Thursday's announcement that the current franchise for the East Anglian region, held by National Express, will come to an end three years early, in 2011 instead of 2014, will probably come as no surprise to those who use their services frequently.
Increasingly worn out rolling stock, frequent use of bus replacement services, the reductions in the numbers of cleaners and customer service staff, the loss of the award-winning restaurant car, all of these have been have indicated a company that is short of money, short of ambition, and unlikely to provide the level of service that our increasingly prosperous region needs. Anyone who uses the Ipswich to Cambridge line, with its elderly carriage(s) and ever-present one-carriage services will share my view that we could have so much more.
We'll see what comes of any change, although it is hard to believe that National Express will regain the right to run our trains...
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteThe East coast line has also stopped being run by National Express. It seems that the amount they said that they could run it for was not enough to keep body and soul together and so it folded. It's a pity that no one in the English Dept of Transport thought that this was the likely outcome of a such a bid. But then, it's all about targets and costs and no one in there has an idea about how to run a railway...
Lovely looking place you have there. I'd love to live in a village!