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What future for the rail franchises

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Heartland

Heartland

master brummie
West Midlands Railways has been in the news lately for the wrong reasons- train overcrowding, punctuality and cancellation. The Police & Crime Commissioner has called the franchise to account and expects urgent improvement. Yet this situation seems to be spreading across the UK. The Scottish Government, who also use the Dutch State Railways, for the Scotrail franchise has indicated that that franchise will not be extended. Northern Railway also is under scrutiny for their performance.

There is a new franchise in Birmingham when from the 8th December 2019 First Group and the Italian State Railways has replaced Virgin. They call the new service Avanti, which is Italian for Forward,

I wonder if they were told that was also the motto for Birmingham !

Sadly their services are not immune to delays or cancellation despite the name change.
 
Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands is very angry with West Midlands Trains. If they don't improve by the 31st January 2020, he wants the Department of Transport to strip them of the West Midlands Franchise. Day after day reports of "a shortage of staff", cancellations, delayed trains is not good enough. They were supposed to improve things after taking over from London Midland, not make them worse!
 
I haven't lived in the UK for 15 years and we don't have any railways on Crete, but I'm just wondering have many of the delays can be laid at the foot of Network Rail as they seem to control the infrastructure these days. The only other comment I would make is that rail travel seems very expensive in the UK these days.

Maurice :cool:
 
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