Rail Franchising - The Future

[First Class]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future

(15/10/2012 05:28)wirralbus Wrote:  I'm led to believe the RMT and First Group are seperately looking at legal challenges to the awarding of this management contract if it goes ahead.

Rightfully so, though.

Virgin have already had one (legal) extension, giving them a second extension, without putting it out for tender is, at best sharp practice, at worst, downright illegal.

You can't go round willy nilly giving extensions to contracts to anyone you fancy just because it suits you at the time.

The main problem being Virgin could pick a random number of £millions and the DfT has absolutely no choice but to accept, because if DfT refuse to pay their asking price, the trains simply won't run until DOR find a board of directors.

[wirralbus]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future
If im being honest the management of DOR East Coast should be asked to look at moving across to West Coast and slowly replace them at East Coast as and when .

There must be some emergency powers that were built into the Railway Act for this so called nuclear moment in the rail franchising era.

[First Class]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future

(15/10/2012 05:50)wirralbus Wrote:  If im being honest the management of DOR East Coast should be asked to look at moving across to West Coast and slowly replace them at East Coast as and when .

There must be some emergency powers that were built into the Railway Act for this so called nuclear moment in the rail franchising era.

Railways Act 1993/2005 only allows DOR explicitly to take over as an Operator of Last Resort, (i.e. not allow Virgin to be the OLR). There is no provision if the OLR is unavailable. The staff would not be employed by anyone for starters.

To do otherwise would have made the Railways Act 2005 non-EU compliant.

I'm not too sure why the DOR EC board can't just take on the WC... same policies, suppliers, same uniform, branding etc...

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future
Virgin are set to continue running the West Coast franchise for another 9-13 months according to the BBC. Clearly it isn't illegal as was suggested earlier in this thread.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19944782

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future
One of the newspapers this morning is blaming the whole franchising fiasco on cuts at the DfT, which if true, I wouldn't be surprised.

[First Class]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future
The current franchise is due to expire on 9 December after which it is the government’s intention that Virgin remain as operator for a short period – expected to be between 9 and 13 months – while a competition is run for an interim franchise agreement. This interim agreement, which would be open to any bidders, will then run until the new long term West Coast franchise is ready to commence.

Just because a government does something, doesn't mean it's legal. The DfT are absolutely desperate and face probably the worst incident of franchising since privatisation. They don't really have much choice other than to breach EU law, else the trains stop running and hundreds of staff have no employer. I suspect First Group et al will slaughter the DfT at court in the coming months.

LATEST:
Now hearing full WCML franchise may not be issued until 2018. Awaiting more info.

[mbonwick]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future
As I keep saying, its not illegal.

Virgin have been given a new management contract, not an extension of the existing franchise.

[wirralbus]

RE: Rail Franchising - The Future
If that is the case then really all the units should have the virgin brand removed and a West Coast branding placed on the existing livery.