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Broken & Late Ltd: Britain's Railways

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    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post

    The preferred option for semi-regular commuters here are ten trip tickets, which are a bit cheaper than ten singles. The other options are weeklies or monthlies, as we don’t do annual season tickets, which I’ve always associated with Britain.
    Germany does and I'm sure other countries do also...

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      Spoke too soon, effluent currently spewing out onto the platform. To be fair, a lot is just splashing straight over onto the track.

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        How near are they to doing the planned major upgrade of Sunderland Station? Assuming that's why they aren't fixing it now.

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          Sorry Figs, didn't notice that earlier. I wish I worked in Sunderland, I work in Washington. The pap pipe thing has been going on since early December, I think. I'm not entirely sure, I don't get the train every day.

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            Nothing announced officially as yet, Tubbo.

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              Jeez.

              I saw there was a funding gap of £6m. Sure, if that's a rich area, you tell the Tory county council to find that money by sticking the tax up. In Sunderland, the government should just find it and get on with it.

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                From The Financial Times On


                Richard Branson will not have relished coverage of his rail operations over the past week © PA
                In practice, however, a bailout is precisely what Mr Grayling has delivered. True, the East Coast franchise has conked out twice before. But in both cases the owners formally defaulted. When National Express handed back the keys in 2009, it was banned from further franchise bids for three years, with the franchise scooped into a state-owned company that actually did rather well.

                The result is not only an extraordinarily advantageous outcome for Virgin and Stagecoach, who otherwise faced heavy losses. It also raises serious questions about the credibility of franchise auctions — the main competitive tool the government uses both to keep franchise owners honest and to legitimise private-sector profits.

                There may, of course, be circumstances when it’s right to revisit the terms of these deals, such as when franchises incur losses directly attributable to failures by state-owned bits of the network. And in Virgin’s case, there have been allegations of delayed infrastructure upgrades, and rolling-stock deliveries.

                But where this happens, complaints should be transparently dealt with and not, as with Mr Grayling, implausibly gussied up as some newfangled policy initiative where he intends to retender the franchise as an unspecified “public-private partnership” with closer links to Network Rail. That leaves the unpleasant smell of a “heads I win, tails you lose” arrangement.

                Many train operators have sobering cheques to write under the deals they’ve signed with government. No doubt they’d love to swap these bills for one of Mr Grayling’s new “partnerships” on easier terms.

                The transport secretary may think he’s been politically clever. At a time when the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is loudly banging the drum for renationalisation, he has avoided pushing the East Coast franchise back into public hands for the second time in a decade.

                In practice, however, his actions betray a tin ear when it comes to the political dynamics of the privatised railways. By letting private, dividend-paying owners off the hook, he has at a stroke delegitimised future dividends, a feeling that will only grow if further contracts are renegotiated.

                Mr Branson may be squirming because of the transport secretary’s action. But make no mistake, Mr Corbyn has drawn first blood.

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                  Grayling postponed the upgrade work on which the big jump in the premium payments depended."Allegations"?!

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                    Labour should attack Grayling on that. "Cancel investment, you cost the government money. We won't do that".

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                      Well.

                      This is a right quandary, init?


                      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42621425


                      “Virgin West Coast train firm to stop selling Daily Mail”

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                        Originally posted by sw2bureau View Post
                        Spoke too soon, effluent currently spewing out onto the platform. To be fair, a lot is just splashing straight over onto the track.
                        You haven't lived till you've worked on underground sewerage pipes in the middle of winter. The steam keeps you warm.

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                          Speaking of the Mail, I've just been listening the News Quiz. I'd forgotten what an insufferable prick Peter Oborne is.

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                            Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
                            Well.

                            This is a right quandary, init?


                            http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42621425


                            “Virgin West Coast train firm to stop selling Daily Mail”
                            Not for long mind.

                            http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42687568

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                              Teesside Airport losing a platform apparently

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                                Yeah, Look North mentioned it a while back. They kept calling it "Durham Tees Valley station" despite clearly showing the signs on the platform saying "Teesside Airport". It's a bizarre move considering the airport itself seems to be having a bit of a renaissance, with almost three times as many daily flights as a couple of years back since Loganair and Flybe have started operating from it. Though I guess that doesn't make a difference for the station if there are no plans for a more regular train service to link up with the flights.

                                I think at the moment the only train that stops there is the weekly Sunday service from Hartlepool to Darlo (which by the way is - shockingly - the only direct train each week between the two towns, which is why on weekdays it takes a minimum of 70 minutes to travel between two 100k towns 25 miles apart. I don't think there's a direct bus service either.)
                                Last edited by Fussbudget; 15-01-2018, 20:49.

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                                  I read that if they don't mothball one platform there's a £6m bill they'll have to pay for something. Doesn't sound all that much if there's the chance of getting the station-airport off the ground.

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                                    The problem with Teeside airport is they built a new passenger terminal a few years ago which is about a miles walk from the station. The terminal building is good, sensible and in the right place, but nobody on their right mind is going to traipse a mile with suitcaces to catch a flight. I know what people will say and that is that you can put on a bus service, but the passenger numbers just do not justify it.

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                                      Ah. So this is basically a station stuck on a line that was passing anyway and is now no good because the terminal is too far away?

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                                        Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                                        Ah. So this is basically a station stuck on a line that was passing anyway and is now no good because the terminal is too far away?
                                        I'm afraid so, yes.

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                                          So write this station off, and make a case for rerouting the line when the airport looks more established?

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                                            Originally posted by Paul S View Post
                                            The problem with Teeside airport is they built a new passenger terminal a few years ago which is about a miles walk from the station. The terminal building is good, sensible and in the right place, but nobody on their right mind is going to traipse a mile with suitcaces to catch a flight. I know what people will say and that is that you can put on a bus service, but the passenger numbers just do not justify it.
                                            Chicken and egg, innit. And the walk is hardly that long given that most people only have cabin luggage; put some trains on and signpost the walk properly and people would actually use it.

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                                              So the signpost would say 'Teesside'?

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                                                Southeastern was a clusterfuck yet again this morning, with the 9.11 Deptford train delayed by 20 minutes because of signalling issues and a broken down train at St John's making my diversion via New Cross pointless. This is at least the third broken down train during rush hour this year, and we're only two weeks in. I don't think the 9.24 has ever been on time this year.

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                                                  Two of my colleagues commute in from Kent and the service has gotten so awful that the dreaded "c" word (Connex) has reared its ugly head.

                                                  More than 15 years on, it still remains the ultimate insult for railway ineptitude in this part of the world (I can attest Connex South Central were every bit as bad).

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                                                    Grayling's spoken his brains on the subject.

                                                    C4 News FactCheck‏Verified account
                                                    @FactCheck
                                                    New on @FactCheck: Chris Grayling's claim about train delays was only based on personal judgement - not statistics.

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