The fact you've already made 7 of these, really should be an indicator that the general management of services under privatisation needs to be changed.
@@devon896it was going better with sectorisation originally. NSE, Regional and InterCity were all investing pretty heavily to improve their services while Railfreight was also trying to change things when privatisation fuc*ed everything up
I was surprised when their contract was extended last year. Hopefully a OLR takeover will help deal with the huge number of cancellations and get ticket prices down. Their trains are among the best in the UK and the on board product is great, they just cancel a lot and are way too expensive.
One trick they used to pull quite alot was late running trains would just skip stations to get back on time. Often had the train annouced as 'arriving on platform 1', only to have it go sailing past at full speed, and then the platform signs would display 'cancelled'.
It's amazing how quickly people forget. If you compare the service to that of the connex days it really is night and day. Tbf I moved out of the area so my experience is out of date now and I understand the networkers are really starting to show their age now, but is it really as bad as connex were? Somehow I doubt it!
As someone using southeastern, I have to say that they were never that impressive. Those good early years weren't their success, they were simply in the right place at the right time. They inherited a much improved service from the Operator of Last Resort, and inherited schemes like HS1. They were very good at claiming the credit for that, but not so good at actually running a railway. They weren't as bad as Connex, but that would require considerable malicious effort. Southeastern felt more like they were simply absent from a certain level of management upwards... they had great staff at the lower levels who had learned the lessons from past problems. But the upper management seemed unwilling or unable to learn from them.
The southeastern franchise wasn't technically stripped of the franchise, just the DfT didn't extend the contract for Govia the extra 6 months that was an option in the contract. The southeastern franchise has been treated poorly for ages. I commute every day on southeastern metro services, and to say our rolling stock is in a bad condition would not be an understatement. Constant short term extensions by the DfT meant that there was no point in investing in any of the metro fleet. You mentioned how the whole southeastern fleet was refurbished. The 375s were refurbished, but not the 465s and 376s. The 465s only got the modifications to make them legal but did not get reupholstered or any real benefit. The 376s are still in their Connex moquette due to the lack of investment. However, I find DfT OLR southeastern worse than Govia. They have continued to not invest in the metro fleet, the 465s are becoming old and reliable, and nothing official is really coming out from southesastern about a 376 refurb. Even the 376 refurb won't be getting air conditioning, a feature on every other electrostar, as that is too much money. DfT southeastern have just cut timetables, and one service I was getting every morning was on average at least 5 minutes late every morning. Trains seemed dirtier and would say more is needed to be done. Is it bad that I found Northern's ex-EMR 156s luxury compared to what I normally travel on?
The class 466 are illegal (no disability mods at all) and the Class 465 are the worst trains in Britain now all the Pacers have been retired. Vomit is cleaner.
Well all have their negatives... C2C seems pretty decent, Greater Anglia is decent too. Chiltern is run well in terms of treating staff well but then has the oldest stock in the UK. So, not really!
@@Vanmanyo Chiltern when Adrian Shooter managed it was the best. Though they need to just get rid of those 165's. The 168's are the best trains they have.
They aren't usually thought about because they're not part of National Rail, but I think Northern Ireland Railways do a decent job especially considering they never receive the level of funding they should get, it could be so much better if more money was invested. Definitely a case for new stations and improved frequencies.. and line re-openings in the longer term.
Is there a possibility that you could cover National Express East Coast in this series because that franchise from what I've heard was definitely not smooth sailing
I think the 'TFL Three' made a video, showing just how poor the seats on the 465's are. They walked along the carriages, trying to lift the seats, and nearly ALL of them were loose and broken. Terrible trains!
I remember catching a train from Beckenham Junction to Herne Hill on SouthEastern, returning home from a day trip out on the trams in Croydon with friends. The power shut off suddenly near Sydenham Hill, one of the most stranded stations on the network. We waited for over an hour, but still the train didn't move. We ended up walking ten minutes to the nearest bus stop, then had to go to Brixton.
Never really used SouthEastern but the few times I have ever used the service, it has not been very good; once tried to get home (travelling west) from Bromley South only to find that my train was cancelled after someone had successfully jumped in front of a moving train at another station forcing me to get the bus instead, very sad indeed.
@@DeveroonieWasTaken @DeveroonieTrainEnthusiast greetings DeveroonieTrainEnthusiast, j see you have provided support for my good friend vanmanyo in the form of financial aid, while I am not against this, I do see this as a threat to my dominance, in other words i AM the ALPHA WOLF🐺🐺🐺 obey alphawolf165 or I WILL get the authorities involved.
@@Vanmanyo ah I see. Still a really bad image for the company like you have said though. Let’s just all wish for a better future for Britain’s railways. Nice work as always Vanmanyo!
@@Vanmanyo I believe the money was the money for access charges to use HS1, but due to service cuts during the first lockdown, the access charges were less so there was this extra money. I believe the money was returned as soon as the DfT realised it.
I enjoyed a weekend in Kent in February 2024; check my “Humberside Invicta Weekend” series of videos. I have to say every train I used was near enough to time with no cancellations at all. The only disruption I encountered was buses between Minster and Margate which was because of engineering work.
Are Southeastern ever going to replace the Class 465 and Class 466 Networkers if they want to order more new trains. And to inherit extra Class 387s to increase more extra capacity on long distance commuter services in Kent. Since they have got so many trains.
Will Southeastern replace the Class 465 and Class 466 Networkers if they were to order new trains and to retain the Class 375, Class 376, Class 377/5 and Class 707. As well as keeping the Class 395 that are used on HS1 domestic services to & from St. Pancras International.
So the privatization of the railroads is a resounding success, like water and other utilities. this is what happens with unsound ideology is put into place. As for Chris Grayling, wasn't he the guy who paid out your tax pounds to a ferry company which had no ships.
I personally think that both the southeastern and Southcentral franchises were a complete disaster, both originally run by connex, then govia. Unfortunately we have to still ride with govia as I live on the gtr lines. The government should hsve left the southeast as the network southeast, it ran better and we were seeing results across the network, but government greed took control. Ruined commuting and made the fares prohibitively expensive.
I cant understand why after the SouthEastern episode thy Go-ahead were aloud to keep Southern & Thameslink contracts? surely they should of lost ALL contracts
I did delve into Virgin quite a bit on my three part class 390 series (if you didn't already know about it!), but I might do a series about how virgin had 3 franchises and lost them all
Abellio ScotRail made First ScotRail look good! Haha. The SPT did a good job round Glasgow though. I do overall like their post-nationalisation service however.
southeastern are very good when it comes to commuter short services within London when it comes to frequency but its the longer distance services such as the Ramsgate trains which are not as good as they have only one kind of train that runs the line but on lets say the Charing cross to orpington line you can have a 707 or a 376 or a 465/466 doing the route which brings there frequency up.
Its interesting that Go-Ahead have won the contract to run Dartford's bus company, Fast Track. I think it is a shame that they removed Southeastern from Go-Ahead because it was so much better than British Rail and Connex. Southeastern has gone downhill really badly under public ownership. The government removed Southeastern from Go-Ahead as a punishment for keeping the money, however, it is people like me who feel this the most. Go-Ahead are now picking up bus routes and networks where they have lost rail franchises and where rival companies like Arriva have dropped out.
Avanti WC should be next. How they've not lost their franchise is beyond logic and Reason. Also the WCML should allow more open access operating like the ECML.
It's ironic that part of the idea of HS2 was to free-up capacity for more open-access and local services. I wonder what will be done north of Birmingham now. I still think building it up from London was a mistake - HS2 should've been done in parallel with Edinburgh-Glasgow, Leeds-Manchester, and London-Birmingham routes before eventually linking them together. The Spanish high speed rail network is organised like this, with little isolated spurs eventually meeting the main network, and it seems to work well for them.
Ah the old chestnut 🌰 of blaming the Department of Transport (often blaming Network Rail too)for something they have bid for fully knowing the stipulations.
The fact you've already made 7 of these, really should be an indicator that the general management of services under privatisation needs to be changed.
We gotta bring BR back
@@kleenexbox974 BR was a shambles and is often over glorified because of the HST and 225s.
@@devon896it was going better with sectorisation originally. NSE, Regional and InterCity were all investing pretty heavily to improve their services while Railfreight was also trying to change things when privatisation fuc*ed everything up
It doesn't mean nationalisation can't work though!
@@devon896 as if private rail operators are any better
Avanti West Coast might be in the Failed Franchises series quite soon. Heard reports that Avanti could be stripped of its contract within days.
I've heard it too
Edit: apparantley MPs have denied this claim...
I was surprised when their contract was extended last year. Hopefully a OLR takeover will help deal with the huge number of cancellations and get ticket prices down. Their trains are among the best in the UK and the on board product is great, they just cancel a lot and are way too expensive.
@@mrvwbug4423 It won't when the Tories are in power.
Get rid of Avanti and give Virgin back the franchise🚄
@@seanmawson296 No just strip the contract and make a new bidding.
One trick they used to pull quite alot was late running trains would just skip stations to get back on time. Often had the train annouced as 'arriving on platform 1', only to have it go sailing past at full speed, and then the platform signs would display 'cancelled'.
It's amazing how quickly people forget. If you compare the service to that of the connex days it really is night and day.
Tbf I moved out of the area so my experience is out of date now and I understand the networkers are really starting to show their age now, but is it really as bad as connex were? Somehow I doubt it!
I did a whole episode on Connex too!
as someone who usually uses southeastern, never knew they were a failed franchise until now
As someone using southeastern, I have to say that they were never that impressive. Those good early years weren't their success, they were simply in the right place at the right time. They inherited a much improved service from the Operator of Last Resort, and inherited schemes like HS1. They were very good at claiming the credit for that, but not so good at actually running a railway.
They weren't as bad as Connex, but that would require considerable malicious effort. Southeastern felt more like they were simply absent from a certain level of management upwards... they had great staff at the lower levels who had learned the lessons from past problems. But the upper management seemed unwilling or unable to learn from them.
Definitely better than Connex! I made a full video on both their franchises which got stripped. Says all you need to know..
I wouldn't really call HS1 Intercity, more express-commuter
HS1 itself is an intercity or even better than that. It's just that southeastern's use of it kinda devalues the line
Regional
@@___-000 yeah I would call it intercity if the trains were specified well but currently they are definitely commuter
@@nathanw9770 not really, the trains run express for their whole route and don't stop at every station which the SEML 375s stop at
id say regional express, but it shouod be an intercity route
The southeastern franchise wasn't technically stripped of the franchise, just the DfT didn't extend the contract for Govia the extra 6 months that was an option in the contract. The southeastern franchise has been treated poorly for ages. I commute every day on southeastern metro services, and to say our rolling stock is in a bad condition would not be an understatement. Constant short term extensions by the DfT meant that there was no point in investing in any of the metro fleet. You mentioned how the whole southeastern fleet was refurbished. The 375s were refurbished, but not the 465s and 376s. The 465s only got the modifications to make them legal but did not get reupholstered or any real benefit. The 376s are still in their Connex moquette due to the lack of investment. However, I find DfT OLR southeastern worse than Govia. They have continued to not invest in the metro fleet, the 465s are becoming old and reliable, and nothing official is really coming out from southesastern about a 376 refurb. Even the 376 refurb won't be getting air conditioning, a feature on every other electrostar, as that is too much money. DfT southeastern have just cut timetables, and one service I was getting every morning was on average at least 5 minutes late every morning. Trains seemed dirtier and would say more is needed to be done. Is it bad that I found Northern's ex-EMR 156s luxury compared to what I normally travel on?
The class 466 are illegal (no disability mods at all) and the Class 465 are the worst trains in Britain now all the Pacers have been retired. Vomit is cleaner.
The DFT has worsened it under their control
are there any well run rail companies in the UK?
Well all have their negatives... C2C seems pretty decent, Greater Anglia is decent too. Chiltern is run well in terms of treating staff well but then has the oldest stock in the UK. So, not really!
@@Vanmanyo Chiltern when Adrian Shooter managed it was the best. Though they need to just get rid of those 165's. The 168's are the best trains they have.
I did a whole video on them 😀
They aren't usually thought about because they're not part of National Rail, but I think Northern Ireland Railways do a decent job especially considering they never receive the level of funding they should get, it could be so much better if more money was invested. Definitely a case for new stations and improved frequencies.. and line re-openings in the longer term.
Is there a possibility that you could cover National Express East Coast in this series because that franchise from what I've heard was definitely not smooth sailing
Along with GNER and Virgin East Coast on the same route.
@@katrinabryceYup I agree as I've used Virgin to get to Paignton from Manchester and back and GNER to get to London's King's Cross
Also National Express East Anglia as well they lost their franchise because of the default of the East Coast route.
I think the 'TFL Three' made a video, showing just how poor the seats on the 465's are. They walked along the carriages, trying to lift the seats, and nearly ALL of them were loose and broken.
Terrible trains!
The Networker units are all like that. The seats are meant to be lifted for ease of replacement I think!
I stumbled across this series yesterday and binged it in one sitting
And then I get rewarded with a seventh? God must be real
Haha!
I remember catching a train from Beckenham Junction to Herne Hill on SouthEastern, returning home from a day trip out on the trams in Croydon with friends. The power shut off suddenly near Sydenham Hill, one of the most stranded stations on the network. We waited for over an hour, but still the train didn't move. We ended up walking ten minutes to the nearest bus stop, then had to go to Brixton.
"Credit : Myself", very kind of you but honestly I didn't take any of that footage. Thanks though.
Do apologise 🫣🫣
Never really used SouthEastern but the few times I have ever used the service, it has not been very good; once tried to get home (travelling west) from Bromley South only to find that my train was cancelled after someone had successfully jumped in front of a moving train at another station forcing me to get the bus instead, very sad indeed.
In fairness you can't really blame them for that
incredible video as always, keep it up!
Thank you 😄😄😄😄😄
What is this man's budget
I am jealous
@@smudgycat6750 im gonna stop before i go bankrupt
@@DeveroonieWasTaken @DeveroonieTrainEnthusiast greetings DeveroonieTrainEnthusiast, j see you have provided support for my good friend vanmanyo in the form of financial aid, while I am not against this, I do see this as a threat to my dominance, in other words i AM the ALPHA WOLF🐺🐺🐺 obey alphawolf165 or I WILL get the authorities involved.
This is just sad at this point, privatization was a mistake
Keep it up bro, great video
Gives me videos to release though!!
Were no one in SouthEastern arrested for fraud?
I doubt it. It was just unreported finances so SE could just say it was a mistake or something, probably had to pay it back
@@Vanmanyo ah I see. Still a really bad image for the company like you have said though. Let’s just all wish for a better future for Britain’s railways. Nice work as always Vanmanyo!
@@volvoolympianforever thank you!!!
@@Vanmanyo I believe the money was the money for access charges to use HS1, but due to service cuts during the first lockdown, the access charges were less so there was this extra money. I believe the money was returned as soon as the DfT realised it.
I've been binging your videos. Love them. Everything you do is great!!! Thanks for the content.
Thank you!!!
I enjoyed a weekend in Kent in February 2024; check my “Humberside Invicta Weekend” series of videos. I have to say every train I used was near enough to time with no cancellations at all. The only disruption I encountered was buses between Minster and Margate which was because of engineering work.
Are Southeastern ever going to replace the Class 465 and Class 466 Networkers if they want to order more new trains. And to inherit extra Class 387s to increase more extra capacity on long distance commuter services in Kent. Since they have got so many trains.
They've already retired a few 465/6s
@@VanmanyoAh yes. 👍
@@Andrewjg_89oh no
They’re perfect
This must have taken a crazy amount of research, but this is an incredible video, I salute you!!
Thanks!!!
Will Southeastern replace the Class 465 and Class 466 Networkers if they were to order new trains and to retain the Class 375, Class 376, Class 377/5 and Class 707. As well as keeping the Class 395 that are used on HS1 domestic services to & from St. Pancras International.
So the privatization of the railroads is a resounding success, like water and other utilities. this is what happens with unsound ideology is put into place. As for Chris Grayling, wasn't he the guy who paid out your tax pounds to a ferry company which had no ships.
Brilliant video as always. Keep it up!
Thank you!
No problem!
I personally think that both the southeastern and Southcentral franchises were a complete disaster, both originally run by connex, then govia. Unfortunately we have to still ride with govia as I live on the gtr lines. The government should hsve left the southeast as the network southeast, it ran better and we were seeing results across the network, but government greed took control. Ruined commuting and made the fares prohibitively expensive.
Great video mate keep up the great work 🇬🇧👍
I cant understand why after the SouthEastern episode thy Go-ahead were aloud to keep Southern & Thameslink contracts? surely they should of lost ALL contracts
I love how the footage has "Myself" credited.
Haha! Might as well say where the footage has come from! Probably should use "own work" for better phrasing though 😄
@@VanmanyoIt's charming! I'm gonna look out for "Me, Myself and I" or "Yours Truly" on future vids lol
Another home run of a video !
Thank you!!!
Great video, for a bit of fun could you do a fantastic franchise video series.
I think I would struggle to get it to 15 minutes 😅
@@Vanmanyo True, perhaps a two part video on some of the best franchises such as Virgin Trains West Coast.
I did delve into Virgin quite a bit on my three part class 390 series (if you didn't already know about it!), but I might do a series about how virgin had 3 franchises and lost them all
Just got there in time before you stopped reading them xD loving your content
Haha! Thank you :DD
Abellio when they run Scotrail is another one😂
Serco when they ran the sleeper service too
Abellio ScotRail made First ScotRail look good! Haha. The SPT did a good job round Glasgow though. I do overall like their post-nationalisation service however.
southeastern are very good when it comes to commuter short services within London when it comes to frequency but its the longer distance services such as the Ramsgate trains which are not as good as they have only one kind of train that runs the line but on lets say the Charing cross to orpington line you can have a 707 or a 376 or a 465/466 doing the route which brings there frequency up.
In reality its not Govia's fault most of these issues. Its the DFT who was BLOCKING them from buying additional capacity.
Another really good video!
Its interesting that Go-Ahead have won the contract to run Dartford's bus company, Fast Track. I think it is a shame that they removed Southeastern from Go-Ahead because it was so much better than British Rail and Connex. Southeastern has gone downhill really badly under public ownership. The government removed Southeastern from Go-Ahead as a punishment for keeping the money, however, it is people like me who feel this the most. Go-Ahead are now picking up bus routes and networks where they have lost rail franchises and where rival companies like Arriva have dropped out.
A very interesting video, Thank you for uploading this video 😊😊
Like the videos before this is an excellent video. I've been really enjoying them.
Thanks!
Lovely video!
Avanti WC should be next. How they've not lost their franchise is beyond logic and Reason. Also the WCML should allow more open access operating like the ECML.
I have done an Avanti video! Just that failed franchises wasn't a thing back then!
It's ironic that part of the idea of HS2 was to free-up capacity for more open-access and local services. I wonder what will be done north of Birmingham now.
I still think building it up from London was a mistake - HS2 should've been done in parallel with Edinburgh-Glasgow, Leeds-Manchester, and London-Birmingham routes before eventually linking them together. The Spanish high speed rail network is organised like this, with little isolated spurs eventually meeting the main network, and it seems to work well for them.
Now I wonder if/when ThamesLink becomes a failed franchise, given they're also run by GoVia.
Another great video!
Average javelin seat alignment:
■■□■□■□■
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
I would like to see South West trains to be in the failed franchise
Yes....
oh my gee
Bro really did Southeastern but Not East Midlands trains 😢😢😢 EMT When?!?!?!?
were EMT really failed?
Yh kinda, it would be interesting
No surprise.
Ah the old chestnut 🌰 of blaming the Department of Transport (often blaming Network Rail too)for something they have bid for fully knowing the stipulations.
expensive
w
Whoo
I agree with you completely here