West Coast Franchise speculation

[driver_m]

Whilst I’ll keep Quiet on the main topic for fairly obvious reasons, I’m really failing to see what is so bad about the Voyager that it wants scrapping. I read the usual cliched nonsense about the toilets and such on twitter, but most of the time, the person doing this will be on an XC unit. The amount of times I’ve seen our Twitter lot get a complaint, yet then have to send it onto XC over this is ridiculous. If they were going over the Pennines on whatever service that TPE or EMT run, or doing Manchester-South Wales, most would be pretty happy with them. But for some reason add London to the train and it’s suddenly not good enough. (I’m not referring to them being under AC lines which should be AC operated units, or on current XC routes, that’s another argument). The sight line for views is good, they are actually pretty reliable, I’ve never had to fail one and the ride quality at the front and within is pretty good, compared to other units. The AC is usually superb and the toilets are nowhere near as bad as they used to be. I walk through plenty of these in the mornings doing checks and they don’t smell. Of course that can be different after a day of use, but even the cleanest toilet can be messed up badly in minutes. The biggest bugbear for me is the engines in summertime when they can struggle with heat and a couple of niggly things in the cab but I have to say they deserve a lot more credit than they get on here.

 

[The Ham]

Whilst I’ll keep Quiet on the main topic for fairly obvious reasons, I’m really failing to see what is so bad about the Voyager that it wants scrapping. I read the usual cliched nonsense about the toilets and such on twitter, but most of the time, the person doing this will be on an XC unit. The amount of times I’ve seen our Twitter lot get a complaint, yet then have to send it onto XC over this is ridiculous. If they were going over the Pennines on whatever service that TPE or EMT run, or doing Manchester-South Wales, most would be pretty happy with them. But for some reason add London to the train and it’s suddenly not good enough. (I’m not referring to them being under AC lines which should be AC operated units, or on current XC routes, that’s another argument). The sight line for views is good, they are actually pretty reliable, I’ve never had to fail one and the ride quality at the front and within is pretty good, compared to other units. The AC is usually superb and the toilets are nowhere near as bad as they used to be. I walk through plenty of these in the mornings doing checks and they don’t smell. Of course that can be different after a day of use, but even the cleanest toilet can be messed up badly in minutes. The biggest bugbear for me is the engines in summertime when they can struggle with heat and a couple of niggly things in the cab but I have to say they deserve a lot more credit than they get on here.

Voyagers are generally, from my experience as a passenger good units. The things that let them down are (I've not used a Virgin one only XC ones):
- worked too hard
- not cleaned enough (see 1)
- don't have their toilets emptied enough (see 1)
- don't have enough seats (see 1)

Basically if there were more of them and/or they were longer then they wouldn't get quite so much flack as they do.

I find them more comfortable then the Mark 4's as they have better legroom.

 

[coppercapped]

That isn’t what they said is it? I thought they were just writing off the £100m profit they were expecting. It would be more than that if they were planning on chucking away the bonds etc?

I was referring to an article in The Times.

You are correct - the £102 million charge was to cover future losses, the article states

First’s rail problems yesterday resulted in it taking a £102 million charge to cover future losses at South Western...

and goes on to say that that it has effectively withdrawn from the West Coast bidding.
However it is a bit unclear - at least to me - whether First expects SWR to run an operating loss, which would be quite a turnaround from the situation only a couple of years ago, or whether the charge really does cover the loss of the bonds. I suspect that you are correct - in that the value of the bonds would be greater than £100 million for an operation the size of SWT.

Anyway - the future does not look rosy for First's involvement in either franchise.

Edit: completed final sentence having hit Send too early.