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National Express to retain c2c rail services
UK transport group expected to be confirmed as the winner of a Government competition to run train services between London and south Essex
National Express will keep hold of its only remaining rail franchise in the UK when it is confirmed on Friday as the winner of a bidding competition to run Essex Thameside, or c2c, services between London and south Essex.
The Department for Transport (DfT) is expected to confirm National Express as the preferred bidder for a long-term contract to run the commuter services, over FirstGroup, MTR of Hong Kong and Abellio, the British arm of the Dutch state railway.
The Essex Thameside contract, which will run until at least September 2029, will be the third rail franchise awarded this year following a two-year hiatus in the wake of the West Coast Main Line scandal in 2012, which cost the taxpayer £55m.
While the franchise award will be good news for National Express, which could have been booted off Britain’s railways if it had failed to retain the services, it’ll mark the third time FirstGroup has lost out.
Beleaguered FirstGroup was passed over for the £8.9bn Thameslink Southern Great Northern (TSGN) “super franchise”, which was last month awarded to a joint business between Go-Ahead Group and Keolis of France.
It also lost an £800m 15-year contract for Caledonian Sleeper services between London and Scotland, which went to Serco.
The Essex Thameside franchise, which is better known to the public as c2c, generated income of £138m in 2012-13, according to official figures.
Rail operators had expected the winner of the Essex Thameside competition to be announced last month but the DfT said it needed more time to assess the bids as officials desperately try to avoid a repeat of the West Coast Main Line scandal - the biggest franchising debacle since the privatisation of the railways.
The delay caused a few red faces at the DfT as it came just over a week after the DfT’s head of franchising, Peter Wilkinson, offered an olive branch to rail investors and expressed hopes that the award of the TSGN contract would mark a new chaper in tense relations with the City.
National Express hit the headlines in 2009 when it was forced to hand back the keys to the East Coast Main Line.
It is currently also bidding for contracts to run Scotrail services north of the border and Crossrail, London's newest line.