GER, Anglia, Stanstead Express & WAGN, and the rename is

Anonymous · Fri 26 Mar, 2004 20.29

I am not a train spotter at all & hate using trains becuse they are so sh*te but I regulary use First Great Eastern Railways & Cetnral Line (London Underground) to get to work. I have noticed that on alot of trains of recent on First Great Eastern the FIRST logo has been either removed or covered up. I checked on their website http://www.ger.co.uk & apparently National Express PLC Now owns First Great Eastern, Anglia Railways, Stanstead Express & The WA part of WAGN (West Anglia, Great Northern Railways). How comes there wasn't any mention of this on the news?

Surely any franchise takeover would have been in the papers or on TV. Does anyone know where I could get any information on this?

Sorry in advance if I haven't made myself very clear

nwtv2003 · Fri 26 Mar, 2004 21.36

There was a franchise change sometime last year and to be honest it went through very quitely, unless Connex is mentioned. But luckily for us that Arriva has lost theirs, as they've provided an over expensive, under producing service, where there was a load of strikes which made it worse. The franchise was won by First North Western (Better known for supplying the slow service from Liverpool to Manchester) and Keolis, but I can't say I've heard of them. But as new franchises say that they're going to provide a better and cheaper service.

Now where have I heard that before? :roll:

Big Brother · Fri 26 Mar, 2004 21.37

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/3339841.stm

In a sort of bizarre twist to this little story the First Group were bidding to takeover the Scotrail franchise currently under the National Express Group, but I think they were told to re-think they're bid as it worked out as a worse deal for the consumer. I'm not quite sure what happened to the franchise but National Express are still operating it as far as I know.

Anonymous · Fri 26 Mar, 2004 21.41

First Great Eastern wern't a bad franchise to be honest, I only ever experienced probelms with their service for the last year, prehaps they knew they were going to lose it or something like that?

fusionlad · Sat 27 Mar, 2004 15.10

First Great Western are pretty good for the South West's link to London. They use the traditional 'Inter-City 125' trains, which are still comfortable and fairly reliable. There are plans though to replace these in a few years, as most of them are now over 25 years old.

One nice touch is that they have just started hiring out portable DVD players, for the long trip to the Big Smoke. First Great Western Press Release

The other main service out of the south west is Virgin Cross-Country, with their new Voyager trains, which are comfortable and fast, but can be a bit packed if there are problems with other trains. They are normally made up of only 4 or 5 cars.

Doh! I'm a train spotter!

Anonymous · Sat 03 Apr, 2004 16.09

And the newe name is..... One

They are now known as One Great Eastern, One Anglia, One West Anglia & One Stanstead Express

Check this link for the Lovely livery that will replace the old ones:

http://www.onerailway.co.uk/

Go to the news section & you'll see what i mean

nwtv2003 · Sat 03 Apr, 2004 20.46

One...? How long did it take them to think that up. I would have assumed that they would have chosen one stupid name across all services.

What was wrong with the good old days of British Rail and Intercity?

Chris · Sat 03 Apr, 2004 21.24

This is a train related topic, so I thought I'd stick this in...

I've always noticed on the orange/green train tickets they have "rail settlement plan" written on the background where all the destinations are printed on.

What is the "Rail Settlement Plan"?

And why do they still use the old BR symbol? Surely most companies should have rolled out their corporately branded tickets by now?

MarkN · Sat 03 Apr, 2004 21.33

Chris wrote:What is the "Rail Settlement Plan"?

And why do they still use the old BR symbol? Surely most companies should have rolled out their corporately branded tickets by now?

I think that the "Rail Settlement Plan" is a scheme that means that the ticket companies do not have to each sell their own tickets. The group that sells the tickets (either Network Rail or the Association of Train Operating Companies - ATOC) then gives the money to the train company that runs the services.

The old BR symbol is used by ATOC. I presume that its use has continued because almost everyone knew what it stood for - why change it if it's so well known?

Andrew · Sat 03 Apr, 2004 22.43

MarkN wrote: The old BR symbol is used by ATOC. I presume that its use has continued because almost everyone knew what it stood for - why change it if it's so well known?

Yes thats right and the old BR symbol now actually stands for "National Rail", which basically is an overall name for all 'proper' rail services, excluding stuff like London Underground and trams. Not be confused with "National Rail" who are the company who took over from Railtrack and own the infrastructure and quite are often are to blame for the problems thesedays, but the operators usually get the blame!

And to comment on what nwtv said, it now seems that 'First Keolis' are making a bit of a hash of the new franchise and Arriva have now improved by so much compared with when they were always on strike, that people don't want them to lose the rest of their franchise in the North (although they already have though it hasn't been decided who has won it, the government like to take their time with decisions like this!)

DAS · Sat 03 Apr, 2004 23.50

Andrew wrote:Yes thats right and the old BR symbol now actually stands for "National Rail"... Not be confused with "National Rail"...

I'm thinking the second should read Network Rail.