Our rail network is laughable, it's a F**king joke.

[bluethrunthru]

Post-Brexit rules detain us on the borders of Europe's rail renaissance

Trains are leaving Amsterdam Centraal station almost three-quarters empty in an attempt to avoid long queues

inews.co.uk

 

[bluethrunthru]

TPE contract not to be renewed - positive govt action OR to be cynical is it Govt action to look like they are doing something for Red Wall seats with a GE coming up? I mean they have let it drag on long enough with no action.

TransPennine Express loses contract over poor service

The government will now run the service after months of delays and cancellations.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[metalblue]

TPE contract not to be renewed - positive govt action OR to be cynical is it Govt action to look like they are doing something for Red Wall seats with a GE coming up? I mean they have let it drag on long enough with no action.

TransPennine Express loses contract over poor service

The government will now run the service after months of delays and cancellations.

www.bbc.co.uk

I would imagine the government had to wait for their contract to run out to avoid all sorts of extra costs to the tax payer.

 

[bluethrunthru]

I would imagine the government had to wait for their contract to run out to avoid all sorts of extra costs to the tax payer.

save costs to the tax payer? Does not compute. The only reason to wait until the franchise runs out is to allow their pals to scrape the absolute most out of the taxpayer as they could

 

[metalblue]

save costs to the tax payer? Does not compute. The only reason to wait until the franchise runs out is to allow their pals to scrape the absolute most out of the taxpayer as they could

Generally breach of contract is expensive. Although there are Performance requirements in the operator contract, it is not a break clause, however can give rise to remedial arrangements which themselves may or may not cause the contract to terminate. It’s a long winded process and the contact in question was signed May-2021 with a notice clause executable on or by 4-Mar-2023 to terminate, after that the contract would run for some period, and it looks like that was triggered. As is usual the parties would have to make reasonable efforts to resolve issues with termination seen as a last resort to avoid court.

I’d suggest the government probably acted as quickly as it reasonably could in this case - although any long suffering user of that line would probably disagree!

 

[Grassland Blue]

TPE where to start.
First of all get a realistic temporary timetable introduced which takes into account the availability of crews and train sets.
Make sure that all these trains run.
That is the first step.
For far too long the railway has been image over substance, that state of affairs needs to be addressed.
I'd have the thing running properly in a matter of weeks.