Emergency Recovery Management Agreements (ERMA)

[Camden]

A party expecting another to fulfill the contract it signed isn't unlawful, even if doing so puts the supplier into difficulties. That is part of the risk involved when doing business. The government wouldn't doing anything, and I don't see how it could be taken to court for not giving subsidies not obliged in law.

And if these companies don't bid to run the concessions in the future, so what? The public want the railways renationalised: here is a cheap way to do it.

Big companies are the first to expend with workforce to protect their profits. The TOCs aren't adding any value to the base offer that is needed, so why not just take the opportunity to cut the fat. Just like they would, given the chance.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If the gov were to force franchisees out after burning through their guarantees, without actually "failing" as a TOC like VTEC or Connex, you can be sure no company would bid for future gov rail contracts.
This gov is not going to alienate 7-ish owning groups if it wants any sort of private involvement in the future.
Covid-19 is force majeure territory, not just the cut and thrust of business life.

 

[[.n]]

I edited my post to reflect the point about staff - a huge number of staff frozen midway through training, and a shortage of crew as a result means there's as many overtime opportunities as there were before.

I accept the point about less mileage, though there is not a particularly substantial reduction in stock requirements. Admittedly taking the 442s out of service has probably saved many £££ on maintenance lol

As I understand it the EMA specifies a pre-COVID service level but as an aspiration rather than a direct requirement. Current figure I was quoted was 85% of trains currently running compared to pre-COVID - the major reductions being Bournemouth, West of England and Epsom

My route (and yes to the west of Bournemouth!) had gone from effectively zero service (in terms of direct trains), to next week 50% of normal service. Of course as far as I can tell its also the "wrong" 50%, as it doesn't connect as nicely with schools, colleges, work places, other public transport (run by First!!!) etc.

 

[47421]

Force majeure territory perhaps, force majeure legally unlikely. Cases where courts have let a contracting party off after force majeure alleged are very few and far between.

Franchisees freely and willingly entered into contracts, which were very long and detailed and negotiated by very expensive law firms. Courts very reluctant to second guess what was actually agreed in circumstances like these, otherwise every bad deal ends up with a plea to a judge.

 

[matt_world2004]

The only exception I could see if franchises had a clause in their contracts that allowed them to default on their franchises payments/obligations during periods of national emergencies.

 

[JamesT]

The TOCs could argue that the government are actively trying to frustrate the contracts by their policies on use of public transport and social distancing.
A contract does need both sides to be playing fair.

 

[BeHereNow]

Yes, but that would apply only to post-COVID debt.

 

[Starmill]

here is a cheap way to do it.

I don't really see how it's any cheaper to appoint an OLR than it is to tender a contract? The Department gets what it pays for in both cases, and the management fees paid to the OLR aren't that cheap.

 

[matt_world2004]

The TOCs could argue that the government are actively trying to frustrate the contracts by their policies on use of public transport and social distancing.
A contract does need both sides to be playing fair.

It would be difficult to argue that if they themselves are pumping out the same messaging.

 

[Clarence Yard]

A party expecting another to fulfill the contract it signed isn't unlawful, even if doing so puts the supplier into difficulties. That is part of the risk involved when doing business. The government wouldn't doing anything, and I don't see how it could be taken to court for not giving subsidies not obliged in law.

And if these companies don't bid to run the concessions in the future, so what? The public want the railways renationalised: here is a cheap way to do it.

Big companies are the first to expend with workforce to protect their profits. The TOCs aren't adding any value to the base offer that is needed, so why not just take the opportunity to cut the fat. Just like they would, given the chance.

If the Government effectively frustrates it's contract with the supplier by telling the public to stay away from the product, you are into interesting legal territory.

It really isn't a cheap option for HMG to do it the way you seek and you are letting your views about nationalisation cloud the very real issues for Government in what, effectively, could be classed as illegal confiscation. As an aggrieved party you can make a lot of money out of Government when they get things like this wrong.

It's not what is actually in the contract that really matters here, it is the case law around the subject(s) that has been built up over the centuries. The TOC Owning Groups have been doing their homework over the last few months and the DfT are very aware of this.

 

[Starmill]

Of course, the Department apparently weren't very aware of competition law when they awarded the Seaborne Freight contract. And it needed rather less knowledge of the law to conclude that that was unlawful. Indeed, it was so obvious that DfT ended up settling claims against them for it - at enormous taxpayer expense.

They do what they feel like. And when they get caught, so what, it's not the Minister's money.

 

[Class 170101]

Well yes and no. The service reductions in the peak mean that there is a need for fewer units to run the service, which means less mileage, which means less maintenance (and lease charges, and track access charges). It also means fewer crew, which in turn means much less of a requirement to have people working rest days etc. So, some of the costs do “go away”, albeit not in the same proportion as the service reduction.

I imagine there is some staff training going on for the new Class 701 trains that doesn't require overtime to be paid as there are fewer trains running.

 

[3141]

And if these companies don't bid to run the concessions in the future, so what? The public want the railways renationalised: here is a cheap way to do it.

The consequences of doing things the way you would like wouldn't just be that transport companies would be cautious about engaging in government contracts and would charge more for doing so in order to cover themselves against the proven risk of the government forcing them into big losses if unusual circumstances arose again in the future. Every organisation dealing with the British government, including other countries, would be aware of the enhanced financial risk and would price their offers accordingly. In a world with vast numbers of international connections, "take back control" has far-reaching implications and it isn't just a matter of clobbering transport companies that you happen not to like.

 

[BayPaul]

And if these companies don't bid to run the concessions in the future, so what? The public want the railways renationalised: here is a cheap way to do it.

As others have suggested, this would be challenged in the courts, and chances are the government would lose. Even if it didn't, effectively bankrupting the UK bus industry to nationalise the rail industry sounds like a very bad and very expensive idea!

If the government wants to nationalise cheaply at the moment (and I don't for a moment think that it does), them with Arriva and First both effectively up for sale, and share prices for Go Ahead at about 1/4 of their 2019 price, the obvious way to do it would be just to buy the TOC owning companies, and take the opportunity to nationalise most of the bus industry at the same time. Abellio would be a little more complicated, but probably achievable with diplomatic pressure on the Dutch government who would probably be happy to be rid of its UK operations at present, and I expect that if the UK government bought the majority partner in the JV operations it wouldn't have much trouble buying the remaining share from the minority partner. Stagecoach obviously has no franchises remaining, but would also be worth a bid to nationalise its busses, it is also less than 1/3 of its 2019 prices.
I have no idea if any of this would be legal, but in the big picture it wouldn't be all that expensive. I am not at all convinced that it would be a good idea either!

 

[DorkingMain]

I imagine there is some staff training going on for the new Class 701 trains that doesn't require overtime to be paid as there are fewer trains running.

There is no staff training on 701s because they are still in the early stages of testing.

 

[BeHereNow]

Expecting some news on this early next week, not much time left until the 20th. The Sunday papers sometimes leak bits and pieces so will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Clarence Yard]

There is a heavy duty embargo on any news leaking out but, if everything has gone to plan over the last few days, we should see some public announcements first thing tomorrow, before the stock market opens.

But if matters haven’t been concluded with the owning groups, there could be a delay.

 

[bramling]

They must be.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Sep 2020 ==



Paying some staff less though, through a significant reduction in overtime etc. But I agree, compared to lost revenue it will be a drop in the Solent.

That’s what I was thinking, apart from a reduction in RDW (and they’ve probably paid out at least some of that in covering for absence over the last few months even with reduced timetables), most other costs are fairly fixed.

To what extent have operators used schemes like furlough? I know TfL has done a lot of furloughing, which I believe primarily applies to two groups - those shielding (and perhaps some non-Covid long term sicknesses too?), and back-office staff whose role has been deemed expendable. Any others done likewise?

 

[43066]

That’s what I was thinking, apart from a reduction in RDW (and they’ve probably paid out at least some of that in covering for absence over the last few months even with reduced timetables), most other costs are fairly fixed.

To what extent have operators used schemes like furlough? I know TfL has done a lot of furloughing, which I believe primarily applies to two groups - those shielding (and perhaps some non-Covid long term sicknesses too?), and back-office staff whose role has been deemed expendable. Any others done likewise?

There’s still a fair bit of RDW available at my place, that was still the case even during the the height of the lockdown.

Eurostar and the open access operators certainly furloughed operational staff. To my knowledge that has not happened at any franchised TOCs (other than trainees who were effectively told to go home when training stopped during lockdown - I don’t believe the guys in that position at my place were formally furloughed). No idea about back office staff - although I haven’t heard of any being furloughed where I am.

Ive just gone through London Bridge, there’s the usual army of pink shirt wearers around. I have no idea if these people normally do other jobs and have been redeployed?!

 

[bramling]

There’s still a fair bit of RDW available at my place, that was still the case even during the the height of the lockdown.

Eurostar and the open access operators certainly furloughed operational staff. To my knowledge that has not happened at any franchised TOCs (other than trainees who were effectively told to go home when training stopped during lockdown - I don’t believe the guys in that position at my place were formally furloughed). No idea about back office staff - although I haven’t heard of any being furloughed where I am.

Ive just gone through London Bridge, there’s the usual army of pink shirt wearers around. I have no idea if these people normally do other jobs and have been redeployed?!

That ties in with what I’d have expected - essentially a very minimal saving at best from running a reduced service, but with some significant issues to have to work through in the process, some of which will have resulted in extra costs.

My place now has a problem with comp assurance - looks like some of this will be done by e-learning of all things!

I’d certainly be interested to know where the pinks and lilacs have come from, they seemed to appear some time around June / July. They certainly weren’t there back in April / May.

 

[Cardiff123]

There is a heavy duty embargo on any news leaking out but, if everything has gone to plan over the last few days, we should see some public announcements first thing tomorrow, before the stock market opens.

But if matters haven’t been concluded with the owning groups, there could be a delay.

The Times are carrying this story today. Obviously it only applies to England, but as usual, London based media outlets ignore devolution in their coverage.
I know the Emergency Agreement for TfW runs until the middle of October, not sure about ScotRail.

Coronavirus: railway firms to cancel 10% of services

Britain’s railways are to operate an autumn timetable of services that will be 10% below the pre-pandemic level, leaving passengers to struggle with longer wait

www.thetimes.co.uk

Coronavirus: railway firms to cancel 10% of services
Autumn trains have been cut by 10% and services including Gatwick Express and northern routes are suspended

Britain’s railways are to operate an autumn timetable of services that will be 10% below the pre-pandemic level, leaving passengers to struggle with longer waiting times and the loss of some routes.

Some trains that ran hourly will run only every two hours; some direct routes connecting the regions to London are being suspended and some high-speed services for airports and commuters will disappear.

Some lines will have cuts of up to 35%. Evening and weekend trains will be hit hardest as operators focus resources on commuter and school services.

The new timetables — which will be phased in from tomorrow — are the first big revamp since the government effectively nationalised the railways at the beginning of lockdown. They threaten Boris Johnson’s aim to get Britain moving again.

Although services have recovered from the depths of the pandemic when they briefly fell to 50%, many operators are still running far below their normal level of service:
● CrossCountry Trains, whose routes include Aberdeen to Penzance, will still be running at only 65% of pre-Covid levels, Northern Trains will be at 80%, GTR, which operates the Gatwick, Great Northern, Southern and Thameslink services, will be at 87%.
● In one flashpoint, Northern Trains will suspend a busy route with 29 trains a day from Manchester Piccadilly to Rose Hill in the Stockport area from September 14 until just before Christmas, blaming the impact of Covid-19 on its workforce.
● GWR said it was focusing on providing trains for the return to work, at the expense of late-night services and weekends, with Sundays taking the brunt of the cuts when the service will be 76% of the normal timetable. Some fast services on weekdays between Bristol and London are not being reinstated for now.
● GTR is not restoring its Gatwick Express service between central London and the airport and is restricting its trains from Brighton to London to six instead of eight. Its Great Northern Metro services into Moorgate, which used to be 12 an hour, will remain at eight.
● Northern Trains said that its Leeds to Chester route, which ran hourly via Manchester Victoria, will now run only every two hours. There will be similar cutbacks on its Lincoln to Leeds route via Sheffield.
● Eurostar services to Paris and Brussels will not be stopping in Kent until 2022, cutting 11 daily services from Ashford International and Ebbsfleet International.

Rail operators warned that few services were likely to be restored in the winter timetables, meaning that levels were unlikely to rise significantly above 90% until next May at the earliest.

With few trains operating, punctuality records have improved dramatically with about 95% of trains now arriving within five minutes of their due time.

A reduction in services will reduce costs at a time when the taxpayer is propping up the train operating companies with revenue support of around £700m a month.

Darren Shirley, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport, was scathing. “What they’re essentially saying is the trains work great if they have no passengers. If we reach a point where we are going to get back to the levels of commuting that we saw pre-lockdown, what does that mean for the quality of service?”

Susie Homan, a director of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents railway companies, said: “As more passengers return, we want them to be able to travel with confidence which means, as well as boosting anti-viral cleaning and ensuring people wear face coverings, we need to run a service that is more reliable than before.”

The Department for Transport said: “The suggestion we will agree to fewer services on the network in the long term is inaccurate and untrue. We have asked operators to increase service levels ahead of schools returning, ensuring current excellent reliability levels are maintained.”

 

[yorksrob]

Suspending 10% of services is probably quite possible by thinning out services on routes which already have several trains an hour. This action would help to keep costs under control without damaging the product too much. The London - Brighton route springs to mind - and shelving Gatwick Express seems to be in this vein. Similarly with the transpennine core.

Unfortunately, with the the removal of evening/weekend services, they are going down the route of damaging the very leisure markets that would otherwise be more likely to return.

 

[bramling]

Suspending 10% of services is probably quite possible by thinning out services on routes which already have several trains an hour. This action would help to keep costs under control without damaging the product too much. The London - Brighton route springs to mind - and shelving Gatwick Express seems to be in this vein. Similarly with the transpennine core.

Unfortunately, with the the removal of evening/weekend services, they are going down the route of damaging the very leisure markets that would otherwise be more likely to return.

The problem is that there is going to be a shortage of key staff for the short and medium term, simply on the basis that retirements have continued apace and the positions haven't been replaced due to the suspension of training over the last six months. Taking into consideration those who had started training and never completed it (who in some cases will need to start from scratch due to the amount of time passed), there has essentially been a loss of a year. And that assumes training can resume at the same capacity it was hitherto, which is doubtful. My place has only made a very tentative restart on training, and this has run into a whole range of problems.

Reduced timetables accompanied by longer services is the way to go for the time being. There should certainly be an attempt to maintain overall capacity, but I don't think it's possible to make an immediate return to the full timetable in terms of frequency and number of services. This may of course prove problematic on routes where there are short platforms or trains already running at max lengths.

 

[yorksrob]

The problem is that there is going to be a shortage of key staff for the short and medium term, simply on the basis that retirements have continued apace and the positions haven't been replaced due to the suspension of training over the last six months. Taking into consideration those who had started training and never completed it (who in some cases will need to start from scratch due to the amount of time passed), there has essentially been a loss of a year. And that assumes training can resume at the same capacity it was hitherto, which is doubtful. My place has only made a very tentative restart on training, and this has run into a whole range of problems.

Reduced timetables accompanied by longer services is the way to go for the time being. There should certainly be an attempt to maintain overall capacity, but I don't think it's possible to make an immediate return to the full timetable in terms of frequency and number of services. This may of course prove problematic on routes where there are short platforms or trains already running at max lengths.

One would have thought that there is a case for offering regular COVID tests to trainee and trainer to enable training to recommence with confidence.

In terms of the longer than usual trains, I've been on a number of these, and services seem to be coping, with SDO and localised door opening etc.

We need to be very careful what frequencies are reduced and what trains are suspended. Certainly killing off Sunday and evening travel on some routes isn't the way to do it.

 

[theironroad]

One would have thought that there is a case for offering regular COVID tests to trainee and trainer to enable training to recommence with confidence.

In terms of the longer than usual trains, I've been on a number of these, and services seem to be coping, with SDO and localised door opening etc.

We need to be very careful what frequencies are reduced and what trains are suspended. Certainly killing off Sunday and evening travel on some routes isn't the way to do it.

On swr trainee/driving instructor at depot level did resume a few weeks ago on a voluntary basis. Both people have to be tested and then have temp checks daily and they form a 1:1 bubble so they can be in cab together.

 

[yorksrob]

On swr trainee/driving instructor at depot level did resume a few weeks ago on a voluntary basis. Both people have to be tested and then have temp checks daily and they form a 1:1 bubble so they can be in cab together.

That sounds sensible.

I wonder if Northern are doing the same.

 

[theironroad]

The Times are carrying this story today. Obviously it only applies to England, but as usual, London based media outlets ignore devolution in their coverage.
I know the Emergency Agreement for TfW runs until the middle of October, not sure about ScotRail.

Coronavirus: railway firms to cancel 10% of services

Britain’s railways are to operate an autumn timetable of services that will be 10% below the pre-pandemic level, leaving passengers to struggle with longer wait

www.thetimes.co.uk

First , many thanks for posting the Times article from today.

While it's interesting, it relates only to the timetable uplift that is due from tomorrow across most tocs and has been trailed by the tocs themselves for a couple of weeks.

What we await with baited breath is the DfT announcements regarding how the tocs are going to be structured/financed going forward from 20/9/20 when the current emergency measures expire. That's the announcement/story that is due any day now but as has been suggested, it will be embargoed until announced to stock exchange as there could well be some very commercially impacting announcements for the TOC parent companies.

 

[dk1]

There’s still a fair bit of RDW available at my place, that was still the case even during the the height of the lockdown.

Eurostar and the open access operators certainly furloughed operational staff. To my knowledge that has not happened at any franchised TOCs (other than trainees who were effectively told to go home when training stopped during lockdown - I don’t believe the guys in that position at my place were formally furloughed). No idea about back office staff - although I haven’t heard of any being furloughed where I am.

Ive just gone through London Bridge, there’s the usual army of pink shirt wearers around. I have no idea if these people normally do other jobs and have been redeployed?!

Same at my TOC. Overtime & Free Day Working have been at near normal levels throughout and training has now been resumed. In a recent message to staff it was stated that not a single member of staff was furloughed at any time.

 

[43096]

We need to be very careful what frequencies are reduced and what trains are suspended. Certainly killing off Sunday and evening travel on some routes isn't the way to do it.

Indeed. Having used my local route into Waterloo in the commuter peak on Wednesday and also Saturday afternoon, there were more people travelling yesterday than in the traditional peak. I'm frankly amazed that some of the peak extras have been reinstated, there isn't really demand for them.

 

[yorksrob]

Indeed. Having used my local route into Waterloo in the commuter peak on Wednesday and also Saturday afternoon, there were more people travelling yesterday than in the traditional peak. I'm frankly amazed that some of the peak extras have been reinstated, there isn't really demand for them.

Indeed. The increase in services needs to be responsive to people on the ground, rather than dictated by Whitehall.