# West Coast Mainline



## Andy HB (Aug 23, 2012)

Can everyone who has an interest in the West Coast Mainline have a look at this e-petition and sign it if they agree with it.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/37180

Whilst Virgin may not be perfect, I've mostly been very impressed with their performance over the years. I am also concerned that the new proposed operator will be more likely to raise prices over and beyond what Virgin would do.

There is also evidence that the Government has made the wrong decision on this one (seems to be a common theme here!).

Here's hoping for another u-turn!

Thanks,

Andy 

p.s. Oh, and can you encourage others with a similar opinion to sign it too?


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## Northerner (Aug 23, 2012)

I was surprised to see Virgin lose the contract too, especially to First


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## mcdonagh47 (Aug 23, 2012)

Northerner said:


> I was surprised to see Virgin lose the contract too, especially to First



Branson was a prominent supporter of the Conservatives at the last election but turned on their economic policies in May ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/26/richard-branson-coalition-invest-businesses

he's no longer "one of us".


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## ukjohn (Aug 23, 2012)

Virgin also operate on part of our area, infact my trip to Birmingham is by Virgin, the rest of this area is covered by First Great Western. they have not invested in rolling stock and they neglect local services.

I have signed the petition.  Thanks for posting Andy.

John.


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## Andy HB (Aug 23, 2012)

ukjohn said:


> Virgin also operate on part of our area, infact my trip to Birmingham is by Virgin, the rest of this area is covered by First Great Western. they have not invested in rolling stock and they neglect local services.
> 
> I have signed the petition.  Thanks for posting Andy.
> 
> John.



You're welcome, John and thanks to you too for signing it.


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## Andy HB (Aug 24, 2012)

Up to 95,820 signatures now. 

Just another 4,180 and they may debate it in Parliament (I won't hold my breath though!).

Andy


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## Northerner (Aug 24, 2012)

Excellent - I posted it on FB and now Martin Lewis has shared the link, he's got thousands of followers


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## mcdonagh47 (Aug 24, 2012)

Northerner said:


> Excellent - I posted it on FB and now Martin Lewis has shared the link, he's got thousands of followers



The Chief Executive of First Group was interviewed on Today on 15th August after the award ( he's an American called Tim O'Toole - yes Britain needs Americans to run our railways now, whatever happened to Brunel and Gresley and the rest of them ?).
Well our American let slip a word that shows First Group's intention with the line , he said they were going to "exploit" the Franchise.
Presumably jobs cuts, service cuts, higher fares are on the way as they "exploit" the line and try recoup the absurd amount they over-paid for it.
And if that doesn't work they can walk away from the thing without any penalty.


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## cherrypie (Aug 24, 2012)

The support is there, over 100.000 signatures.  Next question is when will it be debated?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19366438


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## Northerner (Aug 24, 2012)

cherrypie said:


> The support is there, over 100.000 signatures.  Next question is when will it be debated?
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19366438



I wonder? It says 8 issues have been debated as a result of the petitions, but 8 out of how many?


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## KateR (Aug 24, 2012)

Hubby and I have both signed this. I think the way Richard Branson was treated was very shabby when he did so much to make the railway work.


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## Andy HB (Aug 25, 2012)

I have decided that I now dislike FirstGroup. If they get the bid then I might have to learn to drive!! 

"In response to the petition crossing the 100,000 threshold, a FirstGroup spokesperson said: "We appreciate that Richard Branson is a high-profile celebrity with millions following him personally on social media."

How dare they! I voted because I like the Virgin service, not because I like Richard Branson!! 

Andy


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## Northerner (Aug 25, 2012)

Andy HB said:


> I have decided that I now dislike FirstGroup. If they get the bid then I might have to learn to drive!!
> 
> "In response to the petition crossing the 100,000 threshold, a FirstGroup spokesperson said: "We appreciate that Richard Branson is a high-profile celebrity with millions following him personally on social media."
> 
> ...



I'm in the same mind as you Andy. I've had poor experiences of First and good experiences of Virgin trains - I based my vote on that. The public should have been asked what they thought, with details of the bid offerings, before the contract was awarded.


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## Northerner (Aug 26, 2012)

Virgin Trains offers to run West Coast 'for free'

Sir Richard Branson has offered to run the West Coast Mainline "for free" to give Parliament time to review the ?10bn franchise's award to FirstGroup.

He said Virgin Trains and Stagecoach would run it on a not-for-profit basis after December - when they are due to hand over the franchise - if more time was needed for a review.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19386005


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## ypauly (Aug 26, 2012)

It seems that successive governments like to upset Branson in one way or another. The last it was lottery, british airways and finance and now trains.

I don't know how the bloke manages to keep upsetting those at the top but this one will cost us dear. With a bid that is reputed to be ?2 Billion more than Virgins that will mean either massively higher subsidies, higher fairs or huge service and personell cuts, but most probably a bit of all four.



Having said that, the contract hasn't been signed yet and in what is becoming the typical coalition way of doing things it may have been leaked so that everybody knows they have "listened" and changed their minds.


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## Northerner (Aug 26, 2012)

ypauly said:


> Having said that, the contract hasn't been signed yet and in what is becoming the typical coalition way of doing things it may have been leaked so that everybody knows they have "listened" and changed their minds.



I dunno, I suspect they don't want to be accused of another U-turn and are taking the Osborne approach of no plan B


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## Northerner (Oct 3, 2012)

They've done it! Another U-turn!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19809717


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## StephenM (Oct 3, 2012)

I use First?s Cambridge to Kings Cross service fairly regularly and their Great Western Service irregularly. Both have failed to impress on more than one occasion. The only thing that has irritated me when I have used Virgin is that their staff seem reluctant to ask people to stop using mobiles in the ?quiet carriages?. I do not go into a quiet carriage to listen to someone say ?I am on a train? to their likeminded idiot friends. On one occasion a passenger did ask someone to stop and when it started to look aggressive half a dozen of us backed him up and ?mobile moron? left the carriage.


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## Andy HB (Oct 3, 2012)

Northerner said:


> They've done it! Another U-turn!



Got there before me!

I was willing to give this government a fair crack. But you know what, the longer it goes on the more incompetent they seem to be. Mind you, some of you had already cottoned on to that from day one! 

That nonsense about changes to the planning laws is also getting right up my nose. 

Andy


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## Andy HB (Oct 3, 2012)

StephenM said:


> I use First?s Cambridge to Kings Cross service fairly regularly and their Great Western Service irregularly. Both have failed to impress on more than one occasion. The only thing that has irritated me when I have used Virgin is that their staff seem reluctant to ask people to stop using mobiles in the ?quiet carriages?. I do not go into a quiet carriage to listen to someone say ?I am on a train? to their likeminded idiot friends. On one occasion a passenger did ask someone to stop and when it started to look aggressive half a dozen of us backed him up and ?mobile moron? left the carriage.



About the quiet carriage. I once had one person asking another to stop talking too! But the other person wasn't on a mobile, they were just talking to the person next to them!!


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## Northerner (Oct 3, 2012)

So sayeth The Peston:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19816359

Which, as far as I can tell, was Virgin's argument when they 'lost' the contract. It seems to me that the DfT realised after Virgin's court case challenge and after checking their defence, they realised that they didn't have a leg to stand on so had to back down before losing more millions in court. They also timed it so that Ed couldn't point to it in his speech yesterday.

I doubt if any person on this forum can even conceive of making an error at work that ends up costing ?40m!  When I worked in a shop if the tills were down at the end of the day you had to make up the difference out of your own pocket!


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## Austin Mini (Oct 3, 2012)

Hang about! The estimated cost of reimbursing four companies for the cost of their bids will be ?40m!! When we bid to supply Network Rail for sleepers and crossings etc if our bid failed then we didnt get the job. How come the 'bidders' are being compensated ?40m? Somebodys got his hand in the till with OUR money.


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## mcdonagh47 (Oct 3, 2012)

Austin Mini said:


> Hang about! The estimated cost of reimbursing four companies for the cost of their bids will be ?40m!! When we bid to supply Network Rail for sleepers and crossings etc if our bid failed then we didnt get the job. How come the 'bidders' are being compensated ?40m? Somebodys got his hand in the till with OUR money.



they are being reimbursed for spending millions taking part in a process that was an incompetent farce. They are not being reimbursed for failing to win the contract but for unecessarily spending millions of pounds.


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## Austin Mini (Oct 3, 2012)

Yeh but thats an awful lot of tax payers money. Petrol will have to go up, again.


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## trophywench (Oct 3, 2012)

What, so the co's should be happy to take the loss and do all the work again too?

It's OK to spend X for a potential return of multiple X, and to write it off if unsuccessful.  But if every tender cost you 2 x ....... how's that work?  

You have to speculate twice to accumulate once ?

 or

You have to speculate twice to not accumulate at all ?

How d'you write a Business Plan to account for that, and how many people to you have to sack to recoup the dosh ?


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## Northerner (Oct 5, 2012)

A letter I read today made a very sensible point - they already have the details of the bids and now know what went wrong, so why can't they just apply the correct criteria to the bids? Why does the whole thing have to be restarted at huge cost?


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## mcdonagh47 (Oct 6, 2012)

Northerner said:


> A letter I read today made a very sensible point - they already have the details of the bids and now know what went wrong, so why can't they just apply the correct criteria to the bids? Why does the whole thing have to be restarted at huge cost?



Cos they have sacked the three people responsible for this kind of procurement. 
And promoted the 2 politicians who ran it, shuffled out of harms way.So there is no one to do the job.
Greening was told the process was flawed as soon Branson launched his appeal on Aug28.She MUST have told Dave.

The Thick of It is sane and level headed compared to reality


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## Northerner (Oct 9, 2012)

It seems the error in the bidding process went way back, meaning all the bidders were misinformed from the start 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19881240


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## Northerner (Jan 9, 2013)

Hehe! 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20959906


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## Vicsetter (Jan 9, 2013)

I am constantly confused by this process of people having to bid to continue with their work.  Our local road maintenance company (Bear) recently lost it's contract to operate snow clearance and gritting of roads in our area with a result that all the livery had to be changed (not sure if they are new lorries or not).  It strikes me that we all have to pay the bill for these changes and I would rather see the operators measured against some criteria and to loose the contract if they fail the criteria and not just because they have done it for x years.

P.S. good one Alan, although I expect we would all have to bid to prove ourselves fit to ride in the carriages.


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## Northerner (Jan 10, 2013)

Vicsetter said:


> I am constantly confused by this process of people having to bid to continue with their work.  Our local road maintenance company (Bear) recently lost it's contract to operate snow clearance and gritting of roads in our area with a result that all the livery had to be changed (not sure if they are new lorries or not).  It strikes me that we all have to pay the bill for these changes and I would rather see the operators measured against some criteria and to loose the contract if they fail the criteria and not just because they have done it for x years.
> 
> P.S. good one Alan, although I expect we would all have to bid to prove ourselves fit to ride in the carriages.



Absolutely agree with you Vic. As I said in a recent thread, the catering at Southampton General when I was there was really good, but apparently they lost the contract and now it is absolutely dismal. If the criteria had been 'are they doing a good job for a good price?' then they would have continued, quality would have remained and there would have been no disruption to services. Not sure if they repainted the kitchens though.


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