[LeTigre]

Yeah, that’s a good article from BT.

Purely from a selfish point of view I’m sad cause I used to get 40% off.

[seanyjmuclhr]

Interestingly, the Guardian is running a poll on which TOC you prefer to travel with. The results are overwhelmingly in favour of Virgin.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/poll/2012/aug/15/virgin-trains-firstgroup-which-best

Virgin 91%
FirstGroup 9%

[Bucksnet]

VintageKrug – 15/08/2012 09:08 GMT – “If efficiencies and redundancies are necessary to keep costs down – and that translates into keeping fares down – then surely that’s a good thing?”

But it’s not keeping fares down VK. Fares keep going up and up and are now ridiculously expensive. We have increased subsidy AND increased fares.

And who are the people who “want the contract to be awarded to a provider which seeks to maximise its own profit”?

Train fares in the UK are the highest in Europe, taxation is far too high AND the government is borrowing £6 billion a week.

[Bucksnet]

VK, driving from London to Manchester and back might cost £80 of fuel in your Bentley, but most cars will do it for less than half that amount. Plus the running costs are no where near what you state.

[VintageKrug]

LOL. Knew I’d forgotten the cost of the chauffeur.

He has to eat, after all.

—

Very droll, NIRScot:

As I read on Twitter it’s a bit like a “It’s not gonorrhea! It’s syphilis!” conversation!

[slotski]

I am a regularly travel with Virgin trains both business and pleasure. I have also travelled First Great Western, and Virgin is so superior in service. I read the BBC news website and First stated they would improve the on-board service, that made me laugh given they are currently so inferior. Virgin First class I get a free meal, free wifi and free bar. First Great Western, I get none of this and an ancient train. I am very disappointed.

[openfly]

If Richard Branson does start his short haul airline in the near future, I am sure he will derive a certain amount of pleasure flying Manchester and Glasgow to London head to head against the woeful First rail “service” on the west coast routes!!! I look forward to the advertising campaign.

[openfly]

A positive result of this will be that I will not be surrounded in Upper Class by all the Virgin rail employees and their numerous kids consuming copious quantities of alcohol and making loud converstaion….on their free staff tickets.

[Bunnahabhain]

Re LP’s question about what happens to the trains, I recall reading somewhere that they’re generally leased from yet another player on the field – think it was around the GNER > NXEC > EC pass the parcel saga.

Not sure about the employees but the local crew on the KX service are the same in fact when it was Inter-City before the days of GNER, so some form of TUPE seems to apply. (There was some kind of dispute over TUPE v a less employee-protective system recently in the news).

For me as a user the main factors are the infrastructure and trains, though price and on-board service are obviously important. I’d rather depart on a First Group Pendolino from Glasgow Central than a Virgin Turbostar or even worse a 158 from Queen Street.

Does this franchise include those dreadful Voyager services between Birmingham and Glasgow / Edinburgh? They really put the quiet into the Q400 competition!

[Bucksnet]

The BBC are reporting that First have paid ‘only’ £5.5 billion and that is £750 million more than Virgin.

According to Branson, the First bid includes a payment of £2 billion in the last 3 years! What’s the betting they will get out of paying it somehow?

Also, shares in Stagecoach, half owners of Virgin Rail, are up by 2% today because they haven’t ‘won’ the bid.

[andystock]

One way first group will increase revenue is via revenue protection and ticket gates at stations.

[canucklad]

Interested to hear that on one BBC news item they introduced First Group as an American company….

As far as I can re-call it started in Aberdeen, when Grampian council sold off its buses …..it’s great rival became Perth based company Stagecoach ?

Public ownership into private ownership on steroids)…..and in many ways still delivering a poor local bus company service….except we now pay through the roof !

The whole franchise system seems like a goofed up Public Private Partnership……VK , as a user and a taxpayer does that mean i’m actually paying twice ?

[VintageKrug]

Public Private Partnership is a specific term, and not quite what’s happening here.

In this situation, you’re only paying twice if the government spends more in subsidy than it receives in income from the sale of licences on the route you use.

IN this case, it appears the government has secured a good wodge of cash from First, though it doesn’t seem to be a great deal more than Virgin was offering, and seems to be heavily – and possibly unreasonably – loaded towards paying in the last two years of the franchise, which should be of concern.

I think we should “wait and see” what First does with the West Coast line before writing them off; as has been proven with the Olympics, we need to overcome the cycle of negativity and look forward to a fresh start, a fresh approach to managing the service which may indeed deliver a reduced cost base for the operating company, increased income for OUR Treasury and equal or improved services and capacity for passengers, all the while keeping fares roughly in line with what we pay now, adjusted for inflation.

[NTarrant]

First started life as two seperate companies, Grampian Buses in Aberdeen and Badgerline in Bristol. Grampian was a management buyout under Moir Lockhead. the went on to purchase a few other bus companies.

Badgerline under Trevor Smalllwood had purchased a number of bus companies throughout the UK. Grampian and Badgerline merged and formed FirstBus. When it was successful in gaining rail franchises it dropped the “bus” bit to become First.

First is successful in the US and much of its turnover is generated in the US, Greyhound and First Student are First’s companies over the pond, so it is easy to see the mix up with owenership.

As for the franchise system, I think it was the quickest way to get privatisation of the railways without actually selling it off. My view is that each region should have been sold under a service level agreement with the DfT but responsibility for track etc would fall under the same ownership, rather than the micro managed system we have now.

With one or two exceptions, the franchises came to bus operators hands and what bus operators had learnt from deregulation was that high frequency and clock face timetables put bums on seats and that is what they have done, except now there are too many bums for not enough seats in a number of cases.

What First have done with the long distance services at Great Western is quite good. If they can improve on that on west coast then it should be a good service.

[canucklad]

VK…Sorry for being a bit of a Thursday dunce !
NT …your explanation of bus companies running trains explains a lot!

I pay First Scotrail an extortion of a fare when I use them
I pay First Group buses an extortion of a fare when I use them
First group make a massive profit !!!

Just seems a rather odd business and econmic model !!

First win a bidding war based primarirly on cash offered, akin to touting your wears on a street corner !

I pay my taxes , which in turn goes to subsdise in part the the running of the railways !

Suspiciously looks like the money in my wallet is being dipped twice !!

And a very simplistic question ….who actually owns the Pendolino’s…Virgin, First (After take over) or do we as taxpayers own them and we as taxpayers lease them out so that we can pay to use them again !

[Author]

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