News analysis
to get out of paying even the lowest price in the last three years. ‘Anyone who knows FirstGroup has to acknowledge the skill of the staff who could make that deal. Some might feel it strips the pants off people. One could certainly say the company looks after its shareholders very well indeed!’ Bob Crow from the RMT put it more
bluntly: ‘This shows the insanity of the franchising process. FirstGroup have made a fortune out of their investment in rail operations. But even that isn’t enough for them. They now want a gold plated 15-year deal which will give them nothing less than a licence to print money.’ For several years, ‘Worst Late Western’
was deeply unpopular with its passengers. Early in the franchise, it became the poorest performing train operator in the country.
‘One has to admire First’s commercial negotiating skills. It is a very clever company’
A First Great Western service on the Dawlish sea wall in Devon
That was partly down to decrepit infrastructure. But much of the blame lay in poor operational management. Prominent MPs called for First to be stripped of its franchise. The secretary of state at the time summoned executives for a severe telling off. Passengers in the Bristol area held a ‘strike’ by refusing to pay fares. For weeks on end, the company dominated the news agenda in the West Country. First threw money at the problem. It
shunted many of its senior staff out of the way, and poached Andrew Haines from South West Trains to turn the business around. He made a good start, before falling out with head office and heading off to run the Civil Aviation Authority. Mark Hopwood stepped in and completed the job: First Great Western is now well run. Sitting in the middle of the train
operator performance table is an impressive achievement for a company with ancient diesel trains and creaking infrastructure that Network Rail is only now getting to grips with.
So what happens next? Tim O’Toole
has made it very clear that he wants to keep playing with the train set that First has run since privatisation in 1996. Because he has fulfilled the major part of his contract, there
is nothing to stop the group bidding hard for a third consecutive term in the Swindon and Paddington offices. Long InterCity franchises don’t come
up very often. So we can expect all the big players to pitch in. It will be a difficult bid: at least six years of disruption, massive upheaval in the train fleet, teething problems with new rolling stock and unsettled timetables. Plus new train depots to build, with huge staff re-training programmes. This is a project fraught with difficulty
and with enormous potential for spectacular cock-ups. The price paid will have to reflect that.
But when the work is done, whoever
gets control of the Great Western will have a clear decade running the newest trains over modernised tracks and under brand new wires. The business will serve one of the wealthiest commuter regions in which today’s, sometimes severe, overcrowding underlines the enormous potential for growth. Make no mistake: for a clever contract
negotiator, this could just be what Bob Crow chooses to call ‘a licence to print money’.
PAUL CLIFTON is the transport correspondent for BBC South:
paul.clifton@
railpro.co.uk
JUNE 2011 PAGE 15
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