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Southeastern to be taken over by OLR

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brad465

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Probably the £10m on 375s already announced.
This is news to me and would love to know what that will achieve, especially given 375s are in very good condition after their mid-life refurb (unlike the 377s SE have sub-leased from Southern/GTR).
So Southeastern didn't lose their franchise because of shocking staffing levels at SE London Metro stations or unloved Networkers, but for financial irregularity? That says it all when the Government are only interested in the finances.
Seems to be an Al Capone or Matt Hancock scenario when it comes to the scandal that leads to their downfall.
 
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fgwrich

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Remember them quoting about getting out of the UK & only sticking with rail in Europe. They where no loss as far as I was concerned.
The 465s form part of a package - unkempt stations and unkempt trains.

By contrast the 365s have tended to be fairly well looked after, and to be fair haven’t had quite the level of vandalism the SE metro gets. The 365 also had some tweaks to the interior (from new, not the “dumbing down” 2010s refurbishment) which made them a bit brighter and more spacious.

That said, I like the 465s, and do think they get a bit of a bad press on here.
From my point of view, as well as the above, I’ve always felt that the 365s were the best of all of the Networker Family. They just felt better built and slightly better designed with the ball vents. The First Capital Connect refurbishment really made them into excellent units, something slightly lessoned when GTR came along and ripped up the carpets in favour of cheaper treadmaster Lino. The majority of the 465s on the other hand are still running around with the same Lino from new, tired and unkempt in appearance.
 

Essexal

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I wonder how this didn’t get picked up in internal or external audits at Southeastern/Go Ahead or indeed the government for so long?
 

Class 466

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Incidentally, will the current arrangement that Southeastern crew the the Southern Redhill-Tonbridge shuttles with Southern units continue?

Yes as that agreement applies regardless of who operates either franchises. It’s not all the shuttles either, and Southern couldn’t crew it without SE working the ones they do.
 

Luke McDonnell

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One thing that interests me is the timing of this announcement around 7am I have read on here the timing has to be before the markets open but other government press releases etc are not at this time so why does this one have to be and if it is because it has to before the markets open is this sort of announcement likely to be subject to a media embargo until say, 7am with journalists briefed beforehand, say the day before with conditions not to mention until 7am?

Luke
 

ExRes

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Aye it does for SN Drivers, GX OBS' and GWR Guards.

Thanks for the info

One thing that interests me is the timing of this announcement around 7am I have read on here the timing has to be before the markets open but other government press releases etc are not at this time so why does this one have to be and if it is because it has to before the markets open is this sort of announcement likely to be subject to a media embargo until say, 7am with journalists briefed beforehand, say the day before with conditions not to mention until 7am?

Luke

The chances of the media taking notice of an embargo is pretty low I would've thought
 

Dai Corner

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One thing that interests me is the timing of this announcement around 7am I have read on here the timing has to be before the markets open but other government press releases etc are not at this time so why does this one have to be and if it is because it has to before the markets open is this sort of announcement likely to be subject to a media embargo until say, 7am with journalists briefed beforehand, say the day before with conditions not to mention until 7am?

Luke
Other Government press releases don't usually have the potential to significantly affect the share price of a company listed on the stock exchange.
 

jon0844

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Thanks for the info



The chances of the media taking notice of an embargo is pretty low I would've thought

They do tend to leak rumours when they've obviously had the full information under embargo already. I noticed regarding the issuing of visas they embargoed the news of the 5,500 visas for non-driving roles until 2230, presumably so it didn't make the evening news that day.

Embargoes are clearly abused by both sides! As such, financial ones maybe aren't given out until the actual time of announcement.
 

dosxuk

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The chances of the media taking notice of an embargo is pretty low I would've thought
They actually take a lot of notice of them, mainly because if you're known to regularly break them then you stop getting given the information when your competitors do.

Even watching the news channels on a normal day embargoed information is regular and obvious - look at the number of times they start an hour with "breaking news" that hasn't been mentioned at all up to that point, yet they already have reporters in place and a correspondent in the studio to explain what it means. While they would like us to think that's all because they can move quickly, it's not - getting a breaking news story on air within 15 minutes of the first report is a real achievement.

The challenge for the media is what to do when one company breaks an embargo - do you carry on or do you follow. An example of this was the death of Princess Diana, where the official announcement was embargoed but was broken by continental media - British media mostly ending up saying only that there were reports in foreign media of her death, even though by this point they knew them to be true.
 

jon0844

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There are many ways to breach an embargo without being able to held accountable.

As I said, you can report on rumours and highlight certain things you know will be found to be true - so you can say with confidence, knowing you won't look foolish later.

You can also allow someone else, who wasn't privy to the embargo, to learn the details and then leak the information. A risky strategy of course, if you're found out, but the advantage now is once the info is out there you can perhaps report on what has been leaked.

Now I sign many NDAs and we're not allowed to comment on leaks and rumours once we've signed it, precisely for this reason, but it does happen.

As above, it is common to merely mention what is being reported elsewhere.

Embargoes are very useful for the press. I rely on them a lot for news and product announcements as it allows me to write in more depth that being sprung with the news at the same time everyone else gets it.

However, they are often abused and used ONLY to delay the release of news when it might be beneficial to do so. I might be told I can only report a new product at this time, and then talk about certain features at that time, and not publish a review of anything until another date (there are YouTube videos quite recently about dual embargoes).

This means a new thing could be announced today, available to buy immediately, and reviews can't be published until a week or two later. If the manufacturer is fearful of negative reviews because they already know of some issues, that delay is VERY useful as it allows a significant number of units to be sold in advance.

In politics, it's clearly a good way to bury bad news or at least reduce the value of it when it drops at some stupid time of day, maybe just before you know other big news is going to drop (or there's a big event or whatever).
 

James90012

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What is quite unique for this announcement is there has been no indication, at all, that this was happening in the wider press. Usually with franchise news the Sunday Times ends up running a story a couple of weeks before (so and so tipped to win X franchise, etc).

The reality is terminating the relationship at the end of the current contract is a pragmatic solution - there would be an incredible extra amount of work for DfT to terminate the contract mid-term and I think with all of the intense negotiations between the DfT and various TOCs for EMAs, ERMAs and now National Rail Contracts that the bandwidth to deal with an extra contractual issue when the term is up soon anyway appears like a fair choice to make.

For Govia the impact is already more than the £25m as they have also lost future earnings from SE for the following 5 years or so, never mind the significant hit to credibility.
 
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As a result of this, what are the chances of SE driver salaries finally being brought into line with that of other South East England TOC's (GTR, Southern, SWR, MTR, Arriva....... etc)?
 

pdeaves

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I'm not convinced that moving it to LNER gets rid of govia much sooner and adds the complication of then having to do everything twice
For the avoidance of confusion, the Southeastern franchise will not move to LNER. It will move to a separate company that happens to sit under the same umbrella group as LNER (just as Southeastern and Southern sit in the same family now).
 

Watershed

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As a result of this, what are the chances of SE driver salaries finally being brought into line with that of other South East England TOC's (GTR, Southern, SWR, MTR, Arriva....... etc)?
No different to before (i.e. extremely slim).

The railway continues to lose money hand over fist - particularly on operators like Southeastern, where a large proportion of commuters (and thus revenue) haven't returned and are unlikely to ever do so. So there is hardly much appetite for increasing costs.
 

Robertj21a

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As a result of this, what are the chances of SE driver salaries finally being brought into line with that of other South East England TOC's (GTR, Southern, SWR, MTR, Arriva....... etc)?
Hopefully none if the end result is greater cost to the taxpayer.
 

tbwbear

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It was doing OK but nothing special. The problem with British Rail and British Airways was they struggled to raise capital for more investment and there wasn't much of an incentive to get more passengers.

With private companies it's much easier to raise capital for projects than for state owned companies. Also with private companies there is an incentive to get more passengers as it keeps the shareholders happy.
If that is the case, would we say that the model we are now going to end up with - a state-owned "great British Railways" and lots of operating companies owned by foreign states (a la TfL) Abellio, RATP etc... - is going to stuggle to raise capital ?

How did, for example, RATP become so large and influential (it buys up private companies all over the world) without the ability to raise capital ?

Profits not passengers is what keeps the shareholders happy. The two are not neccessarily interchangeable.

OT - I know.
 

zwk500

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Or make some money back of the £25m that SE tried to pocket by turning them all into novelty Razors and fleecing enthusiasts £35 a pop?
 

A0wen

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If this is about making sure the DfT gets it's £25m back how come it took them 7 years to notice it was missing and act?

Because it may not have been £ 25m in a single block - I suspect it was probably about payments over several years which is why it wasn't detected earlier and only when investigating a discrepancy in one year did the issues of other years become apparent.

Could this result in Go Ahead having to divest in some of the bus businesses, Particularly if further financial fines could be coming their way?

With OLR coming in, hopefully they will insist on a better cleaning regime for the SouthEastern fleet - I'm sure there something similar stipulated when OLR took over from Arriva on Northern.

Unlikely - because Govia is a subsidiary of Go Ahead with Keolis also a shareholder.

Normally any fines would be related to the turnover of the relevant operating company, not the turnover of the parent group. So at worst it will be against Govia, not the whole Go Ahead group, at best it may be limited to the SouthEastern franchise element rather than the whole of Govia's turnover which also covers Thameslink/Southern.
 
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43066

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As a result of this, what are the chances of SE driver salaries finally being brought into line with that of other South East England TOC's (GTR, Southern, SWR, MTR, Arriva....... etc)?

Probably not great as they will now be negotiating with the OLR direct until the franchise is re-let (most likely as a concession under the new GBR regime).

Unless something can be negotiated for based on productivity (eg the metro drivers signing new stock), or other T and C changes, but a great deal has already been sold unfortunately. Of course the relatively poor salary contributes to (high) staff turnover and this comes with a cost of its own - SE metro is effectively a training school for other TOCs - but again, that has been the case for years.

Best hope is eventually negotiating for a new pay deal backed up with a business case once demand has increased.
 

yorkie

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Apologies to the mods for continuing an O/T conversation. Perhaps we can split this discussion off into a new thread?
If anyone wishes to create a new thread you are more than welcome to do so; feel free to post a link to the new thread from this one :)

If we can keep this discussion to the topic in hand, Southeastern to be taken over by OLR, that would be greatly appreciated, thanks :)
 

stuu

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That’s purely ideological. Nobody who remembers using BR as a passenger actually wants it to come back. It presided over decades of managed decline and under investment which has taken much of the last two decades to reverse.
You have written that as if it was BR's corporate decision, when it was the government, of both parties, who didn't provide the investment

Edit: sorry mods, just saw your message, won't do it again
 

Aictos

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Personally even though the Govt will take SE in-house under a OLR operator, I very much doubt there be much in the way of change or investment that would have happened anyway under a private operator.

It will simply be the same policies in place just with a different brand so expecting much to change like a much needed deep clean on the Networkers, more proactive push to reduce deliberate fare evasion etc is nothing but naive thinking.

I like to be proven wrong and hope that as it's operated as a OLR that maybe just maybe some of the issues I've highlighted above will happen but I'm doubtful.
 

fusionblue

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I made repeated jokes over the years about "i wonder if [tangentially related thing] will happen before Southeastern will finish unifying the liveries of the 376's and Networkers".

Clearly doing that was such a low priority that it wasnt any priority at all. But you could also argue that this has been a symptom of this franchise, and indeed South East London, as a whole: it was meant to end in 2014, and has instead been extended repeatedly since then. While the the mainline units, and indeed service, has seen plenty of attention its been in metroland that has been left in "business as usual mode" for probably a decade now.

IIRC the last refurb to the metro fleet (not replacing the traction motors) was when the last time the franchise returned to government hands; i recall posts on the SE website at the time about improving lighting on the 465s and replacing the windows.

But "business as usual" has been a wider symptom of that part of London for decades: TFL was blocked from taking it over, Lewisham DLR was designed with no provision for an extension south and Lewisham Council didnt build any in either when redoing the area immediately outside the station, the bakerloo has been kicked into the long grass yet again, the Thameslink project did nothing for the entire Sevenoaks loop (brand new 700s with wheelchair accessibility doesnt help when Catford, for example, has no accessibility and merely got a lick of paint!), the throat into London Bridge is still just as susceptible to an incident that then blocks traffic into SE Land (think the Lewisham detrainment incident or the fire at the New Cross recycling centre) which then overloads the jubilee and DLR and buses. Crossrail 1 and 2 doesnt help at all.

I know "but money" will be the default answer, but i hope that someone somewhere at least takes the opportunity to think "we can do better than this" at least on paper, now that an opportunity is available - the lack of joined up thinking has been the wider issue that successive governments have had a lack of interest in addressing, probably because its also (was?) a reliable money spinner.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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I suspect the future plans for Southeastern will be whatever was on the table for the direct award between DfT and Govia, at the point of rupture of relations.
Apart from a new OLR-fronted management team, I don't think anything else will change.
Robin Gisby has already been appointed as Chairman of LSER, as he is of LNER and Northern.
Everything else will wait for GBR and the new regime.
 

Mikey C

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I'm sure their replacements will be just as unloved within five years of entering service.

Why is there such a contrast between people's views of 365s and 465s on this forum? I just don't understand the hate for the 465s.
Agreed

Or between the 465s and the related Chiltern 165s, which are in excellent condition, with effective air cooling and nice 2+2 seating at the end of the carriages
 

AlterEgo

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One thing that interests me is the timing of this announcement around 7am I have read on here the timing has to be before the markets open but other government press releases etc are not at this time so why does this one have to be and if it is because it has to before the markets open is this sort of announcement likely to be subject to a media embargo until say, 7am with journalists briefed beforehand, say the day before with conditions not to mention until 7am?

Luke
Because it is highly market sensitive with the ability to significantly affect the stock market.
 
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