WCML FirstGroup franchise scrapped.
- Thread starter robd
- Start date
This thread also refers: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...o-Lose-West-Coast&highlight=virgin+west+coast
Astonishing. Even I didn't predict a fiasco before the contract was actually signed! This will cost taxpayers £40 to £60 million and all the other current franchise tenders will have to be put on hold while they work out exactly what went wrong at DfT, which could be 12 months at least. Actually, this tells us what we already knew: a bunch of officials sat in a Whitehall office can't actually predict the likely returns on train services for a particular line over the next 15 years. The whole franchise concept is completely ludicrous - this is a railway, not a chain of chicken shops!
This is what happens to a once great industry when you allow it to be run by a motley crew of bus company executives and Whitehall civil servants.
Renationalisation now!
Paul (hail, hail British Rail!)
Astonishing. Even I didn't predict a fiasco before the contract was actually signed! This will cost taxpayers £40 to £60 million and all the other current franchise tenders will have to be put on hold while they work out exactly what went wrong at DfT, which could be 12 months at least. Actually, this tells us what we already knew: a bunch of officials sat in a Whitehall office can't actually predict the likely returns on train services for a particular line over the next 15 years. The whole franchise concept is completely ludicrous - this is a railway, not a chain of chicken shops!
This is what happens to a once great industry when you allow it to be run by a motley crew of bus company executives and Whitehall civil servants.
Renationalisation now!
Paul (hail, hail British Rail!)
I don't find it astonishing at all, love or hate Richard Branson he doesn't usually make rash or false claims, in my view this was entirely predictable, the now aborted judicial review probably prompted someone to just double check they hadn't made any errors and wooops!
I would think the best option would be to review all the submitted bids again rather than compensating the bidders, which would probably mean Virgin retaining the franchise.
However if we're going to have a publicly run WCML perhaps we can bring back the Intercity livery - I think the pendolino suits it, as seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowan826/7098347121/
However if we're going to have a publicly run WCML perhaps we can bring back the Intercity livery - I think the pendolino suits it, as seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowan826/7098347121/
Hi Everybody.
I'd like to think that it was a "errors and wooops" situation. However most Whitehall civil servants are from an Oxbridge degree background which (if you believe what you read) makes them among the most intelligent people in the country. Therefore find it difficult to believe that these people cannot add, subtract or do basic risk assessment without making "errors"
No, this thing has a smell about it which ensured that this government did not wish anything to be brought out in open court which may have brought even far greater embarrassment Than that they have reaped already .
Dare I say it but perhaps the smell I referred to is the smell of "backhanders", not unknown in British society these days.
Bill
I'd like to think that it was a "errors and wooops" situation. However most Whitehall civil servants are from an Oxbridge degree background which (if you believe what you read) makes them among the most intelligent people in the country. Therefore find it difficult to believe that these people cannot add, subtract or do basic risk assessment without making "errors"
No, this thing has a smell about it which ensured that this government did not wish anything to be brought out in open court which may have brought even far greater embarrassment Than that they have reaped already .
Dare I say it but perhaps the smell I referred to is the smell of "backhanders", not unknown in British society these days.
Bill
I don't know, and won't ever know, all the details and 'ins and outs' of this particular piece of corruption but I have to agree with you, Bill, that the whole affair stinks and has had some elected government members and high ranking civil servants running to the toilets with a rolls of bog paper just to relieve themselves!
Rob.
Hi Rob And everyone.
Great one their Rob. It just demonstrates that us Brits have the ability to laugh at any crappy situation even if it's going to cost us 100 million pounds to bring that laughter to our faces.
Bill
Great one their Rob. It just demonstrates that us Brits have the ability to laugh at any crappy situation even if it's going to cost us 100 million pounds to bring that laughter to our faces.
Bill
I was probably being a touch diplomatic with my woops. Having some inside experience, I've always been suspicious of how certain poorly performing organisations always get awarded "Government Contracts" when on past performance, if it had been up to me, I'd have given them the boot.
Now retired and well out of it by the way!
But I doubt that many have science, maths or engineering degrees. Most I suspect have Arts degrees and their mathematics would have stopped at age 16. Remembering my days in the late 1950s when I worked in Whitehall during my National Service I wouldn't agree about "backhanders" but more about political expediency.
Hi everybody.
We were talking about this fiasco in the office this afternoon with everybody agreeing that the real tragedy in all this are the virgin employees who at this moment cannot know what the future holds for them and it is likely to remain that way well into the future.
With First Group scheduled to take over the running of the West Coast franchise in early December, without doubt the transfer of employees from virgin to first group through TUPE (transfer of undertakings protection of employee’s regulations) would have been well underway. Many employees will have signed to transfer their employment to first group on the original supposed day of the takeover of the franchise. Perhaps and more importantly they may well have signed out of the virgin pension scheme which could not be transferred with them and may well find they cannot sign back into on the original conditions due to changes in their age etc.
With the above in mind, just who will be employing them in December. Will it be virgin, which many of them may not have an employment contract with any longer. Will it be the government, in which case new contracts of employment and terms and conditions will have to be agreed and drawn up with, or legally they may be employed by first group who obviously would have no work for them and would have to make them immediately redundant.
Without doubt whoever is running the trains on the West Coast mainline will need the skills, experience and dedication of the current workforce. However, the legal implications of all the foregoing may well cost the British taxpayer much more than the projected £100 million especially if the workforce has to be compensated for any loss of pension rights they may suffer.
Whatever happens, everyone can only sympathise with the predicament the employees must now find themselves in. They seem to be very much the forgotten human factor in this mess which was certainly not of their making. But then that is Britain today where money matters far more than people.
Bill
We were talking about this fiasco in the office this afternoon with everybody agreeing that the real tragedy in all this are the virgin employees who at this moment cannot know what the future holds for them and it is likely to remain that way well into the future.
With First Group scheduled to take over the running of the West Coast franchise in early December, without doubt the transfer of employees from virgin to first group through TUPE (transfer of undertakings protection of employee’s regulations) would have been well underway. Many employees will have signed to transfer their employment to first group on the original supposed day of the takeover of the franchise. Perhaps and more importantly they may well have signed out of the virgin pension scheme which could not be transferred with them and may well find they cannot sign back into on the original conditions due to changes in their age etc.
With the above in mind, just who will be employing them in December. Will it be virgin, which many of them may not have an employment contract with any longer. Will it be the government, in which case new contracts of employment and terms and conditions will have to be agreed and drawn up with, or legally they may be employed by first group who obviously would have no work for them and would have to make them immediately redundant.
Without doubt whoever is running the trains on the West Coast mainline will need the skills, experience and dedication of the current workforce. However, the legal implications of all the foregoing may well cost the British taxpayer much more than the projected £100 million especially if the workforce has to be compensated for any loss of pension rights they may suffer.
Whatever happens, everyone can only sympathise with the predicament the employees must now find themselves in. They seem to be very much the forgotten human factor in this mess which was certainly not of their making. But then that is Britain today where money matters far more than people.
Bill
Well I have to disagree with whobr I am afraid on perfection! Judges, Courts, governments, people of stature and morality can make errors and so too can Civil Servants. Mankind is not perfect so expecr slips. Personally, I have seen it in some of these circles from extremely well educated people I have been involved with. In the case in question, two Civil servants have been suspended and Ministers make decisions on the information given to them by that ilk. We will in time find out very quickly - December to find out more properly what happened. So for now I still suspect the mistake was in the Civil Service as they do the work, foundation and conclusions. A Minister cannot do all these things himself/herself.
As for Sir Richard Branson it was interesting to see that over 100,000 people argued for Virgin Trains.
As for Sir Richard Branson it was interesting to see that over 100,000 people argued for Virgin Trains.
Nothing is different it seems no matter where we live. The Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail (MBCR) contract is expiring soon over here. There have been various companies bidding on the contract, but it seems as though the MBCR will get the contract anyway. Many people are saying that there are some insiders doing the bidding and fixing costs so they get the contract again. With this rumor going around, some companies have pulled out because they know they'll lose!
The MBCR doesn't do a terrifc job either. There have been on-time issues and other incidents that have put them in poor light, and now with the MBTA (the T) losing $101,000,000 suspiciously this makes this even more important. It seems that the all knowing hands are in the right till again paying off the right people for their contracts and jobs.
John
The MBCR doesn't do a terrifc job either. There have been on-time issues and other incidents that have put them in poor light, and now with the MBTA (the T) losing $101,000,000 suspiciously this makes this even more important. It seems that the all knowing hands are in the right till again paying off the right people for their contracts and jobs.
John
Sir Richard Branson has now publicly staed that he might consider an application to run the East Coast line. This is presently being run by the government due to the former frachise being unable to function it properly. This is a turn around for Virgin Rail as he had previously said he would probably distance himself from the rail franchise area. However, I do hope he mounts a bid because in the end he did a great deal to improve the West Coast and greatly increase the number of passengers and that is the proof of the pudding.
And no doubt the bearded ones' first demand will be for more lucrative first class seating on east coast trains with the peasants in Standard herded to the front standing all the way to Edinburgh as they currently do on his Pendolinos to Glasgow? All the better for Virgin to suck £300 million out of ECML as they have done out of WCML in the last decade! Still, who are we, or indeed anyone who cares about railways, to stand in the way of Virgin's "license to print money"?
Paul (rail blue, not bilious red)
Paul (rail blue, not bilious red)