GTR crisis grows ahead of recess
The increasingly heated debate over the future of the Govia Thameslink Railway franchise has reached a new intensity, as demands grow for action to be taken before Parliament’s summer recess. Opposition politicians and a major rail union are calling for an urgent decision about the future of the franchise, while transport secretary Chris Grayling has also come under fire after he did not go to the House of Commons on two recent occasions when GTR was the subject of questions. The DfT said it is conducting its own ‘hard review’ into the problems since 20 May, alongside an ORR inquiry.
The amount of money being invested in the Welsh rail network is proportionately much lower than elsewhere in Britain and the result is poorer services, according to economy and transport secretary Ken Skates. He told AMs that the country is being denied economic benefits because ‘Wales has not received an equitable share of rail investment over a sustained period and as a result has been denied the economic benefits enjoyed elsewhere’. He has also revealed that he and transport secretary Chris Grayling do not agree over how cross-border services should be planned.
The bid for the Intercity East Coast franchise which was won by Stagecoach and Virgin was ‘quite ambitious’, a committee of MPs has been told. It has emerged that the Department for Transport did not expect the business plan to succeed in full. Stagecoach Group owned 90 per cent of the business and lost some £200 million in the collapse, which has been attributed to revenues being lower than forecast. It has been claimed that delayed Network Rail infrastructure upgrades were a contributory factor. The award of the franchise was a flagship event because it marked the end of six years of public control of East Coast.
GOVIA Thameslink Railway, which has been struggling to maintain its services since major timetable revisions on 20 May is trying again, with a third set of revised schedules. The new timetables are coming into operation for their first weekday trial today. Govia Thameslink marked the changeover by booking an advertisement in the Metro, which is the free newspaper distributed in the London commuter area, in which it apologised for the timetable problems.
The first chief executive of Network Rail has dismissed the present system of rail franchising as ‘bust’. Sir John Armitt, who is now chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, has highlighted the facts that Network Rail was ‘effectively renationalised’ in 2014, and that franchise holders shoulder high commercial risks because, he claims, the Department for Transport takes the highest and most optimistic forecasts of revenue when considering bids.
There have been new steps towards resolving the driver-only dispute on Merseyrail, after several weeks of talks with the RMT. A further meeting at ACAS yesterday discussed the outcomes of recent ‘joint workshops’, which explored the RMT’s wish to have a second safety critical member of staff on new trains. The results of the workshops have not been revealed, but in a joint statement last night both sides said that the conclusions so far would now be sent to Merseytravel for ‘consideration’.
The next major timetable revision in December will be less ambitious, according to the Rail Delivery Group. The decision to move forward more slowly in future has followed the difficulties which resulted from major changes introduced on 20 May, particularly on Govia Thameslink Railway and Northern. In the case of GTR every train was retimed, involving more than 3,000 services. In both cases the new timetables proved unworkable, and hundreds of trains were then shaved from the schedules in a bid to make the remaining services more reliable. The decision to be more cautious has been welcomed, but transport campaigners remain concerned.