First Great Eastern - Took the government to court? | Failed Franchises #9: FGE??
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- Опубліковано 12 кві 2024
- Hello & welcome to the ninth episode of Failed Franchises. In this series I look at train companies that have failed at their franchise agreements or have been criticised by passengers & industry alike. Today I'm looking at First Great Eastern, a short lived company that some of you may not have even heard of! In there 7 years of existence, did they do enough to be considered a failed franchise?
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I would say FGE can't be classed as a failed franchise as they did a very good job of operating a not very glamorous commuter railway. They were however a bit naive in assuming running a good service would actually count for anything where the franchises were re-let. But it was laughable that First then bought up Anglia Railways and still managed to lose to the awful National Express!
As a future series, it would be good if you made videos on forgotten franchises, TOCs that weren’t a failure but have operated in the past and have since ceased operation and forgotten. A good one would be central trains
Yes good idea! I guess with failed Franchises it sort of already is like that. I look at whether they are a failed franchise or not! It doesn't mean they are nailed on a failed franchise if I title it as one!
I went on them when I went to visit Borely Rectory,the most haunted house in England!I got one of their 150's from Marks Tay to Sudbury and walked to Borely having got an electric train from Liverpool Street to Marks Tay.When they fail they just blame the Department of Transport or Network Rail,"nuffink to do with us,we just run the trains!"In reality they know full well what they are getting into when they bid for these franchises.Perhaps they'll blame Radio 📻 3 if the classical music fails?
I strongly believe First with Government support could actually operate most of the network and if the Government bought out and nationalised first group it be a good foundations fornationlised Buses and Trains
Nooooo First are the worst!
Tell that to people using Avanti 😂😂 First are shocking , Virgin took the government to court over the WC franchise and they somehow still managed to bid and get it again , all jobs for the boys ✉️
@@kojo8770 i blame the 30% italian run
12:08 man's just casually walking towards a 321 while the cess is clear
Love this series. Not a franchise but would be cool to see a network southeast video sometime
@05:40 you state 321's maximum waas 8 coaches, thats not correct, GER 321s were often 12 carriages in the peak, I should know I drove them often enough. We even ran 12s over the Braintree and Southminster lines with SDO and the Conductors in a Guards role.
A large part of GER's success was down to actual railwaymen being in charge, Bob Breakwell (MD) used the service every day from his home in Woodham Ferrers, he knew most staff by name and would always have a chat, listen to any problems and you got the feeling he cared. The Management had launched their own bid to run the franchise (Apogee rail) but lost out to First Group, I discovered this when Bob got on my train from Wickford to Southminster having just learned they hadnt won the franchise, he was gutted. But we were all pleased when First Group retained him as MD when they took over.
I actually drove the first train on the new fGER franchise (the 04:03 up from SOV) it was plastered with stickers proclaiming a new age in rail travel. MP Eric Pickles did a photo Opp at Shenfield, where he wanted to be photographed in the driving seat. (He was rather "stout" and he wouldn't have fitted in the cab of the 8 car 315. It would have been touch and go if he'd fitted into the vestibule :) )
I worked for a number of franchises, and fGER was one of the best.
Sorry about this mistake! I assumed that's why they kept the 312s (and that's what multiple sources online say but I'll definitely take your word!) but I assume it was just merely for capacity boosts? Being from Chiltern FGE and their success seems somewhat similar to Chiltern (arguably Adrian Shooter was one of the most famous 'railwaymen' to be in management of a TOC) but both companies had the same 'family' feel to them. I feel this is something we deeply miss from a nationalised railway. Thank for your comment though! It's always nice to get staff watching from the TOCs I make videos on, and yes I agree that FGE was certainly not a bad company! I hope everything else I mentioned was roughly correct - making a 15 minute long video on a TOC with about 3 lines on its Wikipedia page is hard work to say the least!
@@Vanmanyo No worries, 321s ran as 12s on the peak, but were limited by platform length. So from Southend Vic, we could run 12s all stations to Shenfield, the Stratford and on to Liverpool Street. (Avoiding platforms 16-18 as they were 8 car platforms). Here’s a video of a 12 car Dusty bin going through Ilford ua-cam.com/video/j5x3-xXE3h4/v-deo.html
I did some work for Chiltern back in 2003 (as a Consultant) and they had a very unique style, fGER wasn’t quite at their levels. I met Adrian Shooter once, nice guy, knew his stuff. I left GER in 2000 and have worked for lots of TOCs and in Middle East. Highlight was driving a train between Nairyah and Ras Al Khair, (SD70 Locos). I wasn’t there as a Driver but had retained my competency/EDL and jumped at the chance.
@@micksmithson6724 Haha you've certainly had a awesome career! What made you move to Saudi Arabia out of interest? Just something new/different! To be honest I didn't know they had a sophisticated rail network!
@@Vanmanyo I wanted the challenge, (and tax free salary ;) ) They have a very sophisticated railway system, including the high speed line (Called Haramain, google it) , Regular passenger trains (Operated by CAF DMUs), and minerals trains (Phosphate, Bauxite and Commercial acids), the phosphate trains run with up to 5 SD70s, (2x leading, 2x middle, 1x trailing), and up to 155 wagons. Though normally only 135 wagons.
It’s all Level ERTMS, and SAR took over Saudi Rail Company (They operate Freightliner style trains).
Here’s one of SAR trains
ua-cam.com/video/ybRWmeF7jZo/v-deo.html
@@Vanmanyo ua-cam.com/video/MkuONrTnVZQ/v-deo.html
First time i learned about FGE was in making tracks great Eastern expansion for MSTS, always loved the 321 in those colours !
Mind you I quite liked First Great Eastern. And in 2002 they ordered 21 Class 360 Desiro EMUs to replace the slam door trains used on the Clacton-on-Sea, Ipswich and Colchester services with the Class 321s working on the whole Great Eastern route.
Which now they have been replaced by the Class 720s. Mind you First Great Eastern could have ordered more Class 360s that could have been used on the Southend Victoria line.
I do wonder how many TOC issues where Goverment caused like not allowing extra trains and various other stuff.
The number is Yes
I'd like to see a video ranking the failed franchises.
I'd say FGE's biggest legacy was their livery, since that lived on well into the NXEA era, and I think even into the early Greater Anglia days?
For what it's worth, I liked their livery, it wasn't the most striking or even distinctive but it just worked I think especially on units like the 321s and 315s which I remember the most 😊
Ah First Great Eastern. I do remember them since I first moved to Essex in 2001 and of course the Class 321s. I do like the First Great Eastern livery that the Class 321 and Class 315 had before and they pretty much ran good services in Essex and of course went all the way to Ipswich and Norwich.
Probably a bit of luck with Great Eastern. Run by people with proper railway background and fairly modern simple stock etc. it was certainly liked by staff as well, with First shares being offered to staff at times for good performance etc.
Madness really when they didn’t get short listed but First seemed to miss the memo from the then SRA which said it needed to be the cheapest bid/most premium back to win, rather than things like brand new trains.
well... as someone from southend who is now living in east london... the romford to upminster line has never been better served than under the overground and elizabeth line is far better than any of the previous operators along the GEML within london
I'm trying to think what TOCs **won't** make it into this series😂
Lots of people have said how much better SWT was Vs SWR so maybe SWT might survive. 😭
SRA is another example of an incompetent government body which needs reform.
The way they acted with first great eastern does show how arguably corrupt the franchise process was
Yes, they were intended to be an improvement but ended up being quite crap. They were abolished ages ago, near the end of Tony Blair's administration. But have the lessons been learned because bringing franchising in-house to the DfT doesn't seem to have caused much improvement.
Great video 👍
Thanks for the footage! Glad you enjoyed it :D
nice video
Make a video on how Arriva is basically the EA games of railways, kills every game (or in arrivas case franchises/TOC) that it touches e.g: Wales, Northern, don't know about others like grand central cross-country, Chiltern or the late Wrexham and Shropshire
Grand central is a mess
Arriva Northern was on the road to recovery when they became OLR, just in time for the Government to claim they'd saved the operator, despite not actually doing anything.
Good franchise as i remember it , 312s on way out and 360s coming in which remained in Barbie livery right up until they left GA 😂😂 , 315s were nice and clean same as the dominant 321s , Shenfield Metros used to extend every hour to Southminster aswell good times , shame though that 20 years later most trains still have the same Early & Last train times and frequencies bar Liz line needs improving half hourly Clacton and Half hourly Ipswich service wouldnt go a miss with a new Half hourly alrernating Beaulieu/Braintree service
FIRST GROUP, the people behind the fcc disaster was POPULAR and was GOOD????
i actually rid on a first great eastern branded 321 a couple years ago. they never repainted it and it was driving on my local greater anglia branch line. now we just have 720s 😭😭😭 also at 1:43 the branch i live on is braintree and it branches after witham not before witham
fabulous
can u do a video about the flitch way and why it closed? it's rly nice. there's a heritage railway carriage in rayne that u can go in and the seats r the most comfortable seats i've ever sat in
never heard about it really! I'll have to look into it!
@@Vanmanyo tell me what u think after looking at it
The Class 312’s are actually British Rails newest Slam door emus from 1975-1978.
Yeah I was surprised when I realised they were just a few years older than the 315s! Must have been the most modern slam door units?
I think they were the last ever slam-door trains to be introduced in the UK
@@Foxy_AR well yes exactly only 2 driving units of the 312’s were preserved. I really like the First Great Eastern livery on them to be honest.
witham in the first clip aaa!!
Next: Anglia Railways
And not forgetting National Express East Anglia (“One” Railway), WAGN (West Anglia Great Northern), Abellio Greater Anglia and c2c.
final no more deja vu
hah here within the first 6 seconds
One comment. Update the video description that says "Today I'm looking at Southern"
Oopsie! Yes I copy my descriptions over from previous videos 🫣🫣 thanks for that !!
Idea: fall off Gner and the situation going up to the lner franchise
I do want to do the ECML operators at some point soon!
The one time First owned a franchise and didnt put the trains in some variation of purple
Until the class 360s lmao
South Western Railway, Croydon Tramlink, Avanti West Coast, and Lumo are owned by First.
@@katrinabryce I think they once did put a Bombardier tram into "Barbie" livery once in 2000 during route testing, not sure if it ever entered service on the Croydon Tramlink in that livery though. (Tram 2550 was painted in "Barbie" Livery and is now used as their advert-wrap tram I think). The other 3 companies you've mentioned though, have not yet been put in some First group corporate livery though.
@@katrinabryce well they weren't First branded but almost every operator that was branded as First ______ had that kind of livery and also Tramlink and Avanti aren't even fully owned by First Group
@@katrinabryceAnd Hull Trains
First Great Eastern Are Good Enough For Me 👍 It's a Shame They've Been Forgotten Now 😢
Chuff chuffs, if only they had chosen class 60
locos, no sh*t everyone would be flocking to
use the service due to shear coolness. No one
would care that it only has a maximum speed
of 60 mile per hour, no one would give a damn.
And then paint the engine and carriages in black,
yellow and magenta with mirrored glass and
that's mirrored glass on the engine too. It would
have made Chiltern look like a bunch of 3 year olds.
Maybe I should follow IN the path of First Great Eastern and sue the GOVERNMENT for not allowing me to EDGE in BUSTOPS
@Vanmanyo 2:25 ONE SIX FIVE ONE SIX FIVE ONE SIX FIVE ONE SIX FIVE ONE SIX FIVE ONE SIX FIVE ONE SIX FIVE
Wrong actually 🤓 they are class 321s.
@@Vanmanyo 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
@@poopoodealer8975 I know, I am sorry.