Intercity/One/National Express discussion

[Kneedown]

Intercity/ICE - Long distance trains with few stops and amenities such as proper first class and buffet car eg. NX East Coast, Virgin West Coast, Cross Country etc.

That would mean then, if EMT get their wish and remove the buffet cars from HST's and 222's, that it would cease to be an Intercity service, and become an Inter Regional service?

 

[Max]

That would mean then, if EMT get their wish and remove the buffet cars from HST's and 222's, that it would cease to be an Intercity service, and become an Inter Regional service?

It's an interesting point. At the moment I'd say East Midlands Trains is *just about* intercity. The linespeed may not be incredibly quick, but the stock used is intercity standard and many of the trains are 'fast' in that they miss out a lot of station stops. However, the removal of the buffet (mad in my opinion) could raise the point that an intercity level of service isn't really being met. If the buffet cars are removed, you have the following situation on your hands between two virtually parallel routes:

NX East Coast

125mph max linespeed
Restaurant cars
Buffet cars
All trains 8/9 cars long
Free wifi
Faster journey times and longer distance journies (eg London to Inverness)

East Midlands Mainline

100mph max speed (maybe 110 in places?)
Trolley service
Slower journey times
Shorter trains

This would seem to put EMT into more of an iner-regional express catagory as opposed to intercity. In particular, the evening Leeds trains seem to be more like fast trains to towns in the East Midlands (eg. Market Harborough, Kettering etc) which just simply happen to be extended to cities such as Derby, Sheffield and Leeds.

 

[The Snap]

The original point was to discuss a franchise changing hands despite it not being up for renewal for years! It has since changed to a more interesting debate on which types of trains should be classified as InterCity style, so may be worth splitting the topic...

In which case, yes, it has some meaning.

My point was regarding the refranchising - what is the point disucssing it being changed when its only just been changed anyway (if we are talking about National Express Great Eastern (or whatever they call themselves...) of course).

 

[P156KWJ]

I agree with you saying about HSTs having buffets removed, it is absoloute s**t tat they are doing this, but to correct you (sorry!) There are parts of the MML which are 125mph, south of Kettering. After Bedford until London there isn't anywhere really over 105mph.

 

[AlexS]

In what way?

Sure they've been using up to two EWS "Skodas" at any time, but who's been looking after them on a day to day basis? Besides, the majority of the fleet are still 'one's own.

one TN

Believe there's been a lot of dialogue between Crewe IEMD and Crown Point TMD to get the One 90s back in form - there's also been regular tripping of the locomotives to Crewe for work to be done on them by EWS.

 

[Mojo]

First used to operate GE unter the First Great eastern franchise and were kicked out because of bad performance any way, so it is unlikely First will ever win this franchise again anyway.

Actually FirstGroup were not kicked out, the franchise expired and they were unsuccesful in bidding for it because of various reasons to do with them not offering the right premium.

Besides, First Great Eastern had a very good performance record, so I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

 

[djw1981]

Nat Ex I find is a very good franchise, who have only had the franchise a month and deserve a fair chance.

Ummm really. So who had it before Natex if they have only had it for a month?

 

[yorkie]

There are parts of the MML which are 125mph, south of Kettering. After Bedford until London there isn't anywhere really over 105mph.

Not true, there are 110mph sections south of Bedford, yet nowhere is 125.

 

[Fuzzy Logic]

Ummm really. So who had it before Natex if they have only had it for a month?

Why National Express did of course!
To be fair though, they haven't done a terrible job with the franchise. It seems as most of the delays in Anglia are now infrastructure. And certainly the improvement in reliability of the 90's should be commended. Just a shame about the waste of money on seemingly constant rebranding.

It's not exactly their fault that the Daft decided to give them the franchise though, rather than re-awarding to Great Eastern.

 

[djw1981]

It's not exactly their fault that the Daft decided to give them the franchise though, rather than re-awarding to Great Eastern.

Indeed - should we condemn a company for bidding for a franchise? Or should only ones deemed to be 'bad' be refranchised? The Re-franchising does often bring many innovations and developments to a franchise.

 

[ChrisCooper]

I don't think any TOC has been perfect, far from it, infact many of the best regarded (Anglia, Chiltern, FGE, MML, GNER) have had big problems at times. In the same respect, even the worst havn't been bad all the time (even Central had their good points). In a lot of cases, good or bad TOCs have been more down to the franchise than the operator, the "best" have typically run fairly easy routes, with good stock, good infrastructure etc, or had big improvements during the franchise.
Few TOCs have really made significant impacts on their franchises, beyond changes of name and livery, many of the changes have been down to SRA/DfT specifications (service improvements, new or "new" trains, longer trains, refurbished trains, improved stations), regulations (new trains to replace Mk1s), or just been taking advantage of infrastructure improvements (increased frequencies, shorter journey times). Now it's even more so than ever, with the DfT specifying almost everything but the name and livery (although some people think they should do that aswell). one have actually made a few changes beyond the franchise commitments (providing Acle and Lingwood with a Winter Sunday service for a start) and have also kept all of Anglia's changes that wern't included in the franchise specs (I think Norwich to Cambridge was, but I don't think the additional services on the Sherringham line were, and the additional capacity on summer saturdays to Yarmouth defintly wasn't, lucky since neither TOC has been great at actually providing it).

 

[Z12XE]

(providing Acle and Lingwood with a Winter Sunday service for a start)

That was more of a get out clause for being allowed to cut off the daily loco hauled service each way to Yarmouth, which was nothing short of a disaster and should never have been promised.

To be fair One's service now is where it should be as a minimum and they've done well with that (and to an extent the SRA helped by making the Norwich to Cambridge service and the Southminster and Sudbury Sundays part of the basic franchise costs - under previous TOCs these were extras with external funding), all thats needed is a Sunday service between Romford and Upminster, and to extend the Walton service on a Sunday all stations to Colchester North via the town, then go from there.....

 

[ChrisCooper]

The daily Yarmouths were a big mistake, what with not having enough 47 trained drivers, not really having enough 47s (since they usually used the Norwich Thunderbird, so no good if it was out, which was fairly often then since the 90s were quite awful), and not getting the Mk3s (or at least DVTs) cleared for quite a while (actually, I'm not sure if they were cleared whilst the daily service ran, or just in time for the summer saturday ones), the latter which could have been helped by making sure the rare (at the time) Mk3 sets didn't end up on the Yarmouth diagram. Of cource, it got off to a bad start anyway with the first London-Yarmouth only getting as far as Ipswich due to some nice people dropping stuff on a 90, damaging it and the OHLE. They have had enough problems with the Summer Saturday Yarmouths, although Anglia were just as bad, again lack or 47 trained drivers or lack of a 47 were common problems. In all the years they've been running, I've tried probably getting on for 10 times to get to or from Yarmouth behind a 47, and managed it twice, 3 times was in the first week of the daily service (Monday, Tuesday and Thusday), finally managing it in the new year, the rest of the times being the Summer Saturday runs.
The other problem with the daily Yarmouth though was that it never seemed to be well used. The time I got it from Norwich it was almost empty, and even the replacement 153 that often ran in it's place probably didn't even carry enough to cover the diesel. The long wait at Norwich probably didn't help, which I can only assume was due to pathing towards Yarmouth. There must be a fair amount of custom on the route though for them to think it was worthwhile, I don't know if it was just that people carried on getting the trains they always did and changing at Norwich. The summer saturday ones are very well used though, both with through passengers to and from the south, and also those to and from the West via Norwich aswell.

 

[support-uk-rail]

Stagecoach Group and First Travel seem to dominate the lines these days, with Stagecoach accounting for East Anglia, SW Trains, EM Trains and 49% of Virgin...

If these two companies merged, we'd practically have another British Rail.

I used to love First Great Western, but since they got the franchise (wessex trains), they just havn't been able to run.

One is to change name to National Express East Anglia according to Rail Professional.

 

[djw1981]

What do stagecoach run in East Anglia? I thought one and c2c were both NX franchise and FCC is First.

The 'one' name change was announced in December and one rake of coaches and a 90 are already in the livery, prior to its launch in February.

 

[support-uk-rail]

Apparently (according to Rail Professional), because of much confusion with the name one, National Express East Anglia will be applied. This is all I know.

 

[Z12XE]

Stagecoach run very few trains in East Anglia - just the former Central Trains service to Norwich. Everything else is as djw1981 says, National Express for One and First for Capital Connect.

 

[djw1981]

See http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=15379 for teh full discussion at the time about one's renaming / rebranding.

 

[Tom C]

I happen to live on the north end of the route and as you say it appears most of the stations have or are in the process of being refurbed, but apart from the " new fancy" destination boards I cant see that a few tins of PINK paint justify the constant rises in fares.

Thats a lot more than the Southern end of the line has got so far!

So far none of the stations south of the river have been refurbished in any way and seven stations still don't have any destination screens.

Thameslink actually gave most of the stations a lick of paint quite late on including all of the Southern stations so maybe thats the reason why they are leaving then until last although it doesn't look that good having the old operators colours when they put posters up at these stations advertising how much they have spent so far.

Actually FirstGroup were not kicked out, the franchise expired and they were unsuccesful in bidding for it because of various reasons to do with them not offering the right premium.

Besides, First Great Eastern had a very good performance record, so I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

Exactly right!

Infact if you ask most users on the Metro section from Shenfield to Liverpool Street they will say that First operated a better service during its franchise thanks to a clever Metro timetable. I have been told by regular commuters that they are particularly unhappy about the information given during disruption. Because the service on this section is very intensive during the peaks it doesn't need much to go wrong however when it does go wrong there is little or no service information.

Believe there's been a lot of dialogue between Crewe IEMD and Crown Point TMD to get the One 90s back in form

There is no doubt that the figures for the 90's are an exceptional improvement but the fleet is still the worst performing of the intercity fleets. You have to dock your cap to Crown Point for the improvement but they still have an awful lot of work ahead to get them off the bottom of that league table.

 

[Jordy]

Topic split from 'First should take over the one franchise'