This from the CambsTimes24...
A FOOTBALL club manager was so embarrassed by the toilets at a March playing field that he ferried a visiting girls’ team to the railway station to use their loos.
Q.E.D.
This by way of a gratuitous dig at the WSMR closing, Class 66 exporting and WiFi avoiding Deutsche Reichsbahn...
In a major boost for rail passengers National Express East Anglia (NXEA) is to fully introduce wi-fi facilities on its Norwich to London intercity service from 1 February. The completed initiative will be formally launched by key representatives from the region’s business community on an NXEA intercity service on Tuesday 1 February.
Meanwhile, still nothing from Arriva Cross Country on when it might meet its franchise obligations...
This internal announcement from the formerly doomed National Express (with a bowler tip to Sinoda):
Dear All
I wanted to update you about reports you may have seen in this morning’s newspapers, that Lord Adonis, the Secretary of State for Transport, has announced plans for the re-tendering of the East Anglia and c2c franchises as part of wider reforms for the rail industry.
The reports relate to the first step in the tender process which will see the outline terms for the new franchises sent to potential bidders. The next step will be the formal tendering process, which Lord Adonis has confirmed will not take place until after the general election.
Our position is that we will take time to consider the franchise documents before coming to a decision about re-tendering.
One of the things being proposed is that the c2c franchise will be known as Essex Thameside. This is the Department for Transport’s (DfT) name for the franchise and does not impact on our c2c branding which we will continue to use.
We have a fantastic record of running railways and I know you will continue to focus on delivering great operational performance and unbeatable customer service. The recent bad weather has demonstrated the enormous efforts you make to ensure we run services for our customers.
c2c is the best-performing train company in the UK , a position it has held over a number of years. It consistently delivers the highest levels of PPM performance and has the achieved the best ever MAA in the rail industry of 96.2%. It has the best customer satisfaction rating amongst franchised operators in the most recent National Passenger Survey and operates the most reliable fleet in UK as recognised by the recent Golden Spanner awards.
National Express East Anglia has delivered consistent improvements in PPM performance improving its moving annual average performance from 85% in 2004 at start of franchise to 91.6% at end of Period 9 in December 2009. Our Service Improvement Plan is underway to introduce 30 new trains and17 refurbished trains as part of £185m deal with the DfT, and already we are delivering 28,000 extra seats for our customers each week.
We do a great job every day, and I know that’s a record we are all proud of.
As ever, I will continue to keep you updated with developments as and when appropriate.
Kind regards
David Franks
What a lot of words to convey a fairly simple message.
Allow Eye to translate: 'Adonis - you're a dead man walking. Tories - National Express is still here and if you let us, we can bring something to the party.'
Subtle, not.
UPDATE: This from The Archer...
From Lord Adonis yesterday:
"Recent events have also shown how vital it is that we make it harder for operators to walk away from their franchises, so performance bonds will rise and we will expect much larger guarantees from parent companies."
And from today’s OJEU notice:
The future franchisees should have sufficient financial backing to place a performance bond and a season ticket bond. For Essex Thameside, these are expected to be up to GBP 15 million and GBP 20 million respectively. For Greater Anglia, these are expected to be up to GBP 40 million and GBP 70 million respectively
So National Express will indeed need to bring something to the party if they want to retender
Namely bonds to the value of £145 million!
This from 'Redrover'...
The following item was displayed on the NXEA website at 22.15hrs on TUESDAY 21st July.
Train service alterations - Wednesday 22nd July 2009
The following train service will not run on Wednesday 22nd July 2009 owing to an operational incident: 18:00 Liverpool Street to Norwich.
National Express are obviously taking Lord Adonis' threat to strip them of all their franchises very seriously.
At least so it would appear, judging from this page on the National Express East Anglia website.
But with NatEx gone, frustrated East Anglian rail travellers may have one less thing on their mind...
A bowler tip to the Samaritans whose website is here.
What a deeply unpleasant company National Express East Anglia is.
This from the Londonist...
Sickened by freeloaders? Don't like the look of the bloke in the seat opposite? Worry no longer. National Express East Anglia have put up posters on the Stansted Express inviting you to report anyone you think might be fare evading.
Perhaps NXEA should get off its fat corporate derrier and check tickets, rather then encouraging this stasi-like snooping on fellow passengers?
UPDATE: This from Al...
Those posters have been up on the West Anglia for ages. There's a bit about it on the bottom of this page on their website.
You're not wrong though, I commute (admittedly over a short distance) from and to Cambridge every day and often use the WA at the weekends too, and I very, very rarely see any ticket checks.
UPDATE: This from Commuter...
Upon closer inspection of the sign, it actually starts with "if you believe a fellow customer..."
Perhaps if NX treats fare dodgers as customers then this may be the reason for their recent troubles.
I might just go and steal some food from Tescos and complain to their 'Customer services.'
Quite right too Commuter.
Just because you're innocent doesn't mean that you aren't guilty!*
*Taken from the Little Brown Book. Chapter 94 (with apologies to Private Eye)
Despite My Lord Adonis consigning National Express' franchises to the dustbin of history the company is still looking on the bright side.
This from the National Express East Anglia press office (via email, sadly missing from their website)...
The Cromer Pier summer seaside special is on track as National Express teams up with the cast of the famous end-of-the-pier show in a unique double bill at Norwich station on Friday 10 July at 10.00am
Read that again...
National Express... teams up... end-of-the-pier show... double bill... 10th July!
Quicker even than the noble Lord had dared hope for!
Or perhaps it's just Beau Bowker's official leaving do.
UPDATE: This from Leo Pink...
Surely National Express would rather see the end of the 'peer' show?
This from the Norwich Evening News...
Every seat for (today's and Friday's) 5pm and 5.30pm from London Liverpool Street to Norwich has been sold, National Express East Anglia bosses have warned.
An extra train has been scheduled for 5.28pm to run from the London station ending its journey at Ipswich ahead of the busy Bank Holiday Weekend.
Full marks to NXEA for running a relief and for publicising it...
The Eye wishes to apologise for having opposed the gating of InterCity stations.
The Fact Compiler erroneously believed that barriers would:
Readers may recollect that National Express East Anglia is to receive 120 new Electrostar vehicles.
In these financially straitened times the Eye thought it might be helpful to translate these vehicles into real monetary value.
Below are the additional subsidy payments that NXEA will receive from DafT to take on these new £160m trains:
| 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | Total |
| £7.176m | £22.895m | £40.931m | £44.449m | £40.961m | £156.412m |
Just a week ago National Express alerted the media to an exciting "cook off" for the coveted title 'Chef of the Year'.
The press release burbled "The winners and runners-up from both (NXEC) heats are now preparing for the final cook off, where they will join the winning chef from National Express East Anglia".
Alas, yesterday's announcement of swinging redundancies also saw NEG admit that its East Anglia franchise is "proposing to remove the restaurant service, and improve our buffet and at-seat service".
With restaurant cars in East Anglia on the way out The Fact Compiler fears that the souffles of the NXEA chef may not rise to the occasion.
National Express is to shed 300 rail jobs according to The Independent.
Read the Indy piece here.
Or indeed Railway Eye from October if you like your news a little earlier.
National Express has kindly clarified the industry's view of the Department for Transport.
This from NatEx's response to the competition commission findings:
National Express comment:
"The TfL model involves, effectively, TfL procuring the rolling stock and making it available to its concessionaire.The equivalent of this would be that the DfT would procure the trains and make them available to franchisees. This is the approach being adopted for the IEP and Thameslink fleets.
"However, our close involvement in the IEP procurement has indicated that the DfT may not be the best organisation to specify such vehicles and a more market sensitive approach might have been achieved by having a train operator prepare the specification."
The Fact Compiler has a suspicion that 'Sir' Richard Bowker gets on well with 'Dr' Mike Mitchell.
Telegrammed by The Master
Intending bon viveurs aboard today's 12:06 Paddington to Penzance soon wished they had packed their sarnies.
The train had just reached Reading, 30 minutes into the five hour journey, when the Chief Steward announced the "last and final" call for luncheon!
As the next stop was Exeter and the train was near full it was a pretty piss-poor show.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, plucky National Express East Anglia manage multiple sittings on their London - Norwich services (with more stops and a shorter journey time).
It has come to a pretty pass when the little Great Eastern can show the mighty Great Western how on-train catering should be done. Mind you with Worst in charge of the latter nothing should come as a surprise.
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