As mentioned in a previous blog post, the only problem I had with GNER’s new online booking engine (which has continued to be used by National Express) was that it did not accept American Express. I was promptly told that support for Amex was due to be added in January and, as promised, it arrived towards the end of the month. (more…)
From The Guardian: Trains on the money-go-round
Christian Wolmar with a not too optimistic look on rail franchising. London Overground is mentioned in this article, it’s going to be interesting to see how this TFL managed franchise is going to perform.
The new National Express East Coast franchise has started today. Although I do have my doubts as to whether the franchise will be a success (as I believe they’ve overbid for the franchise like GNER did in 2005) and I’ll miss the GNER branding, I do wish them well for the future and hope that they prove me wrong with regards to their bid. They have ideas for the future, some are totally new ideas and others are based on GNER’s original 2005 bid, if they can deliver and remain profitable then travelling the East Coast route will still remain a pleasure.
It looks like the future of GNER’s new web site and booking engine is safe. If you visit nationalexpresseastcoast.co.uk at the moment all you get as an ‘under construction’ notice, however if you look up the IP address of the site you will see that it is the same as the GNER site. Also tickets.nationalexpresseastcoast.co.uk currently displays the GNER booking engine. Presumably from midnight all they need to do is change a setting and the new National Express brand will appear in place of GNER. It’ll be a shame to see the GNER brand disappear but at least the new website will be used for more than a couple of weeks.
UPDATE: new site is live at www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com (.co.uk has not been set up yet - looks like the .com form will be the official one).
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A lot of people seem to mistakenly believe that the East Coast franchise will be the first attempt by National Express at operating a railway. This is not true, but it is the first time they’ve decided to name their rail operation after their parent company. Giving a high speed rail operation the same name as a slow moving coach service seems to be a big mistake but it is part of a plan by National Express to expand the scope of their brand. (more…)
In most of the UK the trains look a mess thanks to the way the franchising process works. When a new company takes over a franchise it always takes a few years before all their trains are rebranded. In many cases it’s even longer, in London you still often see trains in the old British Rail Network SouthEast colour scheme or the colour scheme of the past franchisee, many times you see a mix of colour schemes over various carriages on the same train. It doesn’t do a good job of setting brand identity. (more…)
It’s been a while since I’ve travelled GNER but I’ve always considered them one of the better train operators in the UK. I missed the news that National Express had been awarded the new franchise in August. The new franchise will start on 9th December 2007.
My main concern for this franchise is that National Express seem to have made the same mistake in bidding for the franchise as GNER, that is they’re paying too high a premium to offer services on this line. GNER were to pay the government £1.3 billion to run the franchise until March 2015, according to the BBC, National Express will be paying £1.4 billion to run the franchise also until March 2015. Therefore National Express are paying more for a shorter franchise as the franchise ends 10 years after GNER was given the renewed franchise rather than 10 years after National Express takes it over.
GNER struggled with these high payments to the government and I can’t see how National Express are going to do any better unless they sacrifice service quality or they raise fares. No doubt if fares rise it’ll be the flexible tickets that suffer the most, one of the things I like about rail travel is its turn up and go nature but these days rail companies are concentrating too much on getting the advance purchase tickets down in price and raising the flexible ticket prices.
As I collect Flying Blue miles I never really considered Eurostar an option until last August, this was the time when airport security took a turn for the worse and for a short while all carryon luggage was banned from UK airports.
As I needed to travel a few days after this ban was in place I decided it was a good time to try Eurostar. Now Eurostar gets most of my business between London and Paris and sometimes Brussels too. Although London City is still not too bad, Heathrow had hit new lows once the new security regulations came into place (and it was a stressful enough experience before these rules came into force). To make things worse, Air France fly from Terminal 2 which has no security fast track for Flying Blue Elite or business class passengers. Eventually it’s planned that all SkyTeam airlines will join KLM in Terminal 4 which will improve things dramatically.
Book a flight between London and one of the major Virgin Trains destinations on the west coast and Virgin will give you free first class rail travel in return for your used boarding pass.
The aim is to get anyone who regularly flies to see how rail travel can be more convenient. (more…)