Greater Anglia to Abellio - confirmed

[ginger]

"rapid"....mmmmm......a bit like "express".......that might open themselves to same kind of ridicule that the delusional PR department of NXEA found themselves in on a daily basis!

 

[dk1]

First Anglia Rapid Trains

Anglia Railways South East

Yes, thats the 'one' arghhhhh

FART

 

[Bastiaan]

How about 'Één'?

Or 'Nationale Expres Oost-Engeland'

 

[stut]

Oostengelandse Spoorwegen

or simply "Eastern Rail"

 

[Squaddie]

Yes, thats the 'one' arghhhhh

FART

There's already a FART. (And a jolly nice little railway it is, too).

 

[Masbroughlad]

What are these like at catering on trains?

Any chance of the great British Breakfast and Dinner back on Intercity trains to Norwich?

Still think it is hard to beat the original Anglia (Turquoise and white stripe aside!).

 

[stut]

Any chance of the great British Breakfast and Dinner back on Intercity trains to Norwich?

The dining car will be replaced with a branch of Febo, stocking 5 types of indistinguishable frikandel with mustard.

A special breakfast service of bread and chocolate sprinkles will be introduced.

Eet smakkelijk!

 

[Nym]

What about the airline, SCAT?

There's already a FART. (And a jolly nice little railway it is, too).

 

[Ivo]

Sorry if this has already been raised here, but is this likely to mean the introduction of complimentary items in First Class on London-Norwich trains?

As mentioned earlier, I agree with the "best of the available options" answer. Not that I'm going to lavish Abellio with praise though.

 

[W-on-Sea]

At least the shortness of the contract presumably means we'll be spared that hideous yellow livery.,

On the acronyms front, I must confess a certain fondness for the FUC train, which connects two quite delighful towns on the north-eastern edge of Italy

 

[jopsuk]

I'd guess any livery work will be purely a continuation of the current "paint it white" program with any units that are in need of a lick.

Mindyou, I'm sure a vinyl wrap to recreate this wouldn't break the bank- would be a fun gesture for the franchise launch day to do it on 321 334

 

[tbtc]

At least the shortness of the contract presumably means we'll be spared that hideous yellow livery

I think we'll be spared anything different whatsoever, despite the imagination of some on this thread.

Given the costs of tendering franchises (costs to both the Government and to the bidders) and all the warm words said about longer franchises being more efficient, it seems bonkers to have such a short franchise being the first one announced under this Government...

 

[shinkansen1966]

Is it true that Abellio will be paying the government £400 million to the government to run the franchise during its 29 month lifetime ?

There's also a rumour that Abellio will be running the East Anglia franchise with 15 fewer trains, amounting to a loss of 4,700 seats.

Could this be the shape of things to come with other franchise renewals ? Fewer carriages and more payments to the governments ?

 

[ginger]

the tender documents clearly stated that this was a management contract only, with the government taking all the risk regarding revenues......I think these rumours regarding £400m in premium payments are a bit off the mark.

In the original tender docs it stated that bidders were to submit their "management fee" as part of the overall tender.

Out of interest the most NXEA ever paid as an annual premium payment was £100m which makes the Greater Anglia franchise one of the most profitable in the country (with the oldest and most poorly refurbished trains to boot!)

 

[tbtc]

There's also a rumour that Abellio will be running the East Anglia franchise with 15 fewer trains, amounting to a loss of 4,700 seats

Does the fifteen trains reference mean the 315s used on Shenfield stoppers, which will be replaced by Crossrail units at some point in the next few years?

 

[shinkansen1966]

Darned, I should never have listened to that article about Abellio on today's edition of You and Yours.

 

[87015]

Does the fifteen trains reference mean the 315s used on Shenfield stoppers, which will be replaced by Crossrail units at some point in the next few years?

No that is way outside the scope of the short franchise.
The Dec 11 timetable improvements (and to a fair extent the Dec 10, although a lot of that as HLOS) however, are NXEA led and were not franchise commitments...

 

[ginger]

extending the Oyster zone out to Shenfield has to be in preparation for Crossrail!

 

[tbtc]

extending the Oyster zone out to Shenfield has to be in preparation for Crossrail!

...which makes me wonder whether it'll extend to Reading (if thats where the western end of Crossrail eventually is)

 

[swt_passenger]

No that is way outside the scope of the short franchise.
The Dec 11 timetable improvements (and to a fair extent the Dec 10, although a lot of that as HLOS) however, are NXEA led and were not franchise commitments...

They were not in the NXEA franchise originally, but NXEA announced that they had been negotiated into the franchise by variation as agreed HLOS improvements. Their news pages announced that they were the first TOC to agree their full HLOS increases, including rolling stock, (the 379s and 321s) and ensuing timetable changes.

So I don't think there is any scope for reductions of the upcoming timetable - NXEA's original franchise SLC is now history surely?

 

[emoaconr]

Isn't the official name of NXEA actually London & Eastern Railway Ltd, hence its abbreviation "LE"?

 

[A60K]

extending the Oyster zone out to Shenfield has to be in preparation for Crossrail!

No, unrelated to Crossrail - Hertford East branch is included as well.

 

[jopsuk]

That doesn't make it unrelated to Crossrail- though the Oyster to Hertford East is unrelated to Crossrail - but related to the Oyster to Hertford North and Welwyn plan already announced (which is presumably then why Harlow isn't in this extension)

 

[The Sleeper]

Isn't the official name of NXEA actually London & Eastern Railway Ltd, hence its abbreviation "LE"?

That's true, complicated by the fact it had two operating names the really stupid 'one' and then reverted correctly to NXEA. The London Eastern Railway(no &) was a wholly owned operating subsidiary of National Express Group Holdings Plc.

 

[dk1]

The more Oyster around the Capital the more joined up & easy everything becomes. Would be nice to see more enforced ticket checks/gates on this part of WA. Seems so open to abuse.

 

[TrenHotel]

Oyster to Waltham Cross is long overdue - the station's only a few minutes' walk away from heaps of TfL buses which take them, and the lack of Oyster has made travelling half a mile out of Greater London a pain in the backside.

Be interesting to see how popular Oyster is beyond there, and how much gets charged, considering it'll be the first time it's made it to a group of NR stations significantly beyond where London buses go.

 

[HH]

No, unrelated to Crossrail - Hertford East branch is included as well.

TfL are very keen to extend Oyster and I would expect to see such changes in any new franchise (presuming they don't have it already).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

What are these like at catering on trains?

Any chance of the great British Breakfast and Dinner back on Intercity trains to Norwich?

If there's any incentive in the management contract for improving profitability then I would expect them to move towards the "inclusive" model. Otherwise it would stay as is. BR type catering loses a lot of money.

 

[talltim]

Apparently Abellio won the bid based on the cost savings of using 9 less 4 car units. Other bidders were told that they lost due to their fleet hire costs being too high.

 

[ginger]

well they cant the DMU fleet....thats threadbare as it is......will they cut the Cl 317s recently displaced by the introductions of the Cl 379s????

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

So will that provide initial EMU resources for the NW electification instead of Thameslink 319s? Can we have 360s please?