“To lose one rail franchise, Dr Beeching, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.” – Oscar Wilde

It’s all going horribly wrong for National Express – only a few days ago, they finally relinquished their grip on the East Coast rail franchise to the power-hungry train fanatics better known as the governing council of UK PLC.

Now it’s got worse and they have also been stripped of their East Anglia rail franchise. National Express will have the giant train set snatched away from them in 2011, three years earlier than they had hoped.

A bidding timetable has also been drawn up for the c2c franchise that is up for renewal and is currently held by National Express and it would be a foolish man who would bet his house on them hanging on to that from 2011 onwards.

We took the data from National Express’ recent activities and entered it into a machine called The Numberiser that was built by a recent Bitterwallet work experience kid who called himself Maths Mike.

After punching in the year 2020, it told us that by then, if circumstances continue as they have done in recent months, National Express will consist of a single wheelbarrow, operated by a octogenarian mute called Reckless Old Sam.

Watch this space…

Tremendous. Absolutely brilliant. What more could you ask of a bitter and twisted rail franchise that has been stripped of the property it craved so much? At midnight, National Express East Coast was officially relieved of its duties running the East Coast Main Line, to be replaced by the Government operated East Coast. And less than three hours before that occurred, an email appeared in the inbox of anyone who had ever booked a ticket with National Express trains (at least I assume so, given I’ve never booked a coach with them):

Yes, one last abuse while the mailing list still resided with them. The account was handed over to the new owners at midnight, so there was a window of opportunity to channel consumers away from the trains and promote their coach service. One last jolly at the expense of the Government-ran competition. “Fuck the new owners, book a coach instead!” – the message really couldn’t have been more blunt than that. Perhaps if National Express had given customers a fair and honest service in the first place, they wouldn’t have lost the franchise.

Was it something we said? Probably not, because it seems as if National Express is burning through money faster than a teenager in tittie bar. Yesterday it was announced by unions that the Government would take control of the East Coast Mainline from 12th December. Today, media outlets are reporting the date has been brought forward to next Friday, claiming that funding for the route is running out.

According to the Guardian, the Government is hell-bent on relieving National Express of any other interests it has in the railways:

Lord Adonis is also determined to strip National Express of its remaining franchises, Essex commuter services National Express East Anglia and c2c, but the DfT is still consulting legal advice on whether it can use cross-default guidelines to reclaim the contracts.

So National Express have barely a penny to the name and the Government is stepping in at a week’s notice – that’s probably why you’ll have trouble booking a train ticket through their website this morning:

The Government today announced that the National Express East Coast Mainline will be state-run once more from December 12th. No big surprises there, since the decision was made on or before July 1st. Yet a day later, National Express submitted plans to Newcastle City Council to erect electronic barriers in the city’s Central Station. They were a condition of National Express winning the franchise in 2007, so it’s all a little odd they hand in the application two days after losing it.

Fast forward to last month, and the barriers are put in place, ready to be activated. Except passengers can’t quite understand why they’re positioned where they are:

Central Station is a major transport hub in Newcastle – it’s also on a major bus route and one of the biggest terminals on the Tyne and Wear Metro system. In short – a massive number of people pass through the station every day who aren’t catching a train. Despite that, the barriers don’t simply prevent access to the platforms, but to cafes, a newsagents and all the cash machines located in the station and the neighbourhood. The only way to use these station facilities, will be to collect a pass from a station member of staff.

There are no details in the plans suggesting the facilities will be moved, nor is there any explanation why the barriers are placed where they are – all proposed, planned and implemented by a train operator that won’t exist in a months time.

Far be it for us to do anything so outrageous as to praise National Express, but it’s earned on this rare occasion. The East Coast Mainline operators have launched a huge sale today, meaning you can travel up and down the country for just £9 one way.

The offer is available until 4th November (but expect tickets to have sold out long before) and are for travel between 19th November and 24th January, excluding 18th December to 5th January inclusive. Still, that means plenty of opportunity to visit chums and family for a single note of money. What’s more, we’ve had a snout through the dates and there’s plenty of availability right now. Marvellous. More details of this überdeal here.

We’re struggling to shed a tear at the news that the East Coast Mainline franchise has been stripped from National Express and will be taken into public ownership. It’s actually more of a carnival atmosphere in the Bitterwallet office – Andy is dressed like that bird with the ostrich feathers you always see in photos of Mardi Gras.

The East Coast Mainline has lost National Express £20 million in the first six months of this year alone, a drop in the ocean compared to the £1.2 billion of debt the company is carrying. The Government refused requests to renegotiate the tender, which National Express was due to operate until 2015. National Express has stated that the “challenging economic environment” meant fewer passengers on the East Coast Mainline and “significant” levels of people were downgrading from first-class and full fares. The company itself was, of course, blameless. The Government has said that all tickets bought will be honoured.

So where did it all go wrong for such a friendly, caring company? Bitterwallet has some thoughts:

It shouldn’t cost less to fly to London

National Express had capacity. They had frequency – over 30 direct trains between Newcastle and London every weekday. They had wifi! Taking into account security checks, boarding times and transfers into central London, they had time on their side too. Yet a passenger could often pay far more to take the train, than the plane – on the day or even with several days’ notice. How could National Express possibly, possibly screw this up?

It shouldn’t cost less to drive to London

Even with the cost of petrol being what it is, I can still drive 250 miles to London and back for less than a return ticket (or even a single ticket) bought on the day, and usually in advance. Stick three other people in the car with me, and suddenly the role of the train as a cost efficient alternative is a nonsense of a shambles, cocooned in fuckwittery.

Who cares about first class?

National Express point the finger of blame at the customers, because not enough people booked first class and instead plumped for the cheap seats. That’s because they didn’t offer a first class experience. In fact the perks of the first class carriage on trains hasn’t changed for years. A little more legroom? Free tea and coffee? Other operators offer these as standard. A reading lamp? A free newspaper? That’s the difference between a £105 return ticket from Newcastle to London, and paying £373 to travel first class? Are you fucking insane?

National Express treated customers dreadfully

We’ve talked at lengths about the dreadful company-centric policies of their customer care, despite it being customers that determine the expectations of a service. Their customer service policies were archaic, unwelcoming and positively hostile towards the people paying for them. Why couldn’t I have a replacement ticket if I lost mine? Why couldn’t I buy a cut-price ticket on the day of travel, even the train was empty? Why did National Express offer paper vouchers as compensation for a booking made online, forcing the customer to book their next journey at a station without the online discount they benefited from in the first place? Everything about the business was geared towards maximising their own profits rather than delivering the best possible service for the customer.

Goodbye National Express East Coast Mainline, we never loved you. Hopefully your successor will give more of a damn about running a railway on behalf of its passengers.

It was entirely my fault. I’d booked the train tickets so long ago that I’d forgotten they’d been posted to me. So last night when I checked my travel times online and noticed a FastTicket reference, I assumed I was collecting my tickets at the station. I quickly discovered this morning that National Express supply a FastTicket reference whether you need one or not. Brilliant.

It’s National Express policy never to re-print a ticket once it’s issued, so as I watched my train pull out of Newcastle and depart for London, I cursed National Express for been so mindlessly inflexible in its attitude towards customers. I wasn’t the only one. The gentleman next to me had lost one part of his three-part ticket moments after printing them out. He had his printed confirmation with him, the credit card he booked it with, ID and – more importantly – the other two parts of the ticket, but was still forced to fork out £104 for a single ticket to replace it.

Fortunately BW’s Andy is a lad with more common sense than I, and he directed me to Grand Central Trains which runs daily services between Sunderland and Kings Cross. Sunderland. Meh. The reason I probably hadn’t tried their trains until today. I also had the impression they were slow, expensive and grotty. I couldn’t be more wrong. So my tip of the day; if you’re a regular passenger between the North East and London, try out Grand Central Trains.

They’re not particularly speedy – they make several stops in-between Sunderland and York, but then it’s non-stop to London – so the travel times are comparable to the slower services on National Express. The carriages are a little dated, but every seat is at a table with extra legroom. There’s free wifi, more reliable than National Express because the service doesn’t cram people in, plus free tea and coffee for all passengers. And if you can’t find a seat, you’ll get a 50% refund there and then.

Best of all is the price; Grand Central charge the same on the train as they do online – the price doesn’t immediately treble because you boarded the train without a ticket. And the price for the lunchtime service is nearly a third of what National Express charge; a single from Sunderland to Kings Cross cost me just £36. Wowsers.

The only downside is that you may have to catch the train from the bunker that is Sunderland station (unless you live in York, of course), which looks like it’s been locked in a portaloo and kicked down a hill, or as Andy put it, “it belongs in an East German transport museum”. Still, it’s a small price to pay; unless they offer some stunningly low deals, National Express has lost me as a customer from today.

This train wants to mug you.

Amid rumours that they’re on the brink of handing back the franchise for the East Coast rail line, National Express have pulled a stinking added charge trick straight out of the bag that belongs to the budget airlines.

From May 17th, passengers travelling on the company’s East Coast and East Anglia services into Kings Cross will be charged £2.50 per journey if they want to reserve a seat. Charges will apply to ordinary standard type tickets including peak-time, off-peak, super-offpeak and weekender. The charge will not apply to first class ticket holders, advance fares or season ticket holders.

A National Express spokeswoman has spun the living daylights out of the reservation charge story until it thought its mouth was its backside. She told the Evening Standard that the company are trying to “improve the on-board environment for customers,” adding, “we do find that people are often reserving multiple seats as they’re not sure which train they are going to catch. By asking people to pay for a seat reservation, seats will no longer be left empty with a reserved sign.”

We don’t know about you but our experience of travelling on packed trains with empty seats that are supposedly reserved is that those seats get snapped up pretty quickly, which makes her quote look like the steaming heap of horse’s arse cobbles that it surely is.

Reports elsewhere have suggested that in the face of mounting debts, National Express are close to chucking in the towel on the loss-making East Coast line and handing the franchise back to the government. The two parties are in discussions over the future of the franchise, but if National Express think that customers will flock back to their trains now that they’re imposing sneaky added charges, they’re probably sorely mistaken.

A handy little hack if you’re considering a last minute shopping trip to London along the East Coast Main Line (although it’s likely you can find similar deals using similar methods, wherever to live). There’s no chance of buying cheap singles now, but if you live in the vicinity of York there’s good news. An off-peak fare booked at least a day in advance costs £59 return:

Meanwhile, a similar fare Leeds to London costs £79.20, an increase of £20.20. But if you’re going to London for the day, you could buy an Off Peak Day Return on the day, and travel between Leeds and York for just £9.80; a little extra planning saves you £10.40. And depending where you live in Leeds, you might consider the short drive to York and make use of York’s park and ride scheme for just £2.30.

There’s better value to be had if you live in Doncaster;

Despite being 30 miles closer to London, the cheapest return ticket to London we could find was nearly 15 per cent more expensive. Perhaps it’s part of a funded tourism promotion, or National Express has a need to drive custom through York; regardless, what can you do? Move out of Doncaster. I’ve been and it’s a toilet, frankly. Otherwise, book your ticket from York. Choose a specific service for the outward journey to London; partly to ensure the service will stop at Doncaster (a basic schoolboy error), and partly so there are no issues with the train being over-crowded. If there’s a quibble, point out the terms and conditions of the ticket at point of sale (online) concern the route and operator, not point of departure.

There are usually deals like this going on all over the country; operators are always running promotions that favour one station over another; the trick is to keep trying different combinations of fare, and sometimes consider different routes and methods of transport.

You know me. I don’t like to moan. It’s quite rare for me to complain about anything, in fact. Yessum, you’ll never catch me banging on about how utterly useless everything in the modern world is. Apart from the free wi-fi on National Express’ East Coast mainline. I know I may have mentioned it before, and you’re right – it’s free! Why the hell am I complaining?

Because it doesn’t work.

I’ve just spent 20 minutes between Kings Cross and Peterborough trying to get a wi-fi connection on my MacBook. Have I got a rubbish laptop? That depends what you think of MacBooks really, although oddly enough the passenger next to me lost internet connection on his Dell laptop at exactly the same time. Instead of loafing about online, we were mildly annoyed to read this:

Gah. Why so vexed by a free service? Why can’t I just shut the hell up and just be grateful? Two reasons. The first is that I don’t like being misled; National Express is offering free wi-fi as an incentive to use their trains (and not travel by budget airlines). This is what they have to say about it:

So there you are. National Express admit to no service being available, while their literature claims that will never be the case. If you’re keeping track (arf), I’m now between Peterborough and Doncaster. There have been a couple of sixty second spell of high-speed connection, and now we’re back to zero. Balls.

The other concern is that it seems unlikely National Express will change the claims of “continuous service” and “uninterrupted” browsing, because they don’t believe there’s a problem. When Bitterwallet last contacted National Express to question the validity of the claims and whether customers were being misled, a spokesperson said:

The rising number of customers using our wi-fi (numbers tripled in the first three months since it was made free throughout the train) suggest most users are content with the facility offered.

When we suggested that it meant no so thing, and that such an increase in users was clearly the result of the service being free (instead of paying over a fiver a time as they previously did), and not necessarily because customers enjoyed a service they were satisfied with, National Express didn’t reply.

Offering a free service is one thing. Making claims that we continue to struggle to validate is another. But, as I said, I don’t like to moan.

It’s a well known fact that everyone living outside the M25 is a) poor and b) dirty. Still, despite our impoverished, filthy ways we sometimes have cause to visit London, and our choice is simple: train or plane?

The standard concerns when considering a domestic flight into London are the hidden costs, in terms of both time and money, of actually getting to and from airports. Wherever you’re travelling from and to, flying doesn’t always stack up terms of additional check-in times and transfer costs.

Plus the likes of National Express offer free wi-fi on their East Coast mainline serivice. Mmm. Wi-fi. Nom nom nom. The train operator hasn’t been shy in shouting about the service in a recent marketing campaign, wryly criticising the lack of similar facilities on airlines. And such a simple proposition does seems to be a dealbreaker for plenty of passengers; whether for business or pleasure, an online laptop is your bestest friend when travelling on the train.

Except when it’s so slow as to be completely useless. And that’s if it works at all. Plenty of us have endured the tears of pure frustration as our otherwise reliable browser gives us the finger and refuses to connect to the internet. So why do National Express promise such a whizz-bang service if they can’t deliver? (more…)