no service wcml

[Lawman]

Folks,
What would happen to the service on the wcml if say virgin trains failed/lost/did not want to renew/ there franchise.Say for instance that no other operator put a bid in for this contract,what would happen to this service,would the government,dft,have some sort of back up plan for this route,curious

 

[LexyBoy]

Folks,
What would happen to the service on the wcml if say virgin trains failed/lost/did not want to renew/ there franchise.Say for instance that no other operator put a bid in for this contract,what would happen to this service,would the government,dft,have some sort of back up plan for this route,curious

"West Coast" until the Daft find someone to take it on I'd think.

Is it likely that noone would want to run it though? Pretty profitable compared to many franchises.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

When we consider the legal work, recruitment effort, contracting of facilities, management structures, training and all the information and monitoring systems which DfT put in place to set up Directly Operated Railways Limited to run the EC franchise, it seems to me that it could, arguably, be a waste of public money NOT to extend the operation to the WCML when (and if) a commercial operator is contracted to operate the East Coast franchise.

 

[rail-britain]

The franchise gets passed to what is known as "Operator of Last Resort"
A private company is then offered the franchise, at a fixed rate and for a fixed period
The franchise is then reviewed and the process restarts

Equally, if the winning franchisee refused then the franchise is deemed not to be awarded and is passed to the "Operator of Last Resort"
So far no such winning franchisee has refused its franchise, so the process has never been used

This is quite different to where the DfT withdraw the franchise from the franchisee, the DfT then operate the franchise until the end of its current term

 

[WatcherZero]

However wont be the case this time round at least, the operators that have submitted pre-qualification bids are:

Abellio (Dutch state railways, owns 50% of Northern and Merseyrail with Serco)
Arriva (DB Subsidary)
First
Go-Ahead
Keolis (SNCF subsidary, has a 45% stake in TPE along with First and a 35% stake in Southern)
Virgin (51% Virgin, 49% Stagecoach)

National Express has said it wont bid for the East Coast or West Coast franchise

The WCML franchise is considered to be one of the most profitable in future with good growth prospects and so Dft are expected to get a hefty return from it either financially or in investment pledges. There also seems to be speculation a new rolling stock order may be placed by the winner, either lengthening the rest of the Pendolino or a new fleet for other services.

 

[rail-britain]

The WCML franchise is considered to be one of the most profitable in future

How things have turned round, as the ECML was the most profitable (under BR it was the only one to make a profit)
If there is such growth on the WCML then the next franchise must take into account that growth, otherwise the extended sets will result in very little additional revenue once they are operating at capacity (as many of the existing services already are)