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Post by chapelwood on Mar 18, 2011 17:24:55 GMT
It has been announced that the Southeastern franchise has been extended for two years until March 2014. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12786562This was not unexpected, as DfT is quite busy at the moment with new franchises, including the West Coast Main Line, and needs to be clearer about timescales and disruption from the Thameslink Project and Crossrail before awarding a new long franchise for Kent. |
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Post by sibodkent on Mar 18, 2011 22:55:30 GMT
Since 2005, my basic rail fair has risen from £1640 to just under £2700. Thats almost £1100 more a year for what? Fewer , slower services to London.
Isnt that something like 80% inflation over 6 years?
But wait! THey improved everything and made it all faster!
Yes - but they charge me for using it. So actually, nothing has improved - it's got worse unless you pay through the nose to get any benefit.
How can this shambles of an operation be allowed to continue the franchise is beyond me, so lets hope they are given marching orders come 2014!
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Post by genehuntisking on Mar 20, 2011 18:50:02 GMT
I can't help wondering who would get it instead, and would they necessarily be any better or worse. Remember nobody thought there could be anybody worse than Connex.
Perhaps it is the whole franchise system that is wrong?
The Gene Genie
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Post by Richard Trevithick on Mar 21, 2011 10:48:43 GMT
I think Gene has hit the nail on the head - the franchise system is totally wrong. What was supposed to promote competition - and hence improve the service - has done nothing of the sort. We only need to look at the recent demise of the Wrexham & Shropshire Railway where Virgin complained about them stopping at stations they had refused to serve to realse how corrupt it is.
My money is they will get anohter 18 month extension bolted onto the end of this. The Southern franchise ends summer 2015 and FCC autumn 2015. It would be too tempting for DaFT to not miss the opportunity of creating one big superTOC. It has even been rumoured in many circles for many years that the govt. want to reduce the number of TOCs, and this would be the easiest way of doing it.
ASLEF (the train driver union) did try to take over the old GNER franchise on a not for profit basis. They were knocked back almost immediately because they didn't have any experience operating a rail transport system (yet none of the existing bus companies who operate the train companies had this experience when moving to rail). It would be interesting to hear peoples opinions on whether this would be a welcome alternative to the shareholder driven system that is currently in place. I can think of a one or two drawbacks, but I think it would generally benefit everyone. Discuss.... :-)
RT
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