Richard Branson loses rail contract

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph....st-rail-contract.html

What have they got against Richard Branson, first under New Labour he lost out on the Lottery deal to Camelot, even though he said he would run it on a non profit basis, and now under the Tory/Lib Dems this rail contract once again after making a cheaper offer?

[New Judge]

"What will he do with all the trains? "

Nothing, Sandy. They are not his to do anything with. All locomotives, rolling stock and multiple units belong to one of three rolling stock operating companies ("ROSCOs"). They lease the stock to the various Rail Operators. All that will happen is that the stock currently used for the Virgin services will be repainted and have fresh logos applied for the First Group.

[mushroom25]

//all locomotives, rolling stock and multiple units belong to one of three rolling stock operating companies.....//

true for most railway equipment, but there are exceptions - eg, Heathrow Express owns its own fleet of 14 5-car units, and a number of freight operators own their own locomotives.

[webbo3]

we have firstgroup here in Bristol except we dont call them firstgroup, we call the worstgroup, bloody awful service and very expensive.



Dave.

[Eve]

I hope they run it better than the bus service they run around here - we have a number of bus companies but mostly Stagecoach and First. First's service is often a joke!

If they aren't going to serve food I hope they are going to serve drinks at least, especially with some people coming from smaller stations where cafes may not be running or open early or late - also for people doing long journeys - not always convenient to get your own stuff to take on the train.

I used Virgin trains a lot when commuting between Manchester and London and they were great. There are peaks when extra services could be targeted like the first off peak train out of Euston to Manchester on a Friday evening - always ridiculously busy despite the trains running every 20 minutes in the day - similarly the first train off peak as so many people don't want to pay the huge uplift for the peak fare if they can help it.

Train fares are getting ridiculously expensive now though and sounds like they are just going to get worse.

[pdq1]

Its true that this coalition knows and wants the lowest price in everything without knowing its value. The same happened with Concordia where they chose the cheapest option and the contract went to the Germans. Now they are handing the west mainline contract to the Americans.

[TWR]

Just remeber the date of the bid refusal? time will tell that Brason was right.