WCML InterCity Franchise

[StaffsWCML]

But, once again (and everyone seems to be missing this absolutely fundamental point), Virgin Rail Group did not bid. The bid was a branded Stagecoach bid. It would have been like VTEC or EMT or SWT, not like VTWC, which I agree is generally a very good TOC.

They didn't although my understanding is that much of the current structure would have continued to exist as it does now. For example the Training centre in Crewe.

It's time for a change, The Virgin brand along with gimmicks that a aspiring manager comes up with to make a name for him/herself at HQ does not appeal to me.

What exactly does appeal to you? The bland averageness and aspiration of pure dullness and mediocracy or below found everywhere else on the British Rail network? in particular the likes of Abellio. Virgin want to be unique, they want to be different and they in a market place of mediocracy and pull dullness, they are better than most in Stagecoach or Virgin form.

Hopefully the railway professionals at Stagecoach and Virgin will still be working on the system somewhere.
Their exit from the East Coast franchise doesn't seem to have changed much over there, with much the same branding and the same management team.
"Time for a change" was something not offered by BR, though Chris Green had a good go in his BR days.
I think Virgin Trains (and their Network Rail partners on the WCML) have a lot to be proud of over 22 years, warts and all (and there were some).

I don't think the East Coast had enough time to change it.

Depends on who takes over. If it is MTR due to them having limited presence in the UK at present especially North of Watford, it is likely most of the management team and structures would be retained in Crewe/BHAM etc. If it is First it is likely they will integrate management with much of their existing structure in the long term for cost synergies.

 

[Bletchleyite]

FWIW, as mentioned above, I do favour the MTR bid, largely because I don't want FirstGroup within the nearest 1000 miles of it. Anything they touch turns to, you know, the contents of the 4' at Paddington.

 

[Aictos]

Anyone but Virgin Trains for their over the top and at times tacky PR.

Wouldn’t mind First having a go tho!

 

[LOL The Irony]

I think we will end up being pretty sorry that Virgin / Stagecoach were disqualified. The other two choices do not seem inspiring at all.

I feel the same.

 

[hexagon789]

I think we will end up being pretty sorry that Virgin / Stagecoach were disqualified. The other two choices do not seem inspiring at all.

Indeed they don't and I don't think any other TOC has brought such significant change or modernisation in one go really.

 

[Robertj21a]

I think we will end up being pretty sorry that Virgin / Stagecoach were disqualified. The other two choices do not seem inspiring at all.

Couldn't agree more. We lose the professionalism of both Stagecoach for the overall operation, and Virgin for the marketing - both probably leaders in their field in the UK.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Anyone but Virgin Trains for their over the top and at times tacky PR.

Wouldn’t mind First having a go tho!

PR is how the West Coast has grown so rapidly, is it not?

 

[700007]

PR was the reason Virgin managed to gain a massive following over the last 20 years. You can say that Network Rail / British Rail / Rail track did all the relevant infrastructure work to bring upgrades to the West Coast Main Line but ultimately Virgin Trains did bring the passengers onto the line. Virgin as a brand sells to passengers. They keep a good reputation because majority of passengers are leisure passengers who are only subject to using them irregularly. Because of this, chances are their journey will not go wrong and people get a better impression of travelling on Virgin Trains as opposed to someone a bit more 'disliked' like GTR. Virgin can play this out in their favour and use this to gain brand loyalty. They have incentivised themselves to have regular seat sales, abolish off peaks on Friday afternoons and treat regular passengers to nice perks such as cheap First Class upgrades. Whilst the structure of Virgin Trains would change, most of it in terms of directors would probably stay the same, although SNCF may get a larger say come the operations and engineering side of things but the new franchise will still try retain their hard earned reputation. I fear the new operator will struggle to uphold the reputation and particularly brand loyalty which is what matters here as they either aren't well known to the public (MTR) or hated by a good chunk of the public (First).

West Coast is also an unfortunate franchise as a lot of major corridors from London are more competitive than other franchises as they have to fight to keep passengers going for Chiltern Railways, LNER and LNWR (LNR). If the franchise was to start slipping, quickly the passengers can go for probably a better price too.

 

[The Planner]

Would hardly call it unfortunate, its an absolute cash cow regardless and the DfT bank on it.

 

[whhistle]

Compared to the majority of bland faceless dross we have, they are a breath of fresh air and offer something different to the market place. The have revolutionised services on the West Coast Mainline in the past 20 years and it is far ahead of any other line in the UK in terms of service/reliability.

I agree, Virgin are pretty good. However, you realise a lot of the marketing stuff and aspirations you speak of would have happened anyway?
Virgin didn't upgrade the West Coast, Railtrack / Network Rail did. It was going to happen anyway.
Virgin may have chose Pendolinos but whatever operator won would have chosen something similar.
Virgin bought in the Voyagers... enough said.
Virgin stomped their feet and said "this is how Cross Country will run, everyone else has to run around us" during operation princess.

When you're staff for the West Coast, you are fed a lot of marketed rubbish.

Do you deny Virgin suggested (or allowed people to believe) that if First took over in 2012, Virgin would have taken the trains away?

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of outdated things Virgin try and get out of, but I have direct experience with them sticking to the old BR ways in more than one situation.
Branson may not like ties (I don't either!) but the day to day running of the company has nothing to do with him. He just likes to get as much money as he can in life - that is obvious.

Althoguh I'd retort your "far ahead in relibility" <-- reliable what? Trains? Service? Isn't the East Mids the franchise that has held the most punctual for the past 10 years or something similar?

Remember, this isn't about opposing views but accepting things aren't always as they seem.. and in this case, Virgin isn't all good. They are good, just not all good.

 

[whhistle]

West Coast is also an unfortunate franchise as a lot of major corridors from London are more competitive than other franchises as they have to fight to keep passengers going for Chiltern Railways

Image is everything to Virgin.

A good example is outside Birmingham International station - there's always (I've never not seen) a billboard from Chiltern saying "Virgin are rubbish, travel Chiltern".
Virgin will never do this to Chiltern. Why? Because they don't want to look like the big bully boy going after the small cheerful little train company chuffing along the track.

It's also worth remembering they have a huge route.
The West Coast is one of the two routes most operators want. Add in a bit of PR and you get a lot more money in your budget for advertising, free bacon butties and flags.
Said it before though, it's amazing that even the VTWC marketing budget is dwarfed by that Virgin Media have.

 

[whhistle]

I think we will end up being pretty sorry that Virgin / Stagecoach were disqualified. The other two choices do not seem inspiring at all.

Do you have access to the details of all three bids?
Because to say that conclusively you'd need to see all three, surely?

 

[pt_mad]

I think we will end up being pretty sorry that Virgin / Stagecoach were disqualified. The other two choices do not seem inspiring at all.

How do we know the other bids will be uninspiring without knowing what they're proposing? Branding alone is not going to be inspiring without other offerings.

The public haven't been hoodwinked.

Virgin may well be (Comparatively) awful, when compared to something we don't have in UK railways full stop. Any awfulness they have is mainly caused by the old decrepit unions, their outdated BR ways of thinking and working that should be consigned to history.

Compared to the majority of bland faceless dross we have, they are a breath of fresh air and offer something different to the market place. The have revolutionised services on the West Coast Mainline in the past 20 years and it is far ahead of any other line in the UK in terms of service/reliability.

If we think First Group or the Chinese (who have no idea of the concepts of operating on a Victorian railway), will improve things we are deluded.

With all due respect for VTWC, how much of them revolutionising the WCML is down to them and how much is down to the DFT vision of the very high frequency timetable? Which would probably be in operation regardless of which TOC held the route. Not much has drastically changed since 2013.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is the Scotland via Brum thing which was an absolute masterstroke. But does much else actually need changing?

 

[pt_mad]

There is the Scotland via Brum thing which was an absolute masterstroke. But does much else actually need changing?

Not necessarily and I doubt much will with the timetable spec being so technically close to what is in place today. My point was more about a poster saying the other operators are likely to be uninspiring or that the WCML revolution is down to the current operator. Do we know how much is and how much would have been forced by the DFT even if say First had operated the route since 97 as an example? New trains were coming regardless, tilt, some sort of 9 departures fast line timetable. A buffet was likely to be specified as the trains were a circa millennium design afaik?

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Do you have access to the details of all three bids?
Because to say that conclusively you'd need to see all three, surely?

Correct you would need to see the bids, of which you cannot. You will Only get to see the winning bid (expected in June 2019).

 

[pt_mad]

There is the Scotland via Brum thing which was an absolute masterstroke. But does much else actually need changing?

The only logical optional extra I can think of is press for the optional extra Liverpools and if they were really creative to manage some way to extend the remaining 9 cars to 11, even of that meant Alstom rejigging existing sets and braking them up. Then make up the lost sets with a new build 11 car tilting stock.

 

[pt_mad]

On a sidenote it seems to me that the existing operator branding can only go so far. It may have been anyway that that would have had to be brought to an end anyway if the DFT ended up insisting on a certain brand name for the route, such as LMS, which remains pure speculation.
It may have been that the best Stagecoach could have achieved would have been 'xxxxxxxx by Virgin Trains'.

Price seems to be more a factor than it was though from my experiences. Some customers may have been willing to pay more to travel flash, fast and to be seen to be on a Virgin Train previously but I have no idea whether that is still as common as it once was?

 

[Bald Rick]

Virgin didn't upgrade the West Coast, Railtrack / Network Rail did. It was going to happen anyway.
Virgin may have chose Pendolinos but whatever operator won would have chosen something similar.

Not so. The renewals part of the WCRM was going to happen anyway, and his came with a limited upgrade. The full upgrade, which included extra work at Euston, rebuilding Rugby, 4 tracking the Trent Valley, some further speed enhancements, and much more, was done purely because of the deal done between Virgin and Railtrack in 1998. None of the other bidders in 1996 for the franchise proposed anything like that in terms of further upgrades.

Also, the other bidders did not propose Pendolinos or similar. One of them proposed a bog standard EMU - something akin to an AC version of the 444s. Non tilting.

 

[causton]

Image is everything to Virgin.

A good example is outside Birmingham International station - there's always (I've never not seen) a billboard from Chiltern saying "Virgin are rubbish, travel Chiltern".
Virgin will never do this to Chiltern. Why? Because they don't want to look like the big bully boy going after the small cheerful little train company chuffing along the track.

Errr....

Faster, Oftener - Virgin Trains billboard - Moor Street Station by Elliott Brown, on Flickr

 

[Mojo]

A good example is outside Birmingham International station - there's always (I've never not seen) a billboard from Chiltern saying "Virgin are rubbish, travel Chiltern".
Virgin will never do this to Chiltern. Why? Because they don't want to look like the big bully boy going after the small cheerful little train company chuffing along the track.

Are you kidding me? I lived adjacent to Moor St station in Birmingham for three years and the advertising billboard (the same one photographed by Causton above) was permanently booked out for Virgin Trains with adverts criticising Chiltern.

 

[Starmill]

Errr....

Faster, Oftener - Virgin Trains billboard - Moor Street Station by Elliott Brown, on Flickr

For them, this is quite diplomatic. It is emphasising the advantages of Virgin Trains' service and it's only implicit that they're better than Chiltern. I am not saying I'd go for it if I were a marketing manager, but it's in reasonably good humour mainly because it's absolutely true. VT do run a faster and more frequent service, Chiltern certainly wouldn't argue against that.

However, VT are 100% not above ludicrous gutter-rolling 'attack ads'. This one says "Time is money. Chiltern Railways haven't quite grasped this."



Directly mentioning your competitors for no other reason than to insult them is a serious marketing faux pas. But that's exactly what they do.

 

[Class 170101]

TPE's units also have to endure worse weather over the hills, and get outstationed maintenance in Scotland (ie not Siemens).

Where are they maintained in Scotland then? I thought Corkerhill would be a Siemen's facility (albeit for Class 380 / Class 385 units).

 

[Esker-pades]

Where are they maintained in Scotland then? I thought Corkerhill would be a Siemen's facility (albeit for Class 380 / Class 385 units).

Just to note: Class 385s are Hitachi.

 

[43096]

Correct you would need to see the bids, of which you cannot. You will Only get to see the winning bid (expected in June 2019).

No you don’t. Bids tell you little about the competence of an organisation to deliver; past experience is a much better indicator. WorstGroup have an abysmal track record: FGW, FCC and SWR for a start. In contrast, Stagecoach have been pretty competent in recent times on SWT and EMT. Unfortunately - and stupidly - DfT take no notice of past performance, preferring to believe whatever is in the bid.

 

[Bald Rick]

No you don’t. Bids tell you little about the competence of an organisation to deliver; past experience is a much better indicator. WorstGroup have an abysmal track record: FGW, FCC and SWR for a start. In contrast, Stagecoach have been pretty competent in recent times on SWT and EMT. Unfortunately - and stupidly - DfT take no notice of past performance, preferring to believe whatever is in the bid.

As someone who has seen numerous bids, I can advise that past experience is a key part of the bid and very much a factor considered in assessment.

 

[Wolfie]

That has to be poor maintenance. LM/LNR's have won Golden Spanners repeatedly for high reliability.

Absolutely. I bet the 350/4s are much better once they go to LNR.

 

[Agent_Squash]

That has to be poor maintenance. LM/LNR's have won Golden Spanners repeatedly for high reliability.

The LM fleet is a lot larger than the TPE one - certainly the MTIN is higher for the 350/4s compared to the 390s.

 

[43096]

As someone who has seen numerous bids, I can advise that past experience is a key part of the bid and very much a factor considered in assessment.

So why do we still get the same bunch of cretins winning franchises then? I frankly don’t see how past experience is taken into account. A good example is SWR.

 

[700007]

In the case of West Coast you have all three competitors who currently operate or have operated the South Western franchise either under South West Trains or presently South Western Railway. If we were to solely base this on past experience, I think it is fair to say who everyone preferred of the two...

That said MTR as I have mentioned previously doesn't really get involved in the day to day running of SWR and is solely there for financial and legal support when need be. That's a First operation through and through.