South West franchise announcement

I would say that after starting pretty slowly they have really started
to get to grips with their rail services and are now running one of the
best franchise. Think if they can get some more trains (which looked
hinted at) and increase the frequency in some of the services, then
they will have really turned round, which after privatisation looked to
be becoming a backwater for the National Rail network.

Clive D. W. Feather wrote:

> From memory, the main intractable problem they "inherited" was the idea
> that it was overmanned and so they could fire a third of the drivers.
>
> Then they discovered that not every driver knows every route ....


Something like that, I think they thought they were like bus drivers -
point vehicle in right direction and go.

--
Nick

"D7666" <d7666@m> wrote in message
news:1158962558.437865.190320@d34g2000cwd. o...
>
> Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
>
>> From memory, the main intractable problem they "inherited" was the idea
>> that it was overmanned and so they could fire a third of the drivers.
>>
>> Then they discovered that not every driver knows every route ....
>
>
> Something like that, I think they thought they were like bus drivers -
> point vehicle in right direction and go.

And could therefore be 'bought' from the job centre at minimum wage.

tim

Dave wrote:
> "Bob" <robertg.robinson@virgin.net> wrote in message
> news:1158991272.210807.255940@i3g2000cwc. ...
>

>
>
> The government is determined to raise taxes one way or another and it looks
> like the latest is on rail tickets. Are we now going to see every decent
> franchise shafted this way?

It's not a tax, Stagecoach and other bidders could have put in a nil or
negative figure bid. It could at worst be said to be a cross-subsidy,
but HMG is still putting in circa £5bn (?) annually into the railway,
even excluding the loans being guaranteed for Network Rail, CTRL2 etc.


PH