GBR Anglia

[dk1]

I can see how you commented now. No harm done. Was picking up on some earlier activity.

Cheers mate

 

[StephenHunter]

I suspect that the full GBR launch will take place at the timetable change in December, by which point the Railways Bill should have become law.

 

[Clarence Yard]

No chance. October next year is the target date for getting GBR going properly, after being legally set up a few months before, probably March/April.

“Access Day”, when the new access and timetable planning arrangements are to be introduced, is currently scheduled for December 2027.

 

[450.emu]

What a terrible map.
If GBR is the brand, why are there 'other operators' - surely XC, LNER and EMR will also be GBR services within the lifetime of the map.
And if GBR: Anglia is the brand, why isn't it mentioned, and why are there separate colours for C2C and greater Anglia services, which are no longer separate operations?

If this map is supposed to be showing passengers where services go, the old GA method of colouring in Intercity, Commuter, West Anglia, Regional and Stansted Ex services in different colours (whatever the actual names were) was far clearer than this map, which implies I can get a direct train from Sudbury to Norwich.

Anyone who thinks that GBR is going to care about its passengers should be given a copy of this map and a wall to bang their head against until they realise that no one has a clue what GBR actually means for passengers!

I would at least mark the TfL Overground and Elizabeth Lines in their colours, even if they used their original orange.

They missed a trick not just saying other GBR routes.

A central GBR Anglia Lost Property Office would make more sense than having the two, as after branding is complete, Joe Public won't have a Scooby which line he was on when the item went missing (escpecially as some C2C services run to and from Liverpool Street occasionally), and may save a trek from Liverpool Street to Fenchurch Street if at the wrong office...

 

[vuzzeho]

I would at least mark the TfL Overground and Elizabeth Lines in their colours, even if they used their original orange.

They missed a trick not just saying other GBR routes.

A central GBR Anglia Lost Property Office would make more sense than having the two, as after branding is complete, Joe Public won't have a Scooby which line he was on when the item went missing (escpecially as some C2C services run to and from Liverpool Street occasionally), and may save a trek from Liverpool Street to Fenchurch Street if at the wrong office...

I imagine all of this would come when GBR exists and functions can be properly merged. Though I presume things like lost property offices being merged might be a little down the priority list.

 

[F Great Eastern]

I really am not happy with how things have gone since the changes over to GBR Anglia.

Transparency of information is far lower (they went on a mass deleting spree of information on their website including the whole section on transparency), customer engagement events have been cut back, information on discounted tickets and rovers have been deliberately buried on their website, providing rail replacement buses in times of disruption has been cut back. They've not been so open to telling people they will compensate them during major disruption for taking taxis and they've completely removed any link to JourneyCheck from their website, following a pattern that all other DfT operators have taken, firstly burying it then removing it totally.

The Government are desperate for Great British Railways to succeed and clearly anything that may give an impression that it is not or may show that things are not as rosy in the garden needs to be made harder to find because if nobody sees it and you're not reporting, then it doesn't happen right? It seems that many decisions are made based on what can cut costs and what is best for PR and image, rather than what is best for the likes of you and me who travel on the railways.

Those of us who were against nationalisation's biggest worries were that the railways will be used as some kind of political point scoring game, where the powers that be would point the fingers at the private operators and privatise the blame and nationalise the praise and see a reduction in transparency. What we're seeing is a government determined to blame the private sector for everything that is bad on the railways and say that they will fix it and they are responsible for everything good. All whilst claiming a fair freeze, whilst stealthily increasing fares by the back door and making it deliberately harder for people to find tickets which may save them money.

And then, because it's all about politics rather than actual passengers, you have the likes of the post by Heidi Alexander who claims that they are refitting the Class 700 trains from the terrible interiors the private operators specified, when in fact the private operators in question didn't want the interiors but they were forced on them by....oh yes, the government.

 

[positron]

Not saying anything you say is overtly wrong except for the fact you can't blame this government for the procurement of the Tories in 2018...

 

[F Great Eastern]

Not saying anything you say is overtly wrong except for the fact you can't blame this government for the procurement of the Tories in 2018...

I know, but that is what the government should be saying, but the fact that they aren't is because they're more interested in being seen to do the thing that they think is the most popular, rather than doing what is right and that sums Great British Railways up, style over substance, rhetoric over transparency.

Instead they are determined to blame it on the private operators as that is more politically convenient for their MUST NOT FAIL policy.

 

[Djgr]

I really am not happy with how things have gone since the changes over to GBR Anglia.

Transparency of information is far lower (they went on a mass deleting spree of information on their website including the whole section on transparency), customer engagement events have been cut back, information on discounted tickets and rovers have been deliberately buried on their website, providing rail replacement buses in times of disruption has been cut back. They've not been so open to telling people they will compensate them during major disruption for taking taxis and they've completely removed any link to JourneyCheck from their website, following a pattern that all other DfT operators have taken, firstly burying

The Government are desperate for Great British Railways to succeed and clearly anything that may give an impression that it is not or may show that things are not as rosy in the garden needs to be made harder to find because if nobody sees it and you're not reporting, then it doesn't happen right? It seems that many decisions are made based on what can cut costs and what is best for PR and image, rather than what is best for the likes of you and me who travel on the railways.

Those of us who were against nationalisation's biggest worries were that the railways will be used as some kind of political point scoring game, where the powers that be would point the fingers at the private operators and privatise the blame and nationalise the praise and see a reduction in transparency. What we're seeing is a government determined to blame the private sector for everything that is bad on the railways and say that they will fix it and they are responsible for everything good. All whilst claiming a fair freeze, whilst stealthily increasing fares by the back door and making it deliberately harder for people to find tickets which may save them money.

And then, because it's all about politics rather than actual passengers, you have the likes of the post by Heidi Alexander who claims that they are refitting the Class 700 trains from the terrible interiors the private operators specified, when in fact the private operators in question didn't want the interiors but they were forced on them by....oh yes, the government.

30 years of chaos are not going to be reversed in 30 weeks.

 

[F Great Eastern]

30 years of chaos are not going to be reversed in 30 weeks.

No, instead they're adding to the chaos and then claiming the chaos that they were they were the orchestrators of such as the IETs and the 700 interiors is nothing to do with them.

Things have very much gone backwards, all I've seen is the good things get broken and the bad things not get any better.

And anyone who things GA was chaos before GBRailways was formed clearly didn't use them reguarly. Twice in the last 25 years we've had award winning railways destroyed by the DfT in this region. The last time they were destroyed by NXEA it took almost a decade to recover and 15 years of complete misery.

 

[CR165022]

GBR as a whole is just a glorified PR stunt that won't ever make anything better. All they care about is slapping that terrible livery and branding on everything, making false claims and calling it a day. You think the government actually cares about the railways? That makes me laugh.

 

[StephenHunter]

No, instead they're adding to the chaos and then claiming the chaos that they were they were the orchestrators of such as the IETs and the 700 interiors is nothing to do with them.

That was a different government to the current one.

I was on 720108 today and they've got miniature GBR Anglia route maps there now.

 

[officewalla]

I really am not happy with how things have gone since the changes over to GBR Anglia.

Transparency of information is far lower (they went on a mass deleting spree of information on their website including the whole section on transparency), customer engagement events have been cut back, information on discounted tickets and rovers have been deliberately buried on their website, providing rail replacement buses in times of disruption has been cut back. They've not been so open to telling people they will compensate them during major disruption for taking taxis and they've completely removed any link to JourneyCheck from their website, following a pattern that all other DfT operators have taken, firstly burying it then removing it totally.

The Government are desperate for Great British Railways to succeed and clearly anything that may give an impression that it is not or may show that things are not as rosy in the garden needs to be made harder to find because if nobody sees it and you're not reporting, then it doesn't happen right? It seems that many decisions are made based on what can cut costs and what is best for PR and image, rather than what is best for the likes of you and me who travel on the railways.

Those of us who were against nationalisation's biggest worries were that the railways will be used as some kind of political point scoring game, where the powers that be would point the fingers at the private operators and privatise the blame and nationalise the praise and see a reduction in transparency. What we're seeing is a government determined to blame the private sector for everything that is bad on the railways and say that they will fix it and they are responsible for everything good. All whilst claiming a fair freeze, whilst stealthily increasing fares by the back door and making it deliberately harder for people to find tickets which may save them money.

And then, because it's all about politics rather than actual passengers, you have the likes of the post by Heidi Alexander who claims that they are refitting the Class 700 trains from the terrible interiors the private operators specified, when in fact the private operators in question didn't want the interiors but they were forced on them by....oh yes, the government.

You seem surprised that an ideological extra layer of bureaucracy has taken value away rather than saved money and added value which is what we continually get fed. Monumental waste of time and money for a project that will end up far worse than it is now. No government monopoly and/or bureaucracy (ie socialist/communist/marxist/leninist ideology) has ever given the world a better product. Nowhere ever in the world!

 

[F Great Eastern]

You seem surprised that an ideological extra layer of bureaucracy has taken value away rather than saved money and added value which is what we continually get fed. Monumental waste of time and money for a project that will end up far worse than it is now. No government monopoly and/or bureaucracy (ie socialist/communist/marxist/leninist ideology) has ever given the world a better product. Nowhere ever in the world!

I'm not surprised as those of us who have been around the railway for long enough knew this is how it would happen, yet some people are so blinded by their ideological love of the railways being nationalised that they are totally unable to see the wood from the trees.

The only way this was going to work was if it was at complete arms length from the DfT with next to no interference. But already we see GBRailways being used for political point scoring rather than things which are being done in the passenger interest. It's clear for the government they need the policy to look good rather than do good, so they're spending far more time on PR stunts and marketing spin than actually the nuts and the bolts of the service.

Just look at the amount of services that have been cut on certain operators, the penny pinching on rail replacement costs, the stealth fare rises behind the smokescreen of a fair cap. We're told that we need to get rid of the private operators as it'll save more money to see invested in services, but we're seeing none of that and in some areas services being cut back in the interests of the taxpayer.

That was a different government to the current one.

Of course it was, but my point is that they're not saying that because they deem that they can score more points by blaming the private companies than blaming the previous government. And that is exactly my problem with the whole charade, they're focusing way too much on an ideological argument and currying favour with the public and having the argument that private is bad and public is good rather than just getting on and providing a good railway service which is what we all want.

This is what happens when you have the likes of the DfT running the railways. Many people have said over the last 10-20 years the Department for Transport were a big part of the problem, anybody who understood that knew that giving them complete control was unlikely to give the wet dream nationalisation that many of supporters dreamed of. I've said it time and time again, the mantra of railways over the past 10-20 years regardless of governments was to nationalise the praise and privatise the blame and for a long, long time the TOC's were a shield for the DfT to avoid any kind of responsibility for their actions. Even with the TOCs gone the DFT are still trying to blame them for their own poor decisions about the IETs and 700s.

I'm actually someone who thinks nationalised railways are not a bad thing and they work very well in other countries. But I also know what our politics are like and what the DfT are like in this country for decades now and that is my problem. Yes we could do it well, but with the political point scoring and the DfT involved, it was never going to turn out well.

 

[officewalla]

I'm not surprised as those of us who have been around the railway for long enough knew this is how it would happen, yet some people are so blinded by their ideological love of the railways being nationalised that they are totally unable to see the wood from the trees.

The only way this was going to work was if it was at complete arms length from the DfT with next to no interference. But already we see GBRailways being used for political point scoring rather than things which are being done in the passenger interest. It's clear for the government they need the policy to look good rather than do good, so they're spending far more time on PR stunts and marketing spin than actually the nuts and the bolts of the service.

Just look at the amount of services that have been cut on certain operators, the penny pinching on rail replacement costs, the stealth fare rises behind the smokescreen of a fair cap. We're told that we need to get rid of the private operators as it'll save more money to see invested in services, but we're seeing none of that and in some areas services being cut back in the interests of the taxpayer.



Of course it was, but my point is that they're not saying that because they deem that they can score more points by blaming the private companies than blaming the previous government. And that is exactly my problem with the whole charade, they're focusing way too much on an ideological argument and currying favour with the public and having the argument that private is bad and public is good rather than just getting on and providing a good railway service which is what we all want.

This is what happens when you have the likes of the DfT running the railways. Many people have said over the last 10-20 years the Department for Transport were a big part of the problem, anybody who understood that knew that giving them complete control was unlikely to give the wet dream nationalisation that many of supporters dreamed of. I've said it time and time again, the mantra of railways over the past 10-20 years regardless of governments was to nationalise the praise and privatise the blame and for a long, long time the TOC's were a shield for the DfT to avoid any kind of responsibility for their actions. Even with the TOCs gone the DFT are still trying to blame them for their own poor decisions about the IETs and 700s.

I'm actually someone who thinks nationalised railways are not a bad thing and they work very well in other countries. But I also know what our politics are like and what the DfT are like in this country for decades now and that is my problem. Yes we could do it well, but with the political point scoring and the DfT involved, it was never going to turn out well.

Well said although I will never be a fan of nationalisation the way it is put into practice in the UK.