Eurostar saga highlights perils of short-termism

Railtalk

A feature of the pandemic has been the way particular businesses and sectors have been thrust into the limelight in turn as they struggle to manage the economic impact of Covid.

From rail’s perspective, the Department for Transport moved quickly last March to protect its rail franchises through the Emergency Measures Agreements (EMAs), subsequently succeeded by Emergency Recovery Measures Agreements (ERMAs). That the pathway from these into directly awarded contracts is not going smoothly (p8) is perhaps not a surprise, but there is at least no prospect of services being abandoned completely. The Welsh and Scottish Governments instituted similar EMAs, with the Welsh Government having now taken its operation in-house rather than prop up its former Operator and Development Partner KeolisAmey. The Scottish Government has been negotiating further EMAs with Abellio and Serco for ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper respectively.

Franchises, as they were, have thus been accounted for. Not so the open access operators, for whom financial support was notably absent at the start of the pandemic and remains so. Three times now Hull Trains and Grand Central have suspended operations, with GC also abandoning plans to launch a Euston to Blackpool service, while Hull Trains has made a small number of staff redundant. Interestingly, FirstGroup, which owns Hull Trains, is pressing ahead with its new East Coast Trains London to Edinburgh service, for which its track access rights start in May and services are planned to begin in the autumn. There is no indication these open access operators won’t survive the crisis, but larger businesses in other sectors have already gone to the wall and there can be no guarantees.

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