Public Transport in your particular part of the region

[bilky asko]

Could be worse. The Scotrail sleeper franchise has gone to Serco.

Well, going by Critique's experiences, he slightly prefers the Serco-Abellio joint venture (Northern) to Abellio by itself, so that may be some comfort.

[cwathen]

Good luck Scottish train passengers - you'll certainly need it! Abellio 'serves' us in East Anglia and it consistently comes bottom in consumer satisfaction polls as the service is awful. I've spent many a journey on the London Liverpool Street - Norwich service trapped in-between carriages as the train is packed, the next one cancelled and my reserved seat in some abyss. And I believe they've been granted a franchise extension...

Abellio also play a part in Northern, as mentioned previously, which is bad (yet not ranked bottom despite the bus carriages) too, although this may not be entirely their fault. If ScotRail passengers are used to clean, on-time trains then I suggest they begin to lower their expectations. And then lower them again. Also if it's the kind of thing you like to moan about then Abellio is a dutch rail company, whilst I believe First are based in Aberdeen?

See @delayed_again for more details of the five star service Abellio provide.

I don't think it's as simple as saying 'First in Scotland = good, Abellio In the east = bad, therefore First=Good, Abellio=Bad'.

First Great Western has been both bottom and top of league tables when from where I'm standing there has been little variation in their service. They also still very tremendously in terms of the service provided on what was the original FGW franchise and the ex-Thames Trains/ex-Wessex Trains patches which were amalgamated into the new franchise in 2006.

Where I live, FGW local/regional services are worse now than they were 10 years ago under Wessex Trains. With Wessex, the worst stock imaginable was a (then 15 year or so old) 150/2 with a fairly decent 2+2 with tables refit done, whilst anything even bordering on long distance would generally be operated by a 158 with a catering trolley.

These days with FGW, we have Pacers which 10 years ago were running short commuter services around Bristol now doing pseudo-regional services in Devon (Paignton/Barnstaple-Exmouth - and there's even a Paignton-Bristol evening train operated by Pacer now), we have 150/1s with original interiors operating 5/6 hour Penzance-Cardiff Central services with no catering and no sign of a refit in sight, and a (now 25+ year old) 150/2 has moved from being the shit to the shiz as it's the best thing you'll ever see down here doing regional work...whilst the 158's now potter about Bristol doing short journeys.

Meanwhile in terms of service itself, certain routes like Penzance-Exmouth and Penzance-Paignton just don't exist any more, leaving you changing and experiencing the insanity of a timetable full of trains which almost but don't quite connect (helped along by station staff - all FGW-operated stations - making damn sure they don't give you those few seconds you need to connect before dispatching trains).

Every time a new timetable comes out I wait to see if they've actually fixed anything...but they never do, it's always just pointless tweaks along the lines of 'the 06:26 will no longer call at Dawlish Warren...the 06:37 will call additionally at Dawlish Warren'.

The HST service in and out of London is clearly the bread and butter of the franchise for FGW, with the regional operation being something they couldn't care less about. From that point of view, I'd like nothing more than to see it put back out to tender as a separate franchise with a separate operator which will need to make that service distinctive, not just run as some afterthought that a London-focussed operated has been lumbered with.

[Alexia]

Despite that post being very familiar, it's the best allocation of stock available at present. Bristol rat runs are packed, full and standing. 158s and 150s needed for capacity rather than comfort. 150s are workhorses, pure and simple.

Won't have to put up with Pacers much longer. Once the electric wires go up in the Thames Valley, the Turbos will be displaced west, moving 158s onto 150 diagrams and 150s onto 143 diagrams.

[all new Phil]

I wish I knew what all this meant.

[GaryMcEwan]

I just hope Abellio know what they are letting themselves in for with regards to the Glasgow suburban services which are ran in conjunction with SPT (Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) as those services are nothing but an absolute disaster...

Oh aye and other thing, I hope Abellio give the current Scotrail Twitter team some customer service training as it's absolutely woeful at present and don't help at all in regards to grievances or problems that passengers are experiencing.

[Nick Harvey]

I wish I knew what all this meant.

It's simples!

Once electrification occurs, you can add either seven or eight to the number you first thought of.

At least, I think that's what he said.

I'm tempted to post a picture of a train.

[scottishtv]

To clarify, SPT have nothing to do with the provision or operation of rail services in Strathclyde. I'm not sure why you say these are woeful Gary as these are part of the main franchise. All rail powers were taken from SPT many years ago by the then transport minister Nicol Stephen. If you still see some trains in the old SPT colours (carmine and cream) then that's just because they haven't painted them ScotRail blue yet. SPT can help to fund some infrastructure work, such as stations and interchanges, but that's about it. I understood the Strathclyde suburban network (claimed to be the largest outside London) to be run pretty well.

The Abellio proposal does look quite promising. Longer distance 'express' services Inverness/Aberdeen to Edinburgh and Glasgow to be run by HSTs instead of Class 170s, and new electric trains for the Edinburgh-Glasgow flagship shuttle route during the franchise. Looks like the 170s will be cascaded elsewhere but with a commitment to expand capacity nothing seems to be getting binned.

They also seem to be taking it seriously, moving their UK rail head office to Scotland. I'm intrigued by some commitments such as no compulsory redundancies for the 10 year term of the franchise, and also a commitment to pay staff the living wage, and ensure that sub-contractors do too.

More details here and here (The Scotsman) for those interested.

One final point - you have to remember that the spec for this franchise has been set by Transport Scotland (The Scottish Government's transport department) and as it's the biggest contract they have, it could be that they have packed a lot more into it than the DfT may have for franchises elsewhere.

[Critique]

Good luck Scottish train passengers - you'll certainly need it! Abellio 'serves' us in East Anglia and it consistently comes bottom in consumer satisfaction polls as the service is awful. I've spent many a journey on the London Liverpool Street - Norwich service trapped in-between carriages as the train is packed, the next one cancelled and my reserved seat in some abyss. And I believe they've been granted a franchise extension...

Abellio also play a part in Northern, as mentioned previously, which is bad (yet not ranked bottom despite the bus carriages) too, although this may not be entirely their fault. If ScotRail passengers are used to clean, on-time trains then I suggest they begin to lower their expectations. And then lower them again. Also if it's the kind of thing you like to moan about then Abellio is a dutch rail company, whilst I believe First are based in Aberdeen?

See @delayed_again for more details of the five star service Abellio provide.

I don't think it's as simple as saying 'First in Scotland = good, Abellio In the east = bad, therefore First=Good, Abellio=Bad'.

First of all, I completely agree that it isn't as simple as First = good and Abellio = Bad because of one franchise they operate, but it appears that First are doing a better job with their various franchises, which one assumes takes a lot more effort to manage, than Abellio have with done the one they operate on their own.

First scores particularly highly with Scotrail, although there other services may well leave something to be desired. A Which? survey from the beginning of the year ranks the TOCs as follows:



So, Southeastern is bottom and Abellio GA second from bottom, with Great Western and Capital Connect one and three places above GA respectively. TransPennine Express is then middle of the table, with Scotrail closer to the top end of things - take an average of their scores and First places between London Midland and Arriva Trains Wales, putting them just below the middle of the table. Meanwhile, Greater Anglia stays second from bottom, and if you take an average that includes Northern with it, you end up with a score of 43%, which whilst above First Capital Connect is below every other First operation.

What's that, one poll isn't enough? Okay, let's look at the National Rail Passenger Survey from this Spring, therefore conducted at roughly the same time. It's a PDF so I won't include the graph here, but should you wish to check I'm using the table on page marked as page 13 of this PDF. This one includes First Hull trains in it's rankings (they're not subject to franchising so aren't in the Which poll, but score a whopping 96% satisfaction rate in the National Rail poll), with the average working out at 86.5% (83% excl. Hull Trains for balance), whilst Abellio still score a lower 81% with Greater Anglia (80.5% inc. Northern) - Greater Anglia individually ranks higher than Capital Connect and Great Western here, but is still ranked better overall.

However, surely the point here is that First doing well with the one franchise that matters, with this being the Scotrail franchise. Meanwhile Greater Anglia aren't doing well with the one franchise they have sole responsibility for - if you look at the twitter feed I linked to on the previous page you'll see it's full of the same things day in day out, like untidy trains and platforms, broken furniture, delays, cancellations and so on. Whilst Abellio have posted a promising proposal, I'm not sure they'll deliver on it. In five years time when we're nearing the half-way point of the franchise we may well reflect on this thread and declare that I'm an idiot, but First's track record is simply better.

[scottishtv]

If you're doing a fair public tendering process then you can't really let the incumbent have an advantage though. That said, there should also be scope for all tenderers to qualify any promises with evidence and examples. I'm sure Abellio must have been able to do this (and better than First, National Express, Arriva, and MTR) in their proposal. As Abellio have also made promises on staffing, then we should really see the same levels of on-train cleaning staff, station maintenence staff, ticket gate staff etc. which might not lead to some of the negatives seen elsewhere. You might be underestimating the degree to which such things have been specified in the tender.

Anyway, no images have been posted yet, we'll soon be seeing this in Scotland for the first time (in this look):

[barcode]

Abellio, have proved it can keep its promises..

Last years it put out a tender as part of its bid:
http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov. ... =AUG152580

Just to point out First also operates a large number of bus service in the central belt of Scotland, which compete with many train services. With the lost, these bus service can now have the freedom to do what first likes with them.

[scottishtv]

Good point. First were required to agree to several undertakings put forward by the Competition Commission after the OFT referred the award of the ScotRail franchise to the CC last time round. Now they will be free of those, they might consider how they could compete with the train on certain express corridors. That said Stagecoach/Citylink/Megabus already have a lot of these worked out already. It's probably why Stagecoach didn't bid for ScotRail - it would've caused them no end of hassle with all the bus businesses they own in Scotland, where they would already be classed as the dominant public transport operator.