Greater Anglia to Abellio - confirmed

[jopsuk]

I think a safe bet would be that'll they'll continue the current programme of painting the units base-white with dark blue doors.

 

[Eagle]

Look at the "Southbound" arrow at peterborough for extra lols...

Funnily enough that's just been fixed

 

[ginger]

thanks to the clock ticking away on the front page, we now know that there are only 72 days of the racketeers NX left!

I cant see anyone getting over excited (despite the clock) given that they are going to increase overcrowding on the GE and clean the stations and trains......I know it is only a short caretaker, management contract but if they push the "spin" too much about how good they I think there will be a backlash.

MPs / Rail User Groups and angry commuters lining up on TV wont do there PR any good!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

They don't acknowledge Southend Airport station's existance!

 

[SprinterMan]

Do we think GreaterAnglia are going to be better or worse than National Express. National Express don't seem to care about cleanliness or passenger comfort or personal image or maintenance or customer service, but Abellio have made worrying noises about returning 9 EMUs (people keep saying they will be 317/7s, but I have an incling that they will be 321/4s) to the ROSCO, and NXEA's new timetables look reasonable.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

... and NXEA's new timetables look reasonable.

That's down to the DfT, not NXEA.

 

[Eagle]

They don't acknowledge Southend Airport station's existance!

It's an old map (judging by the fact someone's had to wipe "National Express" from in front of the words "East Coast", right after someone mentioned it here).

 

[Bald Rick]

Do we think GreaterAnglia are going to be better or worse than National Express. National Express don't seem to care about cleanliness or passenger comfort or personal image or maintenance or customer service, but Abellio have made worrying noises about returning 9 EMUs (people keep saying they will be 317/7s, but I have an incling that they will be 321/4s) to the ROSCO, and NXEA's new timetables look reasonable.

Definitely better in terms of customer service.

 

[ginger]

Do we think GreaterAnglia are going to be better or worse than National Express. National Express don't seem to care about cleanliness or passenger comfort or personal image or maintenance or customer service, but Abellio have made worrying noises about returning 9 EMUs (people keep saying they will be 317/7s, but I have an incling that they will be 321/4s) to the ROSCO, and NXEA's new timetables look reasonable.

Abelio have openly stated they are talking to the ROSCO Angel about returning units....

The 317s are owned by Angel

The 321s are owned by Eversholt and they are not talking to them......

So 317s are the best bet!

NX dont (and have never) cared about anything other than profit and arrogantly screwing anyone....customers and staff alike!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Definitely better in terms of customer service.

we will see.....once things start to go wrong they will realise just how militant and peed off everyone is!

You can have the best customer service in the world but when season tickets are going up 8% year on year, 100s of millions are being sucked out of the line every year and nothing is being done to get the 20-30 year old rolling flea boxes into the 21st century then light the touch paper and sit back and watch!

 

[91101]

See my version of a GA logo!

I did this several months ago as a joke for some friends who work for Northern, before Abellio had even been selected as winner.

Im not preaching clairevoyancy here - the colour scheme is easy to derrive as its Abellios corporate colours!

 

[87015]

That's down to the DfT, not NXEA.

Completely and utterly wrong. The entire HLOS(+) Greater Anglia enhancement has been TOC (NXEA) led from start to finish.

The "everything is fault of DfT, TOCs are all gods gift" mentality has to stop, it is simply just not true in many cases.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Class 360's are owned by Angel Trains too - be ironic if we lost the newest stock we do have.

 

[Aictos]

The Nederlandse Spoorwegen website at http://www.ns.nl/en/travellers/home is very minimalist so I would expect the website for Greater Anglia to be done along the same lines or even like the Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen/Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges website at http://www.b-rail.be/nat/E/

 

[87015]

The Nederlandse Spoorwegen website at http://www.ns.nl/en/travellers/home is very minimalist so I would expect the website for Greater Anglia to be done along the same lines or even like the Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen/Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges website at http://www.b-rail.be/nat/E/

Why? Most of the foreign outlets of state companies have nothing to do with their 'home' companies - they are just there to make a profit as with First/Stagecoach/whoever and do not reflect the values or otherwise of DB may have in Germany/SNCB Belgium/NS or whatever.

The owning groups in UK franchising are all in their for profit and noting else - all as bad as each other.

 

[ginger]

Completely and utterly wrong. The entire HLOS(+) Greater Anglia enhancement has been TOC (NXEA) led from start to finish.

The "everything is fault of DfT, TOCs are all gods gift" mentality has to stop, it is simply just not true in many cases.

Bravo!!!!!!! I cannot agree more!!!

Every time you complain to a TOC like NX about the lack of investment etc etc etc they blame the Dft......

The Dft has a certain amount of culpability but it is the TOC that puts THEIR TERMS to the Dft to say "hey, we can make a fortune in premium payment / profit here by NOT investing in the next......years......give me the franchise"....

For the TOCs to continually pass the buck to the Dft is pathetic.....

I agree the system is not perfect and if this is the result then the system is wrong, but the TOCs are driving this SHOCKING ATTITUDE!!!!!!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Completely and utterly wrong. The entire HLOS(+) Greater Anglia enhancement has been TOC (NXEA) led from start to finish.

The "everything is fault of DfT, TOCs are all gods gift" mentality has to stop, it is simply just not true in many cases.

Thanks for that. I wasn't blaming anyone for anything though...

 

[Aictos]

Why? Most of the foreign outlets of state companies have nothing to do with their 'home' companies - they are just there to make a profit as with First/Stagecoach/whoever and do not reflect the values or otherwise of DB may have in Germany/SNCB Belgium/NS or whatever.

The owning groups in UK franchising are all in their for profit and noting else - all as bad as each other.

I was referring to the end user's design of the website not their operations.

 

[ginger]

well hopefully lots of staff will e mail Abelio and try to things rights after 8 years of MX neglect!

Although the pathetically short franchinse wont give them any chance of pulling this one out of the fire!

And if Elaine Holt is reading this....DONT BID FOR THE NEW FRANCHISE.....NX have done enough damage.....

 

[Nym]

It's supprising what can be done in the way of staff morale, money speaks well, as does an improvment in conditions that can be implemented quickly, happyer staff = better customer service...

 

[387star]

Why did National Express do so well with the likes of Midland Mainline and so poorly with the likes of East Anglia?

Seems to me National Express has been going sharply downhill since the recession began when they surrended East Coast and yet this was at a time they were proud to brand the trains 'National Express'.

Won't miss the branding terrible idea looked stupid seeing express branding on class 315s. National Express applies to coaches so I don't think it is a very effective brand more a confusing one!

 

[Mojo]

Why did National Express do so well with the likes of Midland Mainline and so poorly with the likes of East Anglia?

At the time of being awarded the franchise, Midland Mainline was the worst performing London InterCity Toc. I remember discussing at the time of the franchise award (of course before being aware about the anonymous/financially motivated decisionmaking process) how surprising it was that a parent company with such a poor reputation was awarded the franchise!

 

[Blindtraveler]

personally I'm0looking at this one with an open mind. Il admit that NXEA were my least favourits to travel with and that they could have done a lot better with Scotrail but thats happened now and if the GA franchise develops the qualitty of staff and service that Northern have it wil be a benifit to whoever gets it next. the shoddy stock etc wil be less of an issue if customer care improves although it must at some time be tackled

 

[lemonic]

It seems as though lots of people here are berating NXEA's staff/customer service. I have had lots of experience with NXEA staff and have almost always found the conductors to be friendly and station staff to be helpful. I agree that some issues e.g. First Class not being declassified when not in timetable, do not portray NXEA in a good light and do not show good customer service, but from my experience the staff working on the front line seem to do a good job.

 

[Blindtraveler]

should point out the staff themselves are fine, just
demoralised and I think a few on here would admit it in person

 

[dk1]

should point out the staff themselves are fine, just
demoralised and I think a few on here would admit it in person

Im staff & always happy

 

[Blindtraveler]

great, your my friend! And it was a very sweeping generalisation I admit

 

[Eagle]

The website's been updated. First, it's not that blinding red it used to be. Second, the map's a more recent and accurate one.

More importantly, there's this staff document, which apart from reassuring employees that everything is going to be the same (yay TUPE), confirms that there will be no new livery as yet, just the white repaint continuing, but there will be some snazzy new uniforms sometime next year.

 

[jopsuk]

The map's not been changed that much, it's still the NXEA one with the names changed. Still has the awkward arrangement for Ely (which is, to be fair, awkward to show well thanks to the EMT service) and still apparently shows an operator running just a Cambridge-Kings Lynn service (compare to at Peterborough where the "other operators" shows services running beyond- could show something to indicate connections to local stations down that line!). Also, with the new timetable, I though the Stansted "local" services had been cut back, with (more) Express services serving Mountfichet? Could do with a tweek there to show this.

 

[387star]

'This is the 09:42 Greater Anglia service to Norwich' hmm at least it brings back some form of local identity

I think the class 156 and class 153 are next due for C6 work which will involve making them DDA compliant although the 153s would have to become 155s. Are any dates laid down for this? Perhaps this will wait till the longer franchise

Grey and Red by the looks of it assuming that's the logo

 

[fgwrich]

...With all that's happend to the Anglian Franchises, i wonder how different it would look now if First had retained it?

(Award winning Anglia Railways - operated by GB Railways, taken over by First shortly before the end of the franchise, First Great Eastern - also award winning franchise...both now part of the mess that is..)