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It doesn’t work like that. Chiltern and XC are DfT TOCs and the DfT decide when to replace stock on their TOCs. The DfT will not allow joint procurement exercises between their TOCs and OA because of the Competition Act and the cross subsidy restrictions between the public and private sectors.

Firstly, it’s a Track Access Agreement being granted by the ORR, not a Passenger License, which is a completely different thing and not connected at all with Economic Regulation. Secondly, it will probably be 7 to 10 years if they are renewing with new Hitachi stock. The ORR allow you an...

Double Home = Lodge Turn. The idea behind spoilt food allowance is that if you shorten a turn and don’t give the member of staff enough notice, his previous meal assumptions may have been changed without him either knowing or being able to do anything about it. The main groups that this applied...

Well, for an Owning Group, an NRC is about as near to free money as you are going to get so you are not going to chuck those opportunities in the bin. For DfT TOCs, there is no such thing as margin anymore, just fees. That is a licence to print money, especially when both the fixed base fee...

To bring the discussion back into the realms of reality, the North Cots had a real problem back in 2017. The growth was such that certain non peak trains towards London were starting to load heavy for a 5 car, 220-250 punters when leaving Moreton-in-Marsh wasn’t uncommon for a non-seasonal load...

No - a TAA renewal can’t be made conditional on new stock unless the TOC puts up a business case that demands a certain rate of return on that investment, all over a number of years that (after the ORR confirm it) effectively sets your length of TAA. A straight renewal or extension for five...

I think rumours are getting conflated. The most likely reason the Mk 5 sets may well be going is that TPE are wanting to reduce the complicated number of types they currently operate and the LHCS is the most likely candidate to bin off at lease end.

Unfortunately, GWR are correct. It’s just the usual TfL rubbish attitude to advertising other people’s services. It has happened elsewhere and they always (wrongly) try to shift the responsibility onto the other operator who has absolutely no right to fly post onto TfL property! Someone in the...

Having started in Regional structured BR, gone through Sectorisation and into the private TOC scene, my strong advice is to go VI with joint services for the cross boundary services, effectively how the BR regions managed them. The separation of track and train has not worked and this is from...

Junction Road Junction was another oddity in the mid 1980’s. Right by a road in built up North London (with a tube station not far away) but no running water. Water came in by container and the toilet was an Elsan.

It’s not so much privatisation but it is what happens when the money gets tight with any industry that needs so much government support. It was the same in BR days.

When I was on the ODM in the 1980’s, Reyrolle plugs and sockets were common for both 110v (S&T & PW equipment) or 240v (depots) - much more durable than standard plugs and sockets or variants thereof.

XC are not Open Access, that’s the difference. The North Cots was difficult because of some off peak and shoulder peak loadings west of Oxford - posters on here are tending to think only in terms of peak loads when looking at the all the year round base diagrams. There are other trains where...

No, 5 cars do not suit the North Cots well - that’s the mistake the Government made when it drew up the IEP timetable and the unit diagrams. When you compared them with the loadings west of Oxford, it was quite apparent they were under providing, hence the need to get them out of trouble by...

Commercially it may be better for that passenger to stand for 3 hours, depending on the revenue associated with the respective diagrams. That’s the hard decision you have to take when you are limited in your rolling stock resources.

Yes, because it was in their contract to do so. And you don’t get a big percentage of your contract performance fees if you don’t do what the DfT tells you to do.

Unfortunately the MD of a TOC doesn’t make the decisions - he has as much power as a lowly BR Area Manager these days (arguably less), hence part of his frustration. The DfT and the Treasury will (eventually) make a decision on this and all the other replacement schemes that they are gathering...

And on another LP, Supertramp’s “Crime of the Century”, on the track “Rudy” you can hear the late Roger Watkins when he was doing an announcing stint (as a trainee) at Paddington.

Because the units are now there to do it, thanks to the super fasts getting binned and formation changes on shoulder peak workings. The fleet can be rebalanced to push more 9 cars into Cornwall. The problem before was justifying the cost of the extra cars for the total GWR 802 fleet. Not a...

As I have said many times, it was either the choice of long sets for the south west and no Cornish half hourly service (possibly for ever) or 5 cars and the Cornish half hourly, with the possibility that you could extend to 9 when the passenger revenue justified it. The latter was chosen. There...