The Bristol Railway Archive

Ref: Wessex Trains press release - 27 March 2006

Link to online source

-----------------------------------------

Wessex Trains Franchise End - 31 March 2006

The 31 March marks the end of the Wessex Trains Franchise. The History of Wessex Trains is one of constant evolution. Created in 2001 it was proposed as the answer to addressing the needs of the South West regionÆs rail users. Expressions were invited to bid for a twenty-year franchise, including the South West Main Line service to London Waterloo and the private sector responded eagerly, with seven companies shortlisted.

However, BritainÆs rail industry was still coming to terms with the impact of the tragic accident at Hatfield and the escalating cost of delivering the railways. In 2002, the organisation responsible for overseeing BritainÆs rail industry proposed a new policy of franchising involving larger, stronger businesses. From this, following a period of consultation with the rail industry and stakeholders across the regions, the new Greater Western franchise born and the end of Wessex Trains was in sight.

Although four years is a very short time in relation to the history of BritainÆs railways, we believe our business made a real difference to rail travel in the region.

During this time:

* Our passengers have undertaken over 53 million journeys, equivalent to almost every person in the United Kingdom having travelled on one of our trains.
* We have grown the number of people travelling by rail in the South West by over 27%.
* Many locally-focused ideas and initiatives we implemented have been adopted by other train companies through the new Community Rail Strategy.
* Our approach to ensuring the best of our employees led to us being one of the few train operators accredited as an Investor in People.
* We have been partners in projects that delivered over ú50 million of improvements to the regionÆs railways.

Wessex Trains, despite a few mishaps, have provided a first-class service and have really developed the West network well over their years. I commend them highly for this. It's a shame First are undoing some of this but I hope they change their timetables soon.

Well done Wessex, and thanks for the excellent service over the 3 years.

And as the information monitors at Cheltenham Spa said today...
Wessex Trains, 2001-2006 - RIP

Monitor at Weston-super-Mare today:

Graham wrote:Wessex Trains, despite a few mishaps, have provided a first-class service and have really developed the West network well over their years. I commend them highly for this. It's a shame First are undoing some of this but I hope they change their timetables soon.

Well done Wessex, and thanks for the excellent service over the 3 years.

Rubbish?

No joke! For all the times *I've* been travelling there's been very few problems. The only bad things in 3 years that I can think of were twice in which there was a delay of 45 minutes or so and the occasional problem of trains at 200% of capacity, but that was it...and Wessex shaped the strong and very robust timetable we currently have now (that First are going to all mess up!) and introduced the 3-car 158's that First want to cut back down to 2-car again.

My opinion is Wessex certainly knew what they were doing with the network and managed it very well overall. First on the other hand, after seeing their draft timetables...

I'd say that Wessex Trains had a good go at it. We have seen some good initiatives within the constraints of budget and SRA interference. In Cornwall we have seen Sunday trains all year on the Falmouth branch, and lately the St Ives branch; also summer Sunday trains on the others for the full duration of the summer service, not just late July to end of August. Gunnislake has had all year Sunday service for some years as part of the Dartmoor public transport initiative.

These have required local authorities and others to chip in some money, but at least the partnership has been effective to get improvements.

I think that privatisation has been a disaster, but Wessex Trains were among the better TOCs.

John

So you're willing to overlook the disastrous lack of maintenance, shortage of working units, and chronic overcrowding then?

When I travelled there was only very occasional overcrowding (never off-peak) and very few cancellations so I guess I was lucky! They could have done more on the train maintenance side of things, I agree, but by their last year in operation, they served stations around their network extremely well. Don't forget, it was Wessex who extended their Portsmouth trains to 3 carriages, and First wants to put them back to 2 again. Their train and station staff were always very friendly, and they also encouraged community rail lines and helped secure those around the network. And not forgetting the strong timetable they implemented, very well serving the network by their last year. In my opinion, the good far outweighs the bad.