Recent content by Fishplate84

Nail and head. Having made such a noise over so many years about those profiteering evil private sector operators while benefitting from a very significant uplift in wage rates over the last couple of decades of privatisation, the reality of achieving renationalisation for the Unions is going...

A lot to be said for this and something I don't think traditional rail folk like and DfT simply don't get. Brands have power and trust and that, whatever the reality, goes a long way unless it truly is destroyed (see P&O's debacle as a good example of a powerful brand who's flushed itself down...

Certainly noticed on the few european rail services I've been on is the total lack of (or very few) announcements. Nothing about catering car closed for stock taking and cashing up or even what station you're arriving at. It's all on screen anyway these days. Bliss.

Is it Serco not providing the customer service or the Staff not wanting to deliver it? Reading through this thread there does appear to be a strong whiff of Serco wanting to deliver a different type of service and marketing it as such but at every turn the RMT or whatever union and I assume...

Yes, a lot of supposition in there. But one critical thing is whatever happens, I've seen no sign of DfT rolling back or changing in any fundamental way the Railway Act 1993 as amended to deliver GBR. In fact I've heard it said DfT are desperately trying to not open that can of worms while...

I think that's the case for all the rail industry. Private operators have been a great shield for Dft/Scottish Government to have someone else do their bidding and take all the flack. In the world of GBR and whatever form it takes in Scotland where franchises become more directly specified...

I do wonder whether any of these tram drivers actually drive a car on the road. I mean, the poor signage, sheer amount of random external actions of those around them, huge range of conditions must overwhelm their capabilities to make it to the supermarket. This was so obviously a system...

I hope not, that would be totally short sighted and miss the point of why a good number of visitors actually choose to use the sleeper. It has to be about the experience - the allure of the dining car experience included. As soon as the mentality shifts back to it just being a functional...

At the current time with precious little visitor traffic, a downturn in business traffic, EMAs in place so the Government taking all the risk and a hugely subsidised service and Government coffers being stretched wafer thin trying to meet everyones needs and keep the economy alive and people...

Subsidise the individual would be interesting. The trouble is that almost no customer actually understands the real cost of the railway as its not evident in ticket pricing. Perhaps all tickets should be sold at a flat full recovery price but the amount the customer pays is determined by the...

From a practical point of view though it must be near impossible to deliver given the size of the average family car these days. Unless the motor-rail stock was open a bit like the freight shuttles on the Channel Tunnel, putting a conventional rail body around today's SUV type vehicle and having...

The picture may have been very different had another operator won the franchise and chosen to use the old rolling stock with as much refurb as the money would allow. I'd suggest that Serco's decision to bite the bullet and propose a new fleet rather than warm over an already ancient fleet has...

Yep, I agree. If it is not developed as a hospitality business then it has no future. It may be a National Rail service but there is almost no business case for it to exist if its sole purpose is to provide a no-frills commodity transport link between Scotland and London overnight. If there...

Sorry, is the gripe here that you used to be able to get away with having a night-shift job, where the reasonable expectation might be that during the day you rest / sleep, but when on shift you should be awake and alert. Is sounds like for years there has developed a very cushy culture of...

I do wonder what people expect any new operator to achieve that Abellio couldn't, especially if that operator is a direct TS concern. Abellio shareholders have take a £10m hit for providing the service that they have. They are motivated like any commercial company to make a profit and...