National Express Franchise Problems

Speculation continues that National Express are struggling with their rail franchises.   The Daily Telegraph today says that the Department for Transport is looking for the help of troubleshooters if it is forced to step in as an "operator of last resort".  Mike Mitchell, the DfT's head of rail, has told MPs that National Express is one of five operators on the government's "red light list".

The East Coat franchise is seen as particularly vulnerable but several industry insiders have indicated that NXEA is also facing difficulties as a result of the white collar recession which has hit commuter traffic into Liverpool Street.

The rules say that if National Express has to hand back one of its franchises it will have to hand them all back.  So if NXEC fails, so will NXEA and C2C.

Strike Cancelled

The strike planned for Monday the 30th March has been called off to enable further talks to take place.

While this is clearly good news, it is not the first time that the RMT have threatened a strike and then called it off having already caused passengers to make alternative arrangements.

Welcome!

Welcome to the new look website for the Manningtree Rail Users Association (MRUA).  As you will see it is now in the form of a blog so we can update it with relevant items of news for Manningtree rail passengers.  Visitors can also post comments to the published items.

We hope you find this useful and any comments or suggestions gratefully received at info@mrua.org

Strike Action

National Express East Anglia (NXEA) have confirmed that industrial action is planned by members of the RMT union on Monday 30th March.  It is expected that there will be no services on the Manningtree - Harwich branch line and that mainline services between Norwich and London will be limited to one per hour in each direction.  Elsewhere services on the Clacton, Walton and Sudbury branch lines will be affected.  Up to date information should be posted on the NXEA website - a link for which is at the bottom of this page.

The dispute is over the planned axing of 300 roles mainly in the NXEA Customer Services area.  However it is understood that there have been no compulsory redundancies and that the reductions have been achieved through reorganisation and voluntary redundancies.