[HarryMonk]

VK

To spare any embarassment you could always hide “Modern Railways” inside a copy of Razzle

[AllOverTheGaff]

NIRscot – 27/03/2013 14:52 GMT
“I keep on forgetting about the way this forum works and end up posting stuff about travel.”

HA! Brilliant.

I’ve commented elsewhere on the forum, in an almost travel related fashion, that I’ve become fed-up of travelling from EDI – LHR by plane, and that I’ve found East Coast’s service to be a much more pleasant way to get from my gaff to the big smog.

Indeed, I’ve only today planned another jaunt and used East Coast, that’s only a modest 6 fares lost to the airline world so far this year, but if more like me actually give the trains a go (I was a massive sceptic before) they’d maybe be pleasantly surprised.

No point bitching and moaning about BA/LHR, I’m now voting with my wallet.

Regards.
AOTG.

[Shearer]

Hope you are collecting East Coast reward points! 🙂

[VintageKrug]

I think Razzle might be the solution. Or perhaps a guilty copy of the Guardian..?

I’ve used East Coast twice in the past few months, and I confess they’ll take my custom away from BA again very shortly.

Their Afternoon Tea sandwiches are a compelling proposition; add to that some lemon drizzle and a proper cup of builder’s tea, and what’s not to like! 🙂

I confess I haven’t used the rewards scheme; might be a bridge too far to become loyal to a train company.

I did use East Coast fairly regularly under its previous two incarnations, and I would say the service was always of a high standard, even then.

[AllOverTheGaff]

VintageKrug – 27/03/2013 15:34 GMT
“Their Afternoon Tea sandwiches are a compelling proposition; add to that some lemon drizzle and a proper cup of builder’s tea, and what’s not to like! :)”

I don’t like tea.

Rgds.
AOTG.

[VintageKrug]

Really? How strange.

I think they do coffee as well, in case Americans venture North.

[AMcWhirter]

One of the great deals offered by East Coast, compared to what’s available with Virgin Trains, is that £229 first class return Scottish Executive Package for London-Edinburgh or vice versa.

The main restriction is, I believe, that the ticket must be booked before 1800 on the day before travel. But the price is fixed.

But the return sector can be left open-dated so can be used on a ‘walk-up’ basis.

It is true that Virgin Trains offers Advance tickets. But these need to be booked in each direction and can be pricey if you book a day or so before travel.

So the cheapest equivalent Virgin Trains fare for London-Glasgow or vice versa would be £458 return.

[AllOverTheGaff]

NIRscot – 27/03/2013 15:30 GMT
“Hope you are collecting East Coast reward points! :)”

Indeed I am – and prompted by your post I’ve just had a wee nosey to see what it’s all about – I’m only 40 points shy of a return first class to London already!

Superb!
Rgds.
AOTG.

[JordanD]

The real boon with East Coast points is booking for other TOCs journeys and still earning points. I’ve been on the scheme since late 2011, and clocked up over 6000 points before drawing down a nice, free, 12 bottles of wine just before Christmas (best use of points for me a the time).

Personally, can’t see why anyone wouldn’t to collect the points: something for nothing.

[JohnHarper]

IMO East Coast are running a service far better than anything that has been run thus far and it’s light years ahead of Branson’s offering on the west coast.

Don’t mend what isn’t broken.

[AnthonyDunn]

@ VintageKrug – 27/03/2013 14:23 GMT
@ TimFitzgeraldTC – 27/03/2013 14:28 GMT

Rail privatisation was a rolling process between 1994-97. For a considered explanation of public subsidy to the rail network post-privatisation together with the figures and percentages, please go to:

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/taxpayer_subsidy_train_network_nationalisation-3391

This does indeed substantiate the contention that the level of public subsidy has indeed increased POST-privatisation and in direct contravention of what I was told pre-privatisation by the then Tory Minister of State for Transport responsible for the railways.

I have been reflecting on VK and others’ uncritical advocacy of Tory economic dogma: private good, public bad – with all the ramifications that this has had for the UK’s economic performance and industrial competitiveness.

If we had any humility in this country, rather than continuing with what has demonstrably FAILED over the past 30-40 years, we could and would be looking at what has WORKED. I would suggest the economic model of Germany. The supreme irony is that much of the post-war political and economic structure of the Federal Republic was a joint Anglo-American construct – including (tangentially) the rebirth of Volkswagen…! What it explicitly involves is a public-private partnership including long-term state shareholdings (Lower Saxony in Volkswagen Audi Grüppe), long-term industrial finance (Sparkassen and Landesbanken), specific protections against foreign ownership and takeovers that Germany employed until very recently, technical and technological development assistance to Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) through entities such as the Fraunhofer Institutes, a middle-class professional respect for engineering and technology rather than a patronising British middle-class disdain for these areas and a fixation with accountancy and the law. The Chambers of Commerce in this country are also a complete joke when compared with their German counterparts: fragmented, disjointed and inwardly focussed in contrast to Germany where everything but everything is about export promotion. None of this is going to happen without the direct involvement of the state and that means government rolling up its sleeves and getting its hands dirty. I was particularly struck, in this respect, that the first winners of the Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering went to the guys who first developed the TCP/IP software protocols that underpin the entire internet. Listening to one of them interviewed on Radio 4, he made the point that the team first came together because of the US Government which provided the initial funding for the software engineering development to proceed…

What I have been struck by, time and again, in arguing these points with numerous Tories is that they (a) don’t, won’t or can’t get their heads around our relative decline vis-å-vis Germany (b) are intellectually entirely incapable of understanding just how Germany has whipped our rear-end and (c) are pathologically incapable of accepting that we need, fundamental root-and-branch restructuring of our entire economic model, the first part of which is to junk their cherished laisser-faire shibboleths. In this respect, I came across a letter published in the Financial Times back in April 2005. It makes for interesting reading….

13 April 2005 Letters to the Editor of the Financial Times

Sir, Nothing brings more pundits swinging down from the trees than the chance offered by the MG Rover crisis for distant recollections of Britain’s industrial decline (“A tale of greed and gullibility”, April 9). A balanced view is more tricky. Here are just a few points.

The saga of British Leyland (BL) is largely irrelevant. An audit of its international competitiveness, like the Boston Consulting Group’s analysis of the motorcycle industry, would have revealed it to be just as irredeemably adrift as was most of British industry at the time.
In the sense in which “policy” implies a concerted effort to develop national services and capabilities over decades – as France has displayed in its rail and transport infrastructure, its aerospace and nuclear power industries, or Japan in developing its high-speed train and other national links, its computer industry and latterly its aerospace industries, and reducing dependence on imported energy – it is questionable whether Britain has enjoyed any “real policies” in the past half-century.

And what about health, education, flood and water services? Such “real policies” imply a continuing interaction with industry for investment, development of the wide range of related systems and processes, and monitoring for improvement. This may appear to some to be an “industrial policy”. Even so, these countries retain a “comparative advantage” in these activities, and their “public has learned” that such “industrial policy” does work.

As Geoffrey Owen notes in his accompanying piece (“Mistakes that led to a tragedy for British manufacturing”), the consolidation of “all these disparate companies into a coherent whole” under BL was a nigh impossible task. Yet consolidation has been the standard “policy” prescription for British industry in the period after the second world war. You name it, it was consolidated: aerospace, motorbikes, textiles, artificial fibres, machine tools, mining equipment, computers, electronics, shipbuilding, steel… Most now consolidated into oblivion, or to a minor position in world markets.

“The British public has learned the hard way that [British] industrial policy does not work.” For shareholders and financial sources have failed to demand performance against the investment, innovation and market demands of international competitors. But most heinous, the financial community has allowed the ethos of “greed” to go largely unchecked, so that the Phoenix partners can claim they were acting according to the norms of British management. How many directors and senior executives of the now defunct “consolidated” British companies are enjoying lavish retirements (or reappointments), while their erstwhile employees have suffered a decimation of their pensions, or are among “the hidden unemployed”?

It is argued that what remains of British manufacturing “is more competitive, and more focused in areas such as pharmaceuticals and aerospace where Britain has a comparative advantage”. Yet, ironically, such “comparative advantage” as Britain enjoys in aerospace – now smaller than France and indeed Japan – derives from an accidental pursuit of heretical “industrial policy”.

Rolls-Royce, perhaps our sole global competitor, survives only after a government rescue, a refinancing and several slugs of launch aid. The prowess of the pharmaceutical industry has resulted from the National Health Service as one of the world’s largest customers, and for many decades with a relatively benign regime for recouping research and development costs.

After the twin farces of British Rail privatisation and the London Underground Public Private Partnership as natural consequences of lacking “real policies”, the next challenge will be replacement of the power stations built in the 1970s and 1980s. With the power generation industry among those “consolidated to oblivion”, who will build these new facilities? Who will own them? And how will they be financed? Or should we be laying in supplies of candles?

Chris Benjamin, London SE19 2DS

[BigDog.]

Eurostar bids for East Coast Mainline

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24330881

The Channel Tunnel company is to launch a joint bid with French company Keolis to operate the London to Scotland rail route.

Keolis, which is majority-owned by French rail company SNCF, already operates four UK franchises – Southern, Southeastern, London Midland and TransPennine Express.

The line has been run by the government since 2009, when National Express handed back the franchise mid-term.

AnthonyDunn – 28/03/2013 10:29 GMT – Thank you for the excellent background/research to the private v public ownership debate.

[transtraxman]

Is all the silver to be sold off again?

The headline in the Beeb article is misleading. As it says in the text…..

“Eurostar would take a minority share in the Keolis-Eurostar consortium.

Keolis, which is majority-owned by French rail company SNCF, already operates four UK franchises – Southern, Southeastern, London Midland and TransPennine Express.”

Add to this that Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) has bought Arriva so its rail businesses include Arriva Trains Wales, Cross Country Trains, and Chiltern Railways, as well as the freight company EWS.

Not that I am a jingoist but it just shows how open this country is when our competitors, such as the above mentioned put all sorts of bureaucratic obstacles in the way of market liberalisations.

And they are not the only ones.

[canucklad]

I’ve recently been doing a lot of travelling on our magnificent rail network…..

And East Coast is definitely the best of a bad lot…..Before our government sells up I would like to have assurances as to how they would improve the customer experience and more importantly maintain that level of service…..especially in STANDARD class amongst the masses for a decent affordable price !!

Or am I living in cloud cukoo land !

[MarcusUK]

Its is in the Guardian also, and clarifies the point raised…

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/sep/30/eurostar-keolis-bid-east-coast-rail

The fact that it makes and earned over £600 Million for the Government in 2 years, shows that is is indeed good income for the treasury, ultimately for us.

There is no need or any business case to re-privatise it.
It is for mere political Dogma.
It is indeed, from reviews i made on here with a lot of BT readers and Alex’s informative info, one of the best run services in the UK.
It has new Hitachi trains on the way anyhow.

Why hand this over for some Company to come in and take £600 Million from the taxpayers pockets?

Such a ridiculous “Goverment” decision.
Any opposition party should pledge to keep it, as it runs for the treasury’s and our benefit.

[Author]

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