# Franchise Change for trains in the North



## oneflewover (Dec 9, 2015)

Department Of Transport announce new franchisee for the "Northern Powerhouse"

Serco Abellio the current incumbent loses out to Arriva the previous incumbent. Tran Pennine Express remain the same with First Group.

Rail franchising: Northern and TransPennine Express franchises - Written statements to Parliament - GOV.UK

First Group paying £400million for the honour
Arriva reducing subsidy by £140million

Lots of promising of new trains, WiFi and sandwiches on stations.

However until line rebuilding will still be 2hrs for the 94miles between Hull and Manchester


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## StoneRoad (Dec 9, 2015)

ffs. arriva are 5h1t with trains ... I have to suffer them in Wales as well as up here again.
I still think it is absurd to have this system, with operators creaming off profits & sunbsidies from what should be operated as a public utility/service.


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## oneflewover (Dec 9, 2015)

StoneRoad said:


> ffs. arriva are 5h1t with trains ... I have to suffer them in Wales as well as up here again.
> I still think it is absurd to have this system, with operators creaming off profits & sunbsidies from what should be operated as a public utility/service.



What is surprising is that franchsie process does not look at what the Operator may be doing in other franchises - but at the bid going forward IYSWIM


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## lazythursday (Dec 16, 2015)

I have terrible memories of the era of light-blue trains that never arrived, the awful years of Arriva Trains Northern and their emergency timetables, and yet it seems the Department of Transport don't have files going back that far. I'm told by a train geek friend that things will be different, it's all part of Deutsche Bahn now, but I'm sceptical. There are good things about this new franchise period in terms of new routes etc but all that would be the same no matter what operator had won the contract.


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## oneflewover (Dec 16, 2015)

A little in the defence of Arriva the first time around. After the initial privatisation, MTL got the first franchise. Basically a set of bus drivers from Liverpool with no notion of how to run a railway. It seemed like a bad joke by the tories on the eastern side of the north of England.

Arriva took over but the rot was in, Drivers especially jumping ship as all the other Railway Companies with no Driver training schemes poached them with huge wage raise promises +20%. It takes a year to train a driver so there was a long catch up period.

Units and their maintenance had been pared back to a level that would not pass scrutiny by any outside body to the point where it was on the extreme limits of safety.

It was, as you say, a terrible time.


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## Dogsauce (Dec 27, 2015)

oneflewover said:


> However until line rebuilding will still be 2hrs for the 94miles between Leeds and Manchester



It's not 94 miles and it doesn't take 2hrs.  It's about half that. When they divert transpennine trains into Victoria in a year or so (after the new Ordsall curve at the west of Manchester is complete) it'll take 48 minutes for the fastest trains via Huddersfield.  Still not fast enough, but an improvement of about ten minutes. At the moment trains have to crawl into Piccadilly from Stalybridge via a meandering route with speed restrictions. The Leeds end is also pretty slow. No amount of new track in between the cities will help that much.


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## oneflewover (Dec 27, 2015)

Dogsauce said:


> It's not 94 miles and it doesn't take 2hrs.  It's about half that. When they divert transpennine trains into Victoria in a year or so (after the new Ordsall curve at the west of Manchester is complete) it'll take 48 minutes for the fastest trains via Huddersfield.  Still not fast enough, but an improvement of about ten minutes. At the moment trains have to crawl into Piccadilly from Stalybridge via a meandering route with speed restrictions. The Leeds end is also pretty slow. No amount of new track in between the cities will help that much.



My error, that's Hull -  Manchester. I've requested an edit of the original post.


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