap & collar in the franchise agreement there is no real financial problem for the franchisee.  But how many franchises still include cap & collar agreements?

[Nearholmer]

I have no idea, and there might be ‘force majeure’ clauses that come into play too, but I’d be immensely surprised if obligations drawn-up to meet normal circumstances are anything like ideal in such exceptional circumstances.

 

I’d expect to see some sort of ‘for the duration’ agreement to come into being, obliging the operator to provide some minimum level of service so far as is is practicable, open-booking on cost and income (which probably exists already), and a government guarantee to underwrite losses reasonably incurred.

 

And, NR will doubtless be looking at how they can continue to provide a safe network and necessary operational staffing cover.

 

In a strange way, it has parallels with what was done in London during the Olympics in 2012, where we shut down all but near-term-service-vital works, retrained staff to cover roles that they had never covered or hadn’t covered in years etc.

 

We shall see.

[Nearholmer]

Here we are: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51907213

[mdvle]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Provided there is a cap & collar in the franchise agreement there is no real financial problem for the franchisee.  But how many franchises still include cap & collar agreements?

 

I suspect part of the current problem is the ever expanding role of DfT in specifiying the franchises - where the DfT has said you will operate x trains per hour on route A, and now that there is only demand for say x/2 trains the franchise agreements aren't flexible enough to deal with this.

 

Thus not only is fare revenue down, but the TOC's don't have the flexibility to cut costs by running fewer trains. (and the latest BBC article hints at this, with the comment about being forced to run ghost trains.

Edited March 16, 2020 by mdvle