BIDWATCH

Hoj!, Hej Hej!, Salut! Gruezi Wohl! Yes, I'm just back from a hard month in Europe selling my services to those fast moving, hyper efficient, customer focused state railways who are going to come to Britain and sweep our customer unfriendly, profits-before-safety private sector operators into the dustbin of franchise history.

And do they have some innovative ideas. I was being shown round a Netherlands Railways Sprinter by an old Dutch oppo by the name of van Rental.

‘This is our short term solution to the Waterloo capacity problem, Roddy', he said.

‘What, double deck coaches', I replied, ‘ but Hertz, think of all the clearance work'.

‘No, Roddy, the bench seats. You British insist on individual seats: in Holland we have bench seats covered with shiny plastic'.

And he explained that where the Juniper, for example, has individual 2+3 seating, the same width of unbroken plastic gives more capacity. Because when a newcomer sits down, those already seated have to slide up to make space since the plastic lacks the friction of fabric seat covers like moquette.

Ingenious. So 2+3 becomes 2 ½ + 4 for an instead gain.

Anyway, the new this month is that the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority shortlisted Stagecoach Holdings, First Group. in association with Nederlandse Spoorwegen, and GNER Holdings for the South West Trains franchise. Connex and Group 4 failed to make the cut.

Stagecoach's presence was significant because they lost out on South Central, allegedly for wanting what the SSRA saw as an excessive return. And if the SSRA really is taking track record into account, SWT must rank higher than Connex.

For Sea Containers, bidding through GNER Holdings, it was a case of second time around. Back in the year dot when franchising was beginning Sea Containers put forward a non-compliant offer for SWT, including a 10 year franchise to underpin investment. So this could be their chance.

Characteristically Sea Containers came out punching. Helpfully pointing out some features of their rivals that the Franchise Director might have missed

For example, what with first Group also owning the Great Western Franchise, which competes with SWT between London and Exeter , the Anglo-ductch bid ‘might require approval of the competition authorities and a government policy determination to reduce competition on certain routes'.

As for Stagecoach, there was contumely by the bucket. In a press release I have given to my team at ROWS as an example of in yer face PR Sea containers let it all out. SWT had a ‘poor reputation, with ‘trains often filthy, lavatories that often don't work, frequent cancellations due to lack of drivers and overcrowding that is notorious.'

Stagecoach was described as ‘milking the franchise for every penny of profit', unlike GNER which has ‘at the expense of franchise profits done the opposite' including adding more services to reduce overcrowding. Strangly the Friday evening human sacrifices at Waterloo were overlooked.

And there was even a direct pitch at attracting the support of our own Alan Williams, when Sea Containers President, James B. Sherwood promised ‘Our passengers look forward to a ‘treat' when travelling on GNER, not a ‘treatment' as suffered by passengers on SWT today. Our goal will be to make the standards of SWT comparable to those of GNER'. What will the dear man write about.

Meanwhile, no moves on the outstanding issue of who will get the South Central franchise. It looks at though the Government has just woken up to the fact that the SSRA has ended up with one of the weakest shortlists you could think of. My chums in the franchising world reckon Govia will get it because they're not Connex and could be a French Railways glove puppet.