Connex operations in other countries.

[stadler]

Does anyone remember what Connex were like on their trains and buses in other countries? Did they have as bad of a reputation as their UK operations had?

Here in the UK we had Connex running two train companies (Connex South Central and Connex South Eastern) and three bus companies (Connex Bus Sussex and Connex Bus London and Connex Bus Jersey) and they were all awful. They provided a notoriously bad service and their train contracts got taken away and many of their bus contracts were taken away by the council. They were known as a comedy train and bus operator and provided an awful service.

Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Lebanon, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and a few other countries all had Connex buses or trains or trams in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Most of these operations rebranded and became Veolia which then rebranded again and became Transdev while some other operations simply got taken over by other companies. Connex used to be quite big in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

So i would be curious what kind of service Connex provided in these other countries in the late 1990s and early 2000s era? Does anyone remember using them elsewhere?

 

[jamesontheroad]

Connex was quite active in Sweden, both with procured services and open access.

Connex won the contract to operate the Norrland night trains in Sweden from 2003-2008, after which the concession returned to SJ. This was before my first travels in Sweden so I don’t know much about this period. You can see old archive photos of the night train rolling stock with their logo on it online.

Connex changed their name to Veolia some time along the way … I think it was around 2013.

As either Connex or Veolia, they began operating the Swedish side of the Øresundståg network in late 2011, after DSBFirst gave it up. That contract was renewed in 2014, after which Veolia merged with Transdev.

For the open access, I had to search and use AI a bit, and I’m not 100% confident I’ve got all this correct.

Starting around 2009, Veolia ran a pair of weekend trains between Stockholm and Malmö, to test the market competing with SJ. From 2012, there were also seasonal night trains between Malmö and Jämtland in “lower Norrland” for skiing. These trains became (arguably) the most successful open access service in Sweden, since they were later rebranded as Snälltåget which continues to this day on the same Stockholm-Malmö core route with seasonal night trains to Jämtland, Germany and Austria.

 

[SLTRegular]

As far as I'm aware Connex had an awful reputation in Sydney and even worse most of there routes are now with Go ahead (u go) so not much better than the French.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

Connex ran the north half of the Melbourne network from 1999-2004 and the whole network 2004-1999.

The Oaks Day issue in 2008 and the 2009 heatwave basically ended them as an operator. Metro haven't been all much better.

 

[DanielB]

Connex started in the Netherlands by taking over Limex (Regional operator in South Limburg), Stadsbus Maastricht and later BBA. All three companies continued under their own brand name however, with "Connex Group" added to it.
AFAIK that never caused much of an issue as those three companies continued operations as before.

They had a rough start however when the company, in the mean time Veolia, took over the entire Limburg province. The train service Nijmegen - Roermond was temporarily ran with Wadlopers and their fleet of GTWs arriving later was not that popular due to the 3+2 seating layout. Those trains also had preparations for chipcard validators within the train, which never happened for obvious reasons
Veolia also replaced all bus stop signs with an own design, which resulted into problems as those legally didn't count as bus stop signs. So they had to apply a sticker with a black bus in a white square on blue background to fix that throughout the entire province.

 

[duesselmartin]

Connex done reasonable well in Germany with many regional contract. One such operation in the Düsseldorf area S28 was deemed the most reliable in the country, although these days are long gone.
Connex failed on its open access operation from Neuss to Rostock, the reason being patronage.