Northern Trains Ltd

[iMarkeh]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
If Northern was government ran, we would never have these constant cancellations and all the trains would run on time. It's corporate greed meaning services aren't running.

Oh... Hang on....

Arriva Northern was excellent. Never had an issue, now all of a sudden it's government ran and it has gown down hill and I can't help but feel that Arriva would have handled this 100x better than the OLR or whatever DFT company is running Northern.

[313201]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
All we can hope is that Northern gets taken on by Arriva again.

If it ran much better under Arriva then maybe they could possibly bid for the franchise.

[iMarkeh]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(24/09/2020 17:39)313201 Wrote:  All we can hope is that Northern gets taken on by Arriva again.

If it ran much better under Arriva then maybe they could possibly bid for the franchise.

Franchising isn't happening anymore. They are going for management contracts (like GTR). I do hope that Arriva go for it. Arriva can't run buses to save their life but trains they seem to do quite well.

[wirralbus]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(24/09/2020 21:23)iMarkeh Wrote:  Franchising isn't happening anymore. They are going for management contracts (like GTR). I do hope that Arriva go for it. Arriva can't run buses to save their life but trains they seem to do quite well.

Arriva can run buses better than some of the bigger bus groups , namely First .

Its just arriva was given a pig in a poke with Northern , nothing they touched worked , Northern Eelectrification late , new trains late , Guards Dispute (Government inspired ).

If i was Arriva i wouldnt come back whilst Andy Burnham is Mayor of Greater Manchester , he was the biggest instigator of them losing the Franchise.

[iMarkeh]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(24/09/2020 22:21)wirralbus Wrote:  Arriva can run buses better than some of the bigger bus groups , namely First .

Its just arriva was given a pig in a poke with Northern , nothing they touched worked , Northern Eelectrification late , new trains late , Guards Dispute (Government inspired ).

If i was Arriva i wouldnt come back whilst Andy Burnham is Mayor of Greater Manchester , he was the biggest instigator of them losing the Franchise.

Point 1, debatable

Point 2, Arriva wasn't given a good set of cards. I'd argue most of their problems were due to the government (Mainly DFT and Network Rail) and that then made their own projects late because too much other stuff was going on and it all kind of got messed up together.

I think personally I would dump Northern all on Andy Burnham and see how he runs it because as you say he was a big instigator against Arriva Northern. I'd love to see how he could run it better since the only thing he ever did was slate Arriva and now it's gov ran, there is no comments despite it being worse ran than before. He is quite simply against private companies running public transport and that is the long and short of it.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
I maybe alone in this view but I think that over the last few years, the most reliable/stable Northern franchise was when it was run by Serco/Ned Rail, yes they had their fair share of issues but not on the scale we have seen over the last 4 years.

[507022]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(25/09/2020 06:55)St Helens Rider Wrote:  I maybe alone in this view but I think that over the last few years, the most reliable/stable Northern franchise was when it was run by Serco/Ned Rail, yes they had their fair share of issues but not on the scale we have seen over the last 4 years.

I agree with your comments, but also the last four years has coincided with the class 195 & 331s coming into service and Northern just didn’t have enough crews to cover the normal work as well as driver training the new units and route learning the Blackpool electrification/ remodelling. The same thing happened with TPE before their new trains came in. Unfortunately, with franchisees probably offering minimum costs to get the franchises which would mean minimum numbers of staff, something had to give when faced with the training required for the new trains.

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(25/09/2020 08:11)507022 Wrote:  The same thing happened with TPE before their new trains came in. Unfortunately, with franchisees probably offering minimum costs to get the franchises which would mean minimum numbers of staff, something had to give when faced with the training required for the new trains.

I thought Arriva's bid was the middle option, with Govia's bid being the bare minimum - offering what was required and no more, Arriva offering a bit more for additional cost with Abellio promising a lot more new trains (and a lot more DCO.)

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(24/09/2020 22:47)iMarkeh Wrote:  I think personally I would dump Northern all on Andy Burnham and see how he runs it because as you say he was a big instigator against Arriva Northern.

I'd actually ask him to produce a plan for TfGM to take over local services, as he has suggested he wants and see how he actually approaches the many local services which go beyond the Greater Manchester boundary, especially the ones going in to West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Merseyside who all obviously have their own PTEs.

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(25/09/2020 06:55)St Helens Rider Wrote:  I maybe alone in this view but I think that over the last few years, the most reliable/stable Northern franchise was when it was run by Serco/Ned Rail, yes they had their fair share of issues but not on the scale we have seen over the last 4 years.

Agreed but one of the advantages they had is there was no requirement for them to refurbish or replace rolling stock meaning any deadlines for work being done to trains could be agreed between them and the relevant ROSCO. Also as it was originally intended that they would keep all trains until the end of the franchise (with the exception of the Oldham loop Pacers) it wasn't appropriate for them to not bother fixing trains which they'll return and to do work to ones less in need of work which they intended to keep.

Although they did seem to have a strong Yorkshire bias e.g. moving the North Western Trains 153s and 158s to Neville Hill, deciding to cascade 142s and 150s out of Neville Hill and convincing Merseytravel that it would work better if the 158s they paid to secure were used in West Yorkshire with the other 158s and promising to use 156s on Chat Moss in lieu.