Should TOC's have been kept the same as the original Privatisation TOC's ?

[sad1e]

I was wondering what people thought on the merging of TOC's midway through privatisation, such as,

SilverLink being split between London Overground and LNWR.

Central trains being split up into WMR and EMR , with the Midland Mainline franchise given to EMR too

First Northwestern Arriva Trains Northern and First Northeastern being merged into Northern

Thames trains being merged with the Great Western franchise.

Do you think these changes and other similar ones were well thought out, should they have been done at all or should they have been done differently ?

 

[Bertie the bus]

Silverlink never made any sense. It was just North London stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.

I don't think there was ever such a thing as First Northeastern but combining Northern was definitely a good move.

 

[cool110]

SilverLink being split between London Overground and LNWR.

Silverlink never made any sense. It was just North London stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.

Would have loved to see TfL struggle with extending Oyster to Northampton (or Birmingham) back in 2007 if that stayed together.

 

[Sorcerer]

London Overground is definitely a vast improvement over Silverlink. More investment, new trains, improved existing stations, added new stations, increased service frequency, and increased reliability. It was definitely the right choice to split that franchise between TfL and London Midland.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Northern has always been a bit big to manage, so I'm not sure that merging the two sides has really worked.

 

[swt_passenger]

The OP missed that some of Central trains, (ill advisedly IMHO), was absorbed into Cross Country, and nearly 20 years later we get regular suggestions that their 170s should be replaced by 221s. On the the other hand a few of us suggest the 170 services be split back out of XC…

Didn’t Silverlink operate as two fairly separate units, ‘County‘ and ‘Metro’? I‘m not really sure where else the metro part could have been situated before the Overground was introduced, I mean they’d never have fitted into Virgin’s plans.

 

[Topological]

I always find it interesting that the MML, Anglia and GWR got their local services, but the WCML and ECML do not have the locals. The original GWR and MML did not have any local services (due to Central, Thames, Wessex Trains etc)

 

[Gloster]

Privatisation was not intended to run for a while and then be replaced by something else: it was intended to be permanent (*), but to try and soothe the criticisms that there would be of handing it over permanently to particular companies the idea of reletting franchises was included. This only made a complicated and chaotic system even more complicated and chaotic and so bore the seeds of its own destruction within it. It is only political dogma and the cost of sorting it out that has delayed the end.

* - That is if you don’t consider that it was merely intended to fill the pockets of chums with tax-payers’ money.

 

[Class15]

London Overground is so much better than Silverlink, I’m really happy it happened. Not quite sure why anyone would think otherwise really!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I always find it interesting that the MML, Anglia and GWR got their local services, but the WCML and ECML do not have the locals.

That's probably because in the case of those they are mostly branches from the mainline that feed it, whereas Northern/TPE/the WMR part of West Midlands Trains are networks in their own right, not primarily feeders for Avanti/LNER.

 

[Topological]

That's probably because in the case of those they are mostly branches from the mainline that feed it, whereas Northern/TPE/the WMR part of West Midlands Trains are networks in their own right, not primarily feeders for Avanti/LNER.

Although arguably the local services on EMR are actually a network which is radial from Nottingham.

An interesting extension of the radial theme would be if all services from Birmingham were in a combined WMT/CrossCountry as that would be no different to GWR/EMR in combining long and short distance services.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Although arguably the local services on EMR are actually a network which is radial from Nottingham.

An interesting extension of the radial theme would be if all services from Birmingham were in a combined WMT/CrossCountry as that would be no different to GWR/EMR in combining long and short distance services.

I think you could more easily justify putting WMT into West Coast than you could Northern, though.

The other difference is that that service is regionally led and partly devolved. Nottingham's network is not.

 

[Topological]

I think you could more easily justify putting WMT into West Coast than you could Northern, though.

The other difference is that that service is regionally led and partly devolved. Nottingham's network is not.

Since this is speculation. Regional organisation might have been:

A Birmingham-based franchise including XC
A Manchester-based franchise including TPE
A Leeds-based franchise (Basically, the old Northern Spirit, but without TPE)
A Nottingham-based franchise
A Norwich-based franchise (Basically Anglia)
A Bristol-based franchise
A Plymouth-based franchise

These franchises would all focus on providing connectivity to their hubs. Hub-to-hub would have been provided by "Intercity" operators. These would have been MML, WCML, ECML and GWR

 

[eldomtom2]

The original franchises were directly created from the BR sectors' "profit groups" with only minor tweaks, weren't they?

 

[zwk500]

The "correct" answer (such as it is) would be that the franchises should have continued to evolve over time, merging or splitting as required by changing travel patterns. There is not one single correct way to organise the railway.

 

[amahy]

Northern has always been a bit big to manage, so I'm not sure that merging the two sides has really worked.

Agreed. There seems to be unequal treatment between North West, Leeds, and North East areas. Other than Ashington, the North East hasn’t seen any significant investment in years!

 

[zwk500]

Agreed. There seems to be unequal treatment between North West, Leeds, and North East areas. Other than Ashington, the North East hasn’t seen any significant investment in years!

That's not necessarily caused by the oversize of Northern though. And the Metro is having it's fleet replaced.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

For its limited existence, the Strategic Rail Authority (which let the second round of franchises) had a policy of "one franchise per London terminus".
This is what gave rise to Greater Western (merging FGW, Thames and Wessex) based on Paddington, and Greater Anglia based on Liverpool St.
They never got round to implementing the policy at Euston and Kings Cross, which might have merged VT/LM, and LNER/GN.
The formation of GTR got in the way of further integration north and south of the Thames, and still does.

Up north they created TPE as an inter city TOC and merged the rest into Northern.
They created Wales & Borders by merging parts of FNW, Central, and the Wales part of Wales & West into what had been Cardiff Railway (ie the Valley Lines).
Virgin lost three of its XC routes to Arriva but kept the Birmingham-Scotland leg.

Nobody tried anything radical with franchise boundaries after the SRA was abolished and taken into DfT.
WMT was targeted to become separate WMR and LNR TOCs, when smaller franchises were briefly promoted.

Network Rail repeatedly changed its Route boundaries and then merged them into its current Regions.
It remains to be seen how DfT TOCs and NR Regions are integrated as GBR - XC, TPE and Northern look messy against the NR Regional map.

 

[A S Leib]

Agreed. There seems to be unequal treatment between North West, Leeds, and North East areas. Other than Ashington, the North East hasn’t seen any significant investment in years!

If you'd count it as significant investment, there's been Horden opening and Hartlepool's second platform, and service-wise the semifast Newcastle to Middlesbrough (outside Northern, there's been new Metro trains, TPE to Redcar / Saltburn, LNER and a platform under construction at Middlesbrough, the third Newcastle LNER from December and Lumo).

Should there have just been one operator at Birmingham Moor Street / Snow Hill, with Chiltern running all stopping services through Solihull and Stourbridge?

It feels incongruous to me for TfW to go to Birmingham and Manchester for services to mid / north Wales and Cardiff but not to Bristol. I think the current solution's best though; Portsmouth and (unless going straight over the Bristol Channel) Exeter are much further from the Bristol Channel, and keeping all non-CrossCountry Bristol to Westbury and Taunton services together is probably better as well.