National Express To Lose NXEA Franchise Early?

Hidden in the small print of the National Express rights issue document is an admission by the group that its default on the East Coast franchise means that it will "lose the right automatically" to the three year extension to the NXEA franchise. Any extension will now be "at the sole discretion of the Department for Transport".

Under the current terms of the NXEA franchise it will be extended by three years from 2011 if the company meets certain performance targets. It is currently meeting those targets.

Rail Travel Too Expensive For Network Rail

Network trail is transporting 200 of its staff from Reading to a conference in Coventry by coach because going by rail would be too expensive. If open return tickets were bought at £135 per head it would cost £27,000, so the company has opted for the coach alternative which comes in at £12 a head - a saving of £24,000!

Surely a lesson there somewhere....

National Express Announces £350m Rights Issue

National Express Group has announced a £350m rights issue in an attempt to shore up its debt laden balance sheet. Interestingly this move does not appear to have the support of its largest shareholder, the Cosmen family, who own 18% of the business.

National Express this week hand back their East Coast franchise and it is reported that the Department for Transport is still determined to strip the group of its East Anglian (NXEA) and C2C franchises. However the group said this morning that it would fight any such attempt that would effectively remove it from the UK rail business.

No Compensation For Recent Disruption

NXEA will not be paying compensation to passengers following the recent disruption on the Harwich Branch Line. NXEA are saying that any compensation due will be based on the revised timetable that included the replacement bus service.

Users of this replacement service will know that whilst some of the buses were respectable, modern coaches there were also 30-40 year old buses in use and some of the routes taken were hardly direct. As such many passengers were significantly inconvenienced and did not receive the service they had paid for. The MRUA will be pursuing this with NXEA to get appropriate compensation to those affected.

Harwich Branch Now Fully Open

Following the threat yesterday of further disruption during peak periods it is being reported that the second line on the Harwich Branch is now fully operational.

Cancellations On The Harwich Line

Following on from the resumption of services following the recent landslip, services in the peak period on the Harwich line between Manningtree and Harwich are being cancelled this evening. A Network Rail spokesman has said that this was always planned and is because there is still only one line open to passenger traffic and there are a number of freight trains that have to go at a certain time.

The same thing is likely tomorrow (Friday) with a full service resuming on Monday 9th November.

Harwich Branch Line Services To Resume Early

Network Rail is reporting that services on the Harwich Line are to resume tomorrow (Tuesday), 6 days earlier than the original estimated date.

A 200m sheet metal wall has been placed into the ground and hundreds of tons of granite shingle is being used to stabilise the track which had subsided following a landslip near Wrabness. Although services will be running again, they will be subject to 20mph speed restrictions in the affected area.