Undelivered franchise commitments

[deltic]

Whenever a new franchise is announced there is often cynerism by some on this forum about the ability of the operator to deliver all its commitments. Interested to hear of examples where TOCs have not delivered and if there were any consequences.

 

[NSEFAN]

Well recently GTR has been missing its service targets. The DfT responded by redefining the targets.

 

[thenorthern]

I think both the Virgin West Coast and CrossCountry franchises had/have some undelivered franchise commitments although the Government put the blame on the collapse of Railtrack PLC rather than Virgin Rail group.

 

[ScotTrains]

Abellio promised £7.50 First class advance fares when they won the Scotrail franchise but there's been no sign of these.

https://www.abellio.com/news/abellio-awarded-contract-operate-scotlands-national-railway-scotrail

I don't think it was an actual franchise commitment but it's still a broken promise.

 

[ainsworth74]

I wonder if they're not waiting for their all singing all dancing 'new' HSTs to appear.

 

[Starmill]

And they have actually started doing Advance First, although it is at higher price points that £7.50 they didn't used to offer it at all so...

 

[Altnabreac]

I wonder if they're not waiting for their all singing all dancing 'new' HSTs to appear.

Indeed the £5 and £7.50 fares are planned to encourage take up of empty space in the longer HSTs with more capacity.

No point in launching the fares and overcrowding the 170s on the route.

 

[thenorthern]

I think Virgin West Coast had a franchise commitment for 140mph running but in the end that never happened but thats more down to Railtrack than anything else. Also the commitments of Operation Princess never fully came to fruition.

National Express East Coast failed their 2007 franchise commitment of getting passengers up and successfully running a franchise until 2015, they managed until 2009. I think there was a commitment as well to extend the 2 hourly London-Newark Northgate service to Lincoln but in the end it never happened and Lincoln only ended up with 1 East Coast train to London per day.

 

[3141]

Chiltern proposed re-opening the line from Princes Risborough to Oxford via Thame. However, they've now (almost) provided a new service to Oxford via Bicester, which offers more in terms of access to rail services from north and west of Oxford than the original proposal would have done for Thame and Wheatley. And they are now looking into the re-introduction of services to Cowley.

They proposed faster services to London from Aylesbury via Amersham.

I think they also talked about more frequent calls at the Sudbury stations and Northolt Park.

 

[swt_passenger]

Chiltern proposed re-opening the line from Princes Risborough to Oxford via Thame. However, they've now (almost) provided a new service to Oxford via Bicester, which offers more in terms of access to rail services from north and west of Oxford than the original proposal would have done for Thame and Wheatley...

Chiltern's proposal in the 2002 franchise agreement was for a Marylebone to Oxford service, and by 2003 a report to the SRA determined that it would either be via Thame or via Bicester, and following detailed planning they chose the Bicester route for well documented reasons, so the original commitment (to Oxford) is delivered.

It may be that when first publicised people assumed it would be more likely to run via Thame, but that was not actually the wording of the 2002 Chiltern franchise agreement.

I linked to a report about the route decision making a couple of months ago: http://www.chiltern-evergreen3.co.uk/uploads/09Sep2010/2.3.pdf

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

GNER promised a few park and ride stations, near Doncaster and London, never happened.

 

[Waldgrun]

Anyone remember Stagecoach South West Trains branch line bus services, three I think ran, Winchester to Romsey, Liphook to Bordon, and Petersfield to Waterlooville. Buses in SWT Livery able to issue through rail tickets. Promised to provide more services but never did, and I believe that they have stopped running the three services mentioned.

 

[northwichcat]

I think Virgin West Coast had a franchise commitment for 140mph running but in the end that never happened but thats more down to Railtrack than anything else. Also the commitments of Operation Princess never fully came to fruition.

National Express East Coast failed their 2007 franchise commitment of getting passengers up and successfully running a franchise until 2015, they managed until 2009. I think there was a commitment as well to extend the 2 hourly London-Newark Northgate service to Lincoln but in the end it never happened and Lincoln only ended up with 1 East Coast train to London per day.

NXEC were stripped of the franchise before the Lincoln services were due to start but they had secured 180s ready to run it. DOR decided the Lincoln plan and 180s wasn't necessary.

Old Northern failed in delivering the stated extra capacity following electrification but that was due to DfT changing the targets so that Northern could sublease 156s to TPE and Chiltern weren't blocked from nabbing the TPE 170s.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It is noticeable that some of the postings on this thread put forward items, then qualify them by saying it was not the fault of the TOC but .....:roll:

Let us concentrate on TOC failings to deliver that are directly attributable to the TOC concerned.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Go read National Expresses vision for the GEML franchise when they were confirmed winners of it and what they promised. Then see the mess they left behind.

They claim they would spend some money improving services, stations and giving a excellent refurb of the trains, which is the biggest laugh of them all.

Nobody has seen the money since.

 

[HH]

The East Coast franchise seems to exert some malign influence on bidders, whereby common sense flies out of the window and blithe fantasy flies in. At least one bidder succumbs to the temptation of bidding a revenue line that Angels would fear to tread on.

Now if DfT did their job, these bids would be risk-adjusted out and then we'd no longer see them. But as it is there'll always be one bidder with more hubris than sense.

 

[ainsworth74]

The East Coast franchise seems to exert some malign influence on bidders, whereby common sense flies out of the window and blithe fantasy flies in. At least one bidder succumbs to the temptation of bidding a revenue line that Angels would fear to tread on.

Now if DfT did their job, these bids would be risk-adjusted out and then we'd no longer see them. But as it is there'll always be one bidder with more hubris than sense.

Same on the West Coast as well. The premium payments that First West Coast were proposing to make were truly heroic in the final years (I'm sure at least one year towards the end they were saying they'd pay £1 billion in premium payments).

 

[northwichcat]

I recall Govia saying their LM franchise would see most trains replaced and those that weren't replaced would be refurbished. Have they started refurbishing the 350/1s yet?

 

[3141]

Chiltern's proposal in the 2002 franchise agreement was for a Marylebone to Oxford service, and by 2003 a report to the SRA determined that it would either be via Thame or via Bicester, and following detailed planning they chose the Bicester route for well documented reasons, so the original commitment (to Oxford) is delivered.

It may be that when first publicised people assumed it would be more likely to run via Thame, but that was not actually the wording of the 2002 Chiltern franchise agreement.

I linked to a report about the route decision making a couple of months ago: http://www.chiltern-evergreen3.co.uk/uploads/09Sep2010/2.3.pdf

Yes, I followed that link and it was most interesting.

You may remember that back in 2000 or 2001, when franchises were handled by the Strategic Rail Authority, some information about each bid was made public. I think that was the stage at which Chiltern received a lot of publicity for their proposal to re-open Princes Risborough to Oxford. At about the same time Thames Trains submitted even more ambitious proposals involving passenger services from Aylesbury to Calvert and then on to Bletchley.

I think about a year elapsed between Chiltern being declared preferred bidder and confirmation that they would be awarded the 20-year franchise. I wonder if one reason for that lengthy wait was because the re-opening of the former line via Thame was found to present difficulties, and that therefore the franchise agreement included a commitment to look at various possible routes.

 

[deltic]

Weren't Cross Country and may be Great Western late in delivering wi-fi commitments? But overall there dont seem to be many examples of TOCs failing to deliver. Many of the early franchises from memory did have ambitious plans in them to extend the network but these were only ever commitments to study them.

All bids are risk adjusted but events happen that no-one can for see. East Coast blamed 7/7 for damping down leisure travel to London which meant they couldnt achieve their optimistic growth targets. Over 20 years it is surprising how few failures there have actually been so all the criticism SRA/DfT got/get they have done a pretty good job. Albeit that later franchises introduced far more risk sharing mechanisms to prevent operators going under.

 

[kevconnor]

Also the commitments of Operation Princess never fully came to fruition.

Was this part of Operation Princess plans weren't implemented or that stated aims weren't achieved?

 

[Pete268]

I am pretty sure it was National Express East Coast who promised to open a first class lounge at York. Mind you, they also wanted to install ticket barriers at York but that never happened either.

I always find it strange though that the likes of Wakefield has a 1st class lounge but York, a much busier station, doesn't.

 

[AndyW33]

I am pretty sure it was National Express East Coast who promised to open a first class lounge at York. Mind you, they also wanted to install ticket barriers at York but that never happened either.

I always find it strange though that the likes of Wakefield has a 1st class lounge but York, a much busier station, doesn't.

The other difference between the two stations is that Wakefield Westgate is TOC-managed and York is Network Rail (previously Railtrack) managed. It's a lot easier to find suitable space when you directly control which space is used for what purpose.

 

[Pete268]

The other difference between the two stations is that Wakefield Westgate is TOC-managed and York is Network Rail (previously Railtrack) managed. It's a lot easier to find suitable space when you directly control which space is used for what purpose.

York is managed by Virgin East Coast (infact since privatisation it has always been managed by the incumbent East Coast TOC).

See under the large lettered YRK on:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations_destinations/yrk.aspx

Pete