UK: 'I'd let the French run our trains'

[John Ashworth]

Andrew Martin: I'd let the French run our trains

Their approach to railways is at once hard-headed and romantic

ANDREW MARTIN WEDNESDAY 11 APRIL 2012
Independent

Brace yourself for some business news. A company called Keolis is bidding for the InterCity West Coast rail franchise, currently operated by Virgin. Keolis is majority owned by the French state rail operator SNCF, and it is thought the bid might herald a pitch by the same company to run the London-Birmingham High Speed Two line when that is completed.

I hope Keolis wins both bids, partly because I am in favour of anything that reduces the chance of seeing a picture of Richard Branson grinning. But mainly because the French approach to trains is at once hard-headed – they make the rich pay for them through income tax, rather than putting the burden on the fare-payer – and romantic.

The French do not have trainspotters; they have perfectly normal people of both sexes who share la passion du chemin de fer. These people do not munch Penguin biscuits on windy platforms, but eat proper meals in good restaurants, as I discovered when I rashly agreed to buy lunch in Paris for an expert on the Paris Metro, who, after unerringly selecting the most expensive dish on the menu (trout in morel sauce), pronounced, in Latin, "Prometheus's children are transported in the underground inferno by the power of Jupiter", which is a quote by Fulgence Bienvenue, who built the Metro, and said that sort of thing more or less every day. Any network that has a station called Barbès-Rochechouart is going to be beautiful, and indeed the Metro approaches the French overground railways for sheer style.

But nothing can match the sleek TGV expresses. They look like bullets, and clearly mean business. Their front ends do not have to be painted in day-glo, as is the requirement on our insipid railways. (Are you really going to get out of the way of a 190mph train any faster because it is yellow?) My favourite station is the exotic Gare de Lyon. The whole of the Côte d'Azur is latent in that, just as the whole of Salford is latent in Euston. But I also love wintry, moody Gare du Nord: "In the morning, the first night trains, arriving from Belgium and Germany, bring in the first load of crooks," wrote Georges Simenon.

I assume that if Keolis won the Virgin bid, some of these principles of elegance would be applied. That would involve scrapping the garish, cramped Pendolino trains (the "vomit comets" according to one online commentator), or at least making sure the seats, as opposed to the luggage bays, are correctly aligned with the windows. If Keolis won HS2, I would simply expect the service to work, so that the fat drivers of fat four-by-fours would stop thinking they were atop the peak of British transportation.


The French come over here, they make our high-speed trains run on time...

OLIVER WRIGHT WEDNESDAY 11 APRIL 2012
Independent

The French state railway company, SNCF, is plotting an audacious attempt to win control of Britain's first high-speed railway line linking London and the Midlands.

A company controlled by SNCF is currently finalising details of its bid to run the 14-year InterCity West Coast franchise held by Virgin Trains due in at the end of this month.

They hope to use the franchise as a launch pad to capture the licence to run the lucrative High Speed 2 (HS2) rail link, which will link London and the Midlands and is due to open in 2026.

The Government is due to make a decision on who will get to run the West Coast main line later this summer.

Industry analysts suggest that a successful bid by Keolis SNCF would offer the company a far greater chance of winning the HS2 contract when it is put out to tender.

"That is the prize they're looking at and the West Coast franchise is the first step to winning it," one source with knowledge of the company said.

SNCF has a vast experience of running high-speed networks in France for more than 30 years and has now branched out internationally. Keolis has part stakes in four UK rail franchises but this is the first time the company has co-opted the muscle of the French state railway in the bidding process.

But it still faces stiff competition from Virgin Trains, current owners of the West Coast franchise, which is also believed to be interested in running HS2.

There are currently four shortlisted bidders for the West Coast franchise, who have until the end of the month to submit their bid documents to the Government. They are Virgin, Keolis SNCF, Abellio (a subsidiary of Dutch Railways) and FirstGroup.

Critical to the Government's decision will be the amount of money each bidder is prepared to pay in return for the highly profitable franchise.

As a result, both Virgin and FirstGroup fear that the presence of what are effectively state-controlled companies could make it harder to compete on a level playing field.

"If you are backed by a state-owned operator then obviously your borrowing costs will be lower so you can be more competitive," one source close to the bidding process said.

The final decision on who gets the West Coast franchise will be taken at the end of August by the Transport Secretary, Justine Greening.

Rail travel: UK vs France

Top operational speed

France: 199mph. UK: 186mph.

Price

Britain has Europe's most expensive rail system; France has the cheapest. UK passengers would save £4.6bn a year if fares were the same as in France, where season tickets typically cost 13p per mile, compared to 23p.

Food

Rail cuisine is little better across the Channel, where the unappetising "sandwich TGV" is the equivalent of the hated "British Rail sandwich".

Comfort

France is judged to have more comfortable trains than the UK, with a better ratio of seats to passengers.