Tuesday 10 November 2009

Doomed London Midland slapped with wet fish

Disastrous GoAhead franchise London Midland has been severely chastised by Moley and crew:

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Mole):


My right honourable and Noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Department for Transport (Lord Adonis) has made the following Ministerial Statement:

The performance of London Midland on 6 September 2009 fell short of its customers’ expectations and was unacceptable to both passengers and Government.

I can now outline the measures I have taken, and the actions I have agreed with London Midland in respect of London Midland’s breach of its franchise agreement.

First, I have issued London Midland with a Remedial Plan Notice for exceeding the Franchise Agreement threshold on cancellations. This requires London Midland to submit to me a Remedial Plan for addressing the level of cancellations. Discussions are at an advanced stage on a range of measures to be implemented within the Remedial Plan.

The Remedial Plan will be contractualised as a Remedial Agreement.

Second, a package of additional benefits for passengers has been agreed, including:

An additional franchise agreement obligation to invest in new, and additional, high-quality information equipment, spending no less than £4.4 million over the life of the franchise in addition to the investment that has already committed in the franchise agreement; and

A promotion for 50,000 day rover tickets for travel over the Christmas period and London Midland will also make available an additional 400,000 Advance Purchase tickets over the next two years on some of the most popular routes.

That should have Permatan Rail quaking in its boots!

UPDATE: This from D1062...

After LM appears to have climbed back from the brink, I was intrigued to hear that unless the company improve their pay offer then ASLEF members will block RDW and O/T from 14th November.


More mass cancellations at LM then...

UPDATE: This from our man at 222 Marylebone Road...

Clearly the Grey Fox has taken on a long term project.

(Based on recent performance he may be better to view it as a very short term project. Ed)