Virgin to Lose West Coast?

I always use Virgin Atlantic to go from London to my summer home in Florida and they are good I have used the trains also so I give Virgin a thumbs up
 
That is sad.

Even though I'm not a big fan of the pendolinos, I liked the idea of having a shop available so you could go and get something when you wanted. Get ready for a fare rise as FirstGroup have to pay £230m more than virgin per year.

Regards

Johan
 
Did you read the bit about 11 new 6 car trains, what use are they going to be unless you have 5 12 car sets + a 6 car spare.
Euston -Blackpool, not viable unless preston-blackpool is electrified, virgin tried it years ago.
Euston-Telford+Shrewsbury, an extension of the birmingham+wolverhampton service, now that's been tried by virgin and very recently by another operator whose name eludes me ( they run Birmingham moor street -Marylebone, london). Both gave up because of lack of custom, and the latter was charging very low fares.
Euston-bolton ??:hehe: Oh please stop dreaming, that's going to be an extended Manchester service which then runs to preston+blackpool when the line is electrified. Oh and that's your additional service to preston as well as the new service to blackpool probably.
Euston-glasgow times are pretty nippy now and I doubt can be improved on much, mind you if they shave a minute off they've improved it.
 
Yup, gotta love that cost cutting. Just think, we'd have to have lived without the Class 142 Pacer if it wasn't for trying to save money LOL

I actually had to go from Stockport to Chester en route to Wales yesterday, in a Class 142, and when I changed at Chester and got onto a Class 185 to continue the journey, it was like swapping from riding in the back of a truck to getting into a Bentley. I made the mistake of thinking I'd be able to put the sugar in my cup of tea whilst riding on that 142, it must have taken about ten miles before I managed it because the ride quality was so bad LOL.

Of course even First wouldn't use something that crappy for a long range trip, but when they will have to find savings from somewhere, Christ alone knows what we'll end up with on the WCML now First are on the job, they apparently have a lot more Pendolino cars on the way, so expect longer trains and fewer of them. Richard Branson might be a bit of a self-aggrandising twat, but you've at least got to admire him in refusing to come in with a bid that would have meant an inevitable drop in standards coupled with a price increase, and this decision to drop Virgin came on the very day where there were numerous protests at stations throughout the UK complaining about cost cutting measures.

The WCML trains to London will probably end up as bad as the GNER ones you used to get from York up to Scotland, which as you know were disgracefully filthy inside and the service was attrocious. Stand by for some minimum wage immigrant who can barely speak English to be running a filthy buffet car on the Penzance to Scotland trains, if by some miracle there even is a buffet car. It'll be like getting a train from Bangalore or Gdansk in 1975. Still, fans of historic double headers will be happy; with the 18 passenger cars they'll have to string together into a consist in order to make the trip even in with a remote chance of being profitable, there'll probably be three leased Class 37s necessary at the head of the train in order to get it moving LOL

Al
 
fran1 said:
Did you read the bit about 11 new 6 car trains, what use are they going to be unless you have 5 12 car sets + a 6 car spare.
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They are to replace 221's on the Birmingham - Scotland services where the line is electrified throughout . The 221's will be cascaded to the London - North Wales route to bolster the service and will also be used for running through to Shrewsbury from London

fran1 said:
Euston -Blackpool, not viable unless preston-blackpool is electrified, virgin tried it years ago.
Euston-Telford+Shrewsbury, an extension of the birmingham+wolverhampton service, now that's been tried by virgin and very recently by another operator whose name eludes me ( they run Birmingham moor street -Marylebone, london). Both gave up because of lack of custom, and the latter was charging very low fares.
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Preston- Blackpool and Manchester to Preston via Bolton all included in the North West electrification scheme that's just started .

Virgin ran 1 train a day in each direction from Shrewsbury to London and return . It involved having to change over to a diesel / electric loco at Wolverhampton plus running around the train twice at Shrewsbury (empty stock from oxley in the morning plus the empties back to oxley in the evening) which involved having to train platform staff at Wolves to be shunters and also for one to travel to Shrewsbury to perform the run around . At the time Virgin 47's where falling apart and they had to regularly hire in other providers loco's at a higher cost to operate the train .

Wrexham and Shropshire was the open access company that failed , One of the main reasons being the inability to pick up passengers from Wolverhampton enroute to London or the ability to stop at New street International or Coventry due to a clause included in Virgin west coasts franchise . This clause was added by the DFT as a sweetener for all of the problems that had beset the west coast upgrade and the loss of earnings experienced by Virgin because of it . This prevented other companies from coming in and extracting revenue from them .

Had Wrexham and Shrops been able to stop at those places then they would more than likely still be running today !!
 
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If nothing else, the repainters for train sims will be happy, although I can't imagine the Pendolinos will look better in another livery, the Virgin Alstom paint job really suits them. One suspects they'll have to come up with a similarly-themed colour scheme, otherwise the distinctly Virgin coloured seats on the Pendolinos with clash horribly with the outside livery colour if it remains typically blue as most First stuff is. As a budgetary consideration, they could always simply write 'Not' in front of the Virgin logo in felt tipped pen.

Al
 
I'm looking forward to the "first" Pinkalino to repainted/vinyled .

The virgin seats are being totally replaced with new ones and the interiors will be upgraded so that the Virgin branding / livery will disappear completely .
Not sure how the interiors will end up looking especially if they go for those high back seats in use on Great Western as the Pendo interiors are already claustrophobic !
 
Hi Everybody.
I believe that this discussion should not be revolving around what colour the carriage interiors will be under first group or whether virgin will eventually be proved to have operated the services more efficiently than first will. What this whole situation is calling into question is whether the franchising system is past its sell by date. I seem to remember that when the privatisation of British rail was originally brought forward in the early 90s even some conservative politicians were advising that they thought this was one privatisation too far.

Sadly as far as the actual track was concerned that proved to be just the case. It was not until a number of people had lost their lives with others maimed for life in a number accidents caused by the private companies poor maintenance that it was decided to bring it back into public ownership.

Now the bidding process for who should operate the trains on those publicly owned tracks seems to have turned into a fiasco of who ever can offer the government the most billions for its coffers gets the franchise regardless of whether the sums add up or not. We have already seen two companies walk away from their responsibilities on the East Coast mainline and there would now seem to be a strong possibility of the same occurrence happening on the West Coast.

It is true that should first group succeed, then as far as us rail users in the West of England are concerned it is possible we could get a far better service to the north of England and Scotland through a better link up with first great Western. However, the whole enterprise would seem to be a huge gamble by first group with quite possibly passengers and rail staff finishing up the big losers.

I have to say that Bob Crow the leader of the RMT union (not a man I have always agreed with) made an excellent case for bringing the whole train operating system back into public ownership on the media this morning. After all, the track is back in public ownership, the East Coast mainline both track and train operation is effectively back in public ownership and Britain's rail world has not come to an end. Perhaps it is time to think of Britons railways once again as an essential part of the transport infrastructure and therefore it is "too big to be allowed to fail".

Now where have I heard those words before
Bill
 
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This whole franchise system is complete madness - treating the West Coast Mainline, our premier railway, like it's some kind of cheap corner fried chicken shop! Nobody else in the world runs their railway industry like this, certainly not in the rest of Europe. Have any lessons been learned since the debacle of National Express East Coast? They too put in a ludicrously high bid in order to oust GNER, couldn't make the sums add up and then just walked away and foisted the whole thing back onto the taxpayer. It's obvious that the First Group bid has no chance of success without mass redundancies, huge fare increases and the complete rundown of the service, the economics just don't add up.

Under BR we said, this is the age of the train, under privatisation it's been the age of the accountant!

Paul
 
Paulsw2 said:
It's obvious that the First Group bid has no chance of success without mass redundancies, huge fare increases and the complete rundown of the service, the economics just don't add up.
Paul
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If Virgin leave the train operator market in the UK, as Branson has suggested may happen because of this, then the economics most certainly do add up for FirstGroup. And that I suspect, is what their motivation was for throwing what on the face of it, looked like a nonsensically larger bid, and probably greasing some palms in Whitehall whilst they were at it.

Pretty much any loss they take would be a worthwhile price to pay in order to blow away the main competition and is certainly a price most large businesses would happily pay if it ended up meaning they have pretty much what will be a monopoly thereafter. They're not called the FirstGroup for nothing, they look after themselves first, and everyone else, including UK rail users, can go and f...

Al
 
Ah, I take your point - ie. they'll take a hit on the West Coast franchise and subsidise it from elsewhere in their company's profits. Of course, such are the ways of monopoly capital. Then, once they have passengers and the taxpayer over a barrel, they can start squeezing....

Paul
 
I don't understand all this financial jiggery-pokery regarding the WCML franchise but one thing I do is to thank my lucky stars that I don't have to rely on the railways of Britain to travel long distance in the UK, it's far too expensive!

For example, I looked on line for a return off peak from Northwich to Plymouth for 2 adults, the cheapest being £277 for the two of us, the journey time of nearly 7 hours with 3 changes of train. By road, £100 fuel (inc returning), journey time 4 - 4.5 hours and stop for a rest if we feel the need to. I know there is motoring costs i.e. tax, insurance etc. not to mention the initial cost of the vehicle but that's already paid for so I'm afraid it's a no brainer as far as I'm concerned, the car wins if only for convenience sake!

I don't really care who runs trains over WCML metals or any other mainline, I shan't be availing myself of their services.
 
First Group have won the tender for the WCML, and it starts from December 2012.

Sorry to see Virgin Trains lose the contract to First Group, they ran a modern service over a Victorian line, they done all the hard work bringing long distance times down and trying to keep fare prices as low as possible, all the while restoration work was done on the network, but it seems the message from the Government is, let someone else do all the hard work, and once all the hard work has been done, let someone else jump in and take all the credit, nice one British Government, you failed again.

The government think they have made the right choice without thinking ahead, which seems to be the way today.

However, First Group run more trains over more railways in the United Kingdom than any other rail company, and when they get the West Coast Mainline, they will own the majority share of the railways, so if First Group don't get what they want from the Government i.e pay or conditions or whatever else, they can go on strike and bring most of the UK railway to a halt, and basically bring the UK Government and the UK people to ransom, bet the UK Government hasn't thought of that one yet.

Joe Airtime
 
Joe I can see where you coming from with your argument over pay and conditions but I'm afraid it doesn't work like that . Each franchise has it's own set of pay and conditions and it is against the law for one franchise to come out on strike in support of another's gripe over it's pay and conditions .

There are some wide differences between the pay and conditions of current franchises run by First group but all these will have been sorted over time in an attempt (from a managerial point of view) to best match on how that franchise operates on a daily basis .

Virgin staff will be unhappy because of potential loss of the additional perks they receive :
Virgin mobiles , discounted Virgin air travel , discounted access to Virgin fitness centres , Virgin Pensions and probably a lot more .
They stand to lose all of these under first group .
The bearded one knows that if you show appreciation to your staff then they will be happier , feel appreciated and work harder .

That is the problem with a lot of firms in the UK these days , no appreciation from the company only snide comments about the fact you should appreciate you have a job "we pay you what more do you want !!"
 
nexusdj said:
Virgin staff will be unhappy because of potential loss of the additional perks they receive :
Virgin mobiles , discounted Virgin air travel , discounted access to Virgin fitness centres , Virgin Pensions and probably a lot more .
They stand to lose all of these under first group .
The bearded one knows that if you show appreciation to your staff then they will be happier , feel appreciated and work harder .

That is the problem with a lot of firms in the UK these days , no appreciation from the company only snide comments about the fact you should appreciate you have a job "we pay you what more do you want !!"
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Hi Dave, hope your well,

I did not know about the perks that Virgin staff have, blimey no wonder they are up in arms, thank you for clearing that up, I thought with First Group having most control of the rail system, I thought if they ever went on strike, most of the country would be left without a rail service, as there is no competition around to keep major lines running.

I agree with your quote "no appreciation from the company only snide comments about the fact you should appreciate you have a job "we pay you what more do you want !!" too many company's are going this way, it is such a shame, If people feel appreciated, then they will be happier and would want to work more, as they will feel rewarded with the work they have done.

Once again, many thanks Dave for your quick reply, and by the way love the Dorman signals you made, they look and work great, many thanks for making them.

Joe Airtime
 
Hi Everybody.

I entirely agree with the comment on employers not showing any appreciation to staff especially in large companies. With regard to virgin trains staff I don't think things are that Rosie even with them. Last October the virgin train cleaning staff held a 24-hour strike with regard to wages and safety conditions and at the same time the virgin management were trying to de-recognise the RMT union right across the company. I am not sure whether the management succeeded in that but if they did it could have a large bearing on entire staffs future.

It is almost certain that the existing virgin staff will have to be employed by first group under what is known as the transfer of undertakings regulations (TUPE). These regulations ensure that when a contract passes from one company to another the company gaining the contract has to employ the staff of the company which has lost the contract on their existing terms and conditions at least for a limited period of time and that period of time can often be decided by the courts.

There is also the fact that if the transferred employees are members of a trade union which had been recognised by the old employer that trade union has to be recognised by the new company for the staff that are transferred. Therefore, if the virgin Management has succeeded in derecognition of the employees union then it will be far easier for first group to make an early attack on the transferred employees wages and conditions as there would be no union to push forward court action on behalf of them.

The first group management would also have the right to select the union of their choice for recognition by the company which would obviously be one which is in pocket of the management and willing to agree to anything they requested. Believe it or not such unions do exist in Britain although I would not call them trade unions.

Therefore the existing virgin train employees have much more to lose than their extra perks. First group are already 1.8 billion in debt before taking on the West Coast franchise. They will undoubtedly be requiring every hour they can legally get the staff to work and reduce their wages by every penny they can get.

Bill
 
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I don't believe in the simpistic thinking that palms were greased at all and not a serious thing at all and a feeling based maybe on frustration! However the other night on tv, Sky News did a pie chart on the cost of running a railway and at the end of it it showed that a rail company actually made 3%. Sir Richard Branson had a lot of bother I recall in his day, especially early on and there were unhappy people. Later he however to his credi,t increased the passenger numbers not only a bit but tremendously. Having previous lost the Cross-County franchise and now this he has went ballistic but the point is he submitted a bid under the system well knowing the conditions. He is in danger of looking very immature in his handling of this matter and his rantings bordering on the silly. The man should know better. In fact he said that he would apart from a belated moan about the rules only accept an apology from the Prime Minister to consider a rail franchise again! No PM is going to react to that one. That's just daft and ridiculous.

We will have to wait and see how First operates. They have made some big assertions including an extra coach and much more seating, increased trains - one an hour from Glasgow - London?? Things like this coming to pass and how many Virgin staff take on First trains will be the proof of the pudding. Passengers ar the piggies in the middle but as long as they get a good service the colour on the outside of the trains makes little difference to them.
 
In that case that's one hell of a risk they've taken to make a measly 3% profit. It speaks volumes to note that First share price went down when they won the bid, whilst Virgin's went up when they lost.

With only a £190m forfeit if First walks away early, but £2bn to pay over in the last few years, it's fairly clear what will happen. In fact I would say it's now the accepted business model for rail franchising. GNER and Nat Express got away with it, so why not First? The politicians, having made their short-term gain, will no doubt escape any responsibility for the long term mess they will create.
 
rjhowie said:
I don't believe in the simpistic thinking that palms were greased at all and not a serious thing at all and a feeling based maybe on frustration!
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I've nothing to be frustrated about in suggesting that palms might have been greased, but I do have personal knowledge of it occuring, my dad was a politician and the mayor of my home town for one thing, and he used to fill me in on the shennanigans that went on (and no I'm not going to mention anything about them on here LOL, although I will say that my dad was not one of the bent ones, a stance which actually ended his political career). I've also worked for an MP in the past as well. As if that wasn't enough, I worked for a daily newspaper group (the Guardian) for over ten years as a sub and a writer, and in that job you get to hear about stuff too. Generally what you hear would be hard to prove, but it is nevertheless fairly believable considering some of the sources I've heard stuff from.

Really, if you think the notion that wheels get greased in political circles is simplistic, then you have obviously never been involved in politics. I can assure you that it happens; as I say, you rarely hear about it in any concrete form, for rather obvious reasons, but believe me, it goes on all the time. I could tell you things about some prominent (and I do mean prominent) UK politicians that would make your jaw drop, and if some of that ever came out and could be made to stick as a criminal charge, we'd be talking about major long term prison sentences. If it wasn't for D Notices and backhanders that is. I wouldn't trust the average politician as far as I could throw them, and as I say, that's coming from someone whose father was a politician LOL

Al
 
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