The following have been shortlisted for the Crossrail operating concession:
Good news for fans of accountable and properly managed rail services!
Oh and also for all those hugely expensive bid teams currently twiddling their thumbs whilst DfT struggles to work out how to restart franchising after the ICWC fiasco, desperately hoping that at least one can be got out the door before the 2015 General Election when Maria Eagle will be the new Secretary of State for Transport and franchising policy is thrown up in the air once again... but I digress.
TfL has announced that it is seeking a
train operator to run Crossrail services from May 2015, with potential operators having until the end of April to respond to today's OJEU listing.
A busy day for TfL and those named Howard!
This from Crossrail...
Crossrail today announced the appointment of Howard Smith as Operations Director.
Howard Smith is currently Chief Operating Officer for Rail at
Transport for London and has successfully led the £1bn East London Line
extension project as well as the development, launch and operation of
London Overground and management of its operating concession.
Howard Smith will be responsible for leading the development of
Crossrail’s operational and customer service strategy, defining the
structure of the new railway’s operating and maintenance organisations
as well as leading on the arrangements for the future Crossrail
operating concession.
Note the magic word 'concession'.
What possible reason, apart from DLR and London Overground, could Crossrail have for preferring a concession over the hugely discredited and thinly capitalised franchising model? (shurely: "highly successful and investment rich franchising model"? Ed)
Interesting.
Sources suggesting that Richard Brown was appointed directly by Patrick McLoughlin rather than being selected by Marsham Street mandarins.
Clearly, in Derbyshire at least, blood is thicker than water.
Indeed there is a growing view that Brown may even be prepared to rock the boat with his report.
We shall see.
Meanwhile those interested in making constructive contributions to the review may do so via: Brown.Review@dft.gsi.gov.uk
Alternatively, you can post correspondence to:
The Brown Review
Hercules House
Hercules Road
Lambeth
London
SE1 7DU
Eye readers will be reassured to see that the SE1 address means contributions are unlikely to be opened by purveyors of the failed franchising orthodoxy.
UPDATE: This from The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water...
Mr Brown at Hercules House?
This used to be the home of the late lamented Central Office of Information – the body that once delivered government advice with less of nudge and more of a supportive hand on the shoulder, whilst the other was firmly clamped on the nads.
Meanwhile I greatly enjoyed Gwyn Topham's story in today’s Grauniad, which accurately reflects what the RDG 'privately told the man shaping the future of franchising'.
Does Eye have any idea qui bono?
Call the Fact Compiler a cynic but he wonders whether the proposed fast tracking of HS2 is designed to draw a veil over recent ICWC events?
Tough luck, it won't work.
So let's be clear about what the DfT really needs to focus on now.
This from the RMT...
Evidence unearthed by rail union RMT has revealed that all of the rail
franchises currently eligible for receiving taxpayer financial support under
loaded contract rules are now claiming it with the exception of Northern Rail
and London Midland who could move onto the same special measures shortly.
RMT research also reveals today that the total level of revenue support paid
back to the train companies has shot up to £451 million, meaning that nearly
half the £1 billion paid to the government in premiums is returned to the
operators in a revolving door of corporate welfare. The revenue support
payments have gone up from £290 million in a year and are still rising.
The so-called system of “revenue support” – better known as “corporate
welfare - is where under the franchising “cap and collar” procedures, private
train operators can get more subsidy or pay less premium if their revenue
undershoots original inflated projections.
The Parliamentary information shows that the following TOC’s are now being
bailed out by the taxpayer because they and DFT have got their sums wrong,
This from Captain Deltic...
May I join in Eye's exciting new feature?
From the Modern Railways editorial in the October 2012 edition...
With eight franchise to go out to tender in the next 11 months it can’t go on like this, irrespective of the outcome of Virgin’s challenge. In one of his outburst Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson repeated the famous dictum that insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.
Twenty years after rail franchising was created, it is time to end the insanity and try a more rational approach to running the railway.
Concessions anyone?
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