In your opinion - which TOC has been the most experimental and why?

[Bletchleyite]

I get that you're not a fan, but referring to them as "third rate" seems a bit petty - most companies like to give the impression that they are a bit more premium than they actually are, it's nothing unique to TPE (just because they weren't as good as you'd have liked them to be)

They were utterly, utterly dire - not only were they not premium, but they were just utter rubbish. I struggle to think of much good about them other than the 185s which were themselves part of the problem for being too short - with money constrained, longer but cheaper DMUs (e.g. 170s, or even sticking with and tarting up 158s) would have been better, same as XC.

The only thing going for them over XC was that (severely overcrowded) 185s are nicer than (severely overcrowded) Voyagers.

They really were a rubbish TOC, and not only that, but unlike SercoNedNorthern who were fairly humble about their situation, they were an arrogant, overtalking rubbish TOC, which makes it even worse. If you know you're rubbish and accept and admit it, that's a step in the right direction.

 

[py_megapixel]

They were utterly, utterly dire - not only were they not premium, but they were just utter rubbish. I struggle to think of much good about them other than the 185s which were themselves part of the problem for being too short - with money constrained, longer but cheaper DMUs (e.g. 170s) would have been better, same as XC.

The only thing going for them over XC was that (severely overcrowded) 185s are nicer than (severely overcrowded) Voyagers.

Part of that complaint can be directed to the SRA or the DfT (can't remember which) - IIRC FTPE wanted to stick extra carriages into the 185s but they weren't allowed to order any.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Part of that complaint can be directed to the SRA or the DfT (can't remember which) - IIRC FTPE wanted to stick extra carriages into the 185s but they weren't allowed to order any.

True, but the 185s were undercapacity from day one (having considerably fewer seats than the 3-car Class 158s they replaced), so the entire bid was flawed.

Any TOC bidding a capacity reduction seriously messed up their bid. (Yes, you, Transport for Wales).

 

[gingerheid]

I also remember GNER's proposal to run road coaches as feeders, in most cases in competition with local rail services. Why anyone would want to use such things is a mystery to me. (Lincoln station to Newark Northgate station takes 25 minutes by rail - by road it takes nearer 45 minutes - Nearly half the distance is in the Lincoln conurbation - including the notorious level crossing - and the rest was still single carriageway back in the late 1990s)

GNER were, in many cases, good despite their innovations.

The good bit of GNER was that which they acquired from IC East Coast; a railway that at the time was clearly the best mainline in the UK with the best stock.

 

[Ianno87]

Any TOC bidding a capacity reduction seriously messed up their bid. (Yes, you, Transport for Wales).

To be more accurate, any DfT franchise bid scoring process that did not give enough weight to this, is flawed.

First Group bid successfully within the rules of the bid to win the franchise. It's not their fault for DfT not setting the right rules.

 

[py_megapixel]

Any TOC bidding a capacity reduction seriously messed up their bid. (Yes, you, Transport for Wales).

Which part of TfW's plans involves a capacity reduction?

 

[6Gman]

Has to be Virgin. Whatever you might think of them, for innovation nobody came close - and the end result was a pretty reliable TOC, too. Avanti have truly ruined it in a very short space of time, just like many of us thought they would.

(of course we mustn't forget their abject failure - XC - which has suffered from their poor choices ever since - so not all experiments work!)

But they ran a pretty simple structure really didn't they? Most of their trains ran from one southern terminus (Euston) to a handful of northern destinations (plus a handful of off-pattern services). Essentially a pretty simple railway to run.

 

[43096]

I was a regular user of GNER and only used First Class a couple of times when I lucked into a cheap advance. I certainly never felt that I was treated with contempt at all, indeed it got noticeably worse when NatEx took over. They had some novel solutions to stock shortages (first reviving the Badger, then hiring in the NoL Eurostars) and their eventual failure was down to the collapse of the parent company (Sea Containers) rather than an issue within the TOC itself.

I do remember reading about Sea Containers' proposed bid for SWT in Rail, where the dark blue livery would have been branded as GSWR. Among the more "pie in the sky" proposals mentioned were a scheme to steadily gauge-clear the main line to eventually accommodate double-deck stock, and a complete rebuild of Clapham Junction... given the eventual collapse of Sea Containers it's a good thing that bid was unsuccessful!

GNER was an arrogant company, from the top down. There were occasions of disruption where they would refuse to accept passengers from other TOCs but would expect those same TOCs to accept GNER passengers when the boot was on the other foot. Remember the plan to rip down the wires on the East Coast that weren't even theirs to take down? They'd even rather cancel a train rather than hire in a power car from Virgin that was spare at Craigentinny; on the other hand Virgin would hire in a GNER power car if they were short - better that than cancel the service was their view.

I did hear a story of Garnett waiting at Edinburgh for a run on the NMT with Network Rail staff - something that they hated as he always spent the entire journey berating them. As departure time came and went with no sign of the NMT, Garnett turned up the self-importance and demanded to know where it was. I suspect the Network Rail person who replied had to suppress a smile when they said "It's late from the depot. Your depot."

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which part of TfW's plans involves a capacity reduction?

Cambrian Coast. 2.197 has a subtantially lower capacity than 2.158, and there is no frequency increase. It'll be a nightmare in summer.

 

[py_megapixel]

Cambrian Coast. 2.197 has a subtantially lower capacity than 2.158, and there is no frequency increase. It'll be a nightmare in summer.

I thought 3-car 197s were going on the Cambrian?
If not, that's very poor indeed. The 158s can be rammed on there in (pre-Covid) summer time.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But they ran a pretty simple structure really didn't they? Most of their trains ran from one southern terminus (Euston) to a handful of northern destinations (plus a handful of off-pattern services). Essentially a pretty simple railway to run.

Yes - and as you know I'm pro-simplification and pro-standardisation of other services and timetables because then you mirror that success. But where VT were truly innovative is fares and ticket retail - I've posted upthread as to why, but in summary Advances, telesales and online sales were all their idea as far as the UK goes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2020 ==

I thought 3-car 197s were going on the Cambrian?
If not, that's very poor indeed. The 158s can be rammed on there in (pre-Covid) summer time.

No, only 2-car sets will be ETCS fitted.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2020 ==

To be more accurate, any DfT franchise bid scoring process that did not give enough weight to this, is flawed.

That is true as well.

First Group bid successfully within the rules of the bid to win the franchise. It's not their fault for DfT not setting the right rules.

Just because a business can do something that's in contempt of its customers doesn't mean it should; taking that line gives you Ryanair. If nobody had bid for "bad" franchises, or all bids were non-compliant, then the DfT would have had to change the spec.

 

[Ianno87]

.



Just because a business can do something that's in contempt of its customers doesn't mean it should; taking that line gives you Ryanair. If nobody had bid for "bad" franchises, or all bids were non-compliant, then the DfT would have had to change the spec.

So...

-If you don't bid, somebody else will and win. So you lose out. (It would be illegal for all bidders to agree not to bid), or
-If you bid a "good" bid, somebody else will outbid you (compliant with the bare minimum of the ITT), so you lose out.

Bidders aren't charities, they are hard nosed businesses who, if they don't win any franchises, won't have a business at all.

Bidders will only bid non-compliant bids if they believe the DfT spec to be technically unworkable. That doesn't include (like it or not) crowded trains.

 

[BeHereNow]

Bidders will only bid non-compliant bids if they believe the DfT spec to be technically unworkable. That doesn't include (like it or not) crowded trains.

Bidders are always right and the DfT is always at fault.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So...

-If you don't bid, somebody else will and win. So you lose out. (It would be illegal for all bidders to agree not to bid), or

It would be illegal for all bidders to agree not to bid, but it would not be illegal for all bidders to decide unilaterally not to bid.

Bidders aren't charities, they are hard nosed businesses who, if they don't win any franchises, won't have a business at all.

Most of them do have a business, be that other European railways or buses, both of which seem more profitable for the aggro!

Bidders will only bid non-compliant bids if they believe the DfT spec to be technically unworkable. That doesn't include (like it or not) crowded trains.

There's certainly the issue of reputational damage. Not every company likes to be seen as Ryanair.

 

[Ianno87]

Bidders are always right and the DfT is always at fault.

Bidders cannot be wrong provided they bid in line with what DfT asks them to bid.

It would be illegal for all bidders to agree not to bid, but it would not be illegal for all bidders to decide unilaterally not to bid.

That is, sort-of, what happened with SWR - only First and Stagecoach were in the running in the end. And Stagecoach bid non-compliantly, so First won.

There's certainly the issue of reputational damage. Not every company likes to be seen as Ryanair.

Depends whether you see near-guaranteed income for the next 5-7 years as worth paying the price.

 

[43096]

That is, sort-of, what happened with SWR - only First and Stagecoach were in the running in the end. And Stagecoach bid non-compliantly, so First won.

I think there's a strong argument for saying that Stagecoach were the winners from that franchise award.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think there's a strong argument for saying that Stagecoach were the winners from that franchise award.

Probably true. If you're talking about the pension issue (that I think also knocked them out of West Coast), I think any company that bids to take on that responsibility hasn't done its due diligence properly. It really needs farming out into a Railway Pensions Company and the Government putting the money into it to bring it back up to full funding rather than bouncing it all round the TOCs each time a franchise changes.

Of course, if First had been similarly prudent...

 

[tbtc]

They were utterly, utterly dire - not only were they not premium, but they were just utter rubbish. I struggle to think of much good about them other than the 185s which were themselves part of the problem for being too short - with money constrained, longer but cheaper DMUs (e.g. 170s, or even sticking with and tarting up 158s) would have been better, same as XC.

The only thing going for them over XC was that (severely overcrowded) 185s are nicer than (severely overcrowded) Voyagers.

They really were a rubbish TOC, and not only that, but unlike SercoNedNorthern who were fairly humble about their situation, they were an arrogant, overtalking rubbish TOC, which makes it even worse. If you know you're rubbish and accept and admit it, that's a step in the right direction.

You mean the 185s which First wanted to be 60x4 coaches but the Government only permitted them to have 51x3 coaches (plus 9x2 coach 170s)?

Which the Government exacerbated by expecting First to stretch their fleet further to cover WCML services to Scotland (so that Virgin had additional capacity from Chester to London)?

And the the Government sat on their hands whilst the 9x2 car 170s were snapped up by Chiltern (because First couldn't provide the ROSCO with a longer term guarantee for)?

So at a time of rising passenger numbers, TPE were expected to run more services than they bargained for (due to Virgin being relieved of the Manchester - Scotland route) whilst having fewer trains (due to Chiltern's longer franchise terms allowing them to nab the 170s)?

Don't get me wrong - I'd have rather than they ordered more of an existing design rather than doing the typical First thing of ordering "bespoke" trains that become a non-standard fleet when nobody else orders them (175s, 180s) - ordering fifty plus 170s would have made it a lot easier for First to beef up their fleet by ordering more off the production line (or being easier to aware more from other TOCs) - I think that the 185s were a mistake (with poor internal design - the First Class/ disabled toilet issue, the prioritising of luggage space for the small minority of passengers travelling to Manchester Airport instead of seats for regular passengers )...

...however the capacity on TPE was a Government problem that the Government could easily have solved (providing the 240 carriages that First initially wanted, not giving the Scottish services to TPE with no fleet increase, providing the ROSCO with a guarantee for the 170s to stay with TPE). But if you want to blame the TOC for having upbeat marketing as the real problem then fair enough.

But they ran a pretty simple structure really didn't they? Most of their trains ran from one southern terminus (Euston) to a handful of northern destinations (plus a handful of off-pattern services). Essentially a pretty simple railway to run.

The original Virgin (West Coast) franchise is essentially one London terminus to five other termini (Wolverhampton via Birmingham, Holyhead via Chester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester) with some additional work taken on from Cross Country (Birmingham to Edinburgh and Glasgow, Manchester to Edinburgh and Glasgow) plus a few additional bits of route like Llandudno, Wrexham, Blackpool, so it's nothing like as messy a route map as ScotRail/ Northern but not as simple as some TOCs have been.

You could say the same about a number of other TOCs (one London terminus, a handful of termini at the "country" end).

Plus, when you're running diagrams like Manchester - London - Glasgow - London - Liverpool in one day (I think the longest distance daily diagram on UK railways?), on a 125mph railway with three minute headways, with an entire stock replacement having been carried out, it's not exactly low risk.

I think there's a strong argument for saying that Stagecoach were the winners from that franchise award.

Agreed.

I think that, bearing in mind their good timing in leaving the London bus market (and also coming back into it - having sold for £260m and bought it back for just £60m), Stagecoach seem to smell danger coming before other companies do - they've gone from four franchises to none at the best time there's ever been to get out of the UK rail market - they dodged a bullet there!

 

[BeHereNow]

Bidders cannot be wrong provided they bid in line with what DfT asks them to bid.

That is quite different from "bidders will only bid non-compliant bids if they believe the DfT spec to be technically unworkable."

 

[Ianno87]

That is quite different from "bidders will only bid non-compliant bids if they believe the DfT spec to be technically unworkable."

To be clearer, I meant that "blame" cannot be placed on bidders for a poor franchise offer if they bid in line with the terms asked of them.

And if they don't, it's still the DfT that accept the terms of the revised bid.

 

[BeHereNow]

OK agreed

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be clearer, I meant that "blame" cannot be placed on bidders for a poor franchise offer if they bid in line with the terms asked of them.

I'd say they can. They can choose not to bid at all and thus not damage their reputation, or to bid a non-compliant but realistic bid and hope everyone else does too. What you're saying is the equivalent of saying that a company can't possibly be in the wrong whatever they market (in a free market), and they can.

Stagecoach got this right, as noted above, leaving them with no franchises, which is probably a good position to be in compared with a load of bad ones. Their core business is buses anyway, so they'll just get on with that.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

GNER was an arrogant company, from the top down. There were occasions of disruption where they would refuse to accept passengers from other TOCs but would expect those same TOCs to accept GNER passengers when the boot was on the other foot. Remember the plan to rip down the wires on the East Coast that weren't even theirs to take down? They'd even rather cancel a train rather than hire in a power car from Virgin that was spare at Craigentinny; on the other hand Virgin would hire in a GNER power car if they were short - better that than cancel the service was their view.

I did hear a story of Garnett waiting at Edinburgh for a run on the NMT with Network Rail staff - something that they hated as he always spent the entire journey berating them. As departure time came and went with no sign of the NMT, Garnett turned up the self-importance and demanded to know where it was. I suspect the Network Rail person who replied had to suppress a smile when they said "It's late from the depot. Your depot."

That does sound rather arrogant (and would certainly have tainted my opinion of the CEO if not the company if I'd heard about it at the time). With hindsight I suppose you could say GNER were the "Hipster franchise", as they did the whole retro-branding thing before it became cool.

It's now the best part of two decades since their heyday though, so perhaps the rose-tinted glasses are going on when I look back. I've always been averse to bland corporate identities (apart from BR of course) so GNER I tend to look back on favourably. They also gain points for calling themselves a "railway" rather than being called "X Trains" which always strikes me as a bit toytown even though it's technically more accurate for a Train Operating Company.

 

[Llandudno]

TFW - Possibly a good shout, new trains (on the way) , new increased timetables (when they get back to a normal timetable) , all year round Sunday service to lots of place who have never had, they lowered prices on adult journeys within Wales by 10% and kids travel for free up to 11 years old (up to 16's free off peak) and half price for up to 18 year olds, smart ticketing, definitely some outside of the box thinking for Wales who usually just falls by the wayside for everything.

A decent start, hampered by Covid but lets hope TfW keep to their promises with the on time introduction of the Liverpool-Llandudno/Shrewsbury- Cardiff service
2 trains per hour Wrexham - Bidston (Birkenhead North?)

A decent recast of the north Wales coast timetable.

The reduction in some internal Welsh fares is most welcome, but it is still cheaper to buy an off peak day return from Llandudno to Liverpool (changing at Chester) than it is from Llandudno to Chester!

 

[Bletchleyite]

A decent recast of the north Wales coast timetable.

Is it? It's all over the place. It needs to be a simple Takt and there is no good reason I can think of why it isn't.

Crikey, even the Conwy Valley is only just not 3 hourly clockface, how hard would it be to adjust the odd couple of minutes so it is and so all the connections work consistently?

 

[Llandudno]

Is it? It's all over the place. It needs to be a simple Takt and there is no good reason I can think of why it isn't.

Crikey, even the Conwy Valley is only just not 3 hourly clockface, how hard would it be to adjust the odd couple of minutes so it is and so all the connections work consistently?

No, I think you have misunderstood my post?
TfW are promising a recast of the north Wales coast, it’s a dogs breakfast now, if anything they have made it even worse in the last couple of years!

 

[ALEMASTER]

Has to be Virgin. Whatever you might think of them, for innovation nobody came close - and the end result was a pretty reliable TOC, too. Avanti have truly ruined it in a very short space of time, just like many of us thought they would.

(of course we mustn't forget their abject failure - XC - which has suffered from their poor choices ever since - so not all experiments work!)

I don't entirely agree with the comments about Cross Country - brand new trains, improved on board facilities, more frequent services, faster journey times, better advance booking deals....

I would suggest that all the problems we have now with Cross Country would have been avoided if the Voyagers had been ordered with more than 4/5 coaches.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, I think you have misunderstood my post?
TfW are promising a recast of the north Wales coast, it’s a dogs breakfast now, if anything they have made it even worse in the last couple of years!

Ah, sorry, I thought you meant they had already done one!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Dec 2020 ==

I don't entirely agree with the comments about Cross Country - brand new trains, improved on board facilities, more frequent services, faster journey times, better advance booking deals....

I would suggest that all the problems we have now with Cross Country would have been avoided if the Voyagers had been ordered with more than 4/5 coaches.

Yes, but that wasn't financially viable, so they made the wrong choice. They could have chosen to order a higher capacity of lower cost units such as 170s, but they didn't, they wanted their own, customised, high-cost and inefficiently-laid-out stock instead (and tilt, which was no real use except on the WCML), because that's Virgin for you.

It was also mind-numbingly obvious that it wouldn't work to improve a service and reduce the capacity of it. (2 4-car Voyagers an hour gives you considerably fewer seats than one HST).

So the business model was completely flawed, and XC passengers are still suffering from it 20 years later. A true stuff-up.

Indeed, much as they do have their weaknesses, the answer to most problems caused relating to early-post-privatisation DMUs (175s, 185s etc) appears to be "should have bought 170s instead"!

 

[Ianno87]

In defence of 185s, they are superb Pennine hill-climbers and accelerators compared to 170s.

 

[Jamesrob637]

In defence of 185s, they are superb Pennine hill-climbers and accelerators compared to 170s.

I'll go with the current incarnation of TPE. Just a pity the Nova loco-hauled sets are slower at entering passenger traffic than a 1988 1.1 Nova* from Vauxhall

*other faster types of Nova are/were available