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No, not even then. Franchises have always regarded it as an in and out cost which doesn’t affect the bottom line. The only time it was ever considered was the base figure in your bid, which should match the cost that the ORR allocated to the TOC concerned in that start year (the DfT would check...

Fixed track access makes no difference to fares. FTAC is effectively a laundered DfT subsidy (through the TOC) to NR and usually varies by millions each year, all variances being accounted for in the DfT subsidy payment process. Think of it as another form of Network Grant, but paid via the TOC...

Yes, there is a penalty regime for turning out units in less than perfect condition. In this case the unit has an odd fault in that there is an emergency brake application every time it tries to traction change over. Fail safe but rather annoying! Hitachi need to give it a further technical...

I am not exactly a fan of Mr Joyner but every one of the above you can put down to the DfT and the way they have forced their will on the TOC. For instance, the scaling back of route knowledge and not allowing rest day agreements is something that has been imposed elsewhere. You can add...

Depends how much money there is in the inter-available pot. If there is next to none compared to the cost, then GWR won’t consider it. In any event, they could only operate with the DfT’s say so - they can’t alter their timetable without their blessing. Of course, doing it mid timetable means...

RDG were only the middle men and were told beforehand these recent talks that their services were no longer required. This particular farce of the DfT operating through proxies has now been ended. What the pay deal was had no bearing on any company’s shareholders - that all ended in 2020. The...

And a traction set up that made them completely unsuitable for shunting. You think you have no power and then suddenly it kicks in - do not ever think handling these locos at low speed is easy. As you said, most releases pre-1977 was by the departure of the train but there were some release...

Taxis and buses are a budget line cost item and, nowadays, effectively paid for by the DfT as the TOCs are not on cost risk. Offsetting against Tax? That’s a bizarre allegation - it just doesn’t work like that. The problem on the day sits with the TOC Control and Train Crew management, train...

No, it isn’t the key point because profit in the business may be caused by “financial” moves, rather than pure profit on sales, or in this case, leases. Without digging down into individual components of the business and seeing how each deal adds/subtracts from the bottom line, which you can’t...

It does get complicated because the ROSCOs are not just into rolling stock leasing so their profit is not just derived from what we see running in the UK. Having looked closely at the ROSCOs books, I think the ORR analysis is flawed but it does show that scrapping older stock without...

SWR did not propose DOO, it was DCO and that was a DfT bid requirement for new stock. The unrealistic bit of the bid was the timetable, which was a DfT spec. agreed with NR HQ but loathed by the Route, who, after award, would not accept it. At the time of Covid, there was a right row going on...

With Sue Gray as the PM’s Chief of Staff, they will be no hanging around in the various ministries!

Right, let’s get this straight - Lumo isn’t interested in swapping paths, it isn’t going to be forced to do it and it would be commercial suicide to do it anyway. A near 0630 departure off EDB is what their market wants and the resultant times off Morpeth and Newcastle also make it a very...

That’s the bit we are all waiting for. Will it be regional, will it be sector or will it be a mixture of the two? There has been a lot of discussion about this - we in the industry await the “white smoke”. Existing TOC structures seem to be out - savings need to be made.

I hate this early morning working - it’s a distortion of a classic service. The Flying Scotsman, for me, is the 10 o’clock down from KX and the equivalent up working. In my time at KX the ASM himself used to see it off. Lumo haven’t the stock to take it on nor would they provide first class...

That was true until they were put on NRC style contracts - they now tend to have the same degree of DfT control as the others.

I strongly suspect Peter Hendy has been quietly working behind the scenes with Labour. Don’t forget that the Williams/Shapps proposals caused a furore with the Owning Groups because the DfT could still set the policy agenda for GBR on outsourcing franchises or not. That meant that a change of...

I can assure you that the DfT takes great interest in staff numbers and costs, from their TOC annual business plan process, right through the financial year. The reporting that a TOC has to do these days is quite onerous. Of course the TOC pays the wages and then all the TOC costs are settled...

City of Truro was a British Transport Commission museum piece at Nationalisation. It was returned to Western Region stock in 1957, for its period in service. Its record sheet in the National Archives notes it could not use the number 3717 so was numbered 3440 for the duration. It also received...

Those days have long gone because the number of staff employed or the wages they are on now doesn’t affect any Owning Groups bottom line. You just employ the staff numbers the DfT authorise you to have and you run the training regime that the DfT authorises you to run. The DfT pays all the...