The Department of Transport on Tuesday announced that Stagecoach South West Trains have lost their contract to run the franchise that serves most of London’s south west suburbs. Britain’s south western franchise will now be handed over to a Sino-Scottish consortium, a mix of 70% First and 30% Hong Kong MTR, who run the tube in that region.
Trains serving stations such as London Waterloo, Wimbledon and Woking will be run by the alliance of two established train companies.
Chris Grayling’s Department of Transport promised ‘more space and faster services’ giving headline figures such as 22,000 extra seats into Waterloo in the morning and journeys being 12 minutes faster from Hounslow.
They also promised toilets in all trains except on the Isle of Wight.
This announcement, although it will doubtless raise cheers from bladder-challenged commuters, has raised some consternation in the industry. This is because the current operators, Stagecoach, are in the process of receiving 30 new class 707 metro trains – which don’t have toilets.
This £210 million order of trains will therefore only see as little as three years on the South-Western network before they are returned to the rental company and put in storage or used by another area of the country.
This is bad for the whole network as they may have to be rented out for a lower price (due to a surplus of electric trains) potentially causing the rental company to raise prices of other trains.
Other options include sending the trains back to the manufacturer, Siemens, where they will be refitted at a price, which may have to include new engines.
The Department for Transport kept neutral saying, ‘It is for First MTR South Western to decide how it uses its trains.’
First/MTR will be under a lot of pressure to deliver on one of the UK’s most saturated routes – but the fate of the new trains will also be watched. Their services will begin in August.
-Thomas Hazell, Hampton School
