New TOCs serving York - local press reports (badly)

[yorkie]

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/yorknews/display.var.1825983.0.train_firm_takes_over_york_route.php

NEW direct train services from York to the south are on the way after a new company took over a major rail route out of the city.

Arriva yesterday replaced Virgin as the franchise-holder for the Cross-Country route, which runs from York to cities including Sheffield, Birmingham and Bristol.

No, these are not "new services"!

Managing director Andrew Cooper told The Press that it planned to launch new through-trains from York to Reading next year.

They have existed for decades!

He said there were also plans for one daily through service to and from Bournemouth, on the south coast.

One? erm right, but we have a lot more than one at present!

Arriva would also increase seating capacity on Cross-Country's main routes from the north-east to the south-west, particularly in the busy early evening period.

It intended to reintroduce High Speed Trains, which would travel at 125mph and have 550 seats in eight carriages.

I thought they hadn't determined which trains would be HSTs yet? are they saying the HSTs will run from York in the early evening? Or are they just saying whatever local 'papers want to hear

550 seats in 8 carriages? I am not so sure. Approx 48 seats in a FC coach and approx 35 in a buffet, that leaves 467 seats in 6 coaches, so 77 seats per coach... TSOs were built with 76 seats but since modified to provide more luggage space causing a reduction. So in order to get the required number of seats, one of these must happen:
1) No buffet car!
2) Replacing luggage area with seats (ironic as it was Virgin who put more luggage racks in, wasn't it?)
3) Replace seats with slimmer seats, cut down on leg room, etc
4) No TGS?

There would be an additional 7,000 seats each day to meet growing numbers of customers.

I'll believe it when I see it!

He said the company was also on track to introduce a range of other improvements for passengers.

These included WiFi for all passengers - free in First Class - and better ticketing and reservation booking services. Passengers would also be able to buy discounted tickets much closer to the time they were going to travel.

They won't be able to compete with NatEx on the ECML then, take one of their trains and WiFi will be free in standard!

The first visible signs of Arriva's takeover of the route franchise will be the gradual appearance of new livery and logos on trains over the next few weeks.

Right, ok...

The switch-over of the Cross-Country franchise is only the first of a number of changes for trains operating out of York over the coming month.

New train operator Grand Central is hoping to launch a much-delayed, non-stop service from York to London later in November. The company, which originally hoped to launch its service last December, intends to establish a partial service by the end of this month, which would be expanded to a full, three-times-a-day service in December, if all goes well.

They really should have known when this went to press the launch date is pencilled in for 2nd Dec

The service would rival that provided by long-standing operators on the East Coast Main Line, GNER - but only for a matter of weeks.

6 days I make it!

Next month, GNER will cease to exist and its franchise for the route from London to Edinburgh will be taken over by National Express.

What? one line for NatEx when you have devoted an entire article to Arriva?

 

[me123]

Don't you just love accurate journalism?

 

[BOSCH]

They really should have known when this went to press the launch date is pencilled in for 2nd Dec

Yorkie,how do you know its pencilled in for 2nd Dec,I work for GC and even I have'nt been told that mate !!!

 

[Max]

What an appalling article - no wonder the public have absolutely no decent knowledge about the railways!

Still not as bad as the BBC website, which claimed that Grand Central's 'new services which will pass over the ECML through Hull have been delayed by months'. :roll:

 

[W14Fishbourne]

Is this the same media that loves to make a big thing of any little mistake made by a rail company?

 

[yorkie]

They really should have known when this went to press the launch date is pencilled in for 2nd Dec

Yorkie,how do you know its pencilled in for 2nd Dec,I work for GC and even I have'nt been told that mate !!!

Either you are told you can't tell us or they've not told you because the date is for the Press and not necessarily the actual service start date (they may want to start before that to get off to a smooth start?) e.g. the "official" launch date of the "TfL Overground" service was Monday but it actually started on the Sunday!

Anyway, my source is a post by Tony Miles (of Modern Railways and uk.railway fame) on the wnxx forum, and his source is a "press release handed out at KX".

Of course, that doesn't mean it will happen on that date and I can understand why GC don't want to advertise it to the public.

 

[BOSCH]

Either you are told you can't tell us or they've not told you because the date is for the Press and not necessarily the actual service start date (they may want to start before that to get off to a smooth start?) e.g. the "official" launch date of the "TfL Overground" service was Monday but it actually started on the Sunday!

Anyway, my source is a post by Tony Miles (of Modern Railways and uk.railway fame) on the wnxx forum, and his source is a "press release handed out at KX".

Of course, that doesn't mean it will happen on that date and I can understand why GC don't want to advertise it to the public.

I can honestly say I do not have a clue as to when the start date is !!!

 

[Demps]

railway journalism is not the only innacruate type of journalism i have see often, take what i do yorkie, blown out of proportion 100%.

But more on subject, ariva hst's, york = very happy me.

 

[djw1981]

Local press base their stories, often on Press Releases. If Arriva have given out a huge press release with lots of nice stats and quotes, then that is an easy 're-write' story. If GC / NX haven't, then no story as far as local media is concerned.

 

[Techniquest]

Not much in the way of the inaccuracies then...

And I like the way they say GC will be running from York to London. Surely they should have mentioned that GC run Sunderland - London (obviously with the current London - York and vice versa being temporary)...But then this IS the media we all know and loathe.

You've got to feel sorry for the journalists sometimes. If they get duff information, or can't get even that, their job to report proper news and report it properly is suddenly much harder.

 

[BOSCH]

Not much in the way of the inaccuracies then...

And I like the way they say GC will be running from York to London. Surely they should have mentioned that GC run Sunderland - London (obviously with the current London - York and vice versa being temporary)...But then this IS the media we all know and loathe.

You've got to feel sorry for the journalists sometimes. If they get duff information, or can't get even that, their job to report proper news and report it properly is suddenly much harder.[/QUOTE

Or they make the whole thing up !! :x

 

[Techniquest]

Aye, true.

Any enthusiasts here fancy becoming a journalist? Maybe we can turn the whole industry around and get the job done right for once.

 

[Metroland]

Some of the BBC's transport correspondents and several broadsheet journos ('The Times' Ben Webster springs to mind) are enthusiasts. Several of the BBC's and regional newpaper journalists are also enthusiasts, like Alan Whitehouse.

Shock horror, this doesn't always mean that:

1) They report the Railway in a favourable manner. Indeed, there is several 'enthusiasts' on these very boards that enjoy slagging them off. I've even slagged them off myself when I think they deserve it, so do senior industry managers down to Platform staff!

2) They actually know what they are talking about when it comes to detailed technical and operational matters.

Obviously with a local rag, it tends to be the junior reporter just re-jigging a press release often getting the wrong end of the stick.

 

[metrocammel]

Aye, true.

Any enthusiasts here fancy becoming a journalist? Maybe we can turn the whole industry around and get the job done right for once.

No, the thing is, they either a) get a press releases from TOCs which they deem to be over-complicated for the general public (which is sometimes justified- eg, if a press release mentioned "power cars", or even "HSTs", many people wouldn't actually know what these were- I know for sure, most of the people in my 6th form wouldn't have the foggiest idea what a "HST" was!)
but anyway, as a result of this, they try to simplify things, and sometimes, in the process of this, information gets garbled and diluted to a meaningless level, especially to someone who isn't in the know- so to a "normal", it may give them a breif insight into the new franchise &c, however to us, it is an inaccurate, waste of an article!

and b) Press releases are obviously going to be very biased towards the company who has written them! So, if a journalist has taken, and used all the information given by the TOC at face value, without doing further research, the final article will be hopelessly biased to give the company a good image- as what seem to have been the case with this York Press piece about XC Trains.

 

[mrcheek]

When the BBC reported Arrive taking over the cross country franchise from Virgin, they deliberately skewed the report in Virgins favour.

They commented on how Virgin had introduced all these wonderful new trains, never mentioning how few carriages they have, and then compared these with the DMUs used by Arriva on local Welsh lines, implying that they would start using pacers on the XC routes!

 

[djw1981]

Well... everyone else is getting Pacers - why should XC get let off.