CrossCountry Franchise: DfT looking at five year direct award

[grumpyoldman01]

According to the 'Railway Gazette', the DfT is planning to directly award a contract to Arriva to continue to operate Cross Country for a further five years; see:

https://www.railwaygazette.com/news...-year-cross-country-direct-award-planned.html

The Department for Transport plans to directly award incumbent Arriva a contract to continue to operate Cross Country services for 60 months from the end of the current contract in October 2019.

Arriva's XC Trains Ltd subsidiary originally won the Cross Country franchise in 2007, and the services are currently operated under a three-year direct award contract running from September 2016 to October 2019.

...

Note that the list of services to be operated includes Birmingham - Leicester, but Birmingham - Nottingham is excluded.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Probably an inadvertent omission.

 

[The_Train]

No mention of rolling stock though?

 

[The Prisoner]

Nottingham - Cardiff is included. Surely Brum is a calling point on the way?

 

[PHILIPE]

According to the 'Railway Gazette', the DfT is planning to directly award a contract to Arriva to continue to operate Cross Country for a further five years; see:

https://www.railwaygazette.com/news...-year-cross-country-direct-award-planned.html

Note that the list of services to be operated includes Birmingham - Leicester, but Birmingham - Nottingham is excluded.

Perhaps Birmingham to Nottingham is covered by Cardiff to Nottingham

 

[CptCharlee]

5 years. With no improvements to services or rolling stock. Crosscountry seriously needed to sort out it's capacity issue. This is going to be ridiculous.

No Liverpool or Norwich on the new franchise either.

I was really looking forward to a new progressive start for crosscountry from 2019. Now it's just make do.

 

[grumpyoldman01]

No mention of rolling stock though?

No; it is claimed that services will be SIMILAR to those now operated, and the article is illustrated with images of a 'Turbostar' and 'Voyagers'

 

[geoffk]

5 years. With no improvements to services or rolling stock. Crosscountry seriously needed to sort out it's capacity issue. This is going to be ridiculous.

No Liverpool or Norwich on the new franchise either.

I was really looking forward to a new progressive start for crosscountry from 2019. Now it's just make do.

I agree. Rail users and supporters need to make a fuss about this.

 

[grumpyoldman01]

Perhaps Birmingham to Nottingham is covered by Cardiff to Nottingham

Could be, but it lists Birmingham - Stansted Airport and Birmingham - Leicester.

Can't see anything on the DfT's website about it yet, but the Railway Gazette entry (dated today) says that the announcement of these plans for the direct award was made on 13th October (which was a Saturday)

 

[Puffing Devil]

Why not 2 years as an extension, to allow the country to Brexit and get a proper procurement process in place? Of course, if Arriva doesn't want the extension, we could go straight to a procurement.

 

[edwin_m]

Nottingham - Cardiff is included. Surely Brum is a calling point on the way?

Perhaps Birmingham to Nottingham is covered by Cardiff to Nottingham

But they have put Birmingham-Leicester separately despite it being a short working of Birmingham-Stansted. Which could be down to sloppy writing or an indication that Birmingham-Nottingham will go to East Midlands. Let the speculation commence!

No Liverpool or Norwich on the new franchise either.

It seems to have been decided that this will be split with west of Nottingham going to TPE or Northern in recognition of linking three cities definitely in the North with one that's on the fringes but will already be served by a Northern Connect. Giving the eastern end to XC would reduce Peterborough-Ely to two operators but invove setting up a new operation that doesn't go through Birmingham, which seems to be the main criterion for being part of XC today.

By definition train services connect different areas so you're never going to have a neat and tidy franchise map with no overlaps unless you force passengers to change trains unnecessarily. There's also the risk of seeing what doesn't work too well with the current setup but not seeing the things that work well and would be worse if it was changed. There are also good reasons for passengers and for the railway as a whole to leave the franchise pattern alone unless there's agood reason to change it.

"When you reorganise you bleed" - G Fiennes.

 

[pdeaves]

There is no mention of Guildford, Newquay or Penzance. I wonder if they are sufficiently minor to be omitted from the summary or whether it's decided they will disappear.

 

[tbtc]

Five years for an extension (of a 2007 franchise that was already meant to have finished over two years ago)?

This extension is as long as some franchises are meant to be!

Fingers crossed there's some real "meat" in the deal arranged - GWR passengers have had improvements secured as part of the various extensions that that franchise has had over the years - making-do-and-mending won't work with XC.

 

[swt_passenger]

Why not 2 years as an extension, to allow the country to Brexit and get a proper procurement process in place? Of course, if Arriva doesn't want the extension, we could go straight to a procurement.

It might not be a straight 5 years, the article includes:
“Giving a year’s notice of its plans for a direct award on October 13, DfT said the five-year period was likely to include a core period and optional extensions exercisable at its sole discretion.”

 

[TheDavibob]

I would have thought stock decisions would be constrained by whatever happens for the EM franchise, given the similar requirements. When is that franchise due to be announced? I lose track...

 

[michael74]

Will the direct award stipulate putting some tarpaulin on-top of the voyagers so they can get past Dawlish at high tide... I was hoping a new franchise could have done something about that...

 

[The_Train]

As others have said in the vast array of XC threads we have seen lately, it definitely does make you wonder if there was a severe lack of interest from other parties that has lead to this outcome

 

[The_Train]

Will the direct award stipulate putting some tarpaulin on-top of the voyagers so they can get past Dawlish at high tide... I was hoping a new franchise could have done something about that...

Or tarpaulin over the sea?

 

[michael74]

Or tarpaulin over the sea?

I wouldn't put it past DfT to think that was a good idea....

 

[geoffk]

Five years for an extension (of a 2007 franchise that was already meant to have finished over two years ago)?

This extension is as long as some franchises are meant to be!

Fingers crossed there's some real "meat" in the deal arranged - GWR passengers have had improvements secured as part of the various extensions that that franchise has had over the years - making-do-and-mending won't work with XC.

This is really bad news. XC desperately needs extra capacity, including bi-mode trains to reduce the large amount of diesel operation under the wires. XC-set fares are a rip-off and easily undercut by split-ticketing.

 

[OrangeJuice]

I wouldn't put it past DfT to think that was a good idea....

There definitely needs to be a like function

 

[geoffk]

Why not 2 years as an extension, to allow the country to Brexit and get a proper procurement process in place? Of course, if Arriva doesn't want the extension, we could go straight to a procurement.

Why not stop Brexit, get rid of the Tory government and elect one which makes public transport investment outside the south-east of England a high priority?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

XC-set fares are a rip-off and easily undercut by split-ticketing.

The DfT is no doubt happy about that state of affairs (though perhaps not about the fact that splitting is allowed); they have more money to spend on other projects, and are less reliant on the Treasury, if TOCs have a pricing policy that enables them to pay a bigger franchise premium.

 

[mushroomchow]

If the protestations of the local council are of any note, they're planning to split the Birmingham - Stansted service at Leicester and give the eastern portion to the new East Midlands franchise. The specific mention of a "Birmingham-Leicester" service would seem to back up that assertion.

I don't see the logic myself, Leicester is already a bottleneck without having additional trains terminating there. Unless they finally pull their finger out and build either platforms 5 and 6 or a platform 0 for north-facing terminating services, that is. It would make far more sense to increase train lengths instead, since it's a horribly overcrowded service relying on 3 (sometimes 2) car 170s at present, and I believe there's room at each station along the line for at least 4-car trains.

 

[grumpyoldman01]

Which could be down to sloppy writing or an indication that Birmingham-Nottingham will go to East Midlands. Let the speculation commence!

East Midlands has been consulted on and is now out to tender; Birmingham - Nottingham isn't included.

However, as the possibility of transferring this service to West Midlands was included in the XC franchise consultation, this is probably the better bet if the omission from the list of services is deliberate and not an error

 

[edwin_m]

East Midlands has been consulted on and is now out to tender; Birmingham - Nottingham isn't included.

However, as the possibility of transferring this service to West Midlands was included in the XC franchise consultation, this is probably the better bet if the omission from the list of services is deliberate and not an error

Which means the 3TPH Nottingham-Derby service would have three different operators...

 

[grumpyoldman01]

Which means the 3TPH Nottingham-Derby service would have three different operators...

Yep!

And don't forget that there have in the past been some Northern services routed via Derby instead of the Erewash Valley

 

[Mollman]

Why not 2 years as an extension, to allow the country to Brexit and get a proper procurement process in place? Of course, if Arriva doesn't want the extension, we could go straight to a procurement.

As has been mentioned by the DfT itself - the whole point of the direct award is to keep the franchise going as is until the future of franchising is known. Then the XC franchise can be recast as needed to meet the new look model or just be nationalised if Labour is in office by then.

 

[lammergeier]

But they have put Birmingham-Leicester separately despite it being a short working of Birmingham-Stansted. Which could be down to sloppy writing or an indication that Birmingham-Nottingham will go to East Midlands. Let the speculation commence!

EMT will not be allowed to operate into New St. If it goes, it will go to WMR although it would surprise me if it went and Leicester didn't.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Well I'm sincerely hoping that it is not going to be a case of putting up with our current stock for at least 6 more years. Otherwise it's back to square one with me complaining to XC about capacity.

I'll even be happy to either talk to someone in person on the phone, go up to their headquarters in Birmingham or arrange a meeting with someone from the DfT even if I have to go down to London in the morning or evening rush hour - whatever it takes to make sure we're not waiting over 5 or 6 years for desperately needed more capacity!

There'll be enough stock from LNER - either HST's which means waiting for electric doors or Mark 4's which means either...

New-build bi-mode 125mph locomotives or the HST powercar's engines updated to enough power to cope with lugging 7 Mark 4's everyday.