East Coast rail franchise move looks back on track

7:55am Saturday 12th January 2013 in News

PLANS to refranchise the East Coast Mainline look set to get back on track after an independent review of Government strategy recommended sticking with franchising.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin asked Richard Brown, chairman of Eurostar, to conduct a thorough investigation into how the government should manage its franchising programme following the cancellation of the InterCity West Coast competition last year.

Mr Brown has concluded that franchising is “not broken”, but recommended the bidding and evaluation process for each franchise should be strengthened and simplified.

York-based East Coast is currently nationalised, but is due to be franchised again. However, York Central MP Hugh Bayley said last autumn that bidding for the franchise should be stopped while the Government takes the opportunity to compare private and public sector running of railways.

York council leader Coun James Alexander welcomed Mr Brown’s report, saying he would now carefully consider the implications for York.

He said: “Restarting franchising will provide a clear way forward for the East Coast franchise, this dovetails with the work we are pushing forward, alongside fellow local authorities in the East Coast Mainline Group, to build the wider business case for further investment to significantly improve its capacity, reliability and connectivity.”

Comments(5)

Stevie D says...
11:19am Sat 12 Jan 13

Noooooo ... East Coast has been so much better since it was nationalised than when National Express ran it ... please please please keep it under state control.

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PKH says...
4:18pm Sat 12 Jan 13

What is required is all the other franchises as they expire being nationalised, not de-nationalising East Coast

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Ignatius Lumpopo says...
4:33pm Sat 12 Jan 13

Stevie D wrote:
Noooooo ... East Coast has been so much better since it was nationalised than when National Express ran it ... please please please keep it under state control.
You are joking.

For example... a peak hour service yesterday from Newcastle to London - late running and subsequently holding up other trains due to run around the same time: no trolley service "due to lack of staff", "no hot food" and a customer services manager whose raucous and jabbering lack of grasp of the English language after every station stop would put a third world airline to shame. Imagine forking out the thick end of £250 for a ticket and not even getting the hot meal they are meant to throw in?

And why is every train still a different colour?

East Coast is a disgrace - much worse than when GNER ran it... and, ironically, worser still than it was when it was being prepared for sell-off by British Rail.

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Magicman! says...
2:35am Sun 13 Jan 13

There will always be seperate instances of where one service has been poor. But in general, East Coast (run by Directly Operated Railways) has been better than National Express east coast as punctuality has gone up, patronage has gone up, and customer satisfaction has also gone up significantly. NX run down the service to it's bare bones and staff morale was at an all time low, which was reflected in how customers got treated - do we really want to go back to that? because that is what WILL happen as the government always demands such high premiums for the East and West Coast main lines that you'd think they were a bunch of lunatics without any clue at all. NXEC went bust as they couldn't pay the premium payments, but they won the franchise because they said they'd pay that amount of money - and they won because their bid paid back more to the government than the other companies making bids, and that is also why Firstgroup won the original West Coast franchise bid before beardy branson kicked up a fuss.

SOME trains running for East Coast are a different colour because they are on loan from Stagecoach East Midlands Trains to cover for various Intercity 225 sets hauled by a class 91 loco - these are becoming increasingly unreliable and an overhaul programme has been started so extra trains are required whilst this takes place.

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Paul Meoff says...
7:48am Sun 13 Jan 13

Ignatius Lumpopo wrote:
Stevie D wrote:
Noooooo ... East Coast has been so much better since it was nationalised than when National Express ran it ... please please please keep it under state control.
You are joking.

For example... a peak hour service yesterday from Newcastle to London - late running and subsequently holding up other trains due to run around the same time: no trolley service "due to lack of staff", "no hot food" and a customer services manager whose raucous and jabbering lack of grasp of the English language after every station stop would put a third world airline to shame. Imagine forking out the thick end of £250 for a ticket and not even getting the hot meal they are meant to throw in?

And why is every train still a different colour?

East Coast is a disgrace - much worse than when GNER ran it... and, ironically, worser still than it was when it was being prepared for sell-off by British Rail.
"a customer services manager whose raucous and jabbering lack of grasp of the English language"

This is a particularly offensive statement. The service is in variably going to recruit staff that live in closes proximity to the stations it services. You should not be surprised when one of these employees hails from Newcastle. Or was he Glaswegian?

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