End of an era for National Express rail franchise

By EDP REPORTER
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
10:28 AM

This weekend sees the end of an era on East Anglia’s trains.

At midnight on Saturday the last National Express East Anglia passenger service will run as the franchise is taken over by Greater Anglia – owned by the Dutch-based Abellio group.

After nearly eight years of running the service throughout this region National Express will be left with only the C2C service between Southend and Fenchurch Street.

The man who has run National Express’ rail services for the last five years is, unlike most of his colleagues, staying with the company.

And Andrew Chivers has admitted National Express could mount a bid to win it back when the long-term franchise comes up to be awarded in 2014. He said: “Potential franchisees will be starting to bid in 2013. We will be looking at that when the time comes.”

But as the end of the East Anglia franchise approaches, Mr Chivers said his company could look back with satisfaction on many achievements.

He said: “Reliability has improved, on average, from 85pc when National Express, or one as it was then called, took over to 91pc today.

“During that time we have carried 15pc more passengers on 15pc more trains over the same infrastructure.”

He accepted there had been challenges.

Main-line trains had been transferred to the region and refurbished shortly before the franchise started in 2004 – and were now becoming due for another major refurbishment.

This meant they were now looking tired, but they were basically sound and would probably be improved in the future.

However, his company pioneered close working with infrastructure company Network Rail – staff sit together in the regional control centre, working together when issues arise.

And most of the delays that have affected passengers have been because of infrastructure problems rather than train problems.

Signalling failures, overhead line problems (except rare occasions when a train has snagged wires), and engineering over-runs are the responsibility of Network Rail.

However National Express has come under fire for not communi-cating well enough with its passengers when things go wrong.

Mr Chivers insisted this had improved during the years of the franchise.

Looking forward, the new train operating company will face many of the same challenges as National Express has done over the last eight years.

The line through much of Essex – between Colchester and Shenfield – is the most intensively-used two-track rail section in the country.

The overhead wires between Chelmsford and Liverpool Street are being replaced at a cost of £200m – the basic infrastructure dates from the 1940s.

The programme should have been completed in time for the Olympics – but in the event the schedule has slipped and will not now be finished until Crossrail is completed in 2015.

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7 comments

Hooray!! Does this mean we may actually get a proper train service now? National Express trains have just been voted the worst performing train service in the country which comes as absolutely no surprise to us long suffering commuters. After years of enduring high fares, terrible trains and endless cancellations and delays surely Greater Anglia taking over the franchise can only be an improvement?

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Mrs Meldrew

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Good riddance!!

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Jacob Burns

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
When you look at Michael Portillo's TV programmes about railway journeys you see smart, comfortable, modern trains. When you travel to London from Norwich you have to use 30-year old carriages which creak, groan, rattle and bump. The seats are difficult to get into because of the fixed arm-rests. The space for luggage is inadequate. The sliding doors at the end of the seating area stick in the open position letting in draughts from the open door-windows. And you have to put your arm out of the window to open the exit door [which is OK if you're a policeman and have the long arm of the law, I suppose]. Returning from London the trains are not displayed on the departure screen until a few minutes before leaving resulting in a mad scramble by hundreds of people to get to the standard class carriages at the front of the train; again, no good if you have short legs. Will Abellio make a difference to these features of the service? I'm not sitting on the edge of my seat with great expectations.

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JCW

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
biglingers - disastrously, under the present franchising system, whoever puts in the lowest cost bid wins the franchise. On that basis, whoever bids cheap and nasty on service will get the franchise, so that's what you end up with - a cheap and nasty service. Quality doesn't come into it and don't expect the fares to be cheap either. Bidding for these franchises is a very expensive business and Abellio has got to recover those costs in two years.

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fishbourne

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
fishbourne - lets at least give them a chance! -anything would be an improvement!!

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biglingers

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
marty r What makes you think that a new operator will be any better? They're already planning to cut costs by using fewer trains than National Express and their fare rises will be just the same - it's the government that dictates those.

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fishbourne

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Goodbye and good riddance to them. Overpriced and unreliable.

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marty r

Wednesday, February 1, 2012